WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

The Workers' Advocate

Vol. 15, No. 5

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

25¢ May 1, 1985

[Front page:

Across the U.S.--The fight grows against U.S. support of South African racism;

Against the anti-Japanese import hysteria: American and Japanese workers - Unite against the capitalists!;

10 years after the people's victory in Vietnam]

IN THIS ISSUE

Across the U.S.

The fight grows against U.S. support of South African racism

Against the anti-Japanese import hysteria:

American and Japanese workers - Unite against the capitalists!

10 years after the people's victory in Vietnam

The struggle against apartheid grows

• Berkeley
• Columbia
• Buffalo, N.Y

April 3rd demonstration:

A victory for the anti-imperialist movement in Boston

Other struggles against apartheid

April 20th demonstrations across the U.S.

Tens of thousands protest against Reaganism

More holes than swiss cheese

On the Gray-Kennedy 'Anti-Apartheid Act of 1985'

Song: Down with Apartheid!

Goetz: the cover-up unravels

Confessions of a racist vigilante

Grand juries=grand fraud

Confessions of a racist senator

Condemn the repression against the unemployed movement in Mon Valley!

The hoax of the poor victimized U.S. corporations

U.S. Imperialism, Get Out of Central America!

• Down with Reagan's embargo! Down with the dirty war against Nicaragua!
• Behind Reagan's 'peace initiative' --more war on Nicaragua.
• How Congress provided for private funding for the 'contras'
• Reagan's 'brothers'
• Contra butcher denounced at Northwestern U.
• Protests against the mouthpieces of imperialist aggression

Oppose government crackdown on sanctuary movement

No Deportations!

Condemn the brutal attacks on the Mexican immigrants

In the face of the U.S. embargo:

Support the campaign for the Nicaraguan workers' press!

Build class solidarity!

The Marxist-Leninists in the National Assembly

Worker fired for running on MAP/ML ticket

The struggle of the plywood workers

The World in Struggle

• Auto workers strike in South Korea
• Bolivian workers wage two-week general strike
• Danish working class confronts government strikebreaking
• Guyana: Sugar workers down tools
• Strikes and demonstrations in Aruba
• Reagan's militarization of the Eastern Caribbean

Song: Down with Ronald Reagan!

In Defense of Leninist United Front Tactics

In honor of the memory of comrade Enver Hoxha

Across the U.S.

The fight grows against U.S. support of South African racism

The anti-apartheid movement is gathering steam. In the last two months, and especially in April, tens of thousands of people across the country have taken part in the struggle. They are supporting the heroic black masses of South Africa who have been rising in struggle against the white minority rulers. The tremendous sacrifices of the black and other oppressed masses of South Africa and their militant spirit have earned the admiration of workers, students and all progressive people in the U.S.

The recent demonstrations and mass actions in the U.S. aimed their blows not just at the racist South African rulers, but at the American capitalists who support the South African regime. Reagan's pro-apartheid policy of "constructive engagement" and U.S. corporate investments in South Africa have been particular targets of the struggle.

The struggle against apartheid was one of the major issues raised in the April 20 demonstrations against Reaganism which drew 50,00.0 people in Washington, D.C., 30,000 in San Francisco, thousands more in Seattle and Los Angeles, with smaller actions elsewhere. (See the article on page 5 on the April 20 actions.)

As well, many struggles have broken out centering on the fight against apartheid. In particular, the struggle against apartheid swept from one college and university to the next, spreading across the country like wildfire. There is a new upsurge in the student movement. Especially bitter battles took place at Columbia University and at the University of California at Berkeley (where the struggle is still continuing) where the students demanded that the universities remove their huge funds from firms that do business in racist South Africa. (See the articles on page 2 on these struggles.) Many other struggles took place, and the students often combined demands against apartheid with demands against racism in the U.S.

A notable feature of the present wave of struggle is that the liberal public figures, who support U.S. imperialism but claim to be humane opponents of racism and apartheid, have increasingly come into conflict with the masses. Both at Columbia University and at Rutgers, for example, it is liberal university presidents who have called in the police and had students arrested or subjected to university disciplinary measures. This shows that the liberals are more afraid of the mass struggle than they are of reaction. This is seen again and again, whether it is in Congress, where the liberal Democrats support one Reaganite measure after another, quibbling only over details; or on college campuses, where the liberal administrators join hands with the conservative administrators in suppressing the students; or in the work place, where the trade union bureaucrats join hands with the capitalists in promoting chauvinism and militarism. The liberal and conservative supporters of imperialism are both enemies of the mass struggle.

The experience of the mass struggle shows that it is impossible to fight the worst, most reactionary racist oppressors, such as the South African apartheid rulers, without coming into conflict with the liberals and the Democratic Party. The real division in the U.S. isn't between liberal and conservative, it is between the working and progressive people and the defenders of capitalism and imperialism.

All the mass actions of the last two months add up to an upsurge in the solidarity movement. Many articles in this issue of The Workers' Advocate are devoted to reporting on this new wave of struggle.

Death to apartheid!

Support the revolutionary movement of the black people of South Africa!

Fight racism in South Africa and the Reaganite racism offensive in the U.S.!

Down with U.S. imperialism, backer of South African racism!

[Photo: Anti-apartheid protest at UC Berkeley.]

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Against the anti-Japanese import hysteria:

American and Japanese workers - Unite against the capitalists!

Feverish hysteria over the trade deficits has gripped Washington. Engrossed in an orgy of "Japan bashing" the capitalist politicians are screaming about "the greatest national threat since Pearl Harbor." And this threat is being painted in the not-so-subtly racist colors of a "yellow peril" allegedly more menacing than Tojo's armies.

Washington has launched this nationalistic crusade -- to the cheers of the bourgeois media, the bosses of the AFL- CIO, and the other flunkeys of the capitalist ruling class -- to line up the people behind the trade wars of the U.S. corporations. The American capitalists hope to strengthen their hand in the trade talks; and, even more importantly, they hope to strengthen their hand against their own workers. By pointing to the "foreign threat" they hope to gain leverage in slashing wages and putting a lid on the struggles for jobs and job security.

A Dispute Between Capitalist Giants for Markets and Profits

The cries for "retaliation" against Japan were unleashed after President Reagan allowed the voluntary restraint agreement on Japanese car imports to expire on March 31. U.S. trade officials then demanded that the Japanese government reciprocate with a number of trade concessions. The key U.S. demand is that Japan lift quality standards and other regulations to make it easier for U.S. telecommunications companies to get a piece of the action in Japan's telecommunications industry in the wake of the recent deregulation of Japan's national phone monopoly (NTT), Led by AT&T, IBM and ITT, 20 U.S. companies are out to capture $1-2 billion in annual sales to the Japanese phone system.

This is what the present trade "showdown" is focused on: how much of the markets and profits of the. Japanese phone monopoly will be carved up among the American multinational monopolies. The Capitol Hill flunkeys of these U.S. corporate giants are screaming murder that AT&T, ITT and IBM must get their share from NTT or they will retaliate with quotas, tariffs and other protectionist measures against Japan.

Whipping Up Flag-Waving Chauvinism

The capitalists are fanning the trade issue to fuel the fire of flag-waving chauvinism. It's right up the Reaganite nationalistic alley of "America standing tall and fighting back." But on the trade issue there is a special division of labor among the capitalist politicians.

On the surface it looks like there is a conflict between the "protectionist hawks" in Congress and the "free trade" White House. In fact, Reagan has been no more or less protectionist than others. But a little game is being played out with the loud mouths in Congress shouting for a trade war and the administration appealing for moderation. This is an old device that capitalist governments use to threaten the other side in trade disputes: "Unless you give us concessions at the bargaining table the people (that is, the corporate frontmen in the Congress) will force us, despite our devotion to free trade, to take protectionist measures which we claim to abhor.''

Meanwhile, the liberal Democratic politicians and their buddies in the AFL- CIO leadership are attacking Reagan's allegedly moderate trade policy in order to whip up anti-import hysteria and Reaganite racism and chauvinism.

Pitting Worker Against Worker for the Profits of the American and Japanese Capitalists

In the present tiff pitting AT&T and co. against NTT, the bourgeoisie is out to accomplish more than just selling some telephones; it is out to sell class collaboration to the workers.

Despite the fanfare about the so- called Reagan recovery, the employers continue to turn the screws on the working class -- forcing on the workers wage cuts, takebacks, and a job-cutting productivity drive. The combined impact of speedup, forced overtime, job combinations, and the introduction of job- eliminating machinery has cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in auto, steel, electronics and other industries. This is why the rise in production over the last couple years hasn't made a dent in the ten million-strong army of unemployed.

To saddle the workers with this offensive, the capitalists and the sold-out trade union bureaucrats are telling the workers to accept concessions, to welcome job-cutting measures, to submit to the rotten treatment of the unemployed at the hands of the employers and the Reagan government. After all, they tell us, kneeling before the capitalist dictate of overwork and hunger is the only way to compete with the Japanese.

The present wave of "Japan bashing'' in Washington is part of this drive to turn the workers' heads towards the "foreign threat''; to pit American worker against Japanese worker; to break the class struggle with racist and chauvinist poison against workers of other countries.

The American capitalists are not alone in this. The Japanese capitalists too are subjecting their workers to a wage-cutting and job-eliminating offensive.

And the Japanese workers are being told the same thing by the exploiters and their trade union officialdom: restrain your wage demands, work harder, and accept job cuts for the sake of Japanese industry in the face of competition from low-wage Korean or Taiwanese workers.

This is how the corporate monopolies on both sides of the Pacific want to drag the workers into the capitalists' trade wars, setting the workers against each other to see who can make the fattest profits for their capitalist bosses by slaving the most for the least.

Stand Shoulder to Shoulder with the Workers of All Countries Against the Capitalist Exploiters!

The workers must give their own response to the capitalists' trade hysteria. When the capitalists wrap themselves in the stars and stripes and cry for trade wars they are crying for their own class interests of profit and exploitation. These are the same capitalists that are bleeding the workers with concessions and have cast millions out of work.

We must draw clear lines against the capitalist exploiters. This means rejecting the nationalistic trade hysteria being whipped up by the corporate mouthpieces in Washington. And this means holding to account the trade union chieftains. The AFL-CIO leaders are big racist shouters against the Japanese, while they are meeker than mice when it comes to the brutal concessions demands of the employers here at home. These labor misleaders cry for tough trade measures for the profits of the corporate billionaires, while they refuse to lift a finger to demand jobs or relief for the unemployed.

We must cut through the racist muck and lies which paint the workers of other countries as the threat to the American worker. Let us answer these lies by standing shoulder to shoulder with the Japanese workers and the workers of all lands in our common struggle against our common class enemies -- the U.S. multinationals and the capitalists of all countries.

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10 years after the people's victory in Vietnam

April 30 marks ten years from the day that the two-decade long U.S. war of aggression in Viet Nam finally went down in total defeat. On that day, the puppet South Vietnamese dictatorship of Thieu collapsed and the American occupation forces were forced to run, scampering to helicopters from the rooftops of Saigon.

For weeks now there has been a noisy campaign on the lessons of the Viet Nam war from scores of pundits, both old and new. Many a disgraced politician and general has come forward to repeat their tired old lies, and to add some new ones. Those who ran the war yesterday are making yet another attempt to cover up for their war crimes.

Running through this discussion, however, are some common themes. And they boil down to a concerted effort to reverse the verdicts of the past on the U.S. war in Indochina. This is a reactionary crusade with sinister aims against the interests of the people. It is part of the drive towards new imperialist wars.

Today upholding the true lessons of the struggle of the 1960's against U.S. aggression in Viet Nam has become an important front of struggle against the current war drive of U.S. imperialism.

There can be no consensus between the working people and the rulers of America on the Viet Nam war

One of the most oft-expressed themes in the current discussion of the Viet Nam war is the idea-that "we have to finally come to grips with the Viet Nam experience," the idea that now is finally the time for all Americans to come to a consensus, a single stand, on the lessons of Viet Nam.

This is nonsense. This country was and remains divided into two camps, between the businessmen, generals and capitalist politicians on one side and the working and poor people on the other. The American people, rich and poor alike, did not have a common experience of the war yesterday. They did not have the same interests. And they did not have the same stand. So how can there be agreement on a common view towards the war?

The war was begun and waged to serve the interests of the rich. They saw Viet Nam and all of south-east Asia as a region to exploit, as a place to serve as a military outpost for the U.S. Empire. The Vietnamese people had been fighting for liberation from French colonial rule. When they defeated the French, the U.S. under the Eisenhower-Nixon administration stepped in to carve out a section of Viet Nam. They helped set up and prop up a brutal regime of the landlords and capitalists in the south. And as this regime came under fire from the masses of workers and peasants, the U.S. kept escalating its direct military aggression. This took place under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

This war was not a war for the interests of the working people of the U.S. The youth of the workers and poor of America were used as cannon fodder for the shameful aims of the capitalist rulers. The rich did not fight in this war; they made profits through the war budgets and spent the rest of their time telling one lie after another to the masses about "democracy", "freedom," etc.

But the experience of the masses did not end with just being used as cannon-fodder. No, step by step, the masses at home became conscious of the nature of the war and began to rise up in struggle against the warmakers.

Youth and students resisted the draft. Blacks and other oppressed nationalities stood up against the war; black people declared, "No Vietnamese ever called me nigger!" Huge demonstrations and other mass actions swept the country. And the struggle reached right inside ''the U.S. armed forces themselves, as GI's began to organize to fight the war. And when they returned home, veterans also embraced the anti-war movement; many of them threw their medals away in the midst of anti-war demonstrations.

Among the vast ranks of the working people, there developed a widespread and angry opposition to the war. Everywhere it was heard that the cause of the U.S. war was an unjust and immoral one. And among the sections of masses who rose up to actively fight, other lessons were also drawn. A whole section of activists came to recognize that the war was not an aberration but the product of a whole system, the system of imperialism. There was recognition that it was one system, one ruling class which waged the rotten war abroad and oppressed the working people at home. Many activists grew to become conscious revolutionaries.

The gulf between the imperialist rulers and the masses remains. Their views and stands have not changed. Some among them, the conservative forces like Reagan, Nixon, and so on, openly defend the aggressive war of yesterday as a "noble cause." Others, the liberal imperialists, may wring their hands a bit but still find ways to unite with the Reaganites that there was honor in the American war effort and to agree that the Viet Nam experience must not be used to obstruct the U.S. from other military adventures abroad.

We, the workers and oppressed masses, must also stick to our guns. We must uphold our traditions and we must not allow our positions to. be pushed aside in the search for some patriotic consensus.

We welcome the defeat of U.S. imperialism in Viet Nam

Besides trying to deny the unjust nature of their war, the U.S. imperialists are trying to deny their defeat in Viet Nam. All sorts of stories are cooked up. Some suggest that the U.S. really won on the battlefield. Others suggest that the U.S. could have won, but didn't because it allegedly didn't have the will to win, because it was stabbed in the back at home, because it didn't have a clearly defined purpose, and whatnot.

All this is so much garbage. The U.S. imperialists knew what they were after in Viet Nam. It was to crush a liberation struggle. It was to defend a puppet regime of exploiters. And they threw everything possible into the war effort. They sent in over 500,000 troops. They used the biggest air force the world has seen and dropped tons of bombs. They had a puppet army of a million. They used napalm and chemical defoliants. They used CIA-organized death-squads. They killed several million Vietnamese and devastated the land. The only thing they didn't use was nuclear weapons and they even considered that, only rejecting it for fear of the political fallout.

Despite all this, they failed. No matter how much they conjure up fantasies, one thing cannot be denied. The Vietnamese liberation fighters won and the U.S. forces'" and their lackeys were thrown out.

The working masses of the U.S. can only welcome this defeat for U.S. imperialism. No matter how much the capitalist press tries to make it out so, this was not a defeat for the American people but for the imperialist rulers.

We welcome this defeat not only because it ended a hideous war which was not in our interests. We also welcome this defeat because we helped to bring about this defeat. And. the defeat of the U.S. government created a number of good conditions for the advance of the class struggle of the American working class and of the oppressed masses the world over.

The defeat in Viet Nam broke through the myth of the invincibility of the U.S. military machine. It showed that the Pentagon and CIA can be fought and defeated. It gave confidence to a whole generation of revolutionary activists around the world to rise up in struggle in defiance of the threats of U.S. imperialism which has made itself the policeman of the world.

The defeat in Viet Nam was our victory. In the struggle against the war, we learned many valuable lessons on how to fight U.S. imperialism. We learned that no matter how strong they look, no matter how many attacks they launch against the masses, no matter how much they control the schools and mass media, the working masses can build up a powerful mass movement.

This has created better conditions for future struggles. Today, although the upsurge of the 1960's has ebbed away and we are on the threshhold of new storms of struggle, many of the effects of the movement of the 1960's can still be seen in the consciousness of the masses. For instance, there remains a widespread skepticism among the masses towards Washington's plans for foreign military adventures. This is the "Vietnam syndrome" the capitalists so desperately seek to exorcise.

It is important to stand in solidarity with the liberation struggles of the oppressed peoples

While some among the imperialists, such as some of the liberals, may equivocate on whether or not the U.S. was right to wage the Viet Nam war, all the capitalists and their mouthpieces are of one voice when it comes to condemning the liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people.

But an essential lesson from the 1960's is that the liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people and the struggle here against the U.S. war complemented each other and gave support to each other. Solidarity with the liberation struggle was of tremendous importance to building up a powerful movement here at home.

Could it have been otherwise? It was above all the heroism and sacrifice of the Vietnamese people that brought defeat to U.S. imperialism. This was a tremendous source of strength for our struggle here at home, since it struck the sharpest blow against our common enemy.

When the imperialists today try to deny their defeat in Vietnam, what they especially want to deny is the lesson of how they were beaten. How did the Vietnamese people, an impoverished people, bring down the mighty U.S. colossus? This was because they waged a popular war, based on the mobilization of the energy, initiative, creativity and united strength of the masses of workers and peasants. The heroic deeds of the Vietnamese liberation fighters remain an inspiration to the oppressed masses everywhere.

Today there are still many difficulties facing the people of Viet Nam, including a difficult economic situation. The imperialists try to make hay out of this in order to exonerate themselves and cast mud on the liberation struggle.

Above all else, this is cynical hypocrisy. Those who devastated Viet Nam can hardly be believed when they feign concern for the welfare of the Vietnamese people today.

In fact, conditions in present-day Viet Nam cannot be judged without taking into account the tremendous toll taken by the war. The imperialists not only ignore this, but they also try to cast conditions in Viet Nam in the worst light possible.

But the truth is that liberation did mean definite accomplishments. For the first time, the Vietnamese people are free of direct imperialist rule. They have re-unified their nation. They destroyed the power of the old reactionary regime. They have restored agriculture in the south and attained self-sufficiency in food. They have put an end to the worst features of the parasitic society spawned by U.S. imperialism in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and other urban areas.

At the same time, the Vietnamese people have not built Socialism. Due to the corrosion of revisionism in the Communist Party of Viet Nam, it has taken to building up a capitalist order in Viet Nam, rather than pursuing socialist revolution and socialist construction. This affects both the economic and political situation. The resulting setbacks show that one must not idealize national liberation: national liberation is an important step for an oppressed people to rise to its feet, but it is only one step. Only socialist revolution brings final emancipation.

But none of this takes away from the justness of the liberation struggle.

U.S. Imperialism Hasn't Changed One Bit

At the bottom of all the efforts of the imperialists to reverse the verdict on the Viet Nam war is the cold hard fact that the U.S. rulers are diehard imperialists who will never give up war and aggression until they are overthrown. They can never be convinced to learn and change their ways.

In particular, the propaganda around Viet Nam is aimed at preparing public opinion for new military adventures. Today the imperialists are on the war path. Just a year or so ago, they trampled over Grenada. Today they are waving the big stick at revolutionary Nicaragua. They are already ankle-deep in military intervention in El Salvador.

All these events bring back the lessons of Viet Nam to the minds of the masses. When today we see Reagan lying about Nicaragua, we can remember the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that President Johnson cooked up as a pretext to escalate the war in Viet Nam in 1964. And innumerable other parallels abound.

We too must remember the lessons of Vietnam. The capitalists are reviewing the past to pull a fast one over the working masses. We too should review the lessons of history, but for us it is a a question of drawing even sharper lessons from the past struggle in order to make stronger the struggle against war today.

Remember the lessons of the struggle against the U.S. war in Viet Nam! Forward in the struggle against U.S. imperialism!

[Photo: Vietnamese liberation fighters learned to bring down U.S. warplanes with their light rifles. In the final analysis the giant Pentagon arsenals couldn't match the will of the Vietnamese people to resist aggression.]

[Photo: Vietnamese women build supply lines for the resistance war. Unbreakable popular support was the key to the victory of the liberation forces.]

[Photo: The war at home.]

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The struggle against apartheid grows

Berkeley

Anti-apartheid demonstrators at the University of California's Berkeley campus have been waging a tenacious struggle. It has gone on continuously for the last several weeks. The Berkeley students are fighting to force the university to end its huge $1.7 billion investment in companies doing business in South Africa. The university administration, which is only interested in the high returns on its profitable investments in apartheid slavery and in backing up imperialist foreign policy, has called in the police for mass arrests and jailings. But this has only further aroused the students and increased the support for the mass actions against apartheid.

The Anti-Apartheid Struggle Builds

There have been repeated demonstrations against apartheid at Berkeley. The current anti-apartheid actions, which mark a new stage of the struggle, began on April 10. After an anti-apartheid rally of 200, about 50 students began a sit-in which blockaded the steps of Sproul Hall, a campus administration building. This bold action gained immediate widespread support.

The next day a noontime rally attracted 300 students. By this time the students had strung a series of banners across the front of Sproul Hall proclaiming "Apartheid must go! Divest now!'' and other slogans in sympathy with the struggle in South Africa. Sproul Hall and the surrounding area were renamed "Steve Biko Hall'' and "Steve Biko Plaza'' by the students after a black South African student leader was murdered by the racist regime in 1977.

The protest actions continued to build up momentum. On April 12 a noon rally was attended by 800 students. Three days later the number of students attending the noontime protest swelled to 1,200. And the number of protesters occupying the steps of Sproul Hall rose to about 200.

The Administration Tries to Crush the Struggle

The growth of the struggle frightened the reactionary university officials. They began a campaign to crush it. On the second day of the sit-in, they called in the campus police who threatened to arrest anyone who tried to stop the university from removing mattresses the students used to sleep on during the Sproul Hall occupation. Administrators demanded that the students give up their blockade of the building's doors.

Then, after initially declaring the strike legal, University Chancellor Heyman reversed himself and on April 15 arbitrarily declared that the sit-in was illegal. The administration threatened to arrest the students if they did not give up their blockade. The "grave" crimes of the students, according to Heyman, included blockading a door, putting protest signs on a wall, and camping out on the steps of Sproul Hall.

When the students refused to knuckle under to these threats, the administration moved against them. The next day, at 5:30 in the morning, the administration unleashed the police on the demonstrators. About 140 were arrested.

The Repression Backfires -- The Struggle Surges Forward

The repression failed to crush the struggle; it only increased the militancy of the students. One hundred students attempted to block the bus carrying the protesters to jail. Seventeen other students blocked the entrance to another building that same morning in solidarity with those arrested and were arrested themselves.

The size of the noon rally grew up to 3,500 that day as outraged students pledged to continue the struggle and demanded the release of those arrested. After the rally, the steps of Sproul Hall were retaken. By nightfall some 350 people were participating in the renewed sit-in.

Across the entire campus the call rang out to boycott classes. The next day thousands upon thousands of students refused to go to class during a class boycott that was about 80% effective. A large number of professors and teaching aides supported this action. During the boycott, the students turned Sproul Hall into a center of lively political activity including banner and picket making. A huge crowd of 5,000 packed the plaza for a militant rally.

The plan to smash the students' protest had blown up in the administration's faces. The movement was stronger than ever.

Since this huge rally, the protest has continued steadfastly. Although April 18 was the first day of spring recess, over 2,000 students gathered for a campus demonstration. And 500 longshoremen from the ILWU convention in San Francisco attended the campus protest. Locally longshoremen have been engaged in anti-apartheid actions themselves, waged a struggle over unloading South African cargo and held dockside rallies.

The Struggle Continues

At last report, protesters have remained entrenched on the steps of Sproul Hall; they have refused to cave in to threats of more police raids. They have rejected administration efforts aimed at ending the struggle. These efforts even included using a "plant" among the students who tried shackling the struggle by proposing that the students obey all university rules. Since these rules are designed to ensure student submission to any act of the administration, however unjust, obeying them would have meant abandoning the struggle.

The spirit of the several dozen students who are still in jail remains high. Many of those jailed, for example, identified themselves as Steve Biko to the police.

A solidarity demonstration of faculty has been planned as well.

The fighting Berkeley students have been joined in their efforts by protests at other University of California campuses. There was a protest of 700 at UCLA in mid-April, followed a week later by a three-day sit-in at the administration building. A sit-in and protests have also taken place at the Santa Cruz campus.

The struggle at Berkeley is a stinging refutation of the capitalist propaganda that today, unlike in the 60's, all students are apathetic, merely seek lucrative careers, and are not interested in changing the world and fighting oppression and exploitation. It shows that this is just wishful thinking of the capitalists aimed at disheartening progressive students and justifying repression. The mass struggles at Berkeley and elsewhere around the country demonstrate the widespread hatred for apartheid. They show the capacity of the progressive students for self-sacrificing struggle against oppression and in solidarity with the liberation movement of the working masses and oppressed peoples.

[Photo: April 17 rally in UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza.]

[Photo: Protesters at April 17 rally condemn UC's investments in apartheid.]

Columbia

In April, Columbia University was the site of a three-week protest against apartheid.- Through a sit-in and other mass actions, the demonstrators sought to force the university to divest its $33 million in holdings in companies doing business in racist South Africa. The struggle was waged in the face of the repression of the university administration and the capitalist courts. Although the students were unable to win their demands, their long battle was an important development in the anti-apartheid movement. It laid the basis for future struggles, it broke out of the confines of a mere "symbolic action," and it showed the readiness of the students to take up determined struggle to press anti-apartheid demands.

The Struggle Begins

The struggle began on April 4. After a rally of 400 students, 200 protesters occupied the steps of Hamilton Hall, the administration building. The building was renamed Mandela Hall after the imprisoned black South African leader Nelson Mandela.

In addition to the building occupation, daily rallies were organized. As the protest continued, it gathered more and more support from the masses of Harlem, the black community which surrounds Columbia, and it also drew support from students of other colleges and high schools. These forces participated alongside the Columbia students in a rally of 1,500 on April 15. They also strengthened a militant march and rally of 2,500 on April 18.

The Administration Comes Down With a Heavy Hand

In response to the struggle, the university administration resorted to all sorts of low-life activity. As soon as the protest began, security guards began photographing students in the protest area. The photographed students were sent disciplinary notices; some were called in for meetings with school officials at which they received thinly veiled threats of retribution for supporting the struggle. Guards interrupted classes searching for suspected demonstrators. Protesting students were threatened with suspension and expulsion.

The administration also called upon the capitalist courts. On April 7 the university was granted a temporary restraining order against the students, ordering them to clear the entrance to the building or face heavy fines and imprisonment. By April 18th, 28 students had been cited to appear in court to answer contempt charges for not ending the protest.

A Liberal Heads the Repression

The vicious repression by the administration was led not by a conservative Republican, but by the liberal college president Michael Sovern. Sovern is a member of the board of directors of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a self-proclaimed champion of civil liberties for the poor, and a supporter of liberal causes in general. Here we see the stand of liberalism in action: empty words about opposing the injustices of the world, while taking full part in suppressing the mass movement to fight these injustices. The liberal exploiter's stand on South Africa is to profess opposition to apartheid, while seeing nothing wrong with making profits off the exploitation of the black people in South Africa and while opposing the revolutionary movement that has the apartheid regime running scared. The liberal simply wants Reagan and Congress to put a virtuous, "anti-racist" face upon the dirty politics of preserving U.S. influence around the world, while the true opponents of apartheid want to fight Reaganite support for apartheid tooth and nail and to render real support to the black masses of South Africa.

Jesse Jackson Rushes In to Help the Administration

Sovern found an ally in Jesse Jackson, who rushed to Columbia to try to cool things off. While hypocritically praising the activists, he sought to preserve the trust of the masses in Sovern, who was directing the repression of the activists. After meeting with Sovern, Jackson apologized for Sovern's opposition to divestment, stating that divestment "is not the decision we expected him to make unilaterally today." Jackson went on to support Sovern's stalling tactic of agreeing to meet with other university presidents to allegedly discuss ways to oppose apartheid. Such a meeting of university presidents may take place, but, of course, it is more likely to discuss the common problems of the university administrations in suppressing the student movement against apartheid than anything else.

The Influence of the Free South Africa Movement

Meanwhile, the leadership of the student protest was under the influence of the liberal tactics advocated by the Free South Africa Movement. These stands proved harmful to the struggle. It was the growing mass participation in the struggle that outran the conceptions of the leaders and gave militancy to the struggle.

But the leaders of the movement constantly emphasized that the struggle should not be like the militant uprising at Columbia in 1968, and on this basis appealed for amnesty from the administration. They appealed to the activist students to not cause "inconvenience" to the "Columbia community"; i.e., they used the very catchwords that university administrations use in opposing the student movement. And, in the negotiations with the administration, they stated, "We agree in principle that a pre-arranged, arrest would be in the best interest of both parties." (Columbia Daily Spectator, April 12, 1985) This means to recognize the legitimacy of the repression against the movement and to help the administration arrest the activists.

The proposed plan of "prearranged arrests" was clearly modeled after the pattern of the Free South Africa Movement's tactics in Washington, D.C. But the authorities have a different attitude to the militant student movement than to afternoon strolls by some bigwigs. Thus all attempts to pattern the struggle after the tame, symbolic actions organized by the Free South Africa Movement in Washington failed. The negotiations with the administration collapsed when the university refused to grant amnesty to the protesters, and the administration proceeded to clamp down on the students.

The fact that the anti-apartheid protesters at Columbia held out three weeks in the face of the administration, the police and the courts is a tribute to their courage and persistence. It shows a new development of the student movement. And it is a good sign for the further development of the anti-apartheid struggle at Columbia.

[Photo: Rally against apartheid at Columbia, April 12.]

Buffalo, N.Y

As the anti-apartheid movement has burst out across the country, the Marxist-Leninist Party has been in the thick of the struggle. The Party has taken part in the mass actions and sought to guide the struggle in a revolutionary direction. A good example of this work was a special two-week campaign organized by the Buffalo Branch of the MLP. Noting that the working masses in Buffalo were eager to take part in the movement against apartheid, and that the reformist organizations had organized no mass actions for the two- week period of national actions on South Africa, the Buffalo Branch of the Party decided to take the initiative and supplement its ongoing work against apartheid by itself organizing a militant march and rally for March 27.

The march and rally were preceded by two weeks of widespread agitation among the masses. The literature distributed focused on denouncing the apartheid system, opposing U.S. imperialism's role in South Africa, exposing the harmful influence of reformism both in South Africa and the U.S., and calling for support for the revolutionary struggle of the black masses of South Africa to take political power and smash the racist system to bits.

The Party, and the Union of Anti- Imperialist Students, which also took part in the campaign, worked intensely. Literature was widely distributed at major factories and other work places. Work was also carried^ out at several colleges. And there was distribution in the black community. The Party is the only group in Buffalo that does consistent, serious mass literature distribution among the workers and the black people. This work was quite successful. And it hit a nerve in the black community. The issue of the racist South African regime is very much on the minds of the black working people in Buffalo, and this work increased the ties of the Party with the black masses.

In addition, the campaign was taken to the meetings of various groups. One group endorsed the rally, while many members of a black student group displayed enthusiasm.

The rally itself was held on March 27, under the slogans "Down with apartheid!" "U.S. Imperialism, get out of South Africa!" and "Support the revolutionary struggles of the South African people!" Despite the pouring rain, it was a successful and militant rally. It began near Erie County Community College with a speech by the UAIS. This was followed by a march during which distribution was done. Then the rally resumed at the original site with a speech by the MLP. There was also a spirited speech by a black student activist from one of the groups contacted during the course of the campaign; he spoke about the growing movement in the U.S. against apartheid, urged that all groups opposed to apartheid join together in struggle, and went into the conditions that the people in South Africa face.

Afterwards, the Party followed up on the work with the various organizations and continued to agitate against apartheid among the workers of Buffalo. The campaign had a good impact among the activists and working people. At Roswell Park Hospital the workers in Local 303 of the Civil Service Employees Association were inspired by the Party's work and went on to pass a resolution condemning Reagan's support for the apartheid regime in South Africa. And a student group at the University of Buffalo was spurred on to call its own demonstration on the campus. The work of the MLP is unleashing the energy of the masses to go into action in support of the struggle of the oppressed toilers of South Africa.

[Photo: Scene from March 27 rally in Buffalo, N.Y.]

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April 3rd demonstration:

A victory for the anti-imperialist movement in Boston

(The following report on the April 3 demonstration was issued by the Boston Branch of the MLP and distributed among the activists.)

Students in Boston are making big strides forward in building the movement against the war drive of U.S. imperialism and against the Reaganite program of squeezing the people at home. They are coming out firmly on the side of the people of Central America and South Africa who are fighting for their freedom.

On Wednesday, April 3, a militant march and demonstration was carried out under the slogans of "U.S. out of Central America!,'' "Down with apartheid!,'' and "No to Reagan's budget cuts!" This march was organized by a coalition of student groups and individuals from Tufts, MIT, Boston University, Harvard, University of Massachusetts in Boston, Boston College and Brandeis. Over 200 students and revolutionary workers participated in this march despite the cold stormy weather.

The march began at Boston University at about 4:30 p.m., just at the beginning of rush hour. The students first marched to the office of the president of BU John Silber, an arch-fascist and leading apologist for the Reagan regime's growing aggression in Central America. Silber is a member of the notorious Kissinger Commission. The march arrived at Silber's office shouting "Down with Silber, hatchet man for Reagan." For about 20 minutes slogans were shouted and speeches were given denouncing U.S. imperialism's intervention in Central America, apartheid in South Africa, Silber's disgusting support for Reagan's war in Central America and BU's investments in South Africa. Eventually the provost of the university came out to give a speech justifying BU's investment in South

Africa. Most of the demonstration was against letting him speak, with the militants shouting "He has CBS, NBC, ABC, AP and UPI, this is our demonstration"; but some people wanted to hear him out. However the BU provost quickly proved that he had nothing but the same old racist lies to tell and the demonstration united to shout him down. The march then proceeded down Commonwealth Avenue toward MIT amidst shouts of "Apartheid in South Africa, burn it to the ground!" The demonstration received a warm reception from the rush hour motorists and the people in Kenmore Square who honked horns, raised fists and some even joined the march.

Police Attack Fails to Intimidate the March

However, while the demonstration received enthusiastic support from the masses, the police were laying in wait to attack it. When the demonstration arrived at the bridge between Boston and Cambridge, the MDC [metro] police were out in force. In total on the bridge, there were 15 police cars, two paddy wagons and a police helicopter flying overhead. Clearly the government was out to intimidate the students. About halfway across the bridge the police launched their first attack, arresting a man marching at the edge of the demonstration. Immediately the whole demonstration rallied against the attack shouting "Let him go!," "Police can't stop the anti-war movement!" and "Reagan's thugs can't stop our movement." Demonstrators surrounded the police cars and tried to block them from taking their comrade away. Police drove their motorcycles into the crowd knocking down and arresting more people. But the students were not intimidated. They kept shouting slogans and resumed their march. The police launched two more attacks before the marchers reached the Cambridge side of the bridge. Each time the whole demonstration rallied against the attacks. In total nine people were arrested. One was a photographer who was thrown to the ground and her film exposed. Although a few pacifist liberals complained about the violence and left the march, the demonstrators only increased their militancy and determination. The demonstration proceeded militantly to the MIT Student Center where $260 was raised to bail those arrested out of jail. Militant speeches were given denouncing apartheid, U.S. imperialism and its war preparations, the Reaganite attacks on the workers, the students and the oppressed nationality people in the U.S. and MIT's participation in all these crimes. The demonstrators expressed their determination to keep on fighting. They ended the rally at MIT by burning the South African flag amid shouts of "Apartheid in South Africa, Burn it to the ground!"

From MIT the march proceeded through Central and Harvard Squares where workers and black, Latino and student youth joined in raising fists and shouting slogans along with the demonstrators. Along this route about 50 people joined the march.

The march ended in Cambridge Common where 75 people stayed in the pouring rain to hear speeches from the student groups of the different campuses and from the MLP.

Active Role of the MLP and The Student

The Boston Branch of the MLP considered the demonstration to be an extremely important event in the movement and made a major effort to draw the workers and students into this action. The local branch put up posters and distributed 6,500 leaflets at factories, transit stops and college campuses. The local branch mobilized a contingent of workers and supporters to march in the demonstration. The Party contingent along with the members of the MIT Student played the role of raising the political level of the demonstration. They particularly [promoted] directing the anger against the system of imperialism and encouraging militant support for the revolutions in Central America and South Africa. The Party and The Student also played an important role in rallying the whole demonstration against the police attacks. A great deal of work for the demonstration was also done by militants from other schools, especially Tufts. These militants put up hundreds of posters, and leafleted numerous movement events and campuses in preparation for the demonstration. At the demonstration itself the Tuft's militants, in particular, were on the front lines of struggle and suffered half the arrests.

Motion Away from the Democrats

The April 3 demonstration and the work in preparation for it are an important advance for the student movement and the overall anti-war, anti-imperialist movement in the Boston area. Although the April 3 demonstration was a good size for the present level of the movement it was not by any means the largest demonstration in recent years. However, the importance of the demonstration does not lie in its size but rather in its politics, who organized it and how.

For some time in Boston, as in most other cities in the US, the organizations and people that are in a position to call citywide demonstrations have been closely tied to the left wing of the Democratic Party. The official leaders have promoted the policy of relying on the liberal Democrats to oppose Reagan's war drive and have worked to confine the movement to the positions and forms that are acceptable to the Tsongases, the Kennedys and the Studdses. Such a policy has meant that the movement actions get turned on and off according to the whims and needs of the liberal Democrats. It has meant reconciling the movement with liberal schemes for maintaining the vital interests of U.S. imperialism. For example, last spring Reagan organized sham elections in El Salvador as a cover for stepped-up U.S. intervention. What we needed at this time was militant demonstrations denouncing this fraud and supporting the struggle of the people of El Salvador. But the official movement leaders would not call a demonstration because the liberal Democrats were opposed to any demonstrations at that time. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are a party of the rich, a party of imperialism. For them, as for the Republicans, the bottom line is defense of the "vital interests" of the multinationals. Thus, although the Democrats worry that Reagan's over reliance on military solutions will backfire, they were willing to give his election fraud a chance and were opposed to anything that might rock the boat. Moreover, 1984 was an election year and the Democrats wanted to divert all sentiment against Reagan into votes for themselves. As Jesse Jackson said at the time, "It's time to move from demonstrations to voter registration." Today when the Democrats are themselves becoming more and more openly Reaganite the policy of tailing after them means outright liquidation of the movement.

But April 3 represented something different in the movement. Rank and file students and activists dared to organize a citywide demonstration without the blessings of the official leaders. They took a conscious decision that their demonstration would not be used as a platform for the liberal imperialists of the Democratic Party. Instead of supporting the Democrats' policy of the U.S. dictating a so-called peaceful political solution in Central America, the organizers took the stand that the U.S. must get out altogether. Moreover they took a stand of supporting the revolutions and solidarity with the masses of people in Central America who are fighting for their freedom. Similarly, they took a stand of "Down with apartheid" and firm support for the fighting workers and students in South Africa. They condemned Reagan's cuts in student aid and social programs not just as meanness on Reagan's part but as part of the same system that oppresses the people of Central America and South Africa. Instead of relying on big name liberals to draw a crowd they went directly to the masses of students with their views and with the call for the demonstration.

Militant Stand Against Police Attacks

Another important feature of the April 3 demonstration is the fact that the demonstrators militantly stood up to the attacks of the police. The demonstrators did not do things to deliberately get arrested as a symbolic protest; but when,they were attacked, because of the stand they were taking, they resisted in a mass way. This kind of militancy is very important for the struggle of the masses. The government knows full well that its policies of aggression and war are unpopular, but it will not change on that account. It is the government of the millionaires and billionaires and the defender of their system of exploitation at home and abroad. It will remain aggressive until the whole imperialist system is overthrown by a socialist revolution. The U.S. government will inevitably respond to our movement, or any other movement which threatens the vital interests of the imperialists, with repression and violence. Just as it did to the movement of the black people in the 60's; just as it did at Kent State in 1970; just as it is doing in El Salvador today. For the movement to advance in the face of the inevitable repression of the government, it is absolutely essential to uphold the spirit of mass active resistance that was shown on April 3.

The April 3 demonstration is a sign that a section of the movement is coming up from below and trying to organize the masses independently of the Democrats. It is getting out of the control of the respectable liberals. This development is of tremendous importance for the movement, for it is only by getting out of control of the capitalist political parties and their hangers-on and building up an independent movement of the workers, oppressed masses and youth that we can build a really serious struggle against the war drive and aggression of U.S. imperialism. The MLP calls on the activists to work together with us to consolidate this independent trend by building up independent revolutionary organization on the campuses, in the communities and in the factories.

Join with the MLP's Contingent on April 20

On Saturday, April 20, there will be a big national demonstration in Washington, D.C. The liberal leaders of the movement are trying to restrict this demonstration to politics that are acceptable to the Democratic Party. As a result, we've found some lack of enthusiasm among many activists to go. However, this demonstration will be a chance to unite with tens of thousands of others who want to fight Reaganism. The MLP calls on all activists to go to Washington, to militantly denounce the policies of Reagan and the rich and to fight the politics of the Democratic Party and the line of relying on Congress.

Distribute literature, take placards and banners. Join with the MLP and other class-conscious workers and anti-imperialist activists to form a militant contingent. We'll raise anti-imperialist and revolutionary slogans. Together we can have a big impact on the demonstration and make our contribution to building and strengthening the movement against the Reaganite offensive.

[Photo.]

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Other struggles against apartheid

In April, a wave of struggle against apartheid swept across the college campuses. Separate articles in this issue of The Workers' Advocate report on the determined struggles at the Berkeley campus of the University of California and at Columbia University in New York City. Spirited struggles broke out at many other schools as well.

At Rutgers in New Jersey

A big struggle broke out at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, demanding divestment of university funds from companies that do business in South Africa. The demonstrations included a rally of 1,500 students as well as, beginning on April 12, a 100-strong blockade of the student center. Several students have been arrested for protesting.

Leading the efforts to halt the struggle at Rutgers has been university President Edward Bloustein. It is notable that Bloustein is a liberal, and he even took part in and was arrested in the symbolic actions organized by the Free South Africa Movement outside the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. The liberals wring their hands at apartheid, and look to Congress and President Reagan to change their policy and supposedly bring change to South Africa. They oppose the revolutionary movement of the black people of South Africa to take political power and overthrow apartheid, and they don't want mass struggle in the U.S. either, because this mass struggle would inevitably aim not at helping Congress and the Reagan administration but at fighting the capitalist politicians. The symbolic arrests outside the South African Embassy were pre-arranged with the police and designed solely for publicity value; Bloustein and others risked nothing in these arrests, because the big liberal figures didn't flock to Washington and New York until it was clear that all charges from these arrests were going to be dropped. Bloustein's attempt to smash the student struggle at Rutgers is an instructive example of the hypocrisy of the liberal leaders who posture before the masses as great enemies of apartheid while opposing any real struggle against apartheid.

At Cornell University in Ithaca, New York

The Cornell students have also been demanding the divestment of university funds from companies that invest in South Africa. The struggle at Cornell has been intense. Two hundred students participated in a sit-in in the lobby in an administration building. Police arrested 144 students but failed to break the spirit of the demonstrators. On April 12th, 400 more students resumed the lobby occupation, including 43 who had been previously arrested. Again the police were sent in, this time arresting 190.

At Tufts Near Boston

On April 24, Tufts University students launched a militant protest demanding that the school divest its stock in companies operating under South African apartheid. The students also demanded the admission of more minority students to Tufts plus courses against racism. The majority of the Tufts students had signed a petition supporting these demands. But the arrogant administration ignored these just demands. The students responded by taking over the administration building with over 100 demonstrators. The administration then tried to pressure the students into submission. It tried to starve the students out by preventing supporters from delivering food to the protesters. The administration also threatened a full police raid.

At the same time officials made various promises including amnesty although they did not commit themselves to divest. In this situation the students left the building. Since the basic demands of the students have not been met, an uneasy truce exists and more protests are expected.

At Other Colleges Around the Country

Dozens of other actions have also taken place at other colleges. At Syracuse University 100 students have been taking part in a "camp out'' in front of an administration building. Twenty-seven University of Florida students were arrested during an action at an administration building. Sit-ins have taken place at Princeton University, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Harvard, where there was also a rally of 6,000 students. As well, other types of protests have occurred at MIT, Smith, Brown, Dartmouth, Yale, Georgia State, University of Pennsylvania, five colleges in Iowa, and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Off Campus...

The spreading anti-apartheid actions have by no means been confined to the campuses. For example, the San Francisco Bay Area continues to be a center of struggle. On March 8th, 250 people rallied at Oakland City Hall. Three days later a militant picket was held at a hotel in San Francisco; it was protesting the visit of South African Ambassador Bemadus Fourie. Activists were able to get into the hotel and denounce this racist dog. On March 30th, 300 people participated in a "militant funeral march" in Oakland in protest of the recent massacre of blacks by the racist South African government.

In Los Angeles on March 25th, 600 people attended a rally after a vigorous march against apartheid. In New York City, on April 4, there was a march of 1,000, while a rally of 4,000 was held in Washington, D.C.

The recent series of protests shows that the ordinary masses are the real force opposed to apartheid. While Reagan and the Democrats haggle over the best way to stave off the revolution in South Africa and preserve it as a haven for U.S. investment, the workers, students and other progressive people are taking to the streets in solidarity with the fighting masses of South Africa.

[Photo: Police try to block delivery of food to protesters at Tufts.]

[Photo: On April 26, the MLP organized an action to bring the news of the struggles of the South African masses against apartheid to Chrysler's Jefferson Avenue assembly plant in Detroit. News of the developments in South Africa and other revolutionary literature was welcomed by the auto workers, many of whom expressed their hatred for apartheid and their support of the South African masses.]

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April 20th demonstrations across the U.S.

Tens of thousands protest against Reaganism

On April 20, tens of thousands of workers, students, and other young people took to the streets across the U.S. to raise their voices against the Reaganite offensive. Coming in the midst of an upsurge of anti-apartheid actions on the college campuses across the country, the April 20 actions helped mark this month's events as the first big wave of protest against Reaganism since the elections last November.

Fifty thousand people marched and rallied at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. On the other side of the country, another 30,000 demonstrated in San Francisco. Four thousand turned out in Los Angeles in one of the biggest actions there in recent years. Three thousand rallied in Seattle. Smaller protests, bringing together hundreds, also were held in such cities as Houston, Denver and Tucson.

The demonstrators condemned the reactionary policies of the Reagan administration down the line, especially focusing on Reagan's support for reaction around the world and his aggressive war drive. Protesters denounced the racist regime in South Africa and U.S. support for apartheid. They said No! to the brutal CIA-backed contra war against Nicaragua. They spoke out against the Pentagon's intervention in El Salvador. They rejected the nuclear war buildup. And they protested against unemployment.

As well, everywhere people expressed themselves on a host of other issues. In Los Angeles, for example, voices were raised against the oppression of immigrants; just two days earlier, the U.S. Border Patrol had shot a 12-year-old Mexican boy in the back on the Mexican side of the border from San Diego.

The demonstrators came from near and far. Washington drew people from as far away as Chicago and Nebraska. In San Francisco, some had traveled the long distance from Utah. And Seattle drew from Oregon.

Those who marched on April 20 came from the factories, schools, ghettos and unemployment lines. There were a number of trade union contingents, although the AFL-CIO leadership had worked to prevent unions from joining in. A notable feature of all the demonstrations was that they drew heavily among young people, from high schools and colleges, for many of whom this was their first experience in demonstrating. The anti-apartheid sit-ins and other actions on college campuses around the country had provided a special impulse to this.

Masses Want a Real Fight: But the Official Leaders Had Other Aims

The turnout at the April 20 actions and the mood among the protesters showed that there is a smoldering outrage among working people and youth across the land. It showed that there is desire for a real fight against the Reaganite offensive.

But unfortunately, a real fight is not what was on the minds of the leaders of the official coalitions that sponsored the April 20 protests.

This leadership was dominated by political forces from social-democratic and pacifist groups, from some reformist trade unions, from reformist black, and other oppressed nationality, organizations -- from the "left" wing of the Democratic Party generally. These leaders sought to organize the demonstrations in such a way as to keep them tame and inoffensive to the capitalist establishment. They sought to keep the politics within the confines of what is acceptable to the lying politicians of the Democratic Party. Instead of developing a real struggle that hits at Reaganism and mobilizes the initiative of the masses, they wanted to use the masses to line up behind the futile road of convincing Congress, and even Reagan himself, to implement nice-sounding platitudes.

Thus, the major voices that spoke out from the platforms on April 20 expressed these backward views. Liberal Democratic politicians were some of the "biggest name" speakers.

Jesse Jackson was featured in Washington. And what did he call for? He declared, "We are here today and there are signs of light appearing.... This time -- unlike the 1960's -- we need to harness the energies and redirect them and wage a struggle in 1986, in 1987, in 1988 and translate our protests into politics." What he meant by "politics" is of course Democratic Party politics. Jackson's call is nothing but an appeal to liquidate the mass struggle, to turn the angry masses into voting and volunteer fodder for the Democrats' electioneering in the coming years. But contrary to Jackson, it was the 1960's traditions of mass struggle which brought into play the strength of the masses.

Meanwhile, the coalition in San Francisco had tried its best to keep the official slogans and speakers there even flabbier than the rest of the country. In an effort to appease the pro-zionist positions of the trade union bureaucrats, they had discarded any mention of opposition to Israeli zionism or to U.S. policies in the Middle East. As well, they did not want anything that might even hint at support for the people of Central America. Far from sympathy with the revolutionary struggle, they did not even want speakers with reformist politics from the Central American organizations that the U.S. government rails against. Thus they rejected a proposal to invite the mayor of Managua, Nicaragua and, as a compromise, they relented on a speaker from El Salvador, but with conditions. He could not identify himself as someone from the FDR/FMLN but only as an "exiled Salvadoran trade unionist on the list of the death squads."

But in the Midst of the Protestors, There Was Also an Opposite Pole

But the official politics of the April 20 coalition wasn't the only thing present at the actions. There were also many sections of protesters who wanted a militant stand. Among them, this stand was most consciously and clearly expressed by contingents mobilized by the Marxist-Leninist Party.

These contingents came to fight shoulder to shoulder with the masses of demonstrators against Reaganism. They came to put forward the politics of struggle against imperialism and of organizing independently of the Democrats and Republicans.

In the weeks before the demonstrations, the MLP went widely among the working masses to encourage taking part in the April 20 actions. In the May Day special issue of The Workers' Advocate, the MLP called for vigorous participation in the April 20 protests, along with other anti-war actions in April.

Besides the wide-scale distribution of this paper in work places, schools and neighborhoods, local organizations of the MLP also built for the April 20 demonstrations through local actions. In Boston, the MLP supported a militant student demonstration on April 3 which was organized by a citywide student coalition. (See report on page 4.) In Chicago, where the official organizers of April 20 held no public preparatory events, the MLP organized a march through the Pilsen area to spread the word on the upcoming actions.

And at the April 20 demonstrations themselves, the MLP organized militant contingents which offered a revolutionary alternative.

In Washington, the MLP mobilized a vigorous contingent. An active group from MIT in Boston mobilized by The Student marched with the Party. The contingent carried a number of large banners and distributed 1,600 placards among the masses which declared Death to apartheid! U.S. out of Central America! Down with Reagan! Down with U.S. imperialism!

In San Francisco, the MLP contingent distributed a hundred picket signs with slogans supporting revolutionary struggle in Central America and the Caribbean, South Africa, and the Middle East. A number of activists eagerly took up the picket signs in support of the struggle in the Middle East, as an opportunity to repudiate the opportunism of the official leadership.

The contingents of the MLP served as a pole of attraction for other anti-imperialist activists. Sections of demonstrators took up slogans shouted by the MLP contingents. And the literature distributed by the MLP was warmly received. About 14,000 copies of the May Day special issue of The Workers' Advocate were distributed at the April 20 actions nationwide.

The taking up of the placards from the MLP, the joining in to shout militant slogans, and the reception to revolutionary literature, all showed that a whole section of the demonstrators did not want to go along with the docile stand of the official leadership but wanted to express a stronger stand against the reactionary offensive of the Reaganites.

In all its work around the April 20 actions, the MLP also stressed the importance of getting organized for a consistent and sustained struggle against the capitalist offensive. This was the heart of the appeal for International Workers' Day that the Party spread among the masses. It called on the demonstrators to proceed from activity in the April actions to the demonstrations and meetings being organized for May Day.

[Photos: San Francisco; Washington D.C.; Seattle]

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More holes than swiss cheese

On the Gray-Kennedy 'Anti-Apartheid Act of 1985'

While the Reagan administration is openly embracing the racist South African rulers with the policy of "constructive engagement," the Democratic Party is posing as an opponent of apartheid. To prove this, the Democrats have introduced a number of bills to Congress. Most of these are simply window-dressing, which are not intended seriously by their sponsors and which have little support among Democrats themselves.

The bill the Democratic Party has united upon, as indicated by almost unanimous support in the House Democratic caucus, is the "Anti-Apartheid Act of 1985." It was introduced into Congress in early March, and it is being cosponsored by Congressional Black Caucus member William Gray in the House and by liberal kingpin Ted Kennedy in the Senate. Despite the high flown language of the Democrats, this bill does not seriously oppose the South African racist regime. It consists merely of some token sanctions shot full of loopholes. Even if implemented to the letter, and such bills never are, it would pose only a mild inconvenience to the Botha regime, and it especially takes care to ensure the continued flow of profits to American corporations from the exploitation of apartheid conditions in South Africa.

The fraud of the bill can be seen by comparing its token sanctions to the ferocious sanctions that Reagan, with congressional approval, has let fall upon revolutionary Nicaragua for years. The Democrats want the people to regard them as supporters of justice for Nicaragua because they quibble a bit with Reagan over the exact sanctions to hit Nicaragua with. By comparison with what the Democrats want for Nicaragua, cutting trade and trying to economically strangle Nicaragua, the "Anti-Apartheid Act of 1985" should really be called the "Support for Apartheid Act of 1985."

Indeed, the basic principle underlying the bill is that all change in South Africa must come from the present racist rulers. Rather than fighting these rulers, the intent is to gently nudge them into making some changes.

And the real point of this nudging is to convince the black masses of South Africa that the U.S. government and corporations are their friend. Gray himself, in introducing his bill to Congress, stresses that it is needed "if our critical economic and strategic interests on the continent of Africa are to be protected--especially in the wake of the growing polarization and violence in South Africa." Since Gray nowhere distinguishes between the interests of the working people and the interests of the U.S. government and corporations, since Gray's bill in fact calls on the Reagan administration to take part in defending these "critical economic and strategic interests," it is clear that Gray's bill is designed to protect the plans of the American corporations and government by presenting the facade that U.S. imperialism is on their side.

Now let us examine how the Gray bill works.

A Loophole-Ridden Ban on New Investments in South Africa

The bill's sponsors claim that their legislation bans new American investment in South Africa including bank loans. But they fail to mention that the bill would not halt U.S. firms from making "an investment which consists of earnings derived from a business enterprise in South Africa." In other words, a company could increase its investments from profits made inside South Africa. And, with a little creative bookkeeping, a multinational could funnel even more funds into their South African operations.

While the sanction would ban U.S. banks from making loans in South Africa, U.S. companies would still be free to get loans from South African sources. Moreover, this measure does not place restrictions on the sale and purchase of stocks and other securities of U.S. corporations in South Africa. Thus, while the bill would cause some inconvenience for the U.S. corporations, it would not prevent new U.S. investment.

But what of the billions of dollars of investments that the U.S. multinationals already have in South Africa? This bill is silent on this. Clearly the Democratic Party liberals are quite content to let the imperialist monopolies reap fantastic profits from black labor under the shackles of apartheid. This is not an oversight. Gray argues that it is a strong point of his bill that it preserves the operations of U.S. firms in South Africa. Of course, Gray presents these operations as not exploitation of the black masses, but their liberation, arguing that under his bill "a significant American presence in South Africa would continue as a potential source of positive American influence on the official policies of the openly racist [South African] government...."

An Empty Promise to Ban Loans to the Racist Regime

The Gray-Kennedy bill contains a sanction allegedly banning U.S. loans to the South African government. However the measure actually states that this ban "shall not apply to a loan or extension of credit for any educational, housing or health facility" which can be used by blacks. With this clause, the Democrats pretend that loans will be restricted to humanitarian purposes. But in fact such loans can be used by the South African government to free more funds to beef up their fascist police state apparatus. Even if this aid. went towards schools and housing it could be used for such "humane" purposes as building segregated cities in which blacks are forcibly relocated, inferior, segregated schools on bantustans, etc. In short, such loans are bound to strengthen apartheid.

In addition, the restrictions on loans to the Botha regime do not include loans already agreed to. And the bill will not prevent the Reagan administration from continuing its active campaign for IMF loans to South Africa.

An Easily Avoided Ban on Some Computer Sales

Another provision of the bill places some restrictions on computer sales to the South African government. U.S. computers have been sent to South Africa for use by the fascist police in tracking opponents of apartheid. However there is nothing in the bill preventing computers from being sent to private companies, and primary and secondary schools in South Africa are specifically exempted from this ban. With a little ingenuity, the South African government could easily get around this measure. All it has to do is import the computers through a private firm or a school.

The Ban on Kruggerands

The final sanction of this bill prohibits the importing of Kruggerands and other South African gold coins into the U.S. Assuming there are no loopholes, it could be a minor aggravation to the South African government. Our Party definitely supports the banning of the sale and importation of Kruggerands into the U.S. But, as the only possible measure of worth in the bill, it is a mere drop in a bucket. Furthermore, this sanction, like all the other sanctions in the bill, can be canceled by an escape clause, which we shall now discuss.

An Escape Clause to Delay the Implementation of Sanctions

As meek as the bill's sanctions are, they can be waived for a year by Reagan if Congress agrees with him that the South African government has made any of a series of reforms listed in the bill. The waiver can be extended an additional six months for each additional reform allegedly accomplished. Thus, with a somewhat reformed apartheid system, the miniscule effects of this bill can be negated.

Moreover, just as Reagan certifies the phony reforms of the fascist regime in El Salvador, so he is certain to lie on behalf of his pals in Johannesburg. The human rights certification process in El Salvador did not stop a single murder of the right-wing death squads, so how effective can such a process be for South Africa? And how can Congress be relied on to overrule Reagan when they go along with the phony certification process for the Salvadoran regime?

True, the conditions for suspending the sanctions are written in high-flown language to make them sound really good. But the point is not how the average American working man would interpret them, but how Reagan and his cronies will. For example, since Reagan and his followers believe that "reverse discrimination" exists in the U.S. in favor of the blacks and other oppressed nationalities, one can imagine what their idea of the equality called for by this bill would be.

Furthermore, this procedure makes it clear that the bill is not aimed at fighting the Reagan administration, but at working with it. It verifies that the rationale of this bill is that the Reagan administration should be relied on as a force for progress in South Africa.

The Bankruptcy of Replacing Revolution by Negotiations

The failure of this bill to propose serious measures against the South African government is another indictment of the overall stand of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have many fine words against apartheid, and in their bill they claim to be for "an end to discrimination based on race or ethnic origin." Very well. But the Democrats are dead set against the revolutionary struggle in South Africa which alone can overthrow the racist rulers and end apartheid. They instead advise the oppressed masses of South Africa to rely on persuading the racist apartheid rulers, with Reagan and the American monopolies as benevolent mediators to ensure that the process really works or, at least, preserves American "critical economic and strategic interests on the continent of Africa."

In this vein, the "Anti-Apartheid Act" talks about eliminating racism through "meaningful negotiations" between the racists and the oppressed masses. However for the oppressed masses to give up their struggle and rely on such "negotiations" would be disastrous. To think that the white supremacist slave masters, who gun down hundreds in the streets and ban even mild opponents, whose very existence is synonymous with the most savage racist persecution, will be convinced to dismantle the racist system through peaceful talks is a cruel hoax. No, significant reform can come to South Africa so long as the racist apparatus of repression remains intact. The most that these negotiations would do is preserve the basic apartheid slavery with some reform trappings to quell the mass rebellions.

According to the Democratic Party liberals, U.S. imperialism will pressure the regime into this process of negotiation and reform. For months the liberal heroes have lectured the oppressed blacks of South Africa to wait patiently while they developed a bill to provide this pressure. But all their hot air only produced the flimsy "Anti- Apartheid Act." The impotent nature of this bill highlights the sham nature of change without revolution.

For a Real Struggle Against Apartheid

It is unlikely that even this bill will pass Congress, so adamant are the Reaganites against anything that even postures against their close friends, the racist apartheid rulers of South Africa. The main significance of this bill is the striving by the Democrats to educate the Reaganites about how to undermine the revolution in South Africa, and the striving by the Democrats to undermine the solidarity movement in the U.S. and turn it into voting cattle for the Democratic Party. A real struggle against apartheid means support for the revolutionary movement that is the only force capable of overthrowing the racist, white minority rule. It means opposing all the oppressors and exploiters of the black masses of South Africa; the white apartheid egotists; the U.S. firms that fatten on the profits of the apartheid system; and the U.S. imperialist system as a whole that uses the South African racist regime as one of the bastions of its influence in Africa.

This does not mean opposing any sanctions that Congress, for its own purposes, may pass. But first of all, the capitalist parties in Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, are not going to overthrow apartheid; at most, as under Carter,,.a few token measures may be taken. And secondly, the exposure of the real purpose of the congressional bills and of the fake sanctions, combined with the extensive development of the movement against imperialism, is not only the most effective method of building support for the fighting black masses in South Africa, but it will, as a side effect, increase whatever small chance there is that some actual sanctions against South Africa, however minor, will be passed.

Workers and anti-apartheid activists! The goals of the anti-apartheid movement are not those of the imperialist politicians, Republican or Democrat. We must be concerned about assisting the liberation of the oppressed, not protecting the "economic and strategic interests" of the State Department or the profits of Mobil and GM. We need a real fight against Reagan, not the empty phrases and backroom deals offered by the Democrats. We must not be satisfied with small minor inconveniences for the corporations and the apartheid rulers nor with the strategy of gradual change through convincing the apartheid rulers. No, we must support the smashing up of apartheid; the revolutionary movement to achieve majority rule.

Today the anti-apartheid movement in the U.S. is on the upsurge. To defend the integrity of the movement it is vital to relentlessly oppose the false "anti-apartheid" heroes of the Democratic Party. The Democrats and Republicans are not the liberators of the black people of South Africa, but oppressors, accomplices of the white minority rulers. Let us build our movement in solidarity with the fighting toilers, youth and students of South Africa.

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Song: Down with Apartheid!

Down with apartheid!

Bum it to the ground!

Down with apartheid!

Bum it to the ground!

Apartheid serves just one interest

No matter what Reagan might say;

It 's profits for the rich in South Africa,

And for the billionaires in the USA

Their families thrown into desert shacks,

Black workers slave in the towns;

And if they try a peaceful protest,

The racist murderers gun them down.

Reagan is resegregatin' the schools

Right here in the USA;

And he's sendin' aid to South Africa

To help it survive in the brutal old way.

Kennedy went to South Africa

Said power-sharing is the goal

But the racists won't give up peacefully

The reins of power and their vaults

of gold.

The black people have had enough,

Apartheid has got to go;

The system must be burned to the ground

Revolution is the path;

freedom is the goal!

Support the black people in South Africa

As they're fightin' from day to day;

Build the movement to strike at the heart

Of the imperialist system in the USA.

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Goetz: the cover-up unravels

(The following article is reprinted from the March 30, 1985 issue of The West Indian Voice.)

A Manhattan grand jury has indicted Bernhard Goetz for attempted murder.

For weeks the newspapers and the politicians sang the praises of Bernhard Goetz. Nothing was too much for this "hero." Goetz, with an attempted murder charge outstanding, was invited to Washington to testify as an expert on crime.

Now Goetz's sun is setting. Bit by bit the facts are coming out (see accompanying article) and public opinion is strengthening against Goetz.

But what is now coming out are facts that have been in the hands of the authorities from day one. Most of them even appeared in the press, little flakes of truth in a blizzard of cover-up and hysteria.

The hysteria, like Goetz's crime itself, had nothing to do with fighting crime. It had everything to do with promoting racist vigilantism. Black youth are criminals -- by definition. Bernhard Goetz is a hero -- because he shot black youth in the back. This was the message from [mayor] Koch, [senator] D'Amato and Reagan. Open season was declared on national minority youth courtesy of this hysteria campaign and a grand jury which allowed Bernhard Goetz to walk.

This cynical campaign of hysteria was aimed not just at promoting vigilantism, but also at strengthening the hand of repression, to call for more police, more prisons, and more laws to lock people up without bail or trial. In short, more harassment and persecution for ordinary people, business as usual for big-time crime.

The Goetz case was actually dumped by the Manhattan DA's office when it was first brought before a grand jury. The DA's office made no recommendation for indictment. The DA's office refused to grant immunity -- a standard procedure -- to Goetz's victims. Flores, an eyewitness who appeared before both grand juries, stated: "The first time it was sort of rush-rush." The second time "we went into the whole case...For the first grand jury they (the DA -- WIV) didn't do anything like that." The first time the DA's office had no intention of seeking an indictment. Only fear of the potential for mass outrage produced the second grand jury and the indictment.

Crime is a serious problem for working people, who are its principal victims. But the answer to crime lies, not in strengthening the hand of the police, but in fighting against the rich exploiters and their dying system. Capitalism spawns crime on a massive scale. Drug-pushing and organized crime are billion-dollar industries. And starvation wages and soaring unemployment push a section of youth toward crime just to survive.

With their anti-crime hysteria the capitalists want to incite racist divisions between black and white working people, and they especially want to isolate black youth. They are not afraid of crime but of rebellion.

The Goetz case and the racist anti-crime hysteria bring home that working people have a sharp fight on their hands.

A fight against racist gunmen, in uniform and out.

A fight against Reagan's offensive of racism and police repression.

A fight against the capitalist offensive of hunger, for education, jobs and a decent livelihood.

Let this fight be our answer to Reagan, to Goetz, to the criminal system of capitalism.

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Confessions of a racist vigilante

(The following article is reprinted from The West Indian Voice, March 30, 1985.)

At first Bernhard Goetz was an everyday man, transformed into a hero by circumstance. Now Goetz may have gone too far in taking the law into his own hands.

This is the word, yesterday and today, as told by the media, Morgenthau and Koch. And it is the sheerest nonsense.

Goetz is a would-be racist killer. That is why they sang his praises to the skies, and why they have hastily indicted him, now that the jig is up.

Ordinary people have every right to defend themselves against crime. It happens every day, and no one is lionized for it. But in the Goetz case there was no mugging and no self-defense. There were only four black youth and a wealthy businessman with a gun who had sworn to "get them."

The Man Behind the Gun

Goetz is no everyday man. He comes from a wealthy family of Florida real estate speculators. He himself is an electronics contractor who counts the CIA among his clients. He is believed to have an income of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Goetz, moreover, is a racist. A neighbor describes him as "a little bigoted." At a public meeting he declared that to clean up 14th Street "we have to get rid of the spies and niggers."

In 1981 Goetz applied for a NYC gun permit. The permit denied, he brought in several guns illegally from Florida, and took to wearing one, loaded with dum-dum bullets, in a quick-draw holster in his pants. In front of friends he brandished the gun, declaring, "Sooner or later I'm going to get them." The identity of "them" had already been blurted out by Goetz at his gun permit hearing. In the transcript, Goetz is found repeatedly using "blacks" as a synonym for "muggers."

The Incident

According to Goetz's New Hampshire confession, when he entered the subway car on December 22 he deliberately sat opposite the teenagers, sizing them up. He "knew" from "their body language that they wanted to" rob him. In other words, they were young, black and boisterous, hence, criminals.

After Canty [one of the teenagers] asked for five dollars, the only one who moved was Goetz. He says he "knew what he was going to do, and already had in his mind the spirit of fire." He had already decided upon a pattern of fire. He stood, drew his weapon, assumed a marksman's crouch and fired in a pattern from left to right. Two of the youth were shot in the back as they tried to flee.

No threat had been made to Goetz's person. He had not been cornered or surrounded. The only weapon was his. By his own account, Goetz did not shoot the youth for anything any of them said or did. In fact, he had already decided to shoot them before Canty approached him; he had even already decided on what order to shoot them in.

The Making of a "Hero"

There is not a shred of self-defense in this case. Every excuse offered for Goetz has been outright fabrication. Even the sharpened screwdrivers, so beloved by the press, proved to be an invention. There were no sharpened screwdrivers. In the pocket of one fallen youth, police found one screwdriver. In the jacket of another, they found two. They were ordinary, unsharpened 794 hardware store screwdrivers, tools of the trade for youth eking out a miserable existence jimmying the coinboxes on video machines.

Goetz did not "go too far" defending himself against a mugging. There was no mugging, no self-defense. No, Goetz is a would-be racist killer, a vigilante who went out gunning for black youth. This is what the rich would like to call a "hero.''

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Grand juries=grand fraud

(The following article is reprinted from the March 30, 1985 issue of The West Indian Voice.)

On March 26, a Manhattan grand jury indicted the racist vigilante Bernhard Goetz for attempted murder.

Two months earlier a previous grand jury had cleared Goetz on attempted murder, indicting him only on minor weapons charges. By this action the grand jury declared open season on national minority youth and gave a green light to racist vigilantes.

The action of the second grand jury does not signify a change of heart on the part of the Manhattan DA's office, which engineered the findings of both grand juries. It is a maneuver to quell the growing mass sentiment against Goetz before it erupts into mass protests which find their real target in the government which protects and glorifies Goetz.

In fact, this has become something of a season for such indictments. In the Bronx a grand jury has indicted Stephen Sullivan, the policeman who gunned down 67-year-old Eleanor Bumpurs for the crime of being black and poor. In Manhattan, after much fuss, a second grand jury has indicted several cops in the death of Michael Stewart. Stewart was brutally beaten to death by a mob of police for the crime of writing graffiti in a subway station.

Official Cover-Up of Police Murders

All of these cases have involved considerable cover-up on the part of the police, the DA's offices, and other branches of government. In the case of Goetz, the Manhattan DA arranged the findings of the first grand jury, only to pull a hasty U-tum in the face of mass outrage. (See accompanying article.) In the Bumpurs case, Police Commissioner Ward defended the police down the line, while Chief Medical Examiner Elliot Gross deliberately falsified the autopsy report to hide the fact that the first of Sullivan's two shots had blown off Bumpurs' hand, making Sullivan's second shot murder even by police standards.

The Stewart case involved cover-up on a,grand scale. The police department conspired to cover up the case. Gross falsified the autopsy report to state that Stewart died of heart failure and soaked Stewart's eyeballs in bleach to literally whitewash the evidence of strangulation. A busload of cops perjured themselves before the grand jury.

But the cover-up did not end here. The Manhattan DA's office tried to dump the case before the first grand jury. When this did not work, the indictments handed down by the first grand jury were quashed on the grounds that one of the grand jurors dug up the facts on his own after getting fed up with the DA's attempt to dump the case. The DA finally took the case to a second grand jury, but did not seek murder indictments. Now, of the 11 police involved in the murder, three are charged with assault and three with failing to protect a prisoner in their custody. This farcical pursuit of greatly reduced charges is nothing but a continuation of the cover-up.

Maneuvers to Dampen the "Powder Keg" of Mass Outrage

Why have these indictments been brought despite the obvious reluctance of the government to pursue them? Explaining the Sullivan indictment, Bronx DA Merola referred to the situation in the black community as a "powder keg." In other words, these indictments have been returned in order to cool off the growing mass outrage before it erupts into struggles directed against police and other racist killers and their cronies in other branches of government. If all goes well, they can dump the cases at a later time and then it's back to business as usual.

[This has been proven once again in what took place with the indictment of the cop that killed Eleanor Bumpurs in the Bronx. On April 12, a state judge dismissed the indictment of the police killer on the grounds that the evidence was "legally insufficient." -- WA]

This is borne out by the history of past indictments of killer cops. Time and time again they have walked free. In one case too blatant for the usual acquittal -- the murder of a young boy -- the cop was permitted to plead insanity -- insanity for the split second it took to pull the trigger. Then he was free to walk, once doctors had verified that the insanity had passed.

This is the fraud the capitalists call justice.

Not that grand juries are without their uses. Grand juries are great when it comes to witch hunts against political activists. Given the right guidance, a blue-ribbon grand jury can generally find a conspiracy in an innocent conversation about the weather, let alone a leaflet on unemployment or an anti-war demonstration. But let it be a corpse and a cop with a smoking gun and it's "heart failure" or "self-defense," whichever comes to mind first. And if the grand jury can't dump the case, the courts will see to it later.

Answer the Police Crimes With Mass Struggle

What attitude should we take toward these indictments?

That racist vigilantes and killer cops be brought to justice is a popular and just demand of the masses. We should fight for it, but we should not put our faith in the courts. The proper answer to these crimes lies in mass struggle. Demonstrations and other forms of mass protest are needed to galvanize anti-racist sentiment and weld it into a political force. And if a grand jury should return an indictment for fear of our wrath, it should not be a signal to go to sleep as Merola would like, but rather to step up the struggle. Let us demand justice, but let us not wait on justice from the capitalist courts. Hell will not freeze over that soon.

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Confessions of a racist senator

(The following article is reprinted from The West Indian Voice, March 30, 1985.)

Bernhard Goetz was out on bail and facing a grand jury hearing after he shot four youth for the crime of being young and black. But nothing stops the U.S. Senate in its quest for truth. Goetz, with murder charges outstanding, was invited to Washington to testify as an expert on crime. Which, in a sense, he is.

Goetz declined to appear, but his lawyer, Kelner, attended in his stead.

Never one to shy away when duty calls, Senator Alphonse D'Amato captured the spotlight with the admission that he never' rides the subways save "unless accompanied by a guard carrying (illegal -- WIV) chemical mace" and even then is afraid. Defending Goetz, D'Amato continued^ "these young thugs come in there and they don't even have to approach you... they are menacing people by their very presence." The Senator appeared deeply moved by his own remarks.

National minority youth are "young thugs" not because of anything they do. "They don't even have to approach you." No, they are "thugs" because they are "menacing people by their very presence." After all, they are black. Now there is some truth for you, courtesy of the U.S. Senate.

Kelner was so impressed that he invited D'Amato to appear as an expert witness on Goetz's behalf, an offer the Senator accepted with alacrity. D'Amato has some expertise as a witness. He last appeared as a character witness for an organized crime figure. The defendant was convicted of a conspiracy which later produced the JFK [airport] robbery and a string of murders, but then, you can't have everything. The Senator made a fine witness.

D'Amato appeared as a witness in that trial because he is up to his armpits in organized crime connections, courtesy of his role in the corrupt Nassau County Republican machine. In 1980, D'Amato admitted involvement in a kickback scheme that got Republican boss Margiotta federal time.

If D'Amato wanted to fight crime, he would have to begin by turning himself in.

But that is not what D'Amato nor Goetz are about. D'Amato's confession has to do with a crime of a different sort, the crime of racism.

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Condemn the repression against the unemployed movement in Mon Valley!

Last month, after being defrocked in March by the hierarchy of the Lutheran Church, Reverend D. Douglas Roth was once again arrested and thrown in jail. What was his crime? Protesting against unemployment.

The Mon Valley area near Pittsburgh has been a center of activity of the unemployed movement for several years. Attacks on this movement have been particularly sharp.

In the last year, the coalition of two groups protesting unemployment -- the Network to Save the Mon-Ohio Valley (known as the Network) and the Denominational Ministry Strategy (DMS) which Roth belongs to -- has faced court injunctions, a vile red-baiting campaign by the capitalist press, and upwards of 70 arrests with some carrying prison sentences of six months or more.

This heavy-handed repression continues to the present day with arrests at the picket lines and protests of the unemployed being a common occurrence. The frantic attempts by the reactionaries to stamp out any struggle of the unemployed ^demonstrates the profound fear within the bourgeoisie of the revolutionary potential of the growing masses of unemployed workers.

While the Network and DMS are not revolutionary but rather only coalitions of trade union bureaucrats and liberal reformers, the attacks upon them are aimed at stopping the development of an unemployed movement and should be condemned by all class conscious workers.

Conditions of the Unemployed in Mon Valley

The Mon Valley near Pittsburgh has been a major steel-making center for 100 years. It has been the scene of many class battles including the armed clash with Pinkerton strikebreakers at Homestead Steel in 1892 as well as the trade union organizing drives of the 1930's.

In the present period of economic crisis, the steel workers have suffered from massive layoffs and plant shutdowns by the capitalists. In the Mon Valley, according to some sources, jobs have been lost since 1980. Unemployment has reached 30% in some towns. The "Reagan recovery" has not trickled down to the workers of the Mon Valley.

In response to these attacks a mass movement of the unemployed began to emerge in the 1980's. In January 1980 one hundred steel workers crashed the doors of the. US Steel office in Youngstown and occupied it for six hours, supported by hundreds of additional workers who were demonstrating outside. Shortly afterwards, another militant sit-in took place at the US Steel headquarters in Pittsburgh.

In May 1982 in Pittsburgh, 2,000 workers demonstrated for extension of unemployment benefits, a freeze on mortgage foreclosures, utility shutoffs and rent increases. At the same time many smaller struggles took place over these issues of immediate relief. Defying state laws and sheriff's deputies,' hundreds of workers took part in actions to physically block evictions, foreclosures and utility shutoffs.

By 1982 the pressure of the masses for sharper struggle was becoming irresistible. The established social-democratic groups with their schemes for dialogue with the capitalists and appeals to the state for relief were being outstripped by growing militancy of the mass of unemployed. In this ferment there emerged a more confrontational current headed by the Network and DMS who, after a brief period, united into one coalition.

Politics of the Network/DMS

The Network, led by Ron Weisen, president of the Homestead Local 1397 of the USWA, and the DMS, headed by a group of Lutheran ministers, adopted militant rhetoric condemning "corporate evil" and espousing confrontation as opposed to dialogue with the capitalists of US Steel and the Mellon Bank.

However their "confrontational" tactics consisted not of building mass struggle, but instead substituting Alinskyite-style theatrical stunts by a small band of activists. While their publicity-grabbing antics created a sensation and embarrassed the capitalists, the energy of the masses was not mobilized. The masses themselves were not drawn into struggle directly and given the political training necessary for sustaining a mass movement.

As well the program of the Network/DMS itself was fatally flawed. It promoted essentially the same worn-out social-democratic solutions as the old line reformist groups -- reinvestment schemes to modernize steel production (and thereby eliminate more jobs) in the Mon Valley and a chauvinist defense of the American market against foreign imports.

Nevertheless the steel capitalists and the state apparatus showed this trend no mercy. Even the hint of confrontation which could get out of hand was enough to bring down the wrath of the moneybags and their political henchmen.

Dirty Role of the Church

Despite all of the church's hand-wringing psalms over the plight of the poor and oppressed, it has played a dirty role against the unemployed movement.

The DMS was originally formed in 1980 by the Lutheran Synod of Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia and the Episcopal Church. Its aim was to draw people back into the churches, which were rapidly losing membership, by feigning more concern for the social problems of the youth, the unemployed, and other impoverished people.

But as the unemployed movement grew more militant the DMS took on more "confrontational" rhetoric. It even supported the workers who struck against the concession demands and strikebreaking activity of the Lutheran-owned and operated Passovant Hospital.

This was all too much for the Lutheran hierarchy. Prayers for the poor are one thing. But when the working masses rise in struggle to defend their own interests, well that's going too far. Quickly the Lutheran bishops lashed out. Although Roth, one of the more flamboyant spokesmen of DMS, was supported by a large part of his church membership, the Lutheran big shots expelled him from his church and padlocked its doors. Roth spent months in jail for his refusal to give up his church, but even this punishment was not enough for the good churchmen. Bishop May, who is a member of the board that runs the Passovant Hospital, called Roth to a kangaroo Church trial which stripped Roth of his ministerial status. And now once again Roth has been arrested for speaking out for the unemployed.

Condemn the Repression -- Build the Mass Struggle!

Despite their confused politics and misguided tactics, the DMS/Network in no way deserved the rain of arrests, harassment and libel visited upon them by the agents of capital. The reactionaries are fully aware that their real target is not just a band of reformers but rather the unemployed movement and the working class itself. Activists in the unemployed movement and all class conscious workers should heed the lessons of the struggle in Mon Valley and rally the real force capable of resisting the attacks of capital -- the mass of workers both employed and unemployed. This force is indeed stirring for the fight.

Alongside the celebrated stunts of the DMS/Network (skunk oil at church services and dead fish at the Mellon Bank), the mass movement in various forms has continued to percolate in the Mon Valley. A militant demonstration of took place in Pittsburgh on April 7, 1983 denouncing Reagan as he spoke to a so-called "jobs conference." A series of sizable demonstrations and rallies against plant shutdowns has continued right to the present time. As well the specter of permanent unemployment for many and new waves of unemployed yet to be generated by the capitalist crisis looms large in the Mon Valley and elsewhere. Further the Reaganite cutbacks in the meager social services for the unemployed and impoverished add more combustible material to the social tinderbox.

Yet another showdown between capital and the working masses on the question of unemployment is in the making. With correct orientation and revolutionary tactics, the masses have the strength to battle the capitalists for relief from the perils of unemployment and to attack the source of unemployment itself, the capitalist system.

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The hoax of the poor victimized U.S. corporations

The capitalist media is painting the present trade conflict with Japan in the red, white and blue colors of "free trade" America being victimized by the "unfair" Japanese marauders. This would be comic if the capitalists didn't have sinister anti-worker aims in creating this hoax. Let's look at a few essential facts that help puncture this lie of good-natured U.S. corporations allegedly being taken advantage of by unscrupulous foreigners.

Far from being "victims," the U.S. capitalists are one of the most powerful groups of world marauders and bloodsuckers. The U.S. multinational corporations have built a worldwide empire of markets and investments. And they have conquered this economic empire with the most ruthless methods.

U.S. companies are known as the most notorious dumpers, conquering markets by flooding them with surplus (frequently contaminated or dangerous) goods. In Latin America, Asia and Africa this has often had disastrous consequences for the agricultural base and industries of the countries involved.

Along with economic bullying and pressure comes the political and military big stick. The bloody hands of the Pentagon and the CIA have been felt all over the globe, twisting arms, toppling governments, and putting down the working masses to create a "favorable climate" for U.S. corporate investment and trade.

Today Congress is crying foul that Japan is making it hard on ITT to enter the Japanese market. But 14 years ago it watched gleefully as the CIA overthrew the government in Chile and set up the barbaric Pinochet dictatorship to make sure the ITT's profits were safe there.

The truth is that in both the U.S. and Japan power is in the hands of monopoly capitalist groups that thrive on exploitation, plunder and robbery. There is no such thing as "fairness" among gangsters.

The capitalist media is raving against the $37 billion trade deficit with Japan as the proof of Japanese "unfairness." But Japanese trade practices can't explain why the U.S. is running parallel deficits with all of its major trading partners ($20 billion with Canada, $17 billion with Western Europe, etc., etc.) This is because these huge trade deficits have been created by factors that are bound up with the world capitalist economic crisis in general and the decay and parasitism gripping the U.S. economy in particular.

If you cut through all the "Japan bashing" rhetoric, you find that U.S.-Japanese trade isn't a one-way street. The U.S. has the largest and Japan may now have the second largest economy in the world, and the economic and financial intercourse between the U.S. and Japan is greater than between any other two countries. And the U.S. corporations reap untold billions in profits from their close ties with their Japanese counterparts.

Among other things, despite all the fuss about the "impenetrable" Japanese markets, Japan provides the second largest market for U.S. exports (agricultural products, chemicals, aircraft, lumber, pharmaceuticals, etc.). At the same time, U.S. corporations -- from General Motors, to IBM, to Sears -- rake in untold billions in profits on the import of Japanese goods and components to the U.S.

As well, many U.S. multinationals are closely linked to Japanese multinationals and often they have big investments in them. For example, GM controls a big share of Isuzu and Suzuki, Ford of Mazda, and Chrysler of Mitsubishi. And in recent years Japanese capital is also flowing into U.S. firms.

What you won't find in the anti-Japanese tirades is mention of the fact that the U.S. applies the very same protectionist measures that the Japanese are accused of. These include: import quotas, such as the quotas protecting the U.S. textile and clothing industry; protective tariffs, such as the surcharges the Reagan administration imposed on Japanese motorcycles and the 25% tariff it placed on Japanese light trucks; and indirect trade restrictions, like the FDA testing regulations that effectively block foreign produced drugs.

These protectionist measures not only guard market shares; they are also good for sticking the masses with higher priced and lower quality goods.

The public is being fed headlines calling for "retaliation" against Japan, while in the small print in the financial pages the bourgeois economists are attributing the soaring trade deficits to a number of factors. One of these is the soaring dollar which has steeply raised the price of U.S. exports and cut the price of imports. But this too is not a one-way street. The strong dollar is bad for the balance of trade, but it's also a fantastic windfall for the Wall Street financiers collecting on foreign loans and for other operations of the U.S. multinationals.

In short, the scenario being painted of the poor American corporations being beaten up by the nasty Japanese is a big nationalistic hoax. But it's a hoax of great value for the capitalist exploiters.

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U.S. Imperialism, Get Out of Central America!

[Graphic.]

Down with Reagan's embargo! Down with the dirty war against Nicaragua!

On May 1 Ronald Reagan declared an embargo on all commercial transactions between Nicaragua and the U.S., carefully excluding, however, the dropping of bombs on Nicaragua and the provision of bullets and weapons to kill the Nicaraguan people, for which he left open an escape clause in his embargo about goods "destined for the organized democratic resistance." This marked a new stage in the dirty war of the Reagan administration, with bipartisan congressional backing, to strangle Nicaragua.

Reagan's rationale is the typical one of aggressors and imperialists: no country in the traditional American sphere of influence should be allowed to break free of the dictate of the American State Department and Pentagon. He laid down a series of conditions for Nicaragua to meet: nothing short of arranging both its internal policies and its foreign policies according to the desires of American capitalism. Speaking the language of the bully, he declared that tiny Nicaragua's policies constitute a "national emergency" for the U.S.

But the cynicism of Reagan's "national emergency" and the brutality of his total embargo are matched only by the impotence of his actions. Today giant U.S. imperialism rages and fumes but cannot enforce its will. The revolutionary struggle continues in El Salvador and the Nicaraguan people resist the dirty war.

All American class conscious workers and progressive activists should come to the support of the Central American peoples. The reply of the American working masses to Reagan's new step can only be to step up their work to build up their own revolutionary movement, separate and opposed to both the democrats and the Republicans, both of whom support the strangulation of Nicaragua.

Behind Reagan's 'peace initiative' --more war on Nicaragua.

On April 4 Reagan pulled out a new "Peace Initiative" for Nicaragua. Now Reagan would not fund the contra war on Nicaragua. Not at all. He would simply provide "humanitarian" aid to the contras. Presumably the welfare cuts in aid to dependent children would go to a new program, aid to CIA-dependent contras.

The basic feature of this plan was that military aid was simply to be renamed as a sort of welfare. In case there was any doubt as to what kind of aid it would be, it would still be distributed by the CIA.

But, as is well known, Reagan is an enemy of all welfare payments (unless they are subsidies to corporations or tax cuts for millionaires), so he insisted that this procedure should only last 60 days. In this 60 days, the Nicaraguan government was supposed to surrender to the contras, or else direct military aid to the CIA mercenaries would begin once again. To be precise, Reagan specified that the Nicaraguan government must:

* Lay down their arms and cease to defend themselves against the CIA and the contras;

* Enter into negotiations with the contras;

* Reach an agreement in those negotiations to nullify the recent Nicaraguan elections and call new ones, with "international supervision" to see to it that the contras obtain a role in the government; and

* Lift restrictions on the rights of the big bourgeoisie in Nicaragua and the lying press that takes U.S. money and supports the contras, and on the Catholic Church hierarchy, which also supports the attempt to strangle the Nicaraguan revolution.

In short, the Reagan "Peace Initiative" demanded once again that the U.S. be allowed to dictate Nicaraguan internal and external policy, whereupon Reagan would have no more reason to wage war on it than upon the Republican National Committee.

It should come as no surprise that Reagan, who has said that he wants to make the Nicaraguans cry "uncle," pulled out a "Peace Initiative" that consisted of more fist-shaking against the revolution. The most interesting thing about Reagan's "peace" plan, however, is the reaction of the Democrats to it. After shouting about how they would vote down military aid to the contras (having carefully last year ensured that so-called "private aid" would fill the gap -- see the accompanying article on "private aid" to the contras), they now found Reagan's plan an excellent framework to build their own bills on. There was a whole series of proposals, debates and rival "peace plans" which followed Reagan's lead, only slightly "improving" on it; for example, proposing that not the CIA, but some other agency should distribute the "humanitarian" aid.

In fact, from the conservative Democratic to the "left"-posturing liberals, there was widespread support for aiding the contras; the only thing under discussion was the degree of cover-up necessary for this policy. The April 22 Democratic Senate proposal, for example, was virtually the same as Reagan's -- "humanitarian" aid only, on condition of a ceasefire, but the aid was not to be distributed through the CIA.

Meanwhile the liberal House Democrats Michael Barnes and Lee H. Hamilton (D-Indiana) also called for $14 million to subjugate Nicaragua, just as Reagan had, but was a shade more subtle. This plan was billed as the no-aid-to-the-contras plan because it allocated $10 million in "humanitarian" aid to Nicaraguan "refugees" and $4 million towards policing any agreement reached between the Sandinistas and the contras. One catch to this proposal was that the Nicaraguan refugees referred to are the contras --calling them by another name does not change them into something else! This plan passed the House on April 24 the first time it was voted on.

The Barnes plan satisfied the requirements of liberal Edward P. Boland, who was the father of the famous 1982 Boland amendment which allegedly "prohibited" spending congressional funds on overthrowing the Nicaraguan government but in fact changed nothing. Boland felt that "it is time to develop a coordinated policy toward Nicaragua that has a chance for peace." Apparently Boland's main criticism of the dirty war on Nicaragua is that it is uncoordinated and ineffective. Boland praise the new Democratic Party plan to the skies, saying that "We should not abandon those who legitimately oppose the Sandinistas." Thus Boland came down foursquare behind the "legitimate" terrorism of the CIA and the contras. He noted approvingly that the plan allowed Reagan to request resumption of open military aid as early as October 1 if the progress toward "peace" was unsatisfactory. The plan "keeps the contras in the game," said Boland. (New York Times, April 25,1985)

But when the Democratic plan for funding the contras was voted on again in the House it lost, partly because a number of right-wing Republicans favored a more direct victory for Reagan's plan and partly because the majority of House Democrats were afraid of what would happen after a House-Senate conference committee got through with it. The Democrats were afraid that the peace demagogy would be stripped off. The outcome, for the time being, was a fluke; no one's plan passed. But, of course, the real funding of the contras continues behind the scenes anyway.

Another notable feature of the Democratic views on Reagan's plan was the call for economic sanctions. For example, the December 22 Democratic proposal in the Senate called for trade sanctions against the Sandinistas if they refuse to negotiate seriously (i.e., if they fail to agree to what the U.S. demands) towards a peace settlement. It is no wonder that Reagan felt the door was open to declare an embargo on Nicaragua, and the first reactions from Congress since the embargo indicate that many democrats are quite favorable.

The past month's debate on Reagan's "peace" plan shows how similar the goals and even the methods of the Democrats and Republicans are in attempting to strangle Nicaragua. It also shows the complete hypocrisy of U.S. imperialism, which wages war in the name of "peace," dictates to other countries in the name of "non-interference" and organizes terrorist murder squads to kill as many Nicaraguan revolutionaries as possible in the name of struggle against "state-sponsored terrorism."

How Congress provided for private funding for the 'contras'

Throughout the past year there has been much noise from Capitol Hill about whether the CIA-organized contras are to continue to receive direct aid or not. Reagan shakes his finger and demands to know if the Congress is going to abandon his "brothers" in crime to their own devices. But this has all been playacting. Last year Congress quietly passed a bill providing yet another alternative source of funding for the contras, from private sources with government backing.

Thus this year the Reagan administration has stepped up its soliciting of contributions from wealthy right-wing individuals, corporations, and paramilitary agencies. Reagan officials, in collaboration with ex-military and intelligence officers and other prominent reactionaries, have organized a regular private conduit.

Aid from this project is reported to have reached one million dollars a month by late '84, which is roughly equivalent to the $14 million request for fiscal year 1985 which was debated with so much fanfare in Congress. This shows that all the Democrats' recent grandstanding about restricting funds to the contras doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

It is true that the contras have been in trouble. But this is due to their isolation from the masses of Nicaraguan people. As far as their umbilical cord to the U.S. goes, the contras' supply lines have never been in much doubt. The various official and unofficial channels used include congressional aid; secret contingency funds from the CIA and the Pentagon; third party conduits such as Israel, El Salvador and Guatemala; direct transfer of equipment through Honduras, which the U.S. has turned into an armed camp; and the private aid.

When, in the summer of '84, Congress cut off the official aid to the contras, it quickly took steps to ensure that the contras would not go without provisions. Among other things, in the fall of '84, Congress approved an amendment to the Defense Authorization act and authorized the Defense Department to ship privately financed "humanitarian" aid to Central America aboard U.S. military planes which are flying there anyway and which have space available.

This gaping loophole is a blatant endorsement of sending the contras any gift from the millionaires at any time. (And it is also a big government contribution to this aid, for transportation is usually one of the big expenses of any aid project to distant places. This is not even counting the tax credits the reactionaries probably receive for being part of Reagan "voluntarism" of providing private charity.) On April 6, for instance, a U.S. military plane flew a 15,000 lb. shipment of private "humanitarian" aid to Nicaraguan refugees in Honduras (the contras) which was said to include food, clothing, medical supplies, a truck and a motorcycle. Not only are these all essential supplies for combat, but they also free up the contras other resources to buy arms (even supposing no arms were actually contained in the shipment itself).

A glimpse at this "private" aid scheme, specifically endorsed by Congress, shows that when Congress declares itself against or delays official aid to the war on Nicaragua, its fingers are crossed behind its back. It is merely trying to distance itself publicly from the contras' rapes.and murders and the CIA's bombings, while supporting the war behind the scenes.

Reagan's 'brothers'

As Reagan and the Congress debate over how to fund the contras -- should the CIA distribute the aid or should a "humanitarian" agency do so -- the evidence continues to pile up on what exactly Washington uses them for. Even bourgeois organizations are now documenting what the contras are well known for -- systematic butchery of the Nicaraguan working people The contras are nothing but a cutthroat band of mercenary CIA-bought and paid for killers, who are trying to come to power in Nicaragua on a wave of murder, rape and torture. Far from being heroic figures, they are nothing but cowardly assassins who dare fight only when backed to the hilt by the American military.

These are, according to Reagan, his "brothers." And indeed it is only fitting that Reagan, the man who is going to lay a wreath this month to honor the memory of the Nazi butchers of World War II at the Bitburg cemetery in West Germany and stay at the castle of one of Hitler's godsons, regards the ragtag cutthroat contras as his kith and kin.

Let us review some of the recent reports about Reagan's adopted family.

Americas Watch, a private, non-political organization with a liberal bourgeois viewpoint, published a report on March 5 which was corroborated by a different investigation released the same day by Reed Brody, a former New York State assistant attorney general. The Brody report is based on 145 sworn affidavits from witnesses to atrocities carried out by the contras. (Interviews for the report were conducted in Nicaragua between September '84 and January '85. Thirty of the witnesses were independently re-interviewed by attorneys from the International Human Rights Law Group, the Washington Office on Latin America, and the office of Rep. Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.) The New York Times then conducted its own interviews of four of the witnesses.)

The Brody report details 28 separate incidents which "have resulted in assassination, torture, rape, kidnapping and mutilation of civilians" by the contras. (New York Times, March 7, 1985) Americas Watch reached the same conclusion and specified that the victims it referred to were unarmed civilians, including women and children "who were fleeing." (New York Times, March 6, 1985) As well, Americas Watch lawyer Robert Goldman reports, "What we have found, time and time again, is that with indiscriminate mortor attacks, the contras treat whole civilian locales as if it were a legitimate military target." (New York Times, March 6, 1985)

All five contra groups were involved in crimes against both civilians and prisoners. Both groups paid special attention to FDN, the CIA-created army of ex-Somoza National Guardsmen in Honduras and pointed to the FDN's "deliberate use of terror" and its policy of executing its prisoners. (New York Times, March 6, 1985) Victims of rape and torture told the New York Times they identified their attackers by their uniforms marked FDN and by their tents, knapsacks and boots with USA printed on them. (New York Times, March 7, 1985)

One of the conclusions of Americas Watch is that "The United States has aided and abetted the contras in committing abuses by organizing, training, supplying and financing them." (New York Times, March 6, 1985) Of course, this is no revelation. The CIA murder manual for the contras advised them in the use of terror and murder, while a companion CIA manual on economic sabotage advised them to strike at the people's livelihood.

Why are the contras torturing and killing the civilian population? It is because they know they can only come back to power by suppressing the people and terrorizing them into submission. They want to prevent the Nicaraguan workers and peasants from getting their first taste of freedom. They would rather see these toilers dead than leading a happy, revolutionary life. Whatever has improved the lives of the toilers is what the contras want to destroy. They frequently direct their strikes against health facilities, schools and cooperative farms -- gains of the revolution won through great sacrifice. The workers at these facilities, mobilized to serve the revolution, are themselves a special target which the contras want to eliminate.

Recently the Central American Health Rights Network released a report on the contra attacks on health facilities. It is entitled "Health and the War Against Nicaragua, 1981-1984" and coauthored by Dr. David Siegel, associate director of emergency services at San Francisco General Hospital, and Richard Garfield, an epidemiologist at Columbia University. The report also points to the contras' terrorism and points out that "doctors, nurses, teachers and especially community volunteers have often been kidnapped, tortured, raped or killed by the contras. Dr. Siegel says that the findings in the report are also confirmed by other groups, including the Pan American Health Organization. (Associated Press, March 25,1985)

The contras are not just murderers of the Nicaraguan people, but they spread crime and murder to the neighboring Central American countries where they reside. For example, a former top Salvadoran intelligence official, ex-Col. Roberto Santivanez, declared that a Nicaraguan contra helped assassinate El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who was a liberal critic of the death squad regime in El Salvador. The contra. Col. Richard "Chino" Lau, acted as a contract killer and received $120,000 for his murderous activities; U.S. officials say Lau was intelligence chief for the FDN contra group. Santivanez should know, as he was former director of the Salvadoran government murder agency called ANSESAL, a predecessor of the present intelligence agency. Santivanez also pointed to the role of the senior Salvadoran reactionary military officers in death squad activities. (Associated Press, March 22, 1985)

The Associated Press also reports that Col. Lau, a former official in Somoza's National Guard, is accused by Honduran military officials of being involved in political assassinations in Honduras as well.

Hideous as the contras' barbarities may be, the Nicaraguan people are not cowed by them. They experienced the bayonets of the National Guard before, when it was in power and used the same methods. Now, since the revolution, the Nicaraguan masses are in a better position to reply to these attacks. They are fighting hard to defend themselves against what they call "Las Bestias" (The Beasts).

Contra butcher denounced at Northwestern U.

The CIA-organized Nicaraguan contras have such a despicable notoriety that it isn't often that the Reaganites try to parade their representatives on public platforms in the U.S. There was a recent attempt to carry out such an event, but the contra butcher got a fitting reception from angry protesters.

On April 13, Adolfo Calero was scheduled to speak at Northwestern University in Evanston, near Chicago. Calero is a top leader of the FDN contra group; he was a big businessman and reactionary politician in Nicaragua in the Somoza days. He is touring the U.S. to drum up support for Reagan's $14 million aid plan for the contras. But the militant stand of a crowd of protestors successfully forced Calero to run.

A demonstration had been called outside the meeting hall. Nearly 200 people showed up, including supporters of the MLP. The crowd shouted slogans against Reagan, the CIA, the contras and in support of the Nicaraguan revolution. Shortly before the time Calero was scheduled to speak, the demonstrators moved inside the hall. And now the meeting hall rang with the loud shouting of slogans and chants.

There was some controversy in the meeting hall about whether Calero should be allowed to speak. Unfortunately, the opposition to Calero was not of one voice to prevent Calero from speaking; a representative of the reformist April 20th Coalition pleaded for Calero to be allowed to speak. But this was not to be.

Calero came into the room accompanied by two bodyguards from a right- wing Cuban group. But the thunderous shouting of slogans made it impossible for him to speak. Then a woman activist went to the platform and threw a carton of animal blood all over Calero and his Cuban buddies. With this, Calero was whisked away and his speech canceled. Security tried to get the woman who threw the blood but she got away.

Large numbers of students stayed around discussing the evening's events and vigorous arguments took place. Supporters of the MLP participated in the debates, discussing the issue of opposing Reagan's contra war in Nicaragua and explaining the necessity of blocking such mouthpieces of gangsterism as Calero from spewing their vile propaganda.

The action against contra butcher Calero struck a sharp blow against the Reaganite war drive. It demonstrated that there is an active opposition to Reagan's war on Nicaragua and it showed that it is important to build up the fight against the warmongers on a militant basis.

The mouthpieces of aggression have no shortage of capitalist media through which they spread their lies about Nicaragua and try to prepare public opinion in favor of counterrevolution. The opponents of Reaganite aggression are never afforded such opportunities. They have to seize every opportunity to make the voice of protest heard.

What is more, it is important to build up a militant confrontation against the imperialists. The war in Nicaragua is not a matter of some nice intellectual discussion, but it is a war waged by the contras with torture,, slaughter, rape and mutilations. The organizers of this war cannot be convinced to change their ways through polite argument, nor can they be allowed to calmly spread their lies. To them there can only be one reply -- active resistance!

Protests against the mouthpieces of imperialist aggression

This spring, protests are again greeting appearances by representatives of Reagan's imperialist war drive. Over the last few years this has become a frequent occurrence. The Jeane Kirkpatricks, Weinbergers and Kissingers have become the targets of angry protest whenever they make public appearances.

On March 5, Otto Juan Reich of the State Department traveled to Philadelphia to speak at the Cosmopolitan Club on Central America. Reich was appointed by Shultz as Coordinator of Public Diplomacy for Central America and the Caribbean in 1983. A picket of 50 people showed up to greet Mr. Reich.

The demonstrators condemned U.S. bombing in El Salvador, the contra war against Nicaragua and the persecution of Salvadoran refugees in the U.S. The Philadelphia Committee to Support the MLP,USA took part in the action.

On April 4, Caspar Weinberger, Secretary of Defense, was greeted by nearly 500 protesters when he came to speak at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. There was a lively and militant picket, with slogans against apartheid, the nuclear war drive, and the nuclear war buildup. The MLP took part with banners which declared: To fight nuclear weapons, fight imperialism! and U.S. imperialism, out of El Salvador! The comrades distributed a large number of copies of The Workers' Advocate and a leaflet "Build the movement against apartheid! "

[Photo: Picket against Caspar Weinberger, San Francisco, April 4.]

[Photo: Protest against Reagan's mouthpiece in Philadelphia, March 5.]

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Oppose government crackdown on sanctuary movement

No Deportations!

The Reagan government is cracking down hard against activists assisting refugees fleeing the U.S.-backed death squad dictatorships in El Salvador and Guatemala. A federal grand jury indicted 16 activists this past January on charges of conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens into the U.S. Activist Jack Elder was convicted and threatened with a 30- year prison term. In March he was sentenced to 150 days in a halfway house and he is also under court order not to work with refugees. Elder is the director of the Casa Romero refugee shelter in San Benito, Texas, which is a first stop along the "underground railroad'' for Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees.

A religious lay worker from Colorado, Stacy Merck, has also been convicted and sentenced to 179 days in prison. She is out on appeal but only on condition that she stop working with refugees or even speak publicly about defending them.

Both Elder and Merck are part of the church-based sanctuary movement which is guided by liberal politics and whose activists are guided by humanitarian concerns. But the mild nature of this movement hasn't stopped the government from coming down hard with indictments, threats of heavy prison terms, fines and gag orders. The INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) has also resorted to the police-state tactics of infiltrating meetings in churches with undercover agents and informers and collecting a hundred hours of tapes to back up the indictments.

The government is baring its teeth to intimidate the sanctuary movement; it is out to get the Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees and will kick at anybody that gets in its way.

The Refugees Bear the Brunt of the Repression

When the 16 activists from the sanctuary movement were indicted, 60 Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees who had been assisted by the activists were rounded up like cattle, detained and threatened with deportation. Meanwhile, the INS has added 123 agents at the Texas border to intensify its manhunt against the Central American refugees.

In the four years from 1980-83, close to 30,000 Salvadoran refugees were deported from the U.S. Many of these have been sent back only to join the tens of thousands of assassinated, "disappeared," and tortured victims of the death squads.

But to assist its puppet dictatorship in San Salvador suppress the people, Washington refuses to grant the Salvadoran refugees political asylum. In 1984, of the 13,548 Salvadorans who applied for it, only 503 or a mere 4% were granted the status of political refugees. While Salvadorans made up 31% of all applicants for asylum in the U.S., they made up only 1% of the cases granted. Meanwhile 4,000 of these denied applicants were deported to the tender mercies of the bloody regime.

The Naked Cynicism of the INS in Persecuting the Central American Refugees

INS officials are justifying the deportations of the refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala with three crude and cynical arguments:

* First, the INS makes the claim that the situation doesn't warrant it, that the strife in El Salvador and Guatemala doesn't pose enough of a danger to grant refugees asylum.

But the whole world knows about the massacres and brutality of the Salvadoran military and paramilitary forces. When it is reported that "only" a thousand people in a month fell victim to the death squads, the State Department declares this a victory for "human rights." At the same time the Duarte government has stepped up the bomb- of rural villages. And the persecution of young men attempting to avoid military service is particularly severe; they are branded subversives and made the special target of torture and murder.

The Guatemalan regime is also waging a ruthless war against its own people. Last month the Guatemalan president declared that seeking the fate of the tens of thousands of "disappeared" is "subversive activity"; soon afterwards the death squads assassinated a number of activists (and family members) working in a group concerned with the "disappeared." No wonder that 250,000 Guatemalans have fled such repression.

But it seems that the INS applies a test to the refugees from these blood- soaked U.S.-backed regimes reminiscent of the Salem witch trials: if you haven't been killed or mutilated then why should the INS believe you are in danger?

* Second, the INS argues that these are not political refugees but economic refugees just looking for a better job.

They make this claim because, as we've seen, they turn a blind eye to the political terror of the regimes. At the same time, it should be pointed out that there aren't always sharp lines between political and economic refugees.

The terror has driven large numbers underground and deprived them of a livelihood. In both countries, to put down the peasant insurgency, tens of thousands of peasants have been uprooted by military "search and destroy" sweeps and many more have been driven into concentration camps called "model villages." Such dislocated workers and peasants are also victims of the U.S.-backed terror and should enjoy every right to come to the U.S. to survive.

* And third, the INS justifies its policy by asserting that the refugees don't have to come to the U.S. for safety but can go to a neighboring country for safe haven.

But this too is a cynical disregard for the facts.

More than fifty Guatemalan refugee camps have been set up inside Mexico's southern border. The Mexican government allows the Guatemalan military to cross the border to enter the camps at will and terrorize the refugees in its search for "subversives."

Meanwhile, the Salvadoran army has brutally massacred civilians attempting to flee into Honduras. And if they reach the camps in Honduras there is still no safety. The camps are kept under the constant watch of the Honduran military which takes its orders from the Pentagon and the CIA. These foxes guarding the chicken coop also allow the Salvadoran military and paramilitary forces to storm the camps to terrorize the refugees and kidnap and murder those they choose. What's more, these camps leave the refugees with no way to survive, at one camp even forbidding them from going to the nearby river for drinking water or washing.

Defend the Refugees

But the INS' lies can't hide the simple truth: the U.S. government is out to terrorize the Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees as part of its all-sided backing of the murderous regimes that the refugees are fleeing from. Further, the

U.S. government fears the influx of these workers and peasants who often bring with them their bitter experience with U.S. imperialism in their homelands and revolutionary ideas. Meanwhile, the U.S. government keeps the doors wide open for all of Reagan's "brothers": the big exploiters and Somocistas from Nicaragua and other fascist scum from all over the world.

The government's brutal policy against the Central American refugees and its persecution of the sanctuary movement have provoked outrage among the American people. The city governments of Berkeley, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts have both recently passed resolutions for the city administrations to not assist the INS in their persecution of the refugees. While this means little for the refugees' fate, this is another sign that people support their right to asylum.

Of particular importance is that a number of mass actions have broken out against the persecution of the immigrants. For example, in Chicago, there was the protest at the house of the regional head of the INS and a protest march organized by the MLP in the Mexican community both of which denounced recent raids and the complicity of the city government in the INS witchhunt. Other protests against the deportation of refugees have taken place in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Rochester, N.Y., Washington, D.C., New York City and elsewhere.

Let us work to build up the mass struggle against the Reagan government's persecution of the Central American refugees. Let us work to build solidarity with the revolutionary struggles of the workers and peasants of El Salvador and Guatemala against the death-squad regimes and U.S. imperialism. No deportations! Defend the rights of the immigrants! U.S. imperialism, get out of Central America!

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Condemn the brutal attacks on the Mexican immigrants

In the last two weeks of April the INS carried out a series of factory raids in the Chicago area against undocumented workers. In the largest known factory raid in the area, 84 workers suspected of being in the country without documents were arrested at Service Plastic Co. where they slaved at minimum wage making television components. The arrested workers were all from Mexico. Half of them were women who were pumped for information as to the whereabouts of their children. The INS then grabbed the children from their schools and threw them into the detention centers to be deported along with their mothers.

Meanwhile, the border patrol agents have launched major attacks against immigrants attempting to enter the country in southern California.

On April 18, the Migra agents seized and arrested a 15-year-old Mexican youth from Tijuana who had crossed the border into the U.S. and was attempting to return home. Several Mexican youth across the border protested the unjust arrest by throwing rocks, bottles and other debris at the agents. One of the border patrolmen shot three times into the crowd on the Mexican side of the border, wounding the 12-year-old brother of the teenager they had just arrested.

A few days later, on April 28, through the early morning hours, the INS organized a special nighttime operation along the border in the same area, between San Ysidro and the base of the Otay Mountains, apprehending 919 immigrants. Most of those arrested were from Mexico, three were from Honduras, one from Peru and four were Salvadoran refugees.

Shooting youth who protest unjust arrests, mass arrests in the factories and at the border, and seizing immigrant children from the schools is vile racist persecution which must be condemned by immigrants and native-born alike.

No to the attacks on the immigrants!

No to the raids!

No deportations!

Down with La Migra!

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In the face of the U.S. embargo:

Support the campaign for the Nicaraguan workers' press!

Reagan has proclaimed a "national emergency" in order to throw up an economic embargo against Nicaragua. This hostile measure against such an impoverished and weak country is another of the long list of crimes of the U.S. government against the Nicaraguan people.

The Nicaraguan revolution is under military, political and economic siege from U.S. imperialism and the U.S.- backed counterrevolution. This calls for the workers and progressive people in the U.S. to link arms with the revolutionary masses in Nicaragua.

The Nicaraguan revolution has been created by the workers and poor peasants. It is they who suffered most under Somoza, who mounted the barricades of the insurrection, and who today form the bulwark in the war against the U.S.-backed contra war. It is the workers and toilers who have a great stake in carrying forward the revolution against the exploitation and poverty they suffer at the hands of the rich exploiters.

The party of the Nicaraguan working class, the Movement of Popular Action (Marxist-Leninist), which played an important role in the workers' struggle against the Somoza tyranny, is today organizing the working masses as an independent class force to carry forward the revolution.

On this page we continue to reprint materials from Prensa Proletaria the newspaper of MAP-ML, which give a picture of the concrete work of MAP-ML and its trade union organization Workers Front (FO) within the class struggle in Nicaragua. The article on the Plywood workers, for example, shows the workers taking action to defend the gains of the revolution and it shows the importance of unleashing the energy of the working masses for defense against imperialist aggression and to solve the economic problems that confront the people.

The workers' press of MAP-ML and FO plays an important role in the struggle inside Nicaragua. It shows how to build up the strongest defense against the U.S.-organized aggression. It shows how to combat the reactionary big bourgeoisie. And it works to free the masses from the illusions fostered by the petty-bourgeois Sandinista government.

Presently the workers' press is facing a number of major challenges. For years it has been confronted by grave shortages of supplies due to the hostile U.S. economic measures; and the new U.S. trade embargo will make the situation even more severe. On top of this the workers' press has also suffered disproportionately from a number of government measures, and most recently from a new measure blocking access to foreign exchange for the purchase of needed supplies.

The reactionary pro-U.S. mouthpiece La Prensa doesn't suffer from shortages or lack of foreign currency because it is being showered with dollars from Reagan's so-called National Endowment for Democracy and other imperialist sources. The pro-Sandinista press has the backing of the government. But the workers' press rests on the shoulders of the impoverished workers and peasants.

The Marxist-Leninist Party is conducting a political and financial campaign to support the Nicaraguan workers' press. It calls on all workers and anti-imperialist activists to participate in this campaign as a concrete act of solidarity with the Nicaraguan working people in the face of the embargoes and aggression of U.S. imperialism.

Please send your contributions to: [Address.]

[Prensa Proletaria masthead.]

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Build class solidarity!

In Nicaragua, today more than ever the link stands out between the day-to- day struggles of the working masses and the fundamental struggle between the classes. Hence the great importance of working on building class unity and solidarity. No sector of workers in struggle against the bosses or the state bureaucracy should be left isolated from their class brothers, neither in the "smaller" struggles nor in the more generalized struggles which are being raised from a genuinely revolutionary perspective. Defense against the military and economic aggression of imperialism demands redoubling the political and economic struggles against the bourgeoisie and its agents, the paid politicians -- Conservative, Social-Christian, Liberal, and others. For class principles in the economic demands and in the political struggle of the Nicaraguan proletariat. Build class solidarity deep in the working class and toilers. There is no other road for the immediate and strategic defense of the socialist future in Nicaragua.

(Reprinted from Prensa Proletaria, No. 14, March 16-31, 1985. Translations by the WA staff.)

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The Marxist-Leninists in the National Assembly

MAP-ML's representatives in the National Assembly (comrades Isidro Tellez and Carlos Cuadra) have continued fighting against the petty-bourgeois/ bourgeois majority in the National Assembly. MAP-ML's parliamentary delegation has clearly characterized our Party's conception of this work. It is an important front of political and ideological struggle, but not a fundamental one. The fundamental struggle is in the streets, in the factories, in the militias, in the political and ideological struggle deep among the masses, and it is there that MAP-ML and its trade union organization, the Workers Front (FO), will concentrate their revolutionary actions. Nevertheless, the Assembly is a useful forum for unmasking the... pretensions of the Sandinista petty bourgeoisie and the conflict of the bourgeoisie with this power for greater economic and political concessions for itself. The proletariat must not march to the rhythm of this bourgeois fight for power, but must carry out its own struggle independently, well demarcated from both the reactionary ambitions of the bourgeoisie -- something which the [Socialist Party and Communist Party] revisionists are incapable of doing -- and from the conciliatory positions of the Sandinista petty bourgeoisie, which tries to turn itself into the arbitrator of the class conflicts.

MAP-ML forms part of the Health Commission of the National Assembly, which is presided over by the conservative physician Dr. Clemente Guido. This commission has been incapable of taking charge of an in-depth investigation of large thefts, which appear to already be part of the whole administrative system of the Ministry of Health. Inexplicably, the MINS A is one of the Ministries where more has become known of corruption, thefts, embezzlement, without any authority demanding a thorough investigation or bringing the holder of this portfolio, i.e., Guido, before the law. The administrative inefficiency of the bureaucrats should be a crime when it turns into an affair without solution or something chronic which is hurting the pocketbooks and well-being of the people.

MAP-ML's representatives will continue insisting on activating this Commission, and will set forward our position on the administrative inefficiency in a proposal of law. The tons of milk lost in the ports by bureaucracy, the case of the Soviet spark plugs, the harvests of potatoes and onions that have to be incinerated, new cases of incineration of medicines lost by having gone past their expiration dates in the MINSA warehouses, etc., all clearly show the necessity for a response that gets to the bottom of these problems.

(Reprinted from Prensa Proletaria, No. 14, March 16-31, 1985. Translation by the WA staff.)

[Photo: The delegation of MAP-ML in the National Assembly, Comrades Isidro Tellez and Carlos Cuadra.]

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Worker fired for running on MAP/ML ticket

The dismissal of tractor driver Julio Velasquez from the "Benjamin Zeledon" Ingenio [sugar plantation and refinery] in Rivas "is illegal; moreover it is a maneuver of political repression," declared the Workers Front [FO] regarding this case.

Velasquez was dismissed February 20 with no greater justification than Article 116 of the Somocista Labor Code [the reactionary labor code adopted under the tyrant Somoza still remains in effect in Nicaragua -- WA], notwithstanding that the administration knows the political status of the person affected.

The worker Velasquez appeared as a candidate of MAP-ML for the National Assembly elected November 4, and the summit agreements on political parties established that no one could be dismissed for this political activity. And so the administration and the trade union leadership not only violated the traditional laws but also this political agreement.

In this regard, Velasquez said that steps for his return are going forward "and in a short time I believe that I will again be in the ingenio."

(Reprinted from Prensa Proletaria, No. 14, March 16-31, 1985. Translation by the WA staff.)

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The struggle of the plywood workers

On Friday, March 8, more than 400 workers at the Plywood plant were laid off by the administration of the enterprise, with the approval of the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Industry, thus sending into unemployment and condemning to hunger more than 2,000 people affected by this measure, without taking into account what effect this order will have in the construction sector.

The Plywood workers had decided to go on to an active seizure of the factory, demanding concrete and favorable answers in the face of the threat of closing and unemployment that the administration had announced earlier. Indeed, on Monday, March 4, the administration had called together all the workers from Plywood to give them the fatal notice that this enterprise had to shut down operations for two months, arguing that it was not possible to continue extracting timber from some zones where the armed counterrevolutionary bands were functioning actively and causing destruction and threatening the workers. For the two months that Plywood was to be closed, the administration offered employment at the TIMAL Sugar Plantation, but offered no guarantee, at this time, that the workers placed there would continue in the same job classification and earn at least the same wage. TIMAL basically offered positions cutting sugar cane (for seed) and sowing cane. The wage level at this time for this type of labor was 2,500 cordobas. Obviously, the qualified labor from Plywood demanded at the least, that if they were relocated, the wage that they were earning at the time of the closing would not be lowered. At this time the administration gave no guarantee along these lines.

The workers stated, furthermore, that the lack of raw material was due not only to the actions of the bands in the lumbering areas, but also to the bad administration, lack of planning by the management, lack of foresight, etc., whose effects did not have to be absorbed solely by the workers at the base. Confronted by the lack of responses from the administration, the Ministries of Industry and Labor, and from the Sandinista Workers Central [the CST trade union center] itself, the workers from Plywood decided to go on to seizing the factory on March 5 to press for the following demands that they put forward, including in an official letter to President Daniel Ortega, although he never answered:

1. To form among the Plywood workers cutting brigades which would integrate themselves into the extraction of timber and who could thus report on the real conditions there.

2. That the Sandinista Popular Army should give sufficient military protection to the work of extracting timber, just as is carried out in some zones with the harvesting of coffee.

3. That the relocating of the workers from Plywood, once the factory is temporarily closed, should be done respecting the wage categories of the workers.

4. That the relocated brother workers should be paid in the name of Plywood, even though they would be laboring in another enterprise during these two months, as a form of guaranteeing stability and return once Plywoood resumes operations.

5. That the wages being earned at Plywood should be maintained for workers mobilized [for military defense], for pregnant sister workers, for workers on subsidy or of advanced age.

6. That the social achievements that have been obtained till now should be maintained.

Faced with these simple, wise and well-aimed demands, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Industry, the Sandinista Workers Central, the factory Committee at the base and the Zone Committee of the FSLN, the official communications media, the president of the National Assembly who would not allow a delegation from Plywood to enter the Assembly, all united in a single chorus to abuse the workers, to divert the discussion from these simple points, and to divide and confuse the workers' movement, so as to deceive them and put off the issue.

The police encircled the factory and prevented solidarity material from other unions from arriving at Plywood, producing an effect of isolation. The police pressed to gain access to the factory. The administration refused to negotiate, using the presence of the Workers Front as a pretext. The MITRAB [Ministry of Labor] declared the seizure illegal, legalizing the automatic dismissal without negotiation of the workers. The Sandinista Workers Central (CST) promised 150 positions for those who would abandon their fellow workers in the demands. The FSLN Zone Committee insisted against the Workers Front, arguing that the CST ought to advise the workers. All these divisive mechanisms of Sandinism brought about that on Thursday, March 8, with the combined participation of the armed forces, the CST and the MITRAB, 150 workers gave up the demands, which weakened the position of the over 300 workers remaining. Sandinism said that to be opposed to the closing of the enterprise was to play imperialism's game. Beautiful, no? Now we must accept the closings of enterprises since according to them imperialism is interested in the factories not stopping, and therefore it is necessary to close them so as to not play imperialism's game, according to the logic of the Sandinistas.

This is the truth of the Plywood case. Basing themselves on these maneuvers and on the pressure of the armed forces, the Sandinistas took apart the union board of directors. They named a commission which supplanted the board of directors and agreed on the cessation of the demands, accepted the layoffs without negotiation and remained authorized to select maintenance workers, workers who would be relocated and those who would not.

The Workers Front calls on the Nicaraguan workers to give all moral and material support to the fighting, revolutionary workers from Plywood, to demand their relocation and the guarantee that they will be called back to Plywood as soon as it resumes operations, even if done under another company name.

More solidarity among the working class!

Down with sectarianism and the bureaucracies!

For a firm struggle by the unions against the arbitrary orders of the Ministry of Labor!

Make the big businessmen and the top bureaucracy of the state and the enterprises pay the price of the aggression!

No more added burdens on the workers!

No to the closing of enterprises due to administrative weaknesses!

Solidarity with the Plywood workers; demand their relocation to fight against unemployment!

--Workers Front

(Reprinted from Prensa Proletaria, No.14, March 16-31, 1985. Translation by the WA staff.)

[Photo: Comrade Moises Zeledon of the Workers Front (FO) speaks to the workers of the Plywood factory which was threatened with being closed. The workers supported the statements of the Workers Front and requested the FO to participate in the negotiations with the factory administration and the Ministry of Labor.]

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The World in Struggle

[Graphic.]

Auto workers strike in South Korea

On April 15, twenty-one hundred auto workers struck the Daewoo Motor Company's plant near Inchon, South Korea. This is reported to be one of the biggest walkouts in South Korea's recent history.

Daewoo is 50 percent owned by General Motors, the American auto monopoly. The auto workers in Korea are ruthlessly exploited; they average about $2 an hour and work a 60-hour week. The striking workers at Daewoo are fighting for a wage increase of about 19 percent. They have already rejected a company offer of 12 percent.

As the strike continues, the dictatorship makes ominous threats against the workers. Prime Minister Lho Shin-yong warned that the government may intervene, blustering that "such labor disputes should not be permitted to cause social unrest.'' In South Korea, the dictatorship is notorious for brutal measures against the workers' movement; leaders of workers daring to strike are often arrested and tortured.

The Reaganites here in the U.S. often boast about the great economic development taking place in East and Southeast Asia. True enough, in recent decades there has been some development of capitalist industry in this region. But this does not translate into prosperity for the masses of these countries. As the example of the Korean auto workers shows, the wages and working conditions of the Asian workers remains atrocious. And the new industrial development is overwhelmingly oriented for markets in richer countries, not for the working masses of Asia.

But the strike of Korean auto workers, which is only one part of a growing strike movement of the Korean working class, also brings home another important lesson. It shows that capitalist development, by increasing the ranks of the working class, inevitably provides impetus to the class struggle. Can the specter of proletarian revolution be too far behind?

Bolivian workers wage two-week general strike

The class struggle of the Bolivian workers continues to intensify. In March the workers staged another massive general strike. This time the strike was much longer than before; it went on for sixteen days. It mobilized demonstrations of thousands of angry workers in the streets of La Paz, the capital city.

The latest strike was sparked by yet another round of austerity measures announced by the Bolivian government on February 9. These measures resulted in an immediate jump of around 400% in the price of many essential consumer goods, such as food and clothing items. To protest the price increases, 10,000 tin miners traveled to La Paz to demonstrate against President Siles Zuazo's austerity plan. When Zuazo refused to alter his plan, the general strike began on March 7.

As in previous such strikes, commercial activity was completely paralyzed in the country. But in addition, the tin miners who had come to La Paz continued to demonstrate in the streets to press the workers' demands.

Zuazo, who heads up a reformist bourgeois government, tried to negotiate an end to the strike by offering the workers a 322% wage increase and a plan for workers' elected representatives to participate in the government. This was spurned by the workers.

After all, in Bolivia by late March inflation had reached an annual rate of tens of thousands percent; there are estimates that inflation could hit 100,000% for this year. In the face of this catastrophic situation, the workers demanded an immediate raise of 500%; a cost-of-living escalator to guarantee that wages would keep up with price rises; price controls; and other radical economic measures.

To back up their demands, on March 20 workers staged militant demonstrations throughout La Paz. They rallied at different places in the city, blocked streets, and shouted slogans denouncing president Zuazo. Tin miners, who have long been in the front ranks of the Bolivian working class movement, marched up and down the streets of the city, exploding sticks of dynamite and shouting slogans calling for workers' power.

The next day, Zuazo called troops into the capital to suppress the demonstrations. Soldiers broke up rallies and patrolled the streets. In this critical situation, the Catholic Church came forward to defuse the crisis for the Bolivian ruling class by offering to act. as a mediator to work out a "peaceful situation -- i.e., to help suppress the workers' strike struggle. Apparently this ploy succeeded. On March 23 the trade union leaders accepted the government's last wage proposal and called off the strike. The tin miners went back to the mountains, and for the moment an uneasy truce prevails in the struggle.

But in the latest confrontation, the Bolivian working class has once again demonstrated the fighting temper among the masses. The government has been put on notice that the workers are determined to defend themselves from the ravages of the capitalist economic crisis and the austerity drive of the government and the International Monetary Fund.

The struggle of the Bolivian workers has provided a sharp exposure of the government of Siles Zuazo. This government was formed by a coalition of bourgeois nationalist and reformist parties after many years of rule by the military. But the regime's reformist promises have been shown to be hollow as it has presided over a savage austerity drive against the working masses.

The crisis in the country has forced the government to call new elections this summer. Even the pro-Soviet revisionist party, the Bolivian Communist Party, which was a loyal participant in Siles Zuazo's government and which only last fall denounced workers who advocated general strikes as "anti-government and anti-communist,'' has been forced to withdraw support from Zuazo in order to maintain some position in the working class movement.

Despite the present truce effected after the March general strike, the capitalist offensive remains very much in force. No doubt, it will not be long before the workers rise up in yet another wave of mass struggle. And each new clash that the workers engage in helps to prepare them for the revolutionary uprising that will open the way to put an end to their exploitation and poverty altogether.

[Photo: Bolivian miners shouting anti-government slogans in the main square of La Paz during March's general strike.]

Danish working class confronts government strikebreaking

[Photo: Danish workers protesting the government's "Slave Labor Law'' attack the doors of the parliament building with a guard booth. (Photo from La Forge, newspaper of the Workers' Communist Party of France.)]

Workers in Denmark staged a massive strike the last week of March. The strike was begun by private sector workers demanding shorter work hours and higher wages but later spread to public sector workers, as tens of thousands of government employees staged sympathy strikes. At its height on March 28 there were over 300,000 workers out, making it the largest strike in Denmark in over a decade.

The workers' strike actions, which paralyzed the Danish economy, were accompanied by huge demonstrations of workers to press their demands and to demand that the Danish government keep its hands off negotiations. In Denmark the main trade union federation bargains collectively with the capitalist employers as a group, with the government playing a "mediating'' role. When talks collapsed on March 21 and workers began walking out on strike, the Danish coalition government led by the"'Conservative People's Party rushed to intervene. In parliament the government proposed back-to-work legislation which simply accepted the employers' proposals on wages and hours and declared all strikes illegal. This bill was promptly dubbed the Slave Labor Law by workers who organized huge demonstrations against it, leading up to a militant demonstration of 100,000 workers outside parliament in Copenhagen on March 29.

A major demand of the workers in this strike was for wage raises to offset the inflation that is ravaging workers' paychecks. Denmark currently has an inflation rate of 10%; over the last decade this inflation has produced a 15% decline in workers' real wages. The government prohibited cost-of-living escalator clauses in contracts in 1982. Another major demand of this strike was for a 35-hour work week. On both of these major demands the employers made extremely meager counter-proposals.

But on March 30 parliament adopted the Slave Labor Law and in the week following workers were forced back to work. Trade union leaders urged workers to give up the strike and halted the expenditure of union strike funds. Parliamentary leaders of the Social Democratic Party, which has more seats than any other party in parliament and was the ruling party for nearly 30 years after World War II, also urged workers to accept the Slave Labor Law. However, on Monday, April 1, about 100,000 workers defied their trade union leaders and continued striking. But in the following week strike activity subsided.

Nonetheless the workers' hatred of the government attack on the strike remains strong. On April 10 over 200,000 marched in Copenhagen to protest the forced imposition of this labor contract. Indications are that the Danish workers' movement will continue to develop as workers are forced to live and work under a contract they rejected.

This massive strike shows that even in a supposedly "enlightened," "welfare-ist" Scandinavian country, capitalism remains capitalism, and severe repression of the workers' struggles continues. The workers must fight hard just to maintain their standard of living under capitalism, and even then they must resist the repression of the capitalist government.

Guyana: Sugar workers down tools

(The following article is reprinted from The West Indian Voice, March 30, 1985.)

Thousands of sugar workers in Guyana struck for several days in late February and early March against the state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (Guysuco). This was the latest in a series of militant strike actions by sugar workers in Guyana over the past year against a range of attacks by the right-wing social-democratic regime of the tyrant Forbes Burnham.

The recent strike was triggered by the government's repeated attempts to avoid or slash production incentive payments (part of the contractual agreement) due the workers for the 1984 sugar crop. In its latest move Guysuco began issuing short pay to some workers in an attempt to break the unity of the workers and their demand that they be all paid in full as is due them.

In late February the three unions representing 27,000 field and factory workers and supervisors had issued a 72-hour "ultimatum" that the government either agree to pay or face an industry-wide strike. However, when the 72-hour period ended the unions suspended their so-called "ultimatum," called for further talks and for the workers to stay on the job.

The largest of those unions is the Guyana Agricultural Workers Union, led by Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party. Jagan and his [pro-Soviet] revisionist party are engaged in official negotiations with Burnham's People's National Congress for cooperation and alliance. What such cooperation means for the workers was shown in the GAWU leadership's willingness to bend over backwards to accommodate Guysuco, militant-sounding "ultimatums" notwithstanding.

But thousands of workers promptly downed their tools and struck against Guysuco in defiance of the leaderships of the unions. Intense pressure from the union leaderships brought the strike to an end after three days. But the militant spirit shown by the sugar workers points to the only path forward for the Guyanese working class.

Strikes and demonstrations in Aruba

(The following article is reprinted from The West Indian Voice, March 30, 1985.)

On March 12, the small Caribbean colony of Aruba virtually shut down as all public sector workers and employees went out on strike and organized a series of demonstrations to force the government to rescind its decision to cut public employees' salaries by 10%. These big protest actions, which followed a three-hour work stoppage on March 5, lasted for a full week, forcing the government to temporarily suspend its decision to go ahead with the pay cut. In Oranjestad, Aruba, workers and other public employees faced tear gas, beatings and arrests as they marched on the offices of the colony's administration shouting slogans denouncing the government. Anti-government demonstrations were repeated throughout the week.

The working masses in Aruba are bracing themselves for a determined and militant struggle in face of the government's announced plans for layoffs and to slash the wages of all public and private sector workers by at least 25%.

Aruba, a 122-square-mile island with a population of 65,000 people, is one of the six-island Dutch Antillean Federation (the Netherland Antilles) within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The terrible wage-cutting scheme in Aruba is part of a major austerity program being undertaken by the colonial administration headquartered on the island of Curacao, 30 miles away, on orders from the Netherlands.

For decades Aruba has served as a haven for U.S. and British oil companies engaged in refinery operations, and for lucrative offshore banking interests from the U.S. With two months notice, Exxon, which operates the main refinery on the island through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Largo Oil and Transport Corporation, announced its intention to lay off its 950 workers and close operations by March 31. Operating in Aruba under the most lucrative terms for the past 60 years, Exxon is the economic kingpin of the colony. Aruba is dependent on Exxon and Shell for some 60% of its government revenues. Shell has also been threatening closure of its refinery operations.

The rich imperialist parasites and wealthy Aruban businessmen and politicians have fattened their bank accounts from the sweat of the toilers in Aruba while keeping them as colonial subjects. Now the colonial administration intends to grind the working masses into the dust to bear the burden of the crisis in Aruba.

But, as is evident from the strikes and marches which have been rocking Aruba, the toilers are saying NO! They are showing their readiness for struggle and mass action against the exploiters and colonialists.

Reagan's militarization of the Eastern Caribbean

(The following article is reprinted from The West Indian Voice, March 30, 1985.)

When Vice-President Bush visited Grenada in early March, he took care to announce that, despite the promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Grenada, U.S. imperialism would return with guns blazing any time "democracy" was threatened. Wherever U.S. imperialism rules directly over the masses with marines, wherever it stands behind blood-soaked generals, fascist dictators and repressive regimes -- there "democracy" exists by definition. Hence, Washington regards such fascist countries as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, etc., as bastions of "democracy" in that region.

This was one of the hypocritical banners of the cowardly U.S. invasion of Grenada in October, 1983. Since the invasion, U.S. imperialism has been pressing forth with militarization and police state measures in the Caribbean at an intense rate. And the local capitalists and their politicians in the Caribbean have joined in with enthusiasm.

Eugenia Charles, the Prime Minister of Dominica, declared last year: "I want to make it clear to our benefactors...that...we wish to always be able to have the right and the privilege of calling on them for further assistance...such as in Grenada." She was joined by John Crompton of St. Lucia as he declared: "We are going to hang a sign around the region -- beware of the dogs.... There is a watchdog there," i.e., U.S. imperialism and the machinery for mass murder it is beefing up in the Caribbean. And this machinery, despite all the hollow lies about "democracy" and about warding off a "foreign" threat, is directed at the toiling masses of the Caribbean.

Thus a range of police state measures have been introduced. Inspired by the invasion of Grenada, the Charles government of Dominica recently instituted two pieces of fascist legislation called the State Security Bill and the Treason Act. First introduced in 1981, the Treason Act makes it a crime for any person "to form an intention" to overthrow the government and stipulates a penalty of death by hanging. And these laws take as their premise that once charged, one must prove one's innocence.

During 1984, the Reagan administration gave $20 million in military aid to the small Eastern Caribbean countries. This represented an increase of over 2,000%. The U.S. has outfitted some six of these tiny countries with sophisticated coast guard vessels, military supplies equipment and vehicles. And the Pentagon has taken direction of the training and building up of the local police forces. Under Green Beret direction, local 90-man Special Services Units have been trained and are to be deployed throughout the Eastern Caribbean after being rotated through Grenada. Such a unit was put into operation in St. Vincent during last year's elections, with the U.S. warship Iowa sitting offshore. It has since operated as the political police squad there. These squads are patterned after the notorious national guard forces of the fascist Central American dictatorships.

At the heart of these measures is an ongoing scheme to establish a NATO- type central command and training structure headquartered in Barbados. This scheme would incorporate the Regional Security System established through the Organization of Eastern Caribbean Countries in 1982. All the essential ingredients for this are in place, although there is still debate over the funding and over who will have the privilege of housing this Pentagon-directed Murder, Inc.

The frantic militarization and police state measures show that U.S. imperialism, with all its talk about "preserving democracy," offers nothing but bullets and brutal repression to keep the toilers ground under the heel of exploitation and poverty.

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Song: Down with Ronald Reagan!

Sung to the tune of 'Hambone'

CHORUS:

Down with Ronald Reagan,

Chieftain of U.S. imperialism!

Down with Ronald Reagan,

Chieftain of U.S. imperialism!

Reagan takes food stamps from the poor,

To build more bombs for imperialist war.

He wipes out student aid programs,

To pay for invading foreign lands.

The youth must give up lunch and milk,

To keep the bankers dressed in silk.

CHORUS

In Nicaragua and El Salvador,

He steps up their aggressive war.

Says the revolution is a Russian plot,

So he orders workers and peasants shot.

But we know what he's fighting for,

Profits for the rich and nothing more.

CHORUS

Reagan loves the apartheid way,

Says it's like the good ol' days.

He backs up the cops and tanks

Who crush black workers and protect the banks.

The Klan loves Reagan more each day,

As he sets up apartheid in the USA.

CHORUS

Democrats are trying to say,

They oppose Reagan's warring ways.

But what they are really for,

Is hiding the plans for aggressive war.

The Democrats funded the Pentagon,

To invade Grenada and Lebanon.

So when O'Neill and Kennedy,

Say stop the fight and 'vote for me,

We'll remember Grenada well,

And tell them all to go to hell!

CHORUS

The rich get richer but still want more,

So step up the fight against imperialist war!

The only thing that must be done,

Is launch militant mass action.

To strengthen the movement, to make it grow,

We must get organized on our own.

We'll fight the programs of Reagan,

Fight hunger, war and racism.

CHORUS

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In Defense of Leninist United Front Tactics

On the backward turn in the line of the international communist movement at the Seventh Congress of the C.I. In 1935

[The Workers' Advocate Supplement masthead.]

Below we reprint the first sections of the lead article in the May 1 issue of The Workers' Advocate Supplement (Vol. I, No. 3), and list the subjects discussed in the remaining sections. Other articles in this issue of the Supplement include: ''Materials for the Study of the Seventh Congress of the CI"; "Some Notes on the Seventh World Congress" (An Introduction to the Study of Dimitrov's Report); and "Against the Trotskyite Critique of the Seventh Congress.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, which was held in July-August 1935. This Congress is probably the single most discussed congress of the CI. Later this year it will undoubtedly be widely discussed by both Marxist-Leninists and revisionists.

The Seventh Congress is known mainly for its discussion of united front tactics. Since united front tactics are one of the most basic methods of work of revolutionary communist parties, it is natural that this question has received wide attention.

Today the issue of the united front comes up in discussion of the most immediate tasks facing class conscious workers and revolutionary activists. A sharp debate has been in progress for some time. Is one following united front tactics when one works to unite the working masses against the capitalist parties, against both parties of the capitalist offensive, the Democrats and the Republicans, or do united front tactics require working for the election of some or most Democratic Party candidates? Do united front tactics put the class struggle in the fore, or do they amount to uniting with the liberal Democratic Reaganites against the conservative Republican Reaganites? Should there be a united front with the Democratic Party, the labor bureaucrats, and the bourgeois liberals, or should united front tactics be used to build up the independent movement of the working class?

The pro-Soviet revisionists, such as those of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and the pro-Chinese revisionists, such as those of the League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS), both oppose revolutionary agitation and both seek to subordinate the movement to the liberal bourgeoisie. These revisionists, along with the Trotskyites and other opponents of Marxism-Leninism, are liquidators, who are working to stamp out the class independence of the proletariat. In this work, they have picked up the language of condemning revolutionary work as "ultra-left," as a "denial of united front tactics," as a failure to "utilize contradictions among the enemy," as work "in favor of Reagan," or whatever their particular pet phrase is. In particular, the liquidators have taken to using united front rhetoric to justify their opposition to the revolutionary class struggle and their subservience to the liberal bourgeoisie.

United Front Tactics -- A Basic Feature of Marxist-Leninist Tactics

Hence it is important to study carefully the Leninist teachings on the united front and the experience of the Communist International. We must defend the Leninist united front tactics against the liquidators, who have stripped the heart and soul from united front tactics until there is nothing left but a fashionable phrase which they use to cover up the nakedness of their betrayal to the side of the bourgeoisie. We must examine closely the rich experience of the CI. And such a study must eventually come up with the issue of evaluating the views on the united front given by the Seventh Congress.

Our Party has made use of united front tactics right from the time of the birth of our first direct predecessor, the American Communist Workers Movement (ML), in 1969. Several years ago we began a special study of united front tactics in order to demonstrate the hollowness of the liquidationist rhetoric and also in order to systematize the theoretical basis of the tactics our Party uses, further develop the sense of revolutionary sweep and a broad perspective on the problems of the class struggle, and further develop our ability to apply our tactics to new problems and new situations. Some of this study has been published in The Workers' Advocate in the series of articles under the overall title "United front tactics are an essential tool of the proletarian party," which first appeared in the January 25,1983 issue.

Our study, as any careful study of the Leninist teachings on the united front would, soon revealed a contradiction concerning the Seventh Congress. The Seventh Congress is widely known as the Congress that brought united front tactics to the world communist movement. Indeed, Dimitrov himself, in his well-known Report to the Seventh Congress, stressed that "Ours has been a Congress of a new tactical orientation for the Communist International." And there can be no doubt that this "new tactical orientation" for world communism was regarded as the wide and effective use of united front tactics.

The contradiction is, however, that united front tactics have always been a basic feature of Marxist- Leninist tactics. Marx and Engels made effective use of the united front tactics in their revolutionary work, including their participation in the German democratic revolution of 1848-49 and the work to build up the First International. The Bolshevik Party also made extensive use of such tactics for many purposes, including uniting the workers of Russia behind the communist stand despite the reformist obstruction of the Mensheviks.

And the CI also took up the use of united front tactics long before the Seventh Congress. The CI held that, in building communist parties in each country and eliminating social-democratic methods of work, it was essential to teach the parties how to win over the majority of the working masses to communism. The issue of united front tactics came up in essence at the Second Congress of the CI in 1920. And then it was the Third Congress in 1921 that explicitly set forth the militant slogan of "Build up a united proletarian front" and that devoted much of its time to thrashing out the basic principles underlying united front tactics, while the Fourth Congress in 1922 carried this discussion further and lay further stress on the call to apply united front tactics. It is at these Congresses of the CI, in 1921 and 1922, that various principles of Marxist-Leninist tactics are formulated as united front tactics and are set as the line for the world communist movement.

After these Congresses, the CI continued to devote continuous attention to the question of the united front. One of the focal points of the Fifth Congress of the CI in 1924 was the fight against rightist interpretations of united front tactics and of the slogan of "workers' government." Sharp debates took place on these questions. And the Sixth Congress in 1928, which dealt with a wide range of issues, also took up a number of questions of importance to united front tactics, including re-stressing the necessity to lay emphasis on the work among the rank-and-file workers as the heart of united front work; showing the necessity to fight against the "left" social-democratic ideology; explaining the nature of the partial demands that should be put forward; analyzing the role of the national-reformist currents in the national liberation movement, and so forth.

Thus the CI was deeply involved in united front work, and was constantly discussing the issue of united front tactics and adjusting its united front work to ensure its revolutionary effectiveness, for well over a decade prior to the Seventh Congress.

How then has the Seventh Congress come to be known as the Congress that introduced united front tactics into the international communist movement? How could the use of united front tactics be described as a "new tactical orientation" for world communism? Why does Dimitrov, who himself refers back to some of the previous decisions of the CI on the united front, contrast the tactics of the Seventh Congress to the previous tactics of the communist parties?

The Seventh Congress-- A Turn Away From Leninist United Front Tactics

In our view, the Seventh Congress of the CI actually did, just as Dimitrov said it did, introduce a new tactical orientation for world communism. But this orientation consisted in large part of abandoning the previous Leninist views on united front tactics and replacing them with profoundly erroneous tactics, tactics that harmed the anti-fascist struggle and that helped begin an opportunist corrosion inside the communist parties. It would still be the communist parties that were in the forefront of the fight against fascism in the rest of the 1930's and in World War II and that shed their blood to defeat the fascist offensive. It would still be a long time before the revisionist tragedy that destroyed the communist character of party after party; but the denigration of Leninist tactics at the Seventh Congress and afterwards would, insofar as various parties followed it, introduce harmful and even liquidationist practices into the communist movement.

The Seventh Congress was faced with the task of orienting the world communist movement with respect to the new situations arising in the struggle against the world fascist offensive. The revolutionary crisis that the CI had predicted had arrived, but it was taking an unexpected form. It was more and more taking the form of a big clash between the working masses and the forces of fascism, which served as the spearhead of the bourgeois drive to destroy socialism in the Soviet Union and revolution around the world. The working class movement faced grave dangers and needed to soberly discuss how to mobilize around it every bit of revolutionary energy of the working masses.

The Seventh Congress had at its disposal the results of over a decade of CI activity in forging the communist parties. The line of the first six congresses of the CI, from its founding in 1919 to the Sixth Congress in 1928, was both consistent and Marxist-Leninist. This was also true of "the Sixth Congress period" from 1928 to 1934, until a year or so before the Seventh Congress when the line began to change.

At the same time, in the period following the Sixth Congress, certain rigid views on certain tactical questions had appeared in the Executive Committee of the CI. This was not a question of gross errors, but of the approach to certain subtle tactical issues that had come up in implementing a correct stand. As the thirties wore on, some of these tactical questions became more and more pressing. One of the tasks of the Seventh Congress was to correct these rigidities and ensure that the communist tactics maintained the necessary flexibility.

The Seventh Congress however failed in these tasks. It did not give a correct summation of the past experience of the communist movement. It threw aside the revolutionary orientation of the past as well as the emphasis on strengthening the communist parties. It did not correct the rigidities of the past period, but instead turned them on their head, drew rightist conclusions from them, and converted them into major dogmas.

The Seventh Congress, the Great Mass Struggles of the 1930's, and the Victory Over Fascism in World War II

The great mass struggles of the latter 1930's and the defeat of fascism in World War II have provided prestige and apparent validation to the new line of the Seventh Congress. However, those who have tried to win mass support and to grow rapidly by simply adopting the rightist prescriptions of the Seventh Congress have failed again and again.

This is because the great mass struggles of the 1930's arose because of the deep economic and political crises of the times, and because the communist parties had been organized and strengthened by years of previous work as part of the CI. The great mass struggles were part of the great clash between revolution and counterrevolution of the times. They began well prior to the Seventh Congress and the new line. As long as the world communist movement recognized the central role of the struggle against fascism and had a certain minimum of flexibility in its tactics, it was bound to find its rightful place at the head of these struggles.

These conditions for the mass mobilizations behind the communist parties -- namely the great class clashes and the previous strengthening of the communist parties through protracted and persistent party-building -- cannot be shortcut through adopting some rightist formulas. Indeed, a study of the struggle of the latter 1930's and World War II reveals that various parties lost the fruits of their struggle because of the flabbiness in their orientation and organization created in large part by following the new tactical orientation worked out at the Seventh Congress.

Our Party has great respect for the heroism, dedication and self-sacrifice of the great army of communists who fought perseveringly against the world fascist offensive. The history of this period shows that it was the working masses, spearheaded by the communist parties, that were the bulwark against fascism, while the bourgeoisie was the class that spawned and sympathized with fascism, that in country after country went over to fascism, that showed repeatedly that it preferred the worst fascist tyranny to the prospect of losing its sacred right to exploitation and plunder. It was the international working class movement, the liberation struggle of the oppressed nations and the deep sacrifices by the Soviet people that defeated fascism. The history of the anti-fascist struggle shows that it is communism that can organize, mobilize and inspire the working class and unleash its revolutionary power, while reformism and opportunism, whether of the social-democratic brand or otherwise, are impotent and bankrupt before the great tasks of struggle.

But the successes of this period must not blind us to the setbacks that also occurred, nor must they prevent a sober assessment of the tactics and methods used at the time. The Seventh Congress was right to point to the central role of the world fascist offensive in world politics. Insofar as it actually oriented the world's communists to this struggle, it was correct. But the Seventh Congress did not just readjust communist tactics to the current world situation. It ushered in new orientations that denigrated the Leninist principles on one front after the other. These orientations were harmful then, were harmful subsequently, helped undermine the communist movement and leave it prey to subversion by revisionism, and are harmful today.

Introducing the Study of the Seventh Congress

What were the basic features of the new tactical orientation? Here we will simply present in outline form some of the conclusions we have come to about the new united front tactics of the Seventh Congress. This will be simply an introduction to the extensive materials that, starting with this issue of The Workers' Advocate Supplement, we will be publishing on the Seventh Congress, analyzing in detail the views it set forth and the actions taken to implement them.

The study of the Seventh Congress requires care as the reports at this Congress, such as Dimitrov's speech which was the main document promoted after the Congress and the main document still read from this Congress, are deceptive and demagogical. They interweave the new recommendations with disclaimers to the effect that the old views are being maintained. It is possible to quote all sorts of isolated statements from Dimitrov's speech that are basically right and that have nothing to do with the actual new tactics that Dimitrov was advocating. Thus it is particularly necessary to examine Dimitrov's speech and the other documents of the Seventh Congress as a whole and, especially, to compare them with the actual practice of the times in order to see what is window dressing and what was meant seriously.

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[Photo: Lenin speaking at the Third Congress of the Communist international, June 22-July 12, 1921.]

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In honor of the memory of comrade Enver Hoxha

(October 16, 1908-April 11, 1985)

[Photo.]

On April 11, comrade Enver Hoxha, the First Secretary of the Party of Labor of Albania, passed away at the age of 76. The Albanian communists and people have lost a beloved and courageous leader, and the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement has lost an outstanding figure. The American Marxist-Leninists, along with the Marxist-Leninists the world over, have been inspired by and have learned a great deal from the revolutionary life and work of comrade Enver Hoxha. We dip our red flags in honor of the memory of a comrade who has made outstanding contributions to the glorious cause of revolution and communism.

Leader of the Albanian People's National Liberation War

Comrade Enver Hoxha's name is inseparably linked to all of the miraculous achievements of the Albanian people, from their liberation war against fascism to their present successes in building genuine socialism.

In 1941, at a time when Albania was languishing under the iron boot of Italian fascist occupation, the efforts of comrade Enver Hoxha and his comrades bore fruit in the founding of the Communist Party of Albania (today the Party of Labor of Albania). Comrade Enver worked to build the CPA as a proletarian revolutionary party of the new Leninist type, as the militant vanguard and organizer of the Albania toilers.

With comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, the Party threw itself into the struggle against the fascist occupiers, organizing the popular resistance, and building a partisan army which became the terror of the fascists and the liberator of the people. Despite the vast superiority in firepower and manpower of the occupiers, through their own courageous efforts the Albanian people smashed first the Italian and then the German nazi-fascist yoke, gaining their complete liberation in November 1944.

Because of the vigilance of comrade Enver Hoxha and the CPA, all the dirty plans of the U.S. and British imperialists as well as of the Albanian bourgeois nationalists and exploiters to rob the workers and peasants of the fruits of the liberation war were foiled. The people's revolution triumphed, the Albanian workers and peasants overthrew the old bourgeois-feudal rule and opened the doors to build a new society -- a society without imperialists and fascists, without tyrants and exploiters. Thus, comrade Enver Hoxha and the Albanian communists succeeded in carrying forward the democratic liberation war into a profound proletarian revolution, confirming in Albanian conditions the lessons of Lenin and the October Revolution.

Builder of Genuine Socialism

After the war, comrade Enver Hoxha^s revolutionary ^energies were absorbed by the problems of consolidating the people's power, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and transforming the ruined and impoverished agrarian Albania into a modern socialist society. The capitalists and landlords were step by step expropriated by the people's state power, and the countryside was radically transformed with the peasantry going over to collectivized agriculture.

Comrade Enver Hoxha and the PLA drew lessons from the tragedies they witnessed in first Yugoslavia and then in the Soviet Union and the other formerly socialist countries, where the revisionists restored capitalism and put the working masses under the yoke of a new bourgeois class of state bureaucrats and other exploiters. So that this would not happen in Albania, comrade Enver Hoxha pioneered a number of measures to prevent the growth of a high-paid bureaucratic stratum divorced from the working masses.

Because comrade Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labor kept firmly to the socialist road, the once acutely backward Albania has been dramatically transformed. Despite the hostility and blockades of the capitalist and revisionist states, socialist industry and collective agriculture have flourished. The old Albania of ignorance and disease has been turned into a land of schools, modern health care and culture devoted to the people. The old stagnant Albania of feudal lords and desperate poverty has been turned into a land of economic miracles, a land where the peoples' needs are the first priority, and where there are neither rich nor poor.

Defender of Marxism-Leninism Against the Revisionist Betrayal

Among the most brilliant chapters in the revolutionary activity of comrade Enver Hoxha were the great struggles he waged against the treachery of the modern revisionists. In the late 1940's comrade Enver Hoxha exposed and successfully resisted the attempts of the Yugoslav revisionists to gobble up the new Albania and impose on it the Titoite system of capitalism with a "socialist" mask.

After the Khrushchovite revisionists seized power in the Soviet Union in the mid-1950's, comrade Enver Hoxha and the PLA again rose in struggle to expose and resist their opportunist treachery, their collaboration with U.S. imperialism, and their betrayal of socialism and the revolution. This struggle was a demonstration of enormous courage given that the Khrushchovites applied the most criminal methods of political bullying, military pressures and even attempts to starve Albania to break the PLA's militant stand in defense of Marxist-Leninist principles.

In the 1970's, when the Chinese leaders were flaunting their alliance with U.S. imperialism and their anti-Leninist "three worlds" theory, comrade Enver Hoxha once again was in the forefront of the battle to unmask this revisionism, standing up to the hostile pressures of the Chinese leadership and their followers around the world and contributing to the criticism of Maoist opportunism.

The firm and courageous stand of comrade Enver Hoxha and the PLA in defense of Marxism-Leninism against the treachery of Yugoslav, Soviet and Chinese revisionism has been vital for safeguarding socialism in Albania. As well, it has made an indelible contribution to the international Marxist-Leninist movement, providing invaluable lessons and inspiring the genuine communists and revolutionaries everywhere to carry through the struggle against modern revisionism.

Honor the Memory of Comrade Enver Hoxha

Comrade Enver Hoxha is no longer with us, but he has left behind a rich legacy of nearly half a century of revolutionary accomplishments. His writings provide a valuable documentation of the thinking and activity of the Albanian communists in their legendary battles to build their Marxist-Leninist vanguard, to triumph in revolution and socialism, to combat imperialism and social- imperialism, and to defend Marxist- Leninist principles from the attacks of the revisionist renegades. At the same time, these works reflect certain ideological limitations, at least in part, inherited from the weaknesses that afflicted the international communist movement in the epoch of the formation and early years of the Albanian Party. His writings reflect that while comrade Enver Hoxha was an advanced and farsighted revolutionary he was never able to completely overcome some of these limitations. Among other things, this has contributed to the inability of the PLA to use its rich experience to fulfill the heavy responsibility of giving correct comprehensive guidance to the new Marxist-Leninist parties which arose in the struggle against revisionism. And during the last several years of his life, our Party has observed with concern that these weaknesses have become serious weaknesses in the orientations of the Party of Labor of Albania towards a number of burning problems of the world revolutionary movement.

The American Marxist-Leninists organized in the MLP have always studied carefully and have learned a great deal from the PLA and the works of comrade Enver Hoxha. The best way for us to honor his memory is to continue to learn from this rich treasury of experience to carry forward the revolutionary struggle against the exploiters, imperialists and revisionists.

At this time of loss for the Albanian people, our Party reiterates its firm proletarian internationalist solidarity with socialist Albania. We condemn the imperialist and revisionist mouthpieces who have seized on the tragic death of comrade Enver Hoxha to intensify their crusade to slander and abuse the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, the only genuine socialist country in the world today. We wish the Albanian communists, working class and people every success in their work to defend and advance the revolution and socialism in Albania, the cause to which comrade Enver Hoxha devoted his life.

[Photo: Comrade Enver Hoxha with fighters of the National Liberation Army enters liberated Tirana, November 1944.]

[Photo: Picture depicts comrade Enver Hoxha condemning the Khrushchovite revisionists at the Moscow Meeting of 81 Communist and Workers Parties in 1960.]

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