First Published: The Call, Vol. 6, No. 22, June 6, 1977.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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In organizing for this year’s May Day activities in Detroit, members of the Communist Youth Organization (CYO) carried out a battle against the counter-revolutionary Trotskyist Red Tide organization and exposed the line of this group among the masses.
CYO activists ran into the Red Tide when both groups were leafleting at Western High School in southwest Detroit for May Day. The Red Tide, youth organization of the International Socialists, was encouraging youth to celebrate this international working class holiday by partying and getting high. The CYO, by contrast, was trying to bring the students out to a militant forum to hear veteran Black communist Odis Hyde speak and to discuss the state of the working class struggle today.
The CYO was new to the school, but the Red Tide had been around for a while. These Trotskyists had won only a small handful of adherents and made many enemies.
Western High School has many minority students – Black, Puerto Rican, Chicano – as well as white working class youth. In the past, the school was the center of sharp battles against police harassment and discrimination. Students staged walkouts and built strong student organizations in the ’60s.
Today, police patrol the school daily, dragging off students when they fail to produce an ID. The education is miserable, so the dropout rate is very high. Despite large numbers of Spanish-speaking students, there is no bilingual program. In fact, there is a regulation prohibiting the use of Spanish except between 7:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m.
Racial tensions have gotten very bad.
The Trotskyists have consistently covered over the real cause of these problems, which lie in the capitalist system. Instead, they have played on the racial tensions, appealing to chauvinism as well as narrow nationalism to “interest“ people in their organization. One young white woman student complained to the CYO about the “splittist” tactics of the Red Tide, which she characterized as “playing favorites.” “One day they favor Blacks and the next, Latinos,” she said.
One former member of the Red Tide explained how he had been lured into the organization with promises of “revolution” but that no education nor struggle were ever taken up. “We’d come to meetings and drink beer. That’s all. Then they’d expect us to come out and sell their papers and hand out their leaflets without even knowing what they said.”
The CYO members helped the youth sum up their experiences with Red Tide, explaining what Trotskyism stood for. They talked to the students about Trotsky himself, who used revolutionary-sounding phrases to attack the socialist revolution in Russia.
Trotsky’s adherents internationally have since become notorious for their attacks on socialist China as well as their chauvinism towards the national liberation struggles in the third world. In fact, wherever people are rising up and making revolution, the Trotskyists can usually be found collaborating with the enemy on the other side.
A CYO activist demonstrated this by showing how the Trotskyists had even sided with Hitler during World War II. He also pointed out that, although the Trotskyists opposed the USSR when it was a socialist country, they have supported its policies ever since capitalism was restored there.
Another student then told of how the Red Tide tried to turn the youth away from their struggles against discrimination and police violence. They do this by advocating that students should become involved in campaigns to “legalize heroin” and elect Trotskyists to local office.
A CYO member pointed out that these examples proved that the Trotskyites basically advocate reformism – meaning the patching up of capitalism instead of overthrowing it.
Still another CYO member told The Call after carrying out a debate with the Red Tide in the park in front of the school, “The Trotskyites don’t have any faith in the masses. They base their theories on their own idealist conceptions, never on concrete investigation and work among the people. They think they can ’get rich quick’ and get some support with their campaigns like ’legalizing heroin’ or turning May Day into a time to drink and party.
“But the students can see through this. The people want to fight. They want to learn about holidays like May Day and participate in them. The Trotskyists are just showing their contempt for the people by turning this day of class struggle into a time to sit back and get high.”
The CYO is continuing to work at Western High School, selling The Young Communist and The Call. They are beginning to organize against the police, bad education and discrimination. Work has also been initiated around the summer jobs campaign. With up to 70% unemployment among minority youth in Detroit, this campaign is an important tool for organizing and educating youth and attacking the capitalist system that lies at the heart of the problems of unemployment and economic crises.
The Red Tide, meanwhile, has been struck a blow. Many students have begun to understand that their super-revolutionary talk, drugs and divisive activities are standard ware for all Trotskyists and add up to nothing less than counter-revolution.