WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!
NEWSPAPER OF THE CENTRAL ORGANIZATION OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS
Volume 9, Number 6
July 1, 1979
P.O. BOX 11942 CHICAGO, IL. 60611 25¢
[Front page:
Independent Truckers Resist Outrageous Robbery by U.S. Oil Monopolies;
Overflowing Storage Tanks Show: The Gasoline Shortage Is a Blatant Fraud!;
GLORIOUS REVOLT OF THE NICARAGUAN PEOPLE AGAINST THE U.S.-SOMOZA DICTATORSHIP;
Denver Committee Against Social-Chauvinism and Caribbean Progressive Study Group support the campaign to build the Marxist-Leninist Party without the social-chauvinists and against the social-chauvinists]
IN THIS ISSUE
| Down with the draft.......................................................... | 2 |
| Carter's MX missile.......................................................... | 2 |
| Operation "Global Shield"................................................ | 2 |
| U. S. Nuclear Energy Program Opposed All Across the U.S............................................. | 2 |
| As Tool of Enslavemen .................................................. | 12 |
| Auto Workers: Dodge Main, VW, Chevy-Tonawanda............................................................ | 3 |
| Electrical Workers............................................................ | 4 |
| Rubber Workers Defy Wage Controls.............................. | 4 |
| Against Health Care Cutbacks......................................... | 4 |
| Levittown: Against High Fuel Prices............................... | 11 |
| Against Police Stn in Black Community.......................... | 5 |
| Police Murder of Denver Youth........................................ | 5 |
| Active Resistance Is The Only Way................................. | 5 |
| The "three worlders" and the Pope................................... | 6 |
| Enver Hoxha's book, Reflections on China...................... | 7 |
| U.S. Neo-Revisionism As Expression of Chinese Revisionism -- Part 3.................................... | 7 |
| The Year of Stalin: "The Party"........................................ | 8 |
| The Communist Party of Brazil Against Chinese Revisionism........................................................ | 6 |
| The Iranian Revolution..................................................... | 12 |
Independent Truckers Resist Outrageous Robbery by U.S. Oil Monopolies
Overflowing Storage Tanks Show:
The Gasoline Shortage Is a Blatant Fraud!
GLORIOUS REVOLT OF THE NICARAGUAN PEOPLE AGAINST THE U.S.-SOMOZA DICTATORSHIP
Warmonger Carter Approves MX Nuclear Missiles
Down with the Draft! Down with Imperialist War Preparations!
NATIONWIDE DEMONSTRATIONS CONDEMN THE U.S. IMPERIALIST NUCLEAR ENERGY PROGRAM
Down with Operation "Global Shield", Dress Rehearsal for Global Slaughter
Auto Workers Must Fight Wage Cuts, Overwork and Layoffs
The Struggle Against Speedup at Chevy-Tonawanda
VW AUTO WORKERS STRIKE AGAINST FASCIST LABOR DISCIPLINE
4,000 Workers March and Rally Against Closing of Dodge Main!
G.E. and Westinghouse Workers Prepare for Struggle Against Wage Cuts and Productivity Drive
Meeting Denounces Plans for New Police Station in Seattle's Black Community
Police Murder of Denver Youth Is Part of a Systematic Racist Campaign
Active Resistance Is the Only Reply to the Crimes of the Racist State
1979: THE YEAR OF STALIN
LEVITTOWN, PA.:
Thousands Rebel Against Fuel Prices
U.S. Imperialist Nuclear Energy Program Is a Tool for Enslavement of Other Countries
Iran - The Voice of the Revolution
Since June 6, thousands of independent truckers in the U.S. have carried out a nationwide struggle to vigorously protest the recent huge increases in diesel fuel prices by the voracious oil monopolies. The truckers are demanding that the oil billionaires roll back diesel fuel prices and that fuel "shortages" be ended and allocations increased so as to put an end to the hardship and losses imposed on them in carrying out their work. The independent truckers, who number approximately 100,000, have waged many militant actions, both small and large, from one end of the country to the other to make their plight known to the American people and to pressure the oil companies and the capitalist government at both the federal and state level for several reforms to alleviate their situation. The truckers' determined actions have included the blocking of interstate freeways, shutting down truck fuel stops, blockading oil companies' fuel distribution terminals, and in general refusing to move freight. These struggles have brought to light the impoverishment and ruin being forced upon the truckers by the monopoly capitalist class and its state machine and revealed the bitterness of the truckers. They have underscored the truckers' demands for lower fuel prices, increased allocation of fuel and for higher freight rates. The struggle of the independent truckers is a big exposure of how the oil billionaires are robbing the masses of working people blind through sky-high gasoline and fuel prices, which have been imposed under the transparent fraud of an "oil shortage". The truckers' struggle also shows how the state of the rich is nothing but a tool of the capitalist monopolies which has helped organize the fleecing of the masses by the oil billionaires. The monopoly capitalist state machine has responded to the just struggle of the truckers by unleashing the National Guard and highway patrol in numerous states in order to break up their blockades and to arrest militant truckers. It is doing all it can to putdown their struggle and to thus protect the wildly ballooning profits of the oil monopolists.
The gasoline "shortage" hoax currently being imposed by the oil monopolies and the Carter administration has resulted in gas prices soaring at a 60% annual rate, in the masses being subject to insufficient supplies of gas and long lines at service stations, while the oil tycoons wallow in record profits. Similarly, Carter and the oil barons have also restricted supplies of diesel fuel oil and used the hoax of a "shortage" to jack up diesel fuel prices. Diesel fuel that cost approximately 64£ a gallon in January now costs about 86¢ according to the Interstate Commerce Commission, a 25% increase in less than six months.
The independent truckers have been particularly affected by the fuel shortage hoax of the oil monopolists because their revenue is set at a fixed rate for many types of freight loads, while their expenditures for diesel fuel have skyrocketed. As a result the truckers simply cannot receive enough income to support themselves and many face immediate financial ruin because of the difficulty of making payments on their equipment and insurance policies. Compounding the problem of soaring fuel costs is the fraudulent "shortage" of diesel fuel that forces the independent truckers, who do not have their own terminals and fuel storage tanks as the large trucking companies do, to search for truck stops that actually have fuel to.pump, wait in lines, and then receive limited allotments which in turn forces them to make numerous refueling stops, all of which cause significant delays and reduce their revenue.
TRUCKERS' NATIONWIDE STRIKE -- COURSE OF EVENTS
In response to this outrageous robbery by the oil monopolies, the independent truckers have launched a series of militant actions since early June to pressure the government (and the oil monopolies) to concede to their demands. On June 4, an 18 truck convoy went into Washington D. C. to stage a protest, truck stops were blockaded and picketers arrested in many states, and freeways were blocked causing huge traffic jams, including when 300 big rigs blocked the Indiana Toll Road near Gary after officials put a 25 gallon limit on diesel fuel purchases. Due to scores of actions like these, by June 12, fruit, vegetable and grain deliveries had been slowed down considerably and isolated shortages of produce were occurring at food stores. Some shippers were switching to railroads in an attempt to move their freight.
Independent truckers haul about 80% of the food in the U.S. By June 14, a spokesman for the truckers said that most of the trucks carrying meat and produce were not in operation. At this time the independent truckers began to expand their actions to include blockades of the fuel distribution terminals of the oil monopolies, which are fed by pipeline and release fuel to tanker trucks for distribution to service stations. Effective blockades in Alabama, Tennessee and elsewhere, honored by tanker drivers, caused gasoline shortages to develop.
The strike had now spread to over 30 states where trucks were idle and blockades of truck stops, food and fuel distribution terminals and other actions were reported from all directions. This course of events once again showed that increasingly broader sections of the laboring masses are being drawn into sharp struggle against the exploitation of the monopoly capitalist class. This was the second national strike of the independent truckers who launched mass actions from December 1973 through February 1974 protesting the ruinous effects on themselves from the fraudulent "oil shortage" and diesel price increases of the oil monopolies occurring then. At that time, national shutdowns of two and eight days' duration were organized and were big blows to the monopoly capitalists. The present national shutdown has now lasted approximately three weeks, which shows the bitterness of the present struggle.
Under steadily mounting pressure from the damage being done to the profits of numerous monopoly capitalists, the federal government's Interstate Commerce Commission announced an order on June 14, effective immediately, to allow trucking firms to attach a 5.6% surcharge on top of the ICC-regulated freight rates with a mandatory pass-through provision, meaning that this additional revenue would be paid to the independent truckers who contract with the trucking firms in order to be able to haul the commodities which are regulated by ICC provisions. (A large amount of the freight hauled by independent truckers is done through contracting themselves to trucking firms, which enables them to haul ICC-regulated commodities. Other commodities, particularly non-processed food, other agricultural products and fish are not under ICC regulations and the independent truckers arrange to haul this freight directly, or through a broker, and thus the ICC surcharge does not affect the freight rates charged for them.) But the measly 5. 6% surcharge of the federal government was unanimously rejected in words and deeds by the truckers. According to estimates of spokesmen for the truckers, the 5. 6% surcharge would not compensate for the increased cost of diesel fuel for even the last two months, much less since January when prices began to soar. To fully compensate them, some independent truckers estimate that at least a 10% surcharge is needed.
The truckers continued to expand their actions. By June 18, an estimated 35,000 of the loosely organized independent truckers had joined the nationwide protest. Many gasoline distribution terminals were blockaded in the middle of June in southwest Michigan, northwest Indiana, Florida, Alabama, Minnesota, New Jersey, Tennessee and elsewhere, with the effect of many gas stations running out of fuel and transportation in whole towns and regions being crippled. The National Guard was called out to help move tankers in Minnesota as was done in Alabama earlier, and the state police were used for the same purpose in Indiana, Michigan and elsewhere.
On Tuesday, June 19, Carter hurriedly raised the ICC-granted surcharge of 5. 6% to 6%, attempting to placate the truckers, but this was also rejected. On June 21 Carter stated that he would soon announce further measures to meet the "legitimate grievances" of the truckers. By this time the shutdown had reduced the hauling capability of the major for-hire trucking companies by 40%. And in Florida and Wisconsin, the state governments had declared states of emergency.
On June 22, Carter ordered the suspension of federal regulations giving priority to farmers for diesel fuel allocations, supposedly to free up more fuel for the truckers. But the truckers are not demanding "priority in fuel allocations" away from farmers, but full allocations of diesel fuel. Carter was only interested in giving the truckers empty promises and in pitting farmers against the truckers. Carter also asked the governors of nine states to consider temporarily raising the legal weight limits on trucks passing through their states to the 80, 000 pound limit enforced by most states.
Carter's efforts to disintegrate the truckers' strike did not work. The truckers' main demands had not been met, particularly for lower fuel prices and/or sufficiently higher freight rates to make up for their losses, and thus the shutdown, blockades and picketing across the country continued. In a fit of frustration, Carter stated on June 22 that "the striking truckers should go back to work and end the interruption of delivery of food and fuel and other goods to American citizens. " Carter was hoping to convince the truckers to end their struggle on the grounds that the masses of people are being inconvenienced and wish to see the shutdown ended. But on June 23 and 24 a significant incident occurred in Levittown, Pennsylvania which showed that the opposite was the case, that the masses of working people have tremendous sympathy for the independent truckers and support their struggle. On that Saturday and Sunday 2,000 and then 3,000 people participated in a rebellion in defense of a blockade erected by 50 to 100 truckers at a busy intersection. Around 200 people were arrested and 80 injured in pitched battles with the local fascist police who were sent in to suppress the truckers' protest.
In their attempts to suppress the independent truckers' struggle, the monopoly capitalist government has used three basic tactics. First, Carter has used empty promises and measly concessions, such as the 6% surcharge to freight rates mentioned previously. Second, the police and armed forces of the state machine have been used to break up blockades and pickets and to arrest striking drivers. Third, various government officials have used virulent propaganda in attempting to incite the masses of people against the drivers. For example, Governor Fob James of Alabama said that if he were a non-striking trucker he would "put the shotgun beside me and go... and I'll kill anybody that tries to stop me." Unfortunately for the bourgeoisie, truck drivers do not think the same as governors. Many drivers employed by various trucking firms have been refusing to cross the picket lines of the independent truckers. Although the bourgeoisie has used all of these measures, the independent truckers gained experience in their national shutdown of five years ago with the tactics used by their enemy and cannot be repressed easily.
THE OWNER-OPERATOR SYSTEM
The monopoly capitalists foster the independent trucker or owner-operator system because they have found it to be a source of large profits for themselves. The capitalists promote the myth that independent truckers are "independent businessmen" who have made an escape from capitalist exploitation through becoming their "own boss", free from the degradations and burdens of wage slavery. But analysis of the owner-operator system shows that the independent trucker is neither independent of nor free from the ruthless exploitation of capitalism. The truckers' national strike is precisely a struggle against this exploitation. Also, by analyzing the plight of the independent trucker, it becomes crystal clear that the path of escape from capitalist exploitation does not lie in becoming "independent businessmen", who are in fact ruthlessly crushed by monopoly capital, but in the path of revolutionary struggle against monopoly capital in unity with the proletariat and all laboring masses.
The independent owner-operators are mostly one-truck operations where the driver owns his own rig and hires out his services for hauling freight to a wide variety of capitalist shippers. It is estimated that the 100,000 independent truckers handle between 25-40% of intercity truck transportation in the U.S. Besides the independents, interstate truck freight is handled by two other categories of truckers. There are the private motor carriers, whose truck fleets are owned by the company producing the commodity being transported and who do not hire out their services. The truck drivers for these firms are proletarians paid a wage. The other category is the ICC-regulated motor carriers which include the large, capitalist trucking firms such as Consolidated Freightways. These firms generally have large fleets of tractors and trailers and hire out their services in different ways to various large capitalist shippers mostly for ICC- regulated commodities at fixed rates. The truck drivers for these firms are also proletarians, although a large number of independent truckers contract themselves to the ICC-regulated capitalist trucking firms on either a long-term or short-term basis.
The independent trucker's income does not take the form of wages from an employer, because they are self-employed owners of their own trucks. Their income is derived from the revenues they receive from shippers and trucking firms for hauling various commodities, subtracting from this their expenditures. Today, as was also true during the 1973-74 oil shortage hoax and soaring diesel prices, the independent truckers are squeezed between the fixed revenues they receive and the skyrocketing expenditures for fuel and other costs. The expenses for these truckers are quite high in general, with a new tractor and trailer rig costing as much as $96,000. Monthly payments to the bank for repaying the loan on the purchase of this equipment are often as high as $1,500. One year's license fees and federal highway taxes average close to $1,500 and can be much higher depending on the license fee in the trucker's base state. They must often pay a 10% fee to a broker who arranges the hauling of a load. And insurance premiums, road expenses for food and lodging, maintenance, tire replacement and especially fuel costs are rising rapidly. Hence the struggle of the independent truckers to force the ICC to raise the rates by which the truckers are compensated for hauling various commodities and to thus increase the truckers' revenue.
The current squeeze put on the income of a trucker is not a new phenomenon, as the owner- operators have always suffered from exploitation by the large trucking companies and shipping capitalists. But under the conditions of soaring diesel fuel costs, the impoverishment and instability of the independent truckers has increased tremendously. In 1974, only 27%, of the owner-operators actually owned their equipment with no obligations remaining for loan repayments. There is a 15% repossession rate on trucks purchased by independent truckers through bank loans or time payments with truck manufacturing firms. For an independent trucker, "peace of mind" occurs only after the monthly payment is made, and then the scramble for sufficient revenue for the next month begins anew. Failure to meet the loan payments can quickly result in utter ruin, the loss of one's equipment and also of the equity advanced on the down payment, which is often a trucker's life savings, second mortgage on a home, and a life insurance policy. Thus the monopoly capitalist oil companies' huge price hikes, through which they are shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the American working masses for the sake of increasing their profits to astronomical levels, have particularly serious consequences for the independent truckers.
The capitalists benefit immensely from the independent owner-operator system. It reduces the costs and risks of the trucking capitalists who contract for the labor of the independent truckers. The cost of the capital outlay for the truck, its depreciation, maintenance, insurance and fuel, etc., are all costs borne by the independent trucker. The risks, such as breakdowns and accidents are are also carried by the trucker. The trucker gets a higher gross pay than a driver working for a wage to supposedly cover these costs, but in fact the average independent truckers' revenue is constantly falling behind the soaring prices for the items he must purchase.
Higher labor productivity is built into the owner- operator system because the trucker is paid for each load of freight hauled. It is therefore in his interest to perform as many runs, of the heaviest weight, in the shortest possible time. This provides the capitalist who is shipping commodities with the benefit of faster runs than otherwise, reducing his costs. But for the independent trucker it means working at a very intense pace in order to increase revenues, which for many truckers means the difference between staying afloat or bankruptcy; it means driving longer (with fewer breaks) and faster, which is neither healthy nor completely safe. From this it can be seen that the owner-operator system is similar to the piece rate system where the workers are paid at a certain rate by their employer according to the number of times the same operation is repeated during a day's work. And, in the piece rate system, the capitalists present the workers with the illusion that if they intensify their labor, their income will increase. But when the workers do so, often exerting themselves very intensely, the capitalists then simply reduce the rate according to which they are paid. Similarly, the owner-operator system necessarily creates a competitive situation among the truckers for hauling the maximum number of loads in the shortest time, etc. And while some truckers can utilize this to earn more than the average, the competition drives the average itself down to lower and lower levels.
The self-imposed speedup and drive for higher labor productivity of the owner-operator system also gives rise to demands from the truckers for the standardization of various government regulations. Some of these demands may involve the elimination of bureaucratic and inefficient rules. But other demands, such as those calling for the legalization of bigger trailers and heavier loads, which will further intensify the truckers' labor, are a manifestation of the self-imposed speedup of the owner-operator system. The owner-operator is his own supervisor and is of necessity a very strict one at that.
The drivers who work for a wage and who generally belong to the Teamsters Union do not face identical economic difficulties as the independent truckers. Their struggle to resist the effects of the rising cost of living and to resist being saddled with the burden of the capitalist economic crisis takes the form of fighting for higher wages and to defy Carter's wage-cutting 7% wage controls, and for other economic demands, as in the strike of 300,000 Teamsters in April. Unlike the owner- operators their wages are not reduced by the rising cost of diesel fuel. Both sections of the laboring masses however have the monopoly capitalists and the state of the rich as their enemy. Plainly aware of this fact, the Teamsters Union drivers have many times supported the independent truckers in waging their current struggle, by refusing to cross their picket lines and in other ways.
It is only the top officials of the Teamsters Union who are hostile to the independent truckers' struggle, not the masses of Teamster drivers. The Teamster bosses, who are straight-out agents of the monopoly capitalist class, denounce the independent truckers' struggle in an attempt to turn the Teamster drivers against it. This attempted sabotage is consistent with the wrecking activities they performed against the national Teamsters' strike of two months ago. For example, on June 21, Frank Fitzsimmons, the top labor traitor of the Teamsters Union denounced the struggle of the independent truckers in these words: "Because of lack of regulation and union representation the nonunion independent truckers are going broke and are now trying to break the country with them." Fitzsimmons blames the independent truckers for the crimes of the oil monopolists in order to sour the Teamster drivers against the struggle of the owner-operators. On June 20, the National Press Secretary of the Teamsters, Bernie Henderson, was even more blatant. He said, "The slowdown is stupid. It's worthless. It doesn't accomplish a thing." "Did the non-union people participate in our shutdown?" Henderson's lies are not difficult to refute. In the first place, it is true that the non-union independent truckers did not participate in the Teamsters' struggle, but it is also true that they weren't asked to participate either. In fact, the Teamster bosses did not even call out on strike all of the Teamster drivers but instead organized a "selective strike" against only a minority of the companies in the negotiations. This was done against the will of the drivers who were thirsting for a sharp struggle. So, it is useless for the Teamster officials to brand the owner-operators as scabs when it was the labor traitors themselves who were the ones actually doing the scabbing. The Teamster officials also have a lot of gall to refer to the Teamsters' strike as "our shutdown" being as they shackled it every step of the way in service to the monopoly capitalists. Their view that the independent truckers' strike is "stupid" and "worthless" is their attitude toward all of the efforts of the working masses to resist the exploitation of the monopoly capitalist class. But the support given by the Teamster drivers to the current truckers' struggle shows in practice that they hold in contempt the efforts of the Teamster bosses to incite them against the independent truckers.
The current fuel shortage and skyrocketing prices for gasoline, diesel oil and other fuel is the latest in a whole series of criminal outrages against the American working masses perpetrated by the oil monopolies and the Carter administration. The independent truckers, like the rest of the working people, are facing the burden of the economic crisis which the capitalist financial aristocracy is shifting onto their backs. The nationwide mass struggle of the independent truckers against the steep fuel price increases imposed by the oil monopolies is part of the overall resistance of the working class and people to the rising cost of living. This struggle is led by the working class, the proletariat, which is launching numerous strikes to resist the ruinous increases in the cost of living by fighting for higher wages and against the capitalist state's 7% wage controls. The struggle of the independent truckers, like the struggles of the proletariat, is entirely just and deserves the support of the entire working class and oppressed masses.
The increasing impoverishment of the masses of working people, while the rich get richer, is a basic law of capitalist production. The efforts of the independent truckers to resist the rising cost of living, just like those of the proletariat, can only retard this process but cannot stop it or reverse it. The only salvation and escape from this situation lies in the mass revolutionary struggle to make the monopoly capitalists pay for the crisis that they have caused with all of its consequences, and to overthrow, expropriate and suppress the capitalist exploiters by resolutely carrying out the socialist revolution. The ascendency to power of the proletariat through mass revolutionary struggle is the only way out.
The fraudulent gasoline shortage imposed by the billionaire oil monopolies in their drive to plunder the masses with soaring prices, is literally depriving millions of working people of the gasoline needed for their livelihood. In recent weeks "odd-even" gasoline rationing has been imposed in New Jersey, Connecticut, the New York City metropolitan area, Maryland, northern Virginia and in Washington, D. C. In Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, other emergency measures have been instituted to cope with the drastic gasoline shortage which has broken out along the East Coast from Washington to Boston and the sporadic shortages which have erupted across the country. To purchase what gasoline is available, the working masses are waiting in endless lines up to two and three miles long only to pay over $1. 00 a gallon if they are fortunate enough to get to the pumps before they run out. In California where gasoline supplies have been restored somewhat, in the shortage's wake some gas prices have hit $1.30 a gallon. Furthermore, the oil monopolies are also predicting heating oil shortages for next winter and have recently announced their plans to raise heating oil prices from last year's 46.5£ a gallon to over 80£, an increase of over 72% in price. For the average homeowner in New England this will mean an increase of some $500 in next winter's heating oil bills. This blatant robbery of the masses, which is the criminal work of a handful of giant oil monopolies and the energy policy of the Carter administration, is growing more hated and more exposed with each passing day.
The contrived and fraudulent nature of the present shortage is becoming increasingly glaring and obvious. Take for example the situation in New Jersey where the shortage is particularly acute. Thirty-seven percent of the total oil refining capacity on the East Coast is located in New Jersey where Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and Chevron and other monopolies have large-scale refining operations. It was recently reported by the Executive Director of the New Jersey Gasoline Retailers Associations that the huge tank farm storage facilities in the New Jersey area are presently full to the brim with gasoline, heating oil and other oil products. This fact was confirmed by the president of the National Liquid Terminals Operators Association (firms which lease extra storage tank facilities to the oil monopolies) who reported that the storage tanks of the 46 companies in his association in 34 states including New Jersey were filled to capacity and that a scramble is now underway to increase storage tanker capacity. But, of course, when the New Jersey State Energy Commissioner requested the records of Exxon and the others on how full their storage tanks actually were, the oil magnates arrogantly refused, declaring that this was secret information. The reports of overflowing storage facilities in New Jersey demonstrate how the shortage of gasoline in that area is just as fraudulent and outrageous as it is for example, in Houston and other Texas cities where shortages are taking place right in the midst of the oil fields.
Other similar examples have been reported of overflowing stockpiles of gasoline and oil products in the middle of the hardest hit areas of the so- called gasoline shortage. Tanker truck drivers report being turned away with full loads of gasoline from overfilled storage facilities in the Washington D.C. area. Also, oil tankers are finding it difficult to unload their cargo in a number of East Coast ports. This situation is a replay of the fraudulent and criminal oil shortage of 1973-74 when the working masses suffered in unheated homes and endless gasoline lines while Boston harbor and other ports were clogged with full oil tankers because the oil storage tanks intended for their cargoes were brimming over.
The oil monopolies are trying to claim that they are not to blame for the situation of mile-long gas lines next to full gasoline storage tanks. They are pointing their greedy fingers at the federal Department of Energy and its allocations system as the real culprit. And, in fact, the federal allocations system is aggravating the shortage to the extreme, preventing by law the distribution of ample gasoline supplies and the transfer of gasoline to where it is needed. But this fact only proves that the federal bureaucracy of the monopoly capitalist government is working hand in hand with the oil monopolists to engineer the artificial gasoline shortage. The federal allocations system is further testimony of the fact that fake shortages and skyrocketing prices are at the center of Carter's energy policy.
A handful of giant oil monopolies -- Exxon, Mobil, Texaco, Gulf, etc., -- own and control the oil and natural gas industry from top to bottom. Their monopoly position over the production and distribution of such a vital commodity as oil gives these monopoly capitalist parasites enormous leverage to bleed the people. And this is exactly what they have been doing, pushing the working masses to the wall with sky-high prices enforced by a series of artificial shortages. They engineered the oil shortage hoax of 1973-74, the devastating natural gas shortage of the winter of 1977 as well as a number of regional shortages and continual threatened shortages in recent years. And now there is an acute gasoline shortage which has been brought about by the oil kings who, in order to drive up prices, are simply refusing to refine and/or market their ample stockpiles of fuel.
The Director of the Department of Energy, Schlesinger himself is now conceding that crude oil supplies are adequate while the oil companies are being "unduly conservative" in refining in order to hold their stockpiles off the market and bring up the price. Not even Schlesinger, the pompous lap dog of the oil billionaires, armed with his countless (and lying) "supply and demand" charts, can explain away how the utilization in the oil refineries has dropped from over 90% capacity utilization at this time last year to under 85% of capacity at present. Carter, Schlesinger and the DOE have worked from the very outset to organize and do propaganda for the oil monopolies' fraudulent shortage and Carter is still preaching on the "necessity" of shortages to teach the people of the need for "sacrifices", high prices, etc. Nevertheless, Carter and co. are starting to whimper that the oil monopolies are damaging "the national interest" by refusing to refine their oil stocks and the DOE is issuing impotent noises that it is going to "seize" the stockpiled oil and give it to those companies who are "prepared to use it". Obviously, the accomplices in crime are setting to work to cover their own tracks.
To divert the outrage of the masses from the real authors of the present gasoline shortage and the skyrocketing prices -- the oil monopolies and the Carter government -- frenzied efforts are being made to put the blame for the gasoline shortage someplace else, anyplace else. The OPEC oil producing countries are, as usual, being blamed for the situation and there is even a campaign underway to portray the Shell Oil corporation alone, which happens to be a European oil monopoly, as the real culprit. In particular, the glorious revolution of the Iranian working masses is accused of causing a world oil shortage affecting U.S. supplies. However, in reality, world oil production has well surpassed the levels prior to the shut-off of Iranian oil last winter and U.S. oil imports are at record levels. Nevertheless, the Iranian revolution delivered powerful blows to the plundering imperialist oil corporations. It has initiated a new round of intense scrambling among the imperialist oil monopolies for contracts and positions in the world oil markets. In their drive to capture a greater portion of the oil stockpiles and seize markets, the imperialist oil corporations have bid up the price of a barrel of crude oil to over $40 a barrel, over twice the going OPEC rate! The speculation in middle distillates (which include home heating oil, diesel and jet fuel) at European refineries has become especially intense and the Carter administration has granted the oil monopolies a $5 a barrel surcharge, to be passed on to the consumers of middle distillate imports, to ensure that the U.S. imperialist oil corporations gobble up "their share" of the loot. And, of course, it is the working class and people, both in the U.S. and abroad, who are footing the bill for the unbridled speculation, profiteering and plunder of these giant oil monopolies, both of the U.S. imperialists and other imperialist powers.
The fraudulent gasoline shortage and the merciless plunder of the oil monopolies have provoked real outrage among the working people. The working masses are being squeezed to the wall by the soaring cost of living, with inflation now at a 14% annual rate. The cost of car transportation is skyrocketing even faster, consuming over 25% of the working people's entire incomes and with gasoline prices rising at a nearly 60% annual rate. In this situation another gasoline shortage and another round of price hikes is a completely intolerable burden on the broad masses of the people. More and more manifestations of the growing revolt of the working masses against the unprecedented robbery and exploitation of the monopolies are taking place. On the weekend of June 23-24, three thousand working people in Levittown, Pennsylvania engaged in a powerful protest against the fraudulent gas shortage. This spontaneous mass outburst was savagely suppressed by the police with attack dogs resulting in 200 arrests, over 80 injured (many with dog bites) and the declaration of a "state of emergency" by the authorities. And the independent truck drivers' shutdown is another example of the outrage of the working people.
The current gasoline shortage, which is taking place in a country that is in fact overflowing with energy resources, shows that the rule of the rich is becoming ever more intolerable for the vast majority of the people. It is exposing for all to see that a tiny handful of the most powerful monopoly capitalist billionaires are throttling the entire population to realize maximum profits and make the working masses pay for the energy crisis and economic crisis of the monopoly capitalist system. It is demonstrating in the most clear-cut fashion that the state apparatus is completely subservient to the interests of the capitalist monopolies and that the Carter government is nothing but the lackey of their unrestrained robbery of the working people.
It is only the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and working people which can make the capitalist bloodsuckers pay for the energy crisis and the economic and all-sided crisis of the monopoly capitalist system. And it is this struggle which will bring about the expropriation of the monopolies and the overthrow of the man-eating capitalist order and usher in the new order of socialism under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only with the political supremacy of the working class and the establishment of the socialist system can shortages of the basic necessities of life, soaring prices and economic crises be eliminated.
[Cartoon.]
The Nicaraguan people are again on the battlefield. Over the last month the struggle of the partisans, workers, peasants, youth and other progressive sections to overthrow the bloodstained Somoza government has broken out in full force. This great rebellion has brought the dictatorial regime to the brink of collapse. From the working class districts of the cities, to the smallest hamlets in the countryside, the masses have inflicted a heavy toll on the fascist forces. Fearing neither the armed might of Somoza's regime nor the U.S. imperialist weapons of war, the Nicaraguan people have heroically shed their blood. In this period of only one month, thousands of the best sons and daughters of the Nicaraguan people have given their lives for their just cause.
The Nicaraguan people have a rich revolutionary tradition. They have waged countless battles, including the ones that broke out last year, to put an end to the Somoza oligarchy, to put an end to its savage oppression and to fight for freedom and democracy. The masses see more and more that their only hope lies in the armed struggle. As a result the present uprising has great popular support and greater numbers of workers and oppressed masses have joined the struggle.
The present revolt started with sporadic fighting in March and today has spread so that 25 cities and towns are presently in the hands of the Nicaraguan patriots. They are firmly entrenched in the south and have gained initiative in the north. Leon, the second largest city in Nicaragua, has been under partisan control since June 5. For a time the freedom fighters brought the revolution to the capital of Managua. Before abandoning the city, the partisans and armed workers held the working class districts of eastern Managua for a month, despite the rain of bombs and artillery of the Somoza regime. Fighting occurred at the doorsteps of Somoza's headquarters as the liberation fighters battled to within four blocks of his concrete bunker. Throughout the country, the partisans have overrun National Guard armories and outposts, wiping out the enemy troops and seizing their weapons. Partisans also took over the warehouses of the U.S. imperialist corporation United Brands and the largest meat slaughterhouse in Nicaragua, and distributed the goods to the masses. Armed actions occurred also against two mines, owned partially by U.S. imperialist interests, which caused damage to the machinery. A general strike was called on June 4 in the major cities of Managua, Leon and Jinotepe and with its great success has quickly spread to the provinces. In the armed forces, troops are deserting, National Guardsmen are mutinying, air force pilots have bombed government military installations and the morale of Somoza's army is at an all time low.
The fascist Somoza dictatorship has used all manner and means to try to quell the present rebellion. The National Guard has added 10,000 reservists and now has a strength of 25,000. A state of siege was declared on June 6. The armed forces have bombed and strafed cities and towns. Airplanes and rockets have levelled whole areas of the country. The National Guard has detained "suspicious looking youth" and are shooting down the youth indiscriminately. The fascist jails are filled with Nicaraguan patriots and scores of people are listed as having "disappeared". Since the end of May over 10,000 Nicaraguans have been murdered and almost 100,000 have been left homeless.
Nicaragua is a neo-colony of U.S. imperialism. The history of Nicaragua is a history of numerous interventions, of the use of gunboat diplomacy by U.S. imperialism to keep its domination of the country intact. It was U.S. imperialism that installed the Somoza family 43 years ago by force of arms. The Somoza oligarchy are the masters of the national assets of the country and they have in turn handed over the control of the economy to the U.S. imperialists. The large cotton and coffee fields, the banks, mines and factories are owned by the U.S. imperialists and the Somoza family, and bring in huge profits for these twin exploiters of the Nicaraguan people. Somoza's wealth alone was estimated at $500 million in 1.972. As a result of this severe exploitation and plunder, the economy of Nicaragua is in shambles and it is the people who are paying for it. The Gross National Product of Nicaragua declined by 7% in 1978, and overseas debt has more than tripled since 1974 to nearly $1 billion. The government is already in default of $45 million in interest and principal to the Wall Street financiers and has another $155 million debt that falls due this year. Forty percent of the population is unemployed and inflation is soaring. On April 22, Somoza announced a 40% increase in the price of basic consumer goods, gasoline and public transportation. Since January 1, most foodstuffs have increased 75% in price. The currency in Nicaragua has been devalued by 70% and the fascist dictatorship has declared large tax increases to finance the public debt.
U.S. imperialism wants to keep its complete domination over Nicaragua at all costs and is doing everything in its power to prevent a military victory by the people. Despite all the claims to the contrary, the Carter administration continues to back the Somoza regime to the hilt. It is aiding the dictatorship through military and economic means. It is the U.S. imperialist war planes and bombs, machine guns and mortars that Somoza is using to massacre the people and level the country. It is the U.S. imperialist "aid" that allows the Somoza regime to beef up its armed forces and carry out the war against the masses. It is U.S. imperialism that stands in the way of the Nicaraguan masses' overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship. On May 31, U.S. Hercules planes originating from the U.S. Howard military base in Panama, delivered a supply of arms to the fascist Somoza government. The Somoza regime also purchased ten T-38 jets from the U.S. to be used in the mass slaughter of the Nicaraguan people. The U.S. Southern Command in Panama is coordinating the efforts of the reactionary states of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to aid the Somoza regime militarily. And the fascist state of Israel, U.S. imperialism's outpost in the Middle East and a funnel for U.S. weapons around the world, has sent warplanes to Nicaragua to aid the tottering government. The U.S. imperialists also have organized and sent mercenaries to fight with the Somoza dictatorship. As well, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is controlled by the U.S. imperialist banks, has granted the Somoza government a $40 million loan to help finance its war plans and help keep the regime from crumbling.
The Carter administration is also hedging its bets. It sees that the Somoza regime is extremely isolated, unpopular and about to collapse. Therefore Carter and his cohorts are creating all sorts of demagogy and deceit that they have nothing to do with the massacres of the Nicaraguan masses, that they are allegedly "against" Somoza and want him to resign, and that they want a "peaceful" solution that will bring "human rights" to the Nicaraguan masses. The U.S. imperialists say that they are abhorred at the "senseless killings" perpetrated by the Somoza regime. But their continued and active backing of the Somoza dictatorship shows the complete hypocrisy of this lying propaganda. The blood of the partisans and fighting masses will leave a permanent crimson stain on U.S. imperialism. No amount of protests on the part of U.S. imperialism can wash its hands clean of the massacres being carried out against the Nicaraguan people.
Under the signboard of bringing in a "democratic" government and asking for Somoza's resignation, the U.S. imperialists are grooming new puppets to take the place of Somoza. What they fear most is that the armed struggle will sweep away Somoza and the U.S. imperialists will not be in any position to determine his successor. The rich moneybags in the U.S. have greatly profited from the submission of the Somoza dictatorship to its interests and want to ensure that any government that replaces him will carry out their every command. They want to make sure that in the future the present structures of the government -- the National Guard, police, etc., remain intact. They have met secretly with various National Guard officers, police chiefs, government officials, etc., to set up a new government in the event Somoza is removed or falls. If all else fails the U.S. State Department is working to impose a "compromise solution" to block the complete military victory which the liberation fighters are demanding. In this way it is striving to protect U.S. imperialism's interests and to keep intact the institutions of the Somoza dictatorship.
The cries of a "peaceful" solution to "end the bloodshed" in Nicaragua that are emanating from the halls of the White House have a very hollow ring. Secretary of State Vance has revealed what this propaganda for a "peaceful" solution amounts to. Among other things it is a plan of U.S. imperialism for military intervention into Nicaragua. The plan calls for the dispatching of troops of the Organization of American States (OAS), which is the U.S. dominated military, political and economic alliance of the ruling oligarchies in Latin America, along with sending U.S. troops to "pacify" the Nicaraguan people with fire and sword.
The glorious struggle against the fascist Somoza dynasty holds important lessons for the revolutionary struggles of the peoples. It shows that U.S. imperialism remains a savage and barbaric enemy. It shows that without taking to the battlefield, without the armed struggle waged by the toiling masses who are willing to lay down their lives, there can be no liberation. The violence and terror which the Somoza dictatorship has resorted to is yet a further condemnation of the Soviet revisionist preachings of the "peaceful road".
Furthermore, the struggle in Nicaragua demonstrates the complete bankruptcy of the Chinese revisionist theory of "three worlds". According to this "theory", the oppressed peoples can win their liberation from foreign imperialism without smashing the internal base of imperialism, the feudal -bourgeois reactionaries and oligarchies which are tied with a thousand and one threads to this foreign imperialism. The Chinese revisionists even portray these flunkeys of imperialism in "anti-imperialist" colors. Of course this theory is absurd and totally counter-revolutionary. In the case of Nicaragua, it is as clear as day that one can not speak of eliminating U.S. imperialist slavery without also blowing up the fascist Somoza dynasty. Thus, the U.S. "three worldists" have had to perform real acrobatics to "apply the theory of three worlds" to the Nicaraguan situation. Firstly, they have gone through various contortions to hide the fact that Somoza is being backed to the hilt by his Washington masters, to portray Carter as "not taking sides" and Israel(!) as the real foreign support for Somoza. And secondly, they are doing poisonous propaganda to the effect that the other fascist oligarchies, military dictatorships and reactionary governments of Central and South America are in some way in support of the Nicaraguan people. But despite the "three worldist" lies, the peoples of these states too will have to defeat the internal reaction to win liberation from the U.S. imperialist yoke.
In Nicaragua the brave partisans and heroic masses are waging a titanic struggle. The proletariat and oppressed people all over the world support them in their determined effort to overthrow the Somoza oligarchy. No amount of maneuvers and tricks of the imperialist Carter administration nor the brutal savagery of the Somoza regime can stop the forward march of the Nicaraguan people.
The Workers' Advocate has recently received two important communications in support of the campaign to found the Marxist-Leninist Party of the U.S.A.
First, we have received the Statement of the Denver Committee Against Social-Chauvinism which is entitled "Support the Call of the National Committee of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists! Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists!" The Denver Committee Against Socxal-Chauvinism is composed of revolutionary activists who come out of the thick of the revolutionary mass movements in the Denver area. These activists have gained a wealth of experience in the workers' movement, the struggles of the people of Mexican nationality, the youth and student movements, the women's movement, and the Marxist-Leninist movement. With the emergence of open social-chauvinism these activists remained loyal to the cause of the proletariat and put into practice the line of resolute struggle against the "three worldist" class treason. Today, the Denver Committee Against Social-Chauvinism has organized itself to carry out the main tasks for founding and building the Marxist-Leninist Party of the U.S.A. as outlined in the Call of the National Committee of the COUSML.
Secondly, The Workers' Advocate received the June-July 1979 issue of The West Indian Voice, newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group. This issue of their paper carried the announcement of the Call of the National Committee of the COUSML in red letters across the front page and had the text of the Call to "Build the Marxist-Leninist Party Without the Social-Chauvinists and Against the Social-Chauvinists" as special supplement. The members of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group are sons and daughters of the West Indian community and vigorously defend its interests. The CPSG works to unite the West Indian community in the U.S. to fight back against the racist and fascist attacks of the state of the rich and gives full support to the struggles for national liberation in the West Indies. The CPSG has resolutely opposed all the enemies of their people, including the revisionists, the social-chauvinist "three worldist" and the neo-revisionist class traitors. The CPSG considers the West Indian workers in the U.S. part and parcel of the U.S. proletariat and vigorously supports the work to found the Marxist- Leninist Party of the U.S. proletariat.
We feel that the communications from these two organizations are a most significant development. It shows beyond a doubt that the movement against social-chauvinism is uniting all that is alive, honest, and loyal to Marxism-Leninism and the proletariat. The founding of the Marxist- Leninist Party can be the only lasting victory against the social-chauvinists. The constant building and strengthening of the Marxist-Leninist Party is the sure guarantee that the proletariat will be united and reach its true stature as the gravedigger of the decadent U.S. monopoly capitalist system.
The deafening noise of the imperialists and social-imperialists about "peace" and "nuclear disarmament" has reached a fever pitch with the recent signing of the SALT n treaty. But in reality this so-called "Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty" between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism and this hypocritical talk of "peace" are nothing but a smokescreen to hide and serve the warmongers' preparations for a devastating war. This fact was once again borne out by "peace-loving" U.S. imperialist chieftain Jimmy Carter's June 8 announcement that he was giving the go ahead for the full-scale development of the MX ICBM missile system.
Only ten days after announcing the decision to construct the MX, Carter was off to Vienna to sign the "Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty" with the chieftain of Soviet social-imperialism, Brezhnev. Carter billed this trip as a "mission of peace" to "reduce the danger of a nuclear war". However, the terms of the phoney "arms limitation'! treaty signed by Carter and Brezhnev allow both sides to develop all the new weapons that they are willing and able to produce. For example, the MX is permitted under a clause in the treaty allowing each side to construct a new land-based missile system. This clearly shows the essence of the "pacifism" of the imperialists and social-imperialists: pious phrases about "peace" and "disarmament", while arming to the teeth for war.
The decision to build the MX missile system marks the further intensification of the war preparations of the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie. In particular the MX system is designed to increase the ability of the U.S. imperialists to wage nuclear war. The MX system consists of 200 missiles each carrying ten nuclear warheads. Each warhead has 22 times the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The missiles are to be constantly relocated among some 8,800 shelters located on a 4,000 mile network of either railway or roads. To pay for this weapon of mass destruction, the working masses are to be bled white to the tune of $30 billion.
Through the expansion and perfection of its nuclear arsenal, such as the development of the MX missile system, U.S. imperialism is continuing its use of "nuclear blackmail" to threaten the revolutionary peoples of the world who are rising up against U.S. imperialist domination. The development of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is also a part of the preparations for an inter-imperialist war against Soviet social-imperialism. Through such a war, the U.S. warmongers hope to redivide the globe and extend the area under the enslavement of U.S. imperialism.
Various Carter administration officials and nuclear experts are shamelessly bragging about how the MX will increase U.S. imperialism's ability to win a nuclear war against their Soviet rivals. They are boasting that the mobility of the new missile system will save the missiles from destruction in a projected Soviet first strike, and that the increased power and accuracy of the missiles gives the U.S. first-strike capability to destroy the Soviet land-based missile system.
Along with this, the warmongers are cynically calculating how many millions of people will be murdered in these exchanges. The MX system is so murderous and warmongering that even the most open militarist politicians, such as Senator Henry Jackson, could not quibble with Carter's decision to build it and simply hailed it.
These events demonstrate that no matter what peaceful disguises and maneuvers they resort to, the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie only grows more adventurous in pursuing its goal of world domination. Thus, war will never be prevented by the wheeling and dealing of the imperialist governments. It is only the working class and people who genuinely oppose the imperialist war plans. The development of the mass revolutionary struggle against the imperialists and their war preparations is the only way forward for the working class and people.
Today the U.S. imperialist government is preparing to reintroduce the draft. The latest step towards this occurred on June 11 when the Senate Armed Services Committee approved a measure that would require males aged 18 to 26 to register with their draft boards after January 1, 1980. In the last few months the House and Senate have been flooded with bills and proposals ranging from setting up the mechanism for establishing the draft to plans for drafting 200,000 men a year. There is even talk of establishing a program of compulsory national service for all youth. "Peacenik" Jimmy Carter is leading the warmongering chorus. He has promised to reestablish the Selective Service System on a full functioning basis and has requested a budget of $1.7 million in 1979 and $9.8 million in 1980 for this purpose. Thus, while the Carter administration is talking of the draft being "presently unnecessary", these "peace-lovers" are setting up the mechanism for the draft.
The preparations to reestablish the draft are being made because the U.S. imperialists are afraid that they do not presently have enough youth available in the armed forces to slaughter in wars so that the rich moneybags can extend their world empire. As General Bernard Rogers, outgoing Army Chief of Staff stated: "In the event of a conflict we start suffering casualties. We're going to run out of replacements very quickly... The problem has to be solved..." Already the U.S. imperialists have a huge aggressive military force over two million strong, with the most modern weapons and military bases all over the world. But in the conditions of increasing contention with Soviet social-imperialism for world domination and with the development of the revolutionary struggles of the working class and people such as in Iran the monopoly capitalists are clamoring that they need yet more cannon fodder. To do propaganda for the reintroduction of the draft, a warmongering "debate" was started by the imperialist politicians over whether the "all-volunteer army" was "working", and then measures to prepare for the draft were begun.
The bloodstained U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie is today carrying out the most feverish militarization of American society in its preparations for aggressive wars. U.S. military expenditures have reached all time highs. The imperialist state has amassed a huge arsenal of the most modern weapons of death and destruction and is developing new ones on a daily basis, such as the MX ICBM system recently blessed by Carter. The stockpiling of oil and the development of nuclear and other energy resources is being stepped up in preparation for the event that normal oil supply routes are cut off. Recently the Army announced that it is drafting its plans for the new "quick-strike" force of 110,000 troops requested by Carter over a year ago to be organized for the purpose of invading the Persian Gulf region and other "volatile" areas where U.S. imperialist interests may become threatened. In addition, the monopoly capitalist moneybags are trying to draw the proletariat and working masses into its war psychosis by having hysterical "debates" on whether or not the U.S. is prepared for world war, by carrying propaganda day and night speculating on where war will break out next and what will be the effects of the next war the imperialists try to launch, and so on. The current saber- rattling debates and measures concerning the re- instituting of the draft are part and parcel of the war preparations of the bourgeoisie.
The reintroduction of the draft is another fascist outrage by Carter against the American people. In the 1960's and early 70's a huge revolutionary mass movement developed against the U.S. aggression in Southeast Asia. With great determination and militancy, millions of American people rose up in one mass action after another against this most savage, aggressive war. With the defeat of the U.S. imperialist aggression by the Indochinese peoples, and shaken by the massive revolutionary movement at home, the bloodstained monopoly capitalist government temporarily ended the draft in an effort to pacify the American people and to trick them into believing that American imperialism genuinely wanted peace. And now it is "peacenik" Carter who is trying to once again impose the draft and is revealing the essence of the administration's imperialist pacifism: fine words of peace to hide and serve rabid war preparations in deeds.
Against this militarist program, a new mass movement is developing. All over the country large demonstrations have taken place against the nuclear weapons arsenal of the U.S. military and the plans to reinstitute the draft. The masses of American people still have a burning hatred for the U.S. imperialist war machine and are getting organized to wage even bigger struggles in the future.
In recent months the movement to protest the U.S. nuclear energy program has been developing vigorously. Since the anti-nuclear demonstration of more than 100,000 people in Washington, D. C. on May 6, more than 60 demonstrations, public meetings and rallies have taken place in over 26 states to denounce U.S. imperialism's nuclear energy program. In these demonstrations, the criminal poisoning of the people from nuclear radiation was denounced, as well as the total disregard for health and safety practiced by the nuclear energy monopolies and the U.S. government, which "regulates" the nuclear energy program. The masses of people opposed the wild profiteering of the nuclear monopolies and public utilities who are further impoverishing the masses through ever-soaring utility rates, which in part are used to finance the so-called "cheap" nuclear power. Protests were made against the export of billion dollar nuclear power plants to other countries by the U.S. imperialists. And increasing numbers of anti-nuclear activists have denounced the frantic preparations of U.S. imperialism for a nuclear third world war.
On the weekend of June 2 and 3, demonstrations were organized all across the U.S. Protests were made at the locations of more than 13 nuclear power plants where demonstrators occupied many plant sites. More than 1,300 people were arrested across the country. In Shoreham, Long Island, 20,000 people called for the permanent halt of all construction on a nuclear power plant located there. They also denounced the development of nuclear weapons of mass slaughter. In Plymouth, Massachusetts, 4,000 people demonstrated against the operation of the Pilgrim I nuclear plant and against the proposed construction of the Pilgrim II plant. In Hartford, Connecticut, the demonstrators denounced the wild profiteering of the nuclear energy monopolists and the electric power utilities who are attempting to extort a total of $131 million in rate increases from the people. In San Francisco, over 125 people gathered to denounce the Export-Import Bank and the Westinghouse Corporation who plan to export a $1.1 billion, 620 megawatt nuclear power plant to the Philippines. Other demonstrations on the weekend of June 2 and 3 took place in Seattle; Denver; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Mineral, Virginia; Russelville, Arkansas; Bay City, Texas; Monroe, Michigan; Moscow, Ohio; North Perry, Ohio; and elsewhere. On June 30, a big rally of more than 25,000 people was organized in San Luis Obispo, California. It was held in opposition to the licensing of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant project and against the criminal activities of the nuclear energy monopolists and the "regulatory" agencies which "oversaw" the location and building of this nuclear plant within two miles of a major earthquake fault.
Demonstrations also took place in more than 11 countries around the world June 2 and 3 against the nuclear energy programs undertaken by the U.S. and other imperialists. These countries included Canada, Holland, Japan, Portugal, Belgium, West Germany, Ireland, Great Britain, France and Spain. In Spain, the fascist police viciously attacked the demonstrators and murdered a 24 year old woman.
Right from the start, the nuclear energy program undertaken by the U.S. imperialists has been closely linked with its research and development of weapons for nuclear war. In fact, the alleged "peaceful uses" of nuclear energy, lauded by the apologists of the rich, are a mere byproduct of the frenzied war preparations of U.S. imperialism. In turn, the U.S. monopoly capitalist dictators use the development of the nuclear power reactors to push forward their weapons research to provide plutonium for bombs, and to stockpile energy resources for war. They also use the development and export of nuclear power plants to monopolize world energy supplies and to strengthen the enslaving chains of the vast U.S. neo-colonial empire.
Similarly, the movement against nuclear power plants is closely linked to the mass movement against the frantic war preparations of the U.S. imperialists. For example, a group of demonstrators recently climbed over a fence and occupied the grounds of the Trident Submarine base located in Bangor, Washington. Last summer, 2,000 people were arrested at this site for opposing the existence of the Trident nuclear missile launching submarine base. As well, the many demonstrations against nuclear power plants have also been the occasion for protests against the nuclear arms race and against imperialist war preparations in general. In recent months demonstrations have also occurred against nuclear weapons production at the Rocky Flats installation in Colorado and in several places against the attempts to reintroduce the military draft.
[Photos: Washington D.C., Seattle]
The U.S. imperialist warmongers are planning to conduct nuclear war exercises in the skies over Canada later this year. Under the code name "Global Shield", these war exercises will be massive military maneuvers and war games. These military exercises are part of U.S. imperialism's feverish aggressive activity. U.S. imperialism is arming to the teeth and constantly training and rehearsing for war in order to drown the world revolution in blood and to contend for world domination with the equally savage Soviet social-imperialists. These new war exercises are another crime against the world's people and another act of aggression against the Canadian people, who suffer from the economic, military, and political domination of U.S. imperialism.
Operation "Global Shield" is a massive military maneuver which will last a week and will simulate full-scale nuclear war. "Global Shield" calls for several hundred Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers to make mock nuclear bombing runs on the Soviet Union by flying northward to the North Pole. These bombers will include both B-52's and also F-111 fighter bombers, both of which will be supported by KC-135 tanker aircraft for refueling. To amass this fleet, bombers will be flown in from bases around the world, including Guam, Spain and England. In all, more than two-thirds of the SAC's 400 nuclear bombers and 600 tanker aircraft will take part, and more than 120,000 U.S. imperialist troops. "Global Shield" is a big dress rehearsal for global slaughter.
"Global Shield" is another crime against the Canadian people. The U.S. exercises all-round domination over Canada. Its political domination is such that the Canadian Government of National Betrayal decided to facilitate Operation "Global Shield". U.S. military domination of Canada is so complete that the U.S. imperialists maintain virtual total control over the armed forces of Canada. Through the aggressive NATO alliance and also the reactionary NORAD pact between the U.S. and Canada, the U.S. imperialists have taken control of the Canadian military and make the Canadian armed forces serve U.S. imperialist interests around the world.
The arrogance of the U.S. imperialists is such, and their domination over Canada so complete, that in 1973 the U.S. military High Command ordered the Canadian armed forces to go on alert without even informing the Canadian High Command of the government of national betrayal. The U.S. imperialists maintain permanent military bases in Canada, station aggressive troops across Canada, and freely use Canadian territory to conduct air and land war maneuvers. In 1978 the U.S. imperialists staged similar maneuvers over Canada under the code name "Maple Leaf D-l". These "war games" saw more than 1,500 aircraft from the U.S., Canada and other NATO countries fly air combat missions over western Canada because it "simulated the climatic and terrain conditions of Europe." Thus these military exercises serve the purpose of strengthening U.S. aggression in Europe. The U.S. conducts extensive exercises right in Europe too. For example, since 1967 the U.S. imperialists have been conducting extensive military land and air maneuvers under the code name RE FORGER (an abbreviation for Return the Forces to Germany).
The announcement of "Global Shield" in the Canadian press has already triggered outrage among the Canadian people. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) denounced these exercises. On April 28th demonstrations and public meetings were organized in four cities to denounce these reactionary war preparations of the U.S. imperialists and all imperialists and to denounce the reactionary bourgeoisie and the government of the rich for its part in facilitating these war exercises. Should the U.S. imperialists go ahead with Operation "Global Shield" it will undoubtedly meet with a storm of protest all across Canada.
Today the American people are again beginning to stir against the U.S. imperialist war preparations. Demonstrations have taken place against the production of nuclear weapons, submarines and missiles, against the reintroduction of the draft and against the aggressive U.S.-China alliance. The staging of Operation "Global Shield" is sure to receive the condemnation of the American proletariat and all toiling and oppressed people.
DOWN WITH OPERATION "GLOBAL SHIELD"!
DOWN WITH U.S. IMPERIALIST NUCLEAR WAR PREPARATIONS!
DOWN WITH THE U.S. IMPERIALIST DOMINATION OF CANADA!
This issue of The Workers' Advocate carries several articles on the struggle of the auto workers against their savage exploitation by the auto billionaires. At this time the monopoly capitalists, with the Carter administration as their chief representative, are conducting a massive offensive against the working class under the hoax of "fighting inflation". This offensive includes wage controls to cut the real wages of the workers through soaring inflation. While inflation has continued to soar at an annual rate of 14% in 1979, the Carter government is demanding that the workers' wages and benefits be kept below a 7% increase. That is, Carter is demanding that the workers submit to massive wage cuts. As well, the Carter government is demanding that the workers "increase the output per man-hour" as "an important contribution to reducing inflation" and to overcoming the economic crisis of the capitalist system. Thus, along with wage controls to drive down the workers' wages, Carter is trying to impose a productivity drive to intensify the exhausting overwork and savage capitalist exploitation of the working class. The auto billionaires have fully endorsed Carter's "anti-inflation" program, and what this program means for the workers is clearly manifested in the auto industry.
The auto magnates, the infamous engineers of the system of efficiently and "scientifically" sweating the workers to an early grave, are carrying out a brutal productivity drive against the workers. In the period of 1976-78 production rose to an annual average of 12.5 million motor vehicles in the U.S. with an average workforce of 682,000 workers. This amounts to 18.1 motor vehicles produced for each worker employed. In the last boom period of auto production, in 1971-73, production was at 11.5 million motor vehicles a year with a workforce averaging 687,000 workers, a proportion of 16.7 motor vehicles produced for each worker employed. Thus in the recent period auto production has reached record levels through imposing a heavier workload on the workers, increasing the unit output per worker by 8%. The brutal overwork imposed on the auto workers is graphically described in the article on the struggle of the Chevrolet Tonawanda workers (see article on this page). Besides this, increased productivity is also being realized through the introduction of new machinery (for instance "robots" which replace two to three workers on a job per shift), new plants and the retooling of machinery throughout the old plants. As well, the auto billionaires continue to enforce extremely long overtime hours on the workers. Despite all of the promises of "voluntary overtime" the auto workers are being forced to put in even more overtime hours than in 1973 (when the program of "voluntary overtime" was instituted). Auto workers put in an average of 6. 2 overtime hours per week in 1977, the highest level in at least a decade, and in February and March of 1979 they have worked on the average of 6. 2 and 6.0 overtime hours per week. From these examples it can be seen that the monopoly capitalists' drive for a higher rate of worker productivity only means a more savage exploitation and oppression of the workers.
The productivity drive of the auto capitalists is not only enforcing extreme overwork on the employed workers, but it also has led to throwing thousands of workers out of their jobs. Despite record levels of production thousands of workers remain on indefinite layoffs, with many more periodically laid off. At Chrysler alone 13,500 workers have been thrown into the streets, unemployed. The example of Dodge Main (see article on this page) where workers are forced to work six- day weeks at a terrific pace of work, while 4,000 workers are already laid off and the layoff of the remaining 5,000 workers is planned, clearly demonstrates that under capitalism the massive overwork of a section of the workers goes hand in hand with massive unemployment of other workers.
Besides the tremendous overwork imposed on the auto workers, their real wages are being cut by soaring inflation. For example, an assembler at Ford Motor Company made $6. 885 per hour in October 1976. In real wages this amounted to $3.973 (figured in 1967 dollars). After receiving annual wage increases of 3% and quarterly cost- of-living increases, as of May 1979 an assembler made $8,425 per hour. But due to the soaring inflation, this amounted to only $3. 930 in real wages, that is, a cut in wages of $0.043. It should be noted that in reality the cut was even greater due to the fact that the Consumer Price Index actually underrates the rise in inflation (since basic necessities are rising at much higher rates) and also because increasing taxation has taken a greater portion of the workers' wages. From this example it can be seen that Carter's demand that the workers hold down their wage demands while inflation is skyrocketing, can only mean the further impoverishment of the working class.
The entire "anti-inflation program" of the Carter government, the wage controls to cut the workers' wages and the productivity drive to intensify the overwork and exploitation of the workers, has nothing to do with "fighting inflation". But it has everything to do with increasing the enormous profits of the capitalist parasites. For example, with the sharp crisis in the car market in 1974-75, the profits of the auto billionaires were cut sharply. But with the restoration of production levels in 1976-78, and with fewer workers putting out more cars and the jacking up of monopoly prices, the auto magnates increased their profits to an annual average of over $6 billion. This is a 70% increase over the average annual profits of $3. 6 billion in the 1971-73 boom period. That is to say, even after inflation is taken into account, the auto magnates made significantly increased profits through perfecting the man-eating system of overwork and by holding down the workers' wages through inflation. This proves that the general law of capitalist accumulation discovered by Marx is operating with ever greater force -- the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. The impoverishment of the working people grows on the one hand, while the profits of the monopoly capitalist moneybags increase at an unprecedented rate.
Thus for the working class to defend its basic class interests it is necessary to wage revolutionary mass struggle against Carter's "anti-inflation program". The workers must defy Carter's wage controls and resist the intense overwork imposed by the monopoly capitalists' productivity drive.
(The following article is taken from a leaflet issued June 15, 1979, by the Buffalo Workers Revolutionary Committee of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Buffalo Branch.)
Currently, the workers in plant #4 of the Chevrolet Tonawanda complex are organizing a struggle against the vicious speedup of the General Motors capitalists. A number of grievances have been instituted by the workers on the V6 60-degree engine block assembly line and in the engine test department in the effort to slow down the pace of production. In addition, workers at plant #4 are developing a slowdown. This struggle is part of the developing resistance of the auto workers nationwide against speedup and other methods the auto capitalists are using to increase productivity.
For some time the auto capitalists have been waging a fierce productivity drive against the auto workers. Recent developments at the Chevrolet Tonawanda complex provide concrete proof that the auto workers are being driven to produce to the very limit of their physical capacities in order to satisfy the insatiable greed for maximum profits of the GM moneybags. Throughout the nation, it is common knowledge among the working class that to work for the auto capitalists means to be faced with brutal speedup and long hours of mandatory overtime. The current situation at plant #4 of the complex shows this to be true.
Plant #4 was opened in January 1979 to produce the V6 60-degree engine for GM's "revolutionary car of the 80's", the Citation. When the plant first opened, the workers were producing 80 engines per hour. Within three months, the speed of production reached 180 engines per hour or an increase of 125% in production. While the work force increased just 20% in the same period! Further, in early April, Philip J. Pierce, plant manager at Chevrolet in Tonawanda, announced that, "Since production started at such a slow pace it will be accelerated in the future." When compared to lines in plant #1 of the complex where similar jobs are performed, the intense speed of the line is even more shocking. Plant #1, line A piston placement, produces 114 pistons per worker each hour. Line B produces 96 pistons per worker each hour. It should be pointed out that the speed with which the line moves in plant #1 is so hated by the workers because of its intense pace that they have waged constant struggle against it, including issuing numerous grievances leading to a strike vote in 1978. In plant #4 however, the line moves even faster than plant #1. In plant #4, 135 pistons per worker are produced each hour -- 18% faster than line A and 41% faster than line B! And Mr. Plant Manager Pierce is "pleased to announce" that this production is not enough and must be increased by 27%. Surely this situation leaves no room for doubt that the GM capitalists will attempt to go to any lengths necessary to realize maximum profits off the blood and sweat of the auto workers.
The workers in plant #4 have begun to turn to struggle against this intensive overwork. When plant #4's engine test department first opened, the workers were testing six engines per hour. As production in the plant increased, the testers were pushed to speed up as well. By mid-March the speed of the test line was ten engines per hour and today it reaches 11. 5 per hour. In mid-March the workers began their slowdown, refusing to do more than eight per hour. This stand has caused the GM capitalists to go into a frenzy of attack on the workers. The GM capitalists, with their long history of attack on the fighting workers, employ numerous methods to stop the struggle of the workers. This means the workers must maintain their vigilance against any and all forms of attack. In this struggle, the foremen began by calling the workers "goof-offs" and threatening them with a "bad name which will follow them around the plant." When this didn't work, the company changed tactics and began to demand that the workers not leave their areas until five minutes were left in their shift in an effort to squeeze every bit of extra production possible out of them. As well, the company has looked for various petty reasons to write up the workers. Throughout this struggle, the engine test workers, while using the grievance procedure leading to a possible strike vote, have not allowed themselves to be restricted to this a- lone. They have united in struggle, stood as one and stuck to their slowdown of no more than eight per hour.
The productivity drive of the auto billionaires is part of the overall monopoly capitalist offensive against the working class being organized under the hoax of "fighting inflation". The chief representative of the monopoly capitalists, the Carter government, has time and again stressed that his "anti-inflation program" not only means wage controls (keeping combined wage and benefit increases to 7% a year while inflation is soaring at an annual rate of 13. 8% -- that is, a big wage cut). He also stresses the need to "increase the output per man- hour", that is to submit the workers to a more terrible overwork, as "an important contribution to reducing inflation" and to overcoming the economic crisis of the monopoly capitalist system. This entire monopoly capitalist "fight against inflation" is a diabolical hoax. While it does nothing to stop inflation, it does intensify the exploitation of the workers to make maximum profits for the rich. For example in the period of 1976-1978, the auto billionaires restored the level of automobile production, raising worker productivity from 16. 7 cars built for each worker employed (during the 1971-1973 period) to 18.1 cars built for each worker employed. During this period the auto magnates' net profits rose to an annual average of over $6 billion, a 70% increase over the average annual profits of $3.6 billion during the 1971-73 period. Thus, while doing nothing to stop inflation, this productivity drive and the soaring inflation resulted in huge profits for the auto billionaires. The Carter government's "fight against inflation" is nothing more than a drive to maximize the profits of the rich through cutting the workers' real wages and submitting the workers to terrible overwork.
It is quite an important fact that UAW president Fraser was one of the earliest public supporters of Carter's "anti-inflation program". In fact, the top leadership of the UAW supports "increased productivity" of the auto workers, claiming that this is the basis for creating jobs, providing more leisure time through increased annual leave, and the shorter workweek. In this way, they attempt to create the illusion that the productivity drive will alleviate the effects of the economic crisis and be of great benefit to the working class. However, the facts show this claim to be just the opposite of the truth. Far from "creating jobs and providing more leisure time", jobs have been eliminated and a slightly decreased work force nationwide of 682,000 auto workers worked longer hours at a record pace in the past three years (averaging 12. 5 million cars per year). At the same time the net profits of the auto capitalists have soared. No, instead of benefiting the auto workers, the increased productivity is nothing but a means to exploit the workers to the maximum and increase the profits of the capitalists.
The workers cannot submit to the productivity drive of the monopoly capitalist moneybags. The workers in plant #4 of the Chevrolet Tonawanda complex are quite correct to fight against the intensive overwork. In fact, this struggle should be extended and intensified. To defend its basic interests the working class must develop revolutionary mass struggle against the entire "anti-inflation program" of the Carter government, against his anti-working class wage controls to cut the workers' real wages and against the savage productivity drive of the monopoly capitalist exploiters.
DOWN WITH THE INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY
DRIVE OF THE AUTO CAPITALISTS!
MASS STRUGGLE IS THE ANSWER TO SPEEDUP!
On June 12 more than 3,500 production workers at the VW Rabbit assembly plant near New Stanton, Pennsylvania, launched a wildcat strike against the imposition of the "tag relief" system. Under the previous system all operations shut down for two 18-minute periods during each eight-hour shift. With "tag relief' the assembly line never stops. Workers would be relieved individually at irregular intervals. In this way some workers would endure three hours of grueling assembly line work between their first break and their half hour lunch. The workers were absolutely right to resist this increasing fascist labor discipline.
The VW capitalists were outraged at this strike, the sixth strike waged by these militant workers in less than one year. "The 'tag relief' system is common in the U.S. auto industry," declared the company officials. Therefore, the workers should mutely accept that they are at the beck and call of the monopoly capitalists' drive for maximum profits and do whatever this requires. Such is their fascist logic. To suppress the just resistance of the workers the VW capitalists summoned their labor lieutenants and their courts to break the strike. UAW Local 2055 official Joe Dominiak ordered the pickets back to work: "I threatened to resign if they didn't go back to work, but it didn't do any good. What we have here is a contract that is being ignored by certain beer-drinking radicals in our membership. What the company should do is throw them in jail for trespassing on company property."! U.S. District Judge Donald Ziegler issued a court injunction against the strike and threatened fines of over $30,000 a day.
Defying company, labor bureaucrats, and fascist courts, the workers persisted in their wildcat for four days. They succeeded in punishing the VW capitalists to the tune of over 2,000 cars in lost production. Their return to work means only a temporary truce in their struggle against the monopoly capitalist exploiters.
CHRYSLER'S PLAN TO CLOSE DODGE MAIN: AUTOMOBILE BILLIONAIRES DRIVE TO DUMP THE BURDEN OF THE CRISIS ON THE WORKERS' BACKS!!
On Tuesday, May 29, the Chrysler billionaires announced their latest "solution" to their crisis: Close Dodge Main entirely, and eliminate the remaining almost 5,000 jobs there, in addition to the over 4,000 already eliminated at this one plant in the last year. But this is not just an attack on the some 9,000 workers who have worked at Dodge Main. Chrysler said that "the closing will leave Chrysler with seven car and truck plants in the U.S. and three in Canada, enough to produce some 2.3 million vehicles a year. That is more than the company's peak production of 2.2 million in the boom year of 1973. " In other words, Chrysler plans to speed up the workers at its other assembly plants to cover the production lost at Hamtramck (quite a speedup considering Dodge Main is as big as two normal auto plants because of its two separate assembly lines )!
Furthermore, Chrysler has declared that the workers losing their jobs at Hamtramck "could fill some of 10,000 openings created annually by resignations, firings and retirements in the Detroit area." But, if there really are so many openings available, then why is it that there are still thousands of Dodge Main workers off work since the layoffs last September and December, who are still in the street, and many of whom have had their SUB and unemployment compensation run out?! Chrysler had to admit recently that the SUB fund is almost empty and will only last until early August. Thus any worker laid off by Chrysler will receive no SUB check! And as far as the promise of transferring about 1,500 high seniority workers to Jefferson Ave. or Dodge Truck... this means losing all plant seniority and being subjected to the worst speedup, just like a new hire.
The capitalist media, Chrysler, and the financial experts are all advertising the Hamtramck plant closing as "unfortunate", but the "only way out" for Chrysler. But in fact it is the "only way out" which completely serves the interests of the Chrysler capitalists and the big Wall Street financiers behind them, the "way out" which makes the workers pay the maximum and bear the whole burden of the crisis.
This was also the case with the "great solution" of hiring Iacocca. While he was praised by the rich and their news media as a "great savior" for "both" the company and the workers, in fact the whole plan was to save the profits of the big bankers financing Chrysler by making the workers pay! Thus Iacocca's first "cost-cutting" brainstorm was to eliminate 1,200 jobs at Dodge Main by closing line #2 on second shift, and speeding up and eliminating jobs with hew automation and robots at every Chrysler plant since then.
(Leaflet issued on Wednesday, May 30, 1979, by the Detroit Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists and excerpted for publication. )
4,000 WORKERS MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST CLOSING DODGE MAIN!
On Sunday, June 3, nearly 4,000 Chrysler workers marched from Local 3 UAW Hall to Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck to attend a union meeting and rally against the closing of Dodge Main. This mass action by the Dodge Main workers forcefully shows their unity and determination to fight for job security, and their absolute refusal to be forced to pay for the economic problems of the Chrysler billionaires. It demonstrates that the auto workers' movement is developing, and great class battles against the rich are ahead.
MAKE CHRYSLER, AND NOT THE WORKERS PAY FOR THE CRISIS!
Chrysler's plan to close Dodge Main is part of a program recently devised by Lee Iacocca. Aside from closing Dodge Main (and eliminating the 10,000 jobs this plant recently had), this plan includes speeding up the Dodge Truck and Jefferson Assembly workers to make up for the production lost at Dodge Main. In the meantime, the Dodge Main workers are being forced to work 54 and more hours per week while over 4,000 Dodge Main workers are still laid off. On top of this Chrysler's SUB fund will only last until early August.
Iacocca showed this "cost-cutting" plan to 82 big capitalist bankers. He says that they were so thrilled by the big profits this plan will reap at the workers' expense, that they promised Chrysler all the financing they need to do it. But the mass action by the Dodge Main workers demonstrates that the workers refuse to be forced to pay for Chrysler's problems. They are determined to fight for job security.
"WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT THIS ATTACK BY THE RICH?"
At the Sunday march and rally, all the workers were seriously discussing the grave situation they face. The basic question on everybody's mind was: "WHAT IS TO BE DONE ABOUT THIS ATTACK BY THE RICH?". This is an extremely serious question for the Dodge Main workers. But, while the speakers from the UAW talked in very "militant"-sounding tones..., they offered no fighting program against Chrysler's attack. In fact, they encouraged the workers NOT to take matters into their own hands, NOT to fight against Chrysler! Instead, they pushed the big lie that "our" congressmen, and the other politicians of the rich are "on our side" and that the workers must rely on them. Their speeches boiled down to this: "We have to fight... so write your congressmen."!
The UAW bureaucrats are long-time advocates of the idea that the only way the workers should "fight" the rich is to vote for and lobby the capitalist politicians, especially the Democratic Party. For example: the UAW leaders worked very hard to get the workers to vote for Carter as the "friend of labor" who'd "solve" all our problems... since then Carter has attacked the workers with his "anti-inflation" program of Nixon-type 7% wage controls, has engineered another fake oil "shortage" to drive prices up, etc., etc.,... but still the UAW openly supports Carter and the Democrats!!
Why do they tell us to rely on the politicians of the rich ? The one thing the rich and their government fear the most is that the workers will take matters into their own hands, and wage revolutionary mass struggle. The union bureaucrats defend the interests of the capitalists. Their job is to keep matters from getting out of hand, to keep the workers' movement under control, to make it impotent and harmless to the rich. Thus they promote the dead-end alternative of relying on the Democratic politicians in order to keep the workers from taking matters into their own hands.
The only path for the Dodge Main and other auto workers in the face of the attacks of the rich is to answer these attacks with mass struggle, to rely on their own efforts, on the strength and unity of their own class, the working class... and not by begging the capitalist politicians and the government who are the representatives of the rich. This is the way the coal miners fought. They stood up and relied on their own efforts, and not on the union traitors and the government, and waged a 100-day national strike which fought the coal barons and the Carter government to a standstill! This is the way the Dodge Main and other auto workers have to fight for job security.
(Leaflet issued on Sunday, June 3, 1979, by the Detroit Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, and slightly edited for publication.)
Over 165,000 electrical workers are preparing to confront the two giant monopolies, General Electric and Westinghouse, and Carter's wage controls. On June 30, the contract covering 115,000 GE workers expired, while the contract for 49,600 Westinghouse workers expires July 15. The workers are organized into 13 different unions, the majority being in the RJE, IBEW and UE. The 13 unions are collectively negotiating with the capitalists through their Coordinated Bargaining Committee (CBC).
With inflation running at 14% annually, the electrical workers, whose average wage is about $6. 70 an hour, have seen their spendable income steadily eroded away. Therefore they are seeking a substantial wage increase as well as an improved COLA formula that is computed more than the present once a year, and without a cap. Further they are demanding an end to the contributory pension plan at GE and insisting that GE alone should pay. At present, GE workers must pay 3% of their earnings above $6,600 yearly into the pension plan, which amounts to a decrease in their wage of up to 15£ an hour. The workers are also demanding improvements in other benefits, job security and union shop.
At the same time that their wages have been declining due to inflation, the electrical workers, particularly at GE, have been subjected to a vicious productivity drive. Beginning in the fall of 1978, GE launched an ''increased productivity" campaign which has meant layoffs for some workers and speedup and overwork for the rest. GE has carried out this intensification of labor by introducing new machinery and production techniques, "rebalancing" production lines through job combination and elimination, and using cheaper quality materials and parts. Accompanying this attack on the workers is a GE propaganda campaign that increased productivity is necessary to offset inflation, that GE can't raise its prices high enough to make up for increases in its costs, so therefore the GE workers should slave even harder and be more "productive" so that this gigantic monopoly can maintain its "profitability levels". And its profitability levels are fantastic. In 1978, GE made over $1. 2 billion in profits, up 13% over 1977 and 79% over 1975. In the first quarter of 1979 alone, GE registered a whopping $303.4 million, up 22% from the first quarter of 1978. Furthermore, while in 1975 GE received an estimated income pf $37,577 per employee, by 1978 it was getting $50,057 per employee, an increase of 33. 2% over three years, and this was without the concerted productivity campaign now under way. In the same three-year period, the GE workers' average hourly wage rose barely 26%, from $4. 93 to $6. 21. GE's "productivity drive" is designed to step up the exploitation of the workers and further swell the profits of these already bloated moneybags.
Besides the productivity drive, GE as well as Westinghouse are counting on the use of Carter's fascist wage controls, which are an attempt to limit combined wage and benefit increases to 7% a year at a time when prices are rising at a 14% rate, to further reduce the workers' real income and increase their profits. But the electrical workers have a history of vigorous and tenacious struggle against these bloodsuckers. Today they are resisting the capitalists' productivity drive. In 1969-70, the GE workers waged a bitter 101-day strike in which they fought against Nixon's so-called anti-inflation policies and GE's starvation wages, winning improved wages and benefits and costing GE over $90 million in profits. Today the capitalists and their government are stepping up their attacks on the workers, seeking to force the burden of their big economic crisis onto the workers' backs. It is only through vigorous mass struggle, like that in 1969, that the electrical workers can defy Carter's wage controls, resist the capitalists' attacks and thus defend their basic interests.
RUBBER WORKERS' STRIKE DEFIES CARTER'S WAGE CONTROLS AND DEFEATS A WAGE CUT
Eighty-three hundred members of the United Rubber Workers union ended their five and a half week strike against Uniroyal when a tentative settlement was reached June 18. Through their struggle the workers successfully defended themselves from a wage cut and far surpassed Carter's wage controls.
According to figures released by the Wall Street Journal, assuming a 6% annual inflation rate the workers obtained a 40% increase over three years, well above the guidelines' allowed 22.5% (7% combined wages and benefits compounded over three years). No cap or other restrictions on the COLA clause were announced. Thus, taking the figures reported and calculating the wage and COLA increase on the basis of the current 14% inflation rate, the workers' wage increase over three years would total 48.1%. It is possible for the rubber workers' wages to increase to this level because of the COLA clause that was negotiated. The contract provides for an improved COLA formula in the second and third year, paid quarterly, of l£ per hour,increase in the base wage for each rise in the Consumer Price Index of. 26 of a point. This is an improvement over the formula in the first year of 1¢ for each.3 point rise in the CPI.
The rubber workers were able to successfully defend themselves from a wage cut and to achieve as high a wage settlement as they did because of the mass struggle they have waged against the capitalists. It was only after waging a five and one-half week strike against Uniroyal that the Goodrich rubber capitalists caved in, signing a contract to be used as the pattern for all 55,000 workers employed by the Big Four rubber monopolies (Goodyear, Firestone, Uniroyal and Goodrich). And for three years prior to the recent struggle, the rubber capitalists have been fretting over the possible recurrence of a strike like that which was waged in 1976. This struggle of the rubber workers, which encouraged the whole working class, was a militant and determined 141- day battle that shut down all of the Big Four. Due to the mass struggle, a substantial wage increase was won, plus for the first time, a cost-of-living adjustment clause. For years prior to the 1976 strike, the rubber workers' wages had been falling behind those of comparable sections of the proletariat. In 1965 their wages were 22¢ an hour more than those of auto workers, but by 1976 they had fallen behind by $1.65. It was only by waging a vigorous fight in 1976 that the rubber workers were able to halt this erosion of their wages.
The fact that the rubber workers successfully defended themselves cannot be credited to the top union officials who attempted to sabotage the struggle every inch of the way. URW president Peter Bommarito in particular refused to mobilize the workers for militant mass struggle to demand the highest wage possible. He delayed the strike for as long as he could and then struck only one of the Big Four, Uniroyal, thus betraying the workers' vehement demand from 1976 that all four companies be struck at once. This weakened the rubber workers' struggle.
The monopoly capitalists were quite concerned about the rubber workers' struggle, fearing that if they really smashed through Carter's wage controls, which in fact they did do, then the electrical and auto workers would be that much more inspired to defy the controls and fight for the biggest wage increase possible in their upcoming contract negotiations. Today the monopoly capitalist class is in serious economic crisis. The issue is, who will pay for the crisis -- the workers or the capitalists. The rich and their government are trying to force the workers to pay. Carter's "voluntary" wage controls program, as part of the fascist offensive of the rich, is designed to cut the workers' wages and suppress their strikes so as to maximize capitalist profits. This aim was reasserted most recently by Robert Russell, deputy director of the Council on Wage and Price Stability, who stated that the biggest challenge facing the guidelines is to prevent the workers' wage settlements from catching up with skyrocketing food and energy prices. But section after section of the working class has been standing up to these attacks and defying Carter's wage controls. To advance their struggle the path forward for the workers is to overcome the sabotage of the labor bureaucrats who restrict and undermine the workers' struggle, and wage vigorous mass action to defend their vital interests against the attacks of the capitalists.
(The following leaflet was issued by the New York Metro Branch of the COUSML, June 8, 1979.)
In the last few weeks, several demonstrations of hospital and municipal workers have taken place in New York City. Ten thousand municipal hospital workers and 2,500 voluntary hospital workers demonstrated in front of City Hall on May 1st and May 23rd, respectively. These demonstrations protested the plans of the NY C government to cut the hospital budget for the coming years, thus laying off thousands of health care workers and depriving the masses of essential health services. In addition, on May 23rd, 2,500 CETA-funded city workers, including hospital workers, demonstrated at the U.S. Department of Labor offices against the planned layoff of 14,000 from their ranks in the coming months. These demonstrations are entirely just and deserve the support of the working class and people of New York.
The hospital workers were demonstrating against Mayor Koch's plans to cut the city hospital budget by $29 million in 1980 and $80 million by 1983. This cut, plus city-requested state cuts, will mean the elimination of 2,914 beds, the closing of up to half the municipal and some of the voluntary hospitals, and the elimination (through layoffs and attrition) of up to 10,000 hospital workers. Consequently, this will mean the speedup and increased exploitation for the remaining workers, and the deterioration of health care for the people of the city.
In order to paint these brutal attacks in rosy colors, Koch and the city government have been talking a lot about "excess beds" which the city wants to eliminate so as to cut "unnecessary waste" in the hospital budget. But this is just a vicious lie by Koch and his administration to attack the masses of the people and fill the pockets of the financial oligarchs. Is medical care for the people "unnecessary waste"? Are the jobs and livelihood of thousands of hospital workers "unnecessary waste"? Of course not! The city government's claim that there are "excess beds" is just a hoax to "justify" its attacks on the people; the talk of "excess beds" merely exposes the fact that the city government has no interest in ensuring adequate health care for the people. Already 23 hospitals with 3,339 beds have been closed in New York since 1976. This has meant layoffs for thousands of hospital workers and the increasing overwork of the remaining workers, while patients must endure even longer waits in the emergency rooms and clinics just to get assembly line treatment.
But it is not just the city government that is calling for cuts in the health care budget and the consequent layoffs of hospital workers and reduction of already inadequate health services. The government of the rich at all levels is engaged in one coordinated effort on this front. The Carter administration is at the center of the attacks on health care for the people. As recently as March 6, the Carter administration introduced legislation for national "cost containment" in the health care sector. "Cost containment" blames the people for the high cost of medical care while the profits of the monopoly capitalists in the health care industry continue to soar. Its aim is to cut the wages of health care workers, to speed up and intensify their labor and reduce the quantity and quality of health care services for the people. This is justified by Carter under the hoax of "eliminating waste", "unnecessary operations", "excess beds", etc.
In New York City, this national policy of "cost containment" has intertwined with the campaign of the finance capitalists and city government to make the working class and people pay for the fiscal crisis. Ever since 1975, the city government has been "solving" its crisis by savagely attacking the city workers and urban masses. Budgets for health, education, sanitation, fire protection, parks, etc., have been slashed and tens of thousands of city workers laid off, wages frozen, pension assets seized, etc. All this has been done to guarantee and increase the profits of the Wall Street financiers -- profits made by sucking the workers' blood "donated" in all the 'sacrifices" of the past four years. This year alone the tribute extorted by the rich from the workers' tax dollars in the form of NYC debt service payments will reach $2 billion! And Koch calls for "continued sacrifices" yet!
The recent demonstrations have shown that the workers are not so eager to be sacrificed as tribute to the rich. The hospital workers, and other city workers, are gathering forces to resist the attacks of the rich and their government. In this situation, the municipal and hospital workers have the very inspiring example of the 3,200 bus drivers and matrons who for three months waged a hard-fought and militant strike against the attempts by the New York City Board of Education to deprive them of their jobs and livelihood. In waging their struggle, the bus drivers and matrons had to overcome the paralyzing lines that "the city has no money so it's useless to fight" and that "we all must sacrifice" (meaning the workers must sacrifice). They organized mass pickets, destroyed scab buses, fought the scabs and their police protectors. Only through their determined struggle were they able to win certain victories.
The path for the hospital workers to take is to resist all the attacks by the rich and their state, including the hospital administrations and government of the rich at all levels, and to prepare for mass revolutionary struggle. Only by waging mass revolutionary struggle can the working class and people make the rich bear the burden of the crisis, put an end to the dictatorship of the rich and their man-eating system of exploitation, and ensure good health services for the people.
A public meeting was held in Seattle on June 2 to denounce the plans of the city government to build a police station in the middle of the black community. Contrary to the claims of the bourgeoisie, the station is not being built to provide protection to the people from social crime, but for the purpose of violently suppressing the working class and oppressed masses. The fifty people in attendance at the meeting, organized by the Seattle Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, participated in lively discussion of the different aspects of the situation. A reactionary "community organizer" of the state- organized Cherry Hill Coalition was sent to the meeting where he tried to support the expansion of the police forces and also tried to solicit the names and organizational affiliation of numerous people in attendance. This coalition and others like it are trying to organize the people on the city blocks to spy on each other and to make reports of "suspicious activity" to the police department under the hoax of stopping crime. But as one can see, the "suspicious activity" that the police are concerned about is the public meetings and other activities of the Marxist-Leninists and the struggle of the masses in opposition to the increasing fascization of U.S. society. The people at the meeting rose as one to shout "No! To a Police Station in the Central Area!" and the "community organizer" ran off.
(The following remarks are excerpts from the speech, edited for publication, delivered at the meeting by a representative of the Seattle Branch of COUSML.)
"For the last ten years, the city government, which should be noted is a government of the rich, has been talking about building a police station in the Central Area of Seattle. Now this talk has emerged into definite concrete plans with the monies included to build this station. The bourgeoisie is dead-set on building this new police garrison in the predominately black community. One may raise the question of why a police station in the Central area ? The main reason for this is to spread an extensive police dragnet over the area in order to terrorize the workers and youth, to make them fear for their lives daily. The big moneybags and their state are scared to death of the black workers and youth, scared that they will rise in revolt against the terrible deterioration of their living conditions (which the other comrade spoke about in the preceding speech). In order to deal with the growing revolt of the working class and oppressed masses, the monopoly capitalists have been and are steadily expanding their repressive apparatus throughout the country and Seattle is no exception.
"This is occurring at a time when there is increasing revolt against Carter's wage control guidelines and his entire 'anti-inflation' program. This is occurring at a time when the Afro-American people and other oppressed nationalities are fighting against state-organized racist attacks such as the fascist anti-busing movement, and at a time when a mass movement against the war preparations of U.S. imperialism is developing. Therefore, the building of the police station can only be seen for what it is -- a criminal attack against the entire working class and people.
"We say that this is an attack on the entire proletariat because the oppressed black masses are an important part of the revolutionary forces, with the proletariat at the head. When any section of the oppressed masses is attacked, the proletariat is not indifferent but comes to the defense of the people. It is also true that a majority of the black people are workers whose only means of survival is to sell their labor power to the capitalists. And in this way also, an attack on the Afro- American people is an attack on the whole class.
"It should be noted that the black people in particular have historically been singled out for special attacks by the bourgeoisie and its government. This is done for the purpose of organizing the super-exploitation of the black people. So, it is in this way that the building of the police station is a racist attack launched against the black people as part of the attack on the entire working class.
"The Afro-American people in Seattle have a long history of fighting the class enemy, of fighting against racial discrimination and violent repression dating back to the late 1890's, and this history of struggle has been and is a definite contribution to the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Today the working class is at the center of the resistance to growing fascism, and under the leadership of its Marxist-Leninist Party, the proletariat must lead in merging all of the revolutionary movements into one great storm of revolutionary mass struggle to overthrow the monopoly capitalist criminals.
"It should be noted that all across the U.S. the bourgeoisie has launched a massive prison construction program, as well as the building of new police stations, in order to solve the problem of putting down any mass revolutionary struggle and to solve the problem of imprisoning large numbers of people. A total of 924 new prisons are now planned with 568 of them costing $3.47 billion. In Seattle, the renovation of the two police stations in the Northend and Southend, and the building of the new station in the Central Area will cost the masses $5.8 million or more.
"In order to win 'public approval' for these expenditures, the bourgeoisie has consistently organized a big 'anti-crime' campaign for a number of years in Seattle, claiming that expansion of the powers of the police is necessary to protect the people from crime. And who do they say are the criminals ? Of course, none other than the black people and other oppressed nationalities. But it is a well known fact that what actually happens as a result of building more police stations, etc., is an increase in police attacks against the masses, not a decrease in the crime rate....
"As part of the anti-crime hysteria organized against the black people, the bourgeoisie has setup a number of government agents in the leadership of certain community organizations to organize the masses to support increase police patrolling in the communities, and to soften them up for the building of the police station, under the hoax of stopping crime. The government and the big bourgeoisie have organized a whole network of such community organizations nationwide. These organizations have the backing and support of the government, businessmen and reactionary sections of the clergy. This policy dates back to the 1950's and 60's when, under the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, millions of dollars were put into developing such organizations for the purpose of subverting the mass movements and preventing them from taking up revolutionary mass struggle. These organizations exist for the sole purpose of diverting the masses into legalist, reformist, pacificist and anti-communist activity. The activity of these organizations does not disturb the position of the monopoly capitalist class, but in fact is for the maintenance of the status quo, and plays a role in facilitating the further fascization of the whole state apparatus....
"There is genuine concern amongst the masses that we will not be able to do anything to stop the capitalists from building the police station. It is true that one cannot talk sense into the capitalists. The issue however is to get prepared to fight against violent police attacks. Our stand, the stand of the COUSML, expresses the sentiment of the masses and serves the interests of the entire working class. We are organizing a definite opposition to the building of the police station in a step by step way. The state is organizing to build it and we are organizing to oppose it. This is the opening shot. The point is to get prepared to actively resist racist and fascist police attacks.''
At the conclusion of the meeting, everyone rose to their feet and enthusiastically shouted the following slogans:
NO TO A POLICE STATION IN THE CENTRAL AREA!
DOWN WITH THE MONOPOLY CAPITALIST CRIMINALS!
ACTIVE RESISTANCE IS THE ONLY WAY TO FIGHT STATE-ORGANIZED RACIST ATTACKS!
On May 27, the Denver police shot and killed a Chicano youth, Joe Rodriguez, at Las Casitas housing projects, Rodriguez was shot in a friend's home, which he fled into, while he and a couple of friends were being chased by Denver cops for the "terrible crime" of sniffing paint. As expected the police claim this murder is justified since Officer Silvas, who shot Rodriguez, was acting in self-defense. According to the public statement of Silvas, the murdered youth had a gun pointed at him "dead center" and thought Rodriguez "was going to kill me" yet he claims, "I don't believe my gun was out of my holster yet. " How strange. Why wasn't Silvas shot instead of Rodriguez ?
The masses of people were outraged at this murder and over 200 people demonstrated in the projects and at the District Attorney's office denouncing the murder and demanding that the policeman responsible be punished. But this has not been done. On the contrary, the higher officials of the police department and District Attorney's office have even refused to conduct a public investigation of the murder. Instead they have been busy organizing a whitewash of the whole affair by means of a secret "investigation" which will as usual last just long enough for the storm to blow over. At the end of this "investigation" Officer Silvas will in the usual pattern be declared innocent of all wrongdoing. While the police have been "investigating" themselves, the capitalist news media has been running slanderous stories that Joe Rodriguez was a "hardened criminal" (at age 16) and in general slandering the Mexican nationality community as hot-headed and unstable in order to justify the police murder. After the murder of Joe Rodriguez the whole police department was mobilized in heavy patrols to harass and intimidate the Mexican nationality people on the whole West Side. This, of course, was justified by the police department onthe grounds of "preventing a rebellion" in response to the murder -- truly gangster logic.
The murder of Joe Rodriguez is part of the same pattern of activity of the police and the whole government which was evidenced in the police murders of Art Espinosa, James Hinojos and Carl Newland. It was not an isolated incident or a case of a trigger-happy cop but part of a planned and systematic racist and fascist campaign of the state of the rich against the Mexican nationality people. For several weeks prior to the murder of Joe Rodriguez the police had stepped up their harassment of the people at Las Casitas housing project. Patrols were stepped up and people were harassed and beaten on the street and even in their homes for the pettiest violations such as drinking beer on the sidewalk. The police arrogantly insulted people with foul language when people demanded that they explain themselves. At nearby Sloan's Lake Park police harassment of the Mexican nationality people was so intense and resistance was so high this spring that Mayor McNichols was forced to temporarily call off the police during the final weeks of his election campaign.
The rich and their government are racist and fascist to the core. In the current profound economic and political crisis of the capitalist system the rich have the program of shifting the entire burden onto the backs of the working masses. In order to enforce this program of the rich, the government is increasing its fascist terror against the masses. The same police force which is used to brutalize the Mexican nationality people one day is used the next day to suppress the, revolt of another section (for example, the use of the police and National Guard to suppress the protest of independent truck drivers against skyrocketing fuel prices). The defense of the Mexican nationality and other oppressed nationality people against the racist and fascist attacks of the rich and their state is an important question for the whole working class.
(The following leaflet was issued by the New York Metro Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists on June 14, 1979.)
It has been one year since the brutal murder of Arthur Miller by an army of police in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Life experience within this past year has proven that the state of the rich, which is racist to the core, consciously organizes and carries out racist attacks against the black people and then proceeds to sow maximum confusion on who is to blame for these attacks. It is the capitalists and their state who are to blame for racist attacks and not the people. The monopoly capitalist class has a definite interest in carrying out racist attacks and then shifting the blame onto the people. Today the capitalist system is in the throes of a deep all-round crisis. A vicious offensive has been launched to shift the entire burden onto the backs of the working and oppressed masses. Racist attacks are part of the violent, savage repression of the American ruling class and its state, part of the fascist offensive carried out against all sections of the working class and people. Attacks on the black people are the cutting edge of the growing fascism of the state. The aim of the government is to crush all resistance to capitalist exploitation, racist persecution and the class rule of the rich.
Let us sum up the experience over the past year and look at the activities of the state of the rich (the government and the police) and also their cultivated traitors and misleaders in the black community so as to see the correct path forward.
On June 14, 1978, Arthur Miller was brutally murdered by an army of police before hundreds of witnesses when he attempted to intervene and defend his brother Samuel against police harassment. According to all witnesses, as soon as Miller arrived and raised his arms in the air, police officers leaped on him and beat him to the ground and when he struggled to free himself he was savagely beaten and strangled to death.
From the very beginning, the government tried to cover up its own guilt for the murder of Arthur Miller and to divert and crush the resistance of the masses in the community. Their main tactic in this has been to blame the masses of people themselves for this dreadful crime and then to promote reliance on the government and the courts for a "solution" and "justice". Mysteriously, two days after Miller's murder, the near fatal beating of Victor Rhodes was carried out by the Hassidic "anti-crime" patrol -- a state organized racist gang of vigilantes. The capitalist press, the government and the police used this attack to divert attention away from themselves and to blame the people for racist attacks. The press wailed hysterically that "racial tensions are an ever present fact of life wherever different races and classes are mingled together. " But this racist beating, like the murder of Miller, was organized and instigated by the rich and their state. This racist "anti-crime" patrol is directly organized by the state, receives government funds, is trained by the police and has direct radio links to the police precincts. Under the fraud of fighting crime, it has a long history of carrying out racist attacks. The government of the rich, with the assistance of various traitors in the community did their best to cover up the role of the state in organizing these attacks by presenting "racial tensions" between blacks and whites as the problem and by promoting reliance on the state itself for a "solution". Their mission was to protect the fascist state machine from the wrath of the people and to instigate fights among the people.
In this situation, where the masses of people were rising up to denounce and resist these attacks, the government of the rich and the traitors and misleaders in the black community stepped forward with their "solutions". The state set up its four-month grand jury whitewash in order to let things "cool off". When this grand jury finally came out with its report, the class nature of the bourgeois state and the police was totally exposed. The report declared that the unprovoked assassination of Arthur Miller was "not the result of a criminal act" but simply "recommended procedures... during a lawful arrest. "!!! Thus this report is a flimsy attempt to whitewash the criminally racist nature of the state and in fact declares that racist murders by the police are 'legal"! This is the justice of the rich -- for them it is "not a criminal act" to terrorize the Afro-American community, to organize racist attacks and to murder innocent people; no, this is "recommended procedures"!
While the government came up with a whitewash, various opportunists, traitors and politicians also came forward with the same line as the state, only dressed in more "militant" colors. They called for a "full investigation" by a "federal grand jury", as if the racist kangaroo courts of the rich would suddenly change their nature and rule in favor of the people. These misleaders said not to fight the state but to reform it by "registering to vote". More recently they have initiated a campaign to "recall Mayor Koch. " These views and activities are promoted to cover up the class nature of the bourgeois state. The state is a tool in the hands of the rich moneybags. It can never be relied upon for solutions. No solution can be found by voting in this or that official, black or white. There is no cure from the gods of plague.
Another line promoted was that the city should hire more black policemen. That is, that the problem is just a few racist and fascist cops and not the entire state machine, and that the police can be reformed by hiring black police. But the police, black and white, can never act in defense of the people. The police are simply the armed wing of the state of the rich. Their only function in the community and in society in general is the protection of the class interests of the rich against the interests of the working and oppressed people. This was shown just this past winter when the school bus drivers and dairy workers in New York went on strike in defense of their jobs and livelihoods. The government deployed hundreds of cops to the picket lines to defend the class interests of the dairy and finance capitalists against the striking workers. In both strikes the courts of the rich declared the actions of the workers"illegal" and hundreds of workers were arrested and brutally clubbed and beaten by the police.
Thus the police, these so-called "protectors against crime", revealed their true function in this society as partners in crime of the rich and their state, which daily unleashes criminal attacks against the workers and carries out vicious racist attacks against the minority nationality people.
Nevertheless, the misleaders and traitors to the black community put forth the line of hiring more black cops last summer. They conveniently brushed aside the fact that it was 50 police, black and white, who murdered Arthur Miller and a police-organized Hassidic vigilante patrol which beat Victor Rhodes. Instead they claimed that the real problem was not enough black policemen. Mayor Koch loved this idea so much that he approved a $250,000 minority recruitment drive by the police department. And these traitors to the community dare to put a picture of Arthur Miller on a leaflet calling on the people to take the police exam. This is treachery of the highest sorts -- to promote that the reactionary and racist state and its police department can be transformed into a friend of the black people on which they should rely for salvation.
The experience of the last year shows us that the only path forward for the masses in fighting these state-organized racist attacks is the path of relying on our own efforts and strength and by taking up active resistance to meet the reactionary violence of the rich and their state with the revolutionary violence of the broad masses. It is the rich and their state who are racist to the core. There can be no justice for the black people in the criminal monopoly capitalist system or from its racist state. Justice can never be won through more black police, through the courts, or through the elections of the reactionary state, but only through the revolutionary struggle of the masses themselves. ACTIVE RESISTANCE IS THE ONLY REPLY TO THE CRIMES OF THE RACIST STATE!!!
Long ago, in the great rebellions of the Afro-American people of the 1960's, the masses rejected the path of capitulation to the state and took up the path of mass revolutionary struggle against the racial discrimination and violent repression of the rich. This heroic spirit can never be crushed and the struggle of the black people in the U.S. will be a powerful part of the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution which will put an end to the criminal rule of the monopoly capitalist dictators!
BLAME THE RICH FOR STATE-ORGANIZED
RACIST ATTACKS!
FIGHT RACIST ATTACKS THROUGH MASS REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE!
First Volume of Comrade Enver Hoxha's Book Comes Off the Press
[Photo.]
(The following article is reprinted from the Albanian Telegraphic Agency, June 10, 1979.)
The first volume of the book Reflections On China, which includes extracts taken from the political diary of Comrade Enver Hoxha, came off the press and was put on sale recently. This volume and another one following it were published for the first time and were distributed in the Party in January 1978. Now, the first volume, which covers the period from 1962 to 1972, is made available to the public.
Reflections On China have been recorded from day to day when the facts and events have taken place or when they have become known. These reflections go further beyond the limits of an ordinary diary; they constitute a profound Marxist- Leninist scientific analysis of the most important political and ideological questions of the time.
The new book by Comrade Enver Hoxha, fruit of a many-year-long work, is another proof of the irreconcilable principled struggle the Party of Labor of Albania has waged in defense of Marxism-Leninism against modern revisionism of all trends.
As the author frequently stresses, the Chinese leaders intentionally avoided the granting of any accurate and complete information on the development of events in China, on the work of the Chinese Party and state, on the internal and external policies of China. Under these circumstances, it was not easy to immediately draw complete conclusions. Proceeding from separate facts, gathered from various sources, Comrade Enver Hoxha makes their dialectical connection and jumps from hypotheses to conclusions and forecasts, the correctness of which have been confirmed by time.
Beginning with the first reflection dated April 3, 1962, and ending with the latest reflections, through this magnificent work, Comrade Enver Hoxha provides a full picture of the profoundly opportunist line, the unexpected and conjunctural turns, the waverings and stands at times awaiting and refraining, and at times "attacking" from anti- Marxist and national-chauvinist positions, which have characterized the leadership of the Communist Party of China with Mao Zedong at the head, both in the great confrontation against modern revisionism, the Khrushchovite revisionists in particular, and with regard to the other problems of the internal and external policies of the Chinese Party and state. From the step to step analysis of the events and stands of the Communist Party of China towards them, Comrade Enver Hoxha arrives at the conclusion that though this Party posed itself as "anti-revisionist", in reality it was gnawed by modern revisionism, that its all line was thoroughly revisionist.
In the numerous reflections on the questions of the international revolutionary communist movement, Comrade Enver Hoxha sternly attacks and exposes the contemptuous, disruptive and nationalist stands of the Chinese leadership towards the new Marxist-Leninist groups and parties, as well as its later efforts to use some of them for its own counter-revolutionary chauvinist aims. At the same time, these reflections forcefully express the all-round support and backing the Party of Labor of Albania is giving to the genuine Marxist- Leninist groups and parties, considering this as its great internationalist duty.
Through facts, events and deep-going and all-round Marxist-Leninist analyses in the Reflections On China, the reader better acquaints himself with the causes and reasons why, from 1962 even to the present days, the axis of the Chinese policy has radically changed three times, how this policy from completely being isolated, closed and nonchalant, was unexpectedly turned into a complete opening towards the agreements and relations with the imperialist and revisionist states, how this policy, from allegedly being anti--imperialist and anti-revisionist, was transformed into a policy of alliance with American imperialism and world capitalism, with Yugoslav revisionists and other revisionists. Comrade Enver Hoxha refutes with stern arguments the worn-out formulations, the anti-Marxist views and the reactionary pragmatist attitudes of these metamorphoses. He explains with examples and facts from the life in China that the successive changes in the strategy of China have their basis in the anti-Marxist line of the Chinese leadership, the internal struggle in the fold of the Communist Party of China where opposite lines and trends, which had in common the "Mao Zedong Thought" ideology-amalgam, were developing, operating and confronting with one another.
In the reflections belonging to the years 1966 and on, Comrade Enver Hoxha devotes special attention to the events which were taking place in China in the context of the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In those difficult situations for China, the Party of Labor of Albania defended the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people, supported the main aim which was thought that the "Cultural Revolution" would achieve, for the liquidation of the capitalist and revisionist elements. But alongside this support, our Party, as it follows also from the materials of this volume, had, right from the start, many reservations and doubts about the forms and methods of the development of the "Cultural Revolution", until later on, it reached to firm conclusions that it was neither a revolution, nor great, nor cultural, and in particular not in the least proletarian, but a confrontation of opposite factions, trends and lines for power in the fold of the leadership of the Chinese Party and state, confrontation in which the weapons too, were employed. Our Party never reconciled itself with this kind of "revolution" as well as with the lack of the leadership of the working class and its party in this "Great Proletarian Revolution".
These and other reservations and doubts about the role which had been given to the Army in China, putting it above the Party, about the unrestrained cult of Mao Zedong, the political tricks of Zhou Enlai, the opportunist stand towards the enemies of socialism and the revolution like Liu Shaoqui Deng Xiaoping, Peng Zhen and other problems Which are analyzed and reflected in a vivid and concrete way in these reflections, made our Party, as Comrade Enver Hoxha explains, adopt correct stands towards China, to defend it, but also to be mature towards the exaggerations of the Chinese leaders and towards everything which was not clear, to also make to them remarks and criticisms in a comradely way, irrespective that they could not have been to their liking.
The Party of Labor of Albania has openly expressed its critical opinions to the Chinese leadership, with modesty and wisdom, but without violating the principle#in the slightest, hoping that it would take: the correct road. But this desire, which is extensively reflected in these reflections, was not realized because revisionism became stronger and stronger in China with every passing day. Following in a dialectical manner the course of events for years on end, Comrade Enver Hoxha, from the reservations he had at the beginning about the non-Marxist stands and tactics of the Communist Party of China, passes to serious doubts about the very essence of this Party, and, later on, to the firm conviction that the Communist Party of China had nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism, that socialism had not been established, nor was it being constructed in China.
The Party of Labor of Albania was conscious that the ideological divergences with the Chinese leaders could lead, just as they led in reality, to the extension of these disagreements on their part to the economic relations, in the same way as the group of Khrushchov did. Comrade Enver Hoxha forecasts the pressure, obstacles and difficulties that they would create in these relations and which would grow gradually. But nothing could or did break the Party of Labor of Albania, nothing made it retreat from its principled revolutionary policy in general and towards the Communist Party and the People's Republic of China in particular.
This book will serve the communists and the working people of our country to ever more profoundly acquaint themselves with the course of the development of Chinese revisionism, with the struggle of the Party of Labor of Albania against it and against any other kind of opportunism, against bourgeoisie and reaction, it will serve the revolutionary ideological and political education of the masses.
The volumes Reflections On China will also be published in some foreign languages.
Part Three
INTRODUCTION
Today the "three worlders" stand exposed as rabid social-chauvinists, as cheering squads for the Pentagon and for Chinese social-imperialism. They are nothing but a bunch of class traitors who are openly flaunting their alliance with and love for the international imperialist bourgeoisie. Inevitably the question arises: where did this blatant social-chauvinism come from? How was it able to pass itself off as part of the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement? The answer lies in the history of over a decade of corrosion of the Marxist- Leninist movement by the neo-revisionists, by the conciliators of revisionism who hid themselves among the ranks of those claiming to uphold Marxism-Leninism and oppose revisionism. The neo-revisionists originated by adapting the opportunist ideology of "New Leftism", the negative line inside the youth and student movement, and by translating it into "Marxist"-sounding terminology. The neo-revisionists held revisionist and opportunist views on all major questions: they negated the role of the Marxist-Leninist party, they were profoundly sceptical of the revolutionary capacity of the proletariat, they opposed revolutionary agitation with a "leftist" sort of economism, they replaced Marxist theory with both pragmatism and idealist sophistry, and so forth. Neo-revisionism was the curse thrown at the Marxist-Leninist movement by Browder and by the "left" wing of the "Democratic" Party. The stern life and death struggle against "three worlds-ism" requires exposing the roots of the social-chauvinist class treason of today's militarist-socialists in the long neo-revisionist corrosion of the Marxist-Leninist movement.
This series of articles exposes the history of the crimes and anti-Marxist Browderite theses of neo-revisionism. It stresses that the U.S. neo-revisionists were not an exceptional American product, unrelated to anything else going on in the world, but part of an international opportunist trend. The neo-revisionists were systematically fostered and backed by the Chinese revisionists. The mainstream of neo-revisionism has always been followers of Chinese revisionism. U.S. neo-revisionism is, in the main, the American expression of the international opportunist trend of Chinese revisionism.
The first article in this series in The Workers' Advocate of February 12 discussed the general relation between U.S. neo-revisionism and Chinese revisionism. The second article in our issue of May 1 denounced the neo-revisionist negation of the struggle against revisionism and opportunism, their Khrushchovite pretext of the fight against the "ultra-left", and their social-democratic thesis that opportunism is a "middle force" to be united with. This article, Part 3, condemns the neo-revisionist war against the party concept, their negation of the role of the party and of the vital significance of party-building. This was the first point of conflict between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism, the first point on which the neo-revisionists exposed their revisionist essence. The neo-revisionists focused the main thrust of their attack against the unity of the Marxist-Leninist movement. They cursed and ridiculed the party and counterposed building the mass movement to building the party. They pretended that upholding party-building was sectarian, but time has proven that it is precisely those who negate the party who are the biggest splitters, brawlers and factionalizers and who are responsible for the creation of dozens of ultra-sectarian sects and ''Parties". To win time for their dirty work, the neo-revisionists held that unity into one center was "premature" and "unprincipled", and set forward the path of "developing their own trend". And lo and behold, today they have indeed developed their own trend, the trend of great-power chauvinism and Browderism, the trend that is reviled and spat at all over the world as counter-revolutionary "three worlds-ism", as the trend of Chinese revisionism.
Today we are on the verge of the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the U.S.A. This will be a momentous event, it will be the greatest victory of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism against the neo-revisionist and Chinese revisionist sabotage. The campaign for the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party should be used to inculcate the party concept in the proletariat and among among the new vigorous activists coming up to fight social-chauvinism. It is a time to heap scorn on the fashionable Browderite mocking at the party. The history of the neo-revisionist war on the party concept must never be forgotten. All the Chinese revisionist, neo-revisionist and polycentrist negations of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the party must be resolutely condemned.
THE ORIGINS OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN REVOLUTIONARY MARXISM-LENINISM AND NEO-REVISIONISM ON THE QUESTION OF THE PARTY CONCEPT
The 1960's were a time of great upsurge of the revolutionary mass movements. The monopoly capitalist system was shaken to its core. But this struggle proceeded without Marxist-Leninist leadership. The "O'PUSA had long ago been thoroughly corroded by Khrushchovite and Browderite revisionism and had become an anti-Marxist force. The first anti-revisionist center, the Progressive Labor Party, proved unable to settle accounts with revisionism, stopped fighting revisionism and degenerated into a Trotskyite sect. Undaunted, a whole new wave of advanced elements from the revolutionary mass movements persisted in struggle. They summed up their experience of the struggle and came to see that the mass movement could not be oriented correctly without Marxism-Leninism and came to understand the betrayal of the modern revisionists.
The task before these activists was to unite in order to reestablish a genuine revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party. The first principle for Marxist-Leninists is to unite into one party. This is not a matter of abstract moralism, but a burning practical question. Without a single center, the Marxist-Leninist movement lies paralyzed, helpless and open to infiltration. Without a proletarian party, there can be no talk of the independent political action of the proletariat. In a very real sense, there is no such thing as a Marxist-Leninist without or independent of a Marxist-Leninist party. There may be Guardian-ite revisionists who flaunt themselves as "independent radicals", there may be Titoites, polycentrists, New Leftists, and other class traitors who pride themselves on their ''independence" from the party concept, but their "independence" is independence from the proletariat and total dependence on the ideologies and agencies of the bourgeoisie.
In May 1969 the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist) was formed as the single nationwide Marxist-Leninist center. Prior to the ACWM(M-L)'s formation, the comrades from the Cleveland Workers Action Committee carried out work to have the activists and groups claiming opposition to revisionism and adherence to Marxism-Leninism participate in the first Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists in Regina, Canada in May 1969. After this Conference, the comrades from the Cleveland Workers Action Committee took the initiative to found the ACWM(M-L) and to contact all the main anti-revisionist activists and organizations. The ACWM (M-L)'s purpose was to form a single center for all Marxist-Leninists and to prepare for the reconstitution of the party. It immediately took up a big campaign for the ideas of Marxism-Leninism, opposed the ideological confusion of "New Leftism", Castroism, modern revisionism and other opportunist ideology, took up Marxist- Leninist work in the mass movement, and grew rapidly to a nationwide organization.
But the ACWM(M-L) was opposed right from the start by an anti-party trend. The big shots and authorities from the leaders of the student movement refused to unite "on principle". Thus the fight between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and neo-revisionism first broke out into the open on the question of the Marxist-Leninist party and the crucial importance of party-building. And the subsequent total bankruptcy of the neo-revisionists with their emergence as open social- chauvinists and raving "three worlders" is vivid proof that the neo-revisionists negated the party because they were opposed to the revolution and opposed to developing the independent (from the bourgeoisie) political activity of the proletariat.
THE ANTI-PARTY THEORY OF "PRE-PARTY COLLECTIVES"
The neo-revisionist "theoreticians" refused to unite on the grounds that unity would be allegedly "premature" and hence "unprincipled". They held that the path of disunity, of development via scattered "pre-party collectives", was the only allegedly "principled" path. This was the anti-party theory of the "pre-party situation", which called for the development of dozens of scattered, "independent", "pre-party formations" and "pre-party collectives".
The Bay Area Revolutionary Union (predecessor of the Revolutionary Union and subsequently of the "RCP,USA") set forward the "pre-party collective" theory in Red Papers 1. The BARU wrote: "AT THE PRESENT TIME, THE BUILDING OF COLLECTIVES ON A LOCAL BASIS, AND THE EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCES BETWEEN THEM, CAN CONTRIBUTE THE MOST TO THE CREATION IN THE NEAR FUTURE OF A MARXIST- LENINIST PARTY. '' (p. 9, capitals as in the original) The BARU held that "Between the collectives: at first, informal exchanges of information and experience, and occasional joint regional political activity. Ideological discussion, summing up of work, and criticism should be increasingly carried on between the collectives, to achieve ideological unity and the basis for organizational merger. Then the collectives can develop organizational structures to coordinate and supervise work... '' (p. 9) On the grounds that the Progressive Labor Party was allegedly "guilty of systematic 'left' opportunism", the BARU held that revisionism was the "main long-term danger" but that "'left' opportunism" was "an immediate danger" (p. 18).
The Klonskyite October League (the OL and OL(M-L) were predecessors of the "CP(M-L)") tried at various times to pretend that it upheld the orthodox Marxist-Leninist teachings of the party as against the Revolutionary Union. But in fact the OL held to the exact same "pre-party collective" theory to justify its own wrecking and splitting activities. It set forth its views in the three-part series entitled "Building a New Communist Party in the U.S.", which appeared in the March, April and May 1973 issues of The Call. The article denounces party-building as "ultra- leftism" and says that "...within the newly- emerging communist movement here, the main danger is 'leftism' and sectarianism." It counterposes party-building to "... the work that must be done on a day to day basis", and in particular to economism and senile rightism, which was and is OL's "day to day work". It hypocritically talks of "The present situation where the forces are largely scattered and locally based", and then shamelessly demands a continuation of the policies responsible for this situation. Just like the RU, it says "To help forge unity, as much practical cooperation as possible between the different groups should be encouraged. As they begin to develop unity in the course of practical work, organizational unity will become more of a reality."
The basic features of the theory of "pre-party collectives" were as follows: setting the mass movement against the party, or vice versa; advocating many groups, "many parties"; holding to the theory of "developing our own trend"; and negating the struggle against revisionism and opportunism.
THE NEO-REVISIONIST THEORY OF SPONTANEITY, OF COUNTERPOSING "BUILDING THE MASS MOVEMENT" TO "BUILDING THE PARTY"
The neo-revisionists shamelessly mocked the party concept and the calls for unity of the Marxist-Leninists and sneeringly referred to "declaring the Party in a closet". For the neo-revisionists there were two categories, "party" and "mass movement", that stood in irreconcilable antagonism to each other. The neo-revisionists counterposed "building the mass movement" to "building the party". The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists talked of and carried out the building of the party in the thick of the class struggle, in the midst of the revolutionary mass movement. But the neo-revisionists could not understand this, as they opposed the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the necessity of the party to release the initiative of the proletariat and its allies. The neo-revisionists preferred to follow the theory of spontaneity, that the party springs spontaneously from the growth of the mass movement and hence that the proliferation of numerous "pre-party formations" would allegedly give rise to a unified party.
This theory of spontaneity is also a key theory of Chinese revisionism. Thus, for example, a major article in the commemoration of the centennial of the Paris Commune appeared in the March 19, 1971 issue of Peking Review, entitled "Long Live the Victory of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!" This article was written by the Editorial Departments of Renmin Ribao (People's Daily), Hongqi (Red Flag) and Jiefangjun Bao (Liberation Army Daily). This article was used by the Chinese revisionists to undermine the building of the new Marxist-Leninist parties. While paying lip service to the need for the Marxist-Leninist party, the article blurts out: "The mainstream of the revolutionary mass movement is always good and always conforms to the development of society." Under the cover of demagogy about the mass movement, this statement in fact takes a position of unprincipled pragmatism, of unbounded opportunism. It sets forth the same Economist position denounced by Lenin, namely: "That struggle is desirable which is possible, and the struggle which is possible is the one that is going on at the given moment." (What Is To Be Done?, Section II. C.) In other words, if the leadership of SDS imposes "New Leftism" on the revolutionary students, then "New Left" ideology, the reactionary saboteur of the student movement, can be declared the "mainstream" and hence must be progressive. And if the Marxist- Leninist activists fight hard and win great prestige for Marxism-Leninism, then that becomes the new "mainstream" and one should temporarily change colors and adapt oneself to Marxist-Leninist phraseology. And if mocking at the party is fashionable, then it too is "always good and always conforms to the development of society."
With such an idea, there is no role for the organizing, mobilizing and guiding role of the party. At most there is room for a party in name, but not one in deed. And in fact the course of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution shows that Mao Zedong (Mao Tsetung) and the other leaders of Chinese revisionism believed it possible to do without the party. In this massive struggle, Mao Zedong did not use the party as the mobilizer of the masses. On the contrary, the youth and student masses were to rise up without the party. The party and various mass organizations were actually dispersed in the early stages of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and later on the army was called in to calm down the resulting chaos. We supported the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution because we wished to see the downfall of the diehard revisionist and capitalist elements who had usurped key positions in the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state power. We and other Marxist-Leninists were correct to support the Chinese people at this critical and dangerous moment when China was under a brutal and savage attack from the imperialist- revisionist encirclement. But the questions arises: how could the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution succeed without the leadership of the party or of the proletariat? It is sometimes rationalized, for example by the "RCP,USA", that the Party couldn't be used, as power had been usurped in the party by the most reactionary elements. But the "RCP, USA's" argument is simply an evasion of the issue, as in such a case the reconstitution of the party would be the crucial and immediate task for the development of the revolution, but this clearly was not the conception of the Chinese leaders. Indeed the "RCP,USA's" rationalizations are simply the most pathetic special pleading, since the fact is that nowhere does the Chinese Communist Party or Mao Zedong discuss as a drawback or difficulty of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that the Party was not used to give guidance to the masses. Instead the pattern of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and hence presumably the negation of the party and of the proletariat, is prescribed as something that should be done periodically, as the form finally found to prevent capitalist restoration.
In fact, today it can be seen from the speeches and books in defense of "three worlds-ism" and Mao Zedong Thought by the leaders of the "RCP, USA" that Chinese revisionism regards the party as a somewhat suspect, bureaucratic form. The Marxist-Leninists teachings on the party are denounced as "administrative measures", "bureaucratic", undialectical straight-line thinking, and so forth. The "RCP,USA" writes that to have had the leadership of the party in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution would have meant that the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution would have been reduced to "...merely reshuffling the make-up of the key bodies of the Party and putting out a directive or two..." (The Communist, #5, May 1979, "Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tsetung Thought", p. 54) This is what the "RCP,USA", this alleged "revolutionary communist party", thinks is the essence of party work! In this way the "RCP,USA" itself is admitting that its own rationalizations about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution are an evasion, that the issue is not some unfortunate method of work forced on the Chinese Communist Party by circumstances, but the issue is the conception of the role of the party.
The Chinese revisionists however not only propagate the theory of spontaneity, the theory of setting the mass movement against the party. They also at times propagate the flip side, setting the party against the mass movement. Thus they advise that what the Marxist-Leninists need is detached intellectualism, say detailed "class analysis", and in the meantime stay out of the class struggle. A number of minor sects revel in this aspect of Chinese revisionism. And in fact it is also an aspect of the methods of work of the major neo-revisionist organizations that prefer to revel in spontaneity. The neo-revisionist organizations do not restrict themselves to denouncing the party in the name of the mass movement, but they also feel free to denounce the mass movement in the name of the party. There are not two opposite, alternative positions, as may seem on the surface. On the contrary, they are both expressions of the same basic neo-revisionist dichotomy, of the same anti-Marxist conceptions of detaching the party from the class struggle, of negating the leading and organizing role of the party, of utterly failing to grasp that only through parties can classes express their political will.
On this same point, it is notable that the Communist League (formerly the California Communist League and now the "CLP,USNA") was a major neo-revisionist organization that made a career of sneering at the mass movement in the name of the party. Far from being opposed to the basic neo-revisionist theses of the RU and OL, however, the CL shared the same basic conceptions with them. The CCL, just like the OL and the RU, gave the theory of "pre-party collectives" in order to sabotage Marxist-Leninist unity in 1969. We shall see later in this article that the OL and the CL shared the same theory of Browderite "education", detached from the revolutionary struggle. And the practical work of the CL, for all its talk of theory, was right from the start the same flimsy liberal-labor politics as that of the other neo-revisionists. And for years now, the ultra-rightism of the "CLP,USNA" has become its most blatant characteristic. True, the CL was a left-sloganeering agency of Soviet revisionism, rather than of Chinese revisionism. The CL and then the "CLP,USNA" eventually came out openly for the "socialism" of the Soviet social-imperialists and for unity with the official revisionists of the "C''PUSA. But for precisely this reason, the CL's earlier presence in the neo-revisionist trend was very significant. It shows that Chinese revisionism and modern Khrushchovite revisionism are closely related, are variants of each other. Regardless of the differences in form and the rivalries among the modern revisionists, they are all on the same course, with the same objective, and are united in their hostility to Marxism-Leninism and the revolution.
THE ANTI-PARTY THEORY OF "DEVELOPING ONE'S OWN TREND"
The neo-revisionist leaders paid lip service to Marxism-Leninism. But actually they were for "developing their own trend". They felt uncomfortable with Marxism and wished to replace it with some other trend. They denounced unity as "premature" on the grounds that one needed time to "develop one's own trend". In this way they sought to gain time to split the Marxist-Leninist movement on one or another opportunist program, to factionalize it into a thousand "trends". In this way, they wanted the freedom to make Marxism-Leninism into a matter of definition and interpretation, the freedom to introduce any fashionable deviation. In practice, "their own trend" has turned out in every case to be variants of "three worlds-ism" and liberal-labor politics, under the thin cover of different shades of "left" phrasemongering and different sets of sectarian principles.
The theory of "developing their own trend" was a central point of the program of the Klonskyite October League (M-L). The OL(M-L) was formed through the merger of the October League and the Georgia Communist League (GCL). The GCL circulated to various groups and individuals an internal document entitled "Proposal for Consolidation of Unity with the October League", dated February 1, 1972. This document claims that the GCL and the OL "are now a distinguishable trend among anti-revisionists in this country." It raises the key issue in a section heading entitled "III. HOW CAN WE FURTHER CONSOLIDATE OUR TREND?" (capitals and underlining as in the original) The only points of "unity" of this "trend" that the document gives are "1) Against the modern revisionist view of the world situation and their practice of social-imperialism.... 2) Against the CP USA's view of peaceful transition and peaceful co-existence as the strategic view of the proletarian revolution in the U.S.... we have consolidated our views around the leadership of the industrial proletariat in our revolution... 3)... the situation is increasingly favorable for revolutionary activity but that what is principally lacking is the leadership of a firm, communist vanguard party to lead the way to victory."
The hypocrisy of this document is glaring. The three alleged points of "unity" are only the "Marxist" phrases to hide the actual anti-party content of the OL-GCL "trend". If the GCL or OL had seriously followed these three points, they would not have ever formed their miserable sects but would have united with the ACWM(M-L) which upheld these points from its formation in May 1969. First Mr. Klonsky and his cohorts split the Marxist-Leninist movement on the grounds that Marxism-Leninism is not sufficient as a base of unity, that this or that special sectarian principle is necessary. Then in early 1972 they still can't do more than repeat certain basic general principles, but they insist that they must still further "develop their own trend".
Actually, "developing one's own trend" means opposing some other trend. OL was "developing its own trend" in order to fight the Marxist-Leninist trend and to develop the neo-revisionist fallacies imported from Chinese revisionism. OL's "developing our own trend" was also a plan to disrupt the struggle against revisionism by putting forward the plan for the many different anti-revisionist "trends" to struggle against each other.
The Bay Area Revolutionary Union and its successor, the RU, also followed the same principle. Red Papers 6 (June 1974) the RU rationalizes their previous position on "pre-party collectives" on the grounds that "under these conditions ("that the Communist Party, USA deserted to the camp of revisionism and imperialism" -- ed.) different ideas of what revolution meant in the U.S. developed in the course of struggle, and there was no single organization or line that could clearly point the way forward. Since no communist organization existed which upheld a revolutionary line that had withstood some test of practice,..." it was therefore necessary to have the "pre-party collectives. " "In the course of this, practice has been accumulated, ideological struggle has been carried on, and different tendencies have developed. So now it has become possible -- in fact, it has become crucial -- for the revolutionary forces to... unite all who can be united around a Marxist-Leninist line and Programme, and in this way form the Party, (p. 4, emphasis as in the original) The RU added that "It is true that different lines are presented at this time by different organizations." The different lines are characterized as "the dogmatic tendency", "the reformist tendency" and "the correct tendency". (pp. 6-7)
On the face of it, the RU position is a crying contradiction. The RU claims that in the late 60's and early 70's no one organization upheld a tested-in-practice revolutionary line and that the "different tendencies" had not yet appeared. From this they conclude that unity was impossible. But if the "different tendencies" had not yet appeared, then clearly the task was unity in the common struggle for Marxism-Leninism against monopoly capitalism and its ideological servants, "New Leftism", Castroism, modern, revisionism, etc. With unity in a single center, it would be possible for the Marxist-Leninists to wage a better "ideological struggle" against the deviations, against "dogmatic" or "reformist" tendencies. Having said that the tendencies have now emerged, the RU then gives the call for unity -- although precisely at such a time the call would clearly not be for all inclusive unity but for struggle against the negative tendencies. This of course is the basic contradiction in all the theories of "developing one's own trend".
However, in practice the RU's position was very consistent. To give the call for "developing one's own tendency" means to fight against what one considers incorrect. The RU fought against the Marxist-Leninists on the party -- that is why it opposed the call for unity. As the Red Papers 6 admits, they had in the past "the tendency in our organization... to almost make a PRINCIPLE out of NOT HAVING a Party. " (p. 58, capitals as in the original) That is, the RU had taken up disrupting the party. It is significant that the RU did not call its "tendency" the "Marxist-Leninist tendency" but awkwardly avoided the name "Marxist-Leninist" by calling the name "correct tendency". This is because the RU was conscious of trying to develop "tendencies" or splits within the Marxist-Leninist movement, that it developed its "tendency" in order to fight against Marxist- Leninist unity.
Thus the neo-revisionists replaced Marxism- Leninism, which they denounced as too abstract, untested in practice, or unclear, with what they regarded as very concrete, well-tested and precise, ''their own trend". In this conception, the neo-revisionists were fully in line with Chinese revisionism. The Chinese revisionists regard the theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as incomplete and unworked out. In Mr. Avakian's exposition of Chinese revisionism entitled Mao Tsetung's Immortal Contributions, over and over again he repeats that in one field after another, whether it be military affairs, culture, or the socialist economy, that Stalin was basically wrong while Marx, Engels and Lenin failed to work out a systematic line. From this conception it is not far to the theory of the party having many different headquarters with their own platforms. The party is supposed to develop through this clash of platforms, through the development of a multitude of different trends or tendencies, undoubtedly exercising "long-term coexistence and mutual supervision" over each other. In this way, Mao Zedong is alleged to have worked out and systematized the correct line, to have brought Marxism- Leninism to "a new stage". This process reduced the Communist Party of China to chaos, to a party without Marxist-Leninist backbone, that says one thing today and another tomorrow. And its duplication in the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement factionalized and scattered the movement.
THE NEO-REVISIONIST THEORY OF "MANY CENTERS"
The theory of "pre-party collectives" is openly a theory of "many centers", "many parties". It openly calls for the development of dozens upon dozens of different groups and openly negates the fact that the proletariat, if it is to express its interests as a class, needs a single center, a single political party. While this polycentrist theory is a negation of Marxism-Leninism, it is however a description of the usual situation in bourgeois, revisionist or fascist parties. Such parties are riddled with groups, factions and splinters, rep- resenting different financial groups, various "outstanding" personalities, unprincipled cliques, etc. And any bourgeois or revisionist party that wishes to have influence among the workers consciously allows room for "left" factions or groupings. Thus the neo-revisionist "pre-party collective" scheme is a typical part of social-democratic politics. And the Chinese Communist Party raises this to the level of an explicit theory. They hold that a party should have many "headquarters" with their own platforms and that the party develops through the mutual struggle of these "headquarters".
However, the neo-revisionists were faced with the constant work in favor of the basic principles of Leninism by the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists led by first the ACWM(M-L) and then the COUSML. Therefore the neo-revisionists went over to the declaration of their "parties". The question therefore poses itself. By declaring themselves "parties", did the neo-revisionist groupings abandon their anti-Marxist theses negating the party concept?
The answer is no. To begin with, although the neo-revisionists declared various "parties", they still maintained the same anti-Marxist ideas concerning the role of the party. They still held that party-building was simply the fusing together of various "pre-party formations" and they failed to grasp the crucial role of party-building in the class struggle. Thus the RU in Red Papers 6 explains its conception of the change from the RU to the "party". The RU writes: "The creation of the Party on this basis, ("the development of the Programme"-- ed.) then, has become the central task of U.S. communists for a brief period ahead." However, this is simply a brief, unpleasant interlude before again taking up the real task. "In the past, when it was correct, as it will be again, to formulate the central task as building the struggle, consciousness and revolutionary unity of the working class and developing its leadership in the anti-imperialist struggle, there was the tendency to downplay the importance of the other major tasks, and the importance of building the Party, in particular. " (p. 5, underlining added) Thus the RU admits that "in the past" it counterposed "building the struggle, consciousness and revolutionary unity of the working class and developing its leadership" to building the party, that it did not understand what the party had to do with either the leadership, unity, consciousness or struggle of the working class. But the RU blandly adds that it will continue to counterpose these tasks into the future.
The Klonskyite OL(M-L) had exactly the same line. When the OL decided to declare their "party", they too declared that party-building was solely a question of organizational fusion. The 1977 New Year's Editorial of The Call stated: "While the task of uniting the Marxist-Leninists and winning the advanced workers will go on long after the first Congress, the organizational building of the party is the most crucial step at this point." They stated that "Most importantly, communist groups, including the October League, united together into the Organizing Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Party (OC)." It is quite clear that the OL regarded the task of party-building in 1977 as being equivalent to the task of negotiations for mergers carried out prior to the first Congress or prior to some new fusion. This is the same narrow view of party-building as the RU expressed prior to the First Congress of the "RCP, USA".
Thus the Klonskyites made no advance at all in their conception of the party. They continued to detach the party from the class struggle. At the two-day conference in April 1977 that focused on how to develop the type of social-chauvinist press necessary for the imminent founding of the "CP (M-L)", the editor of The Call, Dan Burstein, stressed that the OL regarded the task of party- building and "revolutionary education" as separate from the revolutionary struggle. He stated: "It is true that the workers also learn from their experience in life, from the class struggle. ... But we must recognize that we are in a period of building the party... This is the chief characteristic of the present period.
"It is still in the future that our party will pass into a period of active leadership of mass revolutionary struggles,... Therefore,... today we must still see this period of our development as one chiefly of revolutionary education, rather than mass action." (Class Struggle, #7, Spring 1977, p. 106, emphasis added) Thus Mr. Burstein admits that the social-chauvinist ''party" is simply a Browderite educational association, a loose amalgam united only by the anti-Marxist formulas of the ''three worlds" theory. He has not the faintest idea that for a Marxist-Leninist, education means education in the course of the revolutionary struggle, that a Marxist party is built up in the thick of the class struggle. Mr. Burstein's conception of ''revolutionary education" is precisely that of the pro-Soviet neo-revisionists of the CL. Before the founding of the "CLP,USNA" they put forward the slogan "In this crucial period of party- building, education is our main task. " (The publication of draft resolutions called Marxist-Leninists Unite!, 1973, p. 4) What the CL meant by education is apparent from their denunciation of ''the quicksand that the 'new Left' calls practice." (People's Tribune, August 1973) For the CL, as for the OL, party-building and scholastic ''education" were one thing, the revolutionary struggle something else.
Thus the declaration of the neo-revisionist ''parties" meant no change whatsoever in the liberal-labor and social-democratic ideas about the party held by the neo-revisionists. The neo-revisionists still had no idea of what the building of a Marxist-Leninist party meant, they still separated the party from the revolutionary struggle and counterposed the two. Nor did the declarations of the neo-revisionists' "parties" mean that they had given up the theory of "many centers" and were no longer against the factionalization of the Marxist-Leninist movement. On the contrary, the declarations of the neo-revisionist parties meant that the neo-revisionists were stepping up their disruptive and factional work. The bitter fruit of the plan of "developing one's own trend" was reaped in the founding of "many parties" based on "many programs". Previously the neo-revisionists waged their struggle against the party concept under the guise of an alleged "unity of the left", under the all-so-reasonable (for liberals) Togliattist polycentrism. Then the bigger neo-revisionist sects switched over to Khrushchovite mono-centrism, to the attitude of "if you are not in my party, then you are dirt", to the open flaunting of the most bureaucratic and sectarian conception of the party (1). Each of the "many parties" took up the intensified splitting and liquidation of the mass movements and mass organizations. The neo-revisionist Khrushchovite mono-centrism was just the flip side of their previous "pre-party collective" style of polycentrism.
This shows that it is a characteristic of the neo-revisionists to use the pretext of having declared their "parties" to escalate splitting and wrecking activities. For years the neo-revisionists denounced the Marxist-Leninists as sectarians and dogmatists for working for a single Marxist-Leninist center. But it is now proven for all to see that it is the neo-revisionists, those who lack all sense of party concept, who conceive of party leadership and proletarian hegemony in the most sectarian and factionalist manner. While it is the Marxist-Leninists who uphold the interests of the class and who use the Marxist-Leninist organization to uphold the revolutionary unity of the fighting masses. Thus the "RCP,USA" in their gangster style article "Beat Back the Dogmato-Revisionist Attack on Mao Tse-tung Thought" fume up and down about how such concepts as "the 'purity' of the party and of Marxism-Leninism" and the " 'monolithic unity' in the party" are undialectical and bureaucratic (The Communist, #5, May 1979, pp. 66-70). The article eulogizes the negation of the leading role of the party as "rely(ing) directly on the masses" (Ibid., p. 52). But simultaneously the article puts forward as the correct definition of the role of the party the arch-bureaucratic and Trotskyite formula that "... the party must exercise all-round dictatorship in every sphere of society,..." (Ibid., p. 86). The "RCP,USA's" formula of the "all-round dictatorship of the party in every sphere of society" is a totally anti-Leninist formula, a formula that negates the dictatorship of the proletariat and replaces the leading role of the party with respect to the working class with the dictate by force over the working class. The formula of the "dictatorship of the party". Used in the way the "RCP,USA" does, in fact implies the dictate of the top leadership of the party over all of society through forcible administrative means. Comrade Stalin showed in detail that this formula about the "dictatorship of the party" has nothing in common with Marxism-Leninism, that this formula is at best only inexact and figurative, hence is almost never used in Marxist literature, and never in such contexts as "in every sphere of society". Stalin showed how equating the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the "dictatorship of the party" then gives rise to further equating it with the "dictatorship of the leaders" (2). Thus the "RCP,USA's" negation of the Marxist-Leninist teachings on the party has led it to the most mechanical, bureaucratic, administrative and bourgeois dictatorial teachings on the leading role of the party.
THE NEO-REVISIONIST NEGATION OF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST REVISIONISM AND OPPORTUNISM
The neo-revisionists practiced flabby conciliation towards revisionism and opportunism, while placing in the forefront the struggle against what they regarded as "ultra-leftism" and "dogmatism". And, according to the theory of "pre-party collectives", it was the party concept that was "ultra-left" and the revolutionary doctrine of Marxism-Leninism that was "dogmatic".
Part 2 of this series dealt with the neo-revisionist opposition to the struggle against revisionism and opportunism, and in other articles we shall deal with this question again. Therefore we will leave it aside here, except for one remark. The theory of "pre-party collectives" is the theory of the factionalization of the movement. It is this theory that justifies the extreme splitting and wrecking activities of the neo-revisionists. This is a vivid proof that the main cause of factionalism and splitting activities is not the exaggeration of the struggle against revisionism and opportunism. On the contrary, the source of factionalism, sectarianism, and squabbling is the opportunist and neo-revisionist elements themselves. As Comrade Enver Hoxha teaches: "Revisionism is synonymous with splits, lack of unity, chauvinism and anarchy. " (Report to the Seventh Congress of the PLA, Ch. VI, p. 218)
ON LENIN'S CLASSIC WORK WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
Lenin's classic work What Is To Be Done? has inspired many U.S. Marxist-Leninists and taught them to take the path of party-building. This brilliant work exposed the opportunist practice of trailing the spontaneous movement, brought out the great role of Marxist theory and taught the necessity of a truly revolutionary proletarian political party. In particular, this book helped many to see the crucial importance of party-building and the fallacious nature of the theory of "pre-party collectives".
Hence the various neo-revisionist and opportunist elements had to work overtime to deal with the impact of What Is To Be Done? They introduced one distortion of it after another. Instead of learning from the general principles elaborated in the book and giving up the theory of "pre-party collectives", they speculated on such original theories as: that the economic struggle is allegedly valueless; that the key question is that you can't hold the party congress until after a modern-day "Iskra" is published; etc. Therefore it may prove of value to point out some of the major issues raised by Lenin in What Is To Be Done? and other writings of the same period and to refute the opportunist distortions.
1) First of all, Lenin always regarded himself as a member of the proletarian party. Although the First Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) in 1898 failed to achieve its objective and truly weld the Russian Marxists into a solid party, yet the announcement by this congress of the formation of the RSDLP "played a great revolutionary propagandist role". (History of the CPSU(B), Chapter I, Section 4) Lenin did not mock the congress as "premature" or "dogmatist", but instead he talked of "Regarding ourselves as members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party". ("Draft Declaration of Iskra and Zarya," Collected Works, vol. 4, p. 323)
2) Secondly, Lenin stood for the unity of the revolutionary Marxists right from the start. What Is To Be Done? is written against the view that the individual local organizations can by themselves solve the theoretical and political tasks facing the Russian Marxists. Turning things on their head, certain neo-revisionist pundits have argued that the fact that Lenin was not for the immediate calling of the Second Congress of the RSDLP shows that he too regarded unity as "premature". But this is sophistry, as not only the Second Congress but also the all-Russian newspaper with its network of agents all over Russia and its connection to all the local organizations represented forms of all-Russian work, both were forms of centralized party work. Lenin did not call for local organizations (or other types of pre-party formations) to prepare the conditions for future all-Russian work, but instead believed that the struggle against Economism had to be waged immediately on an all-Russian scale, that there must be "joint work for a common newspaper", that the newspaper could act as a "collective organizer". (What Is To Be Done? Ch. V) Just because this idea pervades the entire work, it is sometimes shuffled over. Let us therefore refer to a related work which explicitly denounces the "pre-party collective" plan. Lenin says: "It would also be an error to wait until 'local groups grow stronger, increase their membership, and strengthen their connections with the working class milieu' -- such reinforcement often leads to immediate collapse.
3) "On the contrary, we must immediately set 'about the work of unification and begin it with literary unity, with the establishment of a common Russian newspaper..." ("A Propos of the Profession of Faith", Collected Works, vol. 4, pp. 295-296)
4) Lenin held that the struggle against Economism, i. e. against the Russian variety of international opportunism, the Russian supporters of Bernstein's revisionism, was essential for the consolidation of a truly united, solid party. Thus Lenin put the struggle against revisionism and opportunism in the forefront.
5) Lenin stood for work along the lines of a definite trend or tendency, and he identified this trend clearly as Marxism. He was not for "developing one's own trend", but for defending revolutionary Marxism from international opportunism. He talks of conducting Iskra "in the spirit of a strictly defined tendency. This tendency can be described by the word Marxism, and there is hardly need to add that we stand for the consistent development of the ideas of Marx and Engels and emphatically reject the equivocating, vague, and opportunist 'corrections' for which Eduard Bernstein, P. Struve and others have set the fashion." ("Declaration of the Editorial Board of Iskra", Collected Works, vol. 4, pp. 354-355) The two trends that had taken shape in international socialism at that time were international revolutionary Marxism and international opportunism, which had come out against what it called "dogmatic" Marxism.
The neo-revisionist theorists of the "pre-party collectives" go against all these ideas of Lenin.
1) First of all, they do not regard themselves as members of the party of international communism, nor do they regard themselves as members of the proletarian party in the U.S., seeking to revive that party and give it a united, solid form. On the contrary, they have no party spirit at all. They have invented the idea of the "pre-party situation" and the "pre-party formations" in order to mock and ridicule the party, and they constantly seek to weaken the party spirit among the activists and the proletarian and toiling masses.
2) They stand against unity in a single center and for development in scattered, factionalized groups. Since Lenin flays amateurishness, they are forced to pay lip service to this and to admit that the scattered "pre-party formations" are amateurish, weak, organizationally diffuse, etc. But they draw the opposite conclusion from this that Lenin drew. Lenin deduced from this the need for the single, country-wide party, while the neo-revisionists deduced that therefore the party could not be built yet and would be "premature" until the "pre-party formations" should first correct all their amateurishness, elaborate and apply Marxism-Leninism, become organizationally firm, etc.
3) The neo-revisionists aim their blows not at revisionism and opportunism, but at "dogmatic" Marxism-Leninism. And this despite the fact that modern revisionism remains the main danger in both the international communist and workers' movement and in its American contingent. The neo-revisionists neither wished to fight "New Leftism", Castroism and other opportunist trends fashionable among the misleaders of the revolutionary youth and student movement of the 60's, nor did they have any spirit to fight against the underlying curse in the U.S. movement, the decades of corrosion by Browderite liberal-labor and social-democratic politics. Yet in the U.S., the party concept can only be maintained in the course of a fierce struggle against revisionism and opportunism. The neo-revisionists make a show of fighting "dogmatism", but actually it was precisely the neo-revisionists who introduced the fanatical right-wing dogmatism and who made great play with all sorts of idealist sophistry in order to give a faint "left" tinge to their basic Browderite politics. For the neo-revisionists, the fight against the "ultra-left", against the "dogmatists", against the "crazies" who actually fought the bourgeoisie and the state, was simply their code-word for the struggle against Marxism-Leninism and against those who took up genuinely revolutionary struggle.
4) The neo-revisionists oppose developing along the path of a strictly defined tendency, Marxism-Leninism, with their theory of "developing their own trend". The neo-revisionists can't understand how Marxism can be regarded as a strictly defined, consistently elaborated doctrine. They mock at Marxism-Leninism and prefer the vague, contradictory and thoroughly-compromised formulas of the counter-revolutionary theory of "three worlds".
Thus the Marxist-Leninist principles elaborated by Lenin in What Is To Be Done? provide a clear and convincing refutation of the neo-revisionist theory of the "pre-party collectives".
NOTES
1) For more on neo-revisionist mono-centrism and its relation to neo-revisionist polycentrism, see the section "On the Neo-Revisionist War Against the Party Concept" from the pamphlet How to Advance the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism, COUSML, 1978.
2) Stalin, Concerning Questions of Leninism, Section V., "The Party and the Working Class in the System of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", January 1926.
[Poster:
To all Marxist-Leninists, class conscious workers and revolutionary activists: The Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists calls upon you to participate in the historic work to reestablish the revolutionary vanguard party of the proletariat through the founding of the MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE U.S.A.
Today a revolutionary ferment is growing among the working masses. The American proletariat is now preparing for great class battles in the 1980's. The reconstitution and constant strengthening of the genuine Communist Party of the proletariat is absolutely indispensable to the successful advance of the proletarian revolutionary movement. The advanced section from the revolutionary activists of the 1960's and 1970's took up Marxism-Leninism, the most powerful and scientific revolutionary theory of all times. But for a decade the anti-Party trend of neo-revisionism has frustrated the repeated attempts of the Marxist-Leninists to unite into a single Communist Party in resolute opposition to the modern revisionists and the monopoly capitalist class enemy. In this decade the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists have advanced and strengthened themselves in the course of the struggle for the Party. Meanwhile the anti-Party trend of neo-revisionism, on the contrary, has degenerated to open Browderite great-power social-chauvinism. They have brought forth the warmongering thesis of "directing the main blow at the foreign threat". They are all, whether openly or covertly, fervent supporters of the "three worlds" theory. They have all come out to attack the land of the dictatorship of the proletariat, glorious People's Socialist Republic of Albania. In short, the neo-revisionists are now openly revelling in a most shameful alliance with the monopoly capitalist moneybags and the bloodstained U.S. imperialist state. Social-chauvinism is neo-revisionism and opportunism in finished form. It has matured to such an extent that the continued existence of this malignant tumor within the healthy body of the U.S. Marxist-Leninist movement cannot be tolerated. For the interests of the proletariat's struggle for power, a struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie, this disease must be removed. Now is the time to found the Party without the social-chauvinist class traitors and against the social-chauvinist class traitors.
from the
CALL OF THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE CENTRAL ORGANIZATION OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS Adopted on May 12,1979, the 10th Anniversary of the Founding of the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist)
For more information write to: COUSML, P.O. Box 11942, Fort Dearborn Stn., Chicago, IL 60611]
Reprinted below are excerpts from J. V. Stalin's immortal work "THE FOUNDATIONS OF LENINISM", taken from Chapter VIII, entitled "The Party".
1) The Party as the advanced detachment of the working class. The Party must be, first of all, the advanced detachment of the working class. The Party must absorb all the best elements of the working class, their experience, their revolutionary spirit, their selfless devotion to the cause of the proletariat. But in order that it may really be the advanced detachment, the Party must be armed with revolutionary theory, with a knowledge of the laws of the movement,, with a knowledge of the laws of revolution. Without this it will be incapable of directing the struggle of the proletariat, of leading the proletariat. The Party cannot be a real party if it limits itself to registering what the masses of the working class feel and think, if it drags at the tail of the spontaneous movement, if it is unable to overcome the inertia and the political indifference of the spontaneous movement, if it is unable to rise above the momentary interests of the proletariat, if it is unable to raise the masses to the level of understanding the class interests of the proletariat. The Party must stand at the head of the working class; it must see farther than the working class; it must lead the proletariat, and not drag at the tail of the spontaneous movement. The parties of the Second International, which preach "khvostism," are vehicles of bourgeois policy, which condemns the proletariat to the role of a tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Only a party which adopts the standpoint of advanced detachment of the proletariat and is able to raise the masses to the level of understanding the class interests of the proletariat -- only such a party can divert the working class from the path of trade unionism and convert it into an independent political force.
The Party is the political leader of the working class.
I have already spoken of the difficulties of the struggle of the working class, of the complicated conditions of the struggle, of strategy and tactics, of reserves and manoeuvring, of attack and retreat. These conditions are no less complicated, if not more so, than the conditions of war. Who can see clearly in these conditions, who can give correct guidance to the proletarian millions? No army at war can dispense with an experienced General Staff if it does not want to be doomed to defeat. Is it not clear that the proletariat can still less dispense with such a General Staff if it does not want to allow itself to be devoured by its mortal enemies? But where is this General Staff? Only the revolutionary party of the proletariat can serve as this General Staff. The working class without a revolutionary party is an army without a General Staff.
The Party is the General Staff of the proletariat.
But the Party cannot be only an advanced detachment. It must at the same time be a detachment of the class, part of the class, closely bound up with it by all the fibres of its being. The distinction between the advanced detachment and the rest of the working class, between Party members and non- Party people, cannot disappear until classes disappear; it will exist as long as the ranks of the proletariat continue to be replenished with former members of other classes, as long as the working class as a whole is not in a position to rise to the level of the advanced detachment. But the Party would cease to be a party if this distinction developed into a gap, if the Party turned in on itself and became divorced from the non-Party masses. The Party cannot lead the class if it is not connected with the non-Party masses, if there is no bond between the Party and the non-Party masses, if these masses do not accept its leadership, if the Party enjoys no moral and political credit among the masses.
Recently two hundred thousand new members from the ranks of the workers were admitted into our Party. The remarkable thing about this is the fact that these people did not merely join the Party themselves, but were rather sent there by all the rest of the non-Party workers, who took an active part in the admission of the new members, and without whose approval no new member was accepted. This fact shows that the broad masses of non-Party workers regard our Party as their Party, as a Party near and dear to them, in whose expansion and consolidation they are vitally interested and to whose leadership they voluntarily entrust their destiny. It scarcely needs proof that without these intangible moral threads which connect the Party with the non-Party masses, the Party could not have become the decisive force of its class.
The Party is an inseparable part of the working class.
"We," says Lenin, "are the Party of a class, and therefore almost the whole class (and in times of war, in the period of civil war, the whole class) should act under the leadership of our Party, should adhere to our Party as closely as possible. But it would be Manilovismt22! and 'khvostism' to think that at any time under capitalism almost the whole class, or the whole class, would be able to rise to the level of consciousness and. activity of its advanced detachment, of its Social-Democratic Party., No sensible Social-Democrat has ever yet doubted that under capitalism even the trade union organisations (which are more primitive and more comprehensible to the undeveloped strata) are unable to embrace almost the whole, or the whole, working class. To forget the distinction between the advanced detachment and the whole of the masses which gravitate towards it, to forget the constant duty of the advanced detachment to raise ever wider strata to this most advanced level, means merely to deceive oneself, to shut one's eyes to the immensity of our tasks, and to narrow down these tasks." (See Vol. VI, pp. 205-06.)
5) The Party as the embodiment of unity of will, unity incompatible with the existence of factions. The achievement and maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible without a party which is strong by reason of its solidarity and iron discipline. But iron discipline in the Party is inconceivable without unity of will, without complete and absolute unity of action on the part of all members of the Party. This does not mean, of course, that the possibility of conflicts of opinion within the Party is thereby precluded. On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but presupposes criticism and conflict of opinion within the Party. Least of all does it mean that discipline must be "blind." On the contrary, iron discipline does not preclude but presupposes conscious and voluntary submission, for only conscious discipline can be truly iron discipline. But after a conflict of opinion has been closed, after criticism has been exhausted and a decision has been arrived at, unity of will and unity of action of all Party members are the necessary conditions without which neither Party unity nor iron discipline in the Party is conceivable.
"In the present epoch of acute civil war," says Lenin, "the Communist Party will be able to perform its duty only if it is organised in the most centralised manner, if iron discipline bordering on military discipline prevails in it, and if its Party centre is a powerful and authoritative organ, wielding wide powers and enjoying the universal confidence of the members of the Party." (See Vol. XXV, pp. 282-83.)
This is the position in regard to discipline in the Party in the period of struggle preceding the achievement of the dictatorship.
The same, but to an even greater degree, must be said about discipline in the Party after the dictatorship has been achieved.
"Whoever," says Lenin, "weakens in the least the iron discipline of the Party of the proletariat (especially during the time of its dictatorship), actually aids the bourgeoisie against the proletariat." (See Vol. XXV, p. 190.)
But from this it follows that the existence of factions is compatible neither with the Party's unity nor with its iron discipline. It scarcely needs proof that the existence of factions leads to the existence of a number of centres, and the existence of a number of centres means the absence of one common centre in the Party, the breaking up of unity of will, the weakening and disintegration of discipline, the weakening and disintegration of the dictatorship. Of course, the parties of the Second International, which are fighting against the dictatorship of the proletariat and have no desire to lead the proletarians to power, can afford such liberalism as freedom of factions, for they have no need at all for iron discipline. But the parties of the Communist International, whose activities are conditioned by the task of achieving and consolidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, cannot afford to be "liberal" or to permit freedom of factions.
The Party represents unity of will, which precludes all factionalism and division of authority in the Party.
Hence Lenin's warning about the "danger of factionalism from the point of view of Party unity and of effecting the unity of will of the vanguard of the proletariat as the fundamental condition for the success of the dictatorship of the proletariat," which is embodied in the special resolution of the Tenth Congress of our Party "On Party Unity." [23]
Hence Lenin's demand for the "complete elimination of all factionalism" and the "immediate dissolution of all groups, without exception, that have been formed on the basis of various platforms," on pain of "unconditional and immediate expulsion from the Party." (See the resolution "On Party Unity.")
6) The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements. The source of factionalism in the Party is its opportunist elements. The proletariat is not an isolated class. It is constantly replenished by the influx of peasants, petty bourgeois and intellectuals proletarianised by the development of capitalism. At the same time the upper stratum of the proletariat, principally trade union leaders and members of parliament who are fed by the bourgeoisie out of the super-profits extracted from the colonies, is undergoing a process of decay. "This stratum of bourgeoisified workers, or the 'labour aristocracy,' " says Lenin, "who are quite philistine in their mode of life, in the size of their earnings and in their entire outlook, is the principal prop of the Second International, and, in our days, the principal social (not military) prop of the bourgeoisie. For they are real agents of the bourgeoisie in the working-class movement, the labour lieutenants of the capitalist class..., real channels of reformism and chauvinism." (See Vol. XIX, p. 77.)
In one way or another, all these petty-bourgeois groups penetrate into the Party and introduce into it the spirit of hesitancy and opportunism, the spirit of demoralisation and uncertainty. It is they, principally, that constitute the source of factionalism and disintegration, the source of disorganisation and disruption of the Party from within. To fight imperialism with such "allies" in one's rear means to put oneself in the position of being caught between two fires, from the front and from the rear. Therefore, ruthless struggle against such elements, their expulsion from the Party, is a prerequisite for the successful struggle against imperialism.
The theory of "defeating" opportunist elements by ideological struggle within the Party, the theory of "overcoming" these elements within the confines of a single party, is a rotten and dangerous theory, which threatens to condemn the Party to paralysis and chronic infirmity, threatens to make the Party a prey to opportunism, threatens to leave the proletariat without a revolutionary party, threatens to deprive the proletariat of its main weapon in the fight against imperialism. Our Party could not have emerged on to the broad highway, it could not have seized power and organised the dictatorship of the proletariat, it could not have emerged victorious from the civil war, if it had had within its ranks people like Martov and Dan, Potresov and Axelrod. Our Party succeeded in achieving internal unity and unexampled cohesion of its ranks primarily because it was able in good time to purge itself of the opportunist pollution, because it was able to rid its ranks of the Liquidators and Mensheviks. Proletarian parties develop and become strong by purging themselves of opportunists and reformists, social-imperialists and social-chauvinists, social-patriots and social-pacifists.
The Party becomes strong by purging itself of opportunist elements.
"With reformists, Mensheviks, in our ranks," says Lenin, "it is impossible to be victorious in the proletarian revolution, it is impossible to defend it. That is obvious in principle, and it has been strikingly confirmed by the experience of both Russia and Hungary.... In Russia, difficult situations have arisen many times, when the Soviet regime would most certainly have been overthrown had Mensheviks, reformists and petty-bourgeois democrats remained in our Party.... In Italy, where, as is generally admitted, decisive battles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie for the possession of state power are imminent. At such a moment it is not only absolutely necessary to remove the Mensheviks, reformists, the Turatists from the Party, but it may even be useful to remove excellent Communists who are liable to waver, and who reveal a tendency to waver towards 'unity' with the reformists, to remove them from all responsible posts.... On the eve of a revolution, and at a moment when a most fierce struggle is being waged for its victory, the slightest wavering in the ranks of the Party may wreck everything, frustrate the revolution, wrest the power from the hands of the proletariat; for this power is not yet consolidated, the attack upon it is still very strong. The desertion of wavering leaders at such a time does not weaken but strengthens the Party, the working-class movement and the revolution." (See Vol. XXV, pp. 462, 463, 464.)
[Photo.]
On Saturday and Sunday, June 23 and 24, thousands of working people and youth in Levittown, Pennsylvania rose up in rebellion to defend the blockade of a group of independent truckers from a vicious attack by the local police. This rebellion demonstrated many things, including that the masses of working people are completely fed up with the exploitation of the oil billionaires. And it demonstrated the strong support of the masses of working people for the national strike of the independent truckers.
On Saturday afternoon, 50 to 100 truckers launched a protest action by blocking the busy "Five Points" intersection in Levittown. When police attempted to end the blockade, angry motorists who themselves were prevented from purchasing gasoline due to the closure of nearby service stations, came to the assistance of the truckers. They were in turn joined by many young people and others from nearby homes until a total of 2,000 people were cheering on the truck drivers. One hundred fifty policemen armed with billy clubs and 18 police dogs attacked the truckers and their supporters so viciously that 23 people were hospitalized with bruises from billy clubs and dog bites! Nine police were also injured and hospitalized. Arrests of 67 people took place. The rebellion of the masses against the tyrannical oil monopolies and the government authorities was dispersed early the next morning.
But on Sunday evening 3,000 protesters again converged to do battle with 300 police. In the two days' rebellion a total of 200 people were arrested and eighty were injured by the fascist police. On Monday June 26, a state of emergency was declared forbidding gatherings of five or more people in Levittown. The local sheriff, referring to the explosion of the people's anger against the rich exploiters and their government, said that there is "a complete breakdown of law and order... and all police powers are exhausted. " Pennsylvania state police were sent in to assist the local authorities to put down the revolt of the masses in this working class community.
[Photo.]
Last month, hundreds of thousands of people in several countries around the world staged demonstrations and held public meetings to protest the nuclear energy policies of their governments and the program of ''nuclear imperialism" of the U.S. imperialists.
Among other things, the people are protesting U.S. imperialism's program of exporting nuclear power plants, which is used to serve the all-round penetration of their countries. U.S. monopolies and their subsidiaries led by General Electric and Westinghouse have already built, or are constructing, or have contracts to build nuclear power plants in: Brazil, Canada, West Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Yugoslavia, and other countries. Through the export of extremely costly nuclear plants, the giant U.S. energy corporations and Wall Street financial sharks are able to further monopolize the electric power industries of many countries and tighten U.S. neo-colonial slavery and subjugation of the peoples. And of course, along with these "benefits", the peoples have also received the extremely dangerous consequences of this poisonous nuclear development, a nuclear development which is closely bound up with U.S. imperialism's preparations for nuclear war. The peoples' opposition to this imperialist nuclear energy program was shown in the mass actions in a number of European countries, in Japan, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere.
In Canada, more than 1,500 people demonstrated at the Darlington, Ontario nuclear power plant, which will be the world's largest when completed at a cost of $5 billion. The development of the nuclear power industry in Canada is part of the very profitable (for the Wall Street bankers) war industry and part of the nuclear war preparations tied to U.S. imperialism. CANDU nuclear reactors are exported from Canada to imperialists and reactionaries around the world for the production of atomic weapons. In addition, on April 28, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) organized demonstrations and public meetings in four cities to denounce the upcoming nuclear war exercises code named "Operation Global Shield", to be held in the skies over Canada under the direction of the U.S. Air Force.
In San Francisco, a demonstration was held on June 3 to protest the planned export of a 620 mega-watt nuclear power plant to the Philippines. The setting up of this power plant will bring fantastic profits for the Westinghouse monopoly and other imperialist sharks, and worse neo-colonial slavery for the Filipino people.
In Scotland, a demonstration was held to protest the docking of a U.S. Polaris nuclear submarine.
In Spain, rallies and demonstrations were held on June 3 in 11 cities. The Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist) participated in these mass actions which protested the large-scale importation of nuclear power plants into Spain by the U.S. imperialist nuclear energy corporations. In a demonstration in the city of Tudela in the north of Spain, more than 2,000 people protested the building of a nuclear power plant there. The fascist Civil Guard savagely attacked the demonstrators, brutally murdering a 24 year-old woman, shooting her in the head and wounding 30 others. On June 5, following this vicious police murder, fierce clashes took place between the masses and riot police in the cities of Pamplona and San Sabastian in the Basque country. To protest this murder, a general strike shut down factories, schools and businesses throughout the region. Prior to these events, on May 26, a massive demonstration of more than 80,000 was held in Madrid. This demonstration was also attacked by the police, as well as by bands of nazi-fascists, who charged the demonstration with tear gas, smoke bombs and rubber bullets, and used vehicles to attempt to drive over the demonstrators. The masses, with the militants of the Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist) in the forefront, valiantly fought back, leaving 15 police wounded, three "anti-riot" cars burned and a number of vehicles of the nazi-fascist bands destroyed. Forty demonstrators were arrested.
U.S. EXPORT OF NUCLEAR POWER - THE CASE OF SPAIN
For many years the U.S. imperialists and their various mouthpieces have been screaming themselves hoarse about the wonders of the "peaceful uses" of nuclear energy, about how nuclear reactors could be an infinite source of inexpensive energy, about how nuclear power could turn all countries into lands of milk and honey and particularly how it could alleviate oil-poor countries from dependence upon others for their primary energy source. But the case of Spain shows graphically how the development of the nuclear power industry under the wing of U.S. imperialism means an even greater dependence on imperialism at a far greater expense. It shows how Spain is being hitched up to the billion dollar U.S. imperialist bandwagon.
In the first place, the Spanish nuclear plants are completely dependent on foreign imperialism for the uranium fuel needed for its nuclear power utilities. When uranium ore was first mined in Spain, this mining was controlled by the U.S. Steel Corporation, and a large part of the ore that was mined was shipped off to the U.S. for fuel for the U.S. nuclear industry. Presently Spain keeps only a small fraction (less than 10%) of the ore needed to run its power plants, with the rest still going directly to the U.S.
But even if Spain had greater deposits of uranium ore it would not make much difference. To make this concentrated uranium ore into a suitable fuel for a nuclear reactor it must first be "enriched", and the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism maintain the total world monopoly over uranium "enrichment" facilities. Therefore, while Spain presently imports most of its uranium from Canada (uranium mining in Canada is also dominated by the U.S. monopolies), this ore must first be processed in U.S. "enrichment" plants before being imported again to Spain. Over the last two years, Spain has signed agreements with both the United States and the Soviet Union for supplies of "enriched" uranium. Under these agreements (which will last until 1985) the U.S. will provide 65% of Spain's nuclear fuel demands and the Soviet Union will provide 18%. (The remaining 17% is planned to come from a plant presently under construction in France by a consortium of European countries.) Thus, far from alleviating Spain's dependence on imperialism, nuclear power demands one hundred percent dependence on the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism in particular, for nuclear fuel supplies.
Furthermore, U.S. imperialism maintains a total monopoly over the nuclear technology which it exports. The U.S. nuclear energy corporations generally only lease nuclear reactors and the reactor cores. It is only these monopolies which can service the nuclear fuel rods and provide the necessary parts and repairs. And this monopoly of the nuclear reactor technology is a source of truly fabulous profits for the U.S. corporations and for their "Spanish" subsidiaries under the control of these U.S. corporations. As of five years ago, General Electric and Westinghouse had built, were building, or had on order a total of 10 nuclear power plants in Spain. With these plants costing approximately $1 billion apiece, this is a whopping $10 billion operation. On top of the 25% return which the U.S. corporations receive on the nuclear reactor itself, indirectly the U.S. nuclear monopolies and other monopolies make enormous profits through their "Spanish" subsidiaries, which receive multi-million dollar contracts for the necessary components of the nuclear power plants. Thus, the monopoly of nuclear power technology by the U.S. corporations means that nuclear power does not alleviate dependence on imperialism, but increases it manifold. And far from being a source of inexpensive energy, this monopoly control is a source of untold billions for the GE and Westinghouse bloodsuckers and a source of steep costs for the Spanish working people.
The extremely high cost of nuclear technology has brought about an ever greater penetration of U.S. finance capital in the form of loans and credits into the Spanish economy. The electrical power generating companies in Spain have amassed enormous debts to the Wall Street bankers. Loans to cover as much as 90% of the costs of a given nuclear power plant facility are granted mainly by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, First National City Bank, Morgan Guaranty Trust, and the Chase Manhattan Bank. Through the granting of billions of dollars of "loans" and "credits" the U.S. imperialist financiers have come to varying degrees of control over five of Spain's electric power utilities and now even sit on the boards of directors of these companies.
But the Spanish people are not only plundered by Wall Street banks and brought further under the heel of U.S. imperialism with the present development of nuclear power -- they also face radioactive poisoning and the further spoiling of the environment. The same nuclear monopolies that brought about the near disaster in Harrisburg and poison the American people with nuclear radiation, have shown even lower regard for the health and safety of the people of Spain. The nuclear energy corporations and their "scientists" who have written the laws which regulate Spain's nuclear energy industry have allowed radiation tolerances for humans which are many times greater than those in the U.S. and allow population concentrations to be many times closer to nuclear plants than the regulations in the U.S. allow. Such adventurist schemes have been floated as for a Spanish nuclear facility to maintain continuous operation, eliminating the periodic shutdowns for repairs and safety inspections. Another plan calls for the storage of radioactive wastes in concrete vaults on the ocean Door off the Spanish coast, totally disregarding the fact that the ocean current could destroy such a vault in a matter of 30 or 40 years. Plans have also been made to build nuclear plants on certain Spanish lakes and rivers which would raise their water temperatures to about 80°F., which, along with periodic fluctuations in water temperature due to shutdowns, would result in the destruction of the fish and severely upset the ecological balance of those areas. The U.S. imperialist corporations are rapidly setting up nuclear plants across Spain with a reckless disregard for the monstrous consequences, taking careful measures only to safeguard their sacred profits.
Besides the nuclear energy industry, U.S. imperialism is also imposing its nuclear war preparations on the people of Spain. The monarcho-fascist government of Juan Carlos is most accommodating in this regard as well. U.S. imperialist military domination goes hand in hand with imperialist economic penetration and domination. In particular, the Carter administration is striving to bring Spain into the aggressive NATO treaty. This is a striving to increase the militarization of Spanish society, a plan to strengthen fascism and counter-revolution, to increase the U.S. military presence in Spain to prepare for aggressive war. Already 20,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Spain as well as stockpiles of nuclear weapons and nuclear bombers.
Thus, the great "benefits" which U.S. imperialism's export of nuclear power plants has brought the Spanish people are many-sided indeed. It has brought the further stranglehold of the U.S. corporations over the electric generating industry and the all-round increased penetration of U.S. finance capital into the Spanish economy. Of course, for the U.S. imperialist moneybags this means tremendous profits at the expense of the Spanish people. And the nuclear plants mean nuclear poisoning and ruination of the environment. Spain provides another example of the monstrous U.S. imperialist nuclear energy program in action.
[Graphic.]
(The Workers' Advocate has received issue number two of the publication "Iran -- the Voice of the Revolution", comprised of news briefs transmitted by the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran and published by the Workers' Communist Party of France; Translation from the French is by The Workers' Advocate staff.)
Tehran, May 7, 1979 In Kurdistan, the massacres are the result of provocations on the part of the reactionary forces (feudalists linked to imperialism). The Party fights for peace, for this war is not a revolutionary war but a fratricidal war to the advantage of imperialism and reaction, which purposely seek to keep up trouble and disorder in Iran so as to establish a strong rule. Some doctor comrades in particular have gone there to care for the wounded.
MAY FIRST
--- It was the Workers' Assembly (Committee for the Formation of United Trade Unions) which prepared the demonstration. The Assembly represents four important regions of Iran.
--- On May 1st a gigantic demonstration took place organized by the Committee of Workers' Coordination, launched principally by the Committee for the Creation of United Trade Unions. The political forces of the left supported this demonstration. No one had their own banner.
More than 700,000 people marched several kilometers in Tehran. During the demonstration the reactionaries attacked several times. They were not able to block the demonstration, which continued. There were several incidents, but they were repelled; the reactionaries numbered about 300.
The Party was present. It played an important role in the leadership of the demonstration. It carried out very important propaganda and sold several thousand tomans worth of propaganda.
The slogans were of the anti-imperialist and economic type: against U.S. imperialism, against unemployment, against foreign companies, for nationalization, for the workers' rights.
The guerillas attempted to use the demonstration by trying to say that it was theirs. This was opportunism on their part; but their attempts were in vain.
The demonstration showed the workers' strength and that of the left. It was an important point for the formation of the trade unions.
The religious elements had a different demonstration. There were a few more people, but it must not be forgotten that they have the whole state apparatus, the radio, television, newspapers, propaganda, etc.
In the factories, they tried to prevent the workers from going to the first demonstration; of course there are different levels among the workers. Certain ones, the less advanced, were compelled to go with the religious elements. But these provocations had as an effect that many people from their demonstration, including veiled women, joined the first demonstration. The slogans of the religious elements were: "Death to the communists", and they did not give a single anti-imperialist slogan!
[Photo: Iranian masses denounce U.S. imperialism.]
The Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran is in favor of the deepening of the Iranian revolution in conformity with the aspirations of the working masses. In this context the Party has devoted special importance to the People's Councils as a guarantee of democracy. It points out that the overthrow of the dynasty of Pahlavi in Iran destroyed the bloodthirsty dictatorship of a handful of speculating capitalist enterprises and opened the road to advancement of the Iranian working people towards their emancipation.
The Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran points out that one of the aims of the Iranian revolution was to destroy the rotten and oppressive order and to allow the working people to take over the running of affairs themselves. A revolution which is capable of destroying the old institutions and replacing them with new ones elected from amongst the people can be considered radical and consistent. In the pages of Toufan, the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran describes the councils of representatives of the workers, peasants, soldiers, teachers and employees as such new institutions. Through these organs the old apparatus will be destroyed and the working masses can create their democracy with their new style and methods. The Party agrees with the viewpoint that the independent action of the masses must be organized in a political light and with their direct participation in the leading structure. The Party considers as one expression of this contribution the People's Councils whose members are elected from all strata of the population, and to which the people send their representatives. The activity of the representatives is controlled by the masses while the councils are apparatuses elected by the people and under their direct control. The Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran charges its members with the duty of working to create people's formations. It considers the creation of councils and people's associations as a problem of first-rate importance for the current period. Making an analysis of the situation in the country, it draws the conclusion that the people are striving to gain power and exercise this power. The Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran charges its militants with the task of creating councils in all regions. This is where all efforts must be concentrated and increased. The Party evaluates the creation of councils in the plants, factories, villages, in the ranks of the soldiers and the teachers as an important step in the democratization of society and a stumbling block for the attacks of the enemies of the Iranian revolution.
(The above article was broadcast over Radio Tirana on June 18, 1979.)