Vol. 18, No. 9
VOICE OF THE MARXIST -LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
25ยข September 1, 1988
[Front page:
Tweedledee and Tweedledum;
Burma in Revolt;
Workers' unrest in Russia and Eastern Europe--Revisionism in crisis]
IN THIS ISSUE
| Democrats lead funding of Reagan's contra war................ | 2 |
| Make the capitalists provide universal child care.............. | 2 |
| Democrats' ABC: a drop in the bucket............................... | 2 |
| Bush's (non)-child care bill................................................ | 2 |
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| Protesters resist police in N.Y. park................................... | 3 |
| To hell with a new Chicago Bears stadium........................ | 3 |
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| Down with Racism! |
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| 500 march against police brutality in New Jersey.............. | 4 |
| "No justice, No peace!" in Hemphill, Texas...................... | 4 |
| FBI -- racist to the core..................................................... | 4 |
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| Support the Farm Workers! |
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| Build struggle vs. poisoning of farm workers.................... | 4 |
| Agribusiness after labor from S. Korea and China............ | 4 |
| Migrant drought relief taken from migrants....................... | 4 |
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| Strikes and Workplace News |
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| S.F. hospitals; Michigan phone operators;Armstrong tire; New York construction; Railroad............. | 5 |
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| Solidarity with Nicaraguan Workers! |
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| MLPN: 16 years of working class organizing.................... | 6 |
| Prensa Proletaria on take-over of sugar complex .............. | 6 |
| Madrid, Spain: Support Nicaraguan workers..................... | 11 |
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| No to the Iran-lraq War! |
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| Iran & Iraq lash out against their own people.................... | 7 |
| CP of Iran on cease-fire in Iran-lraq war .......................... | 7 |
| Boston: Slide show of MLP trip to Kurdistan.................... | 7 |
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| Revisionism in Crisis |
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| Trade union bosses fear unrest of Soviet workers.............. | 8 |
| Chinese reforms rotten for workers.................................... | 8 |
| Coal miners strike in Hungary............................................ | 8 |
| Strike wave in Poland......................................................... | 9 |
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| The World in Struggle |
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| Police shooting black man protested in Toronto................ | 11 |
| Workers in Thailand on the move...................................... | 12 |
| South Africa whites resist draft.......................................... | 12 |
| Against hunger and tyranny in Guatemala......................... | 12 |
| Palestinian Gaza explodes again........................................ | 12 |
| Jordan's king plots against Palestinians............................. | 12 |
Workers' unrest in Russia and Eastern Europe
Another $27 million for the contras
Democrats provide 'leadership' in funding Reagan's war
Make the capitalists provide universal child care!
Democrat's ABC- a drop in the bucket
Protesters resist police in New York park:
To hell with a new Bears' stadium!
Pushing out the poor to rebuild for the rich
DOWN WITH RACISM!
Build a struggle against poisoning of farmworkers
US. agribusiness after contract labor from S. Korea and China
Migrant drought relief, taking from Peter to pay Paul
Strikes and workplace news
Greetings to the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua
16 years of working class organizing
On the takeover of Nicaraguan sugar complex
Don't return a penny to capitalists, saboteurs of production
As peace talks begin, the governments lash out against their own people
The working masses of Iran and Iraq need to settle accounts with the regimes that drove them to war
CP of Iran on the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war
Slide show on MLP trip to Kurdistan viewed in Boston
Trade union bosses fear unrest among Soviet workers
Reforms in China bring rotten conditions for workers
Strikes shake Polish state capitalism
The World in Struggle
Workers in Thailand on the move
South African whites resist draft
Against hunger and tyranny in Guatemala
Palestinian Gaza explodes again
Jordan's King Hussein plots against the Palestinians
Police shooting of black man protested in Toronto
In Madrid, Spain: Solidarity with Nicaraguan workers
They're at it again.
The Democrats and Republicans want your votes for president.
But they're both for four more years of cutbacks, wage cuts and productivity drives.
Bush promises Reaganism "with compassion." He will shed a tear while you starve.
Dukakis says he is not for Reaganism, oh no. But he stresses that "ideology" is not an issue, so he won't fight Reaganism either. Nor will he tax the rich, cut back on defense spending, or reverse the Reagan agenda at all: he will simply provide better "leadership" for this agenda. If anyone had any doubts, he nominated the right-wing politician Bentsen for vice-president.
And so it goes, on one issue after another.
The Last Refuge of the Scoundrel...
Bush waves the flag and the pledge of allegiance. Dukakis in turns vows that he has more "economic patriotism" than Bush.
Bush and Dukakis both want to prove they aren't wimps but stormtroopers. Elsewhere in this paper we denounce the contra aid bills of the Senate Democrats and Republicans. They didn't debate whether to fund the dirty war on Nicaragua, only over which party would have the honor of providing "leadership" for this dirty deed.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
There are differences between Bush and Dukakis, but not on the fundamentals.
What is the "L word?"
Bush is on a campaign of liberal-hunting. And Dukakis, formerly a well- known liberal, is saying "who me?" They have built up "liberalism" into such a bogeyman that you would think the liberals had done something besides pass one Reaganite bill after another for the past eight years. And now the liberals are even scared of their own shadow. This is a pledge that they will continue the Reagan agenda.
So Bush and Dukakis are arguing over what is the real "L word"; is it "liberalism" or "leadership?"
The real "L word" is lying.
Bush tells us that we've never had it so good. Why, the last eight years has allegedly seen all those high-paying jobs created. Who is he kidding? The renewed prosperity of the corporations has come from squeezing the workers and giving less wages for more work.
And then Dukakis tells us that he created the Massachusetts miracle. It only took a massive war buildup to bring a few jobs to Boston. And the same cycle of concessions and speedup continues in Massachusetts as in the rest of the country. What a miracle.
"Compassion" -- By the Penny
And the campaign promises flow.
Bush and Dukakis want to prove their compassion for working parents who can't find child care. In another article we discuss their proposals. We show that neither the Democratic nor Republican bills will solve the child care crisis. They are bailing water with a sieve. Working class children be damned, the capitalists have better things to do with their money.
Against the Reagan-crats
Down with these Reagan-crat candidates!
The working class needs a struggle against Reaganism. And this can only be a class struggle of workers against capitalists, of the overworked, underpaid wage slave against the millionaire executive.
The working class needs class friendship with the workers of other lands, not threatening them with Bush's Star Wars or Dukakis' cost-effective alternative. Not Bush's recitals of the pledge of allegiance or Dukakis' trade wars and "economic patriotism," but the internationalism of the oppressed. A world unity of all those on the bottom against all the parasites.
Turn the World Upside Down
Let us turn the world upside down. The executives and millionaires have brought us nuclear nightmare, environmental catastrophe, unemployment, and an economic situation which is worse year by year. It is time for those who have been trampled on to make themselves heard.
All over the world the toilers are becoming restless. From Burma to Palestine, from Poland to South Korea, there are strikes, demonstrations, people in the streets.
In the U.S., there is a reservoir of despair and anger building up beneath the surface. The day will come when the American workers too take to the streets and challenge the rule of the exploiters.
Let us use the elections to show one and all the bankruptcy of the capitalist candidates.
Down with the silver spoon candidates!
Down with the contra-crats and Reagan-crats!
Organize the working class for a struggle for its own political power!
[Photo: Anti-government demonstrators take over the streets of Rangoon, Burma.]
The Southeast Asian country of Burma is on the verge of revolution. The military rulers of Burma had tried to insulate the country from the impact of world developments. They had even sought to negate the class struggle by declaring Burma to be socialist, although of a unique Burmese kind. But Burma remained a capitalist country, and the military regime remained a despotism. Exploitation and tyranny inevitably bred revolt.
At the end of August, a general strike shut down the country. Transport is at a standstill. The docks and airports are closed. Factories, tea plantations, oil installations, shops and businesses are closed. Prisoners are rebelling. The streets are full of demonstrators. In Rangoon demonstrations have been joined by half a million people. The masses are attacking food warehouses and trains. Government buildings have been set on fire. The government has collapsed altogether in several provincial towns.
The military-dominated regime which has been in power since 1962 is desperate. It has met the mass movement with tremendous brutality. A few weeks ago, many demonstrators were mowed down with gunfire.
At the same time, the regime's longtime leader General Ne Win and his successor, General Sein Lwin, have been forced to resign. Now one of its civilian leaders, Dr. Maung Maung, is trying to calm the people with promises of a referendum on one-party rule. Martial law was formally lifted in Rangoon.
But the regime is still killing protesters. Many prisoners, perhaps several hundred, were killed during a revolt in Rangoon's Insein jail. Naval boats opened fire on demonstrators in a coastal city.
The Burmese people are not satisfied with the shuffling of faces at the top, when the regime still remains in power. They are demanding a new government and democratic elections. If the rulers don't give in, the people may sweep it out of power altogether.
Three Decades of Military Rule Collapses
For decades the people of Burma have lived under a stultifying autocratic regime led by Ne Win. In the earlier years, because of Burma's abundance of food and resources, the people were at least able to eat. But the government's rule wasn't able to provide much more. And corruption and the black market began to thrive. This year the masses' dissatisfaction was sharpened by an intense economic crisis, with the price of rice spiraling upwards by 400% in the first six months of 1988.
Students in Burma have made attempts several times in the past to fight against the Ne Win regime. But they have been put down by the guns and prisons of the military. This spring, their protests began to be joined by crowds of working people.
Militant protests in March and June made Ne Win decide it was time to retire, and he resigned in July.
Murderer Made President
But the regime still refused to make any concessions to the mass upsurge. To replace Ne Win they named as president another general named Sein Lwin. Sein Lwin was a close associate of Ne Win who was in charge of the troops that killed many demonstrators in March and June. He has a long history of repression as police minister.
His appointment as Ne Win's successor set off a firestorm of protest.
Sein Lwin tried to shut off the protests with the mailed fist, but his brutal tactics only sparked more protests. Prominent opposition leaders were jailed and martial law clamped onto Rangoon, the capital; but this only brought more thousands into the streets. Soon they were joined by workers, especially dock and transport workers, who went on strike.
Rangoon, Mandalay and other major cities were soon paralyzed by general strikes and constant demonstrations. As the crisis deepened, the authorities ordered police and troops to begin shooting the demonstrators. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, may have been killed in the first half of August.
But the Burmese masses were able to get in some licks of their own. Five thousand people attacked a police station in Sagaing on August 9. The same day anti-government fighters in the Rangoon suburb of Okkalapa beheaded three policemen. Protesters were all over the streets of Rangoon on August 10, tearing up railroad tracks, burning police stations and seizing weapons. Crowds of demonstrators met and dispersed in sudden marches and rallies across the city, shouting anti-government slogans. In the city of Moulmein demonstrators seized weapons from the police who fired on them, then used the weapons to attack the local police station.
Faced with a mass insurrection, Sein Lwin resigned on August 12 after ruling for 17 days. The cities were filled once again on August 13, this time with tens of thousands of people celebrating their victory. Demonstrations continued in the following days, but the masses mostly concentrated on stocking up on supplies, especially rice -- thousands of tons were liberated from warehouses during the upsurge.
Many activists who fought against Sein Lwin were not satisfied with his resignation, but most people waited for the government's next move before launching the struggle again.
Another Stalwart of the Regime Is Brought In
On August 19 the ruling party announced the successor to Sein Lwin. This time it was a civilian named Maung Maung. But Maung is also a long-time associate of Ne Win and Sein Lwin, and he held many prominent posts in the government including prime minister.
Naming Maung as president did little to appease the anger of the masses. Demonstrations and strikes started up again in earnest on August 22. Rallies of thousands were held in Rangoon and other cities. Soon the movement again rose to the pitch of a near-insurrection.
In the Political Vacuum, Bourgeois Liberals Step In
Because of decades of iron-fisted military rule and slow economic development, the political development of Burmese society has been kept in check. The old political trends, with origins in the pre-Ne Win era, have long become bankrupt and marginalized. The social- democratic nationalists who led the government before Ne Win had shown their bankruptcy during the post-independence decade, with a government that brought economic fiasco and bloody repression. The left-wing elements who tried to establish the communist movement had been forced underground back then and had retreated into the remote highlands. Embracing Maoist revisionism, they gave up on the working class and on work in the urban areas in general. So the working class still faces the task of building up its own communist party.
In this vacuum it was left to students to initiate the present mass upsurge. So far no well-defined political trends have emerged in the anti-government protests. Various groups of students, lawyers, doctors, and artists have issued manifestos and demands generally calling for more democracy. Concretely, they demand an end to military law; a multi-party electoral system; and release of political prisoners. Students and workers have also demanded a reduction in the cost of living and a rise in wages.
Bourgeois liberal elements are seizing the opportunity in this situation where the working people are not well organized or clear about formulating their independent tactics and goals. Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, a nationalist leader from the independence movement days, has stepped to the forefront. Some former Ne Win officials who were persecuted under the regime are also stepping forward. These forces are also being promoted by outside bourgeois powers, such as West Europe and Japan.
The liberals want to set up a parliamentary bourgeois system and seek a deal with the army. They are already trying to calm down the fires of popular insurrection. Aung San Suu Ki told a crowd recently, "Democracy can only be obtained in a peaceful and unified way." This is ridiculous. It wasn't "peaceful ways" that forced Ne Win and Sein Lwin to step down. And "peaceful ways" can't stand up to the machine guns of the army. Indeed, as long as the 200,000-man Burmese army and its tentacles across society remain in place, progress in winning democratic rights will remain in check.
Thus it would be better if a popular insurrection swept the government away rather than a compromise being struck with the regime. But even a provisional government brought in by an uprising will most likely be dominated by bourgeois liberals. For the workers and toilers, the current mass upsurge is only a beginning. The removal of autocracy will allow the class struggle to emerge out of the shadows of tyranny. Every step they take today to break apart the ruling apparatus of repression will put them in a good position tomorrow when they will find the bourgeois liberals against them. And the liberals will use the very same military apparatus against the rebellious workers.
The day will come when genuine socialism will be established in Burma. It will not come in the uniform of privileged militarists, but through the leadership of a mass communist workers' movement. It will not separate the Burmese toilers from the rest of the world and from the other nationalities in Burma, but will unite the Burmese toilers with their class brothers in all lands. It will mark the beginning of a new era for Burma.
In the meantime, the Burmese toilers have already had a taste of the power of mass action. They have already seen that rights are not gained by patience and suffering, but by sacrifice and struggle.
In these pages, we carry articles on the rotten conditions facing workers in a number of the so-called socialist countries. In Poland, workers have mounted yet another strike wave. Hungarian miners struck for a day. In China, conditions for workers get worse day by day. And in the Soviet Union, workers' discontent is also on the rise. Earlier this summer, the Yugoslav workers also launched a wave of strikes.
The Marxist-Leninists welcome the growth of workers' struggles in these state-capitalist countries. We think that it is the working class that holds the key to the future in these places. The struggles there have their particular twists and turns, but eventually the workers will find the way back to the perspective of genuinely socialist revolution.
Besides the class struggle, in these countries national conflicts -- born of discrimination and national inequalities -- are also on the rise. Armenians in the Soviet region of Nagorno-Karabakh have risen up repeatedly with strikes and demonstrations against the discrimination and racist violence they have been subject to. Albanians in Kosova have been fighting oppression in Yugoslavia, another cauldron of national strife. And Rumania in Eastern Europe is on a chauvinist crusade against its Hungarian minority.
The media and politicians shout: see where socialism gets you. But wait. Each story of working class struggles against hardship in these countries can be matched by stories of similar struggles in avowedly capitalist countries. Clearly Eastern Europe has no monopoly on working class dissatisfaction. And each story of national strife in these countries can also be matched by stories of bitter national conflicts all over the "free world" -- from racist attacks and oppression in the U.S. to South African apartheid.
Such similarities verify that the Soviet Union and these other countries ruled by false communists (revisionists) aren't socialist. Indeed, this is what the anti-revisionist Marxist-Leninists have been saying for years. And it is no secret that the present rulers of these countries themselves only give mere lip service to communism, while in fact denouncing the revolutionary ideas of Marx and Lenin as so much ultra-leftism and dogmatism no longer suitable for the contemporary world.
At one time, the Soviet Union was indeed a workers' state, and the working people made huge strides forward. But this progress was cut short and eventually the Soviet Union went back to capitalism. Their capitalism has been a state capitalist system, where the state runs the country like one big company.
But with crisis and difficulties, the revisionist countries turn more and more to "market reforms." They turn towards "mixed economies" combining private and government-owned enterprise. This is the content of Gorbachev's perestroika, which is so much in the news.
But "market reforms" are a noose around the workers' necks. They mean cutbacks and concessions, similar to Reaganism and Thatcherism. And most of the strikes taking place today in the revisionist countries are directed precisely against the effects of the Western-style market reforms.
The workers have to fight to survive. Strike and protest they must. And they inevitably do. More can be expected in the future.
But strikes can only limit the hardships, they can't do away with them. The workers need a revolutionary movement which can pose a revolutionary alternative, clearly defined from both state capitalism and Western-style capitalism. That alternative perspective is the socialism of Marx and Engels, the socialism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The strikes of today can provide an impulse towards building up the proletarian alternative.
The crucial obstacle in the way of establishing such an alternative is that, given the fact that the revisionists rule in the name of socialism and communism, prejudices have been developed against these ideas. There is constant activity to reinforce these prejudices, both directly from the Western capitalists and from the pro- Western bourgeois liberals inside these countries. These people are privileged themselves and receive money and other support from outside.
Workers face an uphill struggle to develop their own movement with their own stands and goals. But that is what they must do. If they fall under the influence of the pro-Western capitalists, it will only set back their struggle. Thinking workers in the revisionist countries have to break out of this logic. They need to return to the revolutionary workers' movement. They need to return to the perspective of socialist revolution.
When the Democratic Party politicians start yapping about how they can give better "leadership" than the Republicans in Central America, look out! They are about to give more money to the CIA's "contra" mercenaries attacking Nicaragua.
On August 10, the Democratic Party rammed through the Senate its own contra aid package. The vote in the House of Representatives is yet to come.
And just look at Democratic presidential hopeful Dukakis. He prides himself on his "leadership." But who has Dukakis chosen as his running mate? A notorious backer of military aid to the contras, Senator Lloyd Bentsen.
Democratic Senators Unite for the Contras
The. Senate bill gives the contras another $27 million in so-called "humanitarian" aid. Of course only swindlers like the gentlemen and ladies of Congress can give aid to a gang of assassins and call it "humanitarian." Moreover, the bill allows for a quick vote in Congress on releasing $16.3 million in previously-approved military aid, should Reagan request it. As well, the bill includes another $5 million to cover transporting the military aid.
Support for the new contra aid package was almost unanimous among the Democratic senators. The "peace- loving" Democratic liberals just couldn't say no to the contra murderers. In fact the contra aid package was also part of a whopping $282 billion military spending bill passed in the Senate on August 11 by a vote of 90-4. Only three Democrats voted no. The Democratic senators are united in financing Reagan's warmongering in Nicaragua and elsewhere.
A Squabble Over Details
The fight in the Senate was over who would be allowed to provide "leadership" in financing the contras. The Republicans had their own contra aid package. After this package was voted down by the Democrats, the Republicans in turn boycotted the Democratic bill.
The Dole bill, like the Democrats' proposal, would grant $27 million in "humanitarian" aid. One difference with the Democratic package was that Dole's bill would immediately release the $16 million already-approved military aid. And Dole's bill would provide for a later vote for an additional $20 million in military aid. As well, the Republican "humanitarian" aid, unlike the Democratic "humanitarian" aid, would be channeled through the CIA, making it easier to secretly smuggle in military aid.
The dispute between the Republicans and Democrats was not over the morality of financing a band of murderers, thugs and drug dealers. It was simply over how best to attack the Nicaraguan revolution. The Republicans favor turning up the contra war effort immediately. The Democrats are not opposed to the contra war. But they want to keep trying to extract more concessions from the Sandinista government of Nicaragua through the Arias "peace" process. Meanwhile they are holding the threat of escalating the contra war in reserve should the Sandinista government not meet their every demand.
Down With the Contra-crats!
Clearly the Democrats are no real alternative to the naked Reaganite warmongers. Both oppose the Nicaraguan revolution. Both want a servile, pro-U.S. imperialist regime in power. Both have the blood of the Nicaraguan workers and peasants on their hands.
Workers and anti-intervention activists! Let us build up a militant movement against U.S. aggression in Central America! Let us stand up to the Reaganite warmongers! Let us tear the mask off the phony peace-lovers of the Democratic Party! Not a penny for the contras!
The child care crunch is on for working parents. The concessions drive against wages and benefits and the shift from industrial jobs to the lower paid service sector has taken a heavy toll on the workers' standard of living. Most families can no longer make it with only one wage earner and struggle to get by with two people working. This has pushed millions of mothers with young children into the work force. The Labor Department recently reported that in 1987 for the first time more than half (50.8%) of the mothers with children under age one were in the labor force; this is up from 30% in 1976.
This means that most parents of small children are in need of good and affordable day care. However, decent child care is in short supply and the costs can be astronomical. Many day care centers give rotten care, are overcrowded and understaffed, and the costs can still be astronomical.
This child care crisis has been growing under Reagan's nose. But Reagan hasn't noticed. His government hasn't lifted a finger to ease this heavy burden on working parents and their children. It has only made it worse by spearheading the cuts in education funding, which have meant cuts in Headstart, full-day kindergarten and other needed programs.
Now it's election time. Both Democrats and Republicans want to make political hay with promises to address the child care issue.
Bush is advertizing his so-called "Child Care Tax Credit." It actually has nothing to do with providing child care. It's merely a promise of a small tax cut for the poor. And Bush hopes that it will help his chances in November.
The Democrats in Congress have their ABC bill to subsidize day care. Dukakis supports the idea. But the bill is only a band-aid on the wounds of high costs and the lack of decent day care.
What the working people need is a universal system of free child care. They need employer-funded day care centers linked to the plants, offices and other workplaces, supplemented by centers in the community. They also need expanded preschool and kindergarten programs linked to the public schools. However, there will be no serious steps in this direction without a sharp struggle. Presently only 1.6% of employers sponsor any day care, and much of this is at exorbitant cost. And where the workers have raised demands for child care, management has dug in its heels against it.
Solutions to the child care crisis won't come through election year promises. Like other gains for the working class this will only be won when the working class stands up for its own interests against the employers and against the capitalist government.
Even then, there are limits to what can be expected in terms of quality and availability of child care under the present capitalist system. Just look at the public school system: it was never any great shakes in poor and working class communities, but today it is falling apart at the hands of the capitalist budget cutters.
What's needed is to turn the society upside down with a socialist revolution. Today day care is needed so parents can slave away for the corporations, corporations whose only consideration is profit margins and which couldn't give a hang for the fate of the children of the men and women who slave for them. In the society of tomorrow men and women will work to improve the lot of the majority -- care and protection of children will be a top priority.
The Democrats' child care legislation is making its way through Congress. The "Act for Better Child-Care Services," known as the ABC bill, has made its way to the Senate floor and may be voted on by both houses of Congress during the next month.
The ABC bill is the baby of Christopher Dodd, Ted Kennedy and other Senate liberals. The general concept of the bill has also gained support among a section of Republicans who have an eye to the polls and know how strong feelings are running about the child care crunch.
But working parents who are caught in the bind between the high cost and shortage of decent child care should not get their hopes up. The ABC bill is hardly a drop in the bucket of need.
Subsidizing Day Care Centers
Three quarters of the $2.5 billion in the ABC bill would go to subsidizing the present day care centers. The bill would compensate day care centers for the children they take in at discounted rates. Parents would have to earn less than the median family income (about $33,000) for their children to be eligible for the subsidized slots. These subsidies will supposedly expand day care facilities and make them more affordable.
The first big hitch is that these subsidies aren't going to go very far. Almost $2 billion may sound like a lot in this epoch of Gramm-Rudman cutbacks. But it is only a fraction of a similar day care bill Congress passed and Nixon vetoed in 1971, which would cost $5 billion in today's dollars. And that was before the high tide of women joining the work force.
There are presently 10.5 million preschoolers whose mothers are working. Even if only half of these would be eligible and in need of subsidized slots, that amounts to about $300 per child per year. With decent child care often costing $80, $100 or more per week, these subsidies would be spread awful thin to be of much help.
A small part of the funding would also go to expand existing preschool programs to make them full day and year around. Here too, however, the money will only be a small fraction of what's needed.
Subsidizing Churches
Then there is the seamy side of this little ABC bill. Instead of steps towards a universal and public day care system this bill mainly gives public subsidies to the private day care industry. This is rife with complications.
One outstanding problem is that 30- 40% of day care is linked to churches and religious groups who use day care centers as a source of revenue. And the ABC bill would help these church businesses.
So what happens to the separation of church and state? What's to keep the churches from using their federal funds to push their religious dogmas on the children? Supposedly the bill bars the use of the federal funds for religious purposes. But if you subsidize a church's day care center it can only be expected that that will also help the center spread its religious doctrine.
Then there is the question of discrimination on the basis of religion. The latest Senate version of the ABC bill has dropped a general rule barring discrimination in the church-run centers. Discrimination will only be prohibited in regard to those children receiving federal subsidies. But it will be allowed against employees and the rest of the children in these centers.
So far the House subcommittees haven't figured out the legal language that would permit the government-church business relationship involved in the ABC bill.
However, this is just one of the many contradictions in this piddling bill that leaves in place the backward, outrageously expensive, and totally inadequate child care system in this country.
Bush wants to put a little space between himself and Reagan. He says he is a Reaganite with a heart. A man of compassion. He even cares about the needs of poor and working mothers for child care. Just look, he has even made a $2 billion child care proposal. But what kind of bird is hiding in this bush?
Bush has proposed a "Children's Tax Credit." It would give families earning less than $11,000 a year a $1,000 tax credit for each child under four years old. How this eases the child care burdens on families with five and six year old preschoolers is anybody's guess. In future years he is promising to raise the income lid to $20,000.
Of course, for a poverty-stricken family a tax credit is always welcome. It can pay for a little back rent, for utilities or food. But with decent child care in the private, licensed centers costing (when available) $3,000 to $5,000 or more a year per child it is hardly an answer to their child care burdens.
The idea of a $1,000 tax credit for each child of the poor is not new. In his 1972 presidential campaign Democrat George McGovern was ridiculed for his "crackpot liberalism" when he proposed the exact same thing. But in 1988 it's Bush and the Republicans who are pushing tax credits as a cheap alternative to seriously addressing the needs of the workers and poor.
By disguising his quite ordinary tax cut as a "child care" proposal, Bush hopes to make an end run around any proposals to help working parents find affordable day care for their children.
Similarly in Congress the Republicans are pushing for an expansion of the "earned income tax credit." The EITC is another 1970's baby of the Democrats. It provides a small tax credit for poor working families with children. The Republicans are pushing the EITC as a way to block an increase in the minimum wage. A rise in the minimum wage (even the piddling increase proposed by the Democrats) would come out of the profits of McDonald's and other minimum wage employers and it would be harder to take away. A tax credit would be paid out of taxes collected from other workers. It could also be easily taken away with the next federal deficit scare.
What Bush's "child care" proposal comes down to is a notorious vote buying promise of a tax cut. He has taken a cue from his boss. Reagan has supposedly cut taxes on the working poor over and over again. Yet their taxes still go up and the real tax cuts go to the rich and the corporations. Bush is promising more of the same.
So far in this election season George Bush has promised wealthy investors $4 to 7 billion by cutting the capital gains tax from 28% to 15%. He has also promised a $1 billion tax credit for oil and gas exploration. That's $5 to 8 billion for the Wall Street sharks and oil tycoons. Meanwhile the poor and working people are promised a sum total of $1.9 billion in a "child care" tax credit. That's capitalist "compassion" for you.
Around 500 protesters battled police for six hours at Tompkins Square Park in New York City on August 6. The demonstrators are up in arms over the police harassment and racism that has grown with the gentrification of the area.
The park is in the heart of the East Village in lower Manhattan. It is an area where rising rents and co-op conversions are threatening to add even larger numbers to the homeless population. The gentrification of the area has led to such things as the selling of the Christagora community center to private developers. They converted it into luxury condominiums selling for $150,000 and up.
Gentrification has also led to increasing harassment and racist abuse as police try to drive poor and working people from the area. As part of this drive, police decided on July 11 to enforce a 1:00 a.m. curfew at Tompkins Square Park. Although the curfew has long been ignored in most city parks, the police suddenly decided that complaints of such things as late-night noise required the shutting down of the park.
But the police ran into a wall of resistance.
Protesters Battle Police
On July 30, some 50 cops were dispatched to shut down the park. But they were met by a demonstration of 200 people. In the ensuing clash about 10 protesters and five policemen were injured. The police backed away, and the park remained open.
On August 5, a force of 100 policemen managed to shut down the park. But when they returned the next night they were met by 250 demonstrators. The protesters began gathering around 10:00 p.m. They included many youth and squatters and homeless people who live in the park. The demonstrators carried banners declaring, "Gentrification is class war" and "The park belongs to the people." A group of them marched around the park chanting, "Pigs out of the park," "No police state," and "Take back the park!" Around 12:30 a.m. part of the crowd blocked traffic on a street bordering the park. A few threw bottles and firecrackers at the police.
Then the police attacked. The original force of 100 cops was reinforced by 350 others from the Brooklyn North and Manhattan North commands. They encircled the park. And then began chasing and clubbing demonstrators. As protesters fled, cops swarmed into bars and cafes, beating patrons. Meanwhile, others swept through the streets shouting racist slurs and indiscriminately beating protesters and bystanders.
The policemen also attacked journalists, including a photographer from the New York Times and a reporter from the Daily News. One freelance photographer reported that police beat him and broke his camera when they saw him taking pictures of policemen breaking someone's bicycle.
Despite the ferocity of the police attack, demonstrators fought back. They regrouped on street corners. At times the protest grew to 500 people. For six hours, grouping and regrouping, the police and demonstrators pushed each other back and forth. By 6:00 a.m. it is reported that 52 people, including 14 policemen, had been treated for injuries at local hospitals.
Victory Demonstration
The next day, Mayor Koch backed down temporarily. He reversed the police order and declared that the park would be allowed to remain open at least during the current heat wave.
That night a victory rally was held in Tompkins Square Park. A crowd of 250 rallied and then marched to Washington Square Park. But there they ran into 50 riot-clad policemen. They were told that Washington Square Park was exempted from Koch's order and would continue to be closed. The protesters left the park chanting "Koch you liar, we'll set your ass on fire."
The demonstrators have vowed to continue the fight to keep the parks open. A 30-foot banner has been placed at the entrance of Tompkins Square Park which proclaims, "Gentrification stops here!"
[Photo: Demonstrators in Tompkins Square Park in New York City.]
On June 14, the Chicago mayor's office announced the signing of two agreements that settle the issue of building a new Bears football stadium on the near West Side. Some people regard this as a positive step in developing a depressed neighborhood. But the actual program will run the residents out and enrich the real estate capitalists, the contractors, and the politicians.
Chicago Workers' Voice is opposed to the West Side stadium deal. It will mean hardship for the residents of that area who are mostly black and poor. And many are senior citizens. The deal will make the housing crisis in Chicago worse. It will waste millions in tax dollars enriching sundry capitalists. Meanwhile public education, housing and health care continue to deteriorate. But that's capitalism for you, "Money for [Bears owner] McCaskey but not for schools."
The Plan
Among other things in this plan, the city will buy the land for the Bears/Metropolitan Structures joint venture. The city government is responsible for relocating some 1,200 people living in the target area. It has also promised to build new housing east of Ashland and west of Damen streets. It assumes the responsibility for upgrading streets, sidewalks, lighting, and for building or reconstructing elevated stations of the Chicago Transit Authority in the area.
Who Benefits
The whole stadium project turns out to be nothing but a big boondoggle for the rich. The Bears owners, the banks and real estate moguls make out like bandits. And the yuppies get the help they need to take over and gentrify another "inner city" neighborhood.
Who Pays
The city has taken on a big debt, $35 to $65 million, just to give handouts to the rich. So, naturally they come to the working people to pay. More tax hikes are coming. We need jobs, housing, decent schools, health benefits, and more. But while the local government hands millions to the rich, it is on a Reaganite budget-cutting binge when it comes to benefits for working people.
The West Side residents will pay the most. First comes relocation. Home owners will be given a lump sum pay- payment which is too small to buy a decent old home, much less a new one. For renters, real estate speculation will jack up prices and force them out. (Note, property values are already rising in areas near the stadium site.) All the glorified new housing and redevelopment is planned to take place after all the poor people are removed. Again the capitalists and the yuppies will be on the scene to reap the benefits.
The Cover-Up
The sugar coating on this whole deal is promises of redevelopment, new housing and relocating the present residents. But these promises are largely worthless.
For example, people who used to live in the area where the University of Illinois at Chicago is now located were also promised compensation. These people were moved out, but the promises were never kept. Now some of the same people are about to be pushed out again, this time by the Bears stadium. They are hearing almost the same promises. And they know from experience what liars the government officials and developers are.
In fact, even the promises of compensation and relocation were only made after the protest demonstrations of black people in the neighborhood squelched an earlier deal. After negotiations with "community leaders" Nancy Jefferson and Barry Sullivan, a "compromise" was worked out. Unfortunately, the compromise amounts to sugar coating the deal with more promises. The truth is the masses were sold out.
The black residents were on the right track when they started to take up a fight against the stadium plan. Now an opposition movement is needed more than ever. People are fed up with the capitalist offensive of Reaganism. But, despite their promises, the politicians and "community leaders" serve the interests of the rich and capitalism. It is up to us, the working people, to build up a movement. It is up to us to do our own fighting for decent housing, jobs, and schools, and to create our own leaders.
No to the West Side stadium plan! A real development of the West Side means education and housing for the workers and poor, not condos for the yuppies and interest payments for the banks. Development for the workers means decent paying jobs, not handouts to the millionaires.
(Based on Aug. 12 "Chicago Workers' Voice," paper of MLP-Chicago.)
[Photo: Five hundred marched in Perth Amboy, N.J. to protest the death in police custody of young Eddy Crawford and the police killing of Carmen Coria.]
On July 30, about 500 people marched against racist police brutality in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. People cheered from their windows as the demonstration headed through the Latino community to a downtown business district. Many came out of their homes to join the march. They told gruesome stories of how they or their friends had been beaten, shot or harassed by the city's racist police.
Latinos make up 50% of the 45,000 people in this industrial town near New York City. Black people add another 10%. And they are fed up with the reign of racist terror.
The demonstrators were particularly outraged that the narcotics cop Allen Fuller has been put back on active duty. In June, Fuller gunned down two Mexican brothers, killing one and critically injuring the other. The incident sparked off three days of demonstrations and street fighting with the police. Fuller was temporarily suspended with full pay. But now he's back on duty and has been quoted as saying he would "do it again." The protesters demanded that he be fired and prosecuted.
The protesters also voiced their outrage over the death of Eddie Crawford. This 24-year-old black man was arrested on a "disorderly conduct" charge on July 24. The police claim he hanged himself in his cell. But few believe them. Suspicions were aroused when the police refused to allow Crawford's family to identify the body. After pressure mounted, the police allowed only Crawford's face to be viewed. And then, when the family finally won the right to view the whole body, they could see no evidence that he had been hanged. It's also suspicious that a video camera, that normally keeps inmates under constant surveillance in the cell, had no footage of Crawford.
Chanting "No justice, no peace!" and "Racist cops have got to go!" some 300 demonstrators marched through Hemphill, Texas on August 6. They protested the acquittal of the police chief and two deputy sheriffs of charges stemming from the death of Loyal Garner, Jr. Although temperatures soared to 100 degrees, the demonstrators marched on for one and a half miles through the main section of town. They rallied at the Court House to denounce the police murder and the fact that the guilty are off scot-free.
Loyal Garner -- a 34-year-old black truck driver from Florien, Louisiana -- was arrested last Christmas for "driving while intoxicated." When he asked to call his wife, he was brutally beaten, thrown back in his cell, and denied medical treatment until the next day. By then it was too late. He died of brain damage, the result of multiple blows to the head.
Demonstrations in January led to indictments against the policemen for "violating the civil rights".of the man they killed. But the trial of the three white cops was conducted in a real "home-boy" atmosphere in this town where the cops were all well known by the 11 white people on the jury.
After the trial, the lone black person on the jury said she was convinced that at least the police chief was guilty. Dorie Lee Hudson Handy, a 45-year-old cleaning lady, said she changed her vote to innocent under the racist pressure. "I was just one black against all those people (on the jury). What could I do with those people against me. It should have been six whites and six blacks."
The FBI is a gang of racists.
Who says so, you ask? Perhaps someone biased?
Well, it is the FBI's own handpicked agents who say so.
The FBI's Hispanic agents have filed suit against the FBI for racism. Three-fourths of the Hispanic FBI agents joined this lawsuit. They complained of systematic racial discrimination in assignments, promotions, etc.
And just earlier this year more came out about the FBI's racist harassment of a black FBI agent, Donald Rochon. The Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had already found that Rochon was harassed while he served in the FBI's Omaha office in 1983 and 1984. Rochon stated that there was also a campaign of harassment against him from Chicago FBI agents. One white FBI agent admitted he forged Rochon's signature on an application for death and dismemberment insurance, and other FBI agents were involved in other actions. They have tried to explain away their actions as just pranks against a troublemaker.
If this is how the FBI treats its own agents, you can imagine how it treats the working class.
Cesar Chavez, the head of the United Farm Workers (UFW), ended his 36-day "fast for life" on August 21. Jesse Jackson and various Hollywood stars promised to continue the fast with what Jackson called a "chain of suffering." Jackson has come up with another media stunt to try to win workers' support for the Dukakis-Bentsen ticket of the Democratic Party. He, and then the actors one after another, plan to consume only water for three-day periods.
Protest Dangerous Chemicals in the Fields
Chavez began the fast to protest the use of dangerous chemicals in the production of California table grapes. Farm workers face terrible conditions including starvation pay, backbreaking work, and lousy living conditions. Evidence is now coming out that they and their families are also suffering from cancer and birth defects caused by various pesticides and other chemicals that the wealthy growers use on their crops.
For example, 13 children of farm workers have been diagnosed as having rare cancers in the small farming community of McFarland, just south of Delano in California's San Joaquin Valley. Six of the children have died so far.
Farm Workers Need Mass Struggle
Obviously the farm workers need organization and mass action against the growers to improve their conditions. Unfortunately, the tactics of Chavez and company have done little to help the farm workers get organized.
Instead of basing the UFW on the organization and mass struggle of the farm workers themselves, Chavez has repeatedly diverted the workers into campaigns to beg aid from liberal Democrats and media personalities. Indeed, Chavez has helped to split up the farm workers by joining the Democrats and Republicans in their bipartisan attacks on the undocumented immigrants who work in the fields.
In the face of the Reaganite assault on the workers in the last decade, the tactics of Chavez have led the UFW to disaster. Growers have broken contracts left and right so the UFW now has only about 30 contracts, compared to 100 a decade ago. And the UFW has dwindled down to half its size, with only about 10-12,000 members. (Associated Press, Aug. 22)
Chavez' latest fast, and the UFW's campaign to boycott the sale of table grapes at several supermarket chains (Safeway, A&P, and Ralph's), has brought some publicity to the plight of the farm workers. While such boycotts should be honored, they will do little unless they are combined with and help to build up the struggle of the farm workers themselves. Unfortunately, the present boycott is mainly aimed at drawing the workers behind the Democrats and as a substitute for organizing the workers for mass struggle.
When the UFW was on the upswing, its power came from the organizing drives and determined strikes by the rank-and-file farm workers. The rank and file must return to these tactics of class struggle against the growers, instead of Chavez' chasing after the Democrats, to fight the terrible conditions they face.
Giant U.S. agribusiness has worked out a plan to exploit workers brought in from South Korea and China.
At the behest of growers from New York State, the U.S. Department of Labor approved a deal with the South Korean government to have Korean laborers imported to harvest the New York apple crops in September.
As well, a contract is being considered with the Chinese government to import hundreds of peasants to pick crops in New York and Florida. For the Chinese rulers this is a means of earning hard foreign currency. It is indicative of the capitalist road the Chinese revisionists are following that they are willing to put Chinese workers in a position where they are super-exploited and denied their rights.
The deal for these workers has been worked out under the expanded H2-A contract labor system of the 1986 Simpson-Rodino anti-immigrant law. Even before the Simpson-Rodino law, H2-A was for years a system to bring in Caribbean and other foreign workers on short-term restricted visas. And the growers love it. Even though migrant workers are expected to flood New York because they can't find work in the drought-stricken Midwest, the Reagan administration swears the East coast growers need the additional cheap labor from South Korea and China. The more workers scrambling over jobs, the more the growers can exploit them.
With this law, the growers can search the world for the cheapest price of labor. What's more, because the foreign workers are unfamiliar with U.S. customs and have no legal rights as U.S. residents, the growers can pressure and trick them into working harder. And if the workers complain about the starvation wages and horrible working conditions, then they can be sent home. Growers are also crowing that, unlike many American and Mexican migrant farm workers, the contracted laborers do not bring along children who must be housed in the labor camp.
Union hacks from the AFL-CIO and various farm worker groups have complained about the Labor Department deals. But instead of demanding full rights for the immigrants, and instead of working to organize them for struggle against the exploitation they suffer, the union hacks are denouncing the immigrants themselves. Some have filed law suits to bar the foreign workers from being allowed into the U.S. The union leaders' chauvinism is pure poison for the workers' movement.
The contract labor system, and the entire Simpson-Rodino law, is an abomination. As long as immigrants are denied full rights, equal to all citizens in the U.S., they will be super-exploited. And immigrants will be pitted against the other U.S. workers to divide and weaken the entire working class movement. All U.S. workers should raise their voices and say: No to the Simpson-Rodino Act! Full rights for the immigrant workers!
The giant agri-businessmen and commodity traders are jacking up prices and looking to make a killing off the drought that has swept the U.S. this summer. Meanwhile, farm workers face terrible suffering.
Migrant workers coming into the Midwest to pick tomatoes, cucumbers, and other crops are finding little work. The wealthy growers are turning the migrants away in droves. At the same time, the growers use the fact that there are too many workers for the depleted crops to force down the conditions of those farm workers who do get work.
The migrant workers depend on their seasonal income to support them during the winter months. Many don't see how they can make it. And worse, many farm workers are not able to make enough money to even get back to their homes. The bourgeois newspapers' estimate that there are 25,000 American and Mexican migrant families stranded without work is probably grossly understated.
In the wake of this disaster, the Reagan administration announced in August that it is planning to provide a $14.8 million emergency relief package for the migrants. What's this? Has Reagan suddenly decided to become the champion for workers that he has persecuted throughout his administration? Don't bet on it.
Not a week after the announced relief, it came out that the money is being taken from other programs aimed at helping migrants and the unemployed. An official of the Department of Labor admitted that Reagan is stealing $9.5 million from a fund to train farm workers for other jobs. And another $5 million is being stolen from an emergency assistance program for workers thrown out of their jobs by plant closings and mass layoffs. Reagan is the same as always. He claims to help the poor, but only by taking from the poor.
[Graphic.]
[Photo: San Francisco hospital workers rally, August 9.]
San Francisco hospitals are being rocked by strikes.
On July 26, seven hospitals were struck by 1,700 housekeepers, cooks, orderlies, technicians and other service workers. These are private hospitals in a consortium called Affiliated Hospitals. Militant picket lines were thrown up around the big hospitals. Gashes took place when vans tried to enter with hospital supplies and scabs. Teamster drivers refused to cross the picket lines. Social workers and groups of nurses also stayed off work in support of the service workers' strike.
On August 2, the 2,000 nurses at six of the Affiliated Hospitals went out on strike for their own demands. The spirit of solidarity ran high, with cheering, hugs and kisses as the nurses joined the picket lines. On August 9, some 2,000 strikers took part in a joint noontime rally and a march on the Bank of America headquarters.
The strike spread to an eighth major private hospital. And 1,600 nurses were poised to walk out at the main public hospitals, General and Lagunda Honda.
Liberal Mayor Intervenes to Check Mounting Strike Wave
At this point Mayor Art Agnos stepped in. Agnos is a darling of the liberal Democrats, and a ruthless budget cutter against the workers. He used his slick-tongued promises about "ensuring quality health care,'' and the trust that the union chieftains have placed in him, to check the mounting strike wave.
First Agnos pushed through an agreement to prevent a strike at the public hospitals. He promised to address the nurses' grievances in the future "when money is available.'' But in the meantime, staffing cuts that were made under the mayor's budget were kept. The wage freeze, imposed by the mayor on all public employees, was maintained. And a two-tier wage was put in for new nurses. The leaders of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) agreed to the contract. But it passed by only a 13-vote margin as less than 40% of the nurses voted.
Next Agnos pushed through a settlement between the service workers and the Affiliated Hospitals. The. workers' main demands were against cuts in paid sick days, vacation, and health care coverage. The new agreement beat back most of the concessions. But it included co-pays for non-HMO health care, a first year wage freeze, and other takebacks. Despite these givebacks the contract was accepted overwhelmingly under pressure from the chieftains of SEIU Local 250, who declared it a great victory.
Private Nurses Reject Contract, Service Workers Stay Out in Solidarity
Then a tentative agreement was reached with the leaders of the Nurses Association at the Affiliated Hospitals. The nurses at these private hospitals, along with those at the public hospitals, have been demanding increased staffing. However, their main demand is for pay raises to match the salaries in other cities. The tentative agreement offered a 20% pay increase over three years.
On August 19, the nurses voted down the contract by a 2-1 margin. The rank and file wants to hold out for their original demand of a two-year contract with a 21% pay increase.
So this strike continues. And service workers have vowed to stay out until the nurses win. The strike could be long and bitter as management digs in and flies scab nurses in from across the country.
The hospital workers and nurses have shown a lot of power in their strikes and solidarity. This power would be even greater without the treachery of their union leaders.
The union heads prevented the strike from spreading to the public hospitals and to other private hospitals that had been working without contracts. The potential power of the mounting strike could have challenged the mayor's wage freeze and cutbacks.
But the SEIU leaders settled for the mayor's rotten promises for the public nurses and for takebacks for the private service workers. And now the SEIU leaders are waffling on staying out in solidarity with the nurses' strike, saying they may "adjust" this stand if the strike drags on.
At the same time, the leaders of the Nurses Association tried to get nurses to agree to a contract that didn't meet their demands. The fact that the director of the California Nurses Association happens to also be Art Agnos' sister may be unimportant. The problem facing the rank and file is that the CNA and other union chiefs are all too ready to accommodate management and the Democratic Agnos administration.
Telephone operators picketed the Troy office of Michigan Bell on August 9. They were protesting the suspension of several workers who had left their posts during a tornado warning. Michigan Bell operators throughout the state wore black arm bands on the job to show their solidarity.
On August 5, tornado warnings were given in southeastern Michigan as funnel clouds were sighted. At 4:15 p.m., a local television station broadcast an advisory to take cover until 4:45 p.m. Twenty-three operators at the Troy office left their work stations and went to a nearby hallway to get away from exterior windows. The operators refused management orders to return to their posts.
Five minutes before the all-clear was sounded, the employees who had left their posts were punished. Some received one-day suspensions, while others got letters of reprimand and docked pay. Two days later, two union stewards, who had supported the operators' stand, received three-day suspensions.
According to Michigan Bell management, the workers must maintain their posts even though the building may be ripping apart around them. As if the telephone monopoly is not automated enough already, they now want all employees to be automatons!
Meanwhile, about 2,200 telephone workers in rural Michigan went on strike against GTE on August 27. GTE is striving to break the strike by bringing in GTE workers from outside of Michigan and using 500 management personnel to replace the strikers.
On August 8, about 800 workers walked off the job at the Armstrong Tire plant in Des Moines, Iowa.
The workers are demanding the full restoration of their wages and benefits. They were cut by $5 an hour in 1987 when the company threatened to close the plant. Armstrong was later sold to the Italian firm, Pirelli Co. On August 7, the workers overwhelmingly voted down a tentative contract offer to restore $2 an hour in benefits but nothing in wages.
The workers are not only fighting Armstrong, they are also resisting their own union leadership. The heads of the United Rubber Workers union (URW) supported the tentative contract. And while the contracts have expired for workers at three other Armstrong plants, the URW leadership is keeping them on the job. The URW hacks are weakening the strike just as they did with the Firestone strike earlier this year. URW hacks kept Goodyear workers on the job, even after they rejected a sellout contract, and left the Firestone workers to fight alone.
Armstrong workers will have to take matters into their own hands, and spread the strike to other plants.
[Photo: Mass picket of construction workers at nonunion construction site in Manhattan.]
Shouting "Scabs must go!" hundreds of construction workers in New York City have held a series of noontime demonstrations since July 27.
The electricians, carpenters, plumbers, laborers, pipefitters and others are protesting the use of nonunion labor to renovate a 16-story building in the city's diamond district. As the workers swarm the area, traffic has had to be diverted for about an hour a day since the protests began.
Although the construction union bureaucrats have organized the lunchtime picketing, they have prevented workers from blocking the scabs and shutting down the scab operation.
Over 2,600 railworkers struck the Chicago and North Western (C&NW) railroad system on August 4. But after two hours they were ordered back to work by union hacks who caved in to Congressional strikebreaking.
The workers walked off the job after the company unilaterally imposed new work rules which would have eliminated 1,200 brakemen's jobs. The C&NW, the nation's ninth largest railroad, wants to cut crew sizes on most trains from four to two. They want to operate hazardous freight trains without brakemen.
Before the strike could cripple C&NW, the Democrats came rushing to their aid. Liberal Senator Paul Simon and Representative Terry Bruce of Illinois sponsored strikebreaking legislation. The law banned the strike and temporarily held back layoffs for a 30-day "cooling off" period. The Democratic-controlled Congress quickly passed the legislation to halt the strike.
The C&NW workers are back to work for the time being. But Senator Simon is still busy. He is reported to be preparing further legislation to force the rail- workers to accept mass layoffs if no agreement is reached with the C&NW management.
During the month of August, the revolutionary workers' of the Marxist- Leninist Party of Nicaragua (formerly the MAP/ML) held a series of meetings and other events to celebrate the anniversary of their Party.
MAP/ML was born in August 1972 in the midst of the flames of struggle against the U.S.-backed dictator Somoza. It emerged as the organizer of the revolutionary workers in this struggle.
MAP/ML rejected the reformist path of the pro-Soviet revisionist parties that were a mere tail of the liberal capitalist opposition. It also criticized the petty-bourgeois scheming of Sandinism, that despite its zig and zags tended to also end up relying on the bourgeois liberals. MAP/ML, on the other hand, kept to the Marxist watchword that "The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself." It rooted its struggle in the revolutionary movement of the workers and poor.
During the 1978-79 mass insurrection against Somoza, MAP/ML was the organizer of the Popular Anti-Somoza Militias (MILPAS). After the Sandinista army, this was the second army of the revolution. The MILPAS armed thousands of workers and barrio poor under the banner "Workers and Peasants to Power!"
Since the 1979 triumph over Somoza, MAP/ML has been struggling to defend the revolutionary gains of the working masses and advance the socialist goal of the working class. In the midst of the stormy and pressurized situation in the country, this struggle has demanded huge efforts and a firm loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and the working class cause.
Today the MLPN stands as the only left pole in Nicaragua, the working class pole. In the midst of the workers' movement it combats the attempts of the reformists to drag the workers behind the pro-Reagan, pro-contra capitalist opposition. At the same time, it champions the workers' independent interests and demands in the face of neglect and oppression at the hands of the bureaucratic Sandinista regime.
The work of the MLPN is an inspiration to all forces fighting for the proletarian revolution and socialism. The Workers' Advocate joins with the revolutionary Nicaraguan workers in celebrating the anniversary of their Party.
[Prensa Proletaria masthead.]
(The Sandinista government has taken over the giant San Antonio Sugar Complex owned by the Pellas family. For nine years it ran this complex hand in hand with the exploiters, allowing them to draw big profits, but the capitalists simply ran the complex into the ground. Unfortunately, although it has taken over the sugar complex, the Sandinista government wants to keep sending money to the bourgeois who sabotaged this complex.
The July 1988 issue of "Prensa Proletariat' voice of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua, declared: return a penny to the Pellas! No to compensation! The Pellas are doing the same thing at their other enterprises. The article by this title follows below.)
The Pellas group is not only the owner of the San Antonio Sugar Complex; it has also made itself into one of the bourgeois groups that is most pampered by the Sandinista government. In fact the Pellas group has been absorbing almost 60% of the total of subsidies in cordobas and dollars that the Sandinista government has been lending to the so-called "patriotic bourgeois." However, these millions worth of resources don't push forward the productive forces which are the property of this group.
One of the quickest ways of financing the Pellas bourgeois, for example, has been the government's practice of authorizing funds in dollars for the massive importation of vehicles. Pellas buys the vehicles and resells them to the government at a profit.
As well, the government has had its hands full paying the national and municipal taxes that the Pellas should have been paying punctually on their properties.
The mayor of Chichigalpa had to admit that the Ingenio San Antonio (ISA or San Antonio Sugar Complex) had not paid one cent worth of taxes in this western municipality.
And this applies not only to ISA, but also to the Liquor Company of Chichigalpa, which bottles the "Flor de Cana" and "Plato" rum. Through this enterprise, in coordination with ISA, the Pellas have been exporting raw materials to build the "Flor de Cana" enterprise in Honduras. It pockets in this way thousands of dollars. which never return to Nicaragua.
On the other hand the Pellas, in all their enterprises (ISA, the Liquor Company, Casa Pellas, etc.) use as working capital only money obtained under special conditions, only bank loans. That is to say, the Pellas group never invested its own capital, but instead used capital loaned by the state, money obtained off the backs and the sweat of the Nicaraguan people.
This money, converted in a thousand ways into dollars, has also fled abroad. Of an annual flight of capital which economists estimate at $400 million, the majority is connected to the maneuvers of the Pellas.
The Pellas naturally have not lived up to their financial obligations, and have acquired large sums in loans, on which they are taking out new loans.
In other words, the Pellas, for nine years, thanks to the Sandinistas and the CST [Sandinista trade union center], have become millionaires in the U.S. (where the principal members of this group have lived for years) by a series of methods. They accept special incentives in cordobas and dollars; take out bank loans for the most part not invested or repaid; take dollars abroad; under report raw materials and products exported or over report purchases of supplies or raw materials, etc.
The Sandinistas have tolerated this situation for nine years by a simple method: controlling the workers; prohibiting the continuation of the old collective contract [so that the workers faced the management individually]; reducing the economic and social gains of the workers; increasing the work day and the production quotas; persecuting the Workers' Front [trade union center of the Marxist-Leninist Party]; demanding greater productivity; and freezing wages to the point where the cost of the few products available at the commissaries is many times greater than a worker's salary. The workers have been working hard and this labor power is not even paying them the necessary weekly minimum. As well, they end up in debt because the basic grocery basket costs more than they earn. In light of this, the plan to compensate the Pellas is complicit with the decapitalization [stripping of money and productive resources from Nicaragua] which has been carried out by this most powerful economic grouping of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie.
Carlos Pellas, representative of the recently taken over "Nicaragua Sugar Estates," confirmed at a press conference that the value of his enterprises is $150 million (almost the value of Nicaragua's total yearly exports), and yields $20 million yearly in profits. These figures are the basis on which the Sandinista government will negotiate the compensation of the Pellas.
The Pellas must not receive any more resources, capital, additional profits after those of the last nine years -- not to mention the century this enterprise has existed on the backs of the people.
The wreckage left by the Pellas is not worth what they owe the people, and they certainly shouldn't be given more capital as a gift.
Not a penny in compensation, and confiscation of the rest of the Pellas property! The profits of these other plants should finance the reconstruction of ISA, and especially the reconstruction of the workers' weakened forces, which have already been drained to the limit by exploitation.
[Cartoon.]
[Photo: Peasant cooperativist reading 'Prensa Proletaria' in Corazo.]
(The following article is from the July issue of "Prensa Proletaria," voice of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua. Translation by "The Workers' Advocate.")
Even though the Sandinista government waited through nine years of decapitalization [removal of money and resources from Nicaragua] at ISA [the giant Ingenio San Antonio sugar complex], the takeover of this plant represents a success -- though a partial one -- for our union center, Prensa Proletaria was told by Francisco Gutierrez, who is responsible for the work of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua and the Workers' Front [trade union center of the MLPN] in the Western region.
The comrade recalled the reckless and demagogical way in which the CST [Sandinista union center] decided to dismantle practically all of the gains won through years of struggle against the Pellas bosses. In particular, when the Sandinistas took power, the collective contract was eliminated.
The collective contract had to be wrenched out of the Pellas family through hard battles where the workers clashed with the Somoza National Guard, which intervened in the labor disputes at ISA at the request of Alfredo Pellas, the comrade remembered.
The workers' struggles under the Sandinista government were also repressed, with the use of the turbas [Sandinista organized gangs], the police, blackmail, and of course through selective firings carried out by management with the complacency of the CST.
Various strikes, almost yearly, have shown that the workers at ISA are one of the bulwarks of the Nicaraguan proletariat; they have kept up the class struggle against the pro-imperialist bourgeoisie and against the new parasitic opportunist bureaucracy. For these reasons, the government has had no choice but to intervene at this enterprise, even though it knows it is only taking over a wreck. The plant is like an empty box, with no funds, and workers who are worn out and hungry, added comrade Julio Parrales, also of the Workers' Front in the Western region.
Comrade Parrales was pleased with the advance of the Committees of Struggle (CLT's) of the workers at ISA, organized by the Workers' Front. They have been organizing denunciations of the Pellas bosses and against the bureaucracy complicit with them. Now they continue the work place struggle under new conditions.
The CLT's are the best organized response of the workers to the enrichment of the Pellas. The CLT's will continue the struggle against this bourgeois economic group, both at ISA and at the other Pellas plants.
The ISA workers must mobilize under these slogans:
Not a penny more to the Pellas!
No to compensation!
Take over all the enterprises of the Pellas group!
Nationalize the whole economic complex of Pellas!
A cease-fire has gone into effect between Iran and Iraq. But while the cannons may have cooled along the border, there is no letup in the violence being unleashed by the regimes against their own people.
Quite the contrary. Domestic repression is actually being stepped up. The Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq is escalating its brutal war against the Kurdish population. And the Islamic regime in Iran has gone on a rampage against its political prisoners.
For eight years, the capitalist rulers of Iran and Iraq have killed over a million people and maimed many more -- all in a contest over who will be top dog in the Persian Gulf region. Both regimes are now worried that with the winding down of the war, their people will raise some thorny questions. The people will no doubt ask, what was all the misery and death for?
The regimes are afraid that the masses will try to settle accounts with their oppressors. Both the Iranian and Iraqi regimes are therefore lashing out to undercut the threat of mass upheavals.
Iraq Intensifies War Against the Kurds
The war with Iran wasn't the only one which the Iraqi regime has waged during the past few years. The Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq has been waging a genocidal war against the Kurdish nationality. A widespread insurgency has emerged in resistance.
There is no limit to the cruelty of the Iraqi regime. Tens of thousands of villages have been leveled by bulldozers and dynamite. Nearly a million Kurds are homeless. Many have been deported to camps in the desert areas of southern Iraq. Large numbers of youth have been disappeared. Poison gas has also been used against the rebellious Kurds.
Since Iran announced it was going to accept the UN cease-fire, Iraq has redeployed 42,000 of its troops in the war against the Kurds. There have been daily air raids. And chemical weapons have been dropped several times. In the most recent incident, poison gas was dropped on eight Kurdish villages on August 25, killing 88 people. The Kurds expect more poison gas attacks to come.
The migration of Kurdish refugees out of the country is also increasing. But on the Turkish border, the Turkish dictatorship has deployed more army divisions to prevent refugees from coming across. Turkey too carries out brutal oppression of its Kurdish population and has cooperated with Iraq's anti-Kurdish war.
Islamic Regime Brutalizes Political Prisoners
So far, the Iranian army appears too exhausted to launch an all-out war against the Kurds, who are also fighting for their rights. The threat of such an offensive remains. In the meantime, the Iranian regime has turned its attention to massacring political prisoners.
There are tens of thousands of political prisoners in Iran's jails, mostly opposition activists. Most were rounded up in 1981-2, when the Islamic regime consolidated its hold. Prisoners have carried out hunger strikes and other protests against their persecution.
Many inside the jails have been killed over the years. But starting in April, and accelerating since the acceptance of the UN cease-fire resolution, the Islamic regime has resumed its systematic executions of leftist political prisoners.
Those being killed include many who had collapsed under torture and "repented." And it also includes others who were not yet sentenced. Those prisoners who are considered to be "unbelievers" have been buried in a burial ground east of Tehran. In this place, a series of trenches were dug and filled with at least 58 corpses between July 27 and August 10. The bodies were tightly packed, head to foot, and covered with two inches of soil.
Only the Toilers' Revolution Can Bring Justice
The likely end of the savage bloodletting of the Iran-Iraq war is welcomed by the people. But the peoples of Iran and Iraq have a way to go before achieving freedom and justice. The brutal regimes in both Baghdad and Tehran remain in place, along with their military machines of death and destruction.
The end of the war offers the hopeful prospect of renewed struggles by the masses.
Neither the United Nations nor the imperialist big powers will help in this. No, the capitalists of the U.S., Europe, and Russia are only eager to make their deals with the regimes -- to prop them up so that capitalist stability and the renewal of profit-making as usual is ensured.
The current repression by Iran and Iraq emphasizes the urgent need for the masses to rise up with their own demands.
[Photo: At the training center for the armed fighters of Komala, the Kurdish organization of the CP of Iran. The banners read: Long Live Socialism! Long Live Proletarian Internationalism! Long Live the Communist Party of Iran! Down with the Islamic Republic!]
(We publish excerpts from a statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Iran on the recent cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war.)
The Islamic Republic regime conceded at last to the defeat of its war policy and goals....
On July 18, 1988 the usual shouts of "war, war" of the Islamic rulers' propaganda machines were silenced. Instead, it was announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran has unconditionally accepted the [United Nations] resolution 598 and is ready to implement a ceasefire.
The eight-year-old war has established itself as one of the bloodiest, longest, and most inhumane wars of our era. The dimensions of this war's catastrophes, mass killings and destructions are well known....
Everybody in Iran is, and should be, asking themselves the question: why have all these hardships been forced upon them? The answer to us, the workers of Iran, is clear. The Islamic Republic regime has sacrificed people's lives to impose on other peoples of the region the same reactionary Islamic regime that we have been forced to live under....
Now the Islamic Republic has failed in its anti-people policies and goals. The seemingly almighty regime is totally broken down. Its weakness is official. Its leaders have acknowledged their defeat. The Islamic Republic's war comes to an end by it conceding to a cease-fire.
But this end is only a beginning for the oppressed people and workers of Iran. They are still suffering from the devastation and hardship of the war. The end of the war is only the beginning of a more serious, more widespread, and stronger struggle to force the Islamic Republic regime to pay for all these hardships.
The Islamic Republic must pay for all the atrocities of the war and all other crimes that it has committed against the workers and toilers of Iran. The people's rights, denied under the pretext of the war, must be restored. The poverty and misery that have worsened due to the Islamic Republic's war must come to an end. The oppressed workers and toilers must enter, with their demands, into a larger and more widespread struggle against the Islamic Republic. There should be no doubts that they can and shall lay the Islamic regime to rest. They must break down the pillars of the Islamic regime and send its leaders and agents, all the war criminals who up to yesterday were shouting "war, war," to the revolutionary courts.
Workers, oppressed people of Iran!
Rise to punish and penalize the Islamic Republic regime for its war atrocities and other criminal and suppressive acts!. Clearly state your demands for an end to poverty and the denial of your rights! In order to change the miserable life imposed upon you, engage in all-out struggle against the regime!
Your enemies are weakening. Leaders of the regime admit to this in more than one way. You must take advantage of their weakness to strengthen yourself and force them to accept your demands. The conditions for a more widespread struggle have begun to improve. The Islamic rulers who have accepted the cease-fire out of weakness and desperation will try to continue the state of siege that has prevailed during the war. They are trying to reorganize their disarrayed oppressive troops directly against you. The Islamic Republic can and should not be allowed to do this. Rise up and utilize every opportunity to totally destroy the war mobilization machine of the Islamic Republic. The state of siege must come to an end immediately....
The intolerable living conditions imposed upon the masses can only be changed by relying upon the power of workers and toilers to bring about freedom and prosperity. The struggle will not be successful unless it brings down the Islamic Republic regime and replaces it with a workers' government that puts the toiling masses in real control over their social life. To this goal we invite you to an extended struggle for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Revolutionary people of Kurdistan!
Under the pretext of the war the Islamic Republic regime has increased its military presence in Kurdistan to control your revolutionary struggle. For sure it will try to reinforce and strengthen its militarism. Raise your voice and revolutionary struggle! Consolidate your ranks around Komala [Kurdistan organization of the CPI]! All oppressive forces of the Islamic Republic must immediately vacate Kurdistan and the regime's militarism must come to an end. The extension and elevation of your struggle, and the resistance to all laws and rules of the Islamic regime, alongside the armed struggle of the conscious workers, Komala's peshmargas (freedom fighters), will bring the Islamic Republic's militarism in Kurdistan to a complete halt.
Down with the Islamic Republic!
Long live Freedom, Equality, Workers' State!
Central Committee of the CP of Iran July 20,1988
On August 13, the Boston Branch of the MLP had a public showing of a slide show on Kurdistan. This slide show was put together with pictures taken by the MLP medical delegation which visited the mountain camps of Komala (Kurdistan section of the CP of Iran) last winter.
In preparation for this event, the comrades carried out a leafleting and postering campaign. Posters were put out in English and Farsi. The Party also developed discussion in the work places.
At the Boston meeting, an MLP speaker gave an introductory speech which dealt with the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war. He exposed the dirty role of U.S. imperialism which worked all these years to fuel the reactionary war. And he described recent developments in the U.S. government's efforts to make a rapprochement with the Islamic regime in Iran. Behind this, he pointed out, lies the desire of imperialism and the Iranian capitalist rulers to maintain the status quo in the face of potential social explosions. The speech pointed out that class battles are developing in Iran and emphasized the importance of the CP of Iran as the party which organizes the proletariat as an independent revolutionary force.
A supporter of CPI gave another speech. He outlined the history of CPI and stressed the significance of CPI's organizing the proletariat as an independent class force that can fight for its own demands and aims, which contrasts with the situation during the 1978-79 revolution where the workers did. the fighting and the bourgeoisie and priests seized the power.
After the speeches and slide show, there was a lively discussion on the cease-fire and the role of CPI in Iran.
The Kurdistan slide show has been shown in various cities around the country. Everywhere it has played a useful role in clarifying the struggle of Komala and CPI and it has helped to mobilize solidarity with the struggle of the Iranian toilers against the Khomeini regime.
Reagan, Iacocca and the U.S. press may love. Gorbachev's perestroika, but for the Soviet workers the Western-style economic reforms mean wage cuts, speedup, and layoffs. The rumblings of working class discontent can be heard in the background.
A glimpse of what perestroika means to the Soviet workers was offered at a gathering of the top leaders of the Soviet official trade unions held in Moscow over the weekend of August 6. These unions have a membership of some 150 million workers, nearly the entire work force. But these unions are part of the state capitalist apparatus and they don't represent the workers' interests. In fact, they are supporters of Gorbachev's perestroika policies.
But growing working class discontent has forced the union big shots to worry. Their meeting was held to figure out how to deal with this mass disaffection. In these discussions they were forced to acknowledge that there are serious problems being faced by the workers.
In a speech to the conference, Stepan Shalayev, chairman of the trade union congress, reported that 10% more time had been lost last year than in 1986 due to absenteeism and standstills. He admitted that workers have often expressed their dissatisfaction in bitter forms, including strikes.
As to the causes of this unrest, he pointed to such things as crudeness of administration, poor organization of production, endless "black Saturdays" (forced overtime), "production spurts," etc.
Shalayev also said that in the past 18 months, some 1.5 million workers had lost jobs. While he claimed that most found new jobs, he admitted that in some cases workers were sacked without finding new jobs and without consultation with the unions.
It was also reported that 37 million workers, nearly half of the workers in production industries, have moved over to production-based salary structures. Under this scheme, which is a major part of perestroika, a worker's income is tied to bonuses paid out after production quotas are exceeded. But these bonuses have often been cut arbitrarily.
The union bureaucrats were willing to acknowledge various of the problems faced by the rank-and-file workers, but this doesn't mean they are abandoning support for perestroika. No way. Instead, their concern, as representatives of the ruling bureaucracy, was to find ways of defusing working class resistance.
But in this they are in a bind. They were forced to acknowledge that a deep gulf divides them from the rank and file. S. Barkov, chairman of the Sverdlovsk regional committee of the unions, admitted, "Trade unions are still poorly aware of the real situation in work places, so great is their belief in directives and paper."
The Soviet union leaders play a similar role to the union bureaucrats here in the U.S., who are also involved in a love affair with the exploiting ruling class. And to change this situation, the Soviet workers, like the workers here, also have to build up revolutionary organization.
For more than a decade now, China has been pushing ahead with Western-style capitalist reforms. The Chinese leaders dropped revolutionary pretensions and adopted unabashed pro-capitalist slogans like "To get rich is glorious."
But while it may be glorious for the bureaucrats and wealthy capitalist employers, seeing these aristocrats "getting rich" has a different meaning for the vast majority of working people. Deng Hsiao-Ping's capitalist reforms have brought ruthless exploitation and misery for the workers and poor peasants. Working conditions for the Chinese workers are atrocious, because various protections which existed in the past have been stripped away.
According to recent press reports, in Peking alone over 100 construction workers have died this year in horrible industrial conditions. Indeed, reports of industrial deaths and injuries have become a regular phenomenon.
Meanwhile, in Shenzen, near Hong Kong, a government check on 200 local businesses found that more than 40 were employing girls as young as 10 for 14 hours a day in "incredibly bad" conditions. The girls aren't paid much -- and payments for board and training are extracted. They live and work in damp sheds where each shares a bed with two or three others. Of the 1,000 children, 468 were of elementary school age.
The last week of August several hundred Hungarian miners went on strike to protest the introduction of a personal income tax system. More than 300 coal miners near Pecs in the southwest refused to turn up for the morning shift. They were later joined by other miners. The strike was ended after 24 hours.
Last January, the personal income tax was introduced, which has meant a cut in wages.
But this attack on their livelihood is only one of the problems being faced by the coal miners. Next year the Hungarian government plans to cut subsidies to the coal industry, raising the prospect of the closure of some coal pits.
The coal miners are likely to come out fighting against such pit closures. In July 1986, hundreds of workers at the Tatabanya mines in western Hungary went on strike against planned closures. Those strikes only ended when the government assured the workers that-there would be no layoffs.
The personal income tax and the cut in subsidies are both part of the austerity program of the Hungarian government. Hungary is a state capitalist country which long ago implemented the capitalist economic reforms which are now the fashion in Gorbachev's Russia. But these reforms have only dragged Hungary ever deeper into economic crisis. And the workers have repeatedly shown that they won't lie down in the face of attacks on their wages and conditions.
Workers in Poland launched a new strike wave in mid-August. Beginning in the coal mines of southern Poland, the strikes spread to steel and machine works in central Poland and to transport and shipyard workers in the northern Baltic ports. By late August some of the strikes had ended, but others were standing firm. And the state capitalist regime of General Jaruzelski was once again gripped by crisis.
This strike wave is the latest expression of workers' outrage over the austerity program imposed on them by the government. Jaruzelski's basket of capitalist reforms is imposing ever greater hardships -- higher prices and shortages -- on the workers. Workers are trying to fight back.
Government Stabs Workers in the Back
The spark that set off this latest strike wave was the government reneging on wage raises given to workers in May. At that time, during the last strike wave, the government conceded wage raises to many workers. This was one of the workers' basic demands in the face of 60% inflation and price rises of 40-200% on particular consumer items.
At the July Manifesto coal mine in southern Poland, management gave workers a raise in mid-May to keep them from striking. But by August, with the spring strike wave gone, management decided to renege. In their paychecks picked up on August 15, workers found they had suffered a pay cut of 20-25%. The next day the July Manifesto miners occupied the mine and shut it down.
In the days that followed, the strike quickly spread to nearby coal mines, as the July Manifesto miners appealed for support. The government, in a panic, declared the strikes illegal. But workers continued to shut down mines in the area around Katowice and demanded large pay raises. The workers also demanded restoration of the Solidarity trade union.
Meanwhile strikes spread through central and northern Poland. In Szczecin, Poland's second largest port, 2,000 dock workers occupied the docks and shut off all commerce. They were soon joined by the city's bus and streetcar drivers.
Solidarity Leaders Join Strikes But Work to Undermine the Fight
In all of these strikes the workers raised two major demands: large pay raises and legalization of Solidarity. In the face of extreme economic hardship, the workers see the need for struggle and think of Solidarity as a fighting workers' organization.
Unfortunately this is not true. In the time of its legal existence, 1980-81, Solidarity came up as a union independent of the sold out official unions. Its strikes gave expression to many of the workers' demands but the leadership which emerged didn't have a working class perspective. No, they linked themselves to the Western capitalists and in this the Catholic Church played a major role. The Solidarity leadership became a champion of a larger role for private capital in Poland.
At one time, the Solidarity leaders were more willing to call for strikes. But today they are the most diehard adherents of pro-capitalist reforms. Jaruzelski is implementing such reforms, but Solidarity wants a faster pace. And they want to be taken into government circles as an equal consultative partner in this process.
Solidarity leader Lech Walesa clarified this stand on August 21, in the midst of the strike wave, when he said, "We cannot pull Poland out of her troubles by means of strikes. We are ready for dialogue and talks.'' (New York Times, Aug. 22)
But Walesa also noted that the workers themselves are demanding strike action and are raising the demand to recognize Solidarity. So the Solidarity leaders decided to try and use this strike wave to their advantage. Walesa called a strike among the workers at the huge Lenin Shipyard in, Gdansk, Poland's major port. In this strike, however, the demands were limited to just recognition of Solidarity.
The Solidarity leaders subscribe to the capitalist theory of "wage-price spiral.'' They have spoken in the past against wage raises for the workers, although during the current strikes they didn't directly come out to denounce the wage demands. The Solidarity leaders aren't enthused about the workers' economic struggle because the economic reforms Solidarity champions require stepped-up rates of exploitation for the workers.
Jaruzelski: Back to Sticks and Carrots
Meanwhile, the government decided to clamp down on the strikes. On August 22 the government announced a series of measures giving local leaders new powers to arrest strikers and to impose curfews in strikebound areas.
The first result of the new police measures was the crushing of the transport workers' strike in Szczecin. Local officials ordered riot police to storm the bus and streetcar depots occupied by workers. Striking drivers were arrested and the strike collapsed.
But the government hesitated to use the same tactics against coal miners or Gdansk shipyard workers. Police surrounded the struck work places but did not launch an assault.
At the end of August the workers and government were at a standoff. The strike wave's first impulse was stopped by government repression and Solidarity's lack of interest in organizing strikes. Some strikes ended. But coal production was still cut by 20%, the Gdansk shipyard was shut down, and repeated attempts were made to shut down the huge Nowa Huta steel works.
The government finally agreed to open up dialogue. They sent feelers to Solidarity leaders expressing willingness to negotiate. And they called for a round-table discussion with opposition forces. The Solidarity leaders may get the dialogue they have been seeking for so long. And to make it all look good, the ruling United Workers' Party came out with stinging denunciations of its own government for the crisis in Poland.
The Church leaders advised workers to go back to work.
The workers cannot get too excited about this outcome. No doubt if the dialogue comes through, the Church and Solidarity leaders will crow about victory. But this would be victory for the champions of capitalism, not for the workers. The workers cannot expect better conditions to emerge for them out of this dialogue. If the dialogue is successful, it will mean a faster pace of capitalist reforms which will mean greater austerity measures on the workers.
But a positive byproduct of such an outcome could be the stripping of illusions in Solidarity among the masses of Polish workers.
A Revolutionary Alternative Is Needed
The workers' strike struggles are essential to help defend themselves. But they are not enough. The workers do need something more, but that more is something different than what the Solidarity leaders believe in.
No, that more is the organization of a revolutionary working class movement. That more is the consciousness of the need for a true socialist transformation of Poland. A system based on profit and class exploitation -- no matter whether it is the current state-capitalist dominated one or whether it is the market system advocated by Solidarity -- cannot fulfill the needs and hopes of the Polish workers. For the Polish workers to get out of the country's dire straits, they need proletarian socialism.
[Photo: Striking Polish miners use a truck as a barricade outside a coal mine near Katowicz.]
Burma is a Southeast Asian country of some 35 million people. It is bordered by Bangladesh and India to the west, and China, Laos, and Thailand to the east. It has been traditionally rich in agricultural and mineral resources.
It was colonized in the last century by the British who incorporated it into their Indian administration. They oriented Burma to serve the needs of British capitalists, squeezing it of its raw materials and profiting from cheap Burmese labor.
At the same time, British imperialism gave rise to a rudimentary bourgeoisie and professional class, as well as creating a small industrial proletariat. In the 1930's various competing political trends emerged, oriented towards communism, nationalism, social-democracy, or even Japanese militarism.
During World War II, the British caused much destruction as they departed from Burma with a scorched- earth policy. The Japanese occupied it and many nationalist leaders cooperated with them. At the same time Japanese brutalities helped mobilize an anti-fascist movement, in which communists were influential.
After the war, faced with anti-colonial revolt, Britain gave in to independence for Burma. The nationalist bourgeoisie came to power, led by the social-democratic party. They suppressed the working class movement and revolts by communist-led toilers. And the regime also based its rule on the domination of the Burmese nationality over various minorities in the outlying areas. These oppressed peoples have been in constant revolt through to the current day.
The post-independence Burmese bourgeois regime soon collapsed. Economic development schemes with Western imperialist aid were a fiasco. Wars against the underground made it unpopular. It was wracked by internal squabbles. The army was called in first in 1958, and it finally took over completely in 1962 when General Ne Win seized power.
Ne Win and his army ruled as a nationalist regime with socialist pretensions. They gave up on imperialist aid and nationalized foreign and local capital. They also spoke in the name of peasants and workers.
But this wasn't Marxist socialism; and the forces in Burma who considered themselves communists did not consider Ne Win's system to be socialism. In fact, Ne Win's "Burmese way of socialism" was a mixture of military rule, state capitalism, Buddhism and nationalism. The base of the regime was never the workers and peasants, but the military.
A peculiar feature of Ne Win's "socialism" was that it was not to be oriented towards growth. Economic development was in fact held back. For a while, rich agricultural resources and having its own oil kept things going. Discontent was kept in check with repression. And Ne Win continued the wars against the insurgencies in the countryside.
Of course, such a system was bound to unwind. Japanese and German capital were invited in during the 70's. Corruption in the army and government grew to astronomical proportions. The state capitalist economy was a mess. It could not meet the needs of the masses, especially as population and the expectations of the masses grew. A black market, which was tolerated all along to provide a safety valve, soon overshadowed the official economy.
These are the conditions that led to the current social explosion.
[Graphic.]
Workers in Thailand launched a large strike wave at the end of June this year. They demanded higher wages and opposed the government's plan to privatize large sectors of the economy.
The strikes began June 27 when dock workers. struck, shutting down Thailand's major port in the busiest week of the year. The dock workers were soon joined by government water workers. Rail workers then struck, shutting down most train service in the country. This was followed by construction workers stopping work, demanding that construction deadlines be extended and that wages be raised 20%.
As the strike movement grew, workers also raised class-wide demands. They raised their voices for comprehensive social security coverage; for guaranteed long-term employment rather than short-term jobs; and for the rehiring of steel workers at one mill who were fired for going on strike.
Many of the strikes also demanded an end to the government's privatization schemes. Thailand is ruled by a military government thinly veiled by a parliamentary system. In the past the government has directly run large areas of the economy. But now the government, hungry to attract foreign capital, is opening up large sectors of the economy to private investment. The workers see this as opening the way for stepped- up attacks on their wages and working conditions.
To bring in multinational investors the Thai rulers are touting the country's low wages ($3 a day) and lack of an organized, militant labor movement. Capital is flooding in from nearby capitalist countries -- Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia -- creating something of an economic boom. But the Thai workers are learning fast. While the government tries to sell them as willing slaves, the workers are organizing struggle against capitalist exploitation.
The racist government of South Africa violently suppresses the black masses at home and regularly invades neighboring black-ruled countries. To keep itself afloat, the government relies on the loyalty of white South Africans. But recent events show that under the impact of the anti-apartheid struggle of the black people, this too is beginning to crack.
On August 3 over 150 white South Africans declared they would not serve in the army because it props up the racist system of apartheid. The announcement was made simultaneously in four different cities across the country. At press conferences the young white men denounced the army and South Africa's aggression against neighboring countries.
In South Africa all white males are required to serve two years regular duty in the armed forces. Later they are required to serve an additional two years of periodic call-up duty. The young men who made their anti-draft declaration included some who had already served their two years regular duty. They range in age from 18 to the mid-30's.
The organized declaration was a nice slap in the face to the government, which had just sentenced young David Bruce to six years in jail for refusing to submit to the draft. Bruce refused to enter the army because he said it would amount to " upholding a racist system by violence." The racist government hoped to intimidate other draft resisters with a stiff sentence for Bruce. But at their press conference the 150 resisters declared their support for Bruce, and 48 of them issued a statement saying the army "violently maintains and propagates a fundamentally unjust and oppressive system."
One of the resisters is an army captain, a 28-year-old Afrikaner named Andre Zaaiman. Zaaiman renounced his army rank and said, "I reconfirm my refusal to participate in any way in the South African Defense Force until the system of apartheid has been done away with completely...." Zaaiman also denounced South Africa's aggression in Angola and Namibia as "unjust and futile."
Although the most dramatic event to date in the anti-draft movement, the August 3 declaration is just the tip of the iceberg in white South Africans' opposition to the draft. Thousands of young whites have left the country permanently rather than serve in the army. Hundreds more evade the draft by living as fugitives inside the country.
Stung by the August 3 declaration, the government launched a campaign of revenge. On August 22 the government announced the banning of the End Conscription Campaign, a political organization based among whites that campaigns against compulsory military service. Despite this, however, the opposition to racist conscription is bound to grow in South Africa.
The fight against conscription is only one step for white youth in breaking away from support for the apartheid regime. But refusal to serve cannot go very far in damaging the military machine of oppression. More organized forms of struggle are necessary. In order to strike serious blows against apartheid, progressive white youth, have to join in the mass struggles against the. racist system of white supremacy. They have to link up with the revolutionary struggle of the black masses. Eventually the consciousness will rise from refusal to fight on behalf of the oppressor to enthusiasm to fight for his overthrow.
[Photo: David Bruce, the young white man who has been sentenced to six years in South Africa's jails for resisting the military draft. Bruce has denounced the South African army as a prop for a racist system.]
The workers and peasants of Guatemala continue to battle the tyrannical U.S.-backed regime. The Guatemalan rulers have "disappeared" tens of thousands of opponents. But President Cerezo, civilian figurehead of a military regime, has not been able to make the struggle disappear.
Mass Anti-Government March
On July 4th, 10,000 people marched in the capital, Guatemala City. Banners denounced skyrocketing prices, raised demands on behalf of the landless peasants, and condemned political repression. The masses also protested Cerezo's decision to grant amnesty to the organizers of an attempted ultra-right coup this past May.
The angry protesters burned a flag of Cerezo's Christian Democratic Party. And when Cerezo's wife appeared on the balcony of the national palace, she was loudly booed.
Student Protests
Two days later, thousands of students took to the streets to demand more funds for education and an improvement in the economic and political conditions of the people. The activists erected barricades and fought pitched battles with the police. These skirmishes occurred in the midst of a two- week student strike in four of Guatemala's states.
Truckers' Strike
Meanwhile truck drivers went on strike across the country on July 3. Their protest brought a halt to the transportation of fuel for one week.
Armed Guerrilla Actions
The armed anti-government guerrillas also stepped up their actions. For example, on July 6, they killed or wounded 17 fascist troops in three separate skirmishes. Recently even some of Cerezo's own military commanders had to admit the guerrillas enjoy widespread support among the native Indians who are poverty-stricken peasants. (Half or so of the Guatemalan people are brutally oppressed Indians.) One commander estimated that 25% of the local Indians were actively aiding the rebel forces and another 50% sympathized with them.
Support the Struggle
Try as they may, the Guatemalan exploiters and militarists cannot prevent the spread of revolt. The workers and peasants are a force to be reckoned with. Through revolution, they will one day bring about the end of the repressive system.
Each month the Israeli Zionists step up their persecution of the Palestinians. And each month, the Palestinian uprising shows that it will not be crushed.
Since the end of last year, the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have kept up a powerful battle against tremendous odds. In August, the people of the Gaza Strip rose up in new storms of struggle.
What fueled the recent clashes in Gaza was yet another gruesome Israeli atrocity. Two laborers from Gaza were burned to death while sleeping in a hut at a construction site near Tel Aviv where they worked. Arsonists set the hut afire.
When Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets in protest, Israeli troops shot and killed demonstrators. Palestinians resisted with firebombs.
A round-the-clock curfew was imposed on the night of the 14th. But it could not quell the masses. Arab youths built roadblocks, burned tires, and threw stones at soldiers. In the Israeli assaults on the people, still more were killed and wounded. And troops fired on hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who rioted at the prison camp at Ketziot after news reached the inmates about the battles in the Gaza Strip.
Fighting against the Israeli troops also continued to take place in the West Bank. And the Israeli army again clamped down with 24-hour curfews on West Bank cities like Nablus.
At the end of August, the official death toll reached 225. Deportations of activists also continued. And Israel ordered new bans on Palestinian organization, including the formal outlawing of participation in any of the thousands of "popular committees" that have sprung up during the uprising.
But the uprising was never organized on the basis of getting Israeli approval; it was organized all along in defiance of the laws and regulations of the oppressors. Just as their curfews and guns cannot stop protest actions, neither will their new bans stop the spread of the uprising.
The Palestinian uprising remains a tremendous inspiration to all who hate tyranny and racism.
In early August, King Hussein of Jordan gave up his country's claims to the occupied West Bank. He cut off salaries to some 21,000 employees there, canceled a development project, and dissolved Jordan's lower house of parliament, half of whose seats were reserved for West Bank residents.
The Palestinian West Bank was occupied by the Jordanian kingdom in 1948 when Israel was founded. In 1967, Israel seized the area and began two decades of military occupation. But all this time, Jordan maintained official claims to the territory and provided funds and salaries for much of the local administration. This allowed Jordan to claim a prominent role in any diplomatic negotiations over the status of the West Bank.
King Hussein's latest move was brought about under the impact of the Palestinian uprising. The Palestinians have made clear that they want freedom. They have also made it clear that they despise the Jordanian regime. They do not want Jordan to have any pretense that it can represent them
But Jordan's decision does not mean that Hussein has now become a friend of the Palestinian people. No, the years when the West Bank was under Hussein's rule were not happy years for the Palestinians. They lived under a repressive regime. Hussein has repeatedly come out against the Palestinian movement. Most notably in 1970, he ordered a full-scale military assault against the Palestinian resistance, wiping out their bases in Jordan and murdering many activists.
Jordan is deeply worried by the continuing uprising. It is desperate that the struggle be brought to an end. But so far it has been impotent. It has tried secret contacts with the Israelis; it has appealed to its friend the U.S. imperialists; and it has tried to encourage the PLO leaders to make an accommodation with Israel. But Israel remains obstinate and the U.S. government has simply gone along with Israeli occupation. And while the PLO leaders have signaled willingness to reach a compromise with Israel, they have been unwilling to capitulate without any signs of Israeli flexibility. The PLO leaders cannot go further because they also have to keep up a certain position before the fighting Palestinian masses.
Hussein hopes that his move will prod a change in the stance of various parties, such as the U.S., Israel, and the PLO leadership. It was apparently worked out in consultation with major Arab capitalist powers like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
So far Israel maintains its arrogant stand of refusal to deal with the PLO. The U.S. government, which based its Shultz plan on the principle of Jordan speaking for the Palestinians, is now in a quandary. It is not willing to prod the Israeli government.
But the PLO leaders have apparently taken the hint. There is talk of declaring a provisional government for the West Bank and Gaza which would recognize Israel and seek negotiations with it. Their perspective is to set up these territories as a mini-state, if Israel will give in. But even if this came about, this will not mean freedom for the Palestinians. Such a state would remain economically dependent on Israel, and the PLO leaders are even willing to concede to a confederation with reactionary Jordan. This was again reaffirmed during recent PLO-Jordan talks.
Thus the wily King Hussein has no plans to give up control over the Palestinians. A leopard does not change his spots. What Hussein hates most is the Palestinian struggle. This is the bottom line. This is also why Hussein carried out his latest move in a way that created maximum disruption. He did not give any warning to the people whose salaries he is cutting.
Palestinian liberation will not come through following out Hussein's hopes. It will come through building a struggle that can overthrow the Israeli regime and establish a democratic setup with full rights for all who live there, irrespective of what religion they have and whether they are Arab or Jewish.
On August 13th, 400 demonstrators marched in Toronto, Canada to protest the recent police shooting of a disabled black man.
Lester Donaldson, a 44 year old born in Jamaica, was shot a few days earlier by a policeman in a rooming house. He died from a single gunshot wound in the chest and abdomen. Four police officers had confronted Donaldson, supposedly trying to disarm him of a knife. One of them shot him dead at a distance of four feet.
The black community in Toronto has been in an uproar over this murder. The masses are especially outraged because Donaldson was a crippled man, who needed a cane to walk. During an April run-in with the cops, he had been shot in the hip. People in Toronto find it incredible that four cops could not subdue Donaldson in August without shooting him.
During the protest demonstration, marchers chanted slogans such as, "Charge the cops with murder'' and "We want justice.'' When the marchers rallied in front of a police station, plain clothes cops took pictures with a video camera. And the police establishment has come out with hysterical attacks on protesters.
[Photo.]
In July, a campaign of solidarity with the revolutionary workers of Nicaragua was carried out in Madrid, Spain. It was organized by Nuevo Octubre, a journal which promotes the development of a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist movement in Spain.
Walls were sprayed with the slogan "With MLPN-MAP, Nicaragua shall win!'' Stickers with the same message were also posted around town.
On Saturday, July 16, a festival was held at the Dos de Mayo square by a pro-Sandinista committee to mark nine years since the overthrow of Somoza. Nuevo Octubre went there with a placard, a propaganda stall, and a wall newspaper explaining the history and activity of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua and the Workers' Front.
During the festival, the July issue of Nuevo Octubre, which was entirely devoted to Nicaragua, was distributed and discussions were held about the MLPN's work with those who approached the stall.
(From "Red Chronicle," an English publication of "Nuevo Octubre," August 1, 1988.)
[Photo: Wall poster by "Nuevo Octubre" explains the revolutionary role of the MLP of Nicaragua to Spanish workers.]
This means that most parents of small children are in need of good and affordable day care. However, decent child care is in short supply and the costs can be astronomical. Many day care centers give rotten care, are overcrowded and understaffed, and the costs can still be astronomical.
This child care crisis has been growing under Reagan's nose. But Reagan hasn't noticed. His government hasn't lifted a finger to ease this heavy burden on working parents and their children. It has only made it worse by spearheading the cuts in education funding, which have meant cuts in Headstart, full-day kindergarten and other needed programs.
Now it's election time. Both Democrats and Republicans want to make political hay with promises to address the child care issue.
Bush is advertizing his so-called "Child Care Tax Credit." It actually has nothing to do with providing child care. It's merely a promise of a small tax cut for the poor. And Bush hopes that it will help his chances in November.
The Democrats in Congress have their ABC bill to subsidize day care. Dukakis supports the idea. But the bill is only a band-aid on the wounds of high costs and the lack of decent day care.
What the working people need is a universal system of free child care. They need employer-funded day care centers linked to the plants, offices and other workplaces, supplemented by centers in the community. They also need expanded preschool and kindergarten programs linked to the public schools. However, there will be no serious steps in this direction without a sharp struggle. Presently only 1.6% of employers sponsor any day care, and much of this is at exhorbitant cost. And where the workers have raised demands for child care, management has dug in its heels against it.
Solutions to the child care crisis won't come through election year promises. Like other gains for the working class this will only be won when the working class stands up for its own interests against the employers and against the capitalist government.
Even then, there are limits to what can be expected in terms of quality and availability of child care under the present capitalist system. Just look at the public school system: it was never any great shakes in poor and working class communities, but today it is falling apart at the hands of the capitalist budget cutters.
What's needed is to turn the society upside down with a socialist revolution. Today day care is needed so parents can slave away for the corporations, corporations whose only consideration is profit margins and which couldn't give a hang for the fate of the children of the men and women who slave for them. In the society of tomorrow men and women will work to improve the lot of the majority -- care and protection of children will be a top priority.
The child care crunch is on for working parents. The concessions drive against wages and benefits and the shift from industrial jobs to the lower paid service sector has taken a heavy toll on the workers' standard of living. Most families can no longer make it with only .one wage earner and struggle to get by with two people working. This has pushed millions of mothers with young children into the work force. The Labor Department recently reported that in 1987 for the first time more than half (50.8%) of the mothers with children under age one were in the labor force; this is up from 30% in 1976.
This means that most parents of small children are in need of good and affordable day care. However, decent child care is in short supply and the costs can be astronomical. Many day care centers give rotten care, are overcrowded and understaffed, and the costs can still be astronomical.
This child care crisis has been growing under Reagan's nose. But Reagan hasn't noticed. His government hasn't lifted a finger to ease this heavy burden on working parents and their children. It has only made it worse by spearheading the cuts in education funding, which have meant cuts in Headstart, full-day kindergarten and other needed programs.
Now it's election time. Both Democrats and Republicans want to make political hay with promises to address the child care issue.
Bush is advertizing his so-called "Child Care Tax Credit." It actually has nothing to do with providing child care. It's merely a promise of a small tax cut for the poor. And Bush hopes that it will help his chances in November.
The Democrats in Congress have their ABC bill to subsidize day care. Dukakis supports the idea. But the bill is only a band-aid on the wounds of high costs and the lack of decent day care.
What the working people need is a universal system of free child care. They need employer-funded day care centers linked to the plants, offices and other workplaces, supplemented by centers in the community. They also need expanded preschool and kindergarten programs linked to the public schools. However, there will be no serious steps in this direction without a sharp struggle. Presently only 1.6% of employers sponsor any day care, and much of this is at exhorbitant cost. And where the workers have raised demands for child care, management has dug in its heels against it.
Solutions to the child care crisis won't come through election year promises. Like other gains for the working class this will only be won when the working class stands up for its own interests against the employers and against the capitalist government.
Even then, there are limits to what can be expected in terms of quality and availability of child care under the present capitalist system. Just look at the public school system: it was never any great shakes in poor and working class communities, but today it is falling apart at the hands of the capitalist budget cutters.
What's needed is to turn the society upside down with a socialist revolution. Today day care is needed so parents can slave away for the corporations, corporations whose only consideration is profit margins and which couldn't give a hang for the fate of the children of the men and women who slave for them. In the society of tomorrow men and women will work to improve the lot of the majority -- care and protection of children will be a top priority.
Workers in Thailand launched a large strike wave at the end of June this year. They demanded higher wages and opposed the government's plan to privatize large sectors of the economy.
The strikes began June 27 when dock workers. struck, shutting down Thailand's major port in the busiest week of the year. The dock workers were soon joined by government water workers. Rail workers then struck, shutting down most train service in the country. This was followed by construction workers stopping work, demanding that construction deadlines be extended and that wages be raised 20%.
As the strike movement grew, workers also raised class-wide demands. They raised their voices for comprehensive social security coverage; for guaranteed long-term employment rather than short-term jobs; and for the rehiring of steel workers at one mill who were fired for going on strike.
Many of the strikes also demanded an end to the government's privatization schemes. Thailand is ruled by a military government thinly veiled by a parliamentary system. In the past the government has directly run large areas of the economy. But now the government, hungry to attract foreign capital, is opening up large sectors of the economy to private investment. The workers see this as opening the way for stepped- up attacks on their wages and working conditions.
To bring in multinational investors the Thai rulers are touting the country's low wages ($3 a day) and lack of an organized, militant labor movement. Capital is flooding in from nearby capitalist countries -- Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia -- creating something of an economic boom. But the Thai workers are learning fast. While the government tries to sell them as willing slaves, the workers are organizing struggle against capitalist exploitation.
The racist government of South Africa violently suppresses the black masses at home and regularly invades neighboring black-ruled countries. To keep itself afloat, the government relies on the loyalty of white South Africans. But recent events show that under the impact of the anti-apartheid struggle of the black people, this too is beginning to crack.
On August 3 over 150 white South Africans declared they would not serve in the army because it props up the racist system of apartheid. The announcement was made simultaneously in four different cities across the country. At press conferences the young white men denounced the army and South Africa's aggression against neighboring countries.
In South Africa all white males are required to serve two years regular duty in the armed forces. Later they are required to serve an additional two years of periodic call-up duty. The young men who made their anti-draft declaration included some who had already served their two years regular duty. They range in age from 18 to the mid-30's.
The organized declaration was a nice slap in the face to the government, which had just sentenced young David Bruce to six years in jail for refusing to submit to the draft. Bruce refused to enter the army because he said it would amount to " upholding a racist system by violence." The racist government hoped to intimidate other draft resisters with a stiff sentence for Bruce. But at their press conference the 150 resisters declared their support for Bruce, and 48 of them issued a statement saying the army "violently maintains and propagates a fundamentally unjust and oppressive system."
One of the resisters is an army captain, a 28-year-old Afrikaner named Andre Zaaiman. Zaaiman renounced his army rank and said, "I reconfirm my refusal to participate in any way in the South African Defense Force until the system of apartheid has been done away with completely...." Zaaiman also denounced South Africa's aggression in Angola and Namibia as "unjust and futile."
Although the most dramatic event to date in the anti-draft movement, the August 3 declaration is just the tip of the iceberg in white South Africans' opposition to the draft. Thousands of young whites have left the country permanently rather than serve in the army. Hundreds more evade the draft by living as fugitives inside the country.
Stung by the August 3 declaration, the government launched a campaign of revenge. On August 22 the government announced the banning of the End Conscription Campaign, a political organization based among whites that campaigns against compulsory military service. Despite this, however, the opposition to racist conscription is bound to grow in South Africa.
The fight against conscription is only one step for white youth in breaking away from support for the apartheid regime. But refusal to serve cannot go very far in damaging the military machine of oppression. More organized forms of struggle are necessary. In order to strike serious blows against apartheid, progressive white youth, have to join in the mass struggles against the. racist system of white supremacy. They have to link up with the revolutionary struggle of the black masses. Eventually the consciousness will rise from refusal to fight on behalf of the oppressor to enthusiasm to fight for his overthrow.
[Photo: David Bruce, the young white man who has been sentenced to six years in South Africa's jails for resisting the military draft. Bruce has denounced the South African army as a prop for a racist system.]
The workers and peasants of Guatemala continue to battle the tyrannical U.S.-backed regime. The Guatemalan rulers have "disappeared" tens of thousands of opponents. But President Cerezo, civilian figurehead of a military regime, has not been able to make the struggle disappear.
Mass Anti-Government March
On July 4th, 10,000 people marched in the capital, Guatemala City. Banners denounced skyrocketing prices, raised demands on behalf of the landless peasants, and condemned political repression. The masses also protested Cerezo's decision to grant amnesty to the organizers of an attempted ultra-right coup this past May.
The angry protesters burned a flag of Cerezo's Christian Democratic Party. And when Cerezo's wife appeared on the balcony of the national palace, she was loudly booed.
Student Protests
Two days later, thousands of students took to the streets to demand more funds for education and an improvement in the economic and political conditions of the people. The activists erected barricades and fought pitched battles with the police. These skirmishes occurred in the midst of a two- week student strike in four of Guatemala's states.
Truckers' Strike
Meanwhile truck drivers went on strike across the country on July 3. Their protest brought a halt to the transportation of fuel for one week.
Armed Guerrilla Actions
The armed anti-government guerrillas also stepped up their actions. For example, on July 6, they killed or wounded 17 fascist troops in three separate skirmishes. Recently even some of Cerezo's own military commanders had to admit the guerrillas enjoy widespread support among the native Indians who are poverty-stricken peasants. (Half or so of the Guatemalan people are brutally oppressed Indians.) One commander estimated that 25% of the local Indians were actively aiding the rebel forces and another 50% sympathized with them.
Support the Struggle
Try as they may, the Guatemalan exploiters and militarists cannot prevent the spread of revolt. The workers and peasants are a force to be reckoned with. Through revolution, they will one day bring about the end of the repressive system.
Each month the Israeli Zionists step up their persecution of the Palestinians. And each month, the Palestinian uprising shows that it will not be crushed.
Since the end of last year, the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have kept up a powerful battle against tremendous odds. In August, the people of the Gaza Strip rose up in new storms of struggle.
What fueled the recent clashes in Gaza was yet another gruesome Israeli atrocity. Two laborers from Gaza were burned to death while sleeping in a hut at a construction site near Tel Aviv where they worked. Arsonists set the hut afire.
When Palestinians in Gaza took to the streets in protest, Israeli troops shot and killed demonstrators. Palestinians resisted with firebombs.
A round-the-clock curfew was imposed on the night of the 14th. But it could not quell the masses. Arab youths built roadblocks, burned tires, and threw stones at soldiers. In the Israeli assaults on the people, still more were killed and wounded. And troops fired on hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who rioted at the prison camp at Ketziot after news reached the inmates about the battles in the Gaza Strip.
Fighting against the Israeli troops also continued to take place in the West Bank. And the Israeli army again clamped down with 24-hour curfews on West Bank cities like Nablus.
At the end of August, the official death toll reached 225. Deportations of activists also continued. And Israel ordered new bans on Palestinian organization, including the formal outlawing of participation in any of the thousands of "popular committees" that have sprung up during the uprising.
But the uprising was never organized on the basis of getting Israeli approval; it was organized all along in defiance of the laws and regulations of the oppressors. Just as their curfews and guns cannot stop protest actions, neither will their new bans stop the spread of the uprising.
The Palestinian uprising remains a tremendous inspiration to all who hate tyranny and racism.
In early August, King Hussein of Jordan gave up his country's claims to the occupied West Bank. He cut off salaries to some 21,000 employees there, canceled a development project, and dissolved Jordan's lower house of parliament, half of whose seats were reserved for West Bank residents.
The Palestinian West Bank was occupied by the Jordanian kingdom in 1948 when Israel was founded. In 1967, Israel seized the area and began two decades of military occupation. But all this time, Jordan maintained official claims to the territory and provided funds and salaries for much of the local administration. This allowed Jordan to claim a prominent role in any diplomatic negotiations over the status of the West Bank.
King Hussein's latest move was brought about under the impact of the Palestinian uprising. The Palestinians have made clear that they want freedom. They have also made it clear that they despise the Jordanian regime. They do not want Jordan to have any pretense that it can represent them
But Jordan's decision does not mean that Hussein has now become a friend of the Palestinian people. No, the years when the West Bank was under Hussein's rule were not happy years for the Palestinians. They lived under a repressive regime. Hussein has repeatedly come out against the Palestinian movement. Most notably in 1970, he ordered a full-scale military assault against the Palestinian resistance, wiping out their bases in Jordan and murdering many activists.
Jordan is deeply worried by the continuing uprising. It is desperate that the struggle be brought to an end. But so far it has been impotent. It has tried secret contacts with the Israelis; it has appealed to its friend the U.S. imperialists; and it has tried to encourage the PLO leaders to make an accommodation with Israel. But Israel remains obstinate and the U.S. government has simply gone along with Israeli occupation. And while the PLO leaders have signaled willingness to reach a compromise with Israel, they have been unwilling to capitulate without any signs of Israeli flexibility. The PLO leaders cannot go further because they also have to keep up a certain position before the fighting Palestinian masses.
Hussein hopes that his move will prod a change in the stance of various parties, such as the U.S., Israel, and the PLO leadership. It was apparently worked out in consultation with major Arab capitalist powers like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
So far Israel maintains its arrogant stand of refusal to deal with the PLO. The U.S. government, which based its Shultz plan on the principle of Jordan speaking for the Palestinians, is now in a quandary. It is not willing to prod the Israeli government.
But the PLO leaders have apparently taken the hint. There is talk of declaring a provisional government for the West Bank and Gaza which would recognize Israel and seek negotiations with it. Their perspective is to set up these territories as a mini-state, if Israel will give in. But even if this came about, this will not mean freedom for the Palestinians. Such a state would remain economically dependent on Israel, and the PLO leaders are even willing to concede to a confederation with reactionary Jordan. This was again reaffirmed during recent PLO-Jordan talks.
Thus the wily King Hussein has no plans to give up control over the Palestinians. A leopard does not change his spots. What Hussein hates most is the Palestinian struggle. This is the bottom line. This is also why Hussein carried out his latest move in a way that created maximum disruption. He did not give any warning to the people whose salaries he is cutting.
Palestinian liberation will not come through following out Hussein's hopes. It will come through building a struggle that can overthrow the Israeli regime and establish a democratic setup with full rights for all who live there, irrespective of what religion they have and whether they are Arab or Jewish.
On August 13th, 400 demonstrators marched in Toronto, Canada to protest the recent police shooting of a disabled black man.
Lester Donaldson, a 44 year old born in Jamaica, was shot a few days earlier by a policeman in a rooming house. He died from a single gunshot wound in the chest and abdomen. Four police officers had confronted Donaldson, supposedly trying to disarm him of a knife. One of them shot him dead at a distance of four feet.
The black community in Toronto has been in an uproar over this murder. The masses are especially outraged because Donaldson was a crippled man, who needed a cane to walk. During an April run-in with the cops, he had been shot in the hip. People in Toronto find it incredible that four cops could not subdue Donaldson in August without shooting him.
During the protest demonstration, marchers chanted slogans such as, "Charge the cops with murder'' and "We want justice.'' When the marchers rallied in front of a police station, plain clothes cops took pictures with a video camera. And the police establishment has come out with hysterical attacks on protesters.
[Photo.]
In July, a campaign of solidarity with the revolutionary workers of Nicaragua was carried out in Madrid, Spain. It was organized by Nuevo Octubre, a journal which promotes the development of a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist movement in Spain.
Walls were sprayed with the slogan "With MLPN-MAP, Nicaragua shall win!'' Stickers with the same message were also posted around town.
On Saturday, July 16, a festival was held at the Dos de Mayo square by a pro-Sandinista committee to mark nine years since the overthrow of Somoza. Nuevo Octubre went there with a placard, a propaganda stall, and a wall newspaper explaining the history and activity of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua and the Workers' Front.
During the festival, the July issue of Nuevo Octubre, which was entirely devoted to Nicaragua, was distributed and discussions were held about the MLPN's work with those who approached the stall.
(From "Red Chronicle," an English publication of "Nuevo Octubre," August 1, 1988.)
[Photo: Wall poster by "Nuevo Octubre" explains the revolutionary role of the MLP of Nicaragua to Spanish workers.]
This means that most parents of small children are in need of good and affordable day care. However, decent child care is in short supply and the costs can be astronomical. Many day care centers give rotten care, are overcrowded and understaffed, and the costs can still be astronomical.
This child care crisis has been growing under Reagan's nose. But Reagan hasn't noticed. His government hasn't lifted a finger to ease this heavy burden on working parents and their children. It has only made it worse by spearheading the cuts in education funding, which have meant cuts in Headstart, full-day kindergarten and other needed programs.
Now it's election time. Both Democrats and Republicans want to make political hay with promises to address the child care issue.
Bush is advertizing his so-called "Child Care Tax Credit." It actually has nothing to do with providing child care. It's merely a promise of a small tax cut for the poor. And Bush hopes that it will help his chances in November.
The Democrats in Congress have their ABC bill to subsidize day care. Dukakis supports the idea. But the bill is only a band-aid on the wounds of high costs and the lack of decent day care.
What the working people need is a universal system of free child care. They need employer-funded day care centers linked to the plants, offices and other workplaces, supplemented by centers in the community. They also need expanded preschool and kindergarten programs linked to the public schools. However, there will be no serious steps in this direction without a sharp struggle. Presently only 1.6% of employers sponsor any day care, and much of this is at exhorbitant cost. And where the workers have raised demands for child care, management has dug in its heels against it.
Solutions to the child care crisis won't come through election year promises. Like other gains for the working class this will only be won when the working class stands up for its own interests against the employers and against the capitalist government.
Even then, there are limits to what can be expected in terms of quality and availability of child care under the present capitalist system. Just look at the public school system: it was never any great shakes in poor and working class communities, but today it is falling apart at the hands of the capitalist budget cutters.
What's needed is to turn the society upside down with a socialist revolution. Today day care is needed so parents can slave away for the corporations, corporations whose only consideration is profit margins and which couldn't give a hang for the fate of the children of the men and women who slave for them. In the society of tomorrow men and women will work to improve the lot of the majority -- care and protection of children will be a top priority.
The child care crunch is on for working parents. The concessions drive against wages and benefits and the shift from industrial jobs to the lower paid service sector has taken a heavy toll on the workers' standard of living. Most families can no longer make it with only .one wage earner and struggle to get by with two people working. This has pushed millions of mothers with young children into the work force. The Labor Department recently reported that in 1987 for the first time more than half (50.8%) of the mothers with children under age one were in the labor force; this is up from 30% in 1976.
This means that most parents of small children are in need of good and affordable day care. However, decent child care is in short supply and the costs can be astronomical. Many day care centers give rotten care, are overcrowded and understaffed, and the costs can still be astronomical.
This child care crisis has been growing under Reagan's nose. But Reagan hasn't noticed. His government hasn't lifted a finger to ease this heavy burden on working parents and their children. It has only made it worse by spearheading the cuts in education funding, which have meant cuts in Headstart, full-day kindergarten and other needed programs.
Now it's election time. Both Democrats and Republicans want to make political hay with promises to address the child care issue.
Bush is advertizing his so-called "Child Care Tax Credit." It actually has nothing to do with providing child care. It's merely a promise of a small tax cut for the poor. And Bush hopes that it will help his chances in November.
The Democrats in Congress have their ABC bill to subsidize day care. Dukakis supports the idea. But the bill is only a band-aid on the wounds of high costs and the lack of decent day care.
What the working people need is a universal system of free child care. They need employer-funded day care centers linked to the plants, offices and other workplaces, supplemented by centers in the community. They also need expanded preschool and kindergarten programs linked to the public schools. However, there will be no serious steps in this direction without a sharp struggle. Presently only 1.6% of employers sponsor any day care, and much of this is at exhorbitant cost. And where the workers have raised demands for child care, management has dug in its heels against it.
Solutions to the child care crisis won't come through election year promises. Like other gains for the working class this will only be won when the working class stands up for its own interests against the employers and against the capitalist government.
Even then, there are limits to what can be expected in terms of quality and availability of child care under the present capitalist system. Just look at the public school system: it was never any great shakes in poor and working class communities, but today it is falling apart at the hands of the capitalist budget cutters.
What's needed is to turn the society upside down with a socialist revolution. Today day care is needed so parents can slave away for the corporations, corporations whose only consideration is profit margins and which couldn't give a hang for the fate of the children of the men and women who slave for them. In the society of tomorrow men and women will work to improve the lot of the majority -- care and protection of children will be a top priority.