Vol. 19, No.7
VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA
25ยข July 1, 1989
[Front page:
42,000 coal miners wildcat;
Chinese working people will rise again! Condemn the brutal capitalist rulers of China!;
Keep up the fight for abortion rights!]
IN THIS ISSUE
| Down with Racism! |
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| Supreme Court gives green light to racism; CBC kisses up to Bush; Police reformers jailed..................................................................................................... | 2 |
| Denying the right to defense lawyers.................................................................... | 2 |
| Operation Rescue attacks Hartford clinic............................................................. | 3 |
| Bush vetoes minimum wage increase................................................................... | 3 |
| Homeless protest Oakland park closings.............................................................. | 6 |
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| Strikes and Workplace News |
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| Workers reject Nat'l Steel contract; UAW conv.................................................... | 4 |
| Auto workers picket UAW, GM; Akzo union busting; Midland Steel; Boston transit; NY postal; Bodine Electric; Beer drivers strike........................................ | 5 |
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| Down with flag-waving crusade against dissent................................................... | 6 |
| FBI at work -- reading your mail......................................................................... | 6 |
| Hypocrisy of the war on drugs.............................................................................. | 6 |
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| To Fight Pollution, Fight Capitalism! |
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| Thousands protest Seabrook N-plant; 500 rally against Detroit incinerator; East L.A. residents protest toxic waste burner; McDonalds plans backyard polluters.. | 7 |
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| China in Upheaval |
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| Chinese students demonstrate in U.S.................................................................... | 8 |
| Does U.S. imperialism support democracy; China struggle and freedom of press; Democracy and repression in U.S............................................................... | 9 |
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| U.S. Imperialism, Get Out of Central America! |
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| Bush wants CIA to buy Nicaraguan elections; Arias echoes Quayle; Struggle greets fascist ARENA regime............................................................................... | 10 |
| 10th anniversary of Nicaraguan revolution........................................................... | 11 |
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| 20th anniversary of Workers' Advocate................................................................ | 13 |
| 200th anniversary of French revolution................................................................ | 13 |
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| The World in Struggle |
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| Crisis deepens in Poland....................................................................................... | 12 |
| Soweto Day strike in South Africa; Strike wave in Britain; General strike in Dominican Republic.............................................................................................. | 15 |
| Workers rebel in Argentina; Students and workers rock South Korea.................. | 16 |
Chinese working people will rise again!
Condemn the brutal capitalist rulers of China!
Keep up the fight for abortion rights!
Supreme Court gives green light to racism
Congressional Black Caucus kisses up to Bush
The sorry results of trying to reform the police from within
Denying the right to defense lawyers
Fight back against the holy bullies!
Operation Rescue viciously assaults Hartford clinic
Millionaire Bush vetoes raise in minimum raise
Workers reject sellout contract at National Steel
UAW convention: Company unionism vs. rank-and-file anger
Strikes and workplace news
Down with the flag-waving crusade against dissent
FBI at work -- reading your mail
Hypocrisy of the "war on drugs"
Homeless protest Oakland park closings
Thousands demonstrate against Seabrook N-plant
"Archie McPuffs" - McDonald's plans backyard polluters
East L.A. residents protest toxic waste burner
500 march against Detroit's incinerator
Chinese students demonstrate in U.S.
Does U.S. imperialism really support democracy?
The struggle in China and freedom of the press
U.S. imperialism, get out of Central America!
For workers' socialism, not revisionist state capitalism!
20th anniversary of "The Workers Advocate"
200 years since the French revolution
The World in Struggle
A new wave of strikes against Thatcherism in Britain
Soweto Day mass strike hits South African racists
General strike shuts down Dominican Republic
Economy in shambles, angry workers rebel in Argentina
Students and workers rock South Korea
[Graphic.]
As we go to press, the miners' wildcat continues to rock the coal fields. Roving pickets have spread the strike to 10 states and brought out up to 42,000 miners. Outraged at the government's repression of the Pittston coal miners' strike, and fed up with the monopolies' offensive of takebacks and union busting throughout the coal fields, the coal miners are continuing their struggle in defiance of vicious court orders, police repression, and the back-to-work orders of their top union bureaucrats.
Solidarity With the Pittston Miners
One of the targets of the miners' wildcat is the repression against the Pittston coal miners. Pittston Coal, with the help of the government, is out to smash the union.
It not only refused to sign the industry-wide contract in 1988, but it has refused any agreement that bars it from extending nonunion contracting. And it has hired scab-herding "security" police -- frequently armed with M-16s and AK47s -- to break the strike. Recently Pittston unilaterally imposed a new takeback contract at the mines it t still 1ias open. The contract slashes wages at least $2 an hour, cuts job classifications and combines most jobs, subjects miners to up to eight hours overtime a day (a 16-hour day) and seven days a week, eliminates 12 vacation days (there are only two left), cuts pensions and other benefits, and opens the mines to nonunion contract work. These are the conditions that Pittston wants to impose on all the coal miners. In fact, this is the trend of takebacks that has been developing for years.
Take the Virginia coal fields for example. Last year it reached a record 50 million tons of coal mined, compared to about 37 million tons in 1979. But in 1979, there was a peak employment of 19,900 miners. Last year's record production was done by only 11,800 miners. That's an increase in annual tonnage per miner of 128%. An increase from job elimination, job combination, and long hours. Although production has not had such a boom in other states, the increase in exploitation has boomed. This is one of the key reasons that miners throughout the coal fields have joined the wildcat wave.
Savage Repression and the UMW Leaders' Sellout Tactics
The rank-and-file miners have been determined to fight all along. But the leaders of the United Mine Workers (UMW) were very timid about striking against Pittston.
They kept the Pittston miners on the job for 14 months without a contract. When they finally called a strike on April 5, they limited it to a "selective strike" that kept union miners producing coal at all of Pittston's mines in Kentucky and some in Virginia. And they tried to convert the "selective" strike into a "corporate campaign" of "civil disobedience" tactics aimed at convincing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Democratic Party politicians to help out the miners.
Despite the timidity of the UMW leaders, the government came down with an iron fist against the strike. First the number of pickets was limited by injunction. The Democratic Party Governors in Virginia and West Virginia backed up the court orders by sending hundreds of state police to protect scabs and escort them into the mines.
Then, the use of road-blockading sit- ins was banned by the courts. Over 2,000 miners and supporters were arrested. And a Virginia judge indefinitely jailed three union officials, imposed a $2.94 million fine on the UMW for violation of his injunctions, and declared each new violation would bring another fine of at least $500,000. Recently, after miners used "rolling roadblocks" -- convoys of slow-moving vehicles to clog coal roads -- a judge barred this too with a $240,000 fine and threats of future fines.
Miners point out that a few years ago when the courts found that Pittston was "criminally negligent" for a 1983 mine explosion that killed seven miners, it was only fined $47,000. Here we find "democratic" America in all its glory. This is a class democracy, a democracy for the rich and a dictatorship against the workers and poor. Of course, strikes are "legal" -- as long as they are ineffective. But every measure to prevent scabbing and shut down a mine is illegal and subject to monstrous repression.
The wildcats broke out against the repression of the Pittston strikes. But they also broke out in defiance of the UMW leaders, whose legalistic and "civil disobedience" tactics had proven bankrupt.
Wildcat Spreads Through the Coal Fields
The fierce repression caused UMW leaders to call off mass picketing of any kind. And they tried to divert miners into solidarity caravans and rallies away from the mines. But miners throughout the coal fields were already awakening, and the rallies spurred them on.
About 12,000 miners from several states came out to a rally in Charleston, West Virginia on June 11. And they cheered on anything that sounded like a call for an industry-wide strike. Even UMW president Richard Trumka felt compelled to issue a demagogic statement that, "As of today, we are no longer on strike just against Pittston. We are on strike against the state of Virginia. "*Of course, as soon as the rally was over Trumka assured reporters that he was not calling for any new action and he declared, "We have been striking against the state of Virginia all along."
The fact that Trumka was against further action did not deter the rank-and-file miners. Shortly after the rally was over wildcat strikes began to break out in West Virginia. Within days, the hundreds of miners began to hold daily meetings to send out roving pickets to shut down other mines. The strike spread to Virginia and then day by day to additional states.
The roving pickets shut down additional Pittston mines in Kentucky and Virginia which were originally not included in the UMW leaders' "selective strike." Several hundred miners also joined rolling roadblocks to shut down Pittston processing plants in southern Virginia. A hundred miners wearing ski masks threw up a picket at New Beckley Coal, which has been running scabs across a UMW picket line since January. Roving pickets also closed a number of nonunion mines in several states. Rolling pickets were used to disrupt traffic into Washington D.C. About 800 camouflage-clad miners from six states converged on the state Capitol in Richmond to protest the Democratic Governor's stationing of hundreds of troops in the coal fields. And thousands of miners have been joined by Eastern Airline strikers, steel workers, and other workers in solidarity rallies in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The courts in most states have issued new injunctions and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, including fines against individual picketers. The various state police have been sent out to suppress the strikers. Skirmishes have broken out with scabs and police. And UMW leaders have repeatedly ordered the miners back to work.
But the miners have defied them all and continued their strikes. They are calling for spreading the strike further to beat back the takeback offensive of the monopoly capitalists.
It is not clear how long the miners can persist in this heroic resistance. But it is clear the miners deserve the support of workers in every industry. The miners' strike is standing up to the decade-long takeback offensive of the capitalist rulers. It is encouraging a new upsurge of the workers' movement throughout the country.
[Photo: Ten thousand rallied in Charleston, West Virginia on June 11 in support of striking coal miners and Eastern Airlines machinists.]
The Deng Xiaoping regime is continuing its bloody crackdown on the mass upsurge which swept across China this spring. On June 3-4, the Chinese rulers murdered hundreds of people in the streets of Beijing. Since then they have executed 27 workers, and nearly 2000 people have been jailed. More are being hunted down every day.
Meanwhile the Chinese revisionists-- who are already infamous for revising Marxism by glorifying capitalist profit-making and methods -- are now unashamedly revising the record of what happened the last few weeks. They claim that there was no massacre by their troops, that instead it was the troops who were the real victims. And they make the absurd claim that they have saved socialism in China from the threat of a counterrevolution.
The facts remain: the regime came down with tanks and machine guns against unarmed protesters. Even discounting exaggerations of the death toll that took place in the heat of events, it is clear that hundreds of protesters and bystanders were killed. It is true that some soldiers were killed, but this was the justified resistance of angry students and workers against a brutal assault upon them.
The Workers' Advocate condemns the brutal repression by the Deng Xiaoping regime. We have always opposed the revisionist Deng group in China as an enemy of socialism and revolution. The crimes today of the Deng group, in power for over a decade, confirm its counterrevolutionary character. This is not the result of communism but of abandoning it. The terror against the masses is another sign that China has become a capitalist tyranny similar to such regimes as South Korea and Indonesia.
Deng Represents Capitalism, Not Communism
Deng Xiaoping claims today that he has saved socialism from counterrevolution. But it is Deng Xiaoping who is the chief representative of capitalist counterrevolution in China. It was he who coined such infamous dictums as "Build socialism with capitalist methods," and "To get rich is glorious." These are not Marxist-Leninist ideas, but unabashed capitalist views.
Today the news media may be screeching about "communist tyranny" in China, but it was not too long ago that Deng was their darling. Over and over again, they would report with glee that Deng had buried Marxism in China and that the rulers of China, despite their communist labels, really didn't believe in those old-fashioned ideas any more.
And true enough, under Deng, it is a capitalist system which is being consolidated in China.
The Chinese revolution of 1949 brought a new day for the long-oppressed working people of this huge country. The peasants were freed from cruel landlord oppression, China was liberated from imperialist domination, and conditions of the workers improved. There were many reforms in favor of the toilers. Unfortunately progress towards working class socialism was stymied because the Chinese leaders failed to chart a revolutionary socialist course. Instead they vacillated between a program of state-capitalism and the petty-bourgeois socialism of the Maoist left.
In the mid-70's the Maoist platform ran its course and the left lost out to the right-wing capitalist roaders headed by Deng. Since then, Deng has been turning the clock back by embracing a "market socialist" road -- which is in reality the capitalist model of "mixed economy." He has privatized agriculture, encouraged the growth of a class of cut-throat private capitalists, opened the doors wide to exploitation of Chinese labor by foreign multinationals, and joined hands with U.S. imperialism in promoting reactionary forces abroad.
The results of all this "glorious" capitalism? While some industrial growth has taken place, the gulf between rich and poor has grown big and the poor are groaning under a new oppressive yoke. Deng has brought back child labor and atrocious working conditions. He has brought Chinese agriculture near collapse. He has destroyed the system of mass medical care, causing infant mortality to rise and life expectancy to fall.
After all this, we are to believe that Deng is a communist? No, let the facts speak for themselves. Deng Xiaoping may still maintain the communist label, but he is nothing but the chieftain of a rotten capitalist regime.
And it's not out of any conviction that they still hold the communist label, it's because they have yet to devise an alternative to it. But they have been reportedly working on one. The Chinese ruling party and its think tanks have been lately discussing the idea of "neoauthoritarianism" as their official ideology. Many Chinese officials, including Deng, are reported to have endorsed this concept, which emphasizes the need for order and stability and points to the economic miracles achieved under such tyrannical and openly capitalist regimes as South Korea and Taiwan. (See New York Times Sunday Magazine, June 4)
The Popular Upsurge
What then was the "pro-democracy" movement all about? The U.S. media has tried to portray it as a movement against communism, but it defies such simplistic explanations. It had many contradictory features. On the one hand the protesters sang the communist anthem the Internationale and at the same time they rigged up a replica of the U.S. Statue of Liberty.
At heart, this movement represented an awakening of the masses, with grievances accumulated after a decade of capitalist reform. It was a movement of protest. It was clearer about what it opposed -- corruption, a lying strait-jacketed press, the lack of democracy -- than about what system it thought could ensure its ideals.
This was a movement against the results of capitalist reform, although its participants were not necessarily conscious of this. Unlike what the Chinese leaders say, it was not a conspiracy of a handful but a movement that touched a chord of discontent deep in the society. That's why it drew millions into the streets; that's why it brought out not just students, but also workers and even appeared to get sympathy from sections of the soldiers.
Despite sharing common slogans for democracy and against corruption, the movement was made up of forces with a wide range of views. There are clearly forces who only want to speed up the capitalist reforms -- some towards a Western-style bourgeois order, others towards a Gorbachev-type system. But the movement also encompassed those who have suffered from the capitalist reforms. It drew in students connected to the toiling people, and even workers were beginning to come out in force. As the movement develops, different strata and trends are bound to develop their own demands and trends more clearly.
Regime Fears Workers
Why such a brutal crackdown? It can't be explained, as the bourgeois media does, by such nonsense about the "Marxist tradition of tyranny" or the detachment from the people of a regime of "old men."
There may have been reasons connected to dealing with the sharp crisis that developed in the factional fighting in the ruling party. But a host of facts suggest that the real, underlying cause for the terror lies in the same reason why the Chinese leaders are talking of the need for a "neo-authoritarian" ideology. It lies in the road of capitalist reforms itself.
You can't pursue the road of capitalist development without giving rise to social discontent. You can't avoid class struggle. And in China, a decade of capitalist reform has created the conditions for massive social unrest. The regime sits on a powderkeg. To ensure capitalist exploitation, the regime is inclined to a system of rule through "authoritarianism" -- i.e., the iron fist.
The scale of social unrest in China has been deliberately covered up. But one sees glimpses of it, even from afar. Just take one small fact that was recently reported: during February and March alone, more than 2.5 million laborers flooded into Canton. What misery must exist in the countryside for such a, large flood coming to the city to look for work? And that's just one city. (New York Times Sunday Magazine, June 4)
In the final analysis, the regime was forced into such a brutal crackdown because it is deathly scared of rebellion by the workers and other working people. Thus, it was after the workers joined the Tienanmen demonstrators on May 17 that the regime initially declared martial law. There are reports from such places as the industrial city of Wuhan claiming that the regime's forces selectively attacked workers. This is also the same reason why the first 27 to be executed have been either workers or unemployed.
The Regime Will Not Last
Deng Xiaoping thinks that repression and lying to the people will ensure stability. By unleashing such a bloody crackdown, the regime has let it be known that it will rule by force. It knows that it has alienated the urban workers and youth, but it thinks repression will be enough. At the same time, it believes that it can swindle the vast ocean of peasants in the countryside with its lies and propaganda.
While the movement may have subsided for now, it cannot however be kept bottled up. It will emerge again. The masses have had a taste of mass action. They have been deeply alienated from the ruling party. The heroic resistance to the military in late May and early June will be remembered.
The cities are hotbeds of rebellion. But no matter what the regime thinks, the countryside isn't immune either. Capitalist reforms have given rise to class differentiation and dispossession of millions.
The force that can turn China around is a combination of workers, radical students, and poor peasants. What's also needed in China today to take the masses forward is the development of class consciousness and revolutionary Marxist-Leninist theory. It is necessary to develop a platform of struggle in the interests of those who labor.
This work will chart out the path to a socialist revolution which alone can liberate the Chinese toilers. A revolution that learns from the experience of the history of the toilers' struggle, but that is able to meet the challenge of the present. A revolution that emerges in fighting against Deng's revisionist capitalism, and that is able to surpass the petty bourgeois socialism of Mao. A revolution which will create a new proletarian socialism.
The times cry out for the rebirth of a new communist movement in China.
[Photo: Workers and students fought back against troops in Chengdu, China on June 4.]
As we go to press, the Supreme Court has not yet come out with its expected ruling on the Missouri abortion case. A decision is said to be right around the corner.
The anti-abortion movement hopes to win a ruling that will encourage it to carry forward its crusade to ban women's right to choose abortion altogether. Even if it doesn't win such a favorable ruling, it plans to keep up its campaign.
Over the last year, the anti-abortion movement has unleashed its shock troops in the form of Operation Rescue to blockade women's clinics across the country. They have received solid support from the Bush government and the capitalist establishment. And they have received sympathetic promotion from the news media.
This reflects that the anti-abortion campaign is part of the offensive of the rich rulers against the rights of women and all working people. The ruling class wants to use the anti-abortion movement to turn the clock back on women's rights and to mobilize public opinion behind the whole right-wing agenda of racism, sexism, and imperialism.
The offensive against women's rights will not go unchallenged!
Although you won't find this properly reflected in the media, the truth is that the antics of OR have brought forth a strong resurgence in the pro-choice movement. Half a million people came out into the streets in April to support choice. In city after city, the holy bullies of OR have found themselves confronted by increasingly militant pro- choice demonstrations.
Month after month this spring, the gulf has widened between OR's big talk about the actions it plans and what it is actually able to carry out. And in the few places where they end up holding events, they've been demoralized by angry groups of pro-choice demonstrators. In many places, they are more and more outnumbered by defenders of abortion rights.
Pro-Choice Resistance in June
June was to be yet another big month of OR actions, they had declared. But they were again faced with strong opposition.
* In Boston and Detroit, OR shifted tactics. They organized a number of prayer vigils instead of attempted blockades.
* In Boston the opposition even at their vigils was so strong that OR instead went to Hartford, Connecticut -- where they dropped their "non-violent" pretense and engaged in an ugly assault on the clinic. This was a frenzied action showing that OR is getting more and more desperate as it is countered by mass resistance. The incident at Hartford shows why it is imperative to reject the passive, do-nothing policy advocated by the liberal leaders of the National Organization for Women. (See story on p. 3)
* In the Detroit area OR ended up organizing one blockade, but the pro-choice forces also kept up their activity. OR vigils were countered by pickets and an OR planning meeting on June 27 was confronted by a spirited sidewalk demonstration.
* In Los Angeles, OR held a blockade on June 10 but they were met with hundreds of pro-choice activists. The OR crowd was given support by the presence of the Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles. The police helped OR out by keeping pro-choice protesters away and allowing the anti-abortion force to blockade the clinic for several hours. Despite this, NOW leaders had the gall to shout such ridiculous slogans as "LAPD we love you."
* In Chicago, 5,000 people demonstrated downtown in support of abortion rights on June 18.
A people's movement is growing in the streets of America -- it's not the hypocritical "pro-life" movement, but the fight for women's rights. Join the struggle!
The Supreme Court handed out a series of racist rulings in June. These add to a growing list of racist rulings, proving that the Court is on a crusade to open the floodgates of racism by chipping away at all legal barriers to discrimination.
Eliminating Use of Law Against Racism at Work
On June 15 the Court ruled that an 1866 law could no longer be used against racial harassment in the work place. This law has been frequently used because the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not allow people to collect damages. As well, the Civil Rights Act has restrictive time limitations and rigid procedural requirements that complaints be filed first with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The restriction of the 1866 law leaves people with even less effective legal means to fight racism at work.
Later, on June 22, the Court also restricted the liability of local governments in discrimination cases.
Support for Racist "Reverse Discrimination" Suits
The Court also decided, on June 12, to allow unlimited "reverse discrimination" suits against consent agreements between employers, unions and the courts and other affirmative action plans. This ruling opens the way for a flood of lawsuits to reverse long-established agreements to curtail racist hiring, promotion and other practices by government bodies and private companies and schools.
Ending Defense Against Racist Hiring and Segregation at Work
On June 5, the Court made it virtually impossible to win a case against discrimination in hiring and segregation in jobs. The Court ruled that it is no longer enough to show the specific practices were discriminatory. Now a worker must also prove that the racist practices had no "legitimate business justification." And if that can be done, to then give alternative business practices that would not be discriminatory.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce went into ecstasy. Its spokesman, Stephen Brooks, crowed, "This is a very good opinion for business. We got more than we hoped for." Indeed it was. And the fact that this is what the capitalist businessmen wanted is why the Court has opened up this crusade.
No Help From Congress
Now that the Reagan Court has turned to such a crude racist campaign, various liberals -- from the ACLU to the NAACP -- are calling for the masses to turn to Congress to pass laws banning racism. But people should not expect too much from Congress.
Even at the height of the black people's movement of the 1960's, Congress would pass only limited laws such as the Civil Rights Act. And this has proven so weak that people have had to dig up laws from the post-civil war reconstruction period to find some means of legal relief to racism.
Today, even though the Democrats control both the House and Senate, they have shown little interest in defending democratic rights for minorities and women. Indeed, who was it but the Democrats who approved the racist judges that Reagan appointed to the Supreme Court. Oh yeah, they vetoed Bork, but only to give us Anthony Kennedy -- the man who is providing the needed majority vote on all these racist rulings.
Bipartisan Racist Offensive
The truth is that the Supreme Court is on a racist crusade not simply because Reagan packed the Court. It is because the capitalist rulers, as a class, have decided on racism as a means to split up the working class and intensify exploitation of the masses. The Democrats, despite their claims to be a party of the minorities, have put up no resistance to the racist onslaught (and in many cases have been hip-deep in organizing it) because they are just another big party of the capitalists like the Republicans.
This racism can't be stopped by turning our hopes to the Democrats, as the liberals and "respectable" African- American leaders claim. No, the masses must take action in their own hands. Workers of every color and race must unite to build up an anti-racist movement, a movement independent of both the parties of the rich, a movement directed squarely at the racist ruling class.
Members of the Black Congressional Caucus (CBC) met with President George Bush on May 30. Since Bush is simply traveling in Reagan's racist footsteps, one would expect the CBC to denounce Bush. But, oh no, they called the meeting "an important beginning" to a continuing dialogue. The ultra-liberal California congressman, Ron Dellums, even claimed that Bush "is ready to open up in a more profound way" and praised Bush for agreeing to meet regularly with the Black Caucus.
Agreeing to meet, of course, doesn't mean that Bush has had a change of heart or policy. Talk is cheap. This meeting with black politicians came just 15 days after Bush launched his racist campaign to "take back the streets" with a $1.2 billion "anti-crime" package of more federal prisons, more police, and harsher jail sentences. This coincided with Bush's drug czar William Bennett sending federal marshals together with local police to begin mass evictions of poor people from their homes in Washington, D.C.
While Dellums mentions that the CBC has disagreements with Bush, he tries to separate the President from the Reaganite policies he follows. The "obvious difference (from the Reagan administration) is access," Dellums crowed. But what good is "access" to an administration that is fundamentally no different from Reagan in its attitude towards the minorities? To hail this as "an important beginning" shows that the CBC, and the black bourgeoisie that it represents, is more interested in making time with the big shots than solving the problems faced by the working and poor masses of the black people.
Every time the police carry out another outrage -- whether it be gunning down black youth or getting themselves caught dealing drugs -- there is no shortage of liberal Democrats who come out of the woodwork to tell us all that is needed is a little police reform. But what has police reform gotten us?
A good example was provided in Oakland, California this May. While the Oakland police department continues its racist policies, two people, who joined the police force in 1979 with the aim of reforming it from within, landed up fired and in jail.
Theresa Jeffery-Clark and John Clark joined the Oakland Police Department (OPD) in 1979. They helped organize the Black Officers Task Force, a caucus in the Oakland Black Police Officers Association, which had the goal of ending police abuse in the black community. The group publicized the illegal use of quotas to increase arrests in black neighborhoods and discriminatory practices within the police department. In 1983, they filed a law suit with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC). The EEOC ruled that, indeed, the OPD was using racially discriminatory quotas. But the city refused to cooperate with the EEOC. So a federal lawsuit was filed. In 1984 the Clarks also participated in a series of television news specials on police abuse. And they led delegations to the mayor calling for alternative methods of dealing with the rising drug problem.
Eventually, their Federal lawsuit was dismissed on a legal technicality and the Clarks were fired. They were also put up on perjury charges based on a 1986 deposition which claims they admitted to fraudulently using a paid sick day in 1983. On May 11, they were convicted of this charge and sentenced to three years in prison. The judge later modified their sentence, putting them instead under electronically monitored house arrest. The Clarks have to pay for their own, surveillance, as well as $18,000 in prosecution expenses, and do 150 hours of community service.
The Clark case is educational. Nothing changed with the police, and even these mild reformers were jailed for their efforts. What is needed is not tinkering with the police force, but a struggle against it and the racist capitalist bosses that run this country.
In a close 5-4 vote on June 22 the Supreme Court upheld the right of the government to confiscate all the money of people charged under the RICO anti-racketeering law, including what would be used to pay their defense lawyers. Unless they have rich uncles, this effectively denies the accused the right to a real defense by private lawyers, except for some rush job from a court-appointed lawyer. This is a result of the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984 which adds to the RICO law.
This was done in the name of fighting drugs. It capitalizes on the hatred people have for the Mafia king pins and their fancy-pants lawyers.
But the decision is not confined to the big-time Mafioso. Indeed the Mafioso are the ones who will have the easiest time finding a way around it, as they are the ones most likely to have rich god-fathers.
The history of the RICO anti-racketeering law is that it was passed in the name of fighting organized crime, but in fact it applies to just about anything. "Racketeering" isn't defined as organized crime or Mafioso, but as any violations of the law that can be said by some smart-aleck prosecutor to form a pattern. Any pattern, so long as they fit together.
RICO can be invoked against demonstrations. It threatens unions. It has even been applied against ordinary corporations. Here the prosecutors may have gone too far. Congress, ever mindful of its capitalist masters, is considering amending RICO to protect the big corporations from it. But ordinary people and their organizations had better watch out.
The government doesn't intend to take away the expensive Brendan Sullivans from the Oliver Norths of the world. But they may take away defense lawyers from anyone the capitalists as a whole decide is a nuisance. We're not that fond of bourgeois lawyers and the present legal system, which dispenses ruling class "justice" at best. But to reform this system by removing defense lawyers and leaving the rest of the system intact, means to create naked kangaroo courts whose only job is to pass sentence on the accused.
On June 17, Operation Rescue (OR) mobilized all its forces from New England and the Middle Atlantic states to attack the Summit Women's Clinic in West Hartford, Connecticut.
Two hundred fifty OR thugs ransacked and blockaded the clinic while another 150 picketed outside. In this action Operation Rescue dropped its pretense of being a nonviolent movement concerned with the "lives of the unborn" as they say. The OR thugs proved to anyone who had any doubts that they are a gang of anti-woman thugs: they trashed medical equipment and even physically attacked a handicapped pro-choice woman, causing her serious injury.
With Help From the Police
But this action against the Hartford clinic would not have been possible without the collaboration of the police. Despite the fact that they had at least an advance warning of OR's plans to attack the West Hartford Clinic the police did not mobilize forces to stop OR.
Can you imagine the police taking such a lackadaisical attitude if they had got a warning that anti-nuke protestors were on their way to blockade a nuclear weapons facility? No, they would have 500 state cops standing at the gate to arrest the first protestor to show up.
But the police not only allowed OR to break into the clinic and trash it for six hours, they even cordoned off most of the mall in which the clinic was located to keep pro-choice people away. When a group of pro-choice activists tried to enter the area to denounce the OR thugs the police pushed them back and threatened them with arrest. The police even arrested and dragged from his car a 75-year-old man who was just trying to drive through the area of the OR picket to park his car and go shopping.
The Hartford incident shows clearly that the anti-abortion movement is not a civil rights movement but a government-abetted attack on women's rights.
But why did Operation Rescue go all the way to Hartford to attack a clinic when they assembled their forces in Boston that morning? Because they faced too much mass resistance in Boston.
Resistance Upsets OR's Plans
In Boston, the pro-choice activists have increasingly rejected NOW's policy of not confronting Operation Rescue. They've built up a militant tradition of confronting them every time they show their face.
On April 29th, 1500 angry pro-choice people surrounded the OR thugs at the Preterm clinic in Brookline and prevented them from maneuvering to blockade the clinic. Stung by this defeat OR had to cancel plans to blockade a clinic on May 27. In recent weeks OR has had to retreat to small pickets in front of clinics to harass women going in. But the pro-choice activists have shown up with as many as double their numbers each time, and just two weeks ago the pro-choice activists pushed the OR woman haters away from the clinic entrance to stop them from harassing women.
Clearly Boston was not an easy target. But it was a different story with Hartford.
NOW's Passive Stand Whets OR's Appetite
In Hartford the national NOW policy of not confronting OR had prevailed. NOW had kept down to a handful the mobilizations to counter-demonstrate against OR blockades in the past and had kept people a safe distance away from the OR thugs. (At least half the 80 or so pro-choice demonstrators who countered OR on June 17 were from Boston even though NOW was holding a Connecticut state convention in Hartford that day.) Thus OR was fairly confident that it could win a victory in Hartford.
The vicious OR attack on the women's clinic in Hartford shows that mass resistance -- confrontation of the anti-abortion thugs -- is the way to defend women's abortion rights.
(From a report from "Boston Worker," paper of MLP-Boston)
[Photo: In Los Angeles on June 10, pro-choice demonstrators turned out to confront anti-abortion fanatics at the Midland Medical Clinic. Police cordon protected the anti-abortionists.]
Last month the millionaire Bush vetoed a bill providing a small increase in the minimum wage. Reaganites like Bush crow about how great the "Reagan economy" has been until it comes time to giving a few crumbs to the poverty-stricken. Then suddenly we are informed that the economy is on its last legs and could hardly stand giving the minimum wage workers enough money to even make up for the inflation since 1980.
But wait a minute. Didn't Bush promise a "kinder and gentler" Reaganism? Yet here he is cracking the whip over the minimum wage workers.
But surprise, surprise! It turns out that people didn't understand what Bush meant by kindness. He insists that he vetoed the bill for the good of the poor themselves. Why, he says, they will lose jobs right and left if the employers even have to pay wages as high, corrected for inflation, as they did in 1980. His veto is supposed to be an example of being kind toward the minimum wage workers.
Well, it is just fortunate that Bush's kindness towards the working class is strictly limited at best, or else he would introduce a bill to cut the minimum wage in half.
Meanwhile the Democrats are posing as knights of the poor. But their bill not only didn't compensate the minimum wage for inflation. Worse, it accepted Bush's demand for a "subminimum wage." They differed with Bush only on the terms of this subminimum wage. And now, having granted the principle of the subminimum wage to Bush, they are preparing to lower their bill still further.
The present low minimum wage, and in general the drastic cutting of wages for many workers during the "Reagan recovery," is one of the main factors for social decay. It makes it impossible for many workers to keep families together and raise children, and it affects every aspect of life, from the drug problem to social crime. But the Democrats, after briefly blaming the Republicans for the failure of the minimum wage bill, continue to collaborate, with the same Republicans on police-state measures against the poor, against public housing residents, against dissent, etc.
There is no salvation from Congress or the White House. Let the poor and all the workers unite for a class struggle in their own interests. Let us honor Bush's "kindness" to the poor of vetoing the minimum wage by the "kindness" to the rich of vetoing their millionaire salaries and taking away their ownership of the fruits of the labor of the poor.
Workers overwhelmingly rejected a new contract at National Steel. The total vote at National's three plants was over 60% against the contract. And workers at National's biggest mill, Great Lakes Steel (GLS) outside Detroit, rejected the pact by a vote of 1,985 to 883.
This rejection was a shock to the steel capitalists and bitter pill for the leaders of the United Steel Workers (USW) union. By shouting No! to continued concessions and job elimination, the workers have upset the cozy bargaining throughout the steel industry this year. In fact, this is the first time that rank- and-file steel workers have voted down a contract. It was only three years ago, during the last round of steel industry bargaining, that the USW hacks even gave the workers a right to vote on the contracts. But the union bureaucrats had controlled the election results through a number of dirty tricks such as using a mail-in ballot (easily stuffed).
The rank and file learned from their sellout in the last contract. This time around, the workers built up their rank-and-file movement on the plant floor into such a strong protest that it overcame the bureaucrat's dirty deals.
Workers Take Control of Contract Meeting
At GLS the union hacks split the workers into two informational meetings on the contract. Both were boisterous affairs. "Vote No!" leaflets and stickers were all over the place. Workers waved placards declaring "Vote No!" and "Fight for a better contract." And the pent-up anger of the workers exploded in catcalls and boos against the bureaucrats.
At the afternoon meeting, the rank and file actually took control. They shouted down the bureaucrats and would not let them run the show, as they pleased. They forced the bureaucrats to cut short the boring reading of the contract. And, instead, the meeting was turned into a blazing indictment of the hacks.
One worker after another trooped to the microphone to demand that the bureaucrats explain themselves. As they brought out the facts about the sellout contract, exposing the bureaucrats' lies and distortions, the other workers cheered. At the same time, they militantly declared the real demands of the workers for this year's contract. The bureaucrats could do nothing but squirm under the heat of the workers' fire.
The Workers Voted NO! at the Meeting
One worker, after denouncing the hacks, called on the rank and file to put the contract to a voice vote on the spot. Not surprisingly, the workers responded with a resounding and virtually unanimous roar of "NO!" to the sellout contract.
Another worker opposed the bureaucrats' method of holding a mail-in vote and put that to a vote. Again there was a roar of "NO!" to the mail-in vote. The workers demanded, instead of a mail-in vote, that voting on the contract be held in a mass local contract meeting. (Of course the bureaucrats refused to recognize this vote and went ahead with the mail-in ballot.)
Building the Rank-and-File Movement
The workers at GLS were able to stand up to the hacks because, prior to the meetings, militants were organizing the movement on the plant floor.
The Detroit Workers' Voice (DWV) -- paper of the Detroit Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party -- came out against the contract, and hundreds of copies were spread around the mill. As well, at least two other leaflets by workers called for a No-vote. A few copies of the contract itself were gotten a hold of and shown around. And news about the details of the contract was spread by word of mouth. In the week prior to the meetings, over 400 "Vote NO!" stickers, were passed out at the meeting. Another 500 stickers produced by the DWV, were circulated in the plant. As well, the DWV circulated 50 "Vote NO!" placards for workers to hold up at the meeting.
All of this work meant that the rank and file was well informed on the contract, could make up their own minds to oppose it, and were mobilized to stand firm against the sellout at the contract meetings.
As soon as the meetings were over, the militants went right back to mobilizing the rank and file. Another issue of DWV, which hailed the meetings and summed up the true demands of the workers, was spread throughout the mill. And "I Voted No" stickers were plastered everywhere. These things, along with the stormy meetings, shook the bureaucrats badly. Harry Lester, USW District 29 director, actually resigned from being secretary of the negotiating team. (But he got back on board in time to negotiate the new sell-out deal.) But more, the hacks were so shaken by the large opposition that they feared to stuff the ballot box, like they did on the last contract. The 2-to-l vote tally against the contract was only possible because of the outpouring of rank-and-file opposition that had been organized for weeks on the plant floor.
National Steel and USW Hacks Join Hands to Try to Reverse the Verdict
Since the contract's rejection, National Steel and the USW hacks have gone into a frenzy to reverse the verdict of the vote. National Steel sent a letter around demanding that workers revote on the contract they just rejected. When that failed, they quickly hustled up a new agreement with the USW hacks. But the new deal simply reshuffles some provisions of the old contract without costing National Steel another penny in labor costs.
Meanwhile, the USW hacks are spreading horror stories about how a strike will supposedly drive the company under and ruin the workers. The bureaucrats are repeating National's claims that it has already lost $168 million in orders over the last few weeks due to the contract rejection, that it would lose much more if the workers strike, and that this would lead to mass layoffs. The USW hacks never think to mention that if National simply agreed to workers' demands for an immediate $2 an hour wage increase that would only cost National $30 million more a year. They are out to save the old concessions contract and the entire job- eliminating system of the "cooperative partnership'' with the steel bosses.
Recently even some lower level hacks who voted against the first contract have turned around to support the same contract put into a new package. They claim they still don't like the contract, but a strike would lose since the top bureaucrats oppose striking. They have forgotten that this last contract was rejected because rank-and-file organizing pushed the bureaucrats' sabotage aside. They have forgotten that with steel orders coming in, and National's fear of losing business at this moment, the workers are in the best position in years to actually win a strike. They forget, in short, the power of the united rank and file.
Organize Rank-And-File Action
The workers at National Steel are in a position to make a crack in the wall of "labor-management cooperation'' that has meant a decade of takebacks in the steel industry. It was the building up of a movement independent of and against the sellout hacks that led to the contract rejection. And it is only by continuing on this road of rank-and-file action that the workers have any hope of beating the capitalists' concessions drive.
As car sales are falling, and another round of layoffs have begun to hit the auto workers, the United Auto Workers' union (UAW) held its 29th Constitutional Convention in Anaheim, California. But the UAW leadership did not call for a fight against layoffs or the killing speedup and job combination in the plants. In fact, they hardly even noted the devastation facing large sections of the auto workers. Instead, this was a convention to sing the glories of cooperation with auto capitalists.
Pitting Worker Against Worker, to Beat the Foreign Competition
Instead of blaming the auto monopolies for the layoffs and plant closings, the UAW leaders blamed "foreign competition." Rather than a call for international solidarity with the Japanese, Korean and Mexican workers for a joint fight against the monopolies, the convention glorified "cooperation," "teamwork" and joint programs with the U.S. auto billionaires to help them out-compete the "foreigners." The UAW leaders made Richard Gephardt, the champion of Democratic Party chauvinism, a featured speaker and praised his racist railing against foreigners in general and the Japanese in particular.
In short, the UAW convention centered on splitting up the workers and forcing them into a competitive drive over which will give the most concessions to his own monopoly. This was a convention of unbridled company-unionism.
Justifying the Monopolies' Concessions Drive
In his opening statement, UAW president Owen Bieber went so far as to praise the 1979 Chrysler deal for "saving jobs" and for opening up the "labor-management cooperation" that has intensified through the decade.
But Bieber failed to mention that this deal led to the elimination of 20 plants and the cutting of 40,000 jobs. Nor did he mention that Chrysler's improved productivity of 24 cars per worker, compared to 10 cars per worker in 1979, had come at the expense of turning the plants into hellholes of job combination, speedup, and contracting out to nonunion sweat shops.
Bieber also failed to note that the Chrysler deal opened up an enormous take-back offensive of the capitalists that spread from Chrysler to GM and Ford, and from the auto industry into every other industry throughout the country.
No, Bieber didn't mention these facts. He was simply out to justify the concessions drive and to ensure that the UAW stayed the course of slavish agreement to every whim of the auto billionaires.
New Directions --A Loyal Opposition
Despite the solid block of Bieber loyalists that dominated the convention, it did not escape completely from the ferment among the auto workers against the top UAW bosses.
The New Directions Movement -- by appealing to rank-and-file opposition to the UAW's co-operative programs with the monopolies -- won elections for some 10% of the delegates. And this in the face of Bieber's dirty tricks -- like demanding $500 contributions from every UAW staff member to campaign against New Directions and getting Ford to actually shut down production lines to allow Bieber and company to campaign among the workers.
Unfortunately, New Directions has, in fact, no fundamental opposition to the policy of the top UAW bureaucrats.
It accepts the UAW leaders' prejudice against foreign workers and actually campaigned for the UAW to have a stronger campaign against the foreigners. Don Douglas, one of the key New Directions' leaders and UAW president of the local at Pontiac Truck and Bus, put out a leaflet saying, "It's time for the UAW to demand that GM, Ford, Chrysler and the independent Parts Supplier plants close their plants in Mexico, Japan, Korea and Brazil and elsewhere. Demand those plants be closed, the work brought back to our members and no more allowed to leave while we have one member on layoff." No talk of solidarity with the Korean and Mexican strikers. No mention of making the monopolies pay for jobs or livelihood for the laid-off. No, it's just to hell with the foreign workers in the same chauvinist vein as Bieber.
Similarly, New Directions' demand is not for an end to cooperation with the monopolies, but simply that the cooperation be adjusted to give slightly more benefits to the workers. And when New Directions leaders actually hold union posts even this slight difference with Bieber seems to disappear.
Remember that when New Directions chieftain Jerry Tucker became head of Region 5, his first act was to suppress the strike at Chrysler's St. Louis Assembly Plant II against the loss of jobs due tooutsourcing to mainly nonunion sweatshops.He went from there to sabotage the fight against "team concept" at GM's Wentzville, Missouri plant. At Chrysler's Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP), the New Directions supporter Bill Parker declined to run again for local president. Why? Because the mass of workers hate him for collaborating with the international leaders in imposing two local contracts that are Chrysler's model for "modern operating agreements" of enormous overtime, job combination, and speedup. The SHAP workers voted each contract down, but were told they could not strike and were forced by Park to vote again -- until they got it right.
Rank-And-File Ferment
New Directions does not represent a real fight against the company-union policies of the UAW leaders. But the fact that their charade opposition was able to gather some support among the workers indicates the ferment developing among the rank and file.
For this ferment to develop into a strong movement, the rank-and-file workers must free themselves not only from the top UAW bureaucrats but also of illusions in the UAW's loyal opposition.
[Graphic.]
Over 20 laid-off workers from Chrysler's Jefferson Avenue Assembly plant in Detroit picketed in May the Local 7 election of delegates to the United Auto Workers (UAW) convention. The workers confronted Local 7 president Aaron "Breeze" Taylor and his team for selling out the laid-off. Homemade signs declared, "Chrysler unfair to laid-off workers!" "No job bank at Jefferson -- Why?" "Why is Chrysler taking so many SUB credits for each check?"
The UAW hacks had promised that supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB) would hold the laid-off workers until a new Jefferson Avenue plant is built in 1992. But Chrysler has essentially cut the SUB benefits from two years down to one year. So SUB benefits have nearly run out for most of the laid-off. Chrysler has also announced that second shift will not be called back, indefinitely. And many workers will never be called back.
"Breeze" tried to brush the charges aside, blaming "outside agitators" for stirring up supposedly happy unemployed workers. He blustered that there is a "Guaranteed Income Stream" (GIS) and a "job bank" with more than 30 workers in it. Thirty workers! But there are over 2,000 workers laid-off! What about everybody else? The truth is the job bank and GIS are just token programs, and "Breeze" knows it. They are not funded enough to provide jobs or an income at union wages for all the laid-off.
Meanwhile, Chrysler continues to make record profits. In 1988 it made over $1 billion. In the first quarter of 1989 it made $351 million more. Naturally the top executives are stuffing their pockets like thieves. Chairman Iacocca grabbed nearly $4 million last year for himself alone.
To hell with this disgusting greed! The laid-off will not sit around and rot waiting for some union hacks' pipe dreams to rescue them. The working class has the strength to save itself through mass struggle. While "Breeze" says "Don't worry, be happy," the workers say "Don't worry, fight back!"
(Based on May 25 "Detroit Workers Voice," paper of MLP-Detroit.)
About 100 laid-off workers from GM's Hamtramck Assembly plant picketed outside the GM headquarters building in Detroit on June 10. They denounced GM for failing to call back the second shift.
When the new assembly plant was built, GM obtained huge subsidies and tax abatements from the various city, state and federal government agencies involved. Mayor Coleman Young spent $200 million in city money on the plant. These gifts of the workers' tax money to the rich auto capitalists were justified by the liberal politicians and UAW bureaucrats who claimed that some of it would trickle down in the form of jobs for auto workers.
Despite four years of production, the plant has paid no taxes. GM profits are sky high. Executive bonuses are fat. But instead of employing 5,400 people on two shifts, GM works only 3,000 on one shift! The remaining 2,400 have been left to twist slowly in the wind for a couple of years.
The workers are fighting mad. Abandoned by the UAW champions of "labor-management cooperation," the rank and file have begun to organize themselves to fight for their own interests.
[Photo.]
Workers at Akzo Coatings in Pontiac, Michigan walked out on strike June 2. Akzo produces paint for Navistar, GM, and other companies. It is about to open a new plant and, apparently, is out to break the union at Akzo before that opening.
Akzo workers rejected the company's contract offer. The workers are demanding job security. They are fighting unsafe conditions that led to the death of one recently. They are also fighting severe harassment and firings.
Akzo is trying to hire scabs to run the plant. The 50 Akzo workers are picketing. And they have called for support from other auto workers in Pontiac.
Two hundred nineteen workers were fired at Midland Steel in Cleveland, Ohio at the end of May for refusing to work weekend overtime.
Midland produces truck frames for GM, Ford and Navistar. Since March 1, the workers have been working without a contract. Instead of striking, the UAW leaders limited the workers to in-plant strategies of slowdowns and overtime bans on the weekends.
On May 21, the workers held a meeting to discuss unsafe working conditions in the plant. They held fast to their resolve to not work Saturday overtime as the company demanded. A few days later, in retaliation, the company fired 219 workers and began to hire replacements.
But even then, the UAW leaders refused to call a strike or even picket the plant. Instead, they've limited the fight against the firing to filing grievances.
About 500 workers from the MBTA in Boston packed their union hall June 6. They thundered a resounding "No!" vote against the sellout "experimental" concessions package worked out between the MBTA management and the top union "leaders," Tony Romano and Frank Madden.
The experimental concessions plan was to introduce a four-day work week for some Red Line workers who would have to work 12 to 13 hours per day in split shifts, with 10 hours on the train. The union hacks gave up the workers' right to receive overtime and swing pay for these exhaustingly long hours. The experiment also would have forced part-time workers to work 40 hours or more per week without receiving full-time pay, status or benefits.
The transit authority and the sold out union leaders had hoped to spring these concessions on the workers as a surprise without even allowing them to vote. But the Boston Worker exposed the dirty deal and spread the news widely among the workers throughout the system. The workers were furious and the union executive board was forced to call a meeting for the workers to vote on whether to accept the concessions or not. At the meeting, every time Madden or Romano tried to defend their sellout, they were booed. The workers voted down the concessions by about 500 to 10.
But the battle is not over. The MBTA and the Romano clique have ignored the no vote. The authority is still trying to carry out the plan. When workers call the union hall to protest, Romano asks them, "What's so bad about the experimental sheets?" When workers press him for action, he says, "We are negotiating with the company but you will have to work the experimental sheets for four weeks until new schedules can be made." What a bunch of sellouts!
Red Line workers, why should we work even one minute under these illegal concessions sheets, which the rank and file have rejected almost unanimously? If we let Romano and the MBTA get away with this one, we are letting them get a foot in the door for making the concessions permanent. Many workers are calling the union hall demanding that the union leaders honor the workers' vote. We should keep the pressure up and intensify it. But don't hold your breath waiting for these guys. We must start to organize on our own. We must make the T pay for this dirty trick. To stop this concessions plan we are going to have to be ready and united enough to refuse to work this scheme.
(Taken from the June 13 "Boston Worker," paper of the MLP-Boston.)
Postal workers are demanding an end to the hazardous fumes at the FDR station in New York. Some workers refused to work. The New York Workers' Voice condemned the situation in April and May. And two dozen workers circulated a petition and gathered over 350 signatures from clerks, carriers, mail handlers, and casuals.
The fumes are coming from dangerous chemicals being used in construction downstairs. Postal workers have suffered dizziness, headaches, nausea, and burning eyes. There were even cases of vomiting.
After the protests, the situation was somewhat improved in the subceller, where conditions were the worst. As well, postal management changed its policy to allow workers to use sick leave to go home, if they insisted. But management continued to deny there is a problem and told nurses that the fumes are "harmless." Postal management appears determined to get out production, no matter how harmful it is to the workers.
(Based on April 28 and May 26 issues of the ''New York Workers Voice," paper of the MLP-New York.)
The Chicago Workers' Voice reports that workers at Bodine Electric in Chicago are fighting against forced overtime. Some departments have been scheduled 10 hours a day plus Saturdays. And the long hours have led to increased injuries. Even workers who want overtime are complaining that the hours are too long.
The Chicago Workers' Voice emphasized, "Overtime should be voluntary. Some even feel it's essential because they can't make ends meet without the overtime pay. But if you feel desperate to get overtime it proves that you need a raise! Workers should be able to make ends meet with a 40-hour work week. But Bodine pays so poorly that many Bodine employees need to work every hour they can."
The workers organized a petition demanding that there be no disciplinary action against workers who refuse overtime. As a result, Bodine backed down from forcing the overtime.
(Based on the June 14 "Chicago Workers' Voice," paper of the MLP-Chicago.)
Seven hundred drivers and helpers struck against 18 Chicago-area beer distributors on May 10. They are fighting sweeping concessions demands. They loudly rejected the distributors' "final" contract offer in early May. But then on May 8, the distributors unilaterally imposed the contract conditions on the workers.
The strikers are most angry about the elimination of base pay. The drivers are salaried and commissioned. The company now wants to take the salary away. Therefore, the drivers would only make a commission on what they actually deliver. It is estimated this would amount to a $15,000 per year cut for each worker.
The bourgeoisie is waving the flag. George Bush and his friends want a Constitutional amendment to punish "physical desecration" of the flag. Other politicians "only" want a law to compel respect. A few are skeptical of the rush. But all of them, congressmen and mayors, Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and ultra-liberals, are competing to demonstrate their patriotic ecstasy for the flag.
But what respect can there be for a flag that waves over a CIA that is training death squads for Central America?
What respect can there be for a flag under which multinational corporations drain the lifeblood from one country after another?
What respect can there be for a flag that waves over a White House whose occupant laughs at the millions of homeless, unemployed, and disadvantaged?
No wonder the ruling class thinks that the threat of serving time in jail is necessary to compel respect.
The Supreme Court Decision
The whole fuss was set off by a Supreme Court decision. It dealt with a case in which a supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party had received a ferocious sentence of one year in jail and a $2,000 fine for burning the flag in a protest against the 1984 Republican National Convention held in Texas. If there was any justice in the courts, the politicians who attended the Republican National Convention would have been charged with conspiracy to lower wages, incite racist attacks, and plan "covert actions" against Nicaragua and other countries, but instead it was the protester who was jailed.
The Supreme Court was closely divided on the issue, 5-4. The Chief Justice Rehnquist and three other judges wanted to throw in jail anyone who "tarnished the value" of the flag.
However the majority held that a person could not be prosecuted simply for burning the flag. They raved on and on about the supposed freedoms of American life. But hidden underneath their fancy rhetoric about freedom, a different idea peeped out. They also pointed out that you could prosecute a protester under other laws. If someone burns the flag, they hinted, don't charge him with the political offense of burning the flag in particular, but with violating other -.well-established statutes.
This hint was noted by a number of newspapers, some of whom supported the decision and enthusiastically listed various laws that could be used against those who burned a flag. There was no need for a specific law against flag burning in itself. And in fact this type of suppression of dissent is done routinely. Thousands of "non-political" regulations restrict leafleting demonstrating, putting up posters, going on strike, etc. But it's all according to the "Bill of Rights" and sanctified by the Supreme Court. And the TV and newspapers and schools teach that there are no political prisoners in the U.S., oh no, only workers and activists who "break the law."
The minority on the Supreme Court didn't see the need to go through such niceties, however. Just throw those who don't respect the flag in jail. Chief Justice Rehnquist felt that the "uniquely deep awe and respect for our flag felt by virtually all of us" justifies putting in jail those who apparently are not "one of us."
Of course, Chief Justice Rehnquist and others are outraged by violations of liberties in other countries, at least those at odds with the U.S. State Department. When such countries throw protesters in jail for burning the flag or other acts that violate the "uniquely deep awe and respect" of the local ruling class, that's outrageous. That's political persecution. Why, that would never happen in America. Chief Justice Rehnquist would never throw someone in jail for burning the flag -- of a country frowned on by the White House. Burning the American flag, of course, is another story.
Despite the Supreme Court Decision
Despite the Supreme Court decision striking the Texas law against burning the flag, measures are still being taken around the country against those who ridicule the flag. For example, the flag has been used in a derisive way, some times simply in an unorthodox way, in several artistic works. This has given rise to retaliation, as happened when the School of the Art Institute of Chicago allowed a student to ridicule the flag in an artistic exhibit. As a result, the Illinois Senate cut off most funding of the Art Institute to pressure it to ensure a proper patriotic level in its displays. This isn't affected by the Supreme Court decision.
His Master's Voice
In fact, there is hardly much danger that the Supreme Court decision is going to stop government pressure for patriotic conformity. But nevertheless, as soon as the Supreme Court made its decision, various branches of government sprang into action. Resolutions were passed in Congress, and Bush wants more, a Constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court decision. Quite likely, he'll get it, too. After all, the politicians are rushing to get on the bandwagon. They are afraid that the bourgeoisie won't regard them as sufficiently narrow-minded and chauvinist. Their master called, and they obey. Today, being willing to enlist in the capitalist offensive against the workers, minorities, and "foreign threat" is the key to popularity with the bourgeoisie.
The Reaganite offensive against the workers and minorities is deepening. No dissent is to be allowed. That is what enforcing respect for the flag signifies. The capitalists will allow quibbling on details, but you better not challenge their overall rule. You better display the proper respect, or you'll get your knuckles rapped.
But disrespect for the capitalists springs from every fact of life in this country. The politicians are only making themselves ridiculous when they think that they can ban it. They are showing the workers and progressive activists that there must be an independent political movement. One that doesn't fall over itself to pamper every rotten whim of the bourgeoisie.
The FBI has intercepted the letter of a 12-year-old schoolboy to the Yugoslav embassy in Washington, it was revealed in mid-May. (See the Chicago Sun-Times, May 14) As part of a school project, Ian Glasson of Kimmel, Indiana had written to the embassy for some information on Yugoslavia. The FBI read the letter, and began an investigation. It sent an agent to see Ian, and it sought to intimidate Ian by telling him that the FBI had a file on him.
The U.S. government boasts that it allows American citizens freedom to learn about other countries. But if they write or telephone to any of various embassies, such as the Soviet embassy and, it now seems, the Yugoslav, they can expect their calls to be tapped by the FBI and their letters to be read. Files will be begun on them. Even as a result of the most innocent and routine letters. And, as the FBI agent pointed out to Ian's family, his file would be on his record if he applies for certain jobs in the future.
This is the FBI, America's political police, in action. Reading your mail. Compiling secret files.
And what of the supposed privacy of correspondence that the U.S. government also boasts of? That supposedly distinguishes the U.S. from many other countries? Well how, after all, did the FBI get this correspondence?
Apparently the post office routinely cooperates with the FBI. The government says that the rights and privileges of American citizens are protected by the Constitution, and privacy of the mails and of telephone calls can only be violated by court order. But that isn't much protection if an ordinary 12-year- old schoolboy can be treated as a dangerous threat to the state security of the capitalist order. It doesn't seem to stop the FBI from keeping secret files on millions of Americans and running its own underworld empire of informers, wiretaps and mail checks. And apparently it is no protection at all if one writes or calls to the wrong foreigner.
So isn't it wonderful that the number of policemen of all types is being increased in the name of the war on crime? It will give them more time to read mail, your mail, that is.
But don't worry. The FBI agent assured the family that, when future employers make a security check on the boy, the file will read that Ian's letter to the Yugoslav mission was a school project. Well, it's just lucky he didn't write on his own initiative.
So it turns out that the FBI has no intention of destroying his file. It accumulates files on as many Americans as possible. Never know if these files might prove useful later. Such is the reality behind the fine talk of Constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The Bush administration is posturing as anti-drug crusaders. Whatever it does -- destroying public housing, hassling minorities on the streets, or proposing police-state laws -- is done, likely as not, in the name of fighting drugs. But it seems that while the Bush administration has "zero tolerance" for the workers and minorities, it makes heroes out of the druggies of its own administration.
This is what happened when "national hero" Oliver North's secretary, Fawn Hall, turned out to be a cocaine head. In early June it was revealed that she had used cocaine frequently for at least a three-year period during which she worked at the National Security Council and the Pentagon. The Drug Enforcement Administration had discovered this in 1987 when it was questioning her. It did not prosecute her, however. No "zero tolerance" policy for her.
The Drug Enforcement Administration's reason for not prosecuting is that she allegedly only used cocaine, but was not a dealer. Under "zero tolerance," this is no defense for ordinary people, but it was for her.
Furthermore, her boss Oliver North was intimately connected with the financing of the contra network, which included drug smuggling. But here too there was no prosecution from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Why North was simply carrying out Reagan- Bush foreign policy, and was declared a "national hero" for his crimes.
The Reagan-Bush administrations have "zero tolerance" for the problems of the people in confronting the drug plague, but every tolerance for their own drug takers and drug deals. In turn, the working people should have zero tolerance for Bush and the capitalist class which he heads up.
About 75 people staged a noisy march from a park in Oakland, California to the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel in early June. They protested the city's move to clear two downtown parks of homeless people.
A few days before, police and city workers cleared the parks of clothes, chairs, debris and the belongings of people who slept there. One person was arrested. In one park, the public restroom was boarded up to discourage people from camping out in the park.
On the way to the Hyatt Regency, angry demonstrators tore off the plywood and reopened the bathroom. At the hotel they planned to ask for empty rooms for the homeless. But police blocked the doors. Demonstrators banged on an unmarked police car, chanting: "The Hyatt belongs to the homeless." When they tried to push through police lines, more police burst through the hotel doors and attacked them. One demonstrator was injured. Demonstrators then sat down in the street and, eventually, moved to another park where they planned to spend the night. The police ordered them out. Ten demonstrators were arrested when they refused to leave.
A weekend of protest was organized June 3 against the Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire.
Four thousand people gathered on June 3 for a mass rally in Hampton Beach a few miles from the plant. Signs brought by protesters included such slogans as "Remember Chernobyl!" and "To fight pollution, fight capitalism!"
The following couple of days, nearly 800 people were arrested for taking part in civil disobedience in front of the nuclear plant's gates.
The fight against Seabrook has re- emerged as the capitalist owners of the nuclear plant are preparing to begin operating the plant. On May 26, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted Seabrook a low-power testing license to begin nuclear fission in June.
On June 14, the plant started its first nuclear reaction. The owners of Seabrook went into raptures, comparing this to Edison turning on the first light bulb. They feasted on huge cakes, shouting that it was now proven that the plant "is safe."
However, their declarations appeared to have been quite premature. They were forced to shut down on June 22 after equipment failure. Even the NRC had to come out and suspend the low- power testing license.
The people of New England have been fighting the Seabrook project ever since it was launched in the mid-seventies. Dozens of mass protests have been organized there.
Seabrook, like other nuclear facilities built so far, has been developed without having solved the technical problems to ensure safety. The near-disaster at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the Chernobyl catastrophe more recently have brought home the serious problems connected with nuclear plants. But the nuclear program hasn't been set up with attention to the people's health and safety, it's been developed because of the big profits to be made in it. As well, the U.S. nuclear energy program is closely connected to the nuclear weapons program which is a cornerstone of Pentagon imperialism.
Residents around Seabrook are also outraged that it has been built in an area where even the minimal evacuation standards set by the U.S. government cannot be met. Evacuation plans for the legal 10-mile radius cannot possibly work because the Hampton Beach resort area draws a crowd of up to 250,000. The beach traffic already ties up the roads.
There are signs that there is a renewed effort underway by the U.S. government and power companies to bring Seabrook and other nuclear power plants on line. To fight against this requires a renewal of the mass struggle.
[Photo: Rally against Seabrook nuclear plant, June 3.]
McDonald's is proposing to build mini-incinerators called "Archie McPuffs" for waste disposal behind its restaurants. It already has permission from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to build two prototypes in the Chicago area. It plans to use them to burn restaurant waste, including polystyrene packaging.
This is an air-poisoning plan which could end up being a path-breaker for similar mini-incinerators mushrooming around the country.
The McDonald's plan poses a particular danger because of their polystyrene food packaging. When polystyrene is incinerated in a "mixed burn" along with other waste, such as food, paper, or other plastics, the uneven temperatures result in many different byproducts being formed, some of which are poisonous. And if polystyrene is burned with any material containing chlorines or fluorines, it can form highly toxic dioxin compounds. A 1987 survey of 23 studies on polystyrene incineration by the British journal, Fire and Materials, reportedly found that the release of toxic products was reported by all 23 studies.
Setting up the Archie McPuffs would of course not be the first assault on the environment by the McDonald's corporation. Environmental specialists point out that McDonald's shouldn't be using polystyrene in the first place. Not only is it poisonous to burn and pollutes the land where it is discarded, but its production also causes pollution. Pentane, the chloroflourocarbon used as a puffing agent in the packaging, is difficult to contain and typically leaks into the atmosphere. Pentane adds to ground level ozone, a component of smog.
Here's another example of capitalism' s golden arches in action.
Residents of East Los Angeles and nearby Vernon are up in arms against a big commercial toxic waste incinerator planned for Vernon. On June 5th, 50 people demonstrated at the proposed site, shouting, "Burn it now, breathe it later!"
The protesters were especially angry about the June 1 decision by a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ordering construction permits for the incinerator without requiring a full environmental impact study. The requirement for such a report was also waived by the California Department of Health Services and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; both have given their final approval for the project. This paves the way for bypassing impact studies on the 15 other toxic waste burners awaiting permits in California.
The environmental threat posed by the plant was indirectly acknowledged even by the judge himself, since in the same ruling he ordered anti-pollution equipment to be installed at a cost of $6 million. But anti-incinerator activists aren't satisfied this solves the problem.
The Vernon incinerator, which would burn 22,500 tons per year of solvents, oils, infectious medical waste and other toxic substances, is reported to be the first waste-burner of its type planned for a major metropolitan area. Therefore, one would hope that maximum precautions would be taken to make sure that such a plant would not endanger the millions of people living in the L.A. area. L.A. is polluted enough as it is.
Unfortunately, the government agencies responsible for the environment and safety are doing just the opposite -- plowing ahead recklessly. They are out to please the incinerator builder, California Treatment Services, which will make out handsomely from the $35 million project.
[Photo.]
Five hundred demonstrators marched in protest against the newly-built trash incinerator on Detroit's near east side on Saturday, June 3. The marchers kept up a barrage of slogan shouting from Eastern Market near downtown to the incinerator's truck entrance over a mile away.
To the angry shouts of "Shut it down!" demonstrators scuffled with police as they took over and blockaded the entrance. It began pouring rain but the protesters held their positions until police brought in reinforcements and made about 24 arrests.
This was the largest action against the trash burner so far. People are fighting the trash burner because it will introduce dangerous poisons into the environment right in the heart of a thickly populated area.
The incinerator will also create ash which has been proven to be toxic. Mayor Coleman Young wants to put this ash in ordinary landfills, despite state laws which require toxic ash to be put in special dumps for hazardous materials.
So what did the Michigan state politicians do when faced with this dilemma? They choose to pass a bill -- signed into law by Democratic Governor Blanchard on June 12 -- that exempts incinerator ash from the existing hazardous waste rules. Now the ash can be placed in ordinary landfills, separated from other trash by meager plastic liners which will really do little to prevent toxins from leaching into the soil.
You can't fight pollution by relying on the capitalist politicians. We need to build a mass movement on the shoulders of the workers.
[Photo: Chicago]
The crackdown in China has brought forth a storm of protest from Chinese students going to school in the U.S. Thousands have demonstrated in the big cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco, while smaller rallies have been held in cities and towns across the country. Militants of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA have attended several of the demonstrations to express our solidarity with the working people of China.
As in China, the demands of the students for freedom and democracy reflect a protest against the Deng Xiaoping regime, but at the same time the students generally do not seem clear on what sort of political system they want. For most of these students, this has been their first involvement in political activism.
There are many views among them. There are those who have fallen in love with U.S.-style bourgeois democracy, there are others who would like to see a Gorbachev-type order, and there are still others who do not yet have any thought-out ideas beyond the general slogans. There are some who are opposed to any concept of socialism, while others still believe in some sort of socialism, although there is much confusion about the whole concept of socialism and whether it is possible in China. There have also been some who have shown interest in hearing about a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist viewpoint on the struggle in China.
All in all, however, the ideas of the pro-Western capitalist elements appear to dominate many of the recent protests. They are certainly the ones who have received the greatest promotion from the news media. This is not all that surprising, when you consider that the Chinese students studying in the U.S. are in many cases the more privileged among the student population of China. Indeed, one of the complaints of the student protesters in China was that it is those with connections at the top who dominate the opportunities to study abroad.
Meanwhile, supporters of the reactionary Kuomintang (KMT) regime, which holds power in Taiwan, have also come out to many of these demonstrations. They have sought in many places to inject words of sympathy for the KMT as an alternative to the Beijing regime. We have reports that some such efforts have been greeted with loud boos.
That is as it should be. Unfortunately, many of the leaders of the Chinese student protests have welcomed the pro-KMT forces into the movement. In San Francisco, an open alliance has been set up for the first time between supporters of the People's Republic of China and the reactionary KMT-connected businessmen's groups.
This is a big mistake. The KMT committed tremendous crimes against the Chinese people. Liberation from the KMT brought a new day for China in 1949. And the regime the KMT maintains in Taiwan is a brutal and thoroughly corrupt capitalist order. A fight for democratic rights in China cannot be built by accepting the KMT as its ally. Instead it should declare its sympathy for the struggle of the working people of Taiwan against the KMT regime.
The Chinese student demonstrations have also sought support from U.S. politicians, from both Republican and Democratic Parties. This too is a mistake. These politicians are representatives of imperialism. They are only out to make anti-communist propaganda and influence the movement in China in a pro-capitalist direction. Activists fighting for change in China need to make their links not with the ruling establishment here, but with student and worker activists fighting against the status quo.
With all the press coverage showered on the student movement in China and the hue and cry in Congress denouncing the Chinese government, one might be led to think that the U.S. politicians and media are the most fervent defenders of democracy in the world.
However something else is going on here. The ruling class here in the U.S. has a very poor record when it comes to supporting popular struggles against tyranny.
Indeed, U.S. imperialism has made itself notorious for supporting bloodstained regimes in every corner of the globe. We could go into a long list of tyrants supported by Washington over the years, but here let's focus on a few contemporary examples. (So that it can't be said that U.S. policy has changed in recent years.)
* You don't have to go too far from Beijing to find places that are considered unworthy of much attention by the U.S. media. Look at South Korea. Even as the Chinese students were rising up, the protesting Korean students and workers have been facing off with thousands of riot police. But all they have received this spring is only passing mention in the U.S. press. Washington continues its decades-long love affair with the dictatorship in South Korea. (See article on p. 16)
* For a year and a half, youth in the West Bank and Gaza have taken to daily protests against Israeli occupation. This struggle is now relegated to a few brief sentences buried in the back pages. And the U.S. government has not imposed a single sanction on its ally, the Israeli regime. Not a penny has been cut from the $3 billion in aid sent to Israel each year.
* El Salvador -- 80,000 people have been killed by the military and death squads there over the last decade. A powerful movement of workers and peasants refuses to be crushed. Washington keeps pouring in hundreds of millions in weapons and money to prop up this bloody dictatorship. U.S. advisors help carry out the war against the people.
Why the Outcry Over China?
The media and politicians appear to be taking a different tack towards China. But is this a sign of new-found love for democracy? Or is this more because the capitalists see a powerful opportunity to carry out propaganda against the idea of any alternative to capitalism?
Take a look at the headlines and features in recent editions of the bourgeois magazines and newspapers: they are full of such themes as "Communism in Crisis,'' "The Collapse of Communism,'' and so on.
But wait a minute. Was it that long ago that the Deng Xiaoping regime in China was praised up and down by the U.S. politicians and press? And weren't they hailing Deng and the Chinese "communists'' precisely for abandoning the communist road? Didn't they themselves report that the Chinese leaders no longer really believe in the "outdated ideas" of Marx and Lenin.
True enough. And they were right that Deng Xiaoping and the current Chinese leadership have betrayed socialism -- China is a country where capitalist exploitation prevails. Still, the Beijing regime has continued to maintain a communist label, and that always proves useful to the West for churning out anti-communist propaganda -- when the imperialists have a reason to do so.
The current hue and cry against "communism" in China is for propaganda to demoralize the world's workers that they shouldn't think about the possibilities of life without capitalism. As well, U.S. imperialism sees the current crisis in China as a golden opportunity to influence the emerging opposition movement in China towards pro-U.S. capitalist ideas. Clearly, stability in China has cracked, more discontent will break through, and new political currents will be emerging. The U.S. wants to make sure that pro-U.S. capitalist ideas prevail over the opposition.
But that's a long-term goal for imperialism. In the meantime, the Deng regime is in control, and U.S. imperialism is not about to burn its bridges with it when there are no serious alternatives. Thus, official U.S. policy towards China refuses to go too far in taking actions against the Chinese government.
It is cold imperialist calculation which guides U.S. policy. For the last decade, Washington has had an open alliance with the Chinese revisionists. An alliance based on opening up China to exploitation by U.S. multinational corporations, an alliance based on common hostility to the Soviet imperialists, an alliance sealed in joint activities in favor of reactionary forces in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere.
The Bush administration has steadfastly sought to preserve the imperialist alliance with Deng Xiaoping's regime. And such prominent foreign policy experts like Nixon, Kissinger, and Moynihan have all backed up the Bush policy.
This is why Bush keeps trying to find words of praise for Deng Xiaoping. This is why only token gestures have been taken against Beijing. This is why the big U.S. corporations are heading back to restore business-as-usual relations. After all, there are billions of dollars invested in China. Crocodile tears for the Chinese people are well and good, but it is profits which really count.
Profits -- and imperialist realpolitik. This is why we keep hearing that if the U.S. gets too angry with China, someone else will "fill the vacuum." Bourgeois experts on China are trotted out on TV to point to the dangers of other powers grabbing greater influence and a bigger share of the profits to be made from China. China is a major Asian power, and the U.S. worries that an alliance between China and some other big power may throw U.S. world policy into a corner. Thus they worry about the Soviets tightening up their newly-restored closeness with China and the threat of the Japanese capitalists displacing the role of the U.S. in China.
This underscores that imperialism remains imperialism. The crackdown in China may be useful to score propaganda points against "communist" tyranny and influence Chinese oppositionists. But for now, business and the cause of protecting "ours" versus "others" comes first.
The students in China rightly protested the official media in that country. The press was denounced for lying to the people, for refusing to report on the student movement, for covering up the corruption in the government, and for being a slavish toady of the ruling bureaucrats.
When the movement in Beijing became massive, even journalists from the official media felt brave enough to join the demonstrations. The U.S. news media was quick to applaud the Chinese journalists who joined the protests. Ted Koppel interviewed them and praised them on Nightline.
However, there seems to be quite a different standard applied by the U.S. media when it comes to journalists taking part in demonstrations here. Take a look at this recent news item.
On April 9, there was a massive demonstration in Washington, D.C. in support of women's right to choose abortion. The sponsors of this demonstration were not radicals of any sort, but the very mainstream National Organization for Women (although militant and revolutionary defenders of women's rights also attended). Given the "respectable" leadership of the march, some liberal journalists from the New York Times and Washington Post took part in the march to express their pro-choice views. Unlike the Chinese journalists, they attended anonymously, without drawing attention to themselves.
They were rewarded by the captains of the news media with brickbats, not bouquets.
The editors of the Times and Post publicly denounced those journalists who attended the April 9 march. The Post issued a memorandum stating that no "newsroom professional" should participate in such a demonstration. Several other newspaper managements agreed with the stand taken by the Times and the Post. A Times reporter who had attended the march was reported to have acknowledged that "this was a mistake." (See New York Times, April 16)
The newspapers claimed that attending the April 9 demonstration violated their conflict-of-interest policies. They said that it went against journalistic objectivity.
We suspect that the Times and Post editors aren't really worked up because of blemishes on their high-falutin "objectivity." Rather, this incident demonstrates that the U.S. media -- including the liberal media -- has been bending before the anti-abortion crusade of the Reagan-Bush crew. This can be seen in the tremendous promotion of the holy bullies of Operation Rescue. It can be seen in the under reporting of the growing pro-choice resistance this spring.
The Myth of Objective Journalism
We've been hearing a lot about the virtues of the U.S. media these days. During the recent events in China, much has been made of how the media in China follows a tyrannical "party line" but here in the West it is "free" and "objective." But, like the myth of a democracy above classes that is supposed to exist in the capitalist West, the fable about an "objective press" is spread to claim that the U.S. press is above classes and social interests.
The facts, however, show otherwise.
The Chinese press, like the press of many a tyranny, follows a crude policy of printing only what the rulers want to see printed. However, the Western- style "objective" press is only a more refined way of spreading the ideas and views of the ruling class here.
Through the years of bourgeois training in journalism schools, through editorial direction, through the cozy relations that exist between media, industry and government, through inculcating a strong sense of self-censorship 1 among the journalists, the U.S. news media helps spread a view of the world colored by the ruling class ideology. True, the media speaks a lot about allowing debate and contending ideas, but the debate that is represented is by and large a debate confined to differing shades within the limits acceptable to the capitalist establishment. No less than the Chinese press, the U.S. establishment media is also a media in the service of the ruling class.
Take the question of U.S. policy towards Nicaragua. The government has cooked up lie after lie about Nicaragua in order to justify the contra war. And what attitude does the press take towards this? It repeats many of these lies. And when they present the debate over policy towards Nicaragua, they represent only a debate over how best to oppose the Nicaraguan revolution -- they did not question the fundamentals of this interventionist policy.
The Workers' Advocate has exposed the real class character of the U.S. media year in and year out. As well, this is borne out by other studies of the U.S. media.
Even Liberal Studies Have Exposed Pro-Government Role of U.S. Media
In the last few years, several studies have come out which help expose the fraud of a press which is supposedly above the interests of the elite in power. We don't agree with many of the views and conclusions of these studies, which are written by liberals who have strong faith in the capitalist establishment -- however, they are useful in bringing out a series of facts about the pro-government character of the U.S. media.
An in-depth study of ABC News' Nightline published in Extra, newsletter of the New York-based group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, showed that Ted Koppel's much-touted program of debate over current affairs is strongly skewed to representing a very small range of positions acceptable to the Reaganite establishment.
Another example is the book On Bended Knee: the Press and the Reagan Presidency by Mark Hertsgaard. This book focuses on how the news media collaborated in imposing the Reaganite agenda during the eight years of the Reagan administration. He helps blow the cover off the doctrine of "objectivity."
What such studies show is that the 1 U.S. media is also an official media. It too is a party media; instead of being just in service to one particular party, it is in service to the narrow range of views that defines the bipartisan Republi-crat political establishment. This is not surprising since the media is controlled by the same big money that controls the two parties. The newspapers and mass market magazines, the TV and radio networks, are in the hands of a small number of big media monopolies.
How can one speak of freedom of the press as long as money controls the press?
It is true that the Chinese people have to do away with the lying official media they have. But they have to replace it not with a more refined, lying capitalist media but a toilers' press that is in service to the interests of the working people. There can be no press above classes; the Chinese people need a partisan press, a truly revolutionary communist press not the perversion of one that exists in China today. Such a press will be born in the midst of the struggling masses.
[Photo: Chinese students set tank on fire.]
[Photo.]
There has been a lot of talk lately how it is only "communist tyrannies" like China which send out tanks and machine guns against protesters. The media and politicians tell us the U.S. is a democracy and offers full democratic rights to all
But what would really have happened if, say, thousands of protesters had occupied Lafayette Park in front of the White House for weeks, and hundreds of thousands were converging on Washington, D.C. to raise demands against the government? It's not too hard to tell.
Well, the 1960's were a time of massive upheaval in this country, and we remember a different tune on the subject of the rights of dissenters. We remember Civil Rights demonstrators meeting clubs, fire hoses, and guns. We remember tanks and machine guns in Detroit and Newark, 1967. We remember Chicago, 1968. We remember the cold-blooded shootings of students at Kent State and Jackson State in 1970.
And it's not just times of nationwide upsurge when the "democratic" U.S. government brings out its fist against protest. We remember the bomb dropped on the MOVE house in Philadelphia in 1985.
And just look around right now. Striking miners in Pittston are feeling the kindness of the courts and police. And the entire bourgeoisie is shouting that anyone who dares to bum the flag must be jailed.
These are not unique occurrences. They are the day-to-day reality of capitalist democracy.
[Graphic.]
What is a democratic election? According to the Bush administration, it is when the CIA has a free hand to pick the winner. In early June the Bush administration revealed some of its plans to use the CIA to interfere in Nicaraguan elections scheduled for February 1990.
This arrogant declaration from the White House shows the fraud of Bush's talk of "democracy." The Reagan-Bush administrations have never forgiven the Nicaraguan people for overthrowing the pro-U.S. dictator Somoza in 1979. They are still financing a CIA-organized army, the "contras," to smash the Nicaraguan revolution. But if the contras cannot install a servile, pro-U.S. regime in Nicaragua through sabotage and murder, then the CIA will also use massive intervention in Nicaraguan elections.
More Democratic Party Hypocrisy
A number of Congressional Democrats say they are upset with Bush's plans to use the CIA. But this is just hot air. They also want to buy the Nicaraguan elections with American money. They have proudly sent millions of dollars to finance the right-wing political parties in Nicaragua. Indeed, in June the Democratic-controlled Senate voted for another three million dollars of such aid, and the House is expected to follow suit. In tiny Nicaragua, with its war-torn economy, this is a lot of money.
So why are some Democrats upset with Bush's CIA intervention plans? They are simply worried that one shouldn't openly boast of the use of the CIA. They think that spy operations should be secret. After all, openly proclaiming CIA financing of the right-wing forces in Nicaragua might discredit them in front of the Nicaraguan people as being corrupt, sold-out tools of imperialism. These Democrats contend that channeling aid through the "National Endowment for Democracy" doesn't look as bad. The whole quarrel with Bush is only over the best form of sending in the cash.
Some congressmen have therefore suggested a ban on CIA interference in the Nicaraguan elections. But does it matter that much which arm of the U.S. government tries to buy the elections? And, for that matter, can anyone take seriously these proposals to ban the CIA's role inside Nicaragua when Congress never stopped the financing of the CIA's contras, who are still carrying out bombings and murders inside Nicaragua? Can anyone take such proposals seriously when the Democrats made sure to allow the CIA to continue financing the contras secretly during the very years when Congress had declared to the world that it had stopped all U.S. government aid to the contras? As long as the Democrats and Republicans rule, these parties of imperialism will subject the whole world to CIA "covert actions" and "low-intensity" wars.
The Arias "peace" plan has now had almost two years to make good on its promises to stop the U.S.-directed contra aggression against Nicaragua. But Arias' talk of peace has proven to be a fraud. The contras have not been disbanded nor has U.S. aggression been ended.
Far from halting U.S. bullying, Arias himself has been supporting it. A couple of months ago he gave his blessings to Bush's and Congress' $66 million contra aid package. And now Arias is backing the pro-contra tirades against Nicaragua made by Dan Quayle during his trip to Central America in June.
Quayle's Ravings
During his trip, Quayle's attacks on Nicaragua focused on the national elections scheduled there for early 1990. Quayle denounced these elections as "a sham" which is "killing democracy." He doesn't even have to wait to see how they are conducted; he already knows they are a sham.
What hypocrisy! Reagan, Bush and Quayle have never reconciled themselves to the overthrow of the bloody Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua, and now they complain about the exact rules for elections! They are still blockading Nicaragua, and they are still backing the ongoing war of the CIA's band of contra cutthroats against Nicaragua. And yet Bush and Quayle have the gall to pose as supporters of democracy, when they are financing the blockading, murder and rape of those Nicaraguans who oppose them.
In fact the coming elections were planned according to rules extorted from the Sandinista government of Nicaragua through the threat of more financing of the CIA's contras. Thus the Bush administration was even given permission to attempt to buy the Nicaraguan elections through unlimited foreign financing of the Nicaraguan right-wing parties. But this is not good enough for Quayle. Evidently the only thing that will satisfy the U.S,. government is for the Sandinistas to guarantee a pro-contra victory.
Meanwhile the Bush administration is planning CIA intervention in the elections. (See accompanying article) Foreign financing of unpopular parties, and the use of spies and covert operations to prop up these parties -- that's real democracy according to Quayle.
Arias Kneels Before Quayle
Enter Mr. Arias, self-proclaimed champion of peace. Did he condemn Quayle's bullying of the Nicaraguan people? Did he criticize Quayle's pledge that "we will always have a moral obligation" to help the contra assassins?
No way. Instead he fumed in chorus with Quayle against Nicaragua, stating "it is impossible to have fair, open elections there."
Arias' stand on the elections in Nicaragua highlights the bankruptcy of his peace plan. He is nothing but an echo of U.S. imperialism. The Arias plan for Nicaragua simply means helping U.S. imperialism tighten the screws on Nicaragua.
[Photo: Dan Quayle hobnobs with fascist Salvadoran military brass.]
On June 1, Alfredo Cristiani, ARENA'S candidate in the recent sham election, was inaugurated as president of the Salvadoran tyranny. ARENA is the party directly tied to the death squads which have murdered countless workers, peasants and activists. But even before Cristiani could make his first official decrees, he was greeted with a series of armed guerrilla actions and mass protests".
Guerrilla Commandos Hit San Salvador
On May 25, armed guerrillas struck in the capital, San Salvador. Daring daylight assaults were launched against the headquarters of the First Infantry Brigade and several posts of the police and other internal security forces. Battles raged in six neighborhoods in the capital. It was reported that this was the most intense fighting in the city in several years. These actions showed the growing effectiveness of the armed commando units which are based inside San Salvador.
Other Guerrilla Attacks
Meanwhile, rebel forces continued to show strength outside the capital. On June 7, guerrillas attacked government positions in several provinces. Fierce battles were waged in Tierra Blanca and Jiquilisco, about 50 miles east of San Salvador. In the northeastern province of Morazan, guerrillas hit government troops in six towns. These actions included raids on key government garrisons at San Francisco Gotera and San Vicente.
In addition to the armed clashes, the rebel forces organized a three-day national transport boycott beginning May 31. As well, they cut electrical power to most of the country, disrupting the broadcast of Cristiani's inauguration speech.
A "Moderate" Fascist?
Meanwhile the attempts by the Bush administration to portray Cristiani and his ARENA storm troopers as "moderates" continue to crumble. Bush and Congress claim ARENA has changed since the days when it was founded by the notorious torturer and death-squad organizer Roberto d'Aubuisson and his friends. Yet Cristiani has been stocking the government security apparatus with close buddies of the notorious d'Aubuisson. For example, Cristiani's vice-president, Francisco Merino, is known for his ties to d'Aubuisson. And this past April, the new vice-president publicized a list of anti-government activists over the radio. This is a well-known way to direct the death squads to their next victims.
There are also plans for a new version of d'Aubuisson's old ORDEN spy network which targeted activists for assassination. Thus the ARENA mayor of San Salvador, Armando Calderon Sol, has decided to start a "community watch" network to identify "subversives" in 150 shantytowns in the capital. Clearly the so-called "moderates" of the "new" ARENA party are planning to intensify the already horrendous levels of bloodshed against the masses.
Quayle Meets d'Aubuisson
While ARENA was plotting new terror, Dan Quayle met with the new ARENA regime to assure it of U.S. support in its repression of the people's struggle. While in El Salvador Quayle even paid a visit to d'Aubuisson himself, since after all d'Aubuisson still calls the shots in ARENA. Quayle pretended to warn d'Aubuisson not to do anything to embarrass the new ARENA regime. But Quayle and the other mouthpieces of U.S. imperialism have a very high embarrassment tolerance when it comes to tyranny in El Salvador. The Salvadoran rulers have murdered 70,000 of their opponents in the last eight years, yet during this time Reagan, Bush and Congress have showered the Salvadoran government with over $3 billion in aid. Indeed the Pentagon directed the Salvadoran army in its war on the people while the CIA extended a hand to the death squads. So no doubt Quayle's little lecture really had d'Aubuisson shaking in his boots.
Solidarity With the Revolutionary Struggle
U.S. imperialism, ARENA, and the Salvadoran ruling class have spared no efforts to drown the people's struggle in blood. But time and again the workers and peasants have shown they will not be deterred. The future of the Salvadoran masses lies in their struggle for the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship.
Workers and progressive activists! U.S. aid is the lifeline of fascism in El Salvador. We must assist the Salvadoran toilers by building up militant mass actions demanding an end to all economic and military aid to the dictatorship.
[Photo: May Day in San Salvador.]
Ten years ago, on July 19, the Somoza dictatorship was overthrown by the Nicaraguan people..For decades the workers and peasants had suffered from the rule of one member of the Somoza family after another. For decades they had been denied all rights except to slave for the profits of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie and the American multinational companies.
The Nicaraguan revolution inspired the people throughout Central America. It showed that the regimes of blood and tyranny could be overthrown. It showed that neither American weapons nor American advisors could stop the liberation struggle of toiling people.
White House Wants to Restore a Banana Republic
Since then the American government has been on a rampage against the Nicaraguan people. It has accused them of one crime after another. It has blockaded Nicaragua economically. It overflies Nicaragua with spy planes. It sends death squads of contras in to blow up installations and murder revolutionaries.
Capitalist chieftain Bush claims he is doing this for the sake of democracy. Congress, which has voted millions for this venture, nods in agreement -- it is necessary for the sake of democracy.
But what about the 45 years when the Nicaraguan people had no rights under the Somoza family? From 1934, when the U.S.-trained general, Anastasio Somoza Garcia, staged a military coup and set up the Somoza dictatorship, to when his son Luis assumed power in 1956, to when Major General Anastasio Somoza Debayle took over in 1967, the U.S. had the best of relations with Nicaragua. As long as there was no freedom in Nicaragua, the White House was happy. It was only when the Nicaraguan people dared to express their own will that the U.S. government became hostile.
In the years of the Somoza family dictatorship, there was no U.S. economic blockade. There is a blockade now. It is clear that this blockade is not for ensuring freedom, but to re-enslave the Nicaraguan people.
In the years of the Somoza family dictatorship, there were no U.S.-backed contras burning down Nicaraguan villages and assassinating activists. There is a CIA dirty war today. It is clear that this U.S.-directed terrorism is not for ensuring freedom, but to re-enslave the Nicaraguan people.
In the years of the Somoza family dictatorship, there were warm relations between the U.S. and Nicaragua. Whether Democrat or Republican was in the White House, whether liberal or conservative dominated Congress, close relations continued. Today Democrat and Republican compete over who has the best plan to overthrow the Nicaraguan government and install a pro-U.S. regime. It is clear that this U.S. pressure is not for ensuring freedom, but to re-enslave the Nicaraguan people.
Different Political Trends in Nicaragua
The Nicaraguan revolution came as a result of the growing mass actions and mass heroism of the people. Several political trends came forward among the people, from the armed forces led by the Sandinistas to the workers' militias led by MAP-ML (now called the Marxist- Leninist Party of Nicaragua). Some of the capitalists were also upset with Somoza, because he was monopolizing all the profits. They didn't take part in the fighting to overthrow Somoza, but they wanted Somoza's profits to be redirected into their pockets.
The capitalists who opposed Somoza soon broke with the new regime. They became sympathizers with the CIA's contras and they built up right-wing parties. Not all these parties may want another Somoza, but they want back the good old days of U.S. dictate. They don't want to see the toilers having their say, but to exploit them hand in hand with the biggest capitalist power, the United States. Their mouthpiece is the raving, right-wing La Prensa.
Sandinism
The Sandinistas have dominated the government since the insurrection. But their idea from the start was class conciliation with imperialism and the bourgeoisie. At first they tried ruling in coalition with the capitalists. When this didn't work, they learned nothing and still insisted that nothing should interrupt the profits to the capitalists and the overtures to imperialism.
The Sandinistas did carry out various useful reforms, and also punished a number of notorious criminals and torturers of the people from the Somoza era. But they also opposed the workers' mass initiative, their drive to run the factories themselves, and they held back the peasants from carrying out the land reform to its conclusion. Instead they step by step replaced the revolutionary initiative of the masses with bureaucratic institutions run by a privileged petty-bourgeois strata hand in hand with the bourgeoisie. They have become a typical reformist, bureaucratic party.
Nicaraguan Marxist-Leninists
The Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua (MLPN) has remained the voice of the workers, the conscience of the revolution. It has upheld the initiative of the workers and poor peasants. It calls not for bowing down deeper and deeper to the White House and the bourgeoisie, as the Sandinistas do, but for carrying forward the revolution towards a revolutionary power of the workers and peasants.
The MLP of Nicaragua differs from all other opposition forces in Nicaragua. All other opposition forces, whether they call themselves liberals, "socialists" or "communists," call for the Sandinistas to do more for the bourgeoisie. The MLP of Nicaragua alone opposes the "mixed economy" from the standpoint of the workers. It alone stands for the class struggle against the bourgeoisie and imperialism. It alone stands for the revolutionary way out of the crisis.
At the Crossroads
The years since the insurrection that toppled Somoza have provided a severe test to the different political trends. The U.S. government has done its best to overthrow the new government. The U.S. State Department has always regarded Nicaragua as its own backyard, where it only had to send the Marines in order to prop up whoever it pleases. This time it sent in a CIA-organized army of contras; it blockaded the country; it sought to isolate Nicaragua from the world; and it sent in millions of dollars to the domestic right- wing parties. This time it didn't work.
But the cost to the Nicaraguan people has been heavy. The economy is in a shambles, and many families have lost loved ones to U.S.-supplied bullets.
Complicating the situation is the Sandinista strategy. The Sandinistas have politically demobilized the masses. They look, not to revolution, but to teams of economic experts from the West and to political advice from the revisionists. Their "mixed economy" and "pluralism," with which they woo the bourgeoisie, have brought disaster. Step by step, the mass reforms brought by the revolution are being stopped or even reversed.
This is not just due to economic difficulties. It was not shortage of funds that made the Sandinistas stop the land reform, refrain from giving further land to the toiling peasants, and even return various properties in town and country to the reactionaries who fled the country. Instead these actions only make the shortages of funds and the economic difficulties worse. They are done in a vain attempt to appease the right-wing Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, to win the trust of the U.S. imperialists and Congress, and to make the the Arias "peace" plan work. The same goes for the various privileges and subsidies to the bourgeoisie. While the coffers are empty for social reform, the bourgeoisie is being given new and costly subsidies.
The Sandinistas have used repression to prevent the organization of a revolutionary workers' movement. Compared to other Central American regimes, their methods are mild, and, despite increasing mass cynicism about them, they still are the most popular party in Nicaragua. But the pro-U.S. tyrannies rule on the basis of ruling class force and U.S. backing. To maintain a people's rule, and to stand independent of imperialism, the masses must be active. And by now, after years and years of the Sandinista strategy and two years of the Arias plan, not much is left of the traditions of the revolution. A dangerous situation prevails, with the masses left passive and the capitalists and rural plantation owners being encouraged to press their demands.
Solidarity with Nicaragua!
During the long years of the Somoza dictatorship, both Democrat and Republican shared in propping up his regime. And now, during the years following Somoza's overthrow, both Democrat and Republican share in schemes to restore U.S. dictate. We must organize as a force against both capitalist parties. Good wishes and pious hand-wringing about Nicaragua is not enough. Only those who are willing to recognize the truth about American politics, and work to build up an independent force to the imperialist parties, can put a dent in U.S. aggression against Nicaragua.
As well, we must express our class solidarity with the revolutionary trend in Nicaragua, represented by the Marxist-Leninist Party of Nicaragua. Not Western economic experts, not the development of a bureaucratic stratum, whether with Sandinista trade mark or right-wing stamp, but the mobilization of the revolutionary toilers is the path forward for Nicaragua!
Down with U.S. aggression against Nicaragua!
Long live the revolutionary drive of the Nicaraguan workers and peasants!
Solidarity with the Nicaraguan revolution!
North was denounced again, this time in the San Francisco Bay Area. He came on June 14 to promote the gospel of military aggression, covert action, and super-patriotism. This is popular with the flag-waving bourgeoisie, but meets with the contempt of class conscious workers and activists.
The S.F. Bay Area branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party called for a protest. In a leaflet it pointed out that North was only convicted for the most minor of his crimes, and stated:
Since the contragate scandal hit the front page, Ollie North's sordid history of service to U.S. imperialism has been chronicled for all to see. From his participation in the CIA's "Operation Phoenix," which killed 100,000 civilians in Viet Nam, to his blueprint for martial law in the U.S., to the filthy contra war he arranged to finance, North is a true soldier of U.S. imperialist aggression.
The contragate hearings brought out various aspects of the U.S./contra war against Nicaragua. North and other defendants were implicated in activities ranging from 'massive cocaine smuggling to a a plot to assassinate the U.S. ambassador to Costa Rica, Lewis Tambs, and blame it on Nicaragua.
Trial Whitewashes Reagan and Bush
But from the very beginning the actual aim of the contragate hearings, and North's trial itself, was to keep the indictments to a minimum and to whitewash the participation of Reagan and Bush.
One after another, the charges against North were dropped...not for lack of evidence. They were dropped because there was too much evidence against North, and against Reagan and Bush as well.
It's true, of course, that North is simply a cog in a machine -- a machine that includes the CIA and the White House. But he is far from an innocent scapegoat. And he should not go free. He was an enthusiastic terrorist who boasted of his deeds and was overjoyed to direct the killing of Nicaraguan workers and peasants.
How the Capitalist Government Really Works
Right-wing murderers like North are unleashed by the government to organize secret war against millions of innocent people. They are encouraged to break any law that gets in their way. Then the politicians and courts rescue them from prosecution, claiming "national security" secrets can't be exposed. This is the true nature of American "democracy" -- a democracy of, for and by the rich.
On the other hand, the genuinely democratic masses have come out to protest against North wherever he has dared to show his face. Spread the word in the communities, schools and work places. Come join the protest to condemn the crimes of North and the U.S. government against the workers and peasants of Central America!
(Excerpted from the June 11 "Bay Area Workers' Voice.")
George Bush, accompanied by a swarm of hangers-on from the media, will visit Poland this month. Once again we will be hearing a lot more about the "collapse of communism."
No matter what they say -- the crisis engulfing Poland today isn't a crisis of communism but the sorry result of anti- Marxist revisionism in power. Poland is a state-capitalist country and those who rule are not workers or communists but wealthy bureaucrats and managers.
Now the Polish rulers, with the support of the Solidarity leaders and the backing of the Western capitalists, are about to take another big step in transforming Poland into a Western-style capitalist country. This step will mean a massive assault on the jobs and conditions of the already squeezed working class. Another round of working class upheaval is in the making.
And this time it will raise the question: if the move towards open capitalism is so good, why are the workers taking to the streets?
Elections Show Regime Has No Support
Elections in June showed the depth of the political crisis in Poland.
They showed that the present regime of the so-called Polish United Workers Party (PUWP) has virtually no support among the populace. The PUWP was trounced everywhere it ran against candidates put up by Solidarity. Even where PUWP candidates ran unopposed, and were guaranteed to win if they simply got a majority vote of confidence, they were unable to win. In the end, they worked out a deal with Solidarity to win these seats through a second round of balloting.
Solidarity controls 99 of the 100 seats in the Senate. And it controls the chunk of 161 seats that it was allowed to contest in the lower house. The regime reserved for itself the 299-person majority of the lower house, but they control this majority without any popular mandate whatsoever.
The Polish masses clearly hate the revisionist rulers who have brought them poverty, inflation, and repression. The elections registered the fact that the regime has long lost any support among the people. At the same time, the vote for Solidarity is based on the idea that since the Solidarity union emerged in the workers' struggle, it represents an alternative which will defend the workers' interests.
The workers of Poland are about to be bitterly disappointed. These elections were the result of a social pact reached with Solidarity and the Western bankers. They seek to allow a form of power-sharing with Solidarity to open the road to a massive economic restructuring. As this deal is carried through, the gulf will widen between Solidarity's pro-capitalist leaders and its rank-and- file members who provided the organization with its militancy and popular base.
An economic plan has reportedly been worked between the regime and Solidarity's top leaders, but it is apparently being delayed so as not to have turmoil during Bush's visit. Because it is clear as day that the Polish workers will not easily swallow the medicine contained in the upcoming economic reform.
The plan calls for privatization of existing state-owned industry into joint-stock companies. Millionaire supporters of both the ruling PUWP and of the Solidarity leadership are drooling at the prospect of becoming owners of these new companies. The other part of the plan calls for removing all subsidies, ending all price controls, and imposing a wage freeze for 6-12 months. Prices are already rising again, and they are expected to rise 300%.
A glimpse of what will happen as this plan is imposed was seen at the end of June, when bus and tram drivers in Bydgoszcvz went on strike for higher pay. This strike was not sanctioned either by Solidarity or the official unions of the PUWP.
New Political Realignments in the Offing
In coming months, everyone expects new political alignments to take shape as the people get experience with the real stands of the politicians of both the PUWP and Solidarity.
A good section of Solidarity politicians are expected to act more and more as official capitalist spokesmen; more and more they will be the ones endorsing strikebreaking and wage cuts. Already there are signs of a future breakup of the Solidarity coalition. Even during the elections, there were splits in Solidarity's ranks.
Besides the issue of economic policy, political differentiation will come over various social questions.
Solidarity has always been close to the Catholic Church hierarchy. Indeed, the Church has seen Solidarity as its political vehicle. The Church is now expected to increase its demands for conservative social policies.
Opposition to Church's Anti-Abortion Crusade
The issue of abortion rights has already seen the emergence of vocal public opposition to the Church -- including from the Solidarity rank and file. The Catholic church is backing an anti-abortion bill which would give three-year jail terms to women who have abortions, as well as penalize doctors.
Some of Solidarity's leaders have reportedly supported the bill. Not a single Solidarity leader has spoken out against it.
During the election campaign there was a large demonstration outside the parliament building to oppose this bill. Church leaders and Walesa tried to sweep the issue under the rug, saying that the main issue was simply support for Solidarity. Now that the elections are over, the church will be using its political clout to push this bill. But the Polish masses, who have had abortion pretty much on demand for decades, are not about to support this reactionary campaign. They are also concerned that the Church will try next to outlaw divorce and impose other reactionary policies.
Workers Uneasy With Privatization
The Western press is touting the elections in Poland as a victory of capitalism over communism. But they should not be so quick to count their chickens.
The Polish workers have been sold a bill of goods about how great private capitalism is, but the workers are not too excited about the actual policies of privatization that are planned. The layoffs, further wage cuts, and the expansion of the class of private capitalists do not arouse their enthusiasm. Polish workers believe that they have certain economic rights, which will now be taken away. This is setting the stage for a new round of social struggle.
There will be further twists and turns. While many Solidarity leaders will openly come out for assaulting the workers' standard of living, others will try to maintain an oppositional guise. Even forces connected to the ruling party are expected to posture as supporters of the The coming struggle puts on the Polish workers' agenda the task of building their own independent revolutionary movement. They have to come out with their own class platform and goals, against both the ruling revisionists as well as the Solidarity leaders. They need to take up the task of acquiring a revolutionary theory that can guide their struggle forward. It is revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and a new communist party that are urgently needed to chart out the road to working class emancipation.
[Photo: Protesters in Warsaw, Poland denounce Catholic Church's attempt to give three-year prison terms to women who have abortions.]
This July marks 20 years since the first issue of the Workers Advocate hit the streets. From the beginning, this was a paper devoted to providing the working class with its own voice and to building up the workers' own revolutionary vanguard party. Today -- when the capitalists are on a huge offensive of takebacks, and racism, and superpower attacks on working people around the globe -- the workers need their own, independent voice more than ever.
The workers need their own press that combats the lies of the bourgeoisie and explains the class issues underlying the complicated swirl of events in the U.S. and around the world. The workers need a press that reports on and encourages the mass struggles springing up around the country against the capitalists and their government. The workers need a press that fights the anti-socialist propaganda of the capitalists, exposes the phony socialism of the revisionist betrayers in Russia and China, and that illuminates the revolutionary socialist goal of the workers' movement.
The Party supports the spread of revolutionary agitation. And it builds up the Party's press to be a model and guide for all other working class literature. The Workers' Advocate -- standing in the center of a whole network of local leaflets, papers, and other literature -- has become an essential voice of the working class movement in the U.S.
On this 20th anniversary, the Workers' Advocate calls on all class conscious workers and revolutionary activists to help us build up the workers' press.
Fight the Lies of the Rich, Send in News
Despite its claims to be "free" and "objective," the U.S. news media is nothing but the voice of the filthy rich. Meanwhile, the trade union press has become the voice of the union bureaucrats, of concessions and "labor- management cooperation." Together they lie, distort facts, and bury news of the struggles of the working masses.
The workers' press must combat their lies and bring out the truth of what's going on. But the truth can only be dug up by activists who are right in the factories, who are participating in the mass actions, who are talking with the masses and learning their views. The Party, through its disciplined organization in a series of cities, is able to do a lot. But it needs help. Class-conscious workers and activists can lend a hand by working with local Party papers or sending directly to the Workers Advocate reports on conditions and protests in the factories, news on mass actions, and views on the political debates that are engulfing the masses.
Let the Voice of the Working Class Be Heard
The capitalist news media is able to dominate public opinion because of its vast wealth, its direct link to the ruling class, and its extensive system of TVs, radio, papers, movies, and so on.
The workers' press has no such advantages. It can only be spread by depending on dedicated activists who give up their time and energy to spread the working class voice in the work places, neighborhoods, and schools. Militant workers and other activists can help build the workers' press by distributing the papers and newsletters, by organizing distribution networks where they work and live,, and by forming circles to discuss the literature.
Fund the Workers' Press
The bourgeois press is bankrolled by the monopolies, through advertising and grants. To maintain its independent class stand, the workers' press cannot become beholden to such financial means. Instead it depends on the contributions of the poor and working masses. It requires sacrifices -- financial and in time and effort -- on the part of many dedicated activists.
As well, to serve the struggling masses the workers' press must give out a lot of its literature free. The Workers Advocate, for example, sends working people who have been dumped into the U.S. prisons free subscriptions. It also provides literature to revolutionaries in countries around the world. And, to insure the widest spread of the agitation, the Workers' Advocate is frequently distributed free at factories and in various mass actions.
This kind of service can only be maintained if there are workers and activists who not only pay for the papers they get but also make regular contributions to help spread the paper wider.
As a paper of the workers, we today are suffering from the same economic pressures that are plaguing the working masses. We need financial support more than ever.
Workers and activists, help us spread the voice of truth to every corner of the country. Helps us educate, train and organize the workers into an independent, class conscious force.
Hail the 20th anniversary of the Workers' Advocate!
Build the workers' press!
July 14th this year marks the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, one of the first events in the French revolution. The fall of this infamous prison and fortress foreshadowed the fall of the monarchy in France and the shaking of the feudal system throughout Europe.
The French revolution seemed in its time to open up Europe to the kingdom of reason. The era of absolute monarchy was doomed. The rule of the feudal lords in the French countryside was smashed. The counterrevolutionary intervention of the armies of the crowned heads of Europe met a series of devastating defeats. New ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity were declared.
In fact, the new society that came into being was the rule of the bourgeoisie, sometimes in more democratic form, sometimes in a restored monarchy. The French revolution, historic as it was for the self-confidence and drive of the lower classes, only marked one step in their struggle for liberation. It only threw off one vicious band of exploiters, decadent and corrupt, and replaced them with a broader system of exploitation.
The revolution turned out to be a bourgeois revolution.
But strangely enough, on this 200th anniversary of the revolution, the world bourgeoisie is by no means overly happy over the memory of this great struggle, even though it ushered in their world rule. Even in France, underneath the obligatory observances of patriotic ecstasy, a certain dual feeling can be seen. And certainly in the U.S., the intellectual lights of the bourgeoisie are of two minds about the events. The mass media in particular have popularized the more backward books about these events. A couple of these works glorify Louis XVI, or even suggest that really he could have carried out all the reforms himself -- as if King George could have freed the American colonies, and the Southern slave owners liberated the blacks, if only the people had left them alone. Mainly the books seek to scare people with the blood and gore of the struggle and the intensity of the Jacobin Terror.
In fact, the bourgeoisie has never been too happy with the memory of the French revolution. It may have been a bourgeois revolution, but sweep came from the lower classes. And it gave the world a model of revolutionary determination and firmness in the bourgeois revolutionary party of the times, the Jacobins, formed of petty-bourgeois democrats and with connections to the lower classes. The Jacobins excited the same terror in the filthy rich of their day as the Bolsheviks would excite in the filthy rich of our century. Indeed, today the role of the bourgeoisie is to sit down upon the revolution of the masses and squash it wherever it appears. They certainly feel they have more in common with the aristocrats of the old days than with the revolutionary "rabble." So how could they rejoice with one mind over the French revolution?
For those who want change, however, the French revolution will remain one of the celebrated events of history. Not in the sense of providing fashionable catchwords to be repeated or a ready-made model to be followed. The world has moved forward in two hundred years. The urban lower classes of those times have been replaced by a working class disciplined by large-scale production, along with a series of intermediate classes of various sorts. In the countryside, there are capitalist farmers and rural laborers as well as individual peasantry. The Bolsheviks have provided a model of organization that far exceeds anything attempted by the Jacobins. And the revolution that is on the agenda is the socialist revolution, not a repeat of the general democratic phrases of the French revolution.
But the French revolution shows that the lower classes can shake a stagnant world and set it on its head. Its history provides some lessons about the features of different classes in action. And its fate shows that history will continue to move forward, despite the temporary victory chants of triumphant counterrevolution.
For just as counterrevolution took over in the Soviet Union, robbing the workers of their foremost revolutionary accomplishment, so too a monarchist restoration stamped out the fires of revolution in France. Or thought it could. For a time the crowned heads of Europe may have thought that they had overcome the danger.
But the old system was doomed. It took painful decades of struggles to accomplish what at one time it seemed could be won in days. But the old Europe was fractured, never to return. And when the smoke would clear on one phase of history, the working class would take over as the revolutionary force of its day.
Today too we face a situation when the heady times of the 60's, when it sometimes seemed like revolution was just around the corner, are gone. Painful years have followed of the slowest progress and of renegacy from the fair-weather revolutionaries. But a new wave of struggle is being prepared. It is still hidden under the surface, but it is there. The old debris and fashionable phrases and ideas are being cast aside. Another try for liberation by the oppressed masses is being prepared under the surface. Just as the old system could never again have its former stability after the French revolution, so capitalism can never again feel truly secure after the 1917 socialist revolution in Russia. This is why the bourgeoisie preaches again and again against revolution, against communism, and even to an extent against the very bourgeois revolution in France that ushered in the period of its world domination.
[Graphic.]
A strike wave is building up in Britain.
The last two Wednesdays in June saw nationwide rail strikes, causing widespread disruption in London and other cities. London bus drivers and subway train drivers joined in the first national stoppage on June 21, and the subway drivers have announced a plan to hold another 24-hour strike of their own the first Wednesday in July.
Even before the latest strikes, the London.subway system has been hit with six one-day strikes since April. As well, London bus drivers held an earlier one-day stoppage.
The subway drivers are demanding extra pay for drivers in single-operator trains and are also resisting a number of concessions demanded by management. Subway management is demanding that seniority be ignored in making promotions, and demanding more rights in scheduling, job assignments, etc.
Bus drivers want more wages than what they have been offered so far. Meanwhile, the railway workers nationwide are fighting against British Rail's attempt to split up the national bargaining system into regional and job categories.
Dock Workers Wildcat
Dock workers also struck in June. This was to oppose the Thatcher government's decision to abandon the Dock Labor Scheme, which regulates labor employment in British ports. Under the DLS dock workers had guaranteed jobs for life. If they were laid off, management was required to find them alternative jobs. Even so, the number of dock workers has been reduced since 1972 from 41,000 to 9,400 simply through attrition.
But this was not enough for the capitalists who own Britain's docks. They demanded wholesale, immediate job cuts, and Thatcher was glad to oblige.
The dock workers' union refused to call the workers out on strike, so mass meetings were held on the local level, and these organized wildcat walkouts. In the second week of June the wildcats spread until about half the nation's dock workers were out. After that the number declined; but the battle will probably be joined again when Thatcher introduces specific legislation abrogating the DLS.
Other Job Struggles
Prime Minister Thatcher's government is also currently embroiled in contract disputes with a wide array of public sector workers -- nurses, teachers, etc.
Employees of the British Broadcasting Corporation are demanding higher pay and have held some short strikes. About half the employees in passport offices around the country went on strike in early June, demanding that the government hire more passport workers.
There have also been some industrial strikes, including one at Jaguar Motors.
Thatcher Failed to Banish Labor Struggle
The spreading strikes have forced bourgeois commentators to consider the question, "Has Thatcherism worked?" "Iron Lady" Thatcher came into office dedicated to quashing the strike movement of the late 70's. Her government passed laws limiting the power of unions to call strikes and outlawing secondary strikes. Thatcher used these -- and large-scale police attacks -- against a number of bitter strikes of the 80's -- coal miners, newspaper workers, ferry workers, etc.
Despite this repression, still another powerful strike wave is coming up. Thatcher is proposing new repressive legislation to deal with it -- laws against the closed shop, against wildcat strikes, etc. But the ongoing capitalist economic crisis is forcing workers to the wall, despite the will of Thatcher and the capitalist class, impelling the workers into motion.
Thatcher's promises of "trickle down" prosperity have proved false, while her promises of more repression and further cutbacks have stirred a deep anger among the working class.
More than a million black South African workers stayed away from work to mark Soweto Day, June 16. The strike was total in most of the industrial heartland around Johannesburg. Barricades were set up near Capetown. Buses were stoned and torched in Natal. A train was set afire in Soweto and numbers of incidents of firebombing were reported. Rallies were organized in various places.
The black people commemorated the Soweto uprising, the powerful revolt that shook the racist apartheid system in 1976. Hundreds of blacks were murdered by the racist police in the struggle launched by school children of Soweto who refused to be taught in Afrikaans, the language of the ruling white minority.
Soweto Day has become a nationwide day of struggle against apartheid ever since. Strikes on the anniversary have become so widespread in recent years that many employers were forced this time to recognize Soweto Day as a paid holiday.
The racist government does not recognize the Soweto Day holiday declared by blacks. Once again, it let loose its police on blacks who gathered to hold rallies. Police fired tear gas at rallies in Soweto township and outside Durban.
The widespread celebration of Soweto Day shows that the black people remain determined to overthrow racist apartheid rule. This is despite the years of fascist emergency rule, the harsh repression that has killed and jailed many black activists, and the day-to-day propaganda that the South African government is slowly reforming itself.
The Racists Again Talk Reform...
Presently the racist government is gearing up for elections. The new head of the ruling National Party, F.W. De Klerk, is visiting Western Europe and promising that when he becomes president, he will "create a totally changed South Africa which is free of domination or oppression...."
De Klerk's campaign is receiving support from the major Western imperialist governments. Prime Minister Thatcher is working hard to do away with economic sanctions against South Africa, and U.S. Secretary of State Baker is working to create a. "consensus" with Congress to stem any attempts to impose new sanctions on South Africa.
...But Repression Continues
But while the racist rulers and the imperialists talk "peace" and "reform," repression against black activists continues. The government just extended the national state of emergency for another year, and De Klerk is using this to show the National Party's "staunchness" as he campaigns for the votes of white racists. Like past elections, this one too will exclude blacks. And De Klerk has reaffirmed that he will not budge from the concept of "group rights," the code word for maintaining white supremacy in South Africa.
The government is continuing to put on trial and condemn to death black activists arrested under the fascist emergency laws. The government is also persecuting white activists who provide aid and support to the anti-apartheid movement. Recently three white activists were convicted of "terrorism," and a white student leader at the University of Stellenbosch was expelled for leading protests against segregated dormitories.
The racists' unofficial terrorism against activists also continues unabated. In May, David Webster, a white professor who had been exposing the growth of government-sanctioned death squads, was himself murdered by a death squad. Webster's funeral drew thousands of people who declared their hatred for apartheid.
No Letup in the Fight Against Apartheid!
The racist rulers in South Africa like to talk tough about their ability to withstand international pressure. But the fact is, their economy is hurting. Their present attempt to whip up sympathetic feelings in London, Washington, and other capitals is due to their fear of a new outburst in the anti-apartheid movement. They are also fearful of a revival in the solidarity movement in Europe and North America that may pressure for some serious sanctions against their regime.
We must not let this new effort to whitewash racist rule in South Africa succeed. Expose the phony talk of "reforms" by the racist rulers! Denounce the politicians, both Republican and Democrat, who are working to reconcile the American masses with South Africa! No deals to prop up the system of white supremacy! Support the revolutionary struggle of the black masses!
Workers across the Dominican Republic shut down the country in a 48- hour general strike on June 19-20. The military and police were sent out against the people and clashes took place in several cities. At least four people were killed, dozens wounded, and many were arrested.
The strike was called to protest the harsh economic program of right-wing President Joaquin Balaguer. The workers have been saddled with a wage freeze while inflation is headed towards 100% this year. Prices of food and other necessities have been rising ^ even higher. The workers are demanding an increase in the minimum wage, cuts in food prices, and improved public services, etc.
The mass action in the Dominican Republic was saluted by Dominicans resident in New York. On June 20th, 250 people took part in a spirited demonstration to support the general strike. Slogans included: "Balaguer, assassin in power," "IMF out," and "Down with repression in Santo Domingo." The New York Branch of the MLP joined in the demonstration and distributed a leaflet in support of the struggle of the Dominican workers.
Not too long ago, Argentina appeared to have one of the most developed capitalist economies in South America. But under the weight of the burden of the country's $60 billion foreign debt, the economy has all but collapsed.
Years of hardship have created a great anger among the workers. Thus, food riots swept across the country at the close of May. The masses broke into stores and warehouses in many cities, and carried away what they cannot afford to buy. President Raul Alfonsin declared a national state of siege and ordered the army in to repress the poor. Soldiers killed 15 people and arrested another 1,700.
The rebellion broke out after President Alfonsin announced his latest "anti-inflation" plan. Alfonsin has tried one emergency economic plan after another the last few years, but none has been able to stem the growing inflation. Argentina is now gripped by hyperinflation. The five austral piece, worth over $6 four years ago, is worthless: you need four of them to buy a pack of matches.
Real wages have fallen by two-thirds in just three months, and there are severe shortages of basic goods. Food prices rose 27% in the last week of May, just before the riots broke out. The ranks of the unemployed are growing.
Rioting began in Rosario, a city west of Buenos Aires, and later spread to the capital and other cities. Police and troops were sent against poor people looting supermarkets in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. The troops were unable to stop the crowds with water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas, and turned to using live ammunition.
Alfonsin's state of siege suspended freedom of press and assembly, allowed arrest without warrants, laid down a night curfew and closed schools. Needing a scapegoat, Alfonsin's soldiers raided the offices of left-wing parties and arrested their leaders, including some members of parliament. They are trying to blame the unrest on leftist agitators.
The riots did shake loose some short term aid from the government. Soup kitchens were set up in the poor areas of Buenos Aires, and Alfonsin doubled the minimum wage. But this won't help much, as inflation was due to be 100% for June.
Early Transfer of Power
The rebellion produced a political crisis and forced the early resignation of Alfonsin, who was due to hand over the presidency in December. The new president, Carlos Saul Menem, took over on June 30. But Menem, like Alfonsin, has no solution to the raging capitalist economic crisis.
Menem was elected president in May as the candidate of the Peronist party. A crucial element in the early transfer of power was an agreement that Argentina clear its arrears with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before Menem took over. This reassured Alfonsin's bourgeois supporters that the new administration was serious about maintaining cooperation with the IMF and paying its foreign debts. Never mind that paying these debts has helped bankrupt Argentina and done much to produce the hyperinflation.
The main sticking point in the negotiations was Menem's demand that Alfonsin sign an amnesty for military officers involved in murders during Argentina's "dirty war" against leftists in the late 70's.
During seven years of military rule the armed forces murdered thousands of left-wing activists. The generals' debacle in the Malvinas war forced them to retire from directly ruling the country, and since then there has been a persistent demand from the people to punish the worst torturers and murderers. The one thing that gave Alfonsin some popularity is that he allowed a few trials of officers to take place and promised to hold more. But the Peronists demanded that Alfonsin take the responsibility for an amnesty before he left office. Alfonsin tried to have Menem share the responsibility. Some sort of agreement appears to have been reached over this issue.
For A Revolutionary Alternative
Menem's Peronist party is an alliance of militarists, trade union bureaucrats, and chauvinist bourgeois. Menem talks of helping the ordinary worker with a large pay increase, but this means little without wage indexing and an overall economic plan in an economy verging on return to the barter system. Supermarkets use computerized price lists and bar code systems to raise food prices every few hours, and no wage raise can keep up. Menem's amnesty for the generals, and his plan to extend Alfonsin's state of siege, show what he really has in mind for the toilers.
As well, Menem has put in charge of the economy Miguel Roig, a multinational corporate executive. Roig is a champion of more austerity measures and is also reported to be interested in opening up a privatization campaign to further drive down the conditions of the workers.
The workers voted for Menem as an alternative to Alfonsin. This was partly a protest vote against the collapsing economy, and partly a sign of their inability so far to throw off the domination of the trade union chieftains. But as Menem continues the capitalist assault on the workers, with the support of the union bosses, conditions may well be created to impel the workers towards building their own revolutionary movement, independent of the Peronist union bureaucracy and their reformist hangers-on in the Argentine left.
The food riots in Argentina, coming soon after the same phenomenon in Venezuela, show that the debt crisis in Latin America is reaching revolutionary proportions. The imperialist banks, the multinationals, the domestic capitalists and governments are all out for their pound of flesh carved out of the masses' bodies. The "democratization" of Latin America touted by Washington has not brought a better life for the masses. Nor has it brought escape from repression; the recent rebellions, and strikes in Brazil, show that capitalist military repression is still there, just behind the civilian facade. It is no secret that as the turmoil worsens, the generals are waiting in the wings to throw off the velvet glove and bring out the iron fist in full force.
To fight to survive, to lift themselves out of economic misery, to be able to stand up to the fascist threat -- the workers need to organize a revolutionary struggle. Only the overthrow of capitalism, the breaking out of the debt trap, the building of working class socialism can bring freedom, democracy and a better life to the exploited masses.
[Photo: Workers seizing food in Argentina supermarket.]
[Photo: Policeman lords it over poor people arrested for stealing food.]
Thousands of students have been battling riot police almost every day in the capital city of an East Asian country during the last several weeks. Many have been badly beaten, thousands arrested, and one student activist was tortured and killed by the regime.
But this story has hardly made the front pages of any of the U.S. newspapers. It has hardly been given much coverage at all. There have been no swarms of U.S. media people sent there. Nor have there been any sessions of Congress devoted to it.
The city? Seoul, South Korea. The students' demand? The right to be able to attend a youth festival in North Korea.
Continually coming up against brutal repression, the students also demand the overthrow of the dictatorial regime of Roh Tae Woo and the ouster of U.S. troops from their country.
Students, along with workers, have been battling the right-wing dictatorship here for many years. And they have given many a martyr to the cause of freedom. Only a few weeks ago, the Korean movement marked the anniversary of the Kwangju Massacre of 1980, when the U.S.-backed army murdered 2,000 students in a bloody crackdown that makes the recent brutal Beijing massacre look small by comparison. Two hundred thousand people turned out for the memorial protest.
The U.S. media and politicians do not shower this movement with praise because the South Korean student movement has already learned through its bitter experience that the U.S. establishment is no friend of democracy or freedom. It is the U.S. which has backed up the military dictatorship in South Korea for decades. It is the U.S. which maintains hundreds of thousands of troops in South Korea to prop up this hated regime.
Meanwhile the South Korean economy is also being hit hard by worker unrest. For years we've been hearing about the "miracle economy'' of capitalist South Korea. Well, this miracle was created on the basis of low wages, long workweeks, and miserable health and safety conditions. But the workers could not be kept down: a growing militant labor movement has emerged and the press now runs headlines like "Has the Korean miracle run out of magic?" (Business Week, July 3)
Roh Tae Woo, the president of South Korea, declared an economic crisis on June 19. One of his key goals is to limit annual pay increases to 10%. The government is worried that workers' strikes have been too successful in gaining significant wage increases.
Last year, Korean workers won an average annual raise of 20%, and this year, striking industrial workers are winning pay raises of about 25%. Strikes this year have reportedly cost $4.5 billion in production. Altogether 400 manufacturers have been hit by labor struggles so far this year.
The workers' movement continues to gain additional successes. Recently the management of a large Motorola plant agreed to recognize the workers' union and to bargain with them. This comes after management had stonewalled the union for years and had even employed murderous thugs to attack union activists. This is the first Motorola plant anywhere in the world to recognize a union.
Workers at the giant Daewoo shipbuilding plant in Koje also won a victory in late June. When workers voted to strike for higher wages in early June, the chairman of Daewoo announced he would close the plant, which employs 14,000. Workers struck anyway, and he was forced to agree to some of their demands.
A strike wave is building up in Britain.
The last two Wednesdays in June saw nationwide rail strikes, causing widespread disruption in London and other cities. London bus drivers and subway train drivers joined in the first national stoppage on June 21, and the subway drivers have announced a plan to hold another 24-hour strike of their own the first Wednesday in July.
Even before the latest strikes, the London.subway system has been hit with six one-day strikes since April. As well, London bus drivers held an earlier one-day stoppage.
The subway drivers are demanding extra pay for drivers in single-operator trains and are also resisting a number of concessions demanded by management. Subway management is demanding that seniority be ignored in making promotions, and demanding more rights in scheduling, job assignments, etc.
Bus drivers want more wages than what they have been offered so far. Meanwhile, the railway workers nationwide are fighting against British Rail's attempt to split up the national bargaining system into regional and job categories.
Dock Workers Wildcat
Dock workers also struck in June. This was to oppose the Thatcher government's decision to abandon the Dock Labor Scheme, which regulates labor employment in British ports. Under the DLS dock workers had guaranteed jobs for life. If they were laid off, management was required to find them alternative jobs. Even so, the number of dock workers has been reduced since 1972 from 41,000 to 9,400 simply through attrition.
But this was not enough for the capitalists who own Britain's docks. They demanded wholesale, immediate job cuts, and Thatcher was glad to oblige.
The dock workers' union refused to call the workers out on strike, so mass meetings were held on the local level, and these organized wildcat walkouts. In the second week of June the wildcats spread until about half the nation's dock workers were out. After that the number declined; but the battle will probably be joined again when Thatcher introduces specific legislation abrogating the DLS.
Other Job Struggles
Prime Minister Thatcher's government is also currently embroiled in contract disputes with a wide array of public sector workers -- nurses, teachers, etc.
Employees of the British Broadcasting Corporation are demanding higher pay and have held some short strikes. About half the employees in passport offices around the country went on strike in early June, demanding that the government hire more passport workers.
There have also been some industrial strikes, including one at Jaguar Motors.
Thatcher Failed to Banish Labor Struggle
The spreading strikes have forced bourgeois commentators to consider the question, "Has Thatcherism worked?" "Iron Lady" Thatcher came into office dedicated to quashing the strike movement of the late 70's. Her government passed laws limiting the power of unions to call strikes and outlawing secondary strikes. Thatcher used these -- and large-scale police attacks -- against a number of bitter strikes of the 80's -- coal miners, newspaper workers, ferry workers, etc.
Despite this repression, still another powerful strike wave is coming up. Thatcher is proposing new repressive legislation to deal with it -- laws against the closed shop, against wildcat strikes, etc. But the ongoing capitalist economic crisis is forcing workers to the wall, despite the will of Thatcher and the capitalist class, impelling the workers into motion.
Thatcher's promises of "trickle down" prosperity have proved false, while her promises of more repression and further cutbacks have stirred a deep anger among the working class.
More than a million black South African workers stayed away from work to mark Soweto Day, June 16. The strike was total in most of the industrial heartland around Johannesburg. Barricades were set up near Capetown. Buses were stoned and torched in Natal. A train was set afire in Soweto and numbers of incidents of firebombing were reported. Rallies were organized in various places.
The black people commemorated the Soweto uprising, the powerful revolt that shook the racist apartheid system in 1976. Hundreds of blacks were murdered by the racist police in the struggle launched by school children of Soweto who refused to be taught in Afrikaans, the language of the ruling white minority.
Soweto Day has become a nationwide day of struggle against apartheid ever since. Strikes on the anniversary have become so widespread in recent years that many employers were forced this time to recognize Soweto Day as a paid holiday.
The racist government does not recognize the Soweto Day holiday declared by blacks. Once again, it let loose its police on blacks who gathered to hold rallies. Police fired tear gas at rallies in Soweto township and outside Durban.
The widespread celebration of Soweto Day shows that the black people remain determined to overthrow racist apartheid rule. This is despite the years of fascist emergency rule, the harsh repression that has killed and jailed many black activists, and the day-to-day propaganda that the South African government is slowly reforming itself.
The Racists Again Talk Reform...
Presently the racist government is gearing up for elections. The new head of the ruling National Party, F.W. De Klerk, is visiting Western Europe and promising that when he becomes president, he will "create a totally changed South Africa which is free of domination or oppression...."
De Klerk's campaign is receiving support from the major Western imperialist governments. Prime Minister Thatcher is working hard to do away with economic sanctions against South Africa, and U.S. Secretary of State Baker is working to create a. "consensus" with Congress to stem any attempts to impose new sanctions on South Africa.
...But Repression Continues
But while the racist rulers and the imperialists talk "peace" and "reform," repression against black activists continues. The government just extended the national state of emergency for another year, and De Klerk is using this to show the National Party's "staunchness" as he campaigns for the votes of white racists. Like past elections, this one too will exclude blacks. And De Klerk has reaffirmed that he will not budge from the concept of "group rights," the code word for maintaining white supremacy in South Africa.
The government is continuing to put on trial and condemn to death black activists arrested under the fascist emergency laws. The government is also persecuting white activists who provide aid and support to the anti-apartheid movement. Recently three white activists were convicted of "terrorism," and a white student leader at the University of Stellenbosch was expelled for leading protests against segregated dormitories.
The racists' unofficial terrorism against activists also continues unabated. In May, David Webster, a white professor who had been exposing the growth of government-sanctioned death squads, was himself murdered by a death squad. Webster's funeral drew thousands of people who declared their hatred for apartheid.
No Letup in the Fight Against Apartheid!
The racist rulers in South Africa like to talk tough about their ability to withstand international pressure. But the fact is, their economy is hurting. Their present attempt to whip up sympathetic feelings in London, Washington, and other capitals is due to their fear of a new outburst in the anti-apartheid movement. They are also fearful of a revival in the solidarity movement in Europe and North America that may pressure for some serious sanctions against their regime.
We must not let this new effort to whitewash racist rule in South Africa succeed. Expose the phony talk of "reforms" by the racist rulers! Denounce the politicians, both Republican and Democrat, who are working to reconcile the American masses with South Africa! No deals to prop up the system of white supremacy! Support the revolutionary struggle of the black masses!
Workers across the Dominican Republic shut down the country in a 48- hour general strike on June 19-20. The military and police were sent out against the people and clashes took place in several cities. At least four people were killed, dozens wounded, and many were arrested.
The strike was called to protest the harsh economic program of right-wing President Joaquin Balaguer. The workers have been saddled with a wage freeze while inflation is headed towards 100% this year. Prices of food and other necessities have been rising ^ even higher. The workers are demanding an increase in the minimum wage, cuts in food prices, and improved public services, etc.
The mass action in the Dominican Republic was saluted by Dominicans resident in New York. On June 20th, 250 people took part in a spirited demonstration to support the general strike. Slogans included: "Balaguer, assassin in power," "IMF out," and "Down with repression in Santo Domingo." The New York Branch of the MLP joined in the demonstration and distributed a leaflet in support of the struggle of the Dominican workers.
Not too long ago, Argentina appeared to have one of the most developed capitalist economies in South America. But under the weight of the burden of the country's $60 billion foreign debt, the economy has all but collapsed.
Years of hardship have created a great anger among the workers. Thus, food riots swept across the country at the close of May. The masses broke into stores and warehouses in many cities, and carried away what they cannot afford to buy. President Raul Alfonsin declared a national state of siege and ordered the army in to repress the poor. Soldiers killed 15 people and arrested another 1,700.
The rebellion broke out after President Alfonsin announced his latest "anti-inflation" plan. Alfonsin has tried one emergency economic plan after another the last few years, but none has been able to stem the growing inflation. Argentina is now gripped by hyperinflation. The five austral piece, worth over $6 four years ago, is worthless: you need four of them to buy a pack of matches.
Real wages have fallen by two-thirds in just three months, and there are severe shortages of basic goods. Food prices rose 27% in the last week of May, just before the riots broke out. The ranks of the unemployed are growing.
Rioting began in Rosario, a city west of Buenos Aires, and later spread to the capital and other cities. Police and troops were sent against poor people looting supermarkets in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. The troops were unable to stop the crowds with water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas, and turned to using live ammunition.
Alfonsin's state of siege suspended freedom of press and assembly, allowed arrest without warrants, laid down a night curfew and closed schools. Needing a scapegoat, Alfonsin's soldiers raided the offices of left-wing parties and arrested their leaders, including some members of parliament. They are trying to blame the unrest on leftist agitators.
The riots did shake loose some short term aid from the government. Soup kitchens were set up in the poor areas of Buenos Aires, and Alfonsin doubled the minimum wage. But this won't help much, as inflation was due to be 100% for June.
Early Transfer of Power
The rebellion produced a political crisis and forced the early resignation of Alfonsin, who was due to hand over the presidency in December. The new president, Carlos Saul Menem, took over on June 30. But Menem, like Alfonsin, has no solution to the raging capitalist economic crisis.
Menem was elected president in May as the candidate of the Peronist party. A crucial element in the early transfer of power was an agreement that Argentina clear its arrears with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before Menem took over. This reassured Alfonsin's bourgeois supporters that the new administration was serious about maintaining cooperation with the IMF and paying its foreign debts. Never mind that paying these debts has helped bankrupt Argentina and done much to produce the hyperinflation.
The main sticking point in the negotiations was Menem's demand that Alfonsin sign an amnesty for military officers involved in murders during Argentina's "dirty war" against leftists in the late 70's.
During seven years of military rule the armed forces murdered thousands of left-wing activists. The generals' debacle in the Malvinas war forced them to retire from directly ruling the country, and since then there has been a persistent demand from the people to punish the worst torturers and murderers. The one thing that gave Alfonsin some popularity is that he allowed a few trials of officers to take place and promised to hold more. But the Peronists demanded that Alfonsin take the responsibility for an amnesty before he left office. Alfonsin tried to have Menem share the responsibility. Some sort of agreement appears to have been reached over this issue.
For A Revolutionary Alternative
Menem's Peronist party is an alliance of militarists, trade union bureaucrats, and chauvinist bourgeois. Menem talks of helping the ordinary worker with a large pay increase, but this means little without wage indexing and an overall economic plan in an economy verging on return to the barter system. Supermarkets use computerized price lists and bar code systems to raise food prices every few hours, and no wage raise can keep up. Menem's amnesty for the generals, and his plan to extend Alfonsin's state of siege, show what he really has in mind for the toilers.
As well, Menem has put in charge of the economy Miguel Roig, a multinational corporate executive. Roig is a champion of more austerity measures and is also reported to be interested in opening up a privatization campaign to further drive down the conditions of the workers.
The workers voted for Menem as an alternative to Alfonsin. This was partly a protest vote against the collapsing economy, and partly a sign of their inability so far to throw off the domination of the trade union chieftains. But as Menem continues the capitalist assault on the workers, with the support of the union bosses, conditions may well be created to impel the workers towards building their own revolutionary movement, independent of the Peronist union bureaucracy and their reformist hangers-on in the Argentine left.
The food riots in Argentina, coming soon after the same phenomenon in Venezuela, show that the debt crisis in Latin America is reaching revolutionary proportions. The imperialist banks, the multinationals, the domestic capitalists and governments are all out for their pound of flesh carved out of the masses' bodies. The "democratization" of Latin America touted by Washington has not brought a better life for the masses. Nor has it brought escape from repression; the recent rebellions, and strikes in Brazil, show that capitalist military repression is still there, just behind the civilian facade. It is no secret that as the turmoil worsens, the generals are waiting in the wings to throw off the velvet glove and bring out the iron fist in full force.
To fight to survive, to lift themselves out of economic misery, to be able to stand up to the fascist threat -- the workers need to organize a revolutionary struggle. Only the overthrow of capitalism, the breaking out of the debt trap, the building of working class socialism can bring freedom, democracy and a better life to the exploited masses.
[Photo: Workers seizing food in Argentina supermarket.]
[Photo: Policeman lords it over poor people arrested for stealing food.]
Thousands of students have been battling riot police almost every day in the capital city of an East Asian country during the last several weeks. Many have been badly beaten, thousands arrested, and one student activist was tortured and killed by the regime.
But this story has hardly made the front pages of any of the U.S. newspapers. It has hardly been given much coverage at all. There have been no swarms of U.S. media people sent there. Nor have there been any sessions of Congress devoted to it.
The city? Seoul, South Korea. The students' demand? The right to be able to attend a youth festival in North Korea.
Continually coming up against brutal repression, the students also demand the overthrow of the dictatorial regime of Roh Tae Woo and the ouster of U.S. troops from their country.
Students, along with workers, have been battling the right-wing dictatorship here for many years. And they have given many a martyr to the cause of freedom. Only a few weeks ago, the Korean movement marked the anniversary of the Kwangju Massacre of 1980, when the U.S.-backed army murdered 2,000 students in a bloody crackdown that makes the recent brutal Beijing massacre look small by comparison. Two hundred thousand people turned out for the memorial protest.
The U.S. media and politicians do not shower this movement with praise because the South Korean student movement has already learned through its bitter experience that the U.S. establishment is no friend of democracy or freedom. It is the U.S. which has backed up the military dictatorship in South Korea for decades. It is the U.S. which maintains hundreds of thousands of troops in South Korea to prop up this hated regime.
Meanwhile the South Korean economy is also being hit hard by worker unrest. For years we've been hearing about the "miracle economy'' of capitalist South Korea. Well, this miracle was created on the basis of low wages, long workweeks, and miserable health and safety conditions. But the workers could not be kept down: a growing militant labor movement has emerged and the press now runs headlines like "Has the Korean miracle run out of magic?" (Business Week, July 3)
Roh Tae Woo, the president of South Korea, declared an economic crisis on June 19. One of his key goals is to limit annual pay increases to 10%. The government is worried that workers' strikes have been too successful in gaining significant wage increases.
Last year, Korean workers won an average annual raise of 20%, and this year, striking industrial workers are winning pay raises of about 25%. Strikes this year have reportedly cost $4.5 billion in production. Altogether 400 manufacturers have been hit by labor struggles so far this year.
The workers' movement continues to gain additional successes. Recently the management of a large Motorola plant agreed to recognize the workers' union and to bargain with them. This comes after management had stonewalled the union for years and had even employed murderous thugs to attack union activists. This is the first Motorola plant anywhere in the world to recognize a union.
Workers at the giant Daewoo shipbuilding plant in Koje also won a victory in late June. When workers voted to strike for higher wages in early June, the chairman of Daewoo announced he would close the plant, which employs 14,000. Workers struck anyway, and he was forced to agree to some of their demands.