The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS, OPPRESSED NATIONS AND PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

NEWSPAPER OF THE CENTRAL ORGANIZATION OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS

Volume 8, Number 10

November 22, 1978 25¢

P.O. BOX 11942 CHICAGO, IL. 60611

[Front page:

DOWN WITH CARTER'S WAGE CONTROLS!--Carter's "Anti-Inflation" Program Means Wage-Cuts for the Workers and Maximum Profits for the Rich;

Labor Bureaucrats Help Carter Impose Wage Controls;

IRANIAN PEOPLE RISE UP IN THEIR MILLIONS AGAINST THE FASCIST SHAH]

In this issue

DOWN WITH CARTER'S WAGE CONTROLS!

Labor Bureaucrats Help Carter Impose Wage Controls

IRANIAN PEOPLE RISE UP IN THEIR MILLIONS AGAINST THE FASCIST SHAH

Bankruptcy of the "Three Worlds" Theory

How the "CP(ML)" Three Worlders Utilize the Bourgeois Elections to Strengthen Liberal-Labor Politics and Serve Growing Fascism

Mr. "Human Rights" Invokes Fascist Law to Suppress National Railway Strike

1800 VW Auto Workers Organize Wildcat Strike For Higher Wages

AIRCRAFT ENGINE WORKERS RESIST WAGE-CUTS

Workers Strike to Reject Wage-Cuts of Singer Capitalists and Carter's Wage-Controls

Boston University Workers Strike in Defiance of Carter's Wage-Controls

CANADA: On the 3rd Anniversary of Wage Controls the Issue Is Still the Same: MAKE THE RICH PAY!

ENGLAND: Powerful Upsurge of Workers' Struggles Against Monopoly Capitalists' Attempts to Make the Workers Pay for the Crisis

British Ford Workers Militantly Persist with Their Just Struggle Against the Attempts to Make the Working Class Pay for the Crisis

Humphrey-Hawkins Bill: "Friends of Labor" Attack the Working Glass While Singing Lullabies About "Full Employment"

The KKK and All the Fascist Gangs Are Organized by the Government

Support the Courageous Stand of the Revolutionary Eritreans Against Modern Revisionism and Capitulation

EFLNA'S HISTORIC 9th CONGRESS

AEWNA Holds Successful Congress

Guardian's Opportunism Exposed

The Palestinian People Will Never Submit to Carter's Sinister "Peace" Talks

The Support of the Albanian People Will Live Forever in the Conscience of the Palestinian People

Albanian People Stand, As Always, On the Side of the Palestinian People and Their Heroic Struggle

The Workers' and Peasants'Communist Party of Iran strengthening itself

Vigorous Nationwide Campaign in Support of the People's Front of Chile

THE CHILEAN PEOPLE ADVANCE IN THEIR STRUGGLES

Message of the People's Front of Chile to the American People

STATEMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMINST PARTY OF CHILE

Joint Declaration of PS(CNR), MAPU, JRR and the RCP of Chile

FURTHER EXTENSION OF THE STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES OF LATIN AMERICA AGAMST REACTION AND IMPERIALISM

The Armed Struggle of the Peasants of Brazil

Violence and Terror Cannot Put Down the Struggle of the People of Guatemala

COMMUNIST PARTY OF ENGLAND (MARXIST-LENINIST) HOLDS ITS FIRST CONGRESS

Hail the 34th Anniversary of the Liberation of Albania

DOWN WITH CARTER'S WAGE CONTROLS!

Carter's "Anti-Inflation" Program Means Wage-Cuts for the Workers and Maximum Profits for the Rich

On October 24th, capitalist chieftain Carter announced Phase II of his so-called "anti-inflation" program. This policy is a new step on the part of the capitalist state towards fully mandatory wage controls. At the same time, it continues and strengthens the "anti-inflation" program of Phase I: wage-cuts for the workers, suppression of the strike movement and lavish subsidies for the monopolies. It is a repeat on a new scale of the brutal anti-working class wage controls of the hated fascist Richard Nixon.

With pious words "against" compulsory wage controls, on October 24th Carter added new teeth to the "voluntary" controls of Phase I, bringing the pressure of the government to bear against employers who do not sufficiently cut their employees wages. While shouting that he "rejects" mandatory controls, Carter has made it an open secret that Phase II will "fail" and thus make fully mandatory controls on wages "the only alternative to depression".

With much fanfare about "fairness" to all sections of society, Carter unveiled a program of cutting the real wages of the workers by holding down wages, COLA and fringe benefits to a total increase of 7 per cent. This amounts to a huge wage-cut at a time when inflation is officially running at 10-11 per cent per year, with necessities increasing even faster. And as if this weren't enough, Carter's program contains a whole arsenal of additional measures to increase the exploitation of the workers. It contains provisions designed to speed-up and intensify the workers' labor under the slogan of "increasing productivity". It gives a call to eliminate even the minimal safety regulations presently in effect at the place of work. It calls any let-up in the rapid increase of taxation of the workers and the poor "inflationary", while giving the capitalists lucrative subsidies in the form of tax "incentives for investment" which are called "tax cuts which... directly lower costs and prices and help in the fight against inflation". In brief, Carter's "anti-inflation" program is Nixonite fascism without Nixon.

The monopoly capitalist ruling class is moving towards fully mandatory wage controls by the state at a growing speed. Carter's Phase II wage controls are aimed squarely at the rising workers' movement. The struggles of the coal miners, railroad workers and postal workers have all forced the capitalists to cough up wage increases exceeding the guidelines of Carter's "voluntary" Phase I controls. Now, as the contract struggles of the truck drivers, rubber workers, electrical workers, garment workers, auto workers and other significant sections of the proletariat are approaching, the monopoly bourgeoisie is intensifying its attacks on the proletariat. With the aid of the top labor bureaucrats such as Meany, Fraser and Fitzsimmons, who quarrel with Carter and each other only over the speed with which fully mandatory controls are imposed, the monopoly capitalists are stepping up their fascist offensive against the working class. The stage is being set for great class battles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

CARTER'S PHASE II IS A NEW STEP TOWARD FULLY MANDATORY WAGE CONTROLS

No matter how many times the smiling "human rights" preacher claimed before, during and after his October 24th speech that he would not impose mandatory wage controls, this lie had become so transparent that even those backward "gentlemen" who write columns in the bourgeois press had to admit it. Before Carter unveiled Phase II, the press was full of predictions that it would "fail", in his speech Carter himself admitted that parts of his program "may not help" and begged that it not be subjected to "ridicule". And while every prediction was made of its failure, from every quarter of capitalist opinion came the declaration that if Phase II fails, then the only alternatives would be fully mandatory controls or recession. Then, of course, every "patriotic American" would be expected to "prefer" mandatory controls over recession, as declared Alfred Kahn, Carter's new administrator of Phase II. As Senator Edward Kennedy, darling of the labor bureaucrats, put it, Carter's Phase II wage controls are "the nation's last chance" to control inflation "without resorting to mandatory price and wage controls". Carter's strategy to arrive step-by-step at fully mandatory wage controls is such an open secret that the Wall Street Journal, house organ of the financial sharks and industrial gangsters, wrote in an editorial October 21 that Carter's Phase II "fits perfectly as the necessary precursor to eventual formal controls. All of the bureaucracy is being put in place, all of the rules are being made, the policy foundation is being laid by statements like Wage-Price czar Kahn's reluctant admission that forced to choose he would take controls over recession. On the basis of all the facts at hand, in short, the strategy seems to forecast the administration's behavior."

It has not escaped anyone that Richard Nixon, the arch-fascist and war criminal, also pledged his undying opposition to wage controls until the very day he imposed them. Carter is simply following in Nixon's footsteps. What Nixon imposed overnight, when he declared his New Economic Policy with its 90-day wage freeze followed by mandatory wage controls, Carter is imposing in stages. Having declared in his election campaign that he might resort to controls, Carter has denied this intent ever since. Meanwhile, he imposed the fascist Taft-Hartley injunction against the coal miners. Then, last April 11 he imposed Phase I of his "anti-inflation" program, calling on workers to "voluntarily" limit their wage increases to 5.1 to 5.6 per cent annually. Carter backed up this "voluntary" program of wage-cutting and suppression of the workers' movement with the imposition of the 5.5 per cent wage cap on the federal employees, the compulsory arbitration forced on the postal workers and the use of the Railway Labor Act to break the strike of 440,000 railroad workers. But Phase I went bankrupt in the face of the workers' struggles, so to the "voluntary" measures of Phase I Carter has added new measures of compulsion on the road to fully mandatory controls. Under Phase II, various powers of the federal government in purchasing from private firms and in regulating them will be brought to bear against any employer who does not sufficiently cut the wages of his workers. At the same time an entire apparatus is being s,et up to administer fully mandatory controls once Phase II "fails". That mandatory wage controls is the program of the whole bourgeoisie and all its labor traitors can be seen by the fact that the main "opposition" to Carter's Phase II has come from AFL-CIO head George Meany -- whose sole complaint is that he wants fully mandatory controls now, not later!

THE HEART OF CARTER'S PHASE II IS WAGE-CUTS FOR THE WORKING CLASS AND SUPPRESSION OF THE WORKERS' MOVEMENT

The heart of Carter's Phase II is its efforts to suppress the struggles of the workers for higher wages. Carter has declared that the workers must limit their wage increases to 7 per cent annually. And this 7 per cent will include COLA figured on the basis of 6 per cent inflation per year, along with all fringe benefits. In the face of an inflation rate which has been running 10-11 per cent most of this year (and is, in fact, much higher than this for necessities, as the government's Consumer Price Index figures admittedly minimize the rise in the cost of living), even if inflation slowed in the future, the workers would still be prohibited from catching up with what they have already lost and would suffer a big wage- cut. (And as we shall see below, Carter's program has nothing to do with ending the causes of inflation, while the bureaucratic controls on prices are a sick joke.) In fact, the capitalists are explicitly saying that Carter's Phase II is aimed directly at preventing the 10 per cent or so annual wage increases won by the coal miners and railroad workers from becoming the pattern followed by the major sections of the workers in contract struggles this year. As Kahn has stated, the administration is fully prepared to face strikes in order to enforce the Phase II guidelines. And Carter threatens to restore "competition" if workers violate his dictatorial decrees. What Carter means by competition and a competitive economy was revealed by Carter's boy wonder Barry Bosworth, director of the Council on Wage and Price Stability. On November 13 in Detroit Bosworth stated that it has been a long time "since someone walked into a General Motors plant and said, 'I'll take that guy's job for 10 per cent less."' Carter also promised to remove "privileges" and "protection" from those "parts of the private economy" that refused to abide by wage-price controls, thus threatening to suspend any "privileges" in such fascist labor laws as those governing the National Labor Relations Board that restrict the employers in any way, while simultaneously threatening the workers with all the anti-working class essence of those laws.

To show the capitalists' "generosity", Carter's Phase II will permit the workers to get higher wage raises, in the words of the White House "fact sheet", "to the extent that they reflect changes in work rules and practices that show demonstrable productivity improvements." That is, if the workers give up various work rules which presently limit their intensity of labor and degree of exploitation and submit to a speed-up of their labor and greater exploitation, then they may receive a few pennies out of the goodness of the heart of Carter and the capitalist moneybags.

Carter also made another display of humanitarian benevolence by promising to exempt "our lowest paid employees" from the wage controls. Workers earning less than $4.00 an hour (it is not clear whether this is wages or wages plus fringe benefits) are allegedly exempted. However, it is well-known that such workers are usually those least able to enforce wage demands -- or else they wouldn't be making such low wages to begin with -- so Carter's great benevolence is an empty gesture, in fact, if the general workers' movement is crushed, it is clear that these lower-paid workers will be treated even more contemptuously by the capitalists. And to cap it off, the bourgeois journals are full of "leaks" about how the Carter administration is considering delaying the scheduled increase in the minimum wage on January 1 and instituting a new sub-minimum wage for teenagers! Of course, the young workers paid slave wages would be "exempt" from Carter's wage controls....

Actually, Carter's wage controls are in many ways more severe than those of his teacher, Richard Nixon. For example, Carter's 7 per cent wage guideline is lower in relation to the current rate of inflation than Nixon's 5.5 per cent standard was to the rate of inflation then. Carter's Phase II does not exempt certain special fringe benefits or allow certain "catch-up" raises as Nixon's controls did. And Nixon's low-wage exemption level of $3.00 an hour would, at present inflation rates, amount to $5.25 an hour today, well above Carter's $4.00 figure. Thus it is clear that the essence of Carter's and Nixon's plans are exactly the same: suppression of the workers' movement and impoverishment of the masses for the benefit of monopoly capital.

THE CLASS CHARACTER OF INFLATION

Carter tries to present his "anti-inflation" program as standing above classes. He pretends that inflation affects everyone -- rich and poor, capitalist and worker -- equally, and that inflation is caused by the high wages of the workers. This is a double lie. A rise in wages (or what is more accurate in the present economic situation, an attempt to slow down the loss of the real wage) does not affect the general level of prices at all, while inflation does not affect everyone equally, but ruins the toiling masses while enriching a handful of billionaires. The truth is that inflation is not a general misfortune, affecting everyone equally. On the contrary, inflation has a class character.

The main cause of the present rapidly rising prices is inflation proper, the depreciation or loss of value of the dollar due to the large government deficits and also due to the tremendous increase in the paper values of finance capital unrelated to actual production. These do not occur by accident, but are the inevitable result of the feverish drive of the monopoly capitalists to maximize their profits and to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers. Through the capitalist state machine, the monopoly capitalists create massive federal budget deficits to finance their repressive reactionary military and police activities in the U.S. and throughout the world, to pay for the massive parasitic bureaucracy, and to subsidize the big monopolies. To pay for the deficits run up by these activities, the federal government simply expands the money supply, in effect, simply printing paper money. The same effect is achieved by t he massive expansion of finance capital through speculation, financial dealings, and other activities independent of actual production. These paper values of finance capital also expand the money supply. This huge expansion of the money supply occurs independently of any need for modest expansion to circulate commodities. Therefore the dollar loses its value. When the dollar's value sinks, then naturally all businesses strive to raise their prices so as to sell their commodities at the same real price. Thus as a class the capitalists raise their prices and the general level of prices rises, although of course the big monopolies use the occasion to readjust prices to their benefit and ruin weaker rivals. However, the workers are unable to readily raise the price of their labor-power, their wages, to make up for the loss of purchasing power of the dollar. First of all, the workers must fight out each rise in their wages with the capitalists, and the workers are also faced with competition among themselves for jobs. When the workers are organized, they also face the problem of contracts that freeze the rate of increase of their wages for a period of time, and they fare worse yet where they are unorganized and at the direct mercy of the laws of competition for jobs. Thus only as a result of a bitter struggle can the workers strive to raise wages and retain their real wage. Consequently, the workers as a class face a decline in the real value of their wages. In brief, a wage-cut.

Thus inflation is a way by which the capitalists as a class inflict across-the-board wage-cuts on the workers. Since the capitalists retain full value for their products, while slashing the wages of their workers, they make increased profits as a class. Thus inflation is a tool by which the big monopolies plunder the oppressed masses.

THE FRAUD OF CARTER'S PRICE CONTROLS

The truth is that Carter doesn't intend to stop inflation and he couldn't stop it anyway with wage-price controls. These controls are designed not to stop inflation, but to accent the class character of inflation, to insure that the wage-cuts are implemented to the maximum.

Carter's "wage-price controls" are a complete fraud as far as stopping inflation is concerned, since they don't deal with the cause of inflation. Wage controls cannot stop inflation. A general increase of wages doesn't even affect the general level of prices, but only reduces profits. Conversely, wage-cuts such as those that Carter is trying to ram down the throat of the workers' movement don't lower the general level of prices, but only increase profits. The level of wages is completely irrelevant to the loss of value of the dollar. Price controls too are a fraud. In and of themselves, price controls cannot stop inflation even if the capitalists intended them to do so, which they don't because rising prices and inflation are caused by definite economic laws, which cannot be waved away by government decree. Without expropriating monopoly capital, the laws of monopoly capitalism remain in effect. At most, price controls could temporarily restrain prices for a short period, after which the prices would zoom up at an accelerated rate to make up for lost time. Meanwhile the workers would be locked into three-year contracts at low rates of pay increases. This is what happened after Nixon's wage-price controls. This is what Meany has in mind when he demands compulsory wage-price control s and suggests that they would probably be for a period of, say, 18 months -- long enough to lock the workers into contracts with low wage settlements.

As a matter of fact, Carter's price controls are completely riddled with loopholes. In cases where firms have "unavoidable" cost increases (and what capitalist is unskilled at "proving" that he has massive, new,"unavoidable" costs?), then the capitalist may raise his prices so long as he demonstrates that he has not raised his profit margin above the best of the past two years. Considering that under capitalism there is no way to force the capitalist to open his books (as private property is sacred) and disclose his real profit figures, this provision provides a loophole big enough to drive any of the main monopolies through. And to insure that this and similar provisions are administered in the correct spirit, the Carter administration called a meeting in the second week of November with 10 of the largest monopoly corporations to plan how to administrate "price controls". This 10 includes such disinterested, impartial judges as General Motors, General Electric, B.F. Goodrich and that paragon of price restraint -- Exxon.

THE FRAUD OF "WAGE INSURANCE"

To get the workers to swallow these wage-cuts, the Carter administration added a surprise provision to Phase II, "wage insurance", described as a "last minute sweetener for labor". This provision allegedly would protect workers who held their wage increases (plus fringe benefits) to 7 per cent. If inflation exceeds 7 per cent these workers are being promised compensation in taxes for the full amount by which the CPI exceeds 7 per cent (but not by the amount the CPI exceeded their wage settlement). For example, according to the Carter administration, a worker making $10,000 who received a 7 per cent (or less) raise ($700) would, if inflation reached 9 per cent, receive another 2 per cent or $200 and thus be protected from inflation. According to Carter, this provision "remove(s) their (the workers') only legitimate reason not to cooperate" with his wage controls. This provision won the speedy public endorsement of Douglas Fraser, president of the UAW. But this "sweetener" is like adding sugar to strychnine poison: it might improve the flavor, but the digestion still leaves something to be desired.

To begin with, Carter's "wage insurance" is figured on the basis of the CPI, which admittedly minimizes inflation. Further, it contains a yet-to-be-specified cap, so that if inflation exceeds a certain amount, the worker would cease to be "insured". Also, the "insurance" may not be figured on the basis of the workers' total wages at all, but on the basis of his social security base, a smaller figure. The capitalists are still debating whether or not all workers would be covered by the "insurance". Not only that, but the "wage insurance" award itself may be subject to taxes. Once the worker had received his "insurance", moreover, it would not be figured into his base rate of pay but would have to be won the next time his contract came up for re-negotiation. And this wonderful solution to inflation is in fact a lot of hot air. It would have to be passed by Congress, which, of course; is filled with the most degenerate lackeys of the big capitalists. It is obvious that this "insurance" against inflation is full of holes.

HOW THE GOVERNMENT "SETS AN EXAMPLE" OF "FIGHTING INFLATION"

In his October 24th speech, Carter proclaimed, as he has been doing for some time now, that government would set art example" in the "fight against inflation". Everyone knows that the federal deficit is a major source of inflation. And the masses of working people bitterly hate the oppression they suffer at the hands of the gigantic, parasitic state machine, with its heartless bureaucracy, its armed thugs, its exorbitant tax thievery. To exploit this discontent, to mitigate it and try to use it to support his anti-working class program, Carter has declared that the government must "clean up its own backyard" in the "fight against inflation". But what does this really mean?

In his speech Carter declared: "We are going to hold down government spending, reduce the budget deficit, and eliminate government waste.

"We will slash federal hiring and cut the federal work force.

"We will eliminate needless regulations.

"We will bring more competition back to our economy.

"And we will oppose any further reduction in federal income taxes until we have convincing prospects that inflation will be controlled."

The real meaning of these pious words creeps out in the rest of the speech. "Cutting the deficit" does not mean reducing subsidies to the monopolies, as they will be increased under the new "investment incentive" Carter proposed last January. "Cutting the deficit" will also not mean cutting the military budget, but expanding it, as Carter made clear in his budget message early this year. In fact, Carter's budget deficit for the present fiscal year is the third largest deficit in history, only ranking behind the astronomical record-breaking deficit at the end of the Nixon-Ford administration. In reality, Carter's talk of "cutting the deficit" is exactly the same as the Republican drivel about "fiscal responsibility" with which they impose austerity on the masses, make cuts in expenditures that affect the well-being of the masses, and squeeze the most impoverished sections of the people.

"Slashing) federal hiring and cut(ting) the federal work force" will not mean eliminating the heartless bureaucracy but will mean throwing thousands of federal workers into the streets while holding the wages of those remaining to a 5.5 annual increase -- a big wage-cut.

"Eliminating) needless regulation" will not mean cutting down the parasitic bureaucracy but will mean the elimination of even the minimal safety regulations at the place of work and other federal regulations.

"Bring(ing) more competition back to our economy" means breaking the organized resistance of the workers' movement through the Taft-Hartley bill, other fascist labor laws and alliance with the labor bureaucrats, while "stimulating" the monopolies with "investment incentives" in a tax bill. And while the capitalists receive tax "incentives", for the working masses Carter declares "we will oppose any further (further?! --ed.) reduction in federal income taxes."

The "example" the government will set under Carter's Phase II will indeed be exemplary -- a true model of robbing the workers to give to the rich.

THE LABOR TRAITORS RAISE A CHORUS OF SUPPORT FOR WAGE CONTROLS

Months ago, the labor traitors heading the major unions, led by George Meany, Douglas Fraser, etc., pledged that they would support wage restraint so long as the capitalists made a show of pretending to restrain prices. As the crisis deepened and the bourgeoisie moved closer to mandatory controls, the labor traitors stepped up their propaganda for wage controls. While Phase I was still in effect, Meany was complaining that "voluntary" wage controls were not sufficient -- what was needed was outright mandatory wage controls.

Now that Carter has instituted Phase II, with its increased sanctions to back up demands for wage restraint, the labor traitors have come out in full support of mandatory wage controls. In fact, in the days following October 24th, it was the labor traitors who raised the loudest chorus of support for the controls, exceeding even the capitalists. This revealed once again that the opportunist labor bureaucrats are, as Lenin put it, "better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeois themselves."

The TV make-up was scarcely off Carter's face when Teamsters president Fitzsimmons declared (with "reservations", of course, to preserve some appearance of opposing Carter) that he supported Phase II. In a few days Fraser added the endorsement of the UAW, going out of his way to praise the "wage insurance" package and calling for a special session of Congress to get it passed. Fraser raised the Carter-Kennedy refrain that if Phase II controls failed, mandatory controls would be the only alternative to recession.

On October 31, Meany, speaking for the AFL-CIO Executive Council, loudly "rejected" Carter's Phase II -- not by rejecting wage controls in the interests of the working class, but out of a fit of pique that Carter's controls were not yet fully mandatory! Thus, the only quarrel any of the labor traitors have with Carter is not over the existence of wage controls at all, but over the question of how soon fully mandatory controls on wages are imposed!

There is no significant difference whatsoever between the support, collaboration and aid given by Meany and the other labor traitors to Carter's wage controls today and that given by these traitors to Richard Nixon's hated wage controls of 1971-3. In 1971 it was Meany who called for mandatory controls while Nixon was still "resisting" them; today it is Meany again calling for mandatory controls with Carter "resisting" them. The only minor difference is that Carter is introducing mandatory controls step-by-step and certain other labor traitors like Fraser are supporting Carter's approach in contrast to Meany's. But the entire cabal is allied against the working class around the fascist program of smashing the workers' struggle for higher wages in order to impose wage-cuts on the workers and increase the profits of the capitalist exploiters.

WAGE VIGOROUS MASS STRUGGLE AGAINST CARTER'S WAGE CONTROLS!

The capitalists are on a fascist offensive against the working class. They are attempting to smash the workers' movement and impose wage-cuts and other forms of increased exploitation onto the working class in order to fatten their profits and make the workers bear the burden of the worsening economic crisis. Carter's new phase of wage controls shows that the capitalists are stepping up their attacks. It also shows that the labor traitors are coming out still more openly on the side of the capitalists against the workers. There is only one conclusion that the workers can draw from these facts. They, too, must step up their struggles. Comrade workers, take up the bold, defiant spirit of the coal miners, in front of whom Carter's Taft-Hartley federal court order was a mere slip of paper! Defy Carter's wage controls! Wage revolutionary mass struggle! Use these struggles to organize and educate the working masses in order to prepare the conditions for the socialist revolution that will end economic crisis and inflation altogether! End.

[Back to Top]

Labor Bureaucrats Help Carter Impose Wage Controls

The top labor bureaucrats who head the major unions, Meany of the AFL-CIO, Fraser of the UAW, Fitzsimmons of the Teamsters and others, are playing a major role in enforcing Carter's fascist wage- price controls and in helping Carter suppress the strike movement. Since Carter's October 24th speech the working class has witnessed the ugly spectacle of these labor traitors falling all over themselves to endorse, in one form or another, dictatorial measures by the bourgeois state which would limit wage increases to less than 7 per cent in the face of 10-11 per cent inflation--a big cut in real wages, in fact, the labor traitors are even more public and enthusiastic in their praise for Carter's anti-working class measures than the capitalists themselves--so eager are these representatives of the aristocracy of labor to do the bidding of their masters.

Last Spring Meany and Fraser gave Carter the go-ahead in his march to mandatory wage controls, pledging to do their part in restraining wages provided the government made a pretense of controlling prices and profits. As the bourgeoisie intensified its preparations for mandatory wage controls, certain labor traitors began open propaganda in favor of them. While Phase I was still in effect, George Meany was complaining that its "voluntary" wage controls were not sufficient--what was needed was outright mandatory controls. And now that Carter has instituted Phase II, with its increased sanctions to back up the demands for wage restraint, all the labor traitors have come out in full support of wage controls. The only "difference" among them is that some, like Fraser, prefer Carter's stepwise approach leading to fully mandatory controls, while others, like Meany, demand fully mandatory controls right now. Thus not only is the proletariat witnessing a repeat performance of fascist Nixon's hated wage controls by the smiling "human rights" preacher Carter, but the labor traitors, too, are repeating their disgraceful performance of 1971-3, when they called for Nixon's wage controls, agreed to them, collaborated with them and actually administered them through Nixon's Pay Board.

SCAB TEAMSTER BOSSES ARE THE FIRST TO APPLAUD CARTER'S PHASE II CONTROLS

The TV make-up was scarcely off Carter's face, and endorsements of Phase It were rolling in from such leading capitalists as the presidents of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the board chairman of Exxon, when Fitzsimmons declared his support for Phase II. This was a big betrayal of the workers and a big boost for the wage-price controls, since the Teamster's contract struggle comes up early next year when their contract expires on March 31, and is regarded as a major test for Carter's wage controls. Fitzsimmons was declaring in advance his intentions to sabotage the workers' struggle. Adding a few reservations to deceive the workers, Fitzsimmons declared: "If this program establishes some credibility on the price side and adjustments are made on the wage standard, I am sure that the two million Teamster members and their families will do their share to assist in resolving this difficult problem." As far as "establishing) some credibility on the price side", this literally means nothing more than that the administration must succeed in giving the workers the impression it is holding down prices, an effort which is already under way full steam with Carter's meetings with the heads of the big monopolies which are intended to give the impression that these thieves will police themselves. The "wage adjustments" Fitzsimmons is referring to are a confession that Carter's 7 per cent wage guidelines, by including fringe benefits, are so meager that the truck drivers will never accept them. Fitzsimmons hopes that, by getting the Carter administration to make the 7 per cent figure applicable to wages alone, he will be able to ram such a wage-cut down the throats of Teamster members. With these two "reservations"--both designed to save his neck from the wrath of the membership--Fitzsimmons gave full approval to the wage-cutting program of Carter's wage controls.

A thank-you from the Carter administration was not long in arriving at Fitzsimmons' doorstep. The next day Stuart Eizenstat, a top aide of Carter's, gushed the praise of the master for a well-trained lackey, calling Fitzsimmons' statement "extremely constructive, very balanced and very informative", adding, "and we are very pleased". The very same day, Secretary of Labor Ray F. Marshall rejected Fitzsimmons' "reservations" out of hand. This shows with what contempt the capitalists treat the labor bureaucrats. The capitalist masters are so sure of the absolute loyalty of their trusted labor lieutenants, they know how absolutely corrupt these labor bureaucrats are, that they think nothing of kicking the labor traitors unceremoniously in the face as a reward for services rendered. Serving the Carterite wage- cutting campaign with a well-timed endorsement from "Labor" to get the ball rolling, Fitzsimmons' stand was was a big help to the capitalists and a big betrayal of the workers.

FRASER AND THE UAW COOPERATE WITH CARTER'S PHASE II RIGHT DOWN TO THE LETTER

It is the UAW leadership headed by Douglas Fraser which has collaborated the most openly and glaringly with Carter's Phase II. Fraser and the UAW leaders are key promoters of straight-forward social democracy in the workers' movement and the bourgeoisie promotes Fraser as the liberal opposition to Meany in the ranks of the labor bureaucracy. But Fraser proved to be as loyal a servant to the capitalists as the other hacks. In this case the UAW leaders were the most closely consulted by the Carter administration in the formulation of Phase II. And shortly after Phase II was unveiled, on October 26 the UAW Executive Board voted unanimously to support Phase II in a special meeting called for that purpose. This is a big exposure of the reactionary role of social-democracy in support of the fascist program of Carter.

Fraser embellished the support of the UAW with a number of statements which are revealing of the depth of collaboration of the UAW labor traitors with the repressive program of Carter. Unwilling to make barely a peep against the program, Fraser praised both its wage and price provisions to the skies. On prices, he was asked if the UAW would defy controls if price increases did not ease. He said that this would not be necessary, as the program would allegedly collapse of its own weight if living costs did not drop. Echoing the Carter administration word for word, he said "it will be a slow deceleration" of prices. Thus Fraser was less "militant" on the question of prices than Meany or even Fitzsimmons! All the talk last Spring and since about the necessity of "equal sacrifice" by business and labor, all the pre-election fire and brimstone about "class warfare" were revealed as bluster; straightforward class collaboration with the fascist offensive of the bourgeois state is, and always will be, the nature of the UAW labor traitors.

As for the wage provisions of Phase II, Fraser was virtually unstinting in his praise of them as well. The "wage insurance" plan Carter introduced as a "last-minute sweetener for labor" bragging that it "will remove their (the workers' -- ed.) only legitimate reason not to cooperate" won Fraser's applause. He called for a special session of Congress to pass it and declared that it would protect those workers whose contracts did not contain cost-of-living allowances like the UAW's. (The lead article in this issue of The Workers' Advocate exposes the fraud of "wage insurance" and thereby convicts Fraser for his shameless bootlicking of the Carter administration.) Fraser said that under Carter's Phase II, COLA raises are "very definitely" part of the 7 per cent guideline, while even the servile Fitzsimmons at least protested the inclusion of fringe benefits in the guideline. Fraser also praised the productivity loophole of Carter's program. This "loophole" is aimed at getting the workers to accept speed-up of their labor by offering them raises above the 7 per cent guideline if they do. In few industries is speed-up as intense as in auto. Fraser boasts of this fact and lauds this provision in Carter's plan to encourage speed-up by saying: "We (the social-democratic UAW leadership -- ed.) have never stood in the way of improved technology, historically, and therefore we should not pay a penalty because we have a broader social outlook on this question." By "not pay(ing) a penalty" Fraser is referring to the UAW's bid to use the speed-up of the auto workers as a bargaining chip to utilize Carter's productivity loophole and get slightly higher wage raises for the auto workers under it. Like Fitzsimmons, Fraser is afraid of the struggle of the workers against Carter's 7 per cent standard and is looking for ways to cool the workers down and save Carter's program. As Fraser later stated nervously, Carter's Phase II had increased "the danger of strikes".

Finally, after echoing the entire Carter program on wages and prices, Fraser ended his comments by fully agreeing with the Carter administration that if the Phase II semi-mandatory controls "fail", then Congress should give Carter the authority for fully mandatory controls and they should be instituted. "That's the only alternative left", Fraser said. Thus the UAW social-democrats are in full accord with the present Phase II of the Carterite program of wage controls and wage-cuts and are also endorsing in advance the fully mandatory controls the Carter administration is planning to introduce in the future. Fraser's pre-election talk of "class warfare" against the rich was just bluster; in fact, the UAW leadership is in the closest alliance with the class enemy which occupies the White House and Congress and is imposing fascist wage controls onto the working class.

MEANY AND AFL-CIO ACCEPT CARTER'S CONTROLS WHILE CALLING FOR IMMEDIATE FULLY MANDATORY CONTROLS

On October 31 the AFL-CIO Executive Council headed by George Meany announced its sham opposition to Carter's Phase II wage controls. Prior to Carter's announcement Meany had been complaining that the "voluntary" controls of Phase I were not enough; mandatory controls were needed. On October 31 the Executive Council made a big show of "rejecting" Carter's Phase II in the name of fully mandatory controls. But close analysis shows that not only is Meany calling for mandatory controls (which is the ultimate aim of Phase II) but he is also against defiance of Carter's present Phase II controls as well.

Meany's stand on Phase II is revealed by the AFL-CIO Executive Council's declaration, in its October 31 statement, that it "does not determine the collective bargaining goals of the affiliated unions". On the crucial question of whether or not to defy the 7 per cent Phase II standard with strikes, the AFL-CIO leaders openly refuse to do so. While loudly "rejecting" Phase II, Meany is in fact accepting its basic feature --wage-cuts for the workers. Thus the only quarrel any of the labor traitors, Meany and the AFL-CIO leadership included, have with Carter's wage controls is not over the existence of wage controls at all, but only over the question of how soon fully mandatory controls on wages are imposed!

The AFL-CIO chieftains are positively drooling in anticipation of more severely enforced wage-cuts than Carter is presently enforcing with his Phase II. "We are ready to have our wages controlled by an act of Congress", Meany said on October 31. "The time has come for comprehensive, legislated, economic controls". Just as he did for the mandatory Nixon wage controls of 1971-73, today Meany is again acting as the advance-man for the program of the bourgeoisie to introduce fully mandatory wage controls. Meany has even stated that such controls would only be needed for "the duration of the emergency" or about 18 months -- just lone enough to lock the major sections of the workers whose contracts are coming up into low-wage, three-year contracts, after which inflation will soar and the workers will suffer further impoverishment. Meany just can't sit still until this robbery is implemented. "Do it right and do it now", he urges.

Meany bases his call for "full and fair" mandatory controls on the contention that Carter's semi-mandatory controls are "unfair and inequitable" in that they do not controls prices, profits, interest rates and and all sources of income equally. This stand which the bourgeoisie pretends is staunch opposition to Carter is in fact just echoing Carter's speech of October 24th in which he said: "Because this is not a mandatory control plan, I cannot stop an irresponsible corporation from raising its prices, or a selfish group of employees from using its power to demand excessive wages." Carter was thus doing propaganda for mandatory controls on the shallow pretext that with mandatory controls he could control the corporations (as well as forbidding workers to even "demand" wage increases). Meany paints mandatory controls carried out by the capitalist state in glowing colors as the way to fairly regulate prices, profits, interest rates and other sources of income. Meany admits that in many respects Carter's Phase 13 wage- price controls exceed Nixon's fascist controls in cutting the workers' wages. Yet the cure Meany proposes is to make these reactionary wage-price controls fully mandatory! What touching faith in the honesty, even-handedness and all-round saintly features o f the capitalist politicians! What shameless licking of the backsides of the capitalist liars! Why the capitalist bureaucracy can't even award government contracts to different companies without the utmost scandal, such as the present scandal in the General Services Administration of the of the federal government, but now the workers are being told to believe that the capitalist state is to rise above the class struggle and fairly mediate between capitalist and worker. Of course, when the mandatory controls are implemented, then Meany will support them with the hypocritical reservation that they are not being administered properly, just as he did with Nixon's wage-price controls.

Thus Meany and the AFL-CIO fully support Carter's wage controls on the essential matter of cutting the workers' wages and only "differ" with them in that they demand mandatory controls right away to cut wages still more effectively.

THE LABOR BUREAUCRATS SUPPORT THE BOURGEOIS FRAUD THAT WAGE INCREASES CAUSE INFLATION

The top labor bureaucrats go out of their way to lay the ideological basis for wage controls by supporting the bourgeois fraud that wage increases cause prices to rise. Only the labor bureaucrats give the bourgeois economics a few little twists here or there to look militant. Thus the bourgeoisie talks of the wage- price spiral, in which wages and prices chase each other up. According to this unscientific bit of nonsense, wage increases cause price increases which in turn cause wage increases, etc., in a big spiral. The cause for this alleged spiral beginning in the first place is thus completely mystical and Carter was reduced to the level of a babbling idiot blaming economic phenomena on the "inflationary psychology" in his speech of October 24th. So the theory boils down to the claim that inflation exists because people think it exists. The whole point of this theory is simply to blame the workers for inflation and provide a rationale to cut wages and suppress strikes. The labor traitors give this theory, but they call it the "price- wage spiral" instead of the "wage-price spiral". The labor traitors say that prices rise first, then wages rise, then the wage rise in turn causes price rises, and so on. Thus they agree in theory with the bourgeoisie that wage increases cause price increases, and in practice they collaborate with the bourgeoisie in cutting wages.

Sometimes the labor traitors of the AFL-CIO give another theory in their literature. They say that "rising prices cause inflation". Since the labor traitors use the word inflation as a synonym for rising prices, this allegedly militant theory amounts to "rising prices cause rising prices". The labor traitors present this brilliant discovery with an ulterior motive. If rising prices cause rising prices, then the way to stop inflation is by simply decreeing that the prices stop rising -- i. e., by enforcing wage- price controls. And in fact this is the position of George Meany and the AFL-CIO.

The social-democrats of the UAW of course have to distinguish themselves with their own novel theories. Some of their literature holds that inflation comes about because of 1) the Arab oil boycott, 2) the Russian wheat deal, and 3) the fall in the value of the dollar. In this way, the UAW leadership tries to blame the ills of American capitalism on external factors. They are actually competing with the AFL-CIO in fostering rabid national chauvinism. They deny that U.S. imperialism is a superpower that exploits the people of the world, but holds instead that U.S. imperialism is being oppressed and put upon by others. They deny that U.S. capitalism is in deep economic crisis and disintegrating daily and is ripe for proletarian revolution, but instead have deep faith in the eternal rule of capitalism.

In fact the chief cause of the presently rapidly rising prices is inflation proper, the drop in value of the dollar due to the tremendous increase in the money supply fueled by the federal deficit and the speculation and rapid increases in paper value of finance capital. In the lead article of this issue, it briefly explains how and why this comes about. The rise and fall in wages have no effect on the general level of prices. When the general level of wages rises, profits fall. And when wages fall -- as their real value is during this period of rapid inflation -- the profits of the capitalists increase. The capitalists are using the "anti-inflation" program of Carter to cut wages and thus to restore the profits of the capitalists in the economic crisis and push the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers. The labor traitors are the right-hand men of the capitalists in this wage-cutting.

DOWN WITH THE ALLIANCE OF THE LABOR TRAITORS AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY "FRIENDS OF LABOR"

It is clear that the so-called "representatives of labor", the top labor bureaucrats, are in full cahoots with Carter and the capitalists in instituting Phase II wage controls to suppress the workers' movement and cut the workers' wages. The alliance of the labor traitors and the Democratic Party "friends of labor" is out in the open. Today the trade union apparatus has been integrated into the capitalist state machine, and the top labor hacks serve as state bureaucrats suppressing the workers' movement. The Carter administration relies on these bureaucrats as a key part of its attack on the proletariat and its development of fascism. Through such means as the Civil Service Reform Act, the proposed Labor Law Reform Act, the Humphrey-Hawkins bill, labor-management councils and various types of tri-partite bodies where labor officials, capitalists and government officials sit down together to collaborate against the workers, the integration of the labor bureaucrats into the state is strengthened. In the course of the necessary utilization of the trade union forms as one part of their struggle, the workers can expect nothing but class treason from the top labor bureaucracy, who are true labor lieutenants for the capitalist class and a Trojan Horse for the bourgeoisie inside the workers' movement. In order to defend their vital interests, the workers must oppose the liberal-labor politics and class treason of the labor bureaucrats, rely on mass revolutionary struggle, and develop their own class-conscious leadership united into the Marxist-Leninist party of the proletariat. End.

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IRANIAN PEOPLE RISE UP IN THEIR MILLIONS AGAINST THE FASCIST SHAH

[Cartoon graphic.]

During the last several weeks, the continued death- defying uprisings of the Iranian people have reached unprecedented heights. In response to the Shah's declaration of complete martial law, his creation of a military government, and the extension of curfews; more than one million Iranian workers have launched wildcat strike struggles demanding higher wages, improved working conditions, and the end of martial law. Alongside the strike struggles which have crippled the country's commerce and production, the broad masses of Iranian workers, peasants, students and other anti-fascist patriots have poured into the streets to denounce the fascist Shah and his U.S. imperialist masters. Defying the martial law decree and the reactionary violence of the fascist army and police hundreds of thousands of Iranian patriots have taken up the slogans: DOWN WITH THE SHAH!, DOWN WITH THE FASCIST DICTATORSHIP!, FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!, THE AMERICAN SHAH MUST BE HANGED!

No amount of reactionary violence has been able to suppress the resistance of the Iranian people. In recent weeks, demonstrations have taken place in at least 13 cities and towns: Mashad, Zanjan, Isfahan, Qam, Kermanshah, Doroud, Badol, Khorreadad, Dezful, Shizaz, Tabriz, Ahvar, and the capital city of Teheran. Beginning on September 7, the recently founded Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran has taken the initiative and succeeded in playing the leading role in the demonstrations of several thousands of people in the Djavadie, Naziabat, Kochtarga and Saddastga regions. Many demonstrations have turned into pitched battles between the Shah's police and army, and the anti-fascist patriots who have erected street barricades to protect their demonstrations. In Teheran, the fascist police and army opened fire with machine guns on a demonstration of students, slaughtering many. In the following days, tens of thousands of anti-fascist masses poured into the streets to avenge the vicious murders by the reactionary forces loyal to the Shah. Government buildings, offices of foreign imperialist corporations, banks and police stations were attacked; pictures of the Shah were burned in the streets. The British Embassy was sacked and burned. Only massive protection by the Shah's troops saved the U.S. Embassy. Many officials of the fascist government and of imperialist corporations were caught and severely beaten by the masses, in the industrial city of Isfahan, Iranian patriots attacked and bombed a bus carrying U.S. military "advisors", seriously wounding three.

The mass anti-fascist uprisings of the Iranian people have brought to the surface deep contradictions within the army of the fascist Shah. It has been reported that in one demonstration 11 officers were executed for refusing to obey orders, one soldier killed his commanding officer and then turned his weapons over to the masses of anti-fascists, five soldiers committed suicide in front of the masses, and three more soldiers were seen killing their officers and then running off with their weapons in hand. At one point, the masses caught a general in the Shah's army and immediately meted out just punishment to the fascist dog -- lynching him on the spot.

In addition to the mass uprisings which have continued to break out for the last ten months, more than one million Iranian workers are currently waging wildcat strikes against the fascist regime for higher wages and for better working conditions. The strikes and demonstrations by the Iranian working masses totally defy the Shah's martial law decree and have crippled major sections of the Iranian economy. More than 400,000 teachers, 30,000 steel workers, several hundred thousand civil servants, 10,000 communications workers, several thousand bank workers, thousands of mineral extraction workers, thousands of airline workers (who have virtually shut down Iranair for more than two weeks), and more than 37,000 oil refinery workers and technicians have risen up against the fascism of the Shah and imperialist domination of Iran.

Most notably, the just ended three week long strike by more than 37,000 oil refinery workers and technicians in the province of Khruzerstan severely crippled the economy of the fascist Pahlavi regime and deeply cut into the profits of the Shah's imperialist masters. Iran is one of the world's largest oil producing countries. Iranian oil fields are controlled by the Shah's National Iranian Oil Company and a consortium of 14 imperialist oil companies, which share in the extraction and plunder of oil, natural gas and other petro-chemicals. The basis of the economy of Iran under the fascist dictatorship of the Shah is the plunder of oil by foreign imperialists. Oil revenues of $22 billion per year make up 63% of the national budget and are used to maintain the fascist apparatus of the Shah. The oil workers' strike has cut oil production from 5.7 to 1.4 million barrels per day, thus blocking the export of more than four million barrels of oil per day to the western imperialist countries and causing the Shah to lose $60 million per day in revenues. In addition; the strike and the bombing of a natural gas pipeline by anti-fascist patriots has cut the export of natural gas to the Soviet social-imperialists who currently receive 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year from Iran.

The mass uprisings of the Iranian people have sent deep fear and frenzy into the hearts of the U.S. and Soviet "advisors and technicians", who share in the direction of the plunder of the natural resources of Iran. In recent weeks, more than two thousand U.S. "advisors" and several hundred Soviet "advisors" have fled Iran, fearing for their lives.

With the decree of a military government and extension of curfews, the regime of the fascist Shah Pahlavi has mounted a campaign of suppression and increased fascization of its state apparatus. Police have been given full power to kill people on the streets after curfew and to gun down those in groups larger than two. All strikes and demonstrations have been banned during the martial law SAVAK (the Shah's secret police force) has recruited fascist gangs to violently attack and murder the anti-fascist patriots participating in the anti-Shah demonstrations.

Israeli Zionists and U.S. "advisors" are helping man Cobra helicopter gunships which attack demonstrations and strikes, slaughtering hundreds with automatic weapon fire. During the past year more than 20,000 Iranian patriots have heroically laid down their lives in the struggle against the Shah's fascism and imperialist domination.

Along with the decree of martial law, the fascist Pahlavi has continued a campaign of political deception and demagogy about his "democratization of Iran". As part of the martial law decree, the Shah claims that he is cracking down on corrupt government officials and business leaders. In doing so, he had 14 government officials and businessmen arrested, including the former head of SAVAK and the government Information Minister. This wave of arrests of former government officials and lackey businessmen in the Shah's ruling circles is nothing but a thinly veiled cover for the suppression of a possible coup d'etat by these officials. The Shah has also announced that he has ordered an investigation of the royal family's Pahlavi Foundation to uncover any corruption, profiteering or wrongdoing and that he is giving "amnesty" to 1000 political prisoners. This "fox guarding the hen-house" investigation by the Shah and his supposed "amnesty" for 1000 political prisoners have not fooled the Iranian anti-fascist patriots who have long experience with the Shah's political deception and demagogy and will not forget about the tens of thousands of patriots who lie in the Shah's dungeons, or the 20,000 heroic martyrs who have fallen in the last ten months.

During the past several months, Carter and the U.S. government have gone out of their way to heap praise on the fascist maneuvers of the Shah. Shortly after the September 7th and 8th demonstrations in Teheran where the Shah's fascist army and police murdered more than 3,500 anti-fascists, Carter personally telephoned the Shah to congratulate him for a job well done and assure him of continued U.S. support in his programs of "democratization" and "human rights" in Iran. After the Shah decreed martial law and installed the military government, the State Department issued a statement applauding the military dictatorship. On November 1, Carter sent the Shah a message declaring: "We wish the Shah our best and hope the present disturbances can soon be resolved. We're thankful for his move toward democracy. We know it's opposed by some who resist democratic principles. But his progressive administration is very valuable, I think, to the entire Western world." These facts further reveal that when Carter says he desires "human rights" he means nothing but Hitlerite fascism. This shows that the "democratization and modernization" fraud of the Shah is part of Carter's so-called "human rights" campaign. This further demonstrates that the. Iranian people are rising up against U.S. imperialist domination and the Shah's fascist rule, and it is not a question of some "Moslem fanatics" rebelling against "democratization and civil reforms" and for the "right of women to wear veils", as the lying capitalist press tells the American people.

Since the Shah came to power in 1953 through a CIA-led coup, the U.S. imperialists have been the main backers and props behind the hated regime of Pahlavi, This support is continued today with more than 60,000 U.S. military and economic "advisors" leading and controlling the Shah's 300,000 man army. In the last two years alone, the U.S. has provided the Shah with more than $9 billion worth of military equipment including F-15 jets and Cobra helicopter gunships. The "freedom" and "democracy" that Carter speaks of is the freedom for the Shah to slaughter the Iranian people, the freedom for the U.S. imperialists to plunder the natural resources and exploit the people of Iran. With his demagogy supposedly in support of "democracy" and "human rights" in Iran, Carter would would now like to prepare conditions for replacing the Shah with a new, and therefore less exposed and less hated, U.S. puppet. But with the Iranian masses rising up in revolt, Carter has not dared to take such a step.

It is not only the U.S. and other western imperialists who support the Shah, exploit the Iranian masses, and share in the plunder of Iran's natural resources. The Soviet social-imperialists, "the natural allies of the world's people", are working directly with the Shah in developing a steel mill complex, a massive electric power generating station, and are building the northern one-third of the Trans-Iranian gas pipeline (part of the Soviet-Iran pipeline network which now transmits 17 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to Eastern Europe and Western Europe.) The Soviet social-imperialists have not limited their contention with the U.S. and other imperialists to the areas of plunder of raw materials and the fight for markets, but they also supply the fascist Shah with military equipment for the suppression of the Iranian people's struggle. Recently, a large number of armored cars were sold by the Soviet social-imperialists to the Shah for use in attacking the demonstrations and strikes. In addition to the Soviet social-imperialists, the Chinese "three worlders" led by Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-ping have also gone out of their way to support the Shah. During the recent uprisings, the Chinese revisionist leader Hua Kuo-feng visited Iran and told the Shah that China had a lot to learn from Iran and that Iran is much more advanced than China (in selling out to imperialism -- ed.). Clearly the new revisionist leaders of China view Iran as a juicy piece of meat which they also would like to bite into.

The present uprisings, strikes and demonstrations of the Iranian people clearly show their deep yearnings for true national independence and social liberation. It is only through the armed struggle, led by the proletariat with the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran at its head, that the Shah's fascism, the old social order and the domination of Iran by imperialism can be ended.

This is why the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran calls upon the working class and people of Iran to strengthen the ranks of the Party, the vanguard detachment of the Iranian proletariat, in order to prepare for the armed struggle for the overthrow of the hated Pahlavi regime and to drive all the imperialists out of Iran. End.

[Photo.]

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Bankruptcy of the "Three Worlds" Theory

How the "CP(ML)" Three Worlders Utilize the Bourgeois Elections to Strengthen Liberal-Labor Politics and Serve Growing Fascism

The Fall 1978 elections farce has come to a conclusion. The "debates" between the representatives of big capital are over, and the bourgeois politicians have gone back to their everyday business of exploiting and suppressing the masses. The elections, while hardly a dramatic event and while they were widely boycotted by the working people, did however provide insight into the political nature of the U.S monopoly capitalist class and into the nature of its close allies, the revisionists and opportunists, particularly the social-chauvinist "three worlders" of the "CP(ML)".

The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists of the COUSML used the opportunity of the elections farce to denounce and expose the capitalist parties. In particular, the COUSML used the elections to expose the liberal- labor politics of the Democratic party. The elections provided an opportunity to strike at the reactionary alliance between the Democratic Party and the traitorous trade union leaders and the entire class-collaborationist and social-democratic political line of the labor aristocracy which holds the masses under the sway of the Democrats.

The social-chauvinist so-called "Communist Party (M-L)" on the other hand, used the opportunity of the elections to prettify capitalist reaction. In particular, they used the elections to strengthen the illusions about about the liberal-labor politics of the Democrats and the politics of the labor traitors which means strengthening the politics of the monopoly capitalist party in power, the ruling politics of the reactionary bourgeoisie.

ALL OF THE CAPITALIST PARTIES ARE PARTIES OF THE CAPITALIST OFFENSIVE

All the capitalist political parties -- the Democrats and Republicans and sham "socialist" parties -- are parties of the capitalist offensive, parties of capitalist reaction. They are parties with indistinguishable programs of starvation, fascism and war.

The open reactionaries of the Republican party, "the party of big business", ran on the main plank of plundering the people. The central theme of the Republican campaign was the capitalist tax revolt: measures to increase taxes for the working class and poor, to implement attacks on the public sector workers and to redistribute government expenditures to the areas of maximum capitalist profit and towards the repressive organs of the state apparatus, the police, prisons, etc., at the expense of cut-backs harming the well-being of the masses.

The Democrats, though just as much a party of the big bourgeoisie as the Republicans and having the exact same reactionary program, parade themselves as the "party of Labor and minorities". Today, the reactionary capitalist offensive against the working masses is being organized not by the open reactionaries alone, but is mainly being intensified by the Democrats themselves under the cover of illusions about the alleged "pro-Labor" nature of the Democrats. Carter is implementing a most sinister program of attack on the masses, with each new attack being presented as a "victory for Labor and the minorities". The main program of the Democrats is Carter's "anti-inflation" program. The heart of this anti-working class program is not limiting inflation but wage controls to cut the workers' wages and outlaw the strike struggles of the workers for wage increases in the face of soaring inflation.

In their reactionary offensive against the proletariat and people, the monopoly capitalists have a powerful ally within the working class movement, the labor aristocracy including the top bureaucrats of the capitalist trade unions. The labor traitors collaborate with the bourgeoisie and the Democrats in the most outrageous manner to attack the workers' movement, such as at present with the AFL-CIO and UAW hacks engrossing themselves in helping Carter impose wage controls on the workers.

Now, when the Democrats are solidly in power, the labor traitors are going into contortions trying to explain why things are worse than ever. Thus, in this election campaign the trade union bureaucrats spent millions of dollars of workers' dues money to convince the workers that the problem is not the Democrats at all, but solely an unreasonable ultra-right fringe, the so-called "new right", which is bringing all the ills of the capitalist system to bear on the masses. In order to push this bogey of the "danger of the ultra-right", prior to the elections the president of the UAW, Doug Fraser, made militant declarations about "class war", and other top bureaucrats made demagogic speeches about defeating "the big business offensive". Bat all this noise meant nothing but "defeating" "reactionary big business" in the polling booth, voting for the liberal-labor politicians of the Democratic party, the monopoly capitalist party in power, the actual leaders of the reactionary offensive of "big business" against the working class movement.

The election results confirmed the analysis that in the present campaign of reactionary attacks against the working masses, the monopoly capitalists are relying on the Carterite Democrats in alliance with the the labor bureaucrats and the liberal-labor and social- democratic illusions which accompany them. Despite the wave of propaganda about the "emerging ultra-right", the concealed "ultra-right" -- the "liberal" fascists of the Democratic party (along with the "liberal" Republicans) -- more than held their own in the recent elections.

THE SOCIAL-CHAUVINISTS MAKE A CLUMSY ATTEMPT TO BOLSTER THE "PRO-LABOR" FACADE OF THE CARTERITES

The revisionists and opportunists of various hues, however, used the election debates for a very differ- end purpose than that of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists. Following in the wake of the election propaganda of the traitorous labor bureaucrats, the modern Khrushchovite revisionists and other worthies about the "ultra-right danger", the social-chauvinist rag The Call, in its typical hysteria-mongering fashion, raised the specter of "the growing menace of fascism". The Klonskyites concocted an elaborate horror story about a "recently formed coalition of some of the most reactionary, fascist-minded sections of the monopoly capitalists". According to this scenario as described by The Call, "There is a growing rift within the ruling class": one section, the so-called liberals of the Carter administration, the monopoly capitalist party in power, is allegedly pursuing a policy of "concessions to labor and civil rights" and is in favor of "restrictions on big business during their present crisis". The other section, led by a "new coalition" of "fascist-minded financiers", on the other hand, has launched a "reactionary offensive" against both the working class and the "liberal section" as well. (See The Call, July 17 and July 31, 1978.)

To make their campaign of illusion-mongering complete, the Klonskyites responded to the social-democratic campaign of deception, the so-called "new militancy" of the labor bureaucrats, with the greatest enthusiasm. The Call carried major articles describing the top trade union hacks as allegedly "caught between a 'rock and a hard place' ", between "the current anti-labor offensive" and "rank and file militancy". The Call declared that "the bureaucrats are now threatening an open revolt against big business". They even included George Meany in the ranks of the labor heroes resisting the capitalists, claiming that "Meany has joined the section of labor leaders who are balking at the bosses' attacks". (See The Call, "Unions Balk in Face of Bosses' Attacks", August 21,1978, and "State of the Labor Movement", Parts One and Two, September 4 and 11,1978.)

Thus, at the very time the bourgeoisie is carrying out the most savage reactionary attacks against the proletariat, what The Call admits to be "the current anti-labor offensive", and when even more vicious attacks in the form of wage controls are being prepared under the thin disguise of Carterite "liberalism" and the social-democratic illusions of the labor aristocracy, and at the very time that the bourgeoisie organized its elections fraud to give credence to this disguise, the Klonskyites jumped out in favor of the Carterites and the labor traitors under the hoax of opposing the "fascist menace" and the "reactionary offensive"!

Thus, the social-chauvinist "three worlders" of the "CP(ML)", far from using the elections farce to denounce the bourgeoisie and to expose the illusions which are propagated to tie the workers to the capitalist parties, seized on the opportunity to tie the workers to the capitalist parties, seized on the opportunity to strengthen the liberal-labor and social-democratic illusions and to bolster the "pro-labor" facade of the Carterites.

In the eyes of these neo-revisionist swindlers, Carter's "human rights" smile is genuine and not false and "American liberal bourgeois democracy" is a reality and not a cruel hoax. For the opportunists, the struggle against the fascism of the bourgeoisie is only a phrase to play with in order to scare the naive and to push a capitulationist line, to mobilize the proletariat behind the concealed fascists in the name of opposing the open reactionaries.

Now that the elections are over and the so-called "ultra-right danger" has been checked at the polling booths, there is no longer a trace of the "growing fascist menace" to be found in the pages of The Call. Now that Meany and Fraser and the other labor traitors have come out openly in support of Carter's wage controls, as everyone knew they would in the first place, The Call has abandoned its open praise for the reactionary trade union hacks once again. But this is only to be expected from the opportunists whose mission it is to prettify monopoly capitalist reaction and blunt the sharp edge of class struggle at the crucial moment while maintaining the signboard of "revolutionaries" and even "genuine Marxist-Leninists" at the same time. This is why Lenin described such elements as better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself.

The reactionary offensive of the bourgeoisie, the present process of fascization in the U.S, has three basic features, all three of which the revisionists and opportunists systematically obscure with an entire arsenal of demagogy and deceptive theories. The demagogy and deceptions of the revisionists of all all hues on these questions have a definite aim, to hide and serve the reactionary attacks of the bourgeoisie on all fronts.

A) The Monopoly Capitalist System Is the Source of Reaction and the Monopoly Capitalist Class as a Class Is Developing Fascism Against the Proletariat

The first and most important aspect which the opportunists obscure is the class basis of fascism, its class character -- that fascization is the policy of a definite class, the monopoly capitalist class. The stock in trade of the revisionists and opportunists is the prettification of the dictatorship of the monopoly bourgeoisie, the state in particular. They shower praise on this dictatorship as having "democratic traditions" and as a "bourgeois democracy", in order to push a conciliatory attitude towards the state, and thus come to terms with it, and actively collaborate with the state in its reactionary offensive against the masses.

The social-chauvinists are deliberately covering up the whole point, the entire objective of the struggle against the "growing menace of fascism". That is to say that the opportunists hide the fact that it is the monopoly capitalist system itself which is the source of reaction and fascism. They want to mystify the reality that the dictatorship of the U.S monopoly capitalist class is the most barbaric rule which before the whole world is developing fascism against the proletariat and working masses and which is carrying out the most reactionary attacks from all sides. Today, the dictatorship of the big bourgeoisie, presently headed by the government of the smiling "human rights" preacher Carter, is the undivided rule of finance capital and "fascism is the power of finance capital itself."

All of the right-wing formulas of the opportunists, neo-revisionist prejudices which are aimed at prettifying the monopoly capitalist dictatorship, collapse in the face of reality. Just look at the concrete situation.

The proletariat and working masses are coming under increasingly reactionary and savage attacks by the bourgeoisie. The monopoly capitalists are rapidly developing a fascist campaign of wage controls to outlaw the strikes of the workers against the intolerably high cost of living. Over the past year the bourgeoisie has attempted to suppress the struggles of the coal miners, postal workers, railway workers and other sections of the workers by mobilizing the full force of the state against them. To further exploit the workers, rationalization and productivity drives are underway accompanied by numerous rules and regulations at the workplace to enforce them and new labor laws to ensure "labor peace". Nearly ten million workers remain unemployed while the attacks on the unemployed are intensifying and their conditions are becoming more desperate. The stepping up of racist and fascist attacks against the black people and the other oppressed nationalities and immigrants is official government policy. The state is attempting to float one segregationist movement after the other and is setting up and widely promoting a whole series of fascist and racist gangs. The weight of the militarization and fascization of the state machine, the financing of the expansion of the police forces, prisons, etc., is an intolerable burden on the people. All spheres of social life, including the ideological and cultural spheres, are becoming even more decadent and reactionary. In short, the bourgeoisie is waging a reactionary offensive, is developing fascism to smash the growing revolt of the proletariat, to make the people pay for the grave economic crisis and to prepare for aggressive war as "the way out" of their predicament.

This campaign of reaction is being carried out by the entire monopoly capitalist class. That is to say, all sections of the big bourgeoisie are participating in this reactionary offensive against the working masses and no section is in any way opposed to it. Both "liberals" and "conservatives", Democrats and Republicans, the "ultra-right" and the social-democratic labor traitors -- all sections of the reactionaries are united in their drive to smash the rising proletarian movement. The state apparatus itself, which represents the collective will of the capitalist class and which is the principal instrument of the savage dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the working class and working masses, is being fascized, becoming more reactionary and is the primary vehicle of the growing fascism of the bourgeoisie.

Leninism teaches that monopoly capitalist is reaction all along the line. The monopoly capitalist class is the most decadent and reactionary class and the monopoly capitalist system is the source of the worst nazism and fascism.

Stalin pointed out in 1952, that "the bourgeoisie itself...has changed, changed substantially, has become more reactionary". Stalin explained that:

"Formerly the bourgeoisie permitted itself to be liberal, championed bourgeois-democratic freedoms and in doing so created for itself popularity among the people. Now, not even a trace of liberalism remains. Gone is the so-called 'freedom of the individual,'--the rights of the individual now are recognized only in the case of those who have capital, while all other citizens are regarded as human raw material fit only for exploitation. The principle of equality of people and nations has been trampled underfoot; it has been replaced by the principle of full rights for the exploiting minority and no rights for the exploited majority of citizens. The banner of the bourgeois-democratic freedoms has been thrown overboard. I think that you, representatives of the Communist and democratic Parties, will have to pick up this banner and carry it forward if you wish to rally around yourselves the majority of the people. There is no one else to pick it up." (J.V. Stalin, "Speech at XIX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", 1952)

Nowhere is this observation of Comrade Stalin's more applicable than it is to the United States.

Immediately following the defeat of the Hitlerites in the Second World War, U.S imperialism took up the mission of the defeated Axis and became the center of world reaction. Calling for "U.S world leadership" in the "struggle against communism", U.S imperialism declared itself the policeman of the world and set out to enslave all the capitalist countries and to destroy the socialist camp headed by the then socialist Soviet Union of Lenin and Stalin. In their drive to subjugate the peoples of the world, the barbarism of the U.S imperialists has been unparalleled in history. The carnage committed by the U.S aggressors in Korea and Indochina, the massacres of the communists and workers and peasants in Indonesia, Chile and in numerous other countries, the propping up of the most medieval fascist regimes all over the globe, are all testaments of the unbridled savagery of U.S. imperialism. The overthrow of the socialist order in the Soviet Union and the emergence of the Soviet Union as a social-fascist, social-imperialist superpower has not altered the aggressive nature of U.S imperialism in the least. The Hitlerite foreign policy of world conquest and for the liquidation of socialism has been a united "bipartisan" foreign policy of the entire U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie for over 30 years. It has been implemented with perfect consistency through the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and now the Carter administrations.

The domestic policy of U.S imperialism has been "bi-partisan" as well and is closely bound up with its external policy. Just as the Hitlerites rigged up nazism to enslave the German proletariat and people to the war machine of the German imperialists, so too, the home rule of U.S imperialism has become ever more reactionary to serve U.S. imperialism's policy of aggression and war abroad. The enormous growth of the repressive state apparatus; the enactment of fascist anti-labor laws such as the Taft-Hartley Act for the further integration of the trade unions into the state; the barbaric violent repression against the black people and the outright slaughter of their leaders; the widescale subversive activities of the political police, the FBI and the CIA against the progressive movements, particularly against the Marxist-Leninists including the outlawing of communism and the imprisonment of the communists after the Second World War; and the adoption of the most decadent, chauvinist, racist and anti-working class, anti-people ideology; are not "deviations" from "American democracy" as the apologists of reaction try to portray them, but they are typical examples of the nature of the home rule of U.S imperialism. Since the conclusion of the Second World War, the most brutal reaction and suppression of the proletariat and the oppressed nationalities, the stifling of anything and everything in the least bit progressive or democratic and in the first place the smashing of the revolutionary communists has been the guiding domestic policy of the U.S monopoly capitalist state.

Today, more than ever, the program of starvation and robbery of the working masses, of developing fascism at home and carrying out aggression and war abroad, remains the united program of the monopoly capitalist class, a consistent program with no section of the bourgeoisie opposed to it.

B) The Development of Fascism Carried Out Under the Guise of "Democracy" and Liberal-Labor Politics

The second aspect of fascization which the revisionists and opportunists attempt to obscure is that fascist dictatorship is not simply declared over night with the label "fascism" pinned to it. The opportunists deny the process of fascization which is being implemented under the guise of "democracy" and on the basis of the liberal-labor politics of the ruling Democratic party. The opportunists criminal aim in this denial is to lend their support to the illusions and social-democratic deceptions fostered by the bourgeoisie and thus hide and serve the development of reaction against the proletariat.

For the most part, the development of fascism in the U.S has been in the past and continues to be carried out, not under the banner of the swastika and open reaction, but beneath a thin veil of "bourgeois democracy". In fact, all the most savage barbaric crimes committed by the U.S monopoly capitalist dictators are invariably perpetrated in the name of "defending democracy" and "freedom".

In the main, the fascization of the home rule of U.S imperialism has taken place on the basis of liberal-labor politics. The predominant capitalist party since the conclusion of World War II has been the Democratic party which since the days of Roosevelt has paraded itself as "the party of Labor and the minorities". A close alliance exists between the Democrats and the labor aristocracy, including the top bureaucrats of the capitalist trade unions. The sold-out elements within the Afro-American community and other traitors are tied to the Democratic party as well. It is this alliance between the Democrats and the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class which gives this monopoly capitalist party its "pro-labor" facade and which gives a section of the Democratic party its liberal-labor and social-democratic character. Year in and year out, the labor traitors have been preaching that the solution to all the ills of the capitalist system which face the working people is to elect more Democrats to power. The deceptive measures of the Democrats are invariably portrayed as cure-alls for economic crisis, unemployment, inflation, etc. However, what the Democrats advertise as "pro-labor" legislation is almost inevitably legislation to suppress the masses of workers and to give the labor traitors a "bigger role" in this suppression.

Because of the powerful progressive and anti-capitalist sentiments of the working masses, not just in the U.S but on a world scale, monopoly capitalism is forced to rely on various forms of social-democracy and the alliance with the labor aristocracy to develop reaction against the proletariat. Since the conclusion of World War II, in many states of Europe and elsewhere, the right-wing socialist and social-democratic and now even modern revisionist parties have been the special vehicle and the ruling parties of U.S. imperialist enslavement and monopoly capitalist reaction. In the U.S., the Democratic party is the main party of the monopoly capitalists for political deception of the working masses and for the development of fascism and reaction against the proletariat.

At the present time in particular, the reactionary attacks of the bourgeoisie against the working masses are being carried out under the leadership of the Democratic party, and by way of the social-democratic illusions which accompany it. Carter was put in power in 1976 not because the bourgeoisie had abandoned the reactionary program of Richard Nixon before him but precisely because the deceptive mask of "pro-labor" liberalism was absolutely necessary to impose Nixon's fascist measures. The same reactionary measures which Nixon undertook yesterday are being re-introduced today in the guise of "pro-labor reforms" and in an even more savage form. It is the Carterite "liberals" in alliance with the labor traitors and not simply the "ultra-right" who are waging a campaign for wage controls, the outlawing by decree of the strike struggles of the workers for wage increases in the face of soaring inflation, just as Nixon did in 1971. The recent government suppression of the railroad workers' and postal workers' struggles and the enactment of the Taft-Hartley "back- to-work" order and the use of the National Guard aga against the coal miners' strike, were all the fascist deeds of the "friend of labor" Democratic administration. Such fascism against the proletariat, whether in a concealed or open form, whether imposed by a "human rights" demagogue such as Carter or not, remains fascism just the same.

C) The Fascist Gangs Are Organized by the State and Are an Inseparable Part of the Growing Fascism of the Bourgeoisie

The third aspect of fascization which the opportunists and revisionists obscure is the role of the fascist gangs and their inseparable connection to the program of fascization of monopoly capital. With their conciliatory attitude towards the monopoly bourgeoisie and its state, the opportunists invariably have a policy of no struggle against the attacks of the openly nazi- fascist gangs, the lackeys of the fascism of the state, as well.

While the reactionary offensive against the proletariat is presently being developed by way of the "liberal" wing of fascism, the organization and promotion of the racist and fascist gangs, the so-called "radical right", is not a phenomenon which is separate from the growing fascism of the bourgeoisie. When, for instance, Carter announced his racist and fascist legislation for the deportation and harassment of so-called "illegal aliens", the KKK volunteered to "guard" the Mexican border and to do propaganda for Carter's program. When the bourgeoisie tries to organize the segregationist movement on the basis of the fraud of "reverse discrimination" against whites, the fascist and racist gangs are mobilized to do propaganda for this too. The racist and fascist gangs have been in the van of the monopoly capitalists' fascist anti-busing movement as well.

Facts show that the KKK, the nazi sects of Hitler worshipers and other similar fascist criminals are being activated by the state as a striking force for the fascism of the bourgeoisie, as terror squads against the proletariat and oppressed nationalities and as propagandists for the racist and fascist programs of the state. The struggle against these fascist gangsters is definitely on the agenda; however, this struggle cannot be separated from the struggle against the fascism of the big bourgeoisie as a whole, including the fascism of the "liberals".

REVISIONISM AND OPPORTUNISM HIDES AND SERVES THE FASCISM OF THE BOURGEOISIE

Clarity on the thoroughly reactionary nature of the monopoly capitalist bourgeoisie and its state and on the role of the "liberal" and social-democratic illusions and deceptions as but a mask for this reaction, is a necessity in order to defeat the growing fascism of the bourgeoisie and for the advance of the revolution. Hence, the mystification of these issues is the business of the firefighters of the revolution, the revisionists and opportunists of all hues.

The revisionists and neo-revisionist opportunists, the left-wing of the labor aristocracy, the agents of the bourgeoisie within the working class movement, find an obligation to hide and serve the growing fascism of the bourgeoisie. The revisionists and opportunists will not tolerate the Marxist-Leninists denouncing the U.S monopoly capitalist dictatorship as the most reactionary and savage rule nor tolerate the exposure of the growing fascism of the monopoly capitalist class and its state. The opportunists do not agree with Lenin's thesis that in politics, monopoly capitalism is reaction all along the line and simply repeat over and over again that the savage rule of monopoly capital in the U.S is a so-called "bourgeois democracy". Thus, according to the revisionist and opportunist theoreticians, the source of reaction and fascism is not the monopoly capitalist class and its state but only a section of it at most. Invariably, in one form or another, they present the revisionist fallacy of the "two aspects of the state", a "pro-people" and an "anti-people" aspect, "hawks" and "doves", a "fascist-minded section" and a "liberal" section, etc.

On this basis, without fail, the revisionists and opportunists, under the clumsy hoax of "taking advantage of contradictions in the ranks of the enemy" or by some similar ruse, call on the proletariat to rely on on one section of the bourgeoisie in the alleged struggle against the other, to unite with the concealed fascists in the name of opposing the open fascists, to unite with the concealed warmongers supposedly against the open warmongers, and thus subordinate the revolutionary movement to the interests of the bourgeoisie and its state. The cries of the Klonskyite social- chauvinists in support of the Carterites for allegedly being against the "growing fascist menace", are but. the inevitable result of the conciliatory attitude, in theory and practice, of modern revisionism towards the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

The revisionists and opportunists are engaging in extremely treacherous activity when they portray the source of the reactionary offensive against the proletariat as coming from the "ultra-right" or any variation to that effect. They are carrying out such diversionary propaganda at a time when the bourgeoisie is developing reaction under the guise of Carterite "liberalism" and social-democratic illusions. Instead of combatting the illusions fostered by the bourgeoisie and exposing the ultra-right and ultra-reactionary nature of the Carter administration, the opportunists are striving to strengthen these illusions. In this way they are attempting to paralyze the proletarian movement, subordinating it to the labor aristocracy and the present leading group of the U.S. monopoly capitalist dictators

Furthermore, while the revisionists and opportunists identify the danger of fascism only with the so-called "ultra-right" or "lunatic fringe", with the fascist gangs and so forth, this does not mean that they have any interest whatsoever in fighting these fascist criminals either. For the sake of deception alone, the revisionists and opportunists raise the slogans "smash" and "death to" the fascist gangs, slogans which are very popular among the masses. However, the opportunists deny the connection between the fascist gangs and the fascism of the bourgeoisie and deliberately cover up the fact that these fascist gangs are actually organized by the state. Therefore, when the fight actually breaks out, the opportunists invariably call on the police and the courts, the organizers and protectors of the racist and fascist gangs in the first place, to "disband" and "outlaw" the reactionaries and "protect" the people. According to the reasoning of these opportunist cowards, why should you sacrifice and struggle against the fascists when the entire "bourgeois democratic" state is on your side?

Hence, the illusion-mongering of the revisionists and opportunists of all hues on the questions of the reactionary nature of the monopoly capitalist class and its state power, their attempts to portray the development of reaction and fascism as coming from some other source, some "ultra-right fringe", are recipes for all-round capitulation in the face of the growing fascism of the bourgeoisie. The revisionist and opportunist mystifications are absurd and anti-Marxist- Leninist in theory. They are also extremely treacherous in practice, hiding and serving the reactionary attacks of the bourgeoisie.

* * * * * *

Faced with the reactionary offensive of the bourgeoisie, the only path for the proletariat is the mass revolutionary struggle against the reactionaries and to to combat the capitalists tooth and nail on every front. The proletariat is opposed to the whole capitalist offensive and must fight the open reactionaries and fascist gangs and reactionary movements which the state is attempting to float. The "friends of labor" Democrats, the ruling party of monopoly capitalist reaction, is the deadly enemy of the masses. The proletariat must break with the liberal-labor and social-democratic politics of the alliance of the Democrats and the labor aristocracy in order to defeat the reactionary offensive of bloodthirsty capital. Furthermore, if the proletariat is to maintain its independent stand, it must combat revisionism, social-chauvinism and opportunism of all hues, the firefighters of the revolution which are trying to hold the masses under the sway of the Carterite fascists and the politics of the labor aristocracy. The struggle against opportunism is an absolutely necessary struggle in order to defeat the growing fascism of the bourgeoisie. It is part of the struggle to overthrow the barbaric monopoly capitalist system by revolutionary violence and to establish socialism and genuine democracy for the working people. End.

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Mr. "Human Rights" Invokes Fascist Law to Suppress National Railway Strike

The "Human Rights" administration of Jimmy "wage controls" Carter has once again bared its fascist fangs against the workers. On September 26, 330,000 railroad workers went on strike across the country in solidarity with striking Norfolk and Western clerical workers. The N&W clerks had been on strike for 79 days before they succeeded in extending their struggle into a nation-wide strike. The aim of the strike was to prevent the N&W capitalists from eliminating large numbers of clerks' jobs through automation. The "Human Rights" administration of Carter could not tolerate a nation-wide rail strike against the rich railroad monopolists for even three days. Resorting to open terrorism against the railroad workers, Carter invoked his "presidential emergency powers" under the fascist Railroad Labor Act and ordered the workers to return to work for 60 days while a "neutral" board he handpicked decides the workers' fate. Arch-strikebreaker and scab Carter blustered: "If there is any opposition to this action, then I would not hesitate to go into federal court to enforce it". Thus "Mr. Human Rights" made it perfectly clear that behind his strike-breaking decree stood the full force of federal courts, jails, police and army. The "Democrat" Carter has declared the strike "illegal". This shows that "human rights" for the capitalists means the right to exploit, the right to smash strikes, the right to turn the workers into docile slaves toiling for the greater profits and glory of the big monopolies. Carter's actions show that the "human rights" and "pro-labor" sweet talk of the capitalist politicians is just vile political deception.

The smashing of the national rail strike also shows that the workers can place no trust in bourgeois legality. Even the most ordinary strike struggles must break through the bounds of bourgeois legality. Despite several federal court rulings that granted a certain amount of legality to the N&W clerks' strike, the moment the strike became nation-wide it was brutally declared "illegal". As long as the N&W clerks' strike was confined to certain narrow limits in which it was completely impotent and unable to harm even the slightest interests of the capitalists, then the capitalist government with Carter at its head is all for the workers' right to strike. Before the national strike began this right was upheld in several federal court decisions -- although even then the courts tried to restrict the strike and separate the N&W clerks from the other clerks and railroad workers by such fascist regulations as forbidding the N&W clerks from picketting the Conrail yards in Buffalo. The considerations which led the capitalist courts to pretend to uphold the workers right to strike was that the strike only affected one railroad (N&W), that the struck N&W railroad still had much of its freight moving with scab labor, that the N&W capitalists were receiving $800,000 a day from a strike-breaking fund provided by the other 72 railroads, etc. As a result, the N&W was still turning a profit, the workers were being slowly starved for 79 days, and the chances for the capitalists winning the strike seemed quite good. The capitalist courts let you go on strike -- provided you peacefully let the scabs take your job, insure there is no "irreparable" harm to the companies' financial condition and the stockholders' dividends, and be sure to leave behind some skilled or supervisory staff to train your replacement. But the moment the railway workers struggle overstepped these narrow bounds acceptable to big capital, the strike was quickly declared "illegal" by the Carter administration.

The capitalist news media, the sold-out labor bureaucrats and all the revisionists and opportunists praise the Democratic Party of Carter to the skies as the party of "labor and the minorities". But the arbitrary, reactionary suppression of the railway workers' national strike demonstrates the true nature of the Carter administration and of the "human rights" enforced by the whole capitalist state. This allegedly "democratic" party is in reality a fascist party of the billionaires, a party which exercises the violence and terror of the state machine against the workers just as readily as the Republicans when the interests of monopoly capital are at stake. In reality Carter and the other capitalist spokesmen are "nothing but deceitful politicians, specialists in defending the order in power, strengthening the positions of the capitalist state, the trusts and the monopolies, in the parliament (Congress --ed.), they pretend to stand for 'freedom' and 'democracy' for their country and people. No matter how much bourgeois deputies engage in idle talk about 'human rights', in the final analysis, it is capitalism, the big bourgeoisie, which holds sway..." (Enver Hoxha, September 20, 1978, "Proletarian Democracy is Genuine Democracy")

Before Carter came to office with his sickening smile and his deceitful chatter about "human rights", the Republican administration of Nixon-Ford was in the White House, engaged in defending the "free world" with napalm, fragmentation bombs, and the bayonet. (It should however never be forgotten that the Democratic Party controlled Congress during the Nixon years and to the applause of George Meany and the labor bureaucrats voted funds for wars of aggression and urged Nixon on to his wage-control program.) The Republican Party openly defends the interests of the rich. Nixon's fascist atrocities at home and abroad roused the hatred of the American people. To defuse the hatred of the masses and find a temporary way out of the governmental crisis and the "crisis of confidence", the rich called the Democratic Carter administration to power. Carter's task was to carry out Nixonite fascism without Nixon, but under cloak of great concern for "labor and the minorities". Under Carter, every attack on the masses is labeled a great victory of labor, the triumph of liberalism ad nauseum.

Look at Carter's record in dealing with the working class movement in the past two years.

First of all, "Mr. Human Rights" is an arch-strikebreaker and scab. Before he suppressed the railroad workers' strike, he had already declared war against the coal miners last spring. Spouting the usual capitalist chatter about the "national interests", Carter ran to the aid of the murderous coal barons, who think nothing of sending large numbers of miners to their death in unsafe mines. These typical capitalists were in a frenzy over the upsurge of the coal miners' struggle and were striving with all their might to suppress the miners' movement. Carter's proposed Labor Law Reform Act comes to their aid with provisions to outlaw the wildcat strikes and roving pickets used to such powerful effect by the coal miners. And when the coal miners went on their "legal" nation-wide strike, Carter invoked the fascist Taft-Hartley Act, threatened to send the Army into the coal fields and had his department of "justice" prepare boxload after boxload of injunctions and threats. But the coal miners upheld the honor of the proletariat and contemptously defied Carter and the Taft-Hartley law in order to fight the coal barons to a standstill.

Now the Carter administration has made "fighting inflation" its chief economic goal. By fighting inflation Carter admits that he does not mean stopping inflation, but installing wage-price controls and cutting down on the paltry relief payments to the unemployed and destitute. Earlier this year Carter launched the "voluntary" wage and price controls campaign with the aim of holding the workers' wages increases to a maximum of 5.1-5.6 per cent annually, even though inflation was then running at the annual rate of approximately 11 per cent (according to official minimized statistics). In this way Carter was trying to inflict at least a 5-6 per cent wage cut. Under this "voluntary" plan Carter slashed the wage increase scheduled for the federal employees and held it to 5.5 per cent. He also placed great pressure on the postal workers and forced a government appointed arbitrator on them, although he failed to hold their wages to his arbitrary limit due to the struggle of the postal workers. And now with Phase II, Carter is employing more sanctions against the workers, while working out the details of the wage-price controls with the aid of conferences between Carter's boy-wonder advisor Barry Bosworth and the largest corporations like GM, GE, IT&T; talking about delaying the scheduled increases in the minimum wage and about creating a sub-minimum wage for teenagers; and trying to create public opinion for further wage controls.

In order to implement his reactionary program, Carter has resorted to mobilizing the sold-out labor traitors. His "pro-labor" legislation in fact consists of strengthening the hold of the top labor bureaucrats upon the workers' movement and further outlawing strikes. The Labor Law Reform Act of 1977 is an extension of the Taft-Hartley Act. It increases and strengthens the apparatus of the anti-worker bureaucracy of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), provides a few sops to the labor bureaucrats, and contains a multitude of new restrictions and drastic prohibitions upon the workers' movement. As mentioned above, it contains provisions directly designed to suppress the coal miners' movement. This law has not yet succeeded in passing Congress, because Congress felt it should be further amended to make it even more reactionary. Another example is the Civil Service Reform, which has passed Congress. This law openly in its text expresses its gratitude to the labor bureaucrats for suppressing the civil service workers. It extends the role cf the labor bureaucracy, while preparing conditions to allow Carter to speed up the civil service workers, fire workers more easily, suppress their wages, etc.

This brief overview of Carter's actions show the utter hypocrisy and corruption behind his pretensions to uphold "human rights". And we have not even mentioned his energy program, which is an open hand-out to Rockefeller and the energy billionaires, nor his promotion of the reactionary "anti-reverse discrimination" hysteria through the briefs of the Department of Justice on the Bakke case, nor his slave-labor proposed welfare reform and immigration acts, nor his imperialist chauvinism and superpower foreign policy. It is clear that the workers cannot put any faith in the "humanitarianism" of the reactionary spokesmen of of the monopoly capitalist money-bags, such as Carter. There cannot be "human rights" and "democracy" for both rich and poor, exploiter and exploited, at the same time. Either there is "human rights" and "freedom" for the billionaires and exploiters and a savage dictatorship over the workers and the poor, or there is "human rights" and genuine democracy for all the toiling masses and then there is a dictatorship of the proletariat over the overthrown exploiters. The proletariat regards with contempt the tattered capitalist banner of the "free world" and "human rights", the hypocritical catch-words of the bloodstained U.S imperialist world gendarmes. The proletariat will implement genuine democracy and create a truly free society by carrying out the proletarian revolution and establishing a workers' republic, by expropriating the monopoly capitalists and establishing a progressive socialist society. End.

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1800 VW Auto Workers Organize Wildcat Strike For Higher Wages

(The following leaflet was issued by the Buffalo Workers Revolutionary Committee of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, on November 7, 1978.)

During the month of October, 1,800 auto workers at Volkswagon's plant in New Stanton, Pennsylvania, organized a week-long wildcat strike. Their basic demand was for parity in wages with auto workers at the big three (GM, Ford, Chrysler) plants. Since VW opened its plant at New Stanton in late 1977, the workers there have been paid only half the wage rate of other auto workers. The demand for wage parity is a just demand, because the VW workers perform the same work as other auto workers and, as well, because it serves the interests of all workers in the auto industry by placing them on a common footing and unifying their ranks for struggle against the auto capitalists.

The VW auto workers have only been employed at the new plant for one year, only unionized since June. Nonetheless, they have shown themselves to possess a high degree of fighting ability. In September, these workers organized a two-day walkout to protest disciplinary action against fellow workers, shutting down the plant and forcing the VW capitalists to back down from their "disciplinary" attacks. Then in October, presented with a tentative agreement, which did not satisfy their basic demand for wage parity, these workers voted overwhelmingly (1,235-95) to reject the sellout. But they did not stop there. They correctly proceeded to organize a wildcat strike, waging a militant struggle to force the VW capitalists to meet their demand. Their week-long wildcat succeeded in forcing further concessions from the VW capitalists, despite the opposition of the top UAW bureaucrats. This struggle of the VW workers is solid proof of the strength and vitality of the workers' movement. By waging such vigorous and militant mass struggles for higher wages, the proletariat is preparing itself to build a strong movement against Carter's wage-cutting "anti-inflation" program.

It is important to note that the October wildcat organized by the VW workers was directed against a sell-out contract negotiated by the top UAW bureaucrats with the VW capitalists. This contract would only have brought the wage rates of the VW workers up to the current level of other auto workers by 1981, thus placing them a full contract behind other workers in the auto industry. The top UAW bureaucrats opposed the entirely just demand for wage parity and called upon the VW workers to accept the sell-out they had cooked up with the capitalists as "a good offer". When the VW workers overwhelmingly rejected the sell-out, the top UAW bureaucrats "expressed surprise" and declared that the workers were "expecting too much". When the VW workers organized their strike to enforce their just demand, the top UAW bureaucrats tried, without success, to disrupt their mass pickets. This strike-breaking activity is not accidental, not an incident separate from the whole policy of the UAW leadership. When Carter announced "phase two" of his "anti-inflation" program on October 24 limiting combined wage and benefit increases to below 7 per cent per year, the UAW leadership displayed obscene haste in rushing to support this anti-working class measure. UAW president Fraser promised, like a good boy, to abide by Carter's wage-cutting guideline, with the sole "reservation" that Carter should be "flexible" in attacking the workers' struggles for higher wages. It also should not be forgotten that previous UAW president Woodcock, now a government big-wig (Carter's imperial emissary to Peking), actually sat on Nixon's pay board to implement wage controls several years ago.

The UAW leadership's support for wage controls is only the latest fruit of their policy of alliance with the "liberal" bourgeoisie, the "friends of labor" in the Democratic Party such as Carter. Their complaint that the VW workers "expect too much" in demanding the same wage for doing the same work as other auto workers is just an echo of Carter's line that the "high wages " of "over-paid" auto workers are "fueling inflation". Their sabotage aid betrayal of the VW workers' struggle for higher wages is the practical implementation of this class collaborationist policy. If we judge the UAW leadership by its deeds, rather than by its "militant" words, it is clear that their alliance with the "liberals", this class collaborationist policy, is antagonistic to the workers' fundamental interests.

To advance the struggle for higher wages and develop an effective movement against Carter's wage- cutting "anti-inflation" program, the working class must break with this class collaborationist policy and march steadfastly along the line of class struggle. The struggle of the VW auto workers is a good indication that the proletariat is fully capable and prepared to advance along that militant path of struggle against capital. End.

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AIRCRAFT ENGINE WORKERS RESIST WAGE-CUTS

(The following article appeared in the Boston Worker, newspaper of the Boston Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists.)

On Sunday, October 22, the 3500 workers in the Aircraft Engine Group (AEG) at the General Electric plant in Lynn ended their nine day strike against the company. The workers had launched their strike struggle as the latest phase of their on-going fight against the attempts of the GE capitalists to slash the existing wage rates so as to reap maximum profits and force the the workers to bear the entire burden of the economic crisis.

For several years now, the GE capitalists have been trying to slash existing wage rates by replacing higher paid more skilled workers with lower paid less skilled workers, in 1975, GE tried to use a lower labor skill than usually used as crane operators, a move which also criminally threatened the safety of the workers. In this recent strike, the particular issue was the attempts by GE to replace the R20 inspectors who earn $6. 97 an hour with R18 inspectors who earn $6. 50 an hour, thus effecting a 47¢ wage-cut on this grade of work, and preparing to eliminate the R20 inspectors entirely.

This attack was first initiated and implemented at the GE plant in Everett over two years ago. R20 inspectors working with gauges were replaced by R18 inspectors who normally do visual inspection. The GE capitalists then began to implement this at GE-Lynn in early 1977 by bringing in R18 inspectors for the first time in 18 years.

The issue went into and remained in the grievance procedure for one and a half years while the GE capitalists merrily continued to implement their wage slashing program! Finally after one and a half years of getting nowhere through the grievance procedure, 91 R20 inspectors walked off the job at AEG in Lynn on October 6. The GE capitalists responded by laying off 800 workers in an attempt to cow down the workers into submission. Anxious to get military production going again for U.S. imperialism's war machine and to ensure uninterrupted profits for themselves, GE then tried to trick the workers to go back to work by offering a 30-day joint union-management committee that would simply ''examine the content of R18 and R20 work". The workers correctly saw through this as a ploy to defeat their strike. They unanimously rejected this proposal and decided to extend the strike among all the 3500 Aircraft Engine workers at Lynn. All production was effectively halted in the Engine division. The workers of the whole plant recognized this as not just a fight of the R20 inspectors but a fight to defend the interests of all the workers against the wage slashing offensive of GE.

The attack on the GE workers is part and parcel of the attempts of the monopoly capitalists and their state to shift the entire burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class. The capitalists are in the midst of their worst crisis since the 1930's. In this situation, they seek to preserve their profits intact by making the people pay for the crisis. Thus the rich launch the most savage and barbaric attacks on the working class through increasing unemployment, high inflation, lay-offs and speed-up, forced overtime, rationalizing production, wage-cutting schemes, etc. The rich also use their state in this fascist offensive. Right now, the state has launched an offensive through the Carter administration to effect even more vicious wage cuts through so-called voluntary wage controls. The workers at Lynn General Electric who have been attacked with slashing schemes and who have had inflation cut their real income over several years now face the prospect of a government dictated measly 7% wage increase while the capitalists reap yet greater profits.

But everywhere the working class is meeting this fascist offensive of the rich and their state with a great revolutionary upsurge. Everywhere the working class is awakening to new life as it fights to defend its vital interests. In the last year, the heroic coal miners showed the strength and determination of the American proletariat in their fight against the capitalists, the state and all their servants. In this great upsurge, the workers learn their strength, and acquire valuable lessons which prepare the proletariat for the yet greater class battles ahead, preparing it for the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution.

The GE workers' struggle is part of this upsurge. Their recent strike teaches some valuable lessons. The strike was a rejection by the workers of the "peaceful road" of relying on the goodwill of the capitalists to solve the workers' problems. The workers were led for one and a half years in a wild goose chase through the grievance procedure. The workers put ah end to this by going on strike. The company offered more of the old wine, in a new bottle, as the "joint union-management committee". This, too, was soundly rejected by escalating the strike. The workers recognized that they could not rely on the goodwill of the GE capitalists, but only on their own active mass struggle. This is a very important lesson. For years the capitalist class, the state machine and the labor traitors have erected an entire system of "collective bargaining" and "labor-management relations" by which every just struggle of the workers is ruled out of bounds and by which the so-called "common interests" of labor and capital can be achieved on the "peaceful road" and this is in every case to the detriment of the working class. In their recent strike, which was not a contract strike, the G E workers took a significant step in rejecting the "peaceful road".

On Sunday, October 22, the GE workers declared a temporary truce in their battle against the capitalists and accepted the settlement negotiated between the company and the union.. This does not mean that their struggle against the capitalists on this question is over. The settlement itself resolves nothing. It defines guidelines for the different grades of work in the most generalized and vague manner. There is not even a concrete agreement that R18 inspectors will not be used further to do R20 work. The door is left wide open for the GE capitalists to "interpret" this agreement in their own favor. Life itself has shown that the capitalists did not in the first place abide by the different wage rates for different labor grades. And the capitalists will not abide by this agreement either unless it is the workers who take the path of active mass struggle to defend their basic interests at each step of the way. Through this strike the workers have clearly shown their stand of not tolerating the attacks on their wage structure, and already there is discussion among the workers about carrying forward this fight as they prepare for the battle over the next contract in June 1979. In their just struggle, the GE workers have the full support of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists.

OPPOSE THE SHIFTING OF THE CAPITALIST CRISIS ONTO THE BACKS OF THE WORKING CLASS!

DOWN WITH THE GE CAPITALIST'S WAGE-SLASHING SCHEMES!

THE WORKING CLASS MUST RELY ON ITS OWN STRENGTH -- ACTIVE MASS STRUGGLE IS THE ONLY WAY TO FIGHT! End.

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Workers Strike to Reject Wage-Cuts of Singer Capitalists and Carter's Wage-Controls

(The following leaflet issued by the New York Metro Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist- Leninists reports on the strike waged by workers at the Elizabeth, N.J. sewing machine plant of the monopoly capitalist Singer Company.)

On Sunday, November 12, the workers at the Singer Company in Elizabeth, New Jersey, voted overwhelmingly to reject the contract offer by the company and went on strike. The Singer contract offer is a vicious attack on the workers' living and working conditions. First, the company is trying to slash the wages of the workers by offering a mere 6. 5 per cent increase in wages. In face of an annual inflation rate of 11 per cent, this sham increase actually amounts to a 4. 5 per cent cut in the real wages of the Singer workers. Second, in addition to a wage raise, the workers are asking for a cost of living allowance in the face of skyrocketing prices for the necessities of life. The company refuses to speak to this vital issue. In response to the workers' demands that the standards (production quotas) be improved the company offers paltry adjustments for only a few jobs among the skilled workers and ignores the plight of the majority of workers who are being viciously attacked through the standards system and are often forced to take home starvation wages. Lastly, the workers are demanding that the company provide certain, benefits such as a dental plan, a clothing allowance (for work shoes, etc.), two paid sick days (the workers have no paid sick days), and an increase in the company's pension fund. The reply to these just demands of the workers is no paid sick days, no dental plan, workers must pay for half of the clothing costs, and no satisfactory offer regarding pensions.

The workers at Singer are fighting for higher pay and increased benefits while faced with ever-rising prices for all the basic necessities of life. The Singer capitalists' response is to further step up their attacks on the workers and make the Singer workers pay for the economic crisis. This latest attack on the Singer workers is but a continuation of attacks by Singer. During the past three years since the last contract the company has increased the overall exploitation of the workers. Speed-up, the re-setting of standards so that the workers produce more for less pay, layoffs which cast workers out into the street while increasing the workload for the remaining workers, the shutting down of assembly lines, increased harassment of the workers -- these are only a few of the methods employed by the company to try to raise productivity and profits at the expense of the workers.

Now Singer is trying to impose a wage cut on the workers and is justifying this under the banner of "fighting inflation" and "adhering to Carter's guidelines". However, neither Singer nor Carter, spokesman for the monopoly capitalist class, are the slightest bit interested in fighting inflation. What both, as part of the monopoly capitalist class and its state machine, are trying to do is cut wages while raising prices, thus maximizing profits. The monopoly capitalist class is in the midst of a worsening economic crisis and they have no solution to their crisis. They want to shift the burden of their crisis onto the working class and people. Carter's so-called "anti-inflation" program is a program of deception -- the anti-inflation demagogy -- to veil fascist attacks. Recently, Carter announced "phase two" of this capitalist fascist wage-cutting offensive against the working class. The crux of this new plan is to further prepare for mandatory wage controls, to hold wage increases for the working class to 7 per cent, and greater use of the fascist state machine (police, courts, laws, etc.) in suppressing the growing upsurge in the workers' movement. Singer is using the deception for all its worth, pretending that it is fighting inflation and calling on the workers to submit to its attack as the "patriotic" thing to do. By the same token, as the Singer workers well know, Singer does not hesitate to call upon the state machine to suppress the workers' struggles.

However, the Singer workers have met the attacks of both Singer and the fascist state machine with militant resistance. Daring the last strike in 1975, the workers battled with police who came to attack their mass picket. Over the last three years the workers have waged tit-for-tat struggle against Singer's attacks with walkouts, sit-downs and work stoppages. The present strike is a continuation of that resistance. The workers have learned through their own experience that only by actively resisting the attacks of the capitalists and their state machine can the workers defend their basic interests.

The resistance of the Singer workers is part of the entire struggle of the working class and people against the attacks of the monopoly capitalist class. The strike movement of the working class has been intensifying and growing. In the past year we have witnessed the valiant and heroic struggle of the coal miners, the struggle of the postal workers, recently the teachers, the railroad workers, the pulp and paper workers, the hospital workers and the New York City pressmen's strike. The working class, in these struggles, has fought hard against the attacks of the monopoly capitalist class, frequently breaking through the restrictions placed on their struggles by the capitalist laws and the labor aristocracy. The strike of the Singer workers is part and parcel of this growing strike movement. It is a just struggle and deserves the wholehearted support of the entire working class and people. The issue facing the Singer workers as well as the entire working class is to actively resist the attacks of the monopoly capitalist class and its state machine. The Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists hails and supports this struggle of the workers at Singer.

DOWN WITH THE ATTACKS OF THE SINGER COMPANY ON THE WORKERS!

OPPOSE THE ATTEMPTS OF THE RICH TO MAKE THE PEOPLE PAY FOR THE CAPITALIST ECONOMIC CRISIS!

HAIL THE STRIKE STRUGGLE OF THE SINGER WORKERS!

ACTIVE RESISTANCE IS THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEND THE BASIC INTERESTS OF THE WORKERS! End.

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Boston University Workers Strike in Defiance of Carter's Wage-Controls

(The following article appeared in the Boston Worker, newspaper of the Boston Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists.)

On November 1, the 450 Boston University Buildings and Grounds workers went on strike and joined the great upsurge of the workers' movement now sweeping the country. The Buildings and Grounds workers are fighting for higher wages and against increasing exploitation by a university run in the interests of the capitalist class. Like workers all over the U.S. they are standing up to oppose the attempts by the capitalists to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class.

One way the capitalists try to make the working class pay for their crisis is through the tool of rising inflation. This means that the pay of the workers is constantly worth less. At Boston University, the Administration first said that 4 1/2-5-5 1/2 per cent increases in a 3-year contract were all they would give as wage "increases". Yet this paltry "increase" does not even keep up with the inflation that has steadily eaten away the buying power of the Buildings and Grounds workers since their last contract. (Inflation was 11% last year alone) And the workers refused to be tied into a 3 year contract where the capitalists could increase their prices out of Sight, as they did under Nixon's wage-price controls, while the workers would be stuck with a fixed rate of pay. The University's proposal, even when the workers' struggle forced it up to 7 per cent per year, would mean that at the end of the new contract the workers will still be further behind. The capitalists' own economists are all predicting a much higher than 7 per cent rate of inflation for the immediate future.

President Silber's administration is one of the first businesses to use Carter's wage-control weapon against the Boston area workers. The BU Administration has hypocritically defended its paltry 7 per cent offer, pretending that it's the good guy and not just a typical bloodsucking capitalist manager. On the second day of the strike, during a confrontation with a large crowd of student supporters of the strike, Silber said that the university had generously gone to the "outer limits" of Carter's guidelines. And here are the pious words from a letter to the "BU Community" from Vice President Charles Smith: "The university feels bound to join the President's anti-inflation initiative, not only because it is the recipient of government research funds and the beneficiary of government programs (which may be threatened by wage increases beyond the guidelines), but also because the University wants to do its part in the fight against inflation."

Going yet further, Vice President Caldwell had the nerve to come out to the picket lines on Thursday and tell the workers that it's a waste of time to try to fight against inflation because no one can beat it. In other words, he was arguing that the workers should lie down and accept further impoverishment while the monopoly capitalists continue to make greater profits from exploiting the workers and using their state to inflate the dollar.

In addition to the need of the Buildings and Grounds workers to fight against further losses in wages, they also have good reason to fight for better benefits and against their highly oppressive working conditions -- conditions which mean money in the pockets of the rich. The university has been forcing miserable schedules on workers and denying their seniority rights in order to maximize its profits during the capitalist economic crisis. For example, by including the weekend in a 5-day work week schedule, they get out of paying normal overtime pay. They also profit from forcing workers in one job classification to do the work of others without giving any pay differential. By changing the schedules at the last minute and forcing the workers to work overtime whenever it chooses, the university can hire fewer workers and save the cost of benefits -- as poor as those benefits are. Workers' injuries due to the university's disregard for minimal safety such as not replacing broken ladders also means more profit. And the university also impoverishes the workers by paying far less than the full cost of necessary medical insurance.

In the face of all this, it is to their credit that the Buildings and Grounds workers have gone out on strike with a militant spirit and have expressed the determination to see the fight through to the end. Their first victory was setting up picket lines on November 1, successfully combatting the university's attempt to pull a trick with the negotiating team. After the workers had overwhelmingly voted to use their strike weapon, the university thought that a last minute new contract offer with slightly higher pay could make the workers drop their fight. But the Buildings and Grounds workers insisted on carrying out their collective decision to strike.

The Buildings and Grounds workers thus took a step in the spirit of active resistance-- the spirit of the most vigorous workers in the country who are defying all attempts to block their just struggles. This means going against the capitalists' two methods of rule: 1) deception through phony friends and manipulators who sneak into the workers movement, and 2) outright force through their police and armed forces. The Buildings and Grounds workers are coming up against both of these methods and are actively discussing the question of how to move their struggle forward.

At BU a massive police force has already been sent in by the capitalists' government to assist the BU administration by forcibly opposing strong picket lines and by using their weapons to escort scabs through the picket lines. To obstruct the workers' struggle to the maximum, the police are sent in to announce and enforce the capitalist law: no strikers allowed on campus. This is an attempt to keep strikers away from building entrances, and stop the workers from using their pickets as an important weapon to keep scabs out.

Also, there are all kinds of false "friends of the working class" on the spot to advise the workers to give up every form of struggle that can help them win their demands. These false friends constantly advise the workers to bow down to unjust laws and to avoid violence. Of course, these false friends have nothing to say about the reactionary violence of the police against the strikers such as happened at the Towers on Thursday and at Rumpel's on Friday. Nevertheless, the Buildings and Grounds workers have broken out of these restrictions and stopped some delivery trucks through militant picket lines which called on fellow workers to honor the lines.

So the strike has reached a crossroads. The question the workers face is what is the way forward? The administration tries to promote the line of begging the university, trusting its promises that working conditions will get better and taking President Silber's advice to go back to work without a contract while phony negotiations go on. Now the introduction of government mediation is also part of this dead end path. The Buildings and Grounds workers have taken steps in the opposite direction. They depended on their own strength and began their strike without asking anyone's permission. They have won the support of other sections of the university who see the administration as their common enemy. The clerical workers union members have joined the picket lines, distributed their own leaflet and participated in a solidarity rally on the third day of the strike. Progressive and democratic faculty and students have honored picket lines by refusing to hold classes and organized a rally, demonstration and angry denunciation of Silber in support of the strikers.

The path forward is the continued path of active resistance. This path means defying any limits that the capitalist government or phony advisors try to clamp on the strikers. It means putting their faith in their own strength and organization and opposing the deception of the false friends and the threats of the government's violence against the strikers. This is the path that the working class is increasingly taking in the growing upsurge of the workers movement. It is the path that the heroic coal miners took up in fighting against the attacks of the capitalists and their state, and breaking through the restrictions placed by the treacherous labor bureaucrats.

The Boston Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists fully supports the Buildings and Grounds workers in their strike struggle. The Buildings and Grounds workers are fighting a just struggle against not just the capitalist university administration but have come up against the "voluntary" wage-controls of the Carter administration. To move forward their struggle the Buildings and Grounds workers must reject the advice of the phony "friends" and persist in the path of active mass struggle, relying on their own unity and strength.

DOWN WITH CARTER'S WAGE-CONTROLS!

SUPPORT THE JUST STRUGGLE OF THE BOSTON UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS WORKERS!

ACTIVE MASS STRUGGLE IS THE ONLY PATH FORWARD! End.

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CANADA: On the 3rd Anniversary of Wage Controls the Issue Is Still the Same: MAKE THE RICH PAY!

(The following article is reprinted from the People's Canada Daily News, Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), October 14, 1978.)

Three years ago today, on October 14, 1975, Trudeau introduced Bill C-73, his so-called "anti-inflation" measures, into Parliament, that marked the beginning of the wage controls program, which declared illegal the just struggles of the workers for higher wages. Trudeau declared at that time that the wage controls were "strong medicine" which the Canadian people must take "if they want to recover their health". He said that he was "asking the people of Canada to accept tough limits on their behavior so that our economy can recover, so that we can all be much better off in the future than we would be if we allowed the economy to continue along its present destructive course. The government's anti-inflation program is designed to ensure healthy and enduring economic growth for our country". When Bill C-73 was introduced to Parliament, Trudeau's Finace Minister stated that, "The attack on inflation set out in this paper is designed to ensure that the recovery of our economy from its present recession leads to healthy and enduring growth of employment and real incomes."

The Canadian working class and people were not fooled for one minute by the demagogy of Trudeau and his government. From the time that the wage controls were first imposed, the working class and people recognized that it was not an "attack on inflation" and that it would not lead to "the recovery of our economy from its present recession to healthy enduring growth of employment and real income." Instead, the working class and people saw the imposition of wage controls for what they were: a measure of the government of the reactionary bourgeoisie -- the rich, both of Canada and the U.S. -- to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class and people to make the people pay for the crisis of the monopoly capitalist system.

In imposing wage controls, Trudeau said that, "The success of the program depends upon the understanding, the will and the common sense of Canadians. I believe that Canadians will respond to the program." The Canadian people certainly have responded to the attack on them through wage controls, but not in the way Trudeau had hoped. The people responded by vigorously resisting all the efforts of the rich and their state to make the people pay for the crisis. Our Party advanced the slogan MAKE THE RICH PAY! as the response to this attack, and it has become the rallying cry all over the country. Workers have taken up this slogan and marched under its banner, and the issue of how we should MAKE THE RICH PAY! is being taken up by the workers.

The three years which have gone by since the imposition of wage controls have only served to confirm that the working class and people were entirely correct in their assessment of wage controls. As everybody knows, there has been no recovery from the economic crisis (which the government referred to as a "recession"), and there has been no "healthy and enduring growth of employment and real income". On the contrary, the economic crisis has continued to worsen since Bill C-73 was imposed. The number of officially unemployed workers has risen from 631,000 in September 1975, representing 7 per cent of the labor force, to 854,000 last month, representing 8.5 per cent of the labor force. Inflation and rising prices are continuing to reduce the standard of living of the working class and people. All the features of the crisis have grown more pronounced, with production remaining stagnant, the dollar having collapsed, the foreign debt and the all-sided U.S. imperialist domination of the state and economy growing at a rapid rate, and so on. At the same time, the reactionary bourgeoisie has continued to secure maximum profits in the conditions of the crisis, profits secured through the exploitation, ruin and impoverishment of the vast majority of the people. It is more clear now than ever that the rich have no solutions to the crisis, that they cannot resolve the irreconcilable contradictions which are inherent in the capitalist system and which necessarily give rise to crisis. The sole response of the rich and their governments at all levels to the worsening crisis has been and remains to saddle the working class with the burden of the crisis and to escalate the sellout to the foreign money-bags.

Since the imposition of wage controls, the government has not eased up on its attacks on the people but has intensified them. Bill C-73 was followed by Bill C-27 which deprived tens of thousands of workers of unemployment insurance benefits, and most recently by the latest Trudeau cutback measures to further impoverish the people. The federal government imposed Bill C-24, the anti-immigrant legislation and many other repressive measures. In April, the government announced the beginning of the "phased withdrawal" of wage controls, although the "Anti-Inflation Board" is still slashing the wages of the workers. At the same time, the government has introduced new forms of wage controls, especially against the public sector workers and has issued threats in recent days that if the workers refuse to "voluntarily restrain" their wage demands, wage controls will be imposed once again. The governments at all levels have introduced an unending series of anti-working class, anti-popular measures to make the working class and people pay for the economic crisis.

The governments at all levels are sell-out, anti-working class and anti-popular. The rich have sold out the country to U.S. imperialism and provide every facility for the imperialists to plunder the land and exploit the people. The rich have taken up the aggressive ambitions of U.S. imperialism and are feverishly preparing for imperialist war and are intensifying their efforts to enlist the youth of Canada as cannon fodder for such a war. The reactionary bourgeoisie violently suppresses the struggles of the working class against capitalist exploitation and it uses all the instruments of its rule -- the legislatures, the courts, the police, etc. -- in order to suppress the revolutionary-struggles of the proletariat.

The working class has never been cowed by the dictates of the rich and has never ceased to resist the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto its back. The workers have fought against the wage controls from the day they were imposed and have never accepted that their just struggles for higher wages should be declared illegal. The workers have valiantly fought against the combined attacks of the capitalists, the governments, courts, police, etc., who strive to suppress their just struggles. The working class has engaged in many struggles against the wage controls, including the day of protest on October 14, 1976, when more than a million workers across Canada demonstrated against the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto their backs. The declaration by Trudeau three years ago that the workers have no choice but to accept growing impoverishment, exploitation and oppression imposed upon them by the rich and their state was one more damning indictment of the capitalist system. The conviction is growing among the workers that the capitalist system has had its day and that it must go. They are seeking real solutions to their problems and are looking for revolutionary alternatives. They are in revolt against the capitalist system itself.

In order to suppress the revolt of the workers, in addition to direct suppression, the rich make full use of their agents in the ranks of the working class -- the revisionists and opportunists of all hues who Spread defeatism and capitulation to the rich. Over the past three years, these agents have called upon the working class to rely on the state and on various schemes for class betrayal, such as"tripartism" or "codetermination" in order to suppress the struggles of the proletariat against capitalist exploitation and oppression. They issued calls for a "general strike" against Bill C-73, to create illusions about easy victory in order to prevent the working class from preparing for struggle through varied forms of mass struggles, from local skirmishes to widespread mass struggles and from winning victory after long and protracted struggle.

The working class cannot rely on the state or on the rich to find away out of the crisis. The only path out of the crisis is the path of revolutionary mass struggle led by the proletariat against the rich and their state. The path advocated by the rich and their labor lieutenants of waiting with folded arms for things to change for the better, of begging for reforms and relying on negotiations between the rich and their agents and of waging only those forms of struggle that are acceptable to the bourgeoisie is the path of total catastrophe. While the rich are stepping up their campaign to make the people pay for the crisis, the proletariat must respond with the struggle to resist the shifting of the burden of the crisis onto its back, and take up the slogan MAKE THE RICH PAY! This is the tactical line and slogan of the proletariat to seize the initiative through mass revolutionary struggle and to steel the proletariat in the class struggle to prepare the class to fulfill its historic mission of overthrowing the rule of the rich, the U.S. imperialist domination of Canada and the monopoly capitalist system itself. End.

[Photo: On October 14, 1976, over 1,000,000 Canadian workers participated in the national day of protest to show their contempt for the wage controls of the Trudeau government.]

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ENGLAND: Powerful Upsurge of Workers' Struggles Against Monopoly Capitalists' Attempts to Make the Workers Pay for the Crisis

(The following article appeared in Workers' Weekly newspaper of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), October 7, 1978)

The recent period has seen a powerful upsurge in the workers' struggles against the monopoly capitalists' attempts to make them pay for the crisis. In particular these struggles have struck heavy blows at the 5 per cent "wage limit" which the "Labor" government is trying to impose on behalf of the monopoly capitalist class.

The two week old strike of 57,000 Ford production workers has shut down the company's 23 plants. The workers went on strike in opposition to the government's wage restraint and the company's 5 per cent "offer" and in support of their demands which include a £.20 rise. The workers' just struggle has received massive support from other workers, including dockers who have blacked all Ford goods. Many other workers have rejected 5 per cent "offers". Vauxhall workers have taken action in support of their demands which go against the wage restraint policy. Leyland workers are demanding a 30 per cent increase. Four thousand British Oxygen workers are planning action against the government's policy unless their demands are met. Ten thousand Kodak workers have rejected an offer of 5 per cent together with an 8 per cent "productivity deal". Miners, local authority workers, shop workers, and many others are demanding large increases. These examples illustrate the massive opposition among the whole working class to the government's wage restraint policy.

This massive opposition by the workers was reflected in the ignominious defeat which the government suffered at the "Labor" Party Conference on its 5 per cent "wage limit". There, various of the labor aristocrats who head the trade unions combined with the "Left Labor" types and trotskyites to "reject" totally any wage restraint by whatever method, including cash limits and specifically the "Government's 5 per cent". In the face of the resolute opposition of the workers the contradictions in the camp of the monopoly capitalist "Labor" Party sharpened to the extent that open disagreements broke out over the issue of how best to continue making the workers pay for the crisis, and the government was defeated.

The government's defeat does not mean, and nor could it mean, that the "Labor" government, the present executive of the monopoly capitalist class, is going to stop the policy of attempting to make the workers pay for the crisis. The government said straight away that it is going to "stand by" the wage restraint policy and Callaghan arrogantly declared that if the 5 per cent policy was broken the government would take "offsetting action... through monetary and fiscal measures", threatening increased unemployment, cuts in services, tax increases, etc.

Nor of course does the government's defeat mean that the labor aristocrats and the "Left Labor" types etc., have suffered, or could ever suffer, a "change of heart". The labor aristocrats openly supported the government's wage restraint policies in 1975 and 1976 as the ardent advocates of the so-called "social contract" between themselves and the government. Thus "Phases 1 and 2" of the labor aristocrats' activity was open strike-breaking against the workers' struggles and in support of the government's and monopoly capitalists' measures to make the working class pay for the crisis through cutting real wages. After two years these activities were so discredited that the labor aristocrats were forced to come out in "opposition" to the government's 10 per cent "limit" and to call for "orderly return to free collective bargaining". But this "opposition" was purely verbal and "Phase 3" of their activity in practice was the vicious attacks on and attempts to sabotage the struggles of the miners, of the firemen and of all the workers against the government's wage restraint. Thus the labor aristocrats have throughout supported the attempts of the monopoly capitalist class and its "Labor" government to shift the crisis onto the workers; all that has changed is the form of this support as the struggles of the workers have intensified. Now this year with the further increased opposition by the workers to the government's policies, the labor aristocrats have had no option but to come out even more "vigorously" to "oppose" wage restraint.

But as before their "opposition" is once more a complete fraud and has nothing in common with the militant stand of class struggle taken by the workers in their opposition to increased exploitation. For example, while "rejecting arbitrary norms" they maintain just as before that "negotiations should take into account the effect on jobs or on prices of a settlement", which is just the same lies as the government puts forward, that "excessive" wage increases "cause inflation and unemployment".

The stand of the workers in the present struggles is to oppose wage restraint and to uphold the completely just demand for maintaining and increasing real wages, as against the monopoly capitalists' attempts to maintain and increase profits through cutting real wages. The stand of the labor aristocrats is quite different. Having passed their "militant" resolution they hastened to pledge their eternal allegiance to the "Labor" government and to propose further "talks" with the government. The aim of these "talks", like all such "talks" previously, is to devise a new formula for cooperation between labor aristocrats and government. The labor aristocrats hope that thereby they will be able to restore their grip on the workers' struggles, which have been tending ever more to sweep them aside as the workers adopt the path of struggle, relying on their own initiative. They hope that having proved their "indispensability" for the continuance of the "Labor" government they will be able to obtain a still greater role in the working of the monopoly capitalist state apparatus. Overall the defeat of the government followed by the "talks" represents the reaction of the monopoly capitalist class, its "Labor" government and its agents, the labor aristocrats, to the situation in which the working class has come out massively to oppose wage restraint and the policy of making the workers pay for the crisis. The Conference vote, followed by "talks" are, from the standpoint of the monopoly capitalist class as a whole the necessary maneuvers required to readjust to the workers' upsurge, to strive to attain a new equilibrium, a new combination of deception and coercion whereby the working class can be force to continue to bear the burden of the crisis. However whatsoever schemes the "Labor" government and the trade union chieftains come up with, the working class is going to persist on the path of class struggle' against all the attempts to make it pay for the crisis.

The government's setback shows, not the "victories" of the labor aristocrats, but the enormous power of the workers struggles. It shows that the way forward for the workers lies in waging militant class struggles against all attempts of the class enemy to unload the burden of the crisis onto their shoulders, relying on their own strength and organization, in opposition to the class collaborationist policies of the labor aristocrats.

OPPOSE ALL ATTEMPTS TO MAKE THE WORKERS PAY FOR THE CRISIS! End.

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British Ford Workers Militantly Persist with Their Just Struggle Against the Attempts to Make the Working Class Pay for the Crisis

(The following article is reprinted from Workers' Weekly, newspaper of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), Vol. 5, No. 3, October 21, 1978. It illustrates the struggle of the English workers against the U.S. imperialist exploiters and against the wage-control policy of the British "Labor" government.)

Ford workers are entering the fifth week of their strike which has shut down Ford plants throughout Britain. Their just struggle is in the forefront of the growing tide of opposition to the "Labor" government's wage restraint policy and against ail attempts to make the workers pay for the crisis.

Dockers, lorry drivers, seamen, railwaymen, miners and other workers are providing powerful support to the strike, for example, stopping the movement of Ford goods (so that, for instance, Ford was unable to show any of its new models at the Motor Show). Ford workers in Europe are taking action in support of the strike. Many other sections of workers throughout Britain are waging struggles against the government's 5 per cent "wage limit".

The Ford workers are persisting in upholding their eight point claim which includes the demands for a £.20 wage increase, a 5-hour reduction in the working week without loss of pay and 80 per cent pay for all layoffs. The workers came out on strike when the Ford monopoly capitalists refused to meet the demands and instead offered a derisory 5 per cent under the pretext of "complying with the government's pay policy".

The Ford workers' strike and the massive opposition throughout the working class to the wage restraint program of the government and capitalists caused a setback to this program and, under the pretext of now being "willing to engage in free collective bargaining", Ford came up with an 8 per cent "offer". In the face of this continued refusal to meet their just demands, the workers continued their strike.

Since that time Fords have continued to float their "offer" of "further substantial improvements in wages in return for cooperation to reduce problems", i. e., a so-called "productivity deal". The workers are continuing in their resolute opposition to all such deceptive schemes designed to avoid meeting their just demands.

The workers are demanding increased pay in order partially to restore their real wages which have been drastically cut by the combination of wage restraint and inflation. With the increased opposition to wage restraint the capitalists have tried more and more to push "productivity deals" in order to continue cutting real wages in another form.

Previously the capitalists refused to pay more (in money terms) for the labor power expended by the workers; now they will pay more (in money terms) -- but only for more expenditure of labor power. There is no change in the policy, just a change in the method of carrying it out. In the vain hope of covering this up, Ford management says: "We are not looking for speedups or cutbacks, just help in tackling stoppages and restrictive practices" (!). It just so happens that these stoppages and "restrictive practices" are defenses of the workers against "speedups or cutbacks"! With this deceptive statement, Ford management reveals precisely their aim of further intensifying labor -- speeding up, cutting breaks, reducing safety precautions, etc. -- under the pretext of increasing "productivity" and "efficiency".

With the further increased intensity of labor, the worker will each day expend more energy, more brain and muscle power, will exhaust a greater proportion of his or her effective working life. This demands an increase in real wages simply in order to provide increased food, rest and other necessaries with which to restore the workers' energies for the next day, in order to compensate for the reduction in effective working life, and so on. Moreover, a greater than proportional increase is required because of the disproportionate exhaustion produced by driving the workers beyond the normal pace of working.

The capitalist can increase the rate of exploitation by increasing the length of the working day. But he can also achieve the same end by keeping the working day constant while intensifying the speed of working during the day. In effect this simply means cramming a longer working day into a shorter one by accelerating the pace. Workers are not going to work extra hours without pay if these are added on to the end of the normal working day, but through their hoax of "productivity deals" the capitalists hope to force the workers to work extra hours without pay by cramming them "unnoticed" into the existing day.

In short, the attempt to impose "productivity deals" is simply an attempt to continue to achieve the same effects as "wage restraint" under another form. The monopoly capitalists (and their government) are attempting to maintain and increase their profits despite the effects of the crisis of the monopoly capitalist system by forcing down the real wages of the working class. Whether it is in the form of "wage restraint" or "productivity deals" it is aimed at making the workers pay for the crisis. The struggle of the Ford and other workers is directly aimed against this.

The labor aristocrats in no way oppose the principle of "productivity deals". Just as before they did not oppose but supported the principle of wage restraint as being "necessary" to "curb inflation", so today, when the workers through their militant struggles have made it impossible for them to directly advocate wage restraint any longer, now they are preparing to accept /productivity dealing" in order to continue their role of attempting to hold down and liquidate the workers' just struggles. In this nefarious activity they are being assisted by all brands of opportunists. The latter put forward such hoaxes as that "productivity dealing" is or can be a "facesaver" for the government, or that "productivity dealing" is bad because workers allegedly "win gains without struggle", and so on and so forth. Either they openly support the principle of "productivity dealing" or, whilst "opposing" it, completely mystify the nature and purpose of this attack by the monopoly capitalist class. It is essential to oppose "productivity deals as being part and parcel of the overall attempt by the monopoly capitalist class to make the workers pay for the crisis.

As the crisis of the monopoly capitalist system develops, the monopoly capitalist class is striving by all means to shift the burden onto the workers' shoulders, to maintain and increase its profits at the expense of the increasing impoverishment of the working class. The working class is militantly fighting back against these attacks.

Support the militant struggles of the Ford and other workers against wage restraint, "productivity deals" and for their full demands!

Fight back against all attempts to make the working class pay for the crisis! End.

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Humphrey-Hawkins Bill: "Friends of Labor" Attack the Working Glass While Singing Lullabies About "Full Employment"

On October 15, 1978 Congress passed the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill, which is officially entitled "The Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978". However, this law has nothing to do with establishing "full employment" of the workers or even with decreasing unemployment, but is simply a big dosage of political deception and empty promises to throw dust in the eyes of the workers.

The bill claims to provide for "balanced growth" of the economy, but instead provides only for growth of the capitalists' profits through forcing the unemployed to accept minimum-wage, slave-labor jobs, and through tax breaks on new investments. And under the cover of being interested in "balanced growth", the Bill will create advisory boards consisting of the capitalists, their political representatives and their labor lieutenants of the trade unions in order to further integrate the unions into the state and use them to enforce increased exploitation of the workers.

The debate in Congress over the Humphrey-Hawkins legislation originated in 1974, not as an attempt to reduce the massive unemployment that resulted from the mass lay-offs in the automobile and other industries that began in that year, but as an attempt to undermine the workers' struggle against unemployment. As the workers were thrown en masse out into the streets and into further impoverishment and ruin, a storm of impending revolt began to seethe among the unemployed against their conditions and for jobs. To cool things down, Leonard Woodcock of the UAW and George Meany of the AFL-CIO began to scream for "legislative action" and the halls of Congress were filled with long, tedious speeches in favor of "full employment". First there was the debate over the Hawkins Bill of 1974, then the National Economic Planning Bill introduced by Senators Humphrey and Javits in 1975. This has been followed by the long-winded discussion over the Humphrey-Hawkins Bills of 1976, 1977, and now 1978, which finally passed. Congress is nothing but a big talk shop to deceive the workers about the nonexistent benefits of "American democracy" while the teal decisions are made behind the scenes in the smoke-filled boards-of-directors rooms of the finance capitalists. The debates in Congress over "full employment" were and are used to divert the workers from mass struggle against the state into the "respectable" channel of passively waiting on the high and mighty "friends of labor" in Congress to solve the problems confronting the working class. The trade union big shots told the workers in 1974-76, as they always told them, not to get upset and actually revolt against the monopoly capitalists, but instead to vote Democratic Party into Congress and the presidency in the 1976 elections. Thus, the AFL-CIO's "electoral strategy" is fundamentally a strategy to avert revolutionary mass struggle against the state and to render the working working class movement impotent.

Everyone knows that the empty promises of Congress for "full employment" are a farce. Even Carter says the bill is only of "symbolic importance". But in addition to being a fraud in regards to ending unemployment, the bill is another step down the road of Mussolini-style corporate fascism. It creates more government machinery in the form of tri-partite advisory boards to assist in the suppression of the working class. This is what Carter is trying to hide by referring to the bill as of mere "symbolic importance".

The Humphrey-Hawkins Bill was drafted by the Democratic Party "liberals" Senator Hubert Humphrey and Representative Augustus Hawkins. This demonstrates that there are no traces of "liberal" or "democratic" features to the monopoly capitalist class today, that both the Republicans and Democrats are pushing the same fascist, anti-working class program, but that the Democratic Party plays the role of concealed fascists with pretensions of being "friends of the workers" and advocates of full employment, etc. so as to better fool the masses. Since WW II, the Democratic Party has been the Party in power in Congress for all but four years, and has been the main party imposing fascism. And playing a crucial role in the Democratic Party's ability to do so, by masquerading as "friends of labor", has been the support given them by the trade union officials of the labor aristocracy such as Reuther, Woodcock and Fraser, successive presidents of the UAW, and George Meany of the AFL-CIO. Their political line is that the workers should remain slaves forever under the hoax that voting the Democratic Party saviors into power will result in bringing truth, prosperity, joy and freedom to American society. In this case it was Woodcock and Meany who actually assisted in the drafting of the original Humphrey-Hawkins Bill and repeatedly called for "National Economic Planning" and tri-partite advisory boards so that the trade union bureaucrats would be given high-paying positions in the government bureaucracy and play a bigger role in collaborating with the monopoly capitalist billionaires to suppress the working class movement and increase capitalist exploitation and profits, this alliance between the Democratic Party "friends of labor'' and the trade union bureaucrats of the labor aristocracy is a fundamental feature of the constantly growing American fascism.

The recently passed Humphrey-Hawkins "full employment" law contains absolutely no measures for reducing unemployment. The Act merely elaborates numerical goals and timetables for doing so and expresses the desire to reach "full employment" by 1983, without providing any practical means to achieve these goals. In fact, the capitalists have no intention to significantly reduce unemployment, much less end it. Unemployment is as absolute necessity for capitalist exploitation. Unemployment causes competition among the workers for jobs and enables the monopoly capitalists to exploit the workers. If there were a shortage of workers instead of jobs, the workers could get their own price from the capitalists for their labor power. High unemployment, as in the present economic crisis, intensifies this competition and helps the capitalists increase the exploitation of the workers, who face a greater threat of being fired. Thus, it is ridiculous to even think the monopoly capitalist government would lessen or eliminate this tool for exploiting the workers. Unemployment is inherent in capitalism, and permanent, ever-increasing unemployment is a feature of monopoly capitalism today.

The Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978 which calls for the attainment of "full employment" by 1983 is largely an amendment to the Employment Act of 1946. This was the first act to "outlaw" unemployment declaring that "it is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal government to use all practicable means... and resources for the purpose of creating and maintaining... conditions under which there will be afforded useful employment opportunities... for those able, willing and seeking to work and to promote maximum employment, production and purchasing power". It should be noted that the 1946 Act was also a pious fraud and an attempt to avert mass struggle against the state over the large-scale unemployment resulting from the post-WW II lay-offs.

In 1946, "full employment" was defined as one per cent (official) unemployment. In the version of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill introduced in March 1976, "full employment" was defined as three per cent (official) unemployment. The final 1978 version of the bill defines "full employment" as four per cent (official) unemployment. Considering that the present official rate of unemployment is approximately six per cent and that the real, total unemployment is much higher than the lying statistics of the bourgeois government bureaucracy, the Humphrey-Hawkins' definition is simply absurd. If this keeps up, the bourgeoisie will simply define 100 per cent unemployment as "full employment". But the capitalist system gives rise to ever-increasing unemployment and it cannot be defined out of existence. In addition, the Act calls for "full employment" (i.e., four per cent unemployment) by 1983 unless the President decides that the goal is unattainable or otherwise "finds it necessary" to recommend changes to Congress in the numerical goals or timetables. This further shows that the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill is one more farce and empty promise in a long tiresome parade of capitalist demagogy and political deception on the question of unemployment.

The earlier versions of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill provided for creating a few jobs by forcing some sections of the unemployed into a slave-labor pool where they would be super-exploited by the capitalists. In these schemes the federal government was to be the "employer of last resort" providing "public service" jobs so as to replace, to the maximum extent feasible" welfare and unemployment compensation payments. That is, workers would have been forced to take these jobs or lose their compensation payments. Furthermore the earlier versions of the bill also obligated a worker to accept any job offered before taking a government-created "last resort" job. The wages to be paid for these "last resort" jobs were explicitly set to the minimum: "such jobs shall be mainly in the lower ranges of skills and pay and towards this end the number of reservoir jobs under such new programs shall be maximized in relationship to the appropriation provided for such jobs". In other words, the "last resort" jobs would pay minimum, starvation wages.

The Act approved by Congress no longer includes measures for the establishment of "last resort" jobs, as the Carter administration has shifted the provisions for creating a slave-labor pool to its "Welfare Reform" and "Immigration Reform" bills and to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA). In addition, the federal government has been reducing the duration of unemployment compensation benefits while many state governments in recent years have sharply tightened-up eligibility requirements, including denial of benefits to workers who have been fired or quit, and to those on strike. This heightens competition among the workers and forces them to accept lower paying jobs. All of this shows that the big bourgeoisie is seeking better ways to use the unemployed workers to force down the wages of the employed, and to turn the unemployed into outright slaves so as to maximize profits.

While the present bill does not include measures for "last resort" jobs, it does call for the "full utilization" of CETA and authorized the President to "initiate supplementary programs and policies" to CETA, including a forced labor program. Thus, the recently passed "full employment" law holds in reserve all of the forced labor schemes of the earlier versions of the bill. In addition, Congress approved in October the CETA Extension bill, which compliments this act in expanding and strengthening the federal bureaucracy to carry out more attacks on the unemployed workers.

While taking no measures to reduce unemployment and holding in reserve provisions for vicious attacks on the unemployed workers, the Carter administration and the Democratic Party "friends of labor" have included provisions for handouts to the rich in the form of tax breaks on new capital investments. The bill also gives a call for the government at all levels to carry out its investment of the tax monies extorted from the working masses in a manner which will best serve the capitalists interests.

One of the most significant features of the bill is the creation of "Advisory Boards" which will include representatives of "labor, industry, agriculture,... State and local officials... ". This means that the top union bureaucrats will sit on joint bodies with representatives of the capitalist government and the capitalists themselves to advise the state on "matters related to this Act... and other appropriate matters related to national economic programs and policies." This will mean even tighter control by the bourgeois state over the trade union apparatus in order to enforce wage-controls, speed-up and other forms of increased exploitation onto the workers.

To assist the activity of the advisory boards, the President has been directed to include in his annual Economic Report detailed analysis of the employment, production, real income, etc., to help them determine and create programs for "national economic goals" (i. e. increased capitalist profits). These tri-partite advisory boards of capitalist trade union hacks ("labor"), capitalist government officials ("public") and the finance capitalists themselves ("industry and agriculture") indicate that the bourgeois state apparatus is being moved another step in the direction of a Mussolini-style corporate fascist state. The purpose of the advisory boards is to enable the state machine to more efficiently subsidize the monopoly capitalists, as well as to more consciously and systematically suppress the working class movement.

The last significant feature of the bill is that in the name of fighting inflation, it explicitly calls for the increased exploitation of the working class by means of "encouragements to labor and management to increase productivity within the national framework of full employment through voluntary arrangements." In other words, the bill is calling for a government- supervised speed-up.

The final 1978 version of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill calls for the President to initiate policies to reduce the rate of inflation and gives numerical goals for the reduction of the rate of inflation: 3 per cent inflation by 1983 and complete elimination of inflation by 1988. But the bourgeoisie needs and benefits from inflation and has no intention of eliminating it. Their "fight against inflation" is actually a fight against the workers. Their pious sermons for eliminating inflation are actually a call for permanent, mandatory wage controls. The Humphrey-Hawkins Bill is thus part of the Carter administration's fascist offensive against the working class, including wage controls, speed-up, productivity drives and other attacks on the proletariat. But the workers have contempt for J. Carter's Nixonite fascism without Nixon and are stepping up their resistance to it. End.

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The KKK and All the Fascist Gangs Are Organized by the Government

(The following article appeared in the Boston Worker, newspaper of the Boston Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists.)

On Sunday, October 15, a handful of Ku Klux Klan fascists tried to stage a racist and fascist provocation at City Hall plaza in Boston against the Afro- American people, other oppressed nationalities and the entire working class. The day before, they had held a rally at the site of the proposed nuclear power plant at Seabrook, New Hampshire. At both these events, the Klan was exposed as totally isolated from the broad masses of people; they only drew the participation of the police forces of the government and local fascist gangs, such as the South Boston Marshalls who turned out for them at both places. Here in Boston, their flimsy attempt to hold a rally was smashed up by an anti-Klan demonstration which sent the Klan fleeing for their lives.

These incidents were used by the capitalist news media for several days to promote the fascist gangs. The Klan's racist filth was quoted extensively in the news, their intentions to stage further provocations against the people popularized, and even the storm-troopers of the fascist anti-busing movement, the Marshalls, were so kindly described by the Boston Globe as a "civilian neighborhood patrol formed during the anti-busing disturbances"! The government, which is the government of the monopoly capitalist class, also revealed its full backing for the fascist gangs. The police forces had been mobilized to provide government protection for the fascists, and indeed, it was the anti-Klan demonstrators who they arrested. Right after the beating of the Klan, Mayor White arrogantly took his stand on the side of the Klan, calling for federal prosecution of the demonstrators, demagogically shouting against "violence", and proclaiming that "any group, no matter what its philosophy, should be allowed to execute its right of freedom of speech, as long as it does so peacefully".

These recent events in Boston prove yet again that the fascist gangs such as the KKK have no support from the people, while they enjoy the full backing and support of the rich, their media and government. These events are not an isolated phenomenon, but part of an unprecedented nationwide promotion and organization of the fascist gangs by the monopoly capitalists and their government. These gangs have not sprouted from thin air, nor are they some "lunatic ultra-right fringe"; the racist and fascist gangs are being organized by the state itself as part of its program of fascism against the working class and people. Many facts point this out.

First, it is the news media of the rich capitalist money bags--their radio and T.V. stations, newspapers and magazines, etc. -- who are engaged in a gigantic nationwide promotion of nazism and fascism. We are still witnessing the huge propaganda around the attempts of the nazis to stage anti-people provocations in Skokie, Illinois. In Boston, the local media have tried to promote the Klan since the summer, running stories about their so-called widespread recruiting campaigns locally among the youth. And recently, Channel 2, the "liberal educational" channel announced that it will be showing a national PBS show promoting the nazis in November.

Second, the government at all levels comes forward openly to give aid and support to the fascists. Here we have Mayor White defending the "free speech" of the Klan, and sending out his police to arrest the anti-Klan demonstrators. Recently the U.S. Supreme Court itself came out with a decision supporting the "right" of the nazis to organize, and requiring the state to provide them with full protection. In fact the Court ruled to directly assist in holding a big fascist provocation against the people of Chicago, where a 1,500-man police force protected a tiny handful of fascist thugs from thousands of anti-fascists.

Third, the fascist gangs are in fact directly led by police and police agents. A recent inquiry revealed that Gary Rowe, an FBI agent, was infiltrated into the KKK by the FBI to act as an agent provocateur. His mission was to organize violent attacks and murders of blacks and anti-segregation activists in the South. He instigated the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama church in 1963 in which four little girls were murdered, installing firebombs and shrapnel bombs in black people's homes, and the murder of Viola Liuzzo near Selma, Alabama during a civil rights march, etc. Here in Boston, life experience has confirmed the direct role of the police in the fascist gangs many times over. On April 21st, when the South Boston Marshalls tried to attack the public meeting of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists at the Hotel Bradford, they bragged openly that five of them were policemen and that the police were outside who knew of and approved of their attack on the communists; and indeed, the police came right after the Marshalls were soundly thrashed to finish their job of trying to shut down the meeting.

Fourth, the fascist gangs have the same program as the government, the program of the big capitalists. The fascist anti-busing movement was launched by the government to increase the segregation and violent attacks on the black people. Though there were attempts to promote itself as an "anti-government" and "non-racist" movement, the racist attacks launched through the KKK, nazis, Marshalls and other such storm troopers revealed the real racist and fascist character of this movement. On other issues, too, the fascist gangs simply echo the fascism of the government. When Carter promoted his "immigration reform", in reality a program of vicious attacks on the immigrants, the KKK launched its "border patrol". When Carter released his brief on Bakke, the nazis and the Klan held rallies. And now when Carter pushes his Energy Bill through Congress, the KKK shows up to demonstrate at Seabrook on behalf of Carter's plan for nuclear power.

Clearly the fascist gangs are being promoted and organized by the rich and their government. They are part of the all-round growing fascism of the U.S. monopoly capitalist dictators. The capitalists are in big trouble, with an ever-deepening economic crisis, and political and social crisis. The rich have no solution to this crisis. They seek a way out by trying to shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working people and by preparing for aggressive war. But there are major obstacles to this, namely the revolutionary proletarian movement and the Afro- American people's movement. The fascist program of the rich is aimed at smashing up these movements. The cutting edge of the fascist offensive is to drive the Afro-American people into full Jim Crow segregation and increase violent attacks on them. The government seeks to split the working class by trying to get a section of the working class to join a fascist mass movement. The launching of the fascist gangs is part of this effort.

Here in Boston, the government tried to launch the fascist anti-busing movement in 1974-76, trying to get support for it as a "non-racist", even "anti-government" movement. But its real essence -- its racist and fascist nature was quickly revealed; the Afro-American people's resistance to it developed, and as the "anti-government, non-racist" lie fell flat, the white working masses initially in it dissociated themselves from it. Thus the attempt by the rich to launch a fascist mass movement was defeated. However, in the course of it, the government set up a fascist machinery complete with spokesmen, press, and paramilitary gangs such as the Marshalls, etc. These gangs continue to launch racist and fascist attacks against the black people on a regular basis in various neighborhoods. The recent government-backed provocations by the KKK signify that the government is stepping up its program of using the fascist gangs in Boston to try to launch yet another fascist mass movement here.

The working people of all nationalities must be extremely vigilant at this time. The growing fascism must be fought against. This is a time to reject all the illusions that the government is peddling that "we have entered a new, peaceful era", that the racists were only a handful of "ultra-right racist politicians" like Hicks and Kerrigan who have been "defeated by the polls", that thus the "anti-busing crisis is over". This is simply so much dust thrown in the eyes of the people to hide the fascist offensive of the rich against the working people of all nationalities. Instead, now is the time to develop further the struggle against the fascist offensive, including the fascist gangs.

The exposure of the backing of the government of the fascist gangs has shown again that the government, its laws and institutions cannot be relied upon to solve the problems that the people face, to fight the racist and fascist gangs. The courts, laws, police, etc., are all on the side of the fascists. Thus the only way to fight is for the people to fight themselves, tit-for-tat, relying on their own strength. This is the path of active resistance. And this is the path the people have continually taken up. The Columbia Point residents faced the Klan attacks in 1974 with armed self-defense; in 1975 and 1977 at Carson Beach, they fought the racists and police themselves. Just recently at the Archdale and Fawndale projects in Roslindale, the people demonstrated this once again in the fight against the segregation of Healy Field. On April 21, 1978, the Marxist-Leninists of the COUSML defended their meeting from the Marshalls and gave them a sound thrashing from which the fascists had to run for their lives, leaving their blood, hair, jackets and shoes behind. This is the answer that the people are giving, and will continue to give to the fascist gangs.

DOWN WITH THE KLAN AND ALL OTHER GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED FASCIST GANGS!

ACTIVE RESISTANCE IS THE ONLY WAY TO FIGHT THE GROWING FASCISM! End.

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Support the Courageous Stand of the Revolutionary Eritreans Against Modern Revisionism and Capitulation

For 17 years the Eritrean people have persisted in a fierce armed struggle for the independence of their homeland from Ethiopian colonialism and world imperialism. Ethiopian colonialism has been backed first mainly by U.S. imperialism and recently the Ethiopian fascist junta has been dominated mainly by Soviet social-imperialism. Victory was approaching for the long suffering people of that country who had liberated almost all of Eritrea. However, at the crucial moment, the leaderships of both the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and the Eritrean Liberation Front capitulated to Ethiopian colonialism under the lying, opportunist theory that no one can live without an imperialist patron and they have rationalized their betrayal with the theory that Russia is a ''socialist" country and therefore the "strategic ally" of the Eritrean revolution. This has created a very difficult situation for the Eritrean people, resulted in military setbacks, and deprived the national liberation movement of leadership.

At this moment of grave danger to the Eritrean people, the patriotic and revolutionary Eritreans of EFLNA and AEWNA have stood up to resolutely and unflinchingly expose and denounce Soviet revisionism, to continue resolute opposition to the fascist Dergue, and to continue the revolution to the end. The Workers' Advocate hails the courageous and farsighted stand of the patriotic and revolutionary Eritreans who are defending the interests of their people regardless of the consequences.

The patriotic and revolutionary Eritreans knew that if they had bit their lips, compromised their principles, consented to live as neo-colonial slaves and praised the modern revisionists and the betrayal by the capitulators, then they would be applauded and feted by international revisionism, honored by the revisionist yellow journalists of the Guardian, that money for tours to conferences of international revisionism would appear, and that life would become "easier" for a sold-out stratum. They also knew that to defy the revisionist dogs and the capitulators would mean that EFLNA and AEWNA would be subject to attack and a big effort would be made to split and destroy their organizations, blacken their names and eliminate their just stand.

But the price of "honor" from world revisionism and opportunism is betrayal of the homeland and the revolution. For the true Eritrean revolutionaries, there was never any doubt that they would reject the opportunist path and stand up forthrightly for the honor of their people's national liberation struggle and not turn their backs on all the sacrifices the masses have sustained in the long struggle for liberation.

In opposing the Soviet revisionist political line, EFLNA and AEWNA have also stood clear of the path offered by the anti-Leninist theory of "three worlds" which loudly proclaims that Soviet social-imperialism is the main enemy of all the world's people, and seeks to mobilize the proletariat and people of the world behind the war chariot of U.S. imperialism. Unlike the "three worlders", the Eritrean patriots' opposition to Soviet social-imperialism results from their lofty revolutionary opposition to all of world imperialism and from pure motives. The patriotic Eritreans are fully aware that although today Soviet revisionism is the chief imperialist backer of the murderous fascist Ethiopian junta, nevertheless U.S. imperialism still is and will always be a savage and implacable enemy of the Ethiopian and Eritrean peoples.

The grave situation in the national liberation movement in Eritrea proves the truth of Great Lenin's teaching that "the fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism". Perservering on the revolutionary road, the Eritrean people are bound to overcome the present difficulties and win the total liberation of their country. The Workers' Advocate calls on all revolutionary and progressive people to support the patriotic and revolutionary Eritreans in their just struggle against Ethiopian colonialism, Soviet revisionsim and all imperialism and reaction. We call on all progressive people to support the series of meetings being organized across the U.S. by EFLNA and AEWNA under the title "The Present Situation of the Eritrean Revolution" and to read and discuss their book entitled Eritrea: Revolution or Capitulation. End.

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EFLNA'S HISTORIC 9th CONGRESS

(The following article appeared in Eritrea in Struggle, newsletter of Eritreans For Liberation In North America, September-November, 1978.)

The 9th Congress of the Association of Eritrean Students in North America (now EFLNA) was successfully concluded on August 19, 1978, after five days of vigorous discussion on international, national and organizational questions.

The 9th Congress is of crucial importance not only because it dealt with the burning questions facing the Eritrean people's national democratic revolution, but it also conducted in depth discussion to sum-up the internal struggle with EPLF leadership and crystallized the basic differences that have arisen on questions of principle and strategy. It was also of immense significance because it was convened at a time when imperialists and revisionists and their lackeys are not only spinning out one counter-revolutionary scheme after another but are in the middle of an armed intervention of unprecedented proportions to "stamp out" the flames of the Eritrean revolution.

Held under such slogans as "Death to the Soviet-Cuban revisionists", "The peoples war is to our people's interest", "Our homeland with our blood", the congress thoroughly assessed the present situation of the Eritrean revolution, on such questions of principle as Soviet revisionism, the nature of the Dergue and peaceful solution; as well as the diabolical aggression of the Soviet revisionists, their mercenaries and the fascist junta against our people's just struggle.

The historic 9th congress of our organization opened officially on August 14 in a spirit of joy and struggle and witnessed the participation of practically all its membership from all its chapters and study groups throughout the United States and Canada. Following the reading of solidarity messages from such organizations as the Association of Eritrean Workers in Kuwait as well as the National Association of Eritrean Students, the congress delved into a two-day exhaustive political education session on the theory and practice of the national democratic revolution, its motive forces, goals and targets. The congress thoroughly refuted and discredited the illusion that the U.S.S.R. and the other revisionist countries are "strategic friends" of oppressed peoples of the world and showed that the history of revisionism has been one of treachery, deception and subversion of all genuine struggles for democracy, independence and socialism. These unmistakably ugly features of this counter-revolutionary force are better known to the struggling Eritrean masses whose sacred blood is dripping from the hands of Brezhnev's hangmen, mercenaries and fascist ilks.

The congress also reaffirmed that the task of Marxist-Leninists plays a decisive role in the revolution and the establishment of the vanguard party of the proletariat at the crucial crossroad of the revolution decides on whether it is going to be revolution or capitulation, on whether it is to continue on the road of time tested peoples war or the road of "peaceful solution" that leads to defeat aid disaster.

On the third day, the congress turned into the deliberations of national and organizational matters. First on the agenda was the presentation of the EPLF's message to our congress. The message which besides reaffirming the EPLF's capitulationist line contained a statement warning us to abandon our struggle against Soviet revisionism. Our congress received the EPLF's message with anger, and in a glaring contrast to previous EPLF's messages to our past congresses, there was not even the slightest sound of applause when the message was read.

The EPLF leadership's opportunist line was further elucidated when AESNA's Central Committee presented its political report, which not only summed up the international, national as well as organizational developments of the past year, but also detailed in great length the vigorous internal ideological, political and organizational struggles of the past year and a half between our mass organization and the EPLF leadership on major and cruciai questions of strategy and tactics of the Eritrean national democratic revolution.

The EPLF opportunist line was unmasked thoroughly and exposed definitely in the political report and the rigorous discussion that followed it. Assessing the present grave situation facing the Eritrean revolution, the political report also exposed the counterrevolutionary alliance of the U.S.S.R.-led revisionist forces with the Ethiopian fascist junta as well as the counter-revolutionary maneuvers of the U.S. imperialists.

The congress then proceeded to sum-up the intensive internal ideological, political and organizational struggle between our mass organization and the EPLF leadership, the history and goals of our peoples revolution as well as the counter-revolutionary alliance of the Soviet Union and its lackeys with the Ethiopian fascist Dergue against the just, popular and revolutionary war of liberation of the Eritrean people. The 9th congress also assessed thoroughly the ideological and political danger the capitulation of the EPLF leadership to the Soviet revisionists poses to the Eritrean people's strategic questions of national salvation, independence and democracy.

Following this thorough summation of the Eritrean revolution, its many twists and turns, its enemies who come in all forms and colors, its rich experience of struggle and the gallant Eritrean masses indomitable will to fight and sacrifice, the historic 9th congress unanimously resolved to condemn and expose the capitulationist line pursued by the EPLF leadership and sever all links with it and, accordingly to change our name to Eritreans for Liberation in North America (EFLNA).

Moreover, the 9th congress also gave a telling blow to all the capitulationists within our ranks. That this was so could be seen from the post-congress activities of the careerist, and other opportunist elements in our organization that were thrown into panic and reactionary hysteria by our resolutions. Noting that revolutionaries should fight opportunism and imperialism with one and the same blow, our organization once again reaffirmed its resolve to wage a determined, resolute and persistent struggle against this capitulationist and defeatist tendency inside the organization in all spheres of our activities as part and parcel of our national struggle against right opportunism, capitulationism and defeatism in our revolution as well as in the world wide struggle against imperialism, revisionism and all reaction.

The 9th congress will be remembered as yet another significant milestone in the militant history of our mass organizations in particular and that of our people in general in the struggle not only against foreign enemies but also their local puppets. Through their revolutionary experience of the past, the Eritrean people have a deep understanding of the long and arduous road of liberation, of its many twists and turns, and the winds of betrayal and treachery. The fierce struggle the Eritrean revolutionaries and the broad masses have been waging for the last decade against the reactionary ELF leadership and the treacherous Sabbe Clique is one case in point. The heroic Eritrean masses have a rich, glorious and revolutionary experience in exposing and combating such opportunism and treachery in whatever form it might come. The regrouping of the democratic forces in 1970 and their subsequent consolidation, represented the crowning victory of the revolutionary line over the reactionary ELF line which dominated the Eritrean struggle for over a decade since the launching of the armed struggle in 1961. And today the gallant Eritrean fighters and the broad toiling masses, better prepared to combat such treachery, will surely bury the capitulationists and other opportunists, along with U.S.-led imperialism, Zionism, Soviet-led revisionism, Ethiopian colonialism and all reaction. With this confident revolutionary conviction, the historic congress came to a triumphant end with the militants more determined and better prepared for struggle and the few cowardly opportunist elements amidst us skulking and spinning conspiracies against the very resolutions they themselves voted for.

The 9th congress was then formally concluded with an evening commemorating the 17th anniversary of the Eritrean armed struggle which was attended by over 1000 Eritreans and non-Eritreans. With the hall where the anniversary night was held vibrating with such slogans as "Our homeland with our blood", "Down with the capitulationist leaders of the EPLF and ELF", "Death to Imperialism, Revisionism and all reaction", the audience was informed of our historic congress's resolutions and the capitulation of the "leaders" of the Eritrean revolution. EFLNA also asked all friends of the Eritrean revolution to closely follow the situation in Eritrea, support our peoples' struggle for genuine independence and peoples democracy, expose the defeatist line of the "leaders" of the Eritrean revolution and condemn the fascist Dergue and its imperialist-revisionist masters.

EFLNA'S 9th congress was a triumphant congress. It was a congress characterized by vigorous class struggle and utmost seriousness. The correct line was further consolidated and the unity of our organization strengthened. The 9th congress passed important resolutions whose impact on the Eritrean revolution will be great. Following are therefore the resolutions that were unanimously passed at our 9th congress.

POLITCAL RESOLUTIONS

EPLF LEADERSHIP

I. Having capitulated to the intimidation and pressures of the revisionist Soviet Union and its lackeys for its own bourgeois class interest, the EPLF leadership is covering up for the Soviet Union and other revisionist countries' aggression and expansion in our country in blatant collusion with the Ethiopian colonialists and U.S.-led imperialism, Zionism and internal reaction. The EPLF leadership presents the revisionist Soviet Union and its puppets as socialists and strategic allies of our revolution. It presents the antagonistic contradiction between them and our revolution as a contradiction within the revolutionary camp that can be resolved by negotiations. Applying this counter-revolutionary strategy into practice, the EPLF leadership has reversed the position of the enemies and friends of the Eritrean revolution, hence leading the struggle into a quagmire of reaction. (See Vanguard Vol. 3, No. 5, June, 1978).

II. Ethiopian colonialism in Eritrea, fascism in Ethiopia cannot exist without the alliance of the Ethiopian state with imperialism, Zionism, Soviet-led revisionism and internal reaction.

At present, although the fascist junta is further consolidating its ties with Soviet-led revisionism, it has not yet broken off relations with U.S.-led imperialism, Zionism and reaction. However, it can at any time in the future limit its relations, with Soviet-led revisionism only, breaking all ties with U.S.-led imperialism. Conversely, it can develop its ties with U.S.-led imperialism breaking off all relations with Soviet-led revisionism. Hence, it is only by relying either on U.S.-led imperialism, Soviet-led revisionism or both that the Ethiopian state can continue its colonial rule in Eritrea and its fascist dictatorship over the Ethiopian people.

Nevertheless, the EPLF leadership, forced by its own bourgeois class interest, has presented the revisionist Soviet Union and its puppets who are objectively standing against our revolution as socialists and strategic allies of our revolution. It has declared the fascist Ethiopian state as anti-imperialist and as having broken off all ties with imperialism, Zionism and all reaction while it has not. (Vanguard, special issue, July 1978, Vol. 3, No. 7).

Therefore, the EPLF leadership,

a) by denying the link between Ethiopian colonialism in Eritrea with imperialism and revisionism has in fact liquidated the colonial essence of the Eritrean question (it has claimed no ties between Ethiopian colonialism and imperialism and revisionism)

b) has, in fact, condemned as counter-revolutionary the democratic struggle of the oppressed Ethiopian peoples against the fascist Dergue and its masters (it claims the junta is anti-imperialist and anti-reaction)

III. Violating flagrantly the principle which states that "our revolution sits down for negotiation with the Ethiopian rulers only when they recognize the self-determination (independence) of the Eritrean people", a pre-condition which our people, who realizing that they can attain independence only by means of force and not compromises, wrote with their blood 17 years ago and reiterated it in clear terms at the EPLF's First Congress,

The EPLF leadership

a) has called upon the Ethiopian rulers (the fascist Dergue) to sit down for negotiations without preconditions.

b) has in fact sat down with the fascist Dergue in East Germany through the "mediation" of the East German revisionists. Hence by placing Eritrea's independence as the subject of compromise it has objectively betrayed, and is working hard to liquidate the cause of independence the Eritrean people have been fighting for all along.

c) has betrayed our revolution and renounced the armed method of struggle by stating:

--the antagonistic contradiction between our revolution and Ethiopian colonialism and its sustainers modern revisionism, imperialism, Zionism and internal reaction should be resolved by peaceful means instead of through the force of arms and

--by officially declaring that "the continuation or the further intensification" of the just armed struggle for liberation our people waged for the past 17 years and are still waging unrelentlessly "is not for the interest of the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia".

a) has violated the democratic rights of all members of the EPLF by making a reactionary attempt to impose, through deception and threats, the openly counter-revolutionary strategy and resolution it is charting, without conducting any studies, consultations and dialogues among the masses of fighters and mass organizations

b) has violated the democratic rights of our organization, despite our strict observance of democratic centralism:

--because, without notifying our organization, it prevented the circulation of our publications among the masses and fighters instead of distributing them, along with its own views.

--because it ignored the views and objections that were made repeatedly by our organization and and instead of responding in a democratic and scientific way attempted to impose its incorrect, unscientific and counter-revolutionary analysis on our organizaton through deception and threats threats.

Thus the congress, realizing that the EPLF leadership is treacherous and counter-revolutionary, resolved to strongly condemn it.

ELF LEADERSHIP

1. We recognize it to be an out and out reactionary that has never represented the masses.

2. We realize that it has become an open agent of the revisionist Soviet Union and is committing counter-revolutionary crimes, and betrayals over our revolution and people in alliance with the not yet exposed counter-revolutionary EPLF leadership.

Therefore, the congress, realizing that the ELF leadership is treacherous and counter-revolutionary, resolved to strongly condemn it.

"THIRD FORCE"

The congress strongly condemns the treacherous and counter-revolutionary Sabbe Clique for its backward and divisive exhortation and its activities to create a "third force" to strangle the Eritrean revolution using the fund and material collected in the name of the Eritrean people and for its ties with U.S.-led imperialism and reactionary Arab countries. The congress fully supports the opposition and condemnation voiced by the entire Eritrean people and the fighters of the EPLF and ELF against this traitor and counter-revolutionary clique and calls upon them to persist on it.

TO THE FIGHTERS OF THE EPLF

The congress hails the heroic and relentless struggle and the unprecedented victories the fighters of the EPLF are scoring against Ethiopian colonialism and its sustainers, U.S.-led imperialism, Zionism, the Soviet Union, Cuba and other revisionist countries as well as internal reaction. While encouraging them to persist on the armed struggle until our people attain their full independence, the congress calls upon them:

a) to condemn and expose the counter-revolutionary leadership of the EPLF which, for the sake of its own bourgeois class interest and acting in alliance with the counter-revolutionary leadership of the ELF, as a running dog of Soviet revisionism, is working feverishly to have the Eritrean people capitulate in front of their enemies.

b) to struggle together with the fighters of the ELF against the two treacherous leaderships (EPLF, ELF) by lining them parallel with the internal reaction and Ethiopian colonialism and its sustainers.

TO ALL MASS ORGANIZATIONS OF EPLF

The congress calls upon all the mass organizations of EPLF to condemn and expose the counter-revolutionary leadership of the EPLF and the counter-revolutionary ELF leadership, for their attempt to force the Eritrean people to capitulate in front t)f their enemies.

TO ALL FIGHTERS OF ELF

The congress hails the heroic and relentless struggle and the victories the fighters of the ELF are scoring against Ethiopian colonialism and its sustainers, U.S.-led imperialism, Zionism, Soviet Union, Cuba, and other revisionist countries and internal reaction. While encouraging them to persist on the armed struggle until our people attain full independence, the congress calls upon them:

a. to condemn and expose the counter-revolutionary ELF leadership which for the sake of its own class interest, and acting in alliance with the counter-revolutionary EPLF leadership, as a running dog of Soviet revisionism, is working feverishly to have the Eritrean people capitulate in front of their enemies.

b. to struggle together with the fighters of the EPLF against the two treacherous leaderships (EPLF, ELF) by lining them parallel with the internal reaction and Ethiopian colonialism and its sustainers.

TO THE ENTIRE ERITREAN MASSES

The congress calls upon the broad Eritrean masses to condemn and struggle against the counter-revolutionary leaderships of EPLF and ELF, along with the primary enemies, because they have for their own class interest capitulated to the revisionist Soviet Union and betrayed the just and anti-colonial struggle for which the Eritrean people rose in arms and have shed their blood for the last 17 years by attempting to divert the Eritrean people from the correct revolutionary path of liberation (protracted armed struggle).

TO ALL ERITREAN MARXIST-LENINISTS

The congress calls upon all Eritrean Marxist-Leninists:

a) to be in the forefront of the broad masses and fighters in exposing and condemning the treacherous leaderships of the EPLF and ELF which are working actively to put our people and revolution under the control of the Soviet revisionists and its puppets.

b) to vigorously and persistently work to fulfill their historic mission, realizing that it is only a vanguard party of the proletariat that can safeguard the gains of the revolution attained through unparalleled sacrifice and struggle of our people and to save and guarantee the continuity of our revolution by extricating it from the quagmire of modern revisionism and enable our people to attain full independence and liberation.

ETHIOPIA

The congress strongly condemns

a) the fascist military government of Ethiopia who utilizing its ties with U.S. imperialism, European imperialist countries and Zionist Israel, and the military, economic and political support from revisionist Soviet Union, Cuba and other revisionist countries is pursuing the policy of:

--colonial and expansionist designs

--unleashing fascistic repression against the Eritrean people

--attempts to pit the Ethiopian peasant masses, through compulsion and deception, against the Eritrean masses under various labels ("voluntary army", "people's militia", "flame", "liberation army", etc.)

--we also condemn the fascist junta for -- its conspiracy of "peaceful solution" designed to cover-up its defeats, to confuse the people of Eritrea, Ethiopia and the world and to split the Eritrean revolution.

--the total denial of the democratic rights of the broad Ethiopian masses and the fascistic repression, massacres and terrorism it is perpetrating against progressive Ethiopians.

a) The congress supports the struggle of the Ethiopian masses and their progressive organizations to smash the existing fascist regime and build a people's democratic state in its place.

b) We support all the progressive and democratic movements of the oppressed nationalities in Ethiopia.

c) We condemn the counter-revolutionary activities of the feudalists and other reactionaries.

SOVIET UNION AND CUBA

The congress condemns the revisionist Soviet Union, its puppet revisionist countries, parties and organizations realizing that they are part of the camp of counter-revolution and for:

a) supplying the fascist Dergue with arms, mercenary troops, economic, political, ideological and diplomatic support to crush the just and revolutionary national liberation struggle of the Eritrean masses and liquidate the democratic struggle of the Ethiopian masses.

b) the counter-revolutionary role they are playing on the political, ideological, military and economic fields against the socialist countries, the national liberation struggles and the international communist movement.

The congress, realizing that without struggling against right opportunism, and revisionism one cannot fight colonialism and imperialism, resolves to fight modern revisionism in all fields.

INTERNATIONAL RESOLUTIONS

The congress:

a) condemns the reactionary attempts of the counter-revolutionary camp, led by the U.S. imperialists and Soviet revisionists, to crush the national liberation movements in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa.

b) supports the national liberation struggles of the Zimbabwean, Azanian and Namibian peoples.

c) supports the heroic struggle of the people of Palestine against imperialism, Zionism, revisionism and for the establishment of a democratic Palestine. It strongly condemns the Sadat treachery, which is concocted by imperialists, revisionists and their puppets, against the Palestinian revolution and the struggle of the rest of the oppressed Arab peoples.

d) supports the revolutionary struggle of the people of Oman against imperialism, its client state of Kabus and the Iranian aggression.

e) supports the national liberation struggle of the people of Western Sahara.

f) supports the national liberation struggle of the people of East Timor.

g) supports the national liberation struggles in Southeast Asia (Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, etc.).

h) supports the struggle of the Puerto Rican people for independence and liberation.

i) supports the struggle of the people of the world in general and that of Africa, Asia and Latin America in particular against colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism and revisionism.

j) supports the struggle of the revolutionary and democratic forces in the capitalist countries in general and that of the workers movement and the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed nationalities in the United States in particular.

k) expresses its gratitude to all countries and organizations that support the Eritrean revolution.

l) calls upon all socialist and progressive countries and organizations to oppose the fascist Dergue and support the just struggle of the Eritrean people.

With the spirit of revolutionary vigor, EFLNA has set out to thoroughly implement these revolutionary resolutions. As a first step, we have published a document entitled Eritrea: Revolution or Capitulation in which the basic differences we hold with the EPLF leadership are underlined.

The resolutions passed at EFLNA's 9th congress deal with the burning questions of our revolution and the concrete condition prevailing in our country. The present situation in Eritrea necessitates the clear identification of the friends and enemies of our revolution, a stiff resistance to the large scale Soviet-Ethiopian aggression by preparing the masses militarily, politically and ideologically and firmly upholding the banner of protracted people's war to achieve complete national independence. The Soviet revisionists have openly declared themselves enemies of our revolution and are in collaboration with the Ethiopian fascist junta engaged in a genocidal campaign to drown our people's struggle in blood. In light of this, our people's revolution is met with the task of identifying the Soviet-led modern revisionists as one of the primary enemies of our revolution and put up a resolute struggle against them militarily, politically and ideologically. This is indisputably the burning question of our revolution. The masses having vividly witnessed the ugly face of Soviet revisionism with their own eyes have questioned its "socialism", and have developed a deep hatred towards it. The objective condition in our revolution, the sentiment and demand of the masses thus, demands the question of the Soviet revisionism as our enemy to be taken up for solution.

However, the supposedly leader of the Eritrean revolution -- the EPLF leadership -- has failed to appropriately answer the burning question and is instead following a capitulationist line by declaring Soviet revisionism "the strategic ally" of the Eritrean revolution. Consequently, the EPLF leadership has also made other major errors on questions of principle and strategy. Denying the fascist nature of the Dergue it has begun to regard it an an anti-imperialist regime. Furthermore declaring "the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia is not in the interests" of both the peoples of the two countries, it has stated its willingness to sit for negotiations with the fascist Dergue without precondition.

Basing ourselves on these fundamental differences we hold with the EPLF leadership, we have resolved to condemn it in our 9th congress. We took this correct decision after making a thorough study of the questions that separate us with the EPLF leadership on the basis of a concrete assessment of the situation in our struggle (which through delegates we constantly made an eye witness account of) as well as summing up our experience with the EPLF and the internal struggle we waged. We have acted in accordance with the objective condition of our revolution and after exhausting all methods of internal struggle.

The questions we have raised are timely questions which our people are through bitter experience raising. In standing bold against the capitulationist line of the EPLF leadership, we are therefore marching forward shoulder to shoulder with our people.

We have called on the broad masses of our people and the heroic fighters to be on guard and not to fall prey to the trap of the traitors. Through 17 years of persistent armed struggle and enormous sacrifices our people have scored unprecedented victories bringing the just struggle closer to its complete victory. By imposing their capitulationist line on the fighters and the people the leaders of the two fronts (EPLF and ELF) are, however, trying to snatch away from them the fruits earned through a lot of sacrifice. We have thus called on our people, with Eritrean Marxist-Leninists in the forefront, to defend the gains of the revolution, to persevere on the glorious road of armed struggle they have been persisting on and close the door for capitulation by exposing the capitulationists and forcefully directing all their guns against all the internal and external enemies.

EFLNA's 9th congress has resolved to expose and wage an uncompromising struggle against the line of capitulation which constitutes the main internal danger in the ranks of our liberation movement. Against our external enemies, Ethiopian colonialism, Soviet-led modern revisionism, U.S. imperialism, Zionism as well as their internal appendages, EFLNA will put up a tough struggle. The 9th Congress has a clear path forward -- the path of struggle through which our mass organization will be able to contribute its share to our people's revolutionary struggle. End.

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AEWNA Holds Successful Congress

(The following article appeared in Eritrea in Struggle, newsletter of Eritreans For Liberation In North America, September-November, 1978.)

The second Congress of the Association of Eritrean Women in North America (AEWNA) was successfully convened on August 20, 1978 in Washington, D. C. The Congress was attended by over 70 members from all parts of the U.S. and Canada. The Congress held its deliberations with the presentation of the report of the Central Committee of AEWNA, the various chapters and study groups and an eye witness report on the situation from two women delegates to the First 'Congress of the Association of Eritrean Students held in Keren, Eritrea. Vigorous discussions took place on the burning questions facing the Eritrean revolution, the danger of Soviet-led revisionism and the capitulationist line of the EPLF leadership.

The Congress, summing up the internal struggle waged by AEWNA and EFLNA against the erroneous line of the EPLF leadership, concluded correctly that the EPLF leadership has capitulated to Soviet-led revisionism and betrayed the struggle of the Eritrean people for national independence. It resolved to condemn the capitulationist leadership of EPLF and break off all organizational links with it. The AEWNA resolved to expose this capitulationist line of the "leaders" of the Eritrean revolution and uphold the revolutionary tradition of the fighting Eritrean masses to wage unrelenting struggle against all internal and external enemies of the Eritrean revolution, i.e. U.S.-led imperialism, Soviet-led revisionism, Zionism, the fascist Ethiopian occupationists and internal reactionaries. AEWNA resolved to continue its struggle under {he guidance of EFLNA and unanimously passed the same political resolutions as EFLNA on all the major questions. It resolved to intensify the important task of raising the political consciousness of its members and their active participation in the struggle to expose the capitulationist EPLF leadership, and to organize and politicize Eritrean women based on a correct revolutionary line. With the successful conclusion of its Second Congress, AEWNA emerged more determined to resolutely organize its ranks for continuing on the road of revolution and to mercilessly expose the treacheries of the EPLF capitulationists. Correctly concluding that the emancipation of Eritrean women cannot be brought about without the complete liberation of the entire Eritrean people from colonialism, imperialism, revisionism, and all reaction, AEWNA resolved to contribute its share in this protracted struggle. End.

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Guardian's Opportunism Exposed

(Reprinted from Eritrea in Struggle, newsletter of Eritreans for Liberation in North America, Sept.-Nov. 1978.)

In its October 25, 1978 issue, the Guardianhas openly declared its all out support for the capitulationist leadership of the EPLF. Endorsing the capitulationist line of the EPLF leadership, it has stated, "the Guardian has long supported the Eritrean people's struggle and continues to support its vanguard organization the EPLF". At a time when the EPLF leadership has shamefully capitulated to the Soviet-led revisionists and betrayed the struggle of the Eritrean people against their main enemies -- U.S. imperialism, Soviet revisionism and its puppet Ethiopian occupationists, the Guardian is openly collaborating in glorifying this capitulationism, and in slandering EFLNA which is militantly upholding the revolutionary aspirations of the Eritrean people.

The Guardian printed an interview with the representative of the EPLF's capitulationist leadership, supposedly to clarify EPLF's stand on various important questions including the differences between EFLNA and the EPLF leadership. Knowing full well that our differences with the EPLF leadership hinge on the strategic question of correctly identifying the enemies and friends of the Eritrean revolution, the Guardian deliberately avoids raising this question in the interview. The Guardian knowingly collaborated with the representative of the capitulationist EPLF leadership to keep silent on the most crucial question facing the Eritrean revolution. The differences that arose between our organization and the EPLF leadership are on fundamental questions of principle and strategy. (EFLNA has laid down its position on its differences with the EPLF leadership in its special pamphlet Eritrea: Revolution or Capitulation-- October 1978.)

To correctly identify the friends and enemies of the revolution is decisive in the struggle to chart out correct strategy and tactic. It is only when we identify our real enemies from real friends that our revolution can succeed. Because the EPLF leadership has made a grave strategic error by identifying the sworn enemies of our revolution -- the Soviet-led revisionists -- as "the strategic friends of the Eritrean people", it has also departed from the revolutionary line on other major questions such as the question of peaceful solution, and on the characterization of the nature of the Ethiopian junta. EFLNA maintains that the enemies of our revolution are the fascist Ethiopian occupationists and their masters Soviet-led revisionism and U.S.-led imperialism and all reaction. The EPLF leadership, on the other hand, has shamelessly embraced the Soviet, Cuban and other revisionist countries, as the "strategic friends of the Eritrean revolution". The EPLF leadership has gone as far as denying and at times justifying the atrocious crimes of the Soviet Union and the Cuban mercenary troops against our people. This is what the EPLF leadership has to say about Soviet-led revisionist counter-revolutionary aggression in Eritrea and their role in consolidating fascism in Ethiopia.

"... basing themselves on the change that was brought about by the heroic Eritrean revolution and the popular movement of the broad Ethiopian masses, and the steps that the Dergue was forced to take, and in order to encourage an anti-imperialist Ethiopiaand to oppose the intrigues and machinations of imperialism and forces of reaction in this region, they (the so-called socialist countries --ed.) have taken a wrong stand directly against our revolution by supporting the Dergue not only politically but also by supplying it with massive weapons and other military assistance", (emphasis ours) (Vanguard, Vol. 3, No. 5, June 1978).

While it is absolutely clear that the Soviet-led revisionists are sworn enemies of our revolution and have repeatedly declared their commitment to fully back the fascist junta in militarily crushing the Eritrean revolution and are also attempting to subjugate our people through political deception, the EPLF leadership maintains that, "when this question (Eritrean question) became clear to the socialist countries (read revisionist -- ed.) the stand they have taken to resolve the complicated political situation is a peaceful solution to the question of the Eritrean revolution" (Vanguard, Vol. 3, No. 7, July 1978). This is an incorrect assessment and aims at blindfolding not only world public opinion but primarily the Eritrean people on whom the EPLF leadership is frantically attempting to impose its capitulationist line by covering for and white washing the continuing crimes of the Soviet-led revisionists against our people. It is an attempt to ideologically disarm the fighting Eritrean masses from waging an unrelenting struggle against the Soviet-led revisionists and thus prepare conditions for complete capitulation. Dismissing as a mete error the two years of counterrevolutionary role of the Soviet-led revisionists in Eritrea, the EPLF leadership warns the people through this conclusive statement "... we have never for any reason considered the Soviet Union as our enemy, as an imperialist force, as a capitalist system and as a counter-revolutionary force" and anyone who says so is "anarchist" and "adventurist". (EPLF's message to EFLNA's 9th Congress)

Thus, on such fundamental questions of principle and strategy as to who is the target of the revolution, there can be no middle road. The EPLF has clearly and unconditionally capitulated to the Soviet-led revisionists and has betrayed the interests of the Eritrean peoples national liberation struggle.

The Guardian in supporting the capitulationist leadership of EPLF -- has only further exposed its opportunist stand on the Soviet Union and objectively stands against the struggle of the Eritrean people for genuine independence and democracy.

Furthermore, in the interview mentioned above the Guardian asks the representative of the capitulationist EPLF leadership to clarify EPLF's characterization of the Dergue (the military junta in Ethiopia). Despite his "sophisticated" attempt to avoid answering the basic question, the EPLF representative further exposed that EPLF leadership has in fact reversed the correct verdict on the Dergue as a fascist puppet regime in the service of imperialism. Because the EPLF leadership has capitulated to the pressures of Soviet-led revisionists, they had to tone down their attacks on the fascist Ethiopian occupationists, not only that, but they are portraying the fascist junta as an anti-imperialist regime. In the official organ Vanguard, the EPLF's Vice-Secretary General presented the EPLF leadership's analysis of the Dergue -- which is a totally revisionist characterization of the nature of the fascist Ethiopian regime. He characterized it as a regime of the petty bourgeoisie, as a vacillating force that under the pressure of the Ethiopian masses has finally cut-off its ties with imperialism, Zionism and reaction and strengthened its relations with the "socialist" countries.

Similarly, in the Guardian interview the representative of the capitulationist EPLF leadership who does not use the term fascist to characterize the Dergue, evades the correct class analysis of the fascist junta. The EPLF representative rumbles about how the Dergue came to power as a result of the Eritrean people's national liberation struggle and the Ethiopian masses democratic movement, which in itself is an utterly incorrect and misleading answer. The fascist Dergue came to power and consolidated its rule through the full backing of the U.S. imperialists and Israeli Zionists and later the Soviet-led revisionists in order to crush the Eritrean people's national liberation struggle and the democratic movement of the Ethiopian people which taken together had thoroughly shaken the foundations of Haile Selassie's feudal regime. The EPLF leadership who wants to deny the fact that the Dergue is a fascist dictatorship of the comprador and bureaucrat bourgeoisie presents the Dergue as a regime that is making certain reforms like nationalization of banks and land reform. While the objective facts in Ethiopia show that the very existence of the fascist regime and its continued occupation of Eritrea has been made possible primarily through the massive military, economic and political support of Soviet-led revisionism and also the backing of U.S. led imperialism, the EPLF leadership maintains that the fascist Dergue has cut off its ties with imperialism. Even if the Dergue broke its ties with U.S. led imperialism, its continued dependence on Soviet-led revisionists negates the so-called anti-imperialism of the Dergue. In the Guardian interview the EPLF representative makes a futile attempt to discuss the nature of the Dergue without mentioning the fascist and puppet nature of the Ethiopian regime and whose interest it is serving in Ethiopia, Eritrea and the region.

It's clear that the, EPLF leadership is resorting to such maneuvers in order to facilitate its capitulation. The Guardian's present glorification of this capitulation only reaffirms that the Guardian always had an opporunist and vacillating position on the fascist junta and its revisionist Soviet, Cuban masters. (Articles by Jack Smith -- Guardian, March 8, 15, 22, 1978.)

Continuing with the interview, on the question of peaceful negotiation with the Ethiopian occupationists the EPLF representative attempts to gloss over its capitulationist line. The EPLF-ELF June 29, 1978 joint press release which stated, "the continuation and intensification of the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia does not serve the interests of the two peoples and their victories," which is in itself a defeatist line and called for peaceful negotiation with the junta without any preconditions. What this means is that the Eritrean revolution will withdraw its demand for independence. This is totally against the interests of the Eritrean people who have shed their blood for the past 17 years for the uncompromisable demand for national independence. Any negotiation without the precondition that the Ethiopian occupationists should recognize unconditionally the Eritrean people's right to independence -- the struggle of the Eritrean people -- would be in vain. This is why we say that when the leadership of EPLF and ELF declare that they are ready to negotiate without preconditions it is sheer betrayal.

In the Guardian interview the EPLF representative hides the fact that the EPLF leadership has already held three secret negotiations with the fascist Dergue. Even the Guardian who now shamelessly covers for the the EPLF leadership's betrayal of this principle, correctly said in its August 16, 1978 issue -- "Theonly basis for peace in Eritrea ... outside of a clearcut military victory for the liberation forces is recognition of Eritrea's right to self-determination andindependence. Once this is recognized we have no doubt a people's government in Eritrea would be willing to enter into negotiations with the Ethiopian government to settle outstanding matters. Recognitionof the right of self-determination and independenceis essential, however, before any negotiation canbegin or any 'political solution' can be worked out. Indeed Ethiopia itself says it is interested in negotiations leading to a political solution -- but unlessthese fundamental rights are granted, the only thingthe Eritreans are being asked to negotiate is theirfreedom. Ethiopia has so far scoffed at these rights" (our emphasis). Today, Ethiopia still "scoffs at these rights"; it is only the EPLF leadership who has betrayed these principles and has chosen to negotiate away the Eritrean people's freedom. The EPLF leadership has already held three secret meetings with the fascist Dergue, without the Dergue's recognition of Eritrean independence and at a time when the fascist junta and its revisionist masters are stubbornly insisting that the only "Marxist" solution to the Eritrean question is regional autonomy, (admitted by EPLF in its Vanguard special issue July 1978). How is it then that the Guardian has within a matter ofless than two months reversed its stand on this question to support the capitulationist line of EPLF leadership?

The EPLF representative states conclusively "while in the field we are making efforts to organize the Eritrean people and to prepare them for a long and protracted war, on the international level we will adopt tactics as we see fit in order to gain support for our just cause". The representative of the capitulationist EPLF leadership vainly tries to present the changes in EPLF's line as mere "tactics on the international level". However, EPLF's leadership is not merely following a bankrupt foreign policy but is desperately attempting to step by step impose its capitulation to Soviet-led revisionism on the Eritrean people by gradually disarming them ideologically. Amongst the Eritrean masses -- it's disseminating the defeatist line of "the continuation and intensification of the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia is not in the interests of both peoples", "we cannot continue the armed struggle without outside support", we cannot fight against everybody", etc. The EPLF leadership may try to deceive certain people that its policy to refer to the Soviet-led revisionists as socialist countries and as strategic allies of the Eritrean revolution, and the change it has made in its characterization of the fascist Ethiopian junta as a diplomatic tactic in the international level, but it cannot deceive us and the progressive forces of the world.

In the Guardian interview, the representative of the capitulationist leadership of the EPLF, of course, could not go into all these basic differences we hold with the EPLF leadership for that would be exposing its own opportunism and capitulation. Nevertheless, the Guardian who knows very well what the position of our organization is, has purposely endorsed the shallow and evasive reply of the EPLF representative in order to confuse public opinion. The Guardian, if it had any sense of principle should have at least printed the views of our organization as presented to them by our representative. But the Guardian has further exposed itself by actually resorting to outright lies and fabrications in order to pursue its opportunist collaboration with the capitulationist leadership of EPLF.

In another article of the same issue (October 25,1978) entitled "Eritrean Students Firmly Support EPLF", the Guardian attacks our organization by fabricating reports that claim "that the majority of the members now reject and criticize the AESNA leadership and the recent resolution" and that "they call the EPLF the sole vanguard" of the Eritrean independence struggle. The Guardian cites names of various chapters in which the entire or majority of the membership allegedly "have repudiated the anti-EPLF position". We had no illusion about the fact that careerist and opportunist elements would jump out after the conclusion of our historic 9th Congress. Those who left the organization recently are a conglomerate of various elements among which are a number of opportunists and careerists who have used this opportune time to forward their interests by collaborating with the EPLF capitulationist leadership. However, by providing a baseless "factual data" the Guardian tries to give the impression that the EPLF leadership has a strong following among EFLNA members. For example, the Guardian claims that in New York City "30 out of 40 members are behind the EPLF". This is an outright fabrication. The number given by the Guardian doesn't correspond with the actual number of our New York chapter membership. The Guardian says that "all but two in San Francisco and 23 of 30 in Seattle are behind the EPLF". This is also an outright lie. Just to show how low the tactics of the Guardian are -- they extremely exaggerated the number of members in the Seattle chapter in order to say that a large number have left EFLNA. "In Jefferson, Norman, Oklahoma and small mid-western chapters" the Guardian says, "the entire membership have repudiated the 'anti-EPLF position". This also is complete fabrication. In these above named midwestern cities and elsewhere although some elements among whom are pro-EPLF leadership opportunists have left, EFLNA study groups and chapters are militantly carrying out their organizational tasks. That the majority of EFLNA's members are vigorously implementing the revolutionary resolutions passed at our historic 9th Congress is a fact. The Guardian cannot change it through lies and fabrications.

Here, we have factually refuted the Guardian's outright lies that "the majority of members now reject and criticize the AESNA leadership and the recent resolution". However, we also would like to make the point that the most important measurement of whether an organization is revolutionary or not is not the number of its members but its political strength. EFLNA is a politically mature mass organization, and this is being and will be proven by the correct line it is following as well as by its daily practical activities.

The Guardian has degenerated too low for words, for we see no excuse for their fabrication of these so-called facts which they claim to have obtained from sources "within the organization". However, on the other hand we are not surprised. It was to be expected that, if at all the EPLF capitulationist leadership could solicit the support of some organization in the U.S. the most likely is the Guardian. The Guardian is itself a defender and apologist of the Soviet and Cuban aggression against the Eritrean people. Ever since the Cuban mercenary troops intervened in Eritrea to back the fascist Ethiopian junta in its genocidal campaign against the Eritrean people, the Guardian has either kept silent or a number of times tried to apologize for the presence of Cuban mercenaries in Eritrea and Ethiopia. It has even suppressed actual reports of Cuban atrocities in Eritrea. Thus it is no wonder that on October 25 it can openly hail the capitulationist leadership of EPLF and launch a campaign against EFLNA and its revolutionary position. End.

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The Palestinian People Will Never Submit to Carter's Sinister "Peace" Talks

The Israeli Zionists and the reactionaries of the Sadat government of Egypt are presently meeting in Washington to continue the Camp David "peace" negotiations under the close supervision of Carter, the U.S. imperialist mastermind of this colossal fraud. The Camp David accords, demagogically hailed as a great breakthrough for peace in the Middle East, actually legitimze and perpetuate the U.S.-backed Zionist occupation of Arab territory and deny the Palestinian people their right to their homeland and to self-determination, the crucial issue that must be resolved for peace to be established in the Middle East. These accords are a maneuver by U.S. imperialism and its hired assassins, the Zionists, to conceal the reorganization and intensification of the Zionist military presence in the Arab world in the interests of U.S. imperialism.

The current negotiations on the question of the Sinai Peninsula demonstrate the intrigues of Carter and Begin to expand Zionist and U.S. penetration into Arab territory, ard illustrate Sadat's capitulation to this. These reactionaries are now in the process of filling in the details of the anti-Arab Camp David accords. This includes plans for further militarization of the Sinai by the settler colonialists of Israel, with full U.S. backing. The plans for the Sinai include the promise of billions of U.S. dollars to Israel to build two new airfields within occupied Palestine and new defense lines to replace those to be abandoned by Israel on the Sinai. The agreement also calls for U. N. occupation troops on strategic areas of the Sinai to protect Israel's "security", as well as a limitation of Egyptian troops on Egypt's own territory. This will free Israel's hands on other fronts to commit more aggression against the Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian and other Arab peoples.

The Middle East "peace" negotiations are also a sinister plot of the U.S. imperialists, Begin, and Sadat to liquidate the Arab liberation movement by creating the illusion that the Arab peoples can rely on U.S. imperialism to solve their problems. The fraudulent nature of these negotiations is seen by the fact that while they are in progress, the U.S.-backed Zionists are carrying out their basic program of violence and genocide against the Palestinian (and Lebanese) people. In the middle of the "peace" negotiations in Washington, the Zionists brazenly announced their plans to expand their settlements on the West Bank. The Palestinian people, not to be taken in by the sham "peace" negotiations, are answering the attacks of U.S. imperialism and Israeli Zionism with a broad movement of strikes and demonstrations, and the escalation of the armed actions of the Palestinian liberation fighters.

The Camp David accord on the West Bank and Gaza Strip areas guarantees and legitimizes Israeli military occupation, granting to the Zionists "specified security locations." While assuring that actual political power based on military control remains in the Zionists' hands, the Camp David accord bandies around demagogic phrases such as "full autonomy", "self-governing authority"and "legitimate rights of the Palestinian people". In fact, the Carter-Begin-Sadat accord has nothing whatsoever to do with the restoration to the Palestinian people of their homeland. The true representatives of the Palestinian people, the Palestine Liberation Organization, are excluded from having any say in the future of the Palestinian people, while a lackey "self-governing authority" under the thumb of Israel, Egypt and Jordan, with U.S. imperialism behind them all, would exercise fascist rule over the Palestinian people. The so-called "peace" negotiations based on the negation of Arab rights and principles, and the aggressive, expansionist designs of the Zionists and U.S. imperialists, paves the way for further aggression against the Arab people.

The continuing Camp David "peace" talks and negotiations have only inspired the Israeli fascists to new deeds of aggression against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples. Before the ink had even dried on the "peace" agreements signed by Sadat and Begin at Camp David, the Israeli gangsters unleashed another wave of aggression against the Arab peoples. On October 6, Israeli gunboats bombarded Beirut with the aim of hitting at the Palestinian refugees living in camps in that city. Heavy casualties resulted from these genocidal attacks of the Israeli mass murderers. On October 10, Israeli gunboats shelled Palestinian guerrilla camps in southern Lebanon. Israeli jets have continuously, violated Lebanese airspace as a means of threatening another massive invasion into Lebanon like that in March when the Israeli Zionists slaughtered several thousands of Lebanese people and Palestinian refugees and drove one quarter million from their homes. These acts of Israeli aggression are directed from Washington and have as their objective the wiping out of the Palestinian liberation movement based in Lebanon and the occupation and control of more Arab territory.

The Zionists are also stepping up their expansionist program of settlements on the West Bank and Golan Heights. While negotiations were taking place in Washington, the Zionists announced that 60 million dollars would be allocated for the expansion of settlements on the West Bank. It was also recently announced that construction would soon begin on several new colonies for 10,000 Zionist settlers on the Golan Heights. These settlements are actually armed camps and forward posts of the aggressive Israeli fascists. Defending this program, Begin once again declared that the Zionists have the "full and inalienable right" to settle where they will on land stolen from the Arab people in the 1967 imperialist war of aggression. According to the Zionists they have every right to trample on the sovereignty of the Arab people. Carter made a great show of being angry at the Israeli Zionists about their plans to expand the settlements on the West Bank. But Carter himself provided the justification for increased aid to Israel no matter what, by promising to provide Israel with "any money necessary to fulfill the Camp David Accords". This shows what a sham the Camp David "peace" negotiations are. The Zionists, propped up and nurtured by the aid of U.S. imperialism, have no intention of ever giving up their occupation of any part of the Palestinian homeland. The artificial state of Israel, established on Palestinian territory by fascist terror and continually expanded by imperialist wars of aggression, is the base from which U.S. imperialism develops its hegemony in the Middle East in its rivalry with the Soviet Union for spheres of influence in that part of the world. The Zionists are the armed thugs who carry out the dirty work of U.S. imperialism of committing genocidal acts against the Arab people, occupying their territory and subjugating the Arab people to fascist rule. The Israeli Zionists directed by the U.S. imperialists will never be satiated. It is only the victory of the just struggles of the Palestinian and other Arab peoples that can liberate the Palestinian homeland and other Arab territory and thereby bring peace to the Middle East.

The Palestinian and other Arab peoples are daily showing their determination to smash the fascist Israeli state and oust U.S. imperialism from the Arab world through their growing protest movement and the constant pounding of the fascist Israeli occupiers by the armed actions of the Palestinian liberation fighters. On the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, students, workers and peasants are waging powerful strikes and demonstrations against the fascist occupation forces, and their plans for further judaisation of these Arab territories. Such strikes and demonstrations have recently taken place in Ramallah, Nablus, Jericho, Hebron, Gaza and elsewhere. These protests have been characterized by bloody clashes between the Arab people and the fascist troops who do not fail to unleash their savage terror in order to suppress the just struggle of the Arab people. The armed actions of the Palestinian liberation fighters are concentrated on police and military posts and stations in the heart of Israel itself. They have succeeded in wiping out numbers of Israeli police and soldiers and destroying buildings and military equipment of the fascist forces. During one week in October, more than 60 fascist troops were killed or wounded in armed actions. In the city of Jerusalem, units of Palestinian patriots broke through the security line of the Zionist forces and planted several bombs in a parking lot for police vehicles. In the resulting explosion three policemen were killed and many police cars destroyed. In the Zionist den, Tel Aviv, the patriotic forces plant ed several bombs in the entrance of a major Zionist establishment. The resulting explosion completely destroyed the building and wiped out several enemy forces. In a recent attack on a military training post near Haifa, Palestinian fighters killed 15 enemy troops in one action. From Lebanon, Palestinian guerillas fired on several Israeli naval vessels that had seized and searched a Lebanese cargo ship.

The raging protest movement of the masses of Palestinian and other Arab peoples and the armed actions of the Palestinian liberation fighters show that the fraudulent "peace" negotiations scheme is incapable of luring the Arab people away from the true path of armed struggle to smash the Israeli state and U.S. imperialist slavery in the Middle East to achieve their, liberation. End.

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The Support of the Albanian People Will Live Forever in the Conscience of the Palestinian People

Tirana, October 27 (ATA). Comrade Enver Hoxha has received the following letter from Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine and Supreme Commander of the Forces of the Palestinian Revolution:

Revolutionary greetings.

Under these critical circumstances the world is in today, at a time when the U.S.A. is escalating its aggressive actions menacing the world peace, the Camp David accord declared not long ago is another step of imperialist aggression not only against the Arab people and the Palestinian nation, but also against peace in the world and against the peoples of the whole world.

The persons who discussed at Camp David ignored the essence of the problem of the Middle East conflict-- the Palestinian question. The only organization which has the right to speak on this problem is the P. L. O., which is the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. They who discussed at Camp David forgot the integrity of the world, forgot the international principles which provide the peoples the right of self-determination and deprive the aggressors of the occupation of foreign territories through force. The Camp David accord was struck to consolidate the Zionist occupation of the Arab territories, Palestine included. In this way a present is given to the Israeli aggressors, instigating them in their aggressiveness but this "present" was given to the Israeli aggressors without the permission of the hosts, because they forgot the rights of the Palestinian people for self determination, independence, national sovereignty and the right to return to their territories.

We are convinced that our people are not alone in their struggle against the Israeli Zionists, but many friends from many countries of the world with the peoples of the socialist countries at the head will side with them.

Please, Comrade Enver, convey to your fighter-people, your brave and wise Party and government our thanks and consideration for the stands of your country towards our cause as well as the thanks of our people for the constant and permanent support for our people and their struggle in all fields. This support will always live in the conscience of the Palestinian people and of the Arab nation, these noble feelings and positions you manifest towards our people and revolution descend from the internationalist principles and your internationalist morality.

We will carry the revolution to victory. End.

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Albanian People Stand, As Always, On the Side of the Palestinian People and Their Heroic Struggle

Tirana, October 27 (ATA). The following is the letter Comrade Enver Hoxha addressed to the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine and Supreme Commander of the Forces of the Palestinian Revolution, Yasser Arafat:

On behalf of the Albanian people and in my own name, we thank you for the greetings you conveyed to us and your assessment concerning the stand of our people in support of the just Palestinian cause.

Our people have followed with great worry and pain the drama the friendly and fraternal Palestinian people have been experiencing for many years now. With profound indignation they have fiercely condemned the barbarous and inhuman aggression perpetrated by US imperialism and its gendarme in the Middle East, the state of Israel. The cause of the Palestinian people is very comprehensible and very near to our people, who have suffered long under the foreign domination and who have won their freedom and independence through much blood and sacrifices. We back up and support it with might and main. It is a sacred cause that no one has the right to violate or deny it.

The Palestinian people have attacked no one, while the others, the imperialists and the Zionists and their various allies and collaborators, want to grab them of the lands where they have lived through centuries, to leave them homeless, to deny their national identity, the right to live free and independent in their country.

The exterminating war being waged uninterruptedly against the Palestinian people by the Zionists and their imperialist supporters, the grave plots being hatched up every day at their expense, make indignant and revolt all the honest people in the world, all those to whom the cause of the freedom and independence are dear, all those who hate the national oppression andhe the exploitation of the working people.

Proceeding from the sincere love and friendship they cherish for the fraternal Arab peoples, the Party of Labor of Albania and the People's Socialist Republic of Albania have pointed out the danger presented by the numerous plots hatched up by the imperialists to split the Arab peoples and to withdraw them in diplomatic traps, in the so-called conferences under the patronage of the imperialists, etc., which aim to plunder the Arab territories, to sacrifice their rights, and above all, the denial of the Palestinian cause.

That is why, today, when the imperialists, the Zionists and their friends are hatching up new plots to stamp out the heroic struggle of the Palestinian people and to bury their just cause, the Albanian people stand as always close to them and support their superhuman efforts to defend their incontestable rights. No solution of the conflicts in the Middle East can be achieved without the expressed will of the Palestinian people and the less so by ignoring it and trampling it under foot. As long as the national legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to return to their homes grabbed by Israel will be denied, as long as the Israeli troops will maintain occupied, even an inch of the Arab territory, there cannot be peace in this area.

The difficulties that have emerged now in the liberation, anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist war of the Arab peoples are great. But we express our confidence that they may be surmounted and wish that a strong militant unity may be re-established between the Arab peoples which is also the basis of the defense of their rights and of the triumph over their Zionist and imperialist enemies.

Assuring you of the resolute support of the just cause of the Palestinian people and of their heroic struggle, please, convey to the fraternal Palestinian people the revolutionary greetings of the Albanian people, the feelings of the sympathy and love they cherish for them, as well as the firm confidence in their final victory. End.

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The Workers' and Peasants'Communist Party of Iran strengthening itself

Communique of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran, September 21, 1978

The Workers' Advocate has received a communique of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran, dated September 21 of this year, which explains the role of the Party in the large-scale denunciations of and protests against the barbaric and fascist rule of the Shah which have swept Iran over the past several months. The entire communique is printed below.

Our Party, along with the various other forces, has been taking part in the actions and demonstrations which have been carried out in Iran. Despite the fact that the Party is young, it has been present and active in these struggles.

In particular, from September 7 on, the Party took the initiative and succeeded in playing the leading role in the demonstrations of several thousands of people in the Djavadie, Naziabat, Kochtarga and Saddastga regions.

The Party waged an intense and large-scale campaign of denunciation of the fascist regime of the Shah, especially by means of leaflets. Copies of Toufan (Central Organ of the Party), leaflets of the Central Committee and leaflets of the regional Party committees were disseminated in large quantities throughout Iran.

In particular, on September 4, the Communist Youth Organization of the Party disseminated its organ under the title of "Long Live the People, Down with the Shah!", in which the Communist Youth vigorously denounced the cabinet changes and explained that Emany, the new Prime Minister, is a puppet of the regime. The Communist Youth showed that the measures taken, such as the closing of a few casinos, the change of calendar or the changing of a few ministers, in fact change nothing at all, and that the people can only overthrow the Shah's bloodthirsty regime through their struggles and by the heroic sacrifice of their sons.

In their leaflets, the Communist Youth write, among other things: "At the present time, our army is led by 60,000 U.S. military advisors and all the oil and the other natural resources are plundered and stolen by the Americans and the other imperialists. Our gas is stolen by the Soviet social-imperialists. At the same time, we see the Chinese arriving on the scene, also wanting their share of the Iranian 'pie'. All these forces are combining their efforts to spread the belief that freedom exists in Iran! But the changes in various ministries in Iran resemble the situation in Spain where, after the death of the dictator Franco, they tried to put forward his successor, the reactionary Juan Carlos, as a supporter of freedom and democracy. But the Spanish people never believed in this masquerade; in the same way, the Iranian people will never believe in it either!"

Further on, they state:

"In Iran, there is a large-scale economic crisis; in more than 200 factories, the workers are on strike and are rising up."

The Communist Youth are clarifying the situation by explaining, and issuing slogans which state that democracy under this regime is impossible. The Communist Youth are calling for the destruction of this regime and the convening of a people's tribunal to judge the Shah and his family. The leaflets of the of the Communist Youth explain: "The conscious workers in Iran have seen their road forward and know that under the leadership of their Party, the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran, they will go forward to victory, and that only this Party will enable them to build their army to achieve victory."

As a result of the work of the Party, wherever it was present the masses abandoned the religious slogans and took up the radical slogans of the Party and in several cities, the Party was able to be the main influence in the political climate of the city.

On the evening of September 7, in Tehran, the "29 Bahman Committee" distributed its leaflet No. 5 in all parts of one community, pointing out to the popular masses the orientation to be taken in the demonstrations the following day. On this day, during the demonstrations, our supporters were able to avert the great danger of clashing with the religious people, which could have given rise to a tragic battle.

On Friday, September 8, at Jale Square (Meydane Jale), another demonstration took place. In this demonstration, a second leaflet was distributed in which the Party issued a call to the religious people: Communists and religious people, we are all antifascists, we should not fight among ourselves.

In the course of this demonstration, the Party held the political leadership for a short period of time. Slogans which were anti-imperialist, and against the exploitation of man by man were shouted and taken up by the people. This demonstration, like many others, ended in a massacre. The Party's third leaflet was disseminated after the big massacre which involved over 3,500 deaths in Tehran. (At the Behechtezahra Cemetary, the comrades were able to see the numbers of over 3,500 officially killed.)

Our comrades saw 11 officers openly shot for refusing to obey orders. On Jale Square, they saw a soldier kill his commanding officer and hand his weapons over to the people! Five soldiers committed suicide in front of the people and three soldiers killed their commanding officers with their rifles and ran off. One general was lynched by the people.

Over these three days, at least 10,000 people were killed and 20,000 wounded. Naturally, in the course of such actions, some of our comrades and close sympathizers were killed. By their sacrifice, they showed the active role and the devotion of the communists.

In the north of the country, more than 30 persons from the same city, young Party sympathizers, were arrested.

The people were able to see that the advisors and trainers of the army were Israelis (who, for example, fired on the people from helicopters). "Commandos of Death" were sent from Israel to Iran and participated in the massacres of the population. In many areas of Tehran, where barricades were erected, where there was a high level of resistance against the army, the army fired their cannons and reduced the whole area to ruins. A portion of the barricades was erected at the initiative of our comrades.

The regime was able to murder a large number of its opponents in the streets, for, over the last eight months, as a result of the "mini-democratization", many of them had revealed themselves, and the regime knew them.

In Iran, the people's struggle will not cease. Neither the demagogy nor the massacres have broken their heroic struggle. In this trial, our Party is strengthening itself.

Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran 21/09/78 End.

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Vigorous Nationwide Campaign in Support of the People's Front of Chile

Throughout the month of September, 1978, the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists organized a vigorous campaign in support of the heroic anti-fascist struggle of the Chilean working class and people led by their People's Front. The campaign was conducted across the country in many major cities. Through the pages of The Workers' Advocate, through nationwide postering and leafleting, and through the distribution of A.N.CH.A. (Chilean Anti-Fascist News Agency, organ of the People's Front in the exterior) the news of the Chilean Resistance was spread among the American working class and people in the factories, communities and universities.

Under the slogan HAIL FIVE YEARS OF RESISTANCE TO FASCIST DICTATORSHIP IN CHILE the conspiracy of silence organized against the Chilean Resistance by U.S. imperialism, with the active collaboration of its revisionist and opportunist agents, suffered a big defeat. For many people it was the first time that they had heard of the resistance struggles of the Chilean people, of the strikes of the miners of El Teniente, of the struggle of the students in Santiago and the peasants of Colchagua, of the political protests against the junta and the May Day street demonstrations. It is the knowledge of these struggles which are inspiring the Chilean people.

The slogan UNITE TO RESIST THE U.S.-BACKED PINOCHET DICTATORSHIP clarified and explained to the American working class and people the firm basis of unity of the Chilean people. This unity is forged in the course of the struggle. It is forged around concrete actions and programs of the resistance. It is a unity which is forged not through negotiations and maneuvers but at the base of the struggles in the factories, universities, in the villages, etc. It is a unity not only against the fascist junta but the entire repressive apparatus backed up and maintained by U.S. imperialism. It is unity against the internal reactionaries and their external base of support, U.S. imperialism, against fascism and imperialism. This kind of unity of the Chilean people is firm and unbreakable.

The campaign also raised the slogan OPPOSE CARTER'S "HUMAN RIGHTS" FRAUD --TO REPLACE PINOCHET FASCISM WITH FREI'S "DEMOCRATIC" FASCISM. This is a slogan for vigilance on the part of the masses. Today in Chile it is the Resistance struggles of the masses which are bringing about the isolation of the fascist junta and its U.S. sponsors and leading to their defeat. Because of the sharp blows of the resistance the U.S. imperialists are trying to maneuver and intrigue under the signboard of Carter's "human rights" fraud. Lately the U.S. state has gone to the extent of making all sorts of demagogic statements about the Letelier murder by the junta, about the repression in Chile. It is seizing upon events which all progressive and anti-fascist people have known to be true since the coup d'etat in 1973, namely that the junta is a terroristic dictatorship. In carrying out the "human rights" fraud the U.S. state which installed the tyrant Pinochet is seeking to cover over its own crimes of yesterday and its continued backing of the regime today. But this is not all that Carter's "human rights" fraud consists of. It is also an active policy on the part of U.S. imperialism to try to split the Chilean Resistance. The U.S. is trying to prepare conditions to replace the much hated and exposed tyrant Pinochet with a new face who can more effectively serve the interests of U.S. imperialism. In this way U.S. imperialism hopes to be able to keep its entire repressive apparatus intact, while merely changing the appearance of the regime. The man picked by U.S. imperialism for this role is none other than the "democratic" fascist Eduardo Frei, the leader of the Christian Democratic Party and former President of Chile. Frei himself is the author of the infamous Gun Control Law which opened the doors to fascism in Chile. It was Frei who appeared on television after the coup to tell the people that the takeover by the military was necessary to get the country out of chaos. When he was the president he ordered the massacre at Puerto Montt, the butchery and repression at San Miguel and Puento Alto. Carter's "human rights" fraud is not against fascism and repression in Chile but is in actual fact a maneuver organized against the Chilean people. The Chilean Resistance movement cannot be developed without opposing this imperialist fraud.

The slogan SUPPORT THE PEOPLE'S FRONT, GIVE AN HOUR'S PAY FOR THE UNDERGROUND PRESS organized people to give active and concrete support to the Chilean Resistance. The People's Front was initiated six months after the coup by the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile. It takes as its starting point the interests of the masses. It is the seed of the anti-fascist united front. Its purpose is to organize the Resistance into a united powerful force. Standing in the forefront of the anti-fascist struggles, the Front has led countless battles against the fascist junta. It has reached out to the broadest sections of the Chilean people and organized and consolidated the various Resistance committees that have sprung up to oppose the Pinochet regime. It bases itself on the principles of Unity at the Base and Unity and Struggle. Its program calls for the realization of a truly anti-fascist and united government, a government which does not accept any remnants of the fascists, but is against the fascists. The People's Front holds as its position that only the armed struggle can defeat fascism and only the armed people can ensure that the anti-fascist government will be able to fulfill its mission. Because of fascist repression, the Resistance committees of the People's Front must conduct their work in the utmost secrecy. In order to keep the masses well informed of the activities of the Resistance committees, in order to assist the masses to formulate their demands, and in order to teach and organize the masses in the struggle, the People's Front is today developing the underground press as an important new weapon of the Resistance. This slogan called on all sections of the American working class and people to give active support to the Chilean Resistance through propaganda, and material support for the People's Front and its underground press.

Under the leadership of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, anti-fascists throughout the U.S. carried out propaganda and organizing in the communities, universities and factories. Over 57,000 pieces of revolutionary literature supporting the anti-fascist struggle of the Chilean people led by their People's Front were distributed. Workers actively participated in discussing the campaign and giving material support for the underground press. The comrades of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists explained the slogans to the masses and discussed with them the lessons to be learned from the Chilean people to serve the revolutionary struggle in the U.S.

Through the activity of the campaign, the role of the revisionist and opportunist conspiracy of silence against the Chilean Resistance can be seen. It is two-fold. On the one hand the revisionists and opportunists have opposed the Chilean Resistance led by the People's Front in order to facilitate Carter's "human rights" fraud being imposed on the Chilean people. At the same time their propaganda that in Chile there is only terror and no struggle has served to impose defeatism and pessimism on the American working class and people through the line that fascism is invincible, in this way they hope to cover up the defeats which the reformist and counter-revolutionary ''peaceful and parliamentary road to socialism" is suffering today at the hands of the Chilean people. This has been to facilitate U.S. imperialism in developing growing fascism in the U.S. With the nation-wide campaign of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists a sharp blow was hit at U.S. imperialism, the fascist Chilean junta and the revisionists and opportunists of all hues.

The entire campaign was concluded throughout the country with the holding of muss meetings in Boston, New York City, Buffalo, Cleveland, Seattle and the San Fransisco Bay area. Hundreds of anti-fascists from the U.S. as well as residents in the U.S. from Asia, Africa and Latin America along with Chileans exiled by the fascist Pinochet, militantly participated in meetings. In Chicago the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists supported a meeting organized by anti-fascist Chilean exiles where messages from the People's Front and the RCP of Chile to the people of North America were read. While this campaign has come to an end, the work of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists in support of the anti-fascist struggle of the Chilean people has not. Across the country, through the pages of The Workers' Advocate and the continued distribution of ANCHA, the support for the People's Front continues. End.

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THE CHILEAN PEOPLE ADVANCE IN THEIR STRUGGLES

During the month of September, there was extraordinary development in the continuous rise of the struggles of the Chilean people. On the one hand, the copper miners intensified their movement, and this led the fascist authorities -once again to open repression: they imposed martial law in several northern provinces and deployed military forces in the mining centers. The result of this new repressive onslaught was the imprisonment of dozens of workers' leaders, employees and supervisors, and those who had been confined to their homes in these inhospitable regions. Far from weakening the fighting spirit of the workers, these measures united them even more, and strengthened their resolve to continue the struggle and attain their goals.

On the other hand, solidarity with these workers has spread throughout the country, and every day they receive from all sides hundreds of expressions of solidarity with their struggle.

Furthermore, the copper workers are not the only ones engaged in struggle. In the south of the country also, in the province of Concepcion, 5,500 persons including employees at the Pacific; Steel Company began a movement similar to that of the copper miners, by refusing to eat meals or snacks in the canteens. This action is in protest against the company's indifference towards their repeated demands for wage increases.

In the face of these new and massive demonstrations of the people's repudiation of fascism's policy of starvation, the administration found itself forced to undertake a series of negotiations with the workers' representatives to deal with the issue of wages.

This new wave of protests and struggles has also affected the 13, 500 coal workers in the Lota region. For the first time since the coup d'etat, they have presented a list of demands, emphasizing the low wages earned by coal workers, which in some cases are even less than 50 pesos a day (less than $2.00 U.S.). Acting in concert with them, the textile workers of FIAP-Tome (province of Concepcion) and the Petrodow chemical factory workers also presented lists of demands for wage increases.

At the same time, in the universities and high schools, the anti-fascist demonstrations are every day more open and involve a greater number of students. This could be seen at a demonstration of solidarity with the people of Nicaragua and of condemnation of the pro-American Somoza regime, in Santiago. This demonstration was very quickly transformed into a vigorous denunciation of Pinochet's tyranny, denouncing the control of the university, the lack of autonomy, the repression and suffering, etc., and demanding freedom and a genuinely free, democratic and pluralist university.

Demonstrations such as this also took place at the Pedagogic Institute of the University of Chile, at the Law Faculty of the same university, and at the East Campus of the Catholic University.

In short, this situation of generalized activity which touches every section of our people, in both city and countryside, shows the level which the struggle and the examples of repudiation of the regime have reached in recent months.

However, for the junta, Chile is "an island of peace in a world of violence". At least this is the phrase which circulated in the dictatorship's propaganda organs in September, when they were "celebrating" the fifth anniversary of the bloody coup d'etat. It is a strange island of "peace" which has a curfew, a state of emergency, a state of siege in the northern provinces; which has leaders imprisoned or confined to their homes; which has jails full of political prisoners, with thousands of them missing; which has more than 20 per cent unemployment, with hundreds of thousands of people dying little by little of hunger, etc., etc.

It is clear that all these statements about peace and tranquility used by the junta and its pen-pushers are intended to obscure their serious internal and external problems, and above all to improve their international image and their relations with their master, U.S. imperialism. With these statements they are also trying to minimize the upsurge in the struggles of the people and the Resistance. End.

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Message of the People's Front of Chile to the American People

To the workers, revolutionaries and progressive American people;

To the organizations of solidarity with the Chilean people and their struggle;

To the exiles and Chilean workers and Latin American participants in the meeting of solidarity with the struggle of the Chilean people;

The People's Front of Chile addresses itself to you on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the bloody, fascist military coup perpetrated by the bourgeois Armed Forces in direct collaboration with the domestic oligarchy and American imperialism. It is not our intention on this occasion to relate or recount what this coup symbolized for the Chilean people and their trade unions and political organizations as regards the reduction or total loss of rights, liberty, and victories achieved through decades of stubborn struggle. Nor will we speak of the suffering, outrages, injustices and horrors that the Fascist Military Junta has caused our people. We think that these aspects of the Chilean cause are the best known to world public opinion.

But, on the other hand, we cannot let an opportunity like this go by without emphasizing that which in our judgement, and that of the revolutionaries and constantly increasing sectors of the Chilean people themselves, single out as the principal lesson of the bankrupt and tragic experience of the Popular Unity government and of the coup d'etat that put it to an end: that in countries like ours, dominated by imperialism, there exists no peaceful paths or roads to socialism, that imperialism and the ruling class don't cede power peacefully and voluntarily, and that to the contrary only the armed force of the people is a guarantee of victory against these principal enemies and the indispensable condition for the construction of a genuinely democratic, popular and revolutionary society.

Today, five years since the coup d'etat, the Pinochet dictatorship is going through a grave crisis manifested, among other things, by the ouster of the fascist General Leigh from all positions of power and by the pressure of American imperialism on the military junta, tending to find a "way out" or a "change" of the dictatorship before the explosion of the revolutionary wrath of the Chilean people impedes it.

The key factor in the internal crisis of the Pinochet dictatorship, and at the same time, in the acceleration of the maneuvering of the bourgeois opposition sponsored by imperialism that seeks to change the fate of the dictatorship without altering the fundamental basis of its rule in Chile, has been the growing mobilization of the people's struggles which in recent months has reached levels unknown in the first years of the dictatorship. Strikes, protests, street demonstrations, hunger strikes, the growth of the organizations and underground press, the growing co-ordination of the various organizations of the people's Resistance, etc., show us what we have accomplished. At this very moment, while giving this message to our meeting, there is developing in the great mine of Chuquicamata, in the north of the country, and which has developed for many weeks, an important and vast movement of protest against the dictatorship, known by the name of "the strike of the canteens" because of the refusal of thousands of workers to patronize the canteens of the employer. The military dictatorship has declared a State of Emergency in the entire area.

Dear Comrades and Friends:

The People's Front of Chile, the only organization of the Chilean Resistance, takes this opportunity to send its most fraternal salute, expressing its recognition of the solidarity work that you are carrying out for the Chilean Resistance, at the same time that we call for a re-doubling of our efforts for making always greater and better international support for the liberation struggle of the Chilean people, a most important complement to the struggle: that day by day is rising inside the country against those that oppress and exploit.

With certainty that the Chilean people's movement will achieve victory over the enemies, defeating the maneuvers of the imperialists/reactionaries and opportunists and destroying the chains that oppress, we shout with you:

DEATH TO FASCISM!

THE RESISTANCE WILL WIN!

LIBERTY TO THE PEOPLE!

THE ARMED PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE CRUSHED!

People's Front of Chile (Representative Abroad)

September, 1978 End.

(Translated from Spanish by The Workers' Advocate.)

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STATEMENT OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMINST PARTY OF CHILE

Faced with the trip to China of Hernan Cubillos, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Chilean dictatorship, and with the strengthening of the support of the Chinese revisionists for the Fascist Military Junta, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile denounces, once again, the present Chinese leaders for their open complicity and collaboration with the tyranny which oppresses our country.

In this recent trip to China, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the dictatorship, was received several times and during long hours by the known revisionists such as Teng Hsiao-ping and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of China, Huang Hua. In these meetings the Chinese revisionists and the Chilean fascists expressed warm phrases of mutual praise and both expressed agreement on many fundamental points of their international policies, as well as agreeing to intensify their relations and economic and cultural exchanges and permanent military missions.

In this manner, the Chinese revisionists have taken another step in their support for the Chilean military dictatorship, while on the other hand they sever all economic and military assistance to the heroic People's Socialist Republic of Albania.

This counter-revolutionary attitude of the Chinese revisionists is the product of their betrayal of Marxism-Leninism, their open and declared revisionism which, on the internal front, is expressed in their advances towards capitalist restoration and on the international front is expressed fundamentally in their desire to transform China into a superpower, for which purpose they apply the reactionary theory of three worlds, unite with the yankees, support the reactionaries and fascists throughout the world and do every thing possible to impede world revolution.

We also expose the hypocritical attitude of Soviet social-imperialism, master of contemporary revisionism, which today attempts to pass itself off as the "friend of the Chilean people", breaking diplomatic relations with Pinochet while at the same time both the U.S.S.R. and the countries which belong to the COMECON maintain economic relations with the Chilean dictatorship and, for example, openly support the dictatorship of Videla in Argentina, maintaining excellent diplomatic, political and economic relations with it. Our Party fights for the genuine liberation of our people and not to exchange one imperialism for another.

As well as denouncing all those who collaborate with the dictatorship, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile reiterates that the main enemy of our people continues to be U.S. imperialism, which imposed the present dictatorship and which is, during recent times, carrying out demagogic efforts to change the appearance of the dictatorship, maintaining its essence. We call on the people to not allow themselves to be fooled by the maneuvers of U.S. imperialism and to continue advancing behind the correct directive for the present period: Unity of the People to Overthrow the Dictatorship and Fight Imperialism!

Today, the Chilean Fascist Military Junta finds itself very much isolated, full of contradictions and confronted by a people which openly defies fascism. The present situation of upsurge of the popular Resistance in Chile must count on the support of all revolutionaries, patriots and anti-fascists of the whole world and no one, let alone the Chinese revisionists with their support for the dictatorship, will be able to impede the overthrow of the dictatorship. All those who collaborate with fascism will be treated as such by the people.

LET US FIGHT FOR THE COMPLETE ISOLATION OF THE DICTATORSHIP AND CONCRETELY SUPPORT THE RESISTANCE STRUGGLE WHICH OUR PEOPLE ARE DEVELOPING IN CHILE AND WHICH WILL BE THE MAIN FACTOR FOR THE OVERTHROW OF THE DICTATORSHIP!

International Commission of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile

October 26, 1978 End.

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Joint Declaration of PS(CNR), MAPU, JRR and the RCP of Chile

Strengthen the Support for the Chilean Resistence During the Fifth Year of the Counter-Revolutionary Coup D'Etat

On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the counter-revolutionary putsch which established the bloodiest and most brutal military dictatorship in Chile's history, the undersigned organizations declare:

1. That they offer the greatest homage to all the activists who have fallen in the struggle against the dictatorship during these five years, to the heroic resistance of our people, to all those who are struggling in clandestinity, who risk their lives every day. At the same time, they hail the recent mobilization and struggles of the masses of the people of our country, such as the copper miners' strikes, the strikes of the Huachipato workers, the demonstrations of the university students, the resumption of the hunger strike by the relatives of the "missing" prisoners, etc....

2. That the greatest homage we can give to our dead comrades and our people is for all the genuinely popular, democratic and revolutionary forces of Chile to continue to work for the construction of a fighting front against the dictatorship based on the worker-peasant alliance and led by the revolutionary proletariat. In order to make progress towards the construction of such a broad and powerful Anti-Dictatorial Front, the unity and convergence of all the revolutionary forces is absolutely indispensable and essential.

3. That only the independent, democratic and revolutionary struggle of the masses constitutes the road to victory, that it is only through the armed struggle of the people that we will be able to overthrow the dictatorship once and for all; and that it is only by establishing a revolutionary government led by the working class that we will be able to guarantee the the complete destruction of the dictatorial regime, the defeat of the monopoly bourgeoisie and imperial ism, and the uninterrupted march towards socialism.

4. That they therefore denounce the conciliationist, vacillating and reactionary character of the substitution schemes promoted by various sections of the bourgeoisie, particularly by those sections which are represented by the Freists. And they also denounce the reformist sections of the Chilean left who are carrying out a policy of capitulation and subordination to the Freist bourgeoisie, and of aggression and splitism towards the revolutionary forces.

5. That they call for the development of the most broad and militant unity against the dictatorship, and for an escalation of most active and resolute solidarity work for the People's Resistance. In particular, they call on all the French workers and people, all democratic and revolutionary sections of the people, to further strengthen their support for our people.

SUPPORT THE INDEPENDENT, DEMOCRATIC AND REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE OF THE MASSES AGAINST THE DICTATORSHIP! ! !

Committees in France of:

Socialist Party (NCR)

Revolutionary Communist Party of Chile

Radical Revolutionary Youth of Chile (Third Congress)

MAPU -- Chilean Workers' Party

Paris, September 11, 1978 End.

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FURTHER EXTENSION OF THE STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLES OF LATIN AMERICA AGAMST REACTION AND IMPERIALISM

(The following article appeared in the Albanian Telegraphic Agency (ATA), on October 30, 1978.)

The intensification of the political violence, the constant deepening of the economic crisis and the grave consequences for the people have brought about the growth of the dissatisfaction and opposition of the Latin American broad masses of the people against the fascist military dictatorships, as well as against imperialism, the U.S. one in particular. Numerous actions of protest of the working people, such as strikes and demonstrations of the proletariat, protest movements of the students, the struggle of the peasants for land etc., are taking place in many countries of Latin America. Besides, the struggle of the patriots in many countries, such as in Colombia, Brazil Bolivia, Chile, Nicaragua, etc., against the fascist regimes in power has assumed its highest form, that of the armed resistance, which keeps increasing.

In Colombia, the armed struggle during the recent months has witnessed a further increase. Units of the People's Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist-Leninist), have undertaken many armed actions, inflicting perceptible losses in men and military materials to the forces of the fascist regime of Bogota, which is maintained on foot with arms and "aid" by U.S. imperialism. The Colombian patriots are perpetrating actions in many provinces of the country, such as in Kordova, Antiokia, Santander and elsewhere.

The armed struggle against the fascist military dictatorship of Somoza, as well as against U.S. imperialism, which lurks behind it, is being waged powerfully in Nicaragua. Recently, as is already known, fierce clashes between the patriots and the police troops and of the National Guard of the fascist regime in power have taken place in Leon, Masaya, Chinandega, Esteli, etc.

The fascist troops resorted to most modern weapons against the patriots, tanks and fighter planes which were given to the regime of Somoza by the Washington bosses. In face of the increase of the resistance of the Nicaraguan people, the fascist dictatorship in power with the all-round help and support of U.S. imperialism, is taking other measures for the increase of the apparatus of fascist violence.

In Bolivia, the armed actions of the patriots are being intensified and have aroused panic in the ranks of the fascist regime of Juan Pereda. Thus recently in the Hungas Valteis region, 60 kilometers far from the capital, the Bolivian patriots laid an ambush to a patrol of the forces of the regime charged with a punative mission against the population, inflicting to it losses in men and materials, and catching many captives.

The political situation in Brazil speaks of an ever greater development and strengthening of the antifascist movement, which has swept the broad masses of the people and has caused a serious disturbance to the chieftains of the fascist military junta and to those who stand behind it. The armed struggle in that country is being extended in the rural areas in particular. The newspaper A Classe Operaria, organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil, wrote recently that it is several years now that the actions in the rural areas have gradually increased. Armed clashes between the peasants and their local and foreign exploiters have taken place in various zones of the country, such as in Pontas and Laeerda, Mato Greso and Gleba-Upiap, in Paragonimas and Bahia, even on the coast of Rio de Janeiro. This struggle, writes the newspaper, will keep growing, bringing about broader clashes thus interlacing them with the anti-imperialist struggle against exploitation and the fascist military dictatorship.

Likewise, the armed actions of the patriots in Chile and elsewhere even better show that the Latin American continent is boiling with the revolts and the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, peasantry and the broad working masses.

In order to suppress the opposition of the proletariat and of the broad working masses the military and fascist juntas, the reactionary regimes in these countries of Latin America, besides "the aid" of imperialism, and first and foremost the U.S. one, are increasing their military budgets from year to year. According to foreign press reports last year, for instance, Colombia increased 23.6 per cent its expenses for ' military aims, Chile -- 22 per cent, Bolivia -- 21 per cent, etc. End.

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The Armed Struggle of the Peasants of Brazil

For several years now, the peasants and agricultural workers of the Brazilian countryside, who have a tradition of taking up arms, have been intensifying their armed actions against the forces of the big landlords. There have been numerous reports of armed clashes between the peasants and local and foreign exploiters in various areas of the country, such as in Pontes and Laeerda, Mato Grosso, in Gleva Uniap, in Paragonimas, and other regions. In addition to these struggles, there are other areas of tension and powerful struggle, especially in San Francisco, Bahia and even on the coast of Rio de Janeiro. During the past ten years, the clashes between the peasants and the landlords have assumed great proportions in the Aragaia River Valley. The partisan war in this region has led the peasant movement to a higher level.

The armed struggle being waged by the peasants against the forces of the big landowners is a consequence of the sharp class contradictions in the Brazilian countryside between the tillers and the exploiters. Very large tracts of land are owned by a small handful of exploiters, while the vast majority of peasants have very small holdings. The peasants are savagely oppressed and exploited by the landowners.

This reality can be seen in the fact that today in Brazil there are 46 landowners with as much land as 2.62 million small holders. The fascist dictatorship in power is also leading the country towards sesmarias (the division of the country into big areas administered by rich families). This is the fruit of the policy dictated by the class interests of the local landowners, the bourgeoisie, the foreign capitalist groups and trusts which are penetrating deeper and deeper into the agriculture in Brazil.

The polarization and antagonism between those who do not possess land and the big landowners is increasing more and more. The process of the impoverishment and the proletarianization of the peasantry is being intensified. As a result of this the increasing tension and class struggle in the countryside is inevitable. The struggle against the landowners is bound to bring about new border clashes and the integration of the peasants into the anti-imperialist struggle (especially in the areas being plundered and occupied by the foreign monopolies), against the capitalist exploitation, against the military dictatorship, and the police and army of the fascism in power.

The situation at present in the Brazilian countryside was summed up in a recent article in A Classe Operaria, organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil, which pointed out that, "Fourteen years have elapsed since the Generals began sowing the wind all over the country, but they will harvest the storm." End.

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Violence and Terror Cannot Put Down the Struggle of the People of Guatemala

(The following article appeared in the Albanian Telegraphic Agency (ATA), on October 11, 1978.)

The newspaper Zeri i Popullit publishes an article on the new drive the struggle and the revolt of the laboring masses against the savage dictatorial regime has assumed in Guatemala. It mentions among other things, also the strike organized in the capital of Guatemala recently in token of protest against the grave situation which prevails over the country, against the savage oppression and exploitation by the fascist regime and condemns the terror and massacres of this regime against the strikers and demonstrators as a result of which 30 people were killed, 300 people got wounded and over 700 people were arrested. Implementing a profoundly reactionary and anti-people policy, the regime of the dictator Garcia, writes the newspaper, has channeled the country in the rails of the policy of the neo-colonialist interests of U.S. imperialism, has transformed Guatemala into a country of terror and violence, where poverty, the denial of most elementary rights, the heavy exploitation of the native population reign supreme.

The events in Guatemala, continues the newspaper, uncovers once more the sanguinary nature of the reactionary regimes, which enjoy the all-round support by the U.S. imperialists, and in various forms, that of the revisionists of all hues. The alliance of the Chinese revisionists with U.S. imperialism and the reactionary and fascist regimes is ever more clearly seen. The advocates of the theory of the "three worlds" not only keep silent about the fierce oppression and exploitation exercised on the peoples by the U.S. imperialists and by the reactionary regimes, but they go so far as to appeal to the working class and the working masses to unite with their oppressors, "their" bourgeoisie and imperialists!

The recent events in Guatemala clearly show that despite the savage fascist violence and terror, the people of Guatemala are determined to oppose to the end the reactionary regime in power. They will not withdraw from their road of struggle for genuine national liberation and social progress, stresses Zeri i Popullit in conclusion. End.

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COMMUNIST PARTY OF ENGLAND (MARXIST-LENINIST) HOLDS ITS FIRST CONGRESS

HISTORIC LANDMARK IN THE BUILDING OF THE PARTY OF THE PROLETARIAT

Statement of the National Executive of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist)

The Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) recently held its historic First Congress. The First Congress of the Party represents a most important landmark in the building of the Marxist-Leninist Party and the development of its work, as the vanguard of the proletariat in its revolutionary struggle against the British monopoly capitalist class, in leading the working class and people in proletarian socialist revolution. The First Congress was a victory for the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party and its further consolidation as the Party of the proletariat, a Party of a new type, based on the theoretical teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

The First Congress of the Party dealt with the following agenda:

1. Submission and discussion by delegates of the Political Report presented by the Central Committee.

2. Voting on the Political Report.

3. Election of the new Central Committee of the Party.

The Political Report was presented over several sessions of the Congress and all the delegates engaged in thorough and vigorous discussions of the Report and put forward many contributions and amendments. This work of the Congress proceeded in the most revolutionary and militant atmosphere, reaching unanimous agreement and unity on all of the basic questions presented by the Central Committee.

The Political Report summed up the work of the Party since its inception as the Marxist-Leninist center in the country when the English Internationalists were formed in August 1967. In particular the Report summed up the work of the Party over the past two years and presented the line, guidelines and problems for resolution in the coming period on all of the major questions facing the Party and the British revolution.

In particular, the Political Report dealt with:

a) the crucial tasks of further bolshevizing and proletarianizing the Party;

b) the basic program and line for building the Party in the heart of the working class:

c) the program and line of the Party in leading the anti-fascist and anti-racist struggles in the country;

d) the line of the Party on the international and national situation;

e) the tasks and the stage of the work of the Party in uniting with Marxist-Leninists outside its ranks and in exposing neo-revisionism in the communist and working class movement.

The First Congress also dealt with a number of other important issues such as: the Party's line and basic programs on youth, women, national minorities, students and intellectuals, Scotland and Wales, culture and propaganda; the responsibilities of the Party in strengthening the international Marxist- Leninist communist movement and in dealing with a number of important issues facing the Marxist-Leninists throughout the world; the serious tasks of the Party in actively organizing support for the Irish people in their struggle against British imperialism and the Irish monopoly capitalist class and in deepening the relations with and further developing. unity with our sister Party, the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist).

The First Congress unanimously upheld the crucial necessity to continuously build and consolidate the Party around Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, as the steeled vanguard Party of the proletariat. It held that the Marxist-Leninist Party and all its cadres had to lead in practice the actual struggles of the working class and people against the British monopoly capitalist class, and that no Marxist-Leninist Party worthy of its name could remain on the side-lines of the people's revolutionary struggles. It held that the basic program of the Party is to lead the masses of people in proletarian socialist revolution, overthrowing the rule of the British monopoly capitalist class and the capitalist system and establishing the socialist system under the dictatorship of the proletariat, and that all the Party's work starts from and serves this strategic program.

The First Congress unanimously upheld the crucial importance of deepening the struggle against opportunism of all hues and especially modern revisionism. These are the ideology of the bourgeoisie in the working class movement which attempts to liquidate all the revolutionary struggles of the people and divert them along the path of reformism and further subjugation to capitalism, The First Congress held that Khrushchovite revisionism -- which had converted the once great socialist state of Lenin and Stalin into an aggressive superpower and which attempts to push its revisionist theses throughout the international communist movement -- crystallizes all the modern revisionist trends and held that a concerted exposure of it is of particular importance. The First Congress also denounced the "new" revisionist "three worlds" theory as a totally anti-Leninist trend which on all questions stands openly against Marxism-Leninism, revolution and national liberation, and the cause of the working and oppressed people the world over. The First Congress stated that the "three worlds" theory promotes all the basic theses of Khrushchovite, Titoite and "Eurocommunist" revisionism, and that it serves only the interests of imperialism, the reactionary bourgeoisie and the colonial and neo-colonial regimes of the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The First Congress denounced the center of this counter-revolutionary theory,the new revisionist leaders of the Communist Party of China who had usurped power following the death of Chairman Mao and were fast restoring capitalism in China and creating the conditions for China to emerge as a social-imperialist power.

The First Congress of the Party detailed how the British monopoly capitalist class is attempting to unload its insoluble and deepening crisis onto the backs of the working class and people. It stated that as a component part of this process, the British monopoly capitalist class is carrying out increasing fascization of the state, manifested by the financing and promotion of the fascist gangs, the increased legislation and other attacks, the escalation of racist attacks, etc. being launched against the working class. The First Congress upheld the vital importance of the Party leading and organizing the working class and people to resist and fight these growing attacks being carried out by the British monopoly capitalist class, its government and state, etc. It upheld the two basic slogans of the Party in this work of OPPOSE ALL ATTEMPTS TO MAKE THE WORKERS PAY FOR THE CRISIS! and FIGHT BACK AGAINST NAZI AND GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED RACIST ATTACKS!

On the International situation, the First Congress stated that the world is divided into two: the forces of imperialism, capitalism and all reaction headed by the two superpowers -- U.S. imperialism and Soviet social imperialism on the one hand, and, on the other, the forces of the international proletariat, the working and oppressed people the world over, their Marxist-Leninist Parties, the national liberation movements and the socialist camp -- at this time, the great People's Socialist Republic of Albania. The First Congress totally denounced the revisionist thesis that U.S. imperialism, the reactionary bourgeoisie of Europe etc., and the reactionary ruling classes of the colonies and neo-colonies have a "dual nature" and can be united with against a "main enemy". It denounced the EEC and NATO, the Warsaw Pact and COMECON, etc., as reactionary and aggressive organizations of one or other of the two superpowers and their various blocs and alliances of reactionary regimes and ruling classes. The First Congress held that whilst British imperialism is in sharp decline and is closely tied to U.S. imperialism, it is still a major imperialist power in the world and a hated enemy of the world's people. The First Congress upheld the important tasks of the Party in organizing against the activities of British and all other forms of imperialism and in support of the struggles of the world's people.

The First Congress opposed the aggressive war schemes of the forces of imperialism, especially of the two superpowers, and detailed how their contention for control of the world and their attempts to drown the people's revolution in blood were seriously leading to the danger of a new world war. The First Congress upheld that the path forward in opposing these war preparations of the two superpowers is to intensify revolutionary struggle against the reactionary bourgeoisie in each and every country. It opposed attempts by the bourgeoisie and the opportunists either to use the danger of a war to blackmail and threaten the world's people into giving up their revolutionary struggles or to spread complacency as to the danger that a new world war poses to the world's people.

The First Congress hailed the intensifying revolutionary struggles being waged by the people in the capitalist and revisionist heartlands and in the colonies and neo-colonies of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It hailed the building and consolidation of Marxist - Leninist Parties and organizations in countries throughout the world, which were providing the essential Marxist-Leninist leadership and line to ensure the inevitable victory of;the working and oppressed people in their respective countries over the forces of imperialism, capitalism and reaction. The First Congress of the Party upheld the People's Socialist Republic of Albania as a great bastion of socialism in the world and hailed the Party of Labor of Albania, with Comrade Enver Hoxha at its head, for its crucial contribution in the struggle against imperialism and revisionism.

The First Congress unanimously adopted the Political Report presented by the Central Committee as basic Party policy, It elected the new Central Committee to lead the Party in executing the line and tasks adopted by the Congress. During the Congress, the First Plenum of the Central Committee was held, at which the General Secretary of the Party was elected.

The First Congress of the Party received a number of messages of greetings from fraternal Marxist-Leninist Parties, and a statement from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist) to the First Congress was read by a member of our sister Party's delegation.

The First Congress of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) served to further unite the entire Party membership and activists around the Marxist-Leninist line of the Party, and has created conditions for the further development of the work of the Party in leading the working class and people in carrying out their historic mission -- the overthrow of British monopoly capitalism and the establishment of socialism and communism. End.

(The above article appeared in Workers' Weekly, newspaper of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), September 30, 1978.)

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Hail the 34th Anniversary of the Liberation of Albania

November 29, 1978 is the 34th anniversary of the complete liberation of Albania. Through heroic and self-sacrificing struggle, the Albanian people defeated the German and Italian aggressor forces on the battlefield, expelled them from their country, and brought the people's revolution to victory on November 29,1944. Imperialist domination of their country was ended and genuine independence was achieved. The rich exploiting classes were overthrown and people's democracy was established, Thus began the new era of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the glorious march to the complete construction of socialist society.

Now 34 years later, the Albanian working class, cooperativist peasantry and revolutionary intelligentsia have transformed their once poor and backward country into an advanced socialist society, with a modern industry, flourishing agriculture, progressive culture and education, and genuine democracy for the working people. In Albania, the income and standard of living of the people have never suffered any reduction, but are always on the rise; prices have never risen, and some have been reduced; there are absolutely no taxes; health care is free to all; rents are a token charge; education is universal and free from capitalist lies, etc. The ratio between the average pay of working people and the highest salaries is at the most not more than one to two, so as to prevent the rebirth of a privileged strata who are the social basis for revisionism and betrayal. In Albania there are no foreign military bases, and it is the only country in the world which does not accept credits from capitalist or revisionist states. Today Albania enjoys complete national independence and sovereignty and is the only genuine socialist country in the world, a country without exploiters and exploited, masters and slaves, but a great People's Socialist Republic.

Albania is the bastion of socialism for the workers of all countries. It is an inspiring, shining model of the future of all mankind. Socialism is the goal of the workers' struggle against the capitalist exploiters in the U.S. too. And the radiant existence of socialism in real life defeats the pessimistic and anti-scientific views pushed by the rich capitalists that "socialism is impossible".

The American workers are now facing the dark reality of vicious capitalist exploitation, growing fascism and war preparations, and the all-round cultural degeneration and decay of the bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the workers do not become discouraged or disheartened. The proletariat continues its efforts to fashion a better world and relentlessly persists in its struggle against the U.S. monopoly capitalist class. It is resisting being saddled with the burden of the capitalist economic crisis, such as mass unemployment, soaring inflation, and the wage cuts of the Carter administration carried out in the name of "fighting inflation" and "voluntary" wage price controls. Amidst the darkness and gloom of American imperialist society, the oppressed masses can and do look toward Socialist Albania as a reliable friend and constant inspiration.

Albania is the bastion of world revolution. The existence of genuine socialism in even a single country is a deadly threat to the entire world capitalist system. Socialist Albania is devoted not only to the national interests of the Albanian people, but also to the cause of revolution of the workers of all countries and to the liberation struggle of the oppressed nations now groaning under imperialist domination. It provides concrete assistance to the movements for socialist revolution and national liberation, and to the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties in all countries who are marching in the forefront of these revolutionary struggles.

The Albanian people are not solely concerned with their own well-being, but clearly understand the necessity to be proletarian internationalist in their viewpoint and activity. For this reason the U.S. imperialists, Soviet social-imperialists and all reactionary forces deeply hate Albania. But the workers support what the imperialists hate. And the proletarian struggle on a world scale assists the fighting people of Albania, who defiantly rebuff the subversion and aggression of the greedy, bloodthirsty imperialists on a daily basis. Proletarian internationalism is the sentiment and ideology of the workers of all lands.

Since liberation the U.S. and British imperialists have tried to crush socialism in Albania through blackmail, bullying, economic blockade, espionage and sabotage. The U.S. has also backed the revisionist Tito of Yugoslavia in its aggressive provocations against Albania. In the Soviet Union, following the death of Stalin, a revisionist clique headed by Khrushchov came to power, slandered Stalin and betrayed the working people and the cause of socialism and communism. The Khrushchovite traitors tried to crush socialism in Albania as well, using blackmail, the cutting off of aid, economic blockade and attempts to weaken her defense capability. They too joined the imperialist encirclement and tried to bring Albania to her knees.

Today the Chinese revisionists have joined the imperialist-revisionist encirclement of socialist Albania. In July they cut off aid, made certain defense secrets public, and are now inciting neighboring countries in the Balkans to attack her. The Chinese revisionists have betrayed the world proletariat and its glorious cause, they have become the biggest friends of imperialism and deadly enemies of the revolutionary people of the world. The final, the most revealing act of betrayal of the Chinese revisionists is their hostile attack against socialism in Albania. With this treacherous act the Chinese revisionists have joined completely with the imperialists and world reaction.

The Chinese revisionists, like all reactionaries and exploiters, would like to imagine that socialism is isolated while revisionism has friends around the world. But the Chinese revisionists find favor only with imperialists like Carter and Brzezinski, with the biggest reactionaries of Japan, West Germany and Britain, and with their disgusting fascist henchmen like Pinochet of Chile and the Shah of Iran, and other neo-colonial puppets. The world proletariat however holds nothing for them except complete contempt. The few months since the hostile acts of the Chinese revisionists against Albania have proven that it is socialism and Albania who have friends throughout the world. From the Marxist-Leninist parties, from revolutionary, progressive and democratic-minded people on every continent, has come a tremendous outpouring of support for Albania. The people know and feel that socialist Albania is on their side and is their true and faithful friend in the struggle for national liberation and socialism.

The Albanian people, led by the Party of Labor of Albania, have met the attacks of the Chinese revisionists just as they met those of U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism. The great Marxist-Leninist, Enver Hoxha has led the Albanian people to self-reliantly carry out the work of socialist construction in the teeth of the imperialist-revisionist encirclement. They have fought the bourgeoisie-revisionist jackals and never for a single moment faltered in their loyalty to the cause of world revolution.

The betrayal of the Chinese revisionists and their hostile actions against Albania stems from their flagrant opposition to Marxism-Leninism and the interests of world revolution. They have adopted as their strategy and tactics the anti-Leninist theory of "three worlds". With this theory they express their hatred for socialism and for the national liberation and socialist revolutions. They openly proclaim their shameful alliance with U.S. imperialism under the crude hoax that the Soviet Union is the "main (and only) danger" to the world's people, while the U.S. imperialists, notorious for their fascist crimes of genocide against the Vietnamese people, have now supposedly become peaceful, angelic doves. Their American supporters are rabid social-chauvinists who advocate that the American workers should "strike the main blow at the Soviet Union". They are calling for the U.S. in alliance with the Chinese revisionists, to dominate the world through war and aggression. They shout that the American workers should willingly shed their blood and die for the greedy interests and profits of the American and new Chinese capitalists. They are calling for the American workers to give up their struggle against the monopoly capitalist dictators and become abject slaves.

The "three worlds" theory has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism. Marxism is the theory guiding the movement of the proletariat for revolution and emancipation. This theory must be kept pure of all deviations and distortions, to say nothing of such bankrupt "contributions" as the theory of "three worlds". Only by rigorously upholding Marxism-Leninism in struggle against the "three worlds" theory and all forms of revisionism and opportunism can the revolution be guided forward and continue its advance to victory.

The Albanian people have been able to achieve their brilliant victories due to the correct leadership of their Marxist-Leninist vanguard, the Party of Labor of Albania. As Comrade Enver Hoxha says, "socialism is built by the masses, the Party makes them conscious". Thirty seven years ago, on November 7, 1941, the PLA was founded. The PLA has led the Albanian workers to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and to achieve majestic successes in building socialism. The example of the PLA shows that in the U.S. too the workers need their Marxist-Leninist Party to guide the forward march of the working class movement and to fulfill its historic mission of the establishment of socialism.

The PLA holds aloft the red flag hoisted by great Lenin in the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917. It never permits Marxism to be disgraced like all of the revisionists would like to do, but instead it loyally continues the great and immortal work of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.

On the occasion of the 34th anniversary of the liberation of Albania, we pledge to defend and learn from the accomplishments of socialism in Albania.

GLORY TO ALBANIA, BEACON OF SOCIALISM!

DENOUNCE THE HOSTILE ACTS OF THE CHINESE REVISIONISTS AGAINST SOCIALISM IN ALBANIA!

UPHOLD MARXISM-LENINISM IN STRUGGLE AGAINST THE "THREE WORLDS" THEORY AND ALL REVISIONISM AND OPPORTUNISM!

HAIL THE PARTY OF LABOR OF ALBANIA, ORGANIZER OF THE VICTORIES OF THE ALBANIAN PEOPLE! End.

[Photo of the painting: The formation of the General Staff of the National Liberation Army (July 10, 1943.)]

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