Vol. 2, No. 1 January 1970
Newspaper of the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist) PO 5221, Cleveland, Ohio Tel. 861-6949
The proletariat is the greatest class in the history of mankind. It is the most power and revolutionary class ideologically, politically and in strength. It can and must unite the overwhelming majority of people around itself so as to isolate the handful of enemies to the maximum and attack them.
"TO START A WAR, THE U.S. REACTIONARIES MUST FIRST ATTACK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. THEY ARE ALREADY ATTACKING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE--OPPRESSING THE WORKERS AND DEMOCRATIC CIRCLES IN THE UNITED STATES POLITICALLY AND ECONOMICALLY AND PREPARING TO IMPOSE FASCISM THERE. THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES SHOULD STAND UP AND RESIST THE ATTACKS OF THE U.S. REACTIONARIES. I BELIEVE THEY WILL"
CHAIRMAN MAO TSETUNG
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Editorial:
report on NORTH AMERICAN ANTI-IMPERIALIST CONFERENCE
Victory to the American Working Class Victory to the Afro-American People!
Support the National Liberation Struggle of the Quebec People!
Support the Armed Agrarian Revolution in India!
American Student Movement Formed!
Past issues of The Workers' Advocate have put forward our prime task of building a Marxist-Leninist communist party of the working class to lead a united front of oppressed people to overthrow the monopoly capitalist class. In recent weeks we have seen evidence that the rulers' fear of the people has grown as they increasingly recognize the people's ability to overthrow them and as they see the economy sink deeper into crisis, threatening to release new storms of people's struggle against them. The desparate murders of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and other Panthers by the police, and of mine-worker leader Joseph A. Yablonski (by either the coal operators or the union hacks) should indicate to the working class that the imperialists are reaching for their last card: FASCISM. Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary backward sections of monopoly capital, and it is imposed by the bourgeoisie when they can no longer govern by their previous "democratic" means.
Public opinion in favor of fascism is being prepared in the schools and in the news and cultural media, where uninvestigated, unscientific ideas of racial superiority and of the supposed irrationality, greed, lust and violence of the people are being advocated. For example, the bourgeoisie is blaming the people rather than themselves for pollution, poverty, riots, and starvation, and is sponsoring numerous articles and student organizations to do this propaganda for them. These ideas are racist, anti-working class and anti-communist at their roots, and they combine to form fascist ideology. Economically, the bourgeoisie is trying to transfer the burden of its crisis onto the working people by raising prices and taxes and by attacking their democratic right to organize against exploitation. Politically, the bourgeoisie is passing repressive laws and carrying out assassinations against the people's political movements, and preparing aggressive wars in still more parts of the world.
Therefore, we must greatly intensify our work to build a communist party, recognizing, as in Europe and Asia before and during WW II, that a disciplined organization of the class-conscious proletariat is the most powerful weapon against fascism, a headquarters and general staff of the working class in class warfare. We must also recognize that as the bourgeoisie further denies the peoples' rights in preparing open fascist dictatorship, the rulers will become more and more isolated and ever larger sections of the people will oppose them. We must organize the class-conscious proletariat to lead all these struggles and carry them through to the defeat of monopoly capital. In fighting fascism, carrying out a mass democratic method of work which relies completely on the people (as described in the report on the Vancouver Conference), becomes even more important. Fascism tries to disarm the people by turning them against each other, using slanders and lies (in addition to taking away their guns). Mass democracy must be fought for and put into practice, for only it can build trust among the people and unite them fully against the enemy.
In the face of rising fascism, it is all the more necessary for the working people of America to go all out in struggle and to demonstrate ever more clearly our solidarity with the working class and the oppressed peoples and nations of the world, whom the imperialists are constantly trying to turn us against. The only true defense against repression is to destroy the enemy. U.S. imperialism and Soviet Social-imperialism are stepping up their preparations for war against the working and oppressed people of the world, led by Socialist China. The first imperialist world war resulted in the victory of the working class in the Soviet Union. The second imperialist world war resulted in the victory of the people of China and the liberation of many former colonies. The great leader Chairman Mao has written: "If the imperialists insist on launching a third world war, it is certain that several hundred million more will turn to socialism, and then there will not be much room left on earth for the imperialists; it is also likely that the whole structure of imperialism will utterly collapse." He also stated recently: "If such a war breaks out, the people of the world should use revolutionary war to eliminate the war of aggression, and preparations should be made right now!"
Since the U.S. imperialists will try to use fascist dictatorship to force the American working people to fight against the people of the world, these statements provide a clear guideline for us: the American working class and oppressed peoples must prepare for class war to oppose imperialist war, for People's Anti-Fascist War to oppose imperialist war of aggression.
300 militant communists met in Vancouver, B.C., Dec. 26-31, to discuss methods of work in dealing the death blows to U.S. imperialism. Workers and students came from Quebec, Canada and the U.S. as well as from Ireland, England, India and China. They bitterly denounced U.S. imperialism, the New Tsars who have restored capitalism in the Soviet Union, and all their local lackeys for oppressing the people of the world. They declared vigorous support for the Peoples Republics of China and Albania, for the national liberation struggles of the people of the oppressed nations, and for the struggles of the working people in the imperialist countries. They declared their intention to ORGANIZE TO CHANGE THE WORLD and to SMASH THE OLD TO BUILD THE NEW by applying Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to the concrete conditions of their own countries, thus tilling the soil and planting the seeds of revolution.
The conference was called as the Second National Conference of the Canadian Student Movement, and it continued the work of the historic North American Conference of Anti-imperialist Youth held last May at Regina, Saskatchewan.
The main accomplishment of the Conference was putting forward the revolutionary line in methods of work in carrying out the political tasks set at the Regina Conference. These political tasks were to build new communist parties based on Mao Tsetung Thought in each country and to lead and develop the anti-imperialist struggles. Once these political tasks were set the key problem became methods of work in carrying them out.
The Regina Conference was also called on the slogan Organize to Change the World! and struggle continued at Vancouver on this question. Some people prefer to sit in armchairs and try to understand the world without going out to change it. These people represented the reactionary line at both conferences. Their line was totally smashed by the revolutionary line of summing up actual experience in discussions, drawing concrete guidelines and going out immediately to put these guidelines into practice in changing the world. "Act according to our understanding and rectify our mistakes," as one leading comrade put it.
In this light, the Vancouver Conference produced immediate action. The American Student Movement (Anti-imperialist) was formed by communist students from the U.S. It will serve the American working class by fighting their oppressors in the very place where they get their training -- on the university campuses. The American Student Movement will follow the leadership of the American Communist Workers' Movement and has a militant program (see elsewhere in this issue) which is presently being put into practice in many areas of the country. (A full report of ASM activity will appear in the February Workers' Advocate.)
Taking an active attitude right from the start, ASM has called its first national conference for Cleveland March 6-13. This too will be a gathering of communists, anti-imperialist fighters and supporters from several countries, and we hereby invite all interested workers and other oppressed people to join the students in attendance.
At Vancouver, action was also taken by the entire conference in publicizing the militant rallies held each evening at the conference hall. For a rally in support of the Peoples' Republic of China, bright red bastion of world anti-imperialist, socialist revolution, all the conference participants went out to factory gates with leaflets, papers and Chairman Mao's Red Book of Quotations. The comrades entered a number of factories and sold and distributed literature inside and held discussions with the workers. This produced fights with the management and union hacks, several arrests and strong support from the workers. The rally that night was the most successful of all.
The most important aspect of methods of work, however, is the use of mass democracy in organizing to change the world. Some people prefer to try to fool the people into taking action, to manipulate them, to discuss their own real purposes behind closed doors, to remain "experts" with the masses as their stepping stones. This method is typical of the slick fakers presently controlling most unions and community organizations and also of a horde of careerists infesting the anti-war movement and the "new left".
Even among people who genuinely want to fight imperialism, the mass bureaucratic method predominates. Some organizations, for example, have a theoretical journal for their petty bourgeois intellectuals (in which they discuss what they really aim to do) and another paper for workers, written in slang and dealing only with strikes, housing problems, etc., on a low level. Some of these people criticize The Workers' Advocate for using scientific Marxist language and for discussing socialist countries and the international revolutionary movement. These people love the mass bureaucratic method and cling to it like a life preserver.
The revolutionary line stands for the mass democratic method and in fact represents the desires of the working and oppressed people, who always call for the cards to be laid out on the table, for the people to sum up their experience in open mass discussion (and to fight for their right to democratic discussion whenever it is denied), criticize mistakes and expose lies, and agree on guidelines for action. We communists hold the view that the people can only solve their problems by organizing a communist party, following its lead in mass struggle, picking up the gun, overthrowing the monopoly capitalists and their governmental machinery, putting the working class in power and establishing socialism. We put forward these ideas openly, especially in The Workers' Advocate, and will defend them anywhere.
We follow Chairman Mao's line: "We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports." The imperialists always use trickery against the working and oppressed people; how can we defeat them if we sink to their level? Mao has also written: "Whatever we do is to serve the people. How then can we be reluctant to discard any of our bad traits?" Thus the mass democratic method of putting all questions before the workers and the rest of the people is the only method which serves the people and in fact builds revolution. This method was firmly supported at the conference and is the basis for all our work at home.
Thus the conference began to smash the old method to build the new in organizing to change the world.
[Box: "Historically, all reactionary forces on the verge of extinction invariably conduct a last desperate struggle against the revolutionary forces, and some revolutionaries are apt to be deluded for a time by this phenomenon of outward strength but inner weakness, failing to grasp the essential fact that the enemy is nearing extinction while they themselves are approaching victory." --Chairman Mao Tsetung]
Recently thousands of coal miners all over southern Ohio and northern West Virginia walked off their jobs in protest of the murder of Joseph A. Yablonski, who ran against Tony Boyle, president of the United Mine Workers, in the recent UMW election. Yablonski had wide support in this area, and the miners clearly saw this murder as blow directed at themselves and at the unity and fighting spirit they had built in the black lung wildcats and in the Yablonski campaign. It was this unity arid spirit that threatened the coal operators' profits, and the jobs of the coal operators' flunkies in top union offices. The Workers' Advocate, condemns the evil murder of Joseph Yablonski and denounces the coal operators and the union hacks, both of whom must bear responsibility for it.
The people of the Appalachian Mountains have a long history of standing up to their oppressors, with guns when necessary. During the Civil War, working people the entire length of the mountains stood with the Union, opposed slavery and the slaveowners, and defended their own land. Some of the first militant labor organizations grew up among the miners -- The Molly Maguires, for example, a secret society of ,Irish--born miners in Pennsylvania who took up arms against the bosses. Both black and white miners participated in forming the United Mine Workers, one of the first industrial unions. It was the United Mine Workers, already organized, who funded with their dues money the organizing of the rest of the CIO.
This is the background for the present struggles. The UMW, having expelled all openly revolutionary elements, has fallen under the control of union hacks, labor fakers and "labor lieutenants of the capitalist class." It failed to fight for the workers' health, among other things, so the workers took matters into their own hands and held the black lung wildcat. This was the most powerful political strike in recent years. Used on the political front, the strike is a very strong and high-level weapon. Its use indicates that the miners are recognizing that their problems can only be solved by political struggle. Soon they will see that they must conduct revolutionary political struggle,not just a fight for reform legislation.
After the black lung wildcat, Yablonski represented the aspirations of the miners to put labor faker Tony Boyle out of office. Following an election of doubtful honesty, which Yablonski was challenging, he was murdered. His murder followed the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton by only a few weeks, and should show to all that the capitalists and their police and labor flunkies care nothing for skin color and regard all the working people as their slaves. Chairman Mao has written that the Black people's movement and the American workers' movement "are bound to merge." These murders teach that lesson.
The miners will certainly see this. And this will be felt throughout the Midwest, where the miners have countless relatives working in every plant. As a Kentucky-born worker in a local auto plant said, "If we could get all the southern workers here together, black and white, we'd have the company licked." Such unity would shake the capitalist system.
The Workers' Advocate has been enthusiastically received by workers and students all over the country. In Cleveland alone more than 1,000 copies of a recent issue were sold to workers at plant gates, stores, and markets. We feel that this is smashing all sorts of pessimism and ideas that workers don't care or have sold out.
One middle-aged Black worker who bought a paper remarked "You know, the Communist Party used to do this during the 30's" he went on to tell us some of the glorious history of the American working class first hand.
In Rhode Island Portuguese-born students translated the paper into Portuguese to use in a Portuguese community there. In the Midwest a Black Panthers chapter used The Workers' Advocate in its education program.
At a meeting in Toronto in memory of Dr. Norman Bethune, the great Canadian internationalist who died serving the people of China, 300 Workers' Advocates were sold. They were received with comments like, "I'm glad to see that the American Working class is on the ball."
A Mexican-American worker in Cleveland enthusiastically bought the paper but not before inquiring "This isn't a Trotskyite paper, is it?" We assured him it definitely was not.
An ex-coal miner from Pennsylvania said, "I haven't seen one like this in a long time." A Black worker said he got a lot of good ideas from the article on People's War. Another bought one, then a week later returned for several more to give to his whole family.
A Greek cafe owner posted the paper in his cafe window. A Syrian delicatessen owner bought the paper, sat down and read the entire article on Palestine people's struggle then returned and shook hands with the comrade he bought it from.
The Workers' Advocate is clearly tilling the soil and planting the seeds of revolution among the working people.
by a member of the Workers' Mao Tsetung Thought Study Group
As a youth I was taught that people in America were poor because of racial discrimination, laziness, or being unlucky (being born in a poor family). Being a black person, I was assured that because white people had all the wealth and wanted to keep blacks down, I could never get my rightful share.
For most of my life, I accepted this. However, in Aug. 1968, I started working at Lutheran Hospital. There my eyes were opened, for at that time a union was attempting to organize the unskilled employees. The hospital had the administrator telling the employees that they didn't need a union while at the same time being a member of the Cleveland Council of Hospitals. This hospital used all kinds of attempts to persuade the employees not to vote for the union including -- supervisors illegally voting, surprise raises, firings, promotions, etc.
All the time I watched and it came to me that the professionals also had contemptuous attitudes toward the common workers, and that they opposed in raising of the ordinary workers wages or social esteem. The hospital itself, it struck me, didn't want to raise wages as this would cut down on their profits. I over-heard the doctors speaking derogatorily of the workers, blaming communists for their attempts at a union. I saw a copy of the AMA monthly warning doctors of "Communist-imspired" "socialized medicine."
All of this plus the reading of black history showing how the wealthy ruling class divided whites and blacks by using blacks as a scapegoat and giving whites a superiority complex, while maintaining and enlarging their profits and power through manipulation.
Upon consideration of all these obvious facts. I knew that capitalism was a sham, benefiting only a few. After all, it was a group of capitalists called "plantation owners," who imported slaves to this country. Does not the so- called "free-enterprise system" say in effect, "Get all you can, just don't fail?"
I realized the individual has freedom under this system, yes! the rich individual has freedom to exploit other people in the name of profits. I realized that the capitalist system is like a pyramid with room at the top for only a clawing few. The masses are constantly reaching for the top, because they have been taught that they also can make it if they try hard enough. But of course, anyone who thinks objectively and observes the many poor, knows that this is false.
Since I learned the truth, I met a representative of the Mao Tsetung Study group, and learned that there is something to be done. Incidentally I learned that the capitalist system had lied about communism, for I had thought the communists were merely self-seeking deceivers, and power-mad. How wrong I had learned.' I had confused Russian nationalism((where capitalism has been restored) with true communism which supports the people.
Since attending meetings of the Workers' Mao Tsetung Thought Study Group, I have learned that "the people have boundless creative power. They can organize themselves and concentrate on places and branches of work where they can give full play to their energy: they can concentrate on production in breadth and depth and create more and more undertakings for their own well-being." (Chairman Mao Tse-tung)
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[Illustration.]
A struggle for national liberation is building up at this very moment just north of our border! The heroic people of Quebec, sick and tired of the poverty and oppression inflicted on them by the U.S. and Anglo-Canadian business interests controlling their land and by the lackey Quebec government, are rising up and fighting back under the leadership of the Quebec Communist Movement -- Les Intelectuals et Ouvriers Patriotes du Quebec (Marxistes-Leninistes) IOPQ.
Quebec "province," a region of 600y000 square miles -- four times bigger than France -- was settled by French people about 300 years ago. In 1759-60 the English invaded and took over Quebec. A valiant struggle by Quebecois patriots in 1837-38 failed to free Quebec from English domination, and in 1867, Quebec was one of the the provinces united into the Canadian Confederation. However, Quebec is an essence a nation: her people have a common territory, a common language (83% of the people are French speaking), a common historical and cultural background, and a common economic system, controlled from outside.
By common economic system we mean distinct social classes and a division of labor that forms the material basis for independence. There is a large working class of French and English-speaking workers; a petty bourgeoisie -- small businessmen, professionals and college students; and a comprador bourgeosie. The comprador bourgeoisie is the lackey Quebec ruling class which controls the 'provincial" government and whose careers and fortunes depend on administering foreign investments in Quebec, investments which originate from the U.S. monopoly capitalists and Anglo-Canadian colonialists.
Today 80% of Quebec's major industries belong to U.S. imperialists and about 10% to Anglo- Canadian interests. These American and Canadian investments have ruined many, small farmers and small businessmen who, unable to compete with the huge monopolies, have been forced to abandon their farms and businesses and look for work in the cities. French-speaking workers have trouble getting jobs because of discrimination against them. Working people in general suffer from bad working conditions and sold-out union leadership. Workers are killing themselves for low wages, but the fruits of their labor help foreign big businessmen get rich. Overproduction and inflation are closing factories and causing many layoffs. All these factors have contributed to a very high unemployment rate -- as much as 20% in certain areas -- and to poverty and inhuman living conditions. Working people are forced to live in overcrowded buildings, often lacking running water and sufficient ventilation and Infested with rats and cockroaches.
But the determined Quebecois workers have not just passively accepted a lifetime of rats and cockroaches. Militant strikes and demonstrations have broken out all over Quebec, in a typical case: on Oct. 30, 1968, 500 taxi drivers of Montreal (Quebec's major city), led by the Taxi Liberation Movement, demonstrated against the American monopoly Murray Hill Limosine Service. For the last 15 years this company has had the transportation monopoly to Montreal's Dorval Airport. Its permit was granted by the Anglo-Canadian colonialist government located in Ottawa, to whom Murray Hill pays $60,000 a year plus campaign donations to the Liberal Party. The permit is valid till 1972 with automatic renewal till 1977. This permit gives the Murray Hill monopoly exclusive rights to all forms of transportation to the airport (bus, limousine, taxi.)
Ottawa has cooperated by providing police service and supervision to prevent "unauthorized people" (the Quebec taxi drivers not employed by Murray Hill) from soliciting business and by stopping train service to the airport so that airport workers are virtually forced to use Murray Hill. Because of these privileges, the large number of taxis, and the resulting cutthroat competition, taxi drivers have to work 40-70 hours weekly just to make ends meet. Thus the Canadian government, Murray Hill, and the Montreal police act together against the workers of Montreal.
But Oct. 7, 1969, when the Montreal police were on strike, taxi drivers and supporters struck another resounding blow at bloodsucking Murray Hill with a demonstration so strong and militant that the terrified Murray Hill scabs, armed with rifles on the Murray Hill garage roof, couldn't stop them! "Murray Hill, get out of Quebec!!" the demonstrators chanted.
Resistance and militance by oppressed people always frighten the government. The Quebecois say: "Exploiters of all times have always used two methods of governing -- the carrot and the stick. When things are going well for these 'gentlemen' and they can sleep in peace, then it's the rule of the carrot. But when the people become conscious and decide that they've had enough of being exploited, the bourgeois rulers use the stick. This is how the oppressors exercise power: they alternate fascism (stick) with liberalism (carrot)!"
In Quebec, the comprador bourgeoisie and the foreign imperialists and colonialists not only can't sleep -- they can't stop trembling in their shoes. They have been making a last frenzied effort at control by instituting fascism, Last August, Remi Paul, the minister of "justice" of Quebec, announced a ten-point program to "assure the protection of private property against the terrorist "vermin". In fact, the program is a summary of all the measures used to repress the Quebecois people and takes away the few democratic rights they had left. Therefore, the program is objectively a declaration for instituting fascism on a legal, organized basis.
Today there is continuing harassment of progressive, patriotic people and groups, police brutality, arrests without charges prohibition of demonstrations and the taking away of freedom of speech. Charges of sedition were leveled against the authors of a popular Quebec revolutionary book and they have been held in prisons or several months. A labor leader was arrested on charges of sedition after speaking at a rally. After his release, he denounced the court and government for repression of his democratic rights and was arrested again.
Quebecois of all social classes are calling for national independence from Canada, but the calls take various forms. Some people, who say the problems arise because bosses don't talk to workers in French, want everything to be in French. Some call for a free Quebec by vote, and some call for the elimination of the imperialists and colonialists and the establishment of a nation run by and for the working class, small farmers and small businessman, and progressive intellectuals.
Thorough analysis of the situation shows that the problems all originate in the economic crisis caused by foreign investment and control. Therefore the principal contradiction is between the Quebecois people on the one hand, and the U.S. imperialists, Anglo-Canadian colonialists, and Quebec comprador bourgeoisie on the other. A secondary contradiction is the desparate struggle between the Anglo-Canadian colonialists and the Quebecois comprador bourgeoisie to decide which group will lead Quebec for the American imperialists, and receive the privileges.
In this light, the chauvinist line of a French-only Quebec divides the people against each other, diverts the struggle away from attacking the real enemy and offers no solution to the misery of the working and oppressed people. The independence-by-vote position would bring freedom only to the Quebec comprador bourgeoisie -- freedom to cooperate directly with the U.S. monopolies and to keep on oppressing the people. These positions and squabbles among the rulers of Quebec are what the bourgeois press (like the Plain Dealer's column by Michael Cope) loves to focus on and publicize. They distort and slander the people's struggles, obscure the real issues and the real enemy in Quebec, confuse people, and spread cynicism and gloom. By not reporting on the struggles and victories of the masses of Quebecois people, the bourgeois press prevents Americans from learning about other peoples' struggles and being inspired by them.
The correct position on the question of Quebec national independence, put forth by IOPQ -- Patriotic Workers and Intellectuals of Quebec (Marxist-Leninist), was arrived at by creatively applying Mao Tsetung Thought to Quebec. It calls for a united front of all workers -- English and French, other national and racial minorities, and progressive petty bourgeoisie to combat the Quebecois fascism protecting U.S. and Canadian interests and to kick the foreign control out of Quebec.
The IOPQ and its youth wing of young revolutionary workers -- Quebec Revolutionary Youth (JRQ), have given leadership to the people's struggles and helped organize the Committee for the Democratic Rights of the People. This mass organization of workers, small farmers and businessmen, professionals, housewives and other individuals and groups, uses legal aid and mass action to fight every measure and all forms of repression taken against the people. They organize anti-fascist neighborhood groups and disseminate information on fascism with their Anti-Repression News Bulletin.
The Quebecois are not alone in their struggle. All over the world, oppressed and exploited people are striking blows at their main enemy -- U.S. imperialism, which is also the main enemy of American working and oppressed people. Since Canadian and American workers will be used to try to put down the Quebec people's struggle when it reaches the stage of People's War, we must build a common front against our common enemy and support the Quebec national liberation struggle. It is only through international proletarian solidarity that the valiant struggle of the heroic Quebecois can succeed and that we can be free ourselves.
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For further information subscribe to Le Patriote Rouge, journal of the IOPQ. c/o LIVRES et PERIODIQUES PROGRESSISTES LTEE 1867 rue AMHERST, MONTREAL 132, QUEBEC.
Hsinhua News Agency, Dec. 29 -- A red revolutionary area has come into being in Srikakulam District, India. Like a beacon light, it is shining brightly On the woe-stricken land of India, The oppressed people of India hail and praise it as "the most advanced bulwark of India".
Srikakulam District is a mountainous area covered with forests in the northeastern part of Andhra Pradesh. The peasants who have been oppressed for generations have taken up arms under the leadership of the Communist Party of India {Marxist-Leninist). They have smashed the feudal yoke, overthrown the dark rule, established a red revolutionary area in the greater part of the district and become the master of the land. Today, everywhere in this area is a scene of revolutionary vigour. The people sing at the top of their voices with revolutionary zeal:
"Rise up, Oh, ye Adivasi heroes.
And flex the muscles
Of your taut and sinewy body,
And plunge with force of a hurricane Into battle against your class enemies."
The red revolutionary area in Srikakulam District was created by the Indian revolutionaries with the blood they shed in battle.
TAKE THE ROAD OF ARMED STRUGGLE
The broad masses of poor peasants in Srikakulam District, ruthlessly exploited and oppressed by the landlord class for generations, lead a miserable life dotted with blood and tears, The life of the girjans is even more bitter. The fertile land they had arduously reclaimed on the plains were forcibly seized and they themselves were driven into the mountains by the landlords and usurers with the help of police brutality.
Where there is oppression there is resistance. The peasants of Srikakulam have incessantly fought against feudal oppression. However, the revisionists in Andhra Pradesh tried hard to undermine the revolutionary struggle of the Srikakulam peasants, using all kinds of despicable means in an attempt to lure the peasants on to the "parliamentary road". With the co-ordination of the revisionists, the counter-revolutionary armed forces have repeatedly carried out sanguinary suppression of the peasant revolution in the district.
The lessons written in blood have prompted the suffering peasants of Srikakulam to seek more eagerly the truth for liberation. They finally found the correct road of struggle from great Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought disseminated there by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). A report of the Srikakulam District Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) has put it well: "Since the victory of people's war in China, people in the backward countries firmly believe that it is only people's war that is to be adopted in these countries for their liberations." "People's war is inevitable in this country". "We can raise the consciousness of the peasants only by intensifying the armed class struggle in villages and thereby annihilating the class enemies." The district committee decided to rebel against the revisionist leadership in the state and resolutely take the correct road of armed struggle. From November 25, 1968, the district committee began to mobilize the peasant masses take up arms and fight.
Charu Mazumdar, leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), personally kindled the flames of the armed struggle in Srikakulam.He arrived there last March and instructed district committee to "build up guerilla squads and start struggle immediately." He conveyed to the district committee the correct thesis made by Comrade Lin Piao in his work "Long Live the Victory of People's War": "Guerilla warfare is the only way to mobilize and apply the whole strength of the people against the enemy."
Members of the Srikakulam District Committee of the Communist Party India (Marxist-Leninist) went deep into the countryside, established guerrilla units, propagated the truth pointed out by Chairman Mao that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun," aroused the masses, organized them and armed them. The peasant movement has thus surged like a storm and the revolutionary armed forces have developed speedily; The Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist) has now more than 100 guerrilla squads under its leadership and the areas of armed struggle have rapidly extended from the mountains to the plains and coastal region. The revolutionary armed forces have turned 300 villages into a red area and set up preliminary organs of people's political power called "councils for the people's uprising" to take charge of administration and production. These organs of people's power are preparing for land distribution. "People's courts" have been set up in all villages to pass judgment on the enemies. The broad masses of the peasants ardently hail the birth of the red area.
"WHETHER WE LIVE OR DIE, IT MUST BE FOR THE PEOPLE"
The revolutionaries of Srikakulam District have adopted the slogan with pride: "Whether we live or die, it must be for the people." They are fighting against the enemy with a dauntless spirit and have accomplished many heroic and moving feats.
The revolutionary Srikakulam peasants look at the ferocious enemy with scorn, With home-made guns, hand grenades, swords, spears, and bows and arrows, they have badly battered the "central police reserve corps" and the state police forces which are equipped with modern weapons. Since the beginning of this year, they have fought 65 battles with the police and smashed the reactionaries' armed "encirclement and suppression" operations one after another. The peasant masses and the guerrilla squads fought side by side, raiding landlords' estates, seizing the enemy's guns, suppressing local despots, burning land and loan contracts and distributing the landlords' grain and land. The masses shouted with exultance: "Long live the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)! "Long live the armed revolution!" and "Long live Chairman Mao!" They look upon the guerrillas as their own kinsfolk and enthusiastically provide them with grain, vegetables and shelter.
In May this year, the reactionaries barbarously killed Krshnamurty, one of the leaders of the Srikakulam guerrilla units, and six guerilla fighters. Upright and dauntless, the hero Krishnamurty sternly denounced the reactionary police officers: "You cannot stop the advance of the revolution by murdering us. No power on earth can suppress the armed revolution of our people which has just started and the present regime of exploitation and oppression is doomed.
When one hero falls, tens of thousands of others rise up. Sampurna, a woman fighter of the Srikakulam central guerrilla squad, is one of such heroes. She is the mother of three children and was arrested by the enemy in last June. The reactionaries viciously threatened and cajoled her. A Reactionary police officer said hypocritically: "You have your children, your parents and your husband's parents. Why then should you get yourself involved in all this trouble?" Neither the threats nor the cajolery of the enemy could shake the revolutionary resolve of Sampurna. She firmly replied: "I did not seek this trouble, far from it. But I found that the solution of the problem of starvation and that of bringing up my children are inseparably connected with the solution of the problem facing the peasantry. And the way to solve this problem has been pointed out by the thought of Chairman Mao. So I have taken this path illumined by Mao Tse-tung Thought, in order to make not only my own children but also those of millions of the poor toiling people happy."
The suppression by the Indian reactionaries can never put down the flames of armed struggle of the revolutionary Srikakulam people who are determined to carry the armed struggle through to the end and strive for victory.
The flames of armed struggle first started in Srikakulam have now spread to 19 localities in 10 nearby districts and its impact is expanding in the country.
Charu Mazumdar, leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), pointed out recently: "Srikakulam is fighting valiantly, tomorrow the whole of Andhra will join the fight," With infinite confidence, the Indian revolutionaries have raised the solemn, militant slogan: "Let us build Srikakulams in the different areas."
More and more red revolutionary areas like Srikakulam are being established on the vast land of India. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), the revolutionary struggle of the Indian people is bound to march from victory to victory.
-----
"We cannot afford to lose even a single moment. Exert yourself to your utmost and move forward. Victory certainly belongs to us. A liberated India in a liberated world is looming large on the horizon. Comrades, let us march forward to usher in that great day." -- Charu Mazumdar
[Map: "The international significance of the Indian revolution is very great. Great Lenin dreamed of the day when revolutionary India would unite with revolutionary China and bring about the collapse of the world imperialist system." -- Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)]
Hsinhua News Agency Dec. 28, 1969 -- The economy has deteriorated acutely and the financial- monetary crisis has become more and more serious in the United States in 1969 while another "over production" crisis is drawing nearer and nearer. All the wild boasts made by the U.S. imperialist boss Nixon when he took office at the beginning of the year have been punctured relentlessly by the march of events. All this shows that U.S. imperialism is at the end of its rope.
AGGRAVATING FINANACIAL CRISIS AND FREQUENT ALARMS OF "OVER-FRODUCTION" CRISIS
In January this year, Nixon took over from his predecessor Lyndon Johnson an awful mess. In the economic field, huge financial deficits have been recorded year after year. Inflation keeps on swelling. Prices in the country shot up vertically for five years running. The international position of the dollar has declined hopelessly. To canvass votes in these circumstances, Nixon boasted wildly before election that if he came into power, he would "check" inflation within six months. After he entered the White House, he made a string of empty promises about "defending the dollar". On June 19, he again bragged that the measures adopted by him to "check" the inflation "will begin to have effect within a matter of two to three months."
His "two to three months" and six more others have long past but the inflation, instead of being "checked", Continues to swell. A most striking point in case is that the price rises this year are sharper than any previous year. The prices of consumer goods last November were 5.8 per cent "higher than the same month last year, reaching an all-time high in the past 18 years.
Meanwhile, the situation of international payments has deteriorated drastically since the beginning of the year. Trade deficits were registered in the first two quarters of this year in succession, an event never seen before in the past 20 years. The total international payments deficit for the first three quarters stood at 8,050 million dollars, or two and a half times that of 1961 which was the highest record in American history. At the end of last August, short-term claims in the hands of other capitalist countries against U.S. gold rose to 41,500 million dollars, a sharp increase of 8,000 million dollars over the same period last year, while the entire gold reserves of the U.S. Government have shrunk to a mere total of 11,100 million dollars or less than one third of the foreign claims. All this has greatly weakened the position of the dollar.
What after all are the "magic weapons" that Nixon has boasted as capable of "arresting" the inflation? His trick, however varied, are none other than such timeworn measures as tax increases, higher rates of interest and tight credit. However, after these "magic weapons" of Nixon's have been brought into play, the result is that the inflationary trends have not been the difficulty in obtaining credits and in capital turnover and the shrinking purchasing power arisen therefrom have made a new "overproduction" crisis imminent. This is just as the Chinese saying goes: "When the carrying is not secured at both ends, the loads slip off."
It was reported that in the first ten months of this year the volume of sales in the United States dropped by three per cent as compared with last year. Unsold commodities have piled up month after month. Orders markedly decreased in all industries except the military industry in the fourth quarter of this year. In these circumstances, industrial production in the country dropped for four straight months be ginning last August and, by November, to the lowest in the past five years. The affected industries included manufacturing, mining, building, oil as well as textile. In fact, many industries have shown signs of weakness this year, particularly the auto and construction industries which rely on "installment payment", "mortgage loans" and other measures of drawing in advance on the purchasing power to stimulate the sales of their commodities. In terms of physical volume, the construction industry registered a 32 per cent last October as compared with last January. Auto production has gone down repeatedly. It was announced recently that auto output this month will be 10 per cent fewer than originally planned and car production next January will be ll| percent below the January, 1969, figure. Confronted with a new crisis of "over-production", Wall Street stock prices began to go down sharply in mid-November and by mid-December dropped to the lowest level in the past three years. This reflects the panicky state of mind of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class. The "International Herald Tribune" cried out in alarm in an article on December first: "The evidence is growing that the country is in the early stages of recession." Some "economists" of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class also said in dismay that "we're going to get the greatest economic shock of our lives in the first four months of 1970," and predicted "a very severe economic slowdown".
EXPLOITATION AT HOME, AGGRESSION AND EXPANSION ABROAD WILL NOT SAVE U.S. IMPERIALISM; IT IS SINKING DEEPER AND DEEPER IN POLITICAL-ECONOMIC CRISIS
The crisis of "over-production" is a product inherent in the capitalist system. The great leader Chairman Mao pointed out in 1947: "The economic power of U.S. imperialism, which grew during World War II, is confronted with unstable and daily shrinking domestic and foreign markets. The further shrinking of these markets will cause economic crisis to break out." The United States underwent four major crisis of "over-production" in the years between the end of the World War II and I960.
U.S. imperialism has all along relied on the ruthless exploitation of the people at home and frenzied arms drive and economic expansion, abroad to "stimulate" its vulnerable economy, stave off "over-production" crisis and, in case of a crisis, weaken its brunt. U.S. military expenditures totaled as much as 1,100 billion dollars in the two dozen post-war years. For this reason, the United States registered huge budgetary deficits in 17 fiscal years during this period. To make up for them the reactionary U.S. ruling circles resorted to the unbridled issuing of paper money so as to mercilessly squeeze the people. This however gave rise to vicious inflation. U.S. imperialism's wars of aggression and economic penetration abroad have resulted in huge overseas spendings every year whereas the fierce scramble among the imperialist powers for markets greatly affected the income of the reactionary U.S. ruling circles from foreign trade. This has brought about huge deficits in the U.S. balance of international payments for many years in succession. Inflation and international payments deficits have further weakened the fast deteriorating position of the U.S. dollar. All this has made the financial-monetary crisis in the United States more and more serious.
The soaring prices caused by inflation and the numerous exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous levies have further dwindled the purchasing power of the working people and aggravated the sharp contradiction between production and consumption, which leads to "over-production" crisis. Such measures of the monopoly capitalist class as credit sales to draw in advance on the purchasing power of the people and to strengthen exploitation actually deepens the contradiction, and an"over-production" crisis of a greater scale and depth is brewing in the United State U.S. imperialism is thus inextricably sinking deeper and deeper in the vicious circle of "over-production" crisis and financial and monetary crisis.
Threatened by the serious financial and monetary crisis, Nixon has to adopt a "tightened" policy after he came to power. However, it can in no way provide a fundamental solution to an "over-production" crisis and the financial and monetary crisis. Nixon is following the beaten track of arms expansion and war preparations, the beaten track of carrying out wars of aggression and economic expansion abroad and squeezing the people at home.
While chanting his "peace hymn", Nixon is actually making great efforts to intensify the arms drive and rabidly carrying out wars of aggression in Viet Nam accounts for 23,500 million dollars and that on purchasing nuclear weapons and missiles more than 20,000 million dollars. At present, the U.S. economy is developing toward a lop-sided war economy, In the first half of this year, the number of personnel engaged in military industrial production in the country reached 5,380,000. All this shows that U.S. imperialism will never change its policy of aggression and war.
The U.S. monopoly groups are stepping up their economic expansion abroad in an attempt to shift onto others their domestic economic difficulties. U.S. investments abroad were over 60,000 million dollars in 1968 and have been steadily increasing since then. The so-called foreign economic "aid" to be entended by the Nixon Administration in fiscal 1970 will remain well over 2,000 million dollars.
The Nixon Administration is intensifying its onslaught on the broad masses of the labouring people at home. His so-called "tightening" measures are actually measures that compel the American labouring people to tighten their belts. Far from 'tightening" the economy, Nixon is going to propose for the next fiscal year a budget of more than 200,000 million dollars. Under the pretext of "checking inflation", revenues from Exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous levies to be imposed by all levels of government in fiscal 1970 will be as much as 300,000 million dollars, that is to say, each American has to pay an average of 1,500 dollars in taxes.
The U.S. imperialist onslaught on the people at home has brought about a rapid upsurge of the American people's struggle. In the first 10 months of this year the number of workers' strikes topped the 1968 record of 5,000. Five million workers of many trades are planning strikes for the coming year. At the same time, the Afro-Americans' struggle and the student movement have been surging wave upon wave. The class contradiction in the country is aggravating and the reactionary U.S. ruling circles are sinking deeper and deeper in a political crisis. The U.S. imperialist aggression against and plunder of the world's people have in turn promoted their awakening from day to day. The revolutionary storm against U.S. imperialism is raging on with increasing velocity.
The great teacher Chairman Mao has taught us: "The U.S. imperialists and all other such vermin have already created their own gravediggers; the day of their burial is not far off." The awakened people in growing numbers throughout the world, including the American people, are the very grave-diggers of U.S. imperialism which has committed all kinds of evils, and they will eventually send it to its grave."
[Two cartoons.]
The cause of the housing problem in America is the monopoly capitalist system. Housing is not provided in order to meet the needs of the people. Homes are built because money can be made from the sale of the product. It is not profitable to build quality homes at a price that most of the people can afford.
Therefore, in the U.S. housing is scarce, cost is very high, quality is very low and deteriorating. The working class, being the lowest paid, gets the shortest end of this rotten stick and in addition faces the greatest possibility of being evicted whenever large capitalists need the land for profit-making tools such as gas stations, supermarkets, universities, hospitals and highways.
The role of the government is to serve the rich capitalists, aiding them in exploiting the people for profit.
Historically, the government, controlled by the ruling capitalist class, has never helped the workers and broad masses of people meet their housing needs. Like a true lackey, the government's role has been to make it profitable (through various incentives) for private entrepreneurs to pretend to relieve the housing crisis. One of the most recent methods is the government- backed 'National Corp. for Housing Partnerships, which will attempt to develop $2 billion worth of new, privately built low-income housing. This will be done by using the incentive of a tax loophole allowing for the rapid depreciation write-off permitted for new buildings. These write-offs can be used as paper losses to "to offset profits from other sources."
These slimy capitalists make a mockery of the people's needs. They use their governments' stamp of approval to throw together the cheapest quality housing that will immediately begin to fall apart and force them on the desperate working and oppressed people so that huge profits can line their rich pockets. In addition, they force the people into debt slavery to pay for this trash.
The federal government has recently created a new "urban renewal", (worker removal) program in another attempt to cover up its exploitative role. It is called The Neighborhood Development Program, an"assistance" program that is assisting the working and oppressed people of the U.S. into further misery and poverty.
In Cleveland the Neighborhood Development Program (NDP) is a prominent enemy of the people. It's evil because under the usual claims and lies of helping the people the government agents take workers' money, set up expensive bureaucracies of petty bourgeois (college~trained) lackeys who try to shove a program down the people's throats to make things "look better" with the smallest efforts possible while needs of the people aren't met. Just look at the three main objectives of the NDP of the Near West Side of Cleveland.
1. "To preserve the unique architectural and historical character of the eastern portion....'"
2. "To resolve the problem of needed expansion of several large institutions...!"
3. "To restore, the viability of the area's commercial strips.... "
These objectives reflect the fact that the desperate need for decent low-cost housing for the working class is no concern to the detached petty bourgeois government hirelings or their rich monopoly capitalist bosses.
With workers' money, institutions to serve the rich will be expanded further into working class neighborhoods.
Using the carrot of loans and grants for rehabilitation, people are being tricked into telling the city how their property is below standards. In fact, people have been asked to spy on their neighbors' property! This means that resident homeowners will be in a position where the city could force them to "meet standards. " Some grants will be given, but if people don't qualify for grants or if the small grant's don't cover the repairs, then they are forced to take out loans. And if the lower-cost government loans don't cover the expenses, the homeowner may have to go further in to debt with private, higher-interest loans, in order to "meet standards". As one militant working class woman put it, "They don't have laws to give workers good wages, why do they make laws to force people to pay high-cost home repairs?"
Renters will be faced with eviction by landlords who use the government loans to fix up their property and can then attract higher-paying renters.
Another aspect of this government program that is particularly anti-working class is its objective of expanding capitalist serving institutions by mowing down the homes of working and oppressed people.
An example of how people of the Near West Side of Cleveland resisted such a move reveals the wicked and shameful role of the government as well as the worsening nature of the housing problem.
Early last year Lourdes Academy, a private girls' school, attempted to expand in the working class neighborhood of the Near West Side of Cleveland. Under the NDP city council tried to force out about 120 working class families so that the Catholic church officials could expand their school. City Council Hearings on the proposal were carried on while 120 families, being renters, were never informed by council about the hearings or about the proposal that the land be sold to Lourdes Academy.
When members of the American Communist Workers Movement and the American Revolutionary Youth talked with the families of the area affected they found that most people had not heard that they might be moved out to make way for Lourdes Academy. They were angry and most everyone didn't want to move. Even the few who were planning on moving beforehand were upset that the city administration was recommending that the people be moved to make way for a school that "Wasn't doing anything for the people of the community."
People were upset because many had looked for months, even years,to find the places they were living in now. They knew that there was no place to go. Highways, universities, gas stations, etc., have been eating up the lower-cost housing areas many times faster than any housing has been built. Though people were not pleased with the quality of the homes they had to live in, many knew from experience that the city did almost nothing to help relocate people whom it forced to move. These working people couldn't afford to buy or rent higher quality homes. And the larger families of 6 or 7 or more would have a nearly impossible time finding housing. People said, "They'll take a couple with dogs faster than they take couples with children" Public housing in Cleveland has a waiting list 3-4 years long. Homeowners who had put hard-earned money into' their property feared correctly that the city would not pay them what it cost them and knew that they couldn't afford to buy another place with the amount the city pays.
Soon the neighborhood came alive with over-the-fence discussions of the problem. People had informal meetings to discuss ways of keeping the city and Lourdes Academy from moving them out of their homes. Progressive people from the area affected drew up a statement condemning Lourdes Academy's intention to buy them out and passed it around to friends and neighbors who signed in agreement. Community residents and supporters continued to speak out at the council hearings. But most of the council, members appeared to have already made up their mind. (A number of council members' mothers, wives and daughters and gone to Lourdes.) While the people of the community were challenging the injustice of the city's plan to throw them out, the reactionary council members and lackey Richard R. Green, the community development director, continually tried to side-track the struggle to the question of whether or not the administration would "aid" people in finding new homes.
Lackey Green made repeated verbal promises of assistance in relocation. Residents demanded to be guaranteed in writing that they would get decent inexpensive housing if forced to relocate. The administration faked a concession and drew up a vague and confusing promise that still left it up to the administration as to what was a "suitable location for the people."
Despite persistent efforts by residents to defend their homes, city council approved the proposal at the end of summer. But then the catholic church hierarchy, "having been exposed as hypocrites throughout the struggle and not wanting to wait out the government bureaucratic delays, announced early this year their change of plans: to merge Lourdes with St. Stephen's High School. Thus 120 families have been temporarily relieved of this particular form of oppression.
But all of the many housing problems continue because the cause of the housing problem in America is the monopoly capitalist system. And the role of the government is to serve the rich capitalists, aiding them in exploiting the housing needs of the people, as well as all the needs of the people, for profit.
The housing problem, like all the other problems that are inevitable products of an exploitative economic system, must be fought on a day -to-day basis by organizations controlled by the working people, but can only be completely solved through revolution to overthrow the profit-motive system of monopoly capitalism, replacing it with a socialist system where the working class controls the government and uses all resources to serve the needs of the people.
[Cartoon.]
The American Communist Workers' Movement, the American Revolutionary Youth, and all class-conscious workers, are very glad to see the formation of the American Student Movement (ASM). Since the beginning of the 1960's there has been a big upsurge in progressive political activity among students. The founding of the ASM is a clear step forward in the progressive, pro-working class movement among American students.
Ever since the start of the present upsurge student political activism there have been two lines on the goals and methods. One line was progressive and helped and supported the working class and oppressed peoples and the other was' reactionary and went against the interest of the working class. Students have done many progressive things -- such as going to the south, integrating amonfe the exploited Black working people there, and helping them in their struggle for fundamental democractic rights. Students have fought very hard against the imperialist war of aggression in Vietnam, and they have served the working class youth thru work on draft resistance. More and more students all over the country have been leaving the university to join the working class and directly participate in and help the struggles of the working class.
On the other hand there have been lots of bogus misleaders running around trying to misdirect students into reformist or left adventurist channels. They have either tried to hold back the movement when the people wanted to advance or lead the movement forward in a blind charge when the people were not yet ready. These misleaders have attempted to set students against workers by slandering the working class and all oppressed people.
The formation of the American Student Movement consolidates and strengthens the progressive line in student political action. It also sets the stage for the decisive defeat of the reactionary line among the masses of serious students. The ASM is a genuine working class movement on the campus which wholeheartedly serves the working class and all opressed people both by combatting incorrect, anti-working class, racist, and fascist ideas in the university, and by actively mobilizing students to support working class struggles and to leave the university and join the working class.
STATEMENT ON THE FORMATION OF AMERICAN STUDENT MOVEMENT (ANTI-IMPERIALIST) January 4, 1970
RECOGNIZING:
-- that the number one enemy of the world's people, including the American people, is U.S. imperialism, and that the working and oppressed people of the U.S. are organizing to smash it totally by seizing state power through armed revolution under the bright red banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung, Thought.
-- that in a frantic and futile attempt to hold back the revolutionary forces, the bourgeoisie is laying the ideological basis Cor fascism by preparing reactionary public opinion and is using its decadent eductional system to mystify the world and to pro- note fascist ideology in every field.
-- that under these new conditions, where an excellent revolutionary situation prevails in the world, the broad masses of American students are rightly rebelling against the reactionary bourgeois authorities and waging struggles against the war-mongering (J.S. imperialist ruling circles. The students are rising against the oppressive "eductational system" designed to train them in their historical role as petty bourgeois -- to serve imperialism and oppress the working class ideologically and in practice -- and more and more students are seeing that they can gain freedom only by betraying imperialism and serving the working class.
-- that despite the rising level of spontaneous struggle, the students have been betrayed time and time again by misleaders of various hues and colors who have brought liberal bourgeois reformist and opportunist lines into the progressive ranks while masquerading as "revolutionaries" -- with the effect of suppressing the political consciousness and dampening the initiative of the broad masses of students.
-- that the students' struggles can be waged successfully only in the context of the overall anti-imperialist struggles, that the students' role at this stage is, to fight against the decadent ideology, art, literature and social forms of U.S. imperialist culture which lay the basis for fascism; and that only by following the correct ideological, political, and organizational line put forward by the advanced proletariat can students move their struggles stepwise to a higher stage.
THEREFORE:
We announce the formation of the American Student Movement (Anti-Imperialist) which comes forward to serve the interests of the working and oppressed people who will completely defeat the U.S. monopoly capitalist class through armed revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The American Student Movement supports and recognizes the leadership of the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), which is using Mao Tsetung Thought creatively as a guide to action in releasing the iniative of the masses and building a Marxist-Leninist Party, the political weapon of the proletariat in overthrowing U.S. imperialism.
The American Student Movement takes as its tasks:
1) to wage mass democratic anti-imperialist struggle in the universities against all forms of bourgeois ideology and practice and in particular to combat the rise of fascism by carrying out widespread propaganda in support of
--Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and the People's Republic of China, bastion of world anti-imperialist and socialist revolution;
--the struggle^of the American working class and of the black and brown peoples, and the inevitability of the violent overthrow of the imperialist state;
--the national liberation struggles, especially the rising struggles in Palestine and Quebec and, in support of the Armed Agrarian Revolution in India;
2) to mobilize students to actively support working class struggles and the struggles of black and brown people, against exploitation and political repression at the place of work and in the community; and to supply a reserve of cadres to integrate with the working class.
The general guidelines for method of work are:
1) Work among the broad masses of students, analyze the particularity of contradictions on each campus, grasp in detail how antidemocratic and fascist ideas and practices are coming out, in order to put the general political line into practive in particular struggles. Build an all-sided program including public meetings, newspaper, class struggle in the classroom, progressive study groups, etc.
2) Wage vigorous struggles which are anti-imperialist in content and mass democratic in form. Mass democracy (opposed to mass bureaucracy) means putting all worked-out ideas to the test before the masses, relying on the masses, boldly arousing them and releasing their initiative. Mass democracy has the purpose of solving concrete problems and means forbidding slander and self- glorification, exposing those who want to engage in rhetoric and who do not have the interest of the masses at heart, and following the guideline "No investigation, no right to speak." The waging of mass democratic struggle is a powerful weapon and will definitely isolate the reactionaries and buoy the revolutionary line, because truth is on the side of the proletariat.
THE AMERICAN STUDENT MOVEMENT CALLS UPON ALL STUDENTS WHO RECOGNIZE THE NECESSITY FOR CHANGE TO SIDE WITH THE WORKING AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE BY PUTTING THESE GUIDELINES INTO PRACTICE AND PLACING MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT IN COMMAND.
AMERICAN STUDENTS!!
IT IS RIGHT TO REBEL AGAINST REACTIONARIES!!
IT IS RIGHT TO OPPOSE U.S. IMPERIALISM!!
DOWN WITH THE DECADENT BOURGEOIS EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM!!
DOWN WITH FASCIST RULES AND REGULATIONS!!
DOWN WITH PETTY BOURGEOIS MUCK AND CONFUSION!!
ORGANIZE TO CHANGE THE WORLD!!
American Student Movement (Anti-Imperialist)
c/o ACWM, Box 5221, Cleveland, Ohio 44101
229-6898