WfJ/iNEIlS,,1N'UI1,, 25¢No. 349 2 March 1984

Bosses' Rules-A Losing Game

•In

a or's

Cops attack striking s.hipbuilders in 1979 at Newport News, Virginia.

Striking coal miners in Stearns, Kentucky.

See Page 8

The"External Tendency"

FromCream Puffs

to FoodPoisoning

beat the unions. During the Greyhoundstrike the company's appeal for scabswas directed explicitly at minorities andwomen. All across America, thousandsOf unemployed lined up to act asstrikebreakers. And worst of all, they

continued on page J3

breaking on a railroad in Florida. Fromthere to butchering Vietnamese womenand children at My Lai was a naturalprogression. And if the death-squadkillers get kicked out of EI Salvador bythe leftist guerrillas, pretty soon they'llbe here as "freedom fighters" workingfor these scabherding outfits.

Unions aren't the only ones under thegun today-by no means. "Dividendsare rising-black people are starving,"we wrote .recently. Every day there isnew evidence. "Report Says U.S.Hunger Is Widespread and Rising,"headlined the New York Times onFebruary 7. Two weeks later the CensusBureau officially reported 34 millionpeople living below the poverty line in1982,an increase of almost 50 percent inthe last three years. As the economyclimbs up from the depth of the worstcrisis since the Great Depression of the1930s some white workers are findingwork again, but black unemployment isstill officially above 15 percent. In fact,a/mas/ halfof all black men do not havea full-time job! U.S. capitalism main­tains a huge army of black and "illegal"Latin workers to provide low-wagelabor; now they are using this club to

IiIV Photo

high tech or armaments-it's strike­breaking. The Pinkertons and Wacken­huts are having a boom providing .thebosses with armored cars, vans andguards to protect scabs. These are thescum of the earth. Remember Lt.Calley? His first public act was strike-

The head of the bus drivers unionbargaining council remarked, "It was agame of hardball and they played harderball than we did," announcing thesellout of the Greyhound strike lastDecember. That's for sure, and not onlyat Greyhound. Reagan set the tone in1981 by firing 15,000air controllers, theentire PATCO union. The next yearIowa Beef Packers used National Guardbayonets to shove a four-year wagefreeze down the workers' throats. In1983 came the Phelps-Dodge copperstrike in Arizona-this time hundreds ofGuardsmen, helicopters, armored per- .

. sonnel carriers, shootings, evictions, asthe full power of the state was mobilizedagainst the miners. After knocking offsome peripheral sectors, the union­busters are now aiming at the heart oforganized labor: the key nationalindustrial and transport unions. AtGreyhound they demanded a 25 percentpay cut. At the beginning the union topssoft-soaped the ranks, claiming theycouldn't .lose their jobs because thewalkout was "legal." But.thescab busesrolled anyway, cops busted picketers'heads coast-to-coast, hundreds werefired, and when the "negotiations" wereover, those who went back had to eatmonstrous concessions. What did theAFL-CIO bureaucrats do about this?Nothing-they sat on their hand~ andcalled a few token rallies so angryunionists could blow off steam.

In Reagan's America it's open seasonon the unions, on blacks, the poor, theillegal aliens, the radicals-we're alltargets of the drive to roll things back tothe way they were when the robberbarons rode high in the saddle, when theonly business of America, said CalvinCoolidge, was business. The biggestgrowth industry in the U.S. today isn't

Letters

APTanks of Lankan army of occupation patrol atreet In northemTaml1 city ofJaffna, 1981,

WV replies: Yes.

er asserted that" ... our first choice forchange is Flynn" (In These Times, 5-11October 1983).

We've seen nothing in print todocument Pattberg's contention thatthe DSA endorsed King in the finalelection. We'll take your word for it, butwe have to observe that the DSA's"endorsement" evidently didn't meananything. The DSA is an organizationwith even less discipline than theDemocratic Party; its members supportwhomever they feel like. Did PeterDreier, for instance, shift his allegiancefrom Flynn after DSA allegedly en­dorsed King?We have to doubt it, sinceFlynn appointed Dreier as one of thepeople to head up his Housing TaskForce.

The DSA is very "democratic" aboutits honchos saying whatever they wantin pursuit of perceived personal inter­ests. But there are limits. Ifany DSAerswere to have denounced both capitalistcandidates in Boston and come out forbuilding a workers party against theDemocrats and Republicans, we haveno doubt they'd get about the sametreatment as Harrington (then of theSocialist Party) gave the fledgling 5DSin 1962. In the famous "Port HuronStatement," the young SDS NewLeftists had come out against the anti­Communism which is Harrington'sstock intrade. So he locked them out ofthiir office.•

"Herr. Doktor"Edmonton,' Alberta

31-1-84

Basic MarxismEvery Wednesday, 7:00 p.m.February 22-Apr1l181634 Telegraph Ave. (3rd floor)For more information: (415)835~1535

OAKLAND

SL/SYL Class Series

Fraternally,D. Justice

Editors, WV

It's best not to use the German'language as itself an emblem offascism'in your otherwise justified polemics, e.g.re "Herr Doktor" Graham p. 13of 20-1­84 WV[No. 346]. It recalls the New Left•Amerika' and has, per se, no politicalcontent-hence feeds into the intellectu­al laziness that looks at relativelyobvious traits like race or nationality tothe detriment of more important classdynamics. A small point, but I knowYou like to be precise in yourcharacterizations.

forms a wrong impression. The slogan"Withdraw all forces from North andEast" could be presented not allowingthe . working class to have wrongimpressions about the bourgeois army.

Spartacist League/Lanka•

WV replies: We thank the comradesfor bringing to our attention the factthat the call for "withdrawal of Sinhalaarmy units" from Tamil areas. could,given the history of this slogan in Sri

. Lanka, be interpreted as advocating thereplacement of Sinhalese with Tamil­speaking \roops. Clearly, then, theearlier slogan "withdrawal or-cops andtroops from Tamil areas" is the correctone.•

speaking bourgeois army)." (LankaSpartacist N98. 1~2. page 15)

"fmmediat~.withdrawal of Sinhalaarmy units from' alJTamil areas" willcreate the wrong impression that it isagreed for a Tamil-speaking army tostay on. Though it is correct that thearmy sent to the North by the Lankangovernment is almost all.Sinhala, tbeslogan "Withdraw all forces" wouldhave been a more correctly formedslogan than the slogan in WV No. 336,and would not have created wrongimpressions.

Not to demand "withdrawal ofSinhala army units from all Tamilareas!" is not capitulating to Sinhalaracists. Such a demand equals thedemand of Tamil nationalists and also

[West Virginia]

This is to inform you of an addresschange.... Congratulations on thecirculation figures on you vs. Militant[see "Workers Vanguard KO's Mili­tant" WV No. 342, 18November 1983].Here's another straw in the wind. Eventhe political philistines of the SLP'sPeople recognize you as the "principalTrotskyist organization in the Ll.S.today." But watch out. The would-be­big-frogs-small-ponds ET-types [theself-styled "External Tendency"-seearticle on SL National Conference,"Black and Red in Reagan's America,"WV No. 342] won't go away nowbecause with the SWP going under,there won't be anywhere to go. They'llprovide a chorus for backwardelementsinside the S L.

Somerville, Mass.

Good Luck!S.J.

To the Editor:,You should get your facts straight

before you distort them. Contrary to theassertions in your article on the Bostonelections (WV, Nov. 4), at no time didBoston DSA endorse Ray Flynn formayor-nor was an endorsement everproposed. During the preliminary DSAwas indeed divided, as was the largerprogressive coalition of which we are apart. Some of us wanted a statementsupporting both Flynn and King as byfar the two best candidates (out of.nine),though reflecting different constitu­encies-otherssought an outright en­dorsement of King. No official positionwas taken. In the final DSA did endorseMel King by an overwhelming margin.

Mike Pattberg

ETs: No Home?

WV replies: As we wrote in our article,"Populism and Racism in BostonElectidns" (WV No. 341, 4 November1983), the choice between black liberalMe.1 King and the racist "born-again­populist" Ray Flynn posed a dilemmafor the city's assorted liberals, fake­leftists and "progressives." No less so forthe Democratic Socialists of America(DSA). As DSA head-Michael Harring­ton declared during the 1976 presiden­tial race, if the Democrats nominated

.Mickey Mouse for president, he wouldvote for him. '

The Boston elections, though, were"nonpartisan;" So what's a good socialdemocratto do when two "liberals" arepitted against each other? While MikePattberg is correct in saying that hisorganization did not "endorse" Flynnin the preliminary, in Boston DSAhonchos actively threw their supportbehind him. Thus DSA National Ex­ecutive Committee member Peter Drei-

.DSA Protests Too Much

LENIN

2 March 1984 .

Tamil areas, and for the right of self­determination for the Tamil people ofSri Lanka." ( WV 283, page 02)

However, instead of this, WV[No.336,12 August 1983] published "Immediatewithdrawal of Sinhala army units fromall Tamil areas." This is a slogan that theNSSP [New Sama Samaja Party] used.at one time. The TULF [Tamil UnitedLiberation Front] at that time de­manded thatJ!1e forces deployed in theNorth should have a majority of Tamil­speaking personnel. NSSP's call for thewithdrawal of Sinhala forces was inconjunction with the TU LF call. InLanka Spartacist Nos. 1-2 we criticizedthe NSSP slogan:

"Falling in linewith the demands of theTULF, the slogan of'withdraw Sinhalaforces' of the NSSP... (i.e, the NSSPaccepts that there exist a Tamil-

No. 349

TROTSKY

20.01.84

The slogan that SL/ Land WV so farused against the use of armed force bythe Lankan government to suppress theTamitpeople in the North and East ofLanka was "Withdraw all forces!"

In the fusion of the Bolshevik Groupand the iSt [international Spartacisttendency] the following was included:"We demand the immediate withdrawalof the Sri Lankan government policeand armed forces." WV 282-283 pub­lished slogans with the same meaning:

"Free the victims of anti-Tamil stateterror! Cops and troops out of Jaffna!"( WV 282, page 03)"Slogans raised at the New Yorkdemonstration called for the freeing ofvictims of the anti-Tamil terror, for thewithdrawalof cops and troops from the

EDITOR: Jan Norden .PRODUCTION MANAGER: Noah Wilner

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Darlene KamiuraEDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule, Charles Burrouqhs, George Foster. Liz Gordon. JamesRobertson,Reuben Samuels. Joseph Seymour. Marjorie Stamberg (Closing editor for No. 349: Liz Gordon)

WorIWrs Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, skipping an issue in August and a week in December, bythe Spa'rtscist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: 732-7862 (Editorial), 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York. NY 10116. Domestic SUbscriptions: $5.00/24issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to.workers Vanguard.Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.

Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do no! necesserily express the editorial viewpoint.

WfJltllEltS "NfJlJ'ltlJMarxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartaclst League of the U.S•.

Letter from La.nka

The Pathology of RenegacyWith the Hitler-Stalin pact and the

approach of World War Il, thepressureand prejudices of "democratic" imperial­ism generated among petty-bourgeoiselements mass desertions from Marxism.In April 1940 the Burnham-Shachtman­Abern opposition split from the SocialistWorkers Party rejecting defense of theSoviet .Union. SWP leader James P.Cannon, • America's founding Trotskyistleader, wrote of these deserters..

They are all isolated irtdividuals, yet each one of them considers hisdisil~usionment with t~e proletarian revolution an important public event andcontinually makes all kinds ofelaborate explanations of how it came to pass. On theeve of the real beginning of capitalism's second world war, which will crush out thelives of millions and tens of millions of human beings, they write about themselves!heir disappoi~tme~tsand reactions, as though these were the most interesting andImportant subjects 10 the world. Well aware of their own shabbiness, they feel theneed of self-justification and public approval. They are uneasy of conscience andseek to stifle it by shouting imprecations at those who have remained faithful to thebanner they have deserted. They give every explanation of their motivation but thereal one-the fact that they have no confidence in the socialist future of humanityand no stomach for the struggle to achieve it.

-James P. Cannon, "The Pathology of Renegacy,"Fourth International (June 1940)

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

William Marshall

Labor Black League Launched in L.A.

LOS ANGELES, February 19-Theywere dancing in the aisles and clappingand stomping in time this evening as-anenthusiastic crowd of over 250 peoplejammed the National Association ofLetter Carriers (NALC) Branch 24 hallto hear the finest blues benefit this sideof Chicago. Featuring blues greats BigJoe Turner, Peewee Crayton and PercyMayfield, the benefit organized by thePhone Strikers Defense Committee(PSDC) was a smashing success, raising$3,105 for victimized Bay Area phonestrikers Lauren Mozee and Ray Pal­miero. Ray and Lauren, a formermember of the Black Panther Party,were fired from their jobs and face fouryears in prison for defending themselvesand their union against a racist assaultwhile on picket duty during last sum­mer's national phone strike. The benefitalso launched the Los Angeles LaborBlack League for Social Defense (seebelow). Symbolically, behind the podi­um was a portrait of Patrick Mason, thefive-year-old black child murdered inhis own bedroom by a racist OrangeCounty cop; flanking the stage werelarge photos of martyred strikers GregGoobic of the Oil Workers and Grey­hound driver Ray Phillips, both killedby scabs running through picket lines inthe last two months.

The struggle to beat back the racistanti-labor frame-up of Mozee andPalmiero has generated wide support inthe Los Angeles labor movement. Thedefense effort has been endorsed by anumber of labor union locals and blackorganizations, as well as dozens ofindividual union officials and prorni­nent black leaders in the area, includingLos Angeles city councilman RobertFarrell who wrote a fundraising letter.Striking Greyhound workers in Decem­ber passed the bucket, raising $459,while hard-pressed Continental strikers

The highly successful L.A.' bluesbenefit held on February 19 to defendvictimizedphone strikers Lauren Mozeeand Ray Palmiero was also the spring­board to launch the Labor Black Leaguefor Social Defense in Los Angeles. DonSmith. a black executive board memberof the National Association of LetterCarriers Branch 2200 in Pasadena.made a moving appeal to the audienceto get involved in the LBL:

"I'm not a speaker but I would like tosay afew things. I remember in the early'4005 when my parents had a restaurant.that the police in pretense of10okingforsomebodv else hroke in there and heat/Ill' (ather. knocked all his teeth OUI. andail "thel' could sal' was that it was amistaken identity: He never got any­thing out (JOt. Never got a recognitionor apology. So what I'm really up hereabout is to hope that you would join

2 MARCH 1984

PeeweeCrayton

(above left)and Percy

Mayfield

pitched in $73. In January, Los AngelesCommunications Workers (CWA) Lo­cal 11502 donated $.200 directly toLauren and Ray; the cement workersunion collected $162 from delegates attheir regional conference, then matchedthis from their general fund.

Four hundred fifty tickets to thebenefit were sold in advance, 200 aloneto CW A members who walked picketlines in L.A. last summer. The LosAngeles local of the NALC not onlyendorsed but donated the use of theirhall, complete with lounge and unionbartenders, purchased 20 buttons andtook a block of tickets to sell to theirmembers, gave thePSDC a contribu­tion of $100 and even part of theproceeds from the bar. Several unionlocals and officials bought blocks oftickets including NALC Branch 2200 inPasadena, International Association ofMachinists Local 597 (representing theContinental Airlines strikers) andAFSCME Local 3234 at UCLA. An­nouncements of the benefit for thePhone Strikers' Defense Committeeappeared on the front page of the LosAngeles Times "Calendar" section andin the Long Beach Press Telegram; inaddition there was a 40-minute liveinterview with Don Andrews of theSpartacist League and Steve Bull, amember of CW A Local 11502, onPacifica radio KPFK's "Public Affairs"

with me in the Lahor Black LeagueforSocial Defense."

Brother Smith introduced the audienceto Richard Fraser "who has made animportant contribution to the blackstruggle." Comrade Fraser, a veteranTrotskyist. is the author of "For theMaterialist Conception of the NegroQuestion." That evening ten people.including a number who worked withthe Phone Strikers Defense Committeeto build the benefit. joined the LaborBlack League. We reprint below theLabor Black League statement.

Join the labor Black leaguefor Social Defense!

It's time that we come together indefense of our interests and survival by

program and a feature spot on the majorblack radio station, Stevie Wonder'sKJLH.

The crowd was more than two-thirdsblack with strong representation fromlocal unions. IATSE technicians pro­vided the sound, and the guest bookshows unionists from OCAW, Team~sters, Laborers, ORTT, ITU, APWU,AFSCME and SEW. Lauren and Raywere there, coming down specially fromthe Bay Area accompanied by twocarloads of friends and supporters. ­Matty Billinger, a National AllianceAgainst Racist and Political Repression(NAARPR) member and black commu­nity activist who faces racist frame-upcharges in Compton was introduced tothe audience. _A - black woman whodrove with friends all the way from­Fontana (where a black phone workerwas paralyzed for life when he was shotoff a telephone- pole by a 1\KK sniper afew years back) told WV:'""I~m reallyimpressed to -see such an integratedcrowd fighting together for a veryimportant case."

And the music was hot! The benefitbrought together performers from allover L.A. It was an electric combina­tion: musicians came down from thestage and played while mingling with thecrowd on the dance floor. The audiencewas brought to its feet when the greatPercy Mayfield joined premier L.A.

forming a Labor Black League forSocial Defense in Los Angeles. For fartoo long, Los Angeles has been an open­shop, low wage, anti-union, racist city.The bosses have taken advantage ofthat, and their hired assassins in blue arekilling us off like flies. RememberPatrick Mason? Founding members ofthe LBL demonstrated in downtownL.A. to show our outrage at the murderof this 5 year old black child. gunneddown by Anthony Sperl. who wasrewarded with an obscene $35,000bounty and a lifetime "pension." Like­wise we came out into the streets inopposition to the cop vendetta againstDelois Young and her family to protestthe release of Robert Armstrong.murderer of her unborn child. We arealso demanding freedom and jobs back

Big Joe Turner(above)

blues guitarist Peewee Crayton for ajoint set. When blues great Big JoeTurner wound up the show, he broughtdown the house. Big Joe, famousthroughout the U.S. and well-lovedamong blacks in South Africa, hadpeople dancing from the stage in front tothe literature tables in the back. A realbond developed between the audienceand the performers who gave generouslyof their time and talent, joining togetherin the fight for freedom and jobs forLauren Mozee and Ray Palmiero.

Earlier in the program the audiencewas treated to a special appearance byEmmy award-winning black actorWilliam Marshall. CW A member andemcee Manuel Delgadillo- introducedMarshall as "a fighter for human rightsand the oppressed who's here todayperforming as the great black aboli­tionist Frederick Douglass on behalf oftwo _courageous, unionists," -Marshall

_sketched Douglass' early career afterescaping from slaveryand pointed to theimportant debates in the 1850s overwhat strategy would end slavery. Heshared with the audience a paraphraseof Douglass' response: "Some believedin the ballot, some believed in the bullet.

.The Garrisonian abolitionists headed byWilliam Lloyd Garrison believed in.wielding the 'sword of the spirit.'Increasingly as the crisis neared that

continued on page 4

for fired phone workers Lauren Mozeeand Ray Palmiero, who are facing timein state prison for defending themselvesagainst a racist. company assault ontheir picket line.

The Labor Black League for SocialDefense stands for mobilizing themasses of working people and op­pressed for militant integrated struggleagainst the brutal system of racistoppression that is capitalist America.where the bi-partisan anti-Soviet wardrive abroad means a fierce increase incop/Klan terror and union busting athome. Initiated by and fraternally alliedto the Spartacist League. a multiracialrevolutionary Marxist organization. theLabor- Black League for Social Defenseis part of the revolutionary moy,~m~ntofthe workers and oppressed against thebosses and for'socialism.

When the Klan planned to march inWashington. D.C. on Nov. 27. '82 the

continued on page 4

3

Reagan's 1984"HuJQanRigbfs"ReportWe are as sick and tired of "1984"

Orwell stories as the next guy. But theReagan government keeps them com­ing. The State Department recentlyannounced that the word "killing" intheir "human rights" reports would beflushed down the memory hole. Fromnow on, U.S.-backed butchers all overthe world will no longer "kill" theirpolitical opponents. What will it becalled now? According to the well­polished assistant secretary for humanrights, Elliott Abrams, as reported in the'early edition of the New York Times ( IIFebruary), before they pulled the story:"We found the term 'killing' too broadand have substituted the more precise, ifmore verbose, 'unlawful or arbitrarydeprivation of life'."

Along with this "semantic" change inthe government's human rights score­cards, the StateDepartment announcedthat henceforth the word "torture"would be "combined" in the category of"degrading treatment." And while theywere at it, the "human rights" gangexcised the phrase "invasion of thehome" in favor of "arbitrary interfer­ence of privacy." "Torture," say the legalbeagles at Foggy Bottom, is too "con­fusing." "Killing" is "too broad." "Inva­sion of the home" is "too literallyinterpreted." What's going on here is alltoo obvious.

From its inception under DemocratCarter, the imperialist "human rights"crusade has been a propaganda ploy inthe anti-Soviet war drive. The U.S.screams bloody murder over the fate of

L.A. Benefit...(continued from page 3)

sounded to me like nonsense. If speechalone could have abolished slavery thiswork would have been done long ago.What we need, as I said in my paper, theNorth Star, is an anti-slavery govern­ment. For that the ballot is needed. Andif the slaveholders refuse to heed theballot, then it will come to bullets."

Marshall talked about the famousmeeting between Douglass and therevolutionary anti-slavery insurrection­ist John Brown, and how difficult it wasfor Douglass to turn down the invitationto go with Brown to Harpers Ferry. Hehad.his own mission to carry out and hisdecision not to accompany Brown onthe raid on the federal arsenal inVirginia was certainly not. out of anyillusion in reforms. Marshall quotedDouglass addressing a group.of friendsgathered to celebrate the anniversary ofslave emancipation in the West Indies:

"The whole history of the progress ofhuman liberty shows that all conces­sions yet made to her august claims,have been born of earnest struggle ....Power concedes nothing without ademand. It never did and it never will.Find out just what any. people willquietly submit to and you have foundout the exact measure of injustice andwrong which will be imposed uponthem. and these will continue till theyare resisted with either words or blows.or with both. The limits of tyrants areprescribed by the endurance of thosewhom they oppress. In the light of theseideas. Negroes will be hunted at theNorth. and held and flogged at theSouth so 100ig as they submit to thosedevilish outrages, and make no resis­tance, either moral or physical."

William Marshall's riveting perform­ance received a standing ovation,

Lauren and Ray spoke briefly and gota rousing reception from the crowd.Thanking everybody present for comingout and the Letter Carriers for theirhospitality and backing, Lauren ex­tended a special thanksto the SpartacistLeagtIe'~artacus Youth League, thePartisan Defense Committee, the PhoneStrikers Defense Committee, the LaborBlack League and the Militant ActionCaucus in the CWA for their hard workand unfailing support. Addressing the

4

Anatoly Shcharansky or Solzhenitsyn,who want to return to capitalism or evenbring back the tsar. The problem forWashington is that it supports genocidalregimes which pile up dead bodies of the"disappeared" along the highways bythe hundreds and thousands. It makesthe. Soviet "evil empire" look prettydamn good. So sure enough, using thenew definitions the U.S. hails "a series ofvictories for democracy in Central andSouth America," while denouncing "acontinuing deterioration in all ways" inthe USSR!

It isno wonder the State Departmenthas adopted a new set of accountingpractices for "human rights" violations,When one of its favorite butchers pullsoff a night-and-fog operation, breakinginto the homes of suspected opposition­ists and carting them off without trial,elliott Abrams, can list this as "aninvasion of privacy." Or whenAmerican-trained sadists use theirelectric cattle prods and rubber hoses totorture their victims, it can be equatedwith "degrading treatment," in theUSSR. And if the murder is donedirectly by junta armies in "anti­subversive operations," it doesn't count

. because it's "legal."This anti-Soviet "human rights"

Newspeak is nothing new. Jeane Kirk­patrick, the sinister Madame Nhu of theReagan administration, got herjob asUN ambassador by apologizing for"authoritarian" governments (whichonly torture and kill off their popula­tion) in contrast to Soviet-style "totali-

growing labor support in Los Angelesfor the case Lauren said, "You guys hereare the core of the militant unionists,like those in the Bay Area who havesupported us and given us courage tofight for victory. And I know you will bewith us in spirit on March 1st when wego into co'urt again." Ray added, "Herein LA. I know the. phone workersexperienced the arrest of an entire picketline during that strike and I want toapplaud the determination of thosepicketers. We know that many of thosepeople who were arrested and throwninto jail are in the forefront of ourdefense efforts down here in L.A."

While the bands were setting up forBigJoe, Don Andrews of the SpartacistLeague briefly addressed the crowd:"You all here have heard tonight a lot ofmention about the Labor/Black Mobili­zation that stopped the Klan in Wash­ington, D.C. in November 1982. Thatwas us, and you all have to join in that.Because we're an integrated group ofblack, white and Latin socialists. Andwe hail the establishment of the LaborBlack League forSocial Defense in LosAngeles, which isyour organization. It'syour organization that you have tomake into a fighting organization so wecan get our equality and justice. But it'sgoing to come through the fight for aworkers revolution.".

Labor BlackLeague...(continued from page 3)Spartacist League initiated 'the Labor/Black Mobilization to Stop the KKKwhich led 5,000 blacks and tradeunionists to stop them-and did! Thiswas a victory that showed the power ofblacks and labor-the kind of victorywe need more of.

In solidarity with the SpartacistLeague, the LBL will initiate and join infuture actions that struggle for fullcitizenship rights for foreign-bornworkers, in protests against the deporta­tion of Salvadorans. and in marches tostop the racist roundups offoreign-bornworkers-in Los Angeles aimed espe-

tarian" regimes where "freedom" basbeen abolished. This, of course, refers to"free enterprise't-s-the right' to breakunions, layoff hundreds of thousands,starve ·miUions.Similarly, over inMaggie Thatcher's Britain the Torypress a few years ago figured out a wayto avoid mentioning the embarrassingfact of elderly and poor people freezingto death because they didn't have ashilling to turn on the heat-theyinvented "hypothermia."

Another useful distinction in thegovernment's lexicon is that between"economic" and "political" refugees.According to the immigration copsevery right-wing "freedom fighter," likeVietnam's gold-hoarding, Hitler-lovingmass-murdering ex-president, MarshalKy, or the anti-Castro gusano terrorists,is welcomed as a political refugee. Thosefleeing the death squads of EI Salvadoror Guatemala for "El Norte," however,are economic refugees to be hunteddown and sent back. The day afterkilling the story about the State Depart­ment killing the word "killing," theTimes' reported that the U.S. wasoffering citizenship opportunities tomore than 100,000 Cubans. No suchluck for the thousands of Haitians whoescaped from "Baby Doc's" hellhole­for these black "economic refugees,"there are only concentration camps anddeportation.

For several years now, the U.S. hasrounded up and sent back thousands ofSalvadoran refugees. The reign of deathin this "free world" "democracy" is so

cially against Mexicans and otherSpanish-speaking workers. The LBLfights the bi-partisan anti-Soviet wardrive by supporting the revolutionarystruggles of working people and theoppressed abroad against U.S. imperial­ism. At the moment, our heroic classbrothers and sisters in EI Salvador havea chance to go for victory against theU.S. backed butchers. We are for themilitary victory of Salvadoran rebels.Against the reactionary contra invasionof Nicaragua, we say: Kill the Invaders!Complete and Extend the Revolution!And we support the fight in the unionsfor boycotting military goods to theCentral American reactionary regimesand their allies. We call for labor strikesagainst U.S; intervention in CentralAmerica! The LBL fights for interna­tional working class solidarity, and forthe defeat of the murderous U.S. rulers'at home and abroad!

IF YOU STAND FOR-I. Labor/blackmobilizations to stop'

racist terror!2. No to gun control!3. Down with the death penalty!4. Down with the chauvinist poison of

protectionism!5. Full union and citizenship rights

for foreign-born workers! Stop deporta­tions! Down with La Migra!

6. Jobs for All! For a shorter workweek with no loss in pay! For a massive

Speaker: Don Andrews,Founding memberof Labor/BlackLeague in Detroit,SL Central Committee

Sunday, March 4, 4:00 p.m.Lewis Charles Recreation Center4863 W. Adams BoulevardFor more information: (213) 6i3-1216

LOS ANGELES

Victims ofSalvador.

chilling that scores, perhaps hundreds,of American churches are now con­sciously breaking the law to offerasylum to the hundreds of thousandsseeking refuge from D'Aubuisson andhis pathological killers. The U.S. claimsthe refugees have no "well-foundedfear." But now a preliminary report offindings by the ACLU and religiousgroups lists the names of 50 deporteeswho were killed upon return; thenumber of nameless victims is farhigher. Perhaps, as liberal commentatorBill Moyers remarked on CBS-TV, theState Department will· respond byrenaming the death squads the "Pro­Deprivation Defense League." But deadis dead .•

program of public works under unioncontrol! ,

7. A fighting labor movement­Picket lines mean don't cross! Sit-downstrikes against mass layoffs! Stop unionbusting! Organize the unorganized!

8. Fight for women's rights! Freeabor­tion on demand, free quality 24-hourchildcare! Equal pay for equal work!

9. Down with anti-gay laws! Fulldemocratic rights for homosexuals!

10. For busing against segregatedschools-Extend it to the suburbs! Free,quality higher education for all-Openadmissions and free tuition withstipend!

II. Institute a massive social securityprogram-health, pensions. full unem­ployment compensation at unionwages!

12. Stnash the anti-Soviet war drive!Suppoftrevolutionary sttuggles ofworking people abroad!

13. Break labor and blacks from theDemocrats and Republicans! Finish theCivil. War! For an integrated class­struggle workers party to fight foraworkers government! Take industryaway from its incompetent and corruptowners! Rebuild America on a socialistplanned economy!-THEN JOIN THE LABOR BLACKLEAGUE FOR SOCIAL·DEFENSE!

Los Angeles19 February 1984

Speaker: Bernard Vance,SL Central Committee

Saturday, March 17,7:30 p.m.Hyde Park HiltonCambridge ROom4900 South Lake Shore Drive

For more information: (312) 427-0003

CHICAGO

WORKERS VANGUARD

Congratulations on VictoryAgainst Moonies' Deadly Libel

Victories cost money. We need tocover costs of publicity, le9a~'and

Investigatlvfj fees. Celebrate thedefeat of the Moonle libel with acheck te: Partisan Defense Com­mittee, Box 99, Canal Street Station,New York, NY 10013.

Over 70 Union Locals andOfficials Supported

I think it-was a big victory to force theMoonies to retract their libel. This was avictory for all of us who were involved instopping the Klan from marching inWashington and I think theSpartacistLeague did a fantastic job in Winning it.

continued on page 15

is the statement, in a judicial context,that once again the Unification Churchgot busted for lying and hurtingsomebody.

The thing to me that has the signifi­cance, and the beauty and the strength,the grandeur and the power, is thatvictims are only voluntary. And that ifyou're made a victim and you.don't wantto be one, youcan be the victor ratherthan the victim. And to me, that's thebeauty of the settlement and the letter ofretraction of phony lies and bullshit.That's what it means to me.

Ford Greene

A Victory for TruthOver Lies

One thing I've not yet had anopportunity to fill in, is that accordingto the dogma, the religio-politico-socialdogma of Sun Myung Moon, theultimate manifestation on earth of

particularly concerning the SovietUnion and the characterization of theMoonies at this point as "fascist," Butno one knows better than he just howsinister the Moon cult is. and we greatlyappreciate his aid and assistance in thishard-won victory.

Satan is communism. And that's why Ilove "Moonie God Apologizes toMarxist 'Satan'" [headline of SL pressrelease of 26 December 1983]. Youdon't know how satisfying it was formeto read that! It almost makes me join.

I had extreme reservations [aboutendorsing the suit against the Washing­ton Times]---:I don't like communismbecause it's collectivist, and I don't likecollectivism. I like individualism. Butthe principle is right. The principle isright. And so, upon "mature reflection"I did! And I'm glad. I'm proud, Ihonestly am. I xeroxed your material soI could give it to all my friends. Becausethe thing is freedom of speech, and isfascism. And I mean, really, what do I

"know about the Spartacist League?What. I've got some Ayn Rand image?And just because ofpeopI.e that AynRand didn't like in Russia and that sheso very convincingly portrayed as beingso horribly fascist doesn't mean that theSpartacist League is the same way.

The Spartacist League is a small butincredibly powerful group as you knowmuch better than L But what they [theMoonies] were tryingto do is dirty. It'ssleazy dirt. So I'm glad and I'm proud.It's a victory for truth over lies. Becausethe Moonie newspaper lied their assesoff and fabricated all kinds of intellectu­ally heinous garbage, and the SpartacistLeague fought back and kicked ass andgot a nice, full retraction. And I see thatas being a victory for, first, the intelli­gence of human beings; second. for thefree flow of information; and last butnot least, for the victory of truth overlies, or life over death. Morality overcorruption, if you want to really getnitty-gritty about it. Because that's whatit is. .

And what kind of ripples will flowtherefrom I don't know. I would hopethat it's not a ripple but a tidal wave, butI suspect it's a lot closer to a ripple. But it

JAMESM. ROBERTSONNlllODlIlCbli.nnIn

The s,.n.ciSlLearueEMILY TURNBUllNllioftt,l5ecretlry

Spanacu. l'oulh LequeWashinlton

N;Iih'er th; SL: -tbe-m m;;ranyother c:o.mponent of our ttIIIllLabo.r-Black Mobilization demon­.tl'lltion I011Iht,participated iJI., orcondoned any violence a,ainlt p0-lice. ~

BdiIor'IftON:OnNOlI.30.lN2...... tNdltunioDilta.wholi~IQ_, oam.lOn were directlld by our:-IUNOII. ,1 . mllitaDt _moai~:~~~=- aoi~":='=t aa OI'derl, IUD·

that the Spartacist League- ..::...:;Spartacus Youth League provoked Ivlc:":':""'":'::the violence on that day. -:.......co/:.'::-..

tbe KliiiIdid DOt march. Tbe. 01 lUltia-witbtheDOUlble.xcepdoD

:a to "Slop tbe n •. 1eaJ'fteCl tblt the ~:~~ ': ::-x:"-=~~~

~~Zf~·2~;i;;;:in.iceWitgt~'u;i';;;UtilConstllutlGft and ~'J "J=r~~iC:'i:IXlanJluui1Il""",U"'I.!!!IOft!!!lh...-.e::n.·IlI!'edl'!!~P.ld~~."..i~"",!!!!r.~.'n:u..'!!!Ii_!!,.j'''';_!!!!!!!!IJ!!!!!I!!!'!!!!!!'!!!!!"!!!'!!!iImar~. was ~cured from the apo streamed up what was to havebeenproprla~e policeaUlhontleaon Nov. • the KKK march route, s!Oppedtnf.

;t'~~~::s~~ ~~ed~~=d::t ~~th~~:e~banaed victory ~1\l1esplacards and distnbuled hundreds . .of thousands oflNfletsannouncini Priorto~81~he nme me Labor-the Labor-Black Mobilization rally, Black Mobilization demonstratora

entered Lafayette Park, on the op-The Labor-Black Mobilization peaite side of the Park police oper-

rally beaan at about 9:30 a.m. on ations were in pr"O,resa with policeNov. 27 and continued until about uain. tear gas against otbers who12:40 p.m., engaging the PIlnicipa· had assembled near Lafayette Park.tionof 5,000,predominantly blacks The Labor-Black Mobilization dem-

The Labor-Black-Mobilization march story

The Spartacist League WentAfter Justice and Won

If we lived under Sun Myung Moon'stheocracy, I can assure you that youreaders and the rest of the world wouldnever have the successful libel suit

Letters

So I am proud I was at the November27 anti-Klan demonstration, and I'mproud of the victory over the Moonies.

Black trade unionist,steward in the IBEW,Tidewater area

00

Moonie press retracts "libel thai kills" (26 December 1983) and publishes statement by SL on successful Labor/BlackMobilization of 5,000 which stopped the Ku Klux Klan on November 27,1982.

The following is an excerpt from alonger interview with Ford Greene.attorney and ex-Unification Churchmember. an anti-Moon activist whoendorsed the SL/S YL suit against theMoonie libel (see Young Spartacus No.Ili, February 1984). We do not agreewith everything Greene says here,

ACLU Official Applauds"Thank goodness that the truth

comes out."

E.H. Duncan Dono~vanVice President ACLU,Southern California

brought by you against Moon's propa-.ganda sheet, the Washington Times.Congratulations for a job well done andonly done because you believed in whatreal freedoms afforded to us by our FirstAmendment.

I am one of these parents to whomyou have referred in Young Spartocus.Ialso am a capitalist. If you include thosetwo and add an' active Christian,' itwould seem unlikely that we could getalong so well. I am a richer person forhaving had a long day of talk with two ofyour West Coast members. We endedwith mutual respect and understanding.Mr. Moon turns you to Satan if youslightly disagree with him or disagreewith his orders. Moon libelled theSpartacist League and the League wentafter justice and won. We can now onlyhope that the journalists who contributeto the Washington Times will wake up. Iwould like to think that their affiliationis all "heavenly deceit." However, I amafraid the heavenly dollar is too tempt­ing for all of them.

Daphne GreeneAnti-Moonie activist

As a person who isgreatly opposed tothe Ku Klux Klan and their beliefs I wasproud to be among the Spartacistmembers in their demonstration against.the Klan. For this reason I am morethan pleased that the libel suit bas beendropped.

Victory for All-IntendedVictims of KKK

Too many times organizations, par­ties and trade unions have been tornapart and sometimes destroyed by anuntrue statement broadcast or printedand distributed to the public. I wasdown November the 27th, 1982 with allthe trade-union sisters and brothers andnot one of them was guilty of the chargesmade by the Moonies' reporter. '

This is a very great victory for theSpartacist League. second only to theresults of the event on November the27th '82 when the Klan did not paradedown the streets of Washington, D.C.

There were a whole lot of people. likereactionaries and Klan sympathizers,pro-Klan people. mad in Washingtonand around the country about whathappened on November 27th. TheMoonies tried to get back at theSpartacist League and the union sistersand brothers with the power of a poisonpen. The Moonies did not write onething against the Klan coming to goodold Washington. D.C. and trying tospread false propaganda. But they didattack an anti-Klan group. Figure thisout for yourself.

Proud and Pleased

We Defeated the Powerof a Poison Pen

Georgia RobertsFormer Executive Secretary.NAACP Norfolk Branch

Ed KartsenChairman, November 27Labor/Black Mobilizationto Stop the KKK; oppositioncandidate for president,Transport Workers UnionLocal 100, New York City

The victory of the Spartacist Leaguein its suit against the Moonies is avictory for all working class people,minorities and all the other intendedvictims of the KKK and Nazis in thiscountry. The dangerous lie made by theMoonies to set up the SL for govern­ment repression on the scale suffered bythe Black Panther Party in the late 60'shas failed this time.

With the statement. ..We no longercharge that the Spartacist League­Spartacus Youth League-provoked theviolence on that day." the WashingtonTimes, a newspaper operated by thesinister. anti-communist cult of SunMyung Moon. was forced to eat itsvicious libel against the SL/S YLandthe Labor/Black Mobilization whichstopped the Ku Klux Klan on 27November 1982 in Washington, D.C.(see ..Moonies Forced to Retract Dead­fl' Libel," WV No. 345. 6 January).

We print below a number of themessages ofcongratulations receivedbythe SL/SYL in the weeks since thisvictory-a victory for all the partici­pants ofthe powerfulmass mobilizationof5,OOO which put a stop to the KKK'splans to parade its racist terror in thenation's capital.

2 MARCH 1984 5

Workers to Power: For Workers'Mllitias and Soviets!

End of the Road for Bolivian Popular Front

:::::::::: ,~_~_7.~...~: ze.-. ·· u

....,.~-

WomeDalld~Revolution~

- JoIIrMlofIheWO'_"iComlrllSiOCllloflhe~~lfIIue J$I_

Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPO, New York. NY 101t6

streets one hears the lament that at leastunder the military there was order andbread. Chaos is Bolivia's other nametoday. As in Weimar Germany, therepeatedly devalued currency is virtual­ly worthless; people must carry hugebundles of bills around to purchasenecessities. And necessities are oftenunavailable. "No hay pan "-there is nobread-is a common sign in restaurantsand shops. (The U.S. government hascut off wheat donations until the UDPgovernment lifts subsidies on bread andother products.) Housewives get up atdawn to stand in huge lines for cookingoil and other commodities. The blackmarket flourishes and dollars sell for.four times the official rate.

Large sections of the heterogeneousurban petty bourgeoisie could be won tothe side of the proletariat by a resolutestruggle for workers state power, underthe leadership of a Trotskyist vanguard.But today, in the absence of thatleadership, enraged by a social crisiswithout apparent solution and a govern­ment drowning in its own impotenceand perfidy, much of the petty bourgeoi­sie is being driven to the right, andyearns for the return of a "caudillo"strongman like the blood-soaked Ban­zer. In addition to the never-endingcoup conspiracies within the officercaste, talk abounds of a "constitutionalcoup" by Banzer and his ally, "historic"MNR leader Victor Paz Estenssoro,head of the nationalist governmentformed in 1952, and participant inBanzer's 1971 coup. This "constitution­al coup" would consist of the ejection ofSiles by the parliamentary majority andthe formation of a right-wing bonapart­ist regime to crack down on socialunrest, without relying solely on thenarrow base of an officer corps appar­ently somewhat hesitant to retakegovernment power alone right away.

Thus the popular front not only stealsthe masses' miserable crusts of bread toserve the International Monetary Fundand the Bolivian bourgeoisie; it imperilsthe .very existence of the workersmovement and the difficult survival ofthousands of militant proletarians. Forthe vast majority of the population ofthis landlocked Andean country, libera­tion from a life of incredible poverty(and prevention of another bloody"cocaine coup") requires the forging ofan internationalist revolutionary van­guard party, part of the struggle toreforge Trotsky's Fourth International,to lead the workers to power.•

Single Issue $.50Subscription $2/4 Issues

International Women'sDay 1984

Women andRevolution

Issue No. 28

• In Honor of the Womenof the Paris Commune

• Hamburg: Women SparkShipyard Occupation

• Labor Black Leagues Formed

• Silkwood: A Review• Fight the New' McCarthylsm!

• Women and PermanentRevolution In China (Part Two)

• Something About Incest

mous revolutionary opportunities: inthe 1952"National Revolution" with itssupport to the "left wing" of the MNRgovernment, and in 1971 with itscapitulation to left-nationalist presidentGeneral Juan Jose Torres. In the periodbefore Siles 9ame to office, the paRblocked with his bourgeois MNRI in theunions and sought an "anti-imperialistfront" with parties of the UDP. Incontrast, genuine Trotskyists wouldemphasize that the arming of theproletariat (workers'militias) and theformation of soviets (organs of workerspower centralizing the struggle againstthe bourgeois government) are the onlydefense against Siles' attacks and theever-present threat of a new militarydictatorship. Proletarian revolution istoday posed pointblank as the onlyconceivable way out for Bolivia'sexploited masses!

And the danger of a right-wingtakeover looms larger each day. Thepetty bourgeoisie is at wits' end. On the

gime and calling for "proletarian revolu­tion and dictatorship" in its press and inslogans painted on walls all over La Paz,the paR sows suicidal illusions with itsdemand for "Bolivianization of thearmed forces," and "an army at theservice of the working class," and the"formation of a revolutionary tenden­cy" in the officer corps.

The stridently anti-internationalistpaR has twice helped destroy enor-

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on the militant tin miners, threatened a48-hour general strike to force Siles tolive up to the January 29 COB­government agreement that ended aseven-day hunger strike by 1,000 unionleaders. The COB bureaucrats, led byclass traitor maximo Juan Lechin,repeatedly "postponed" the generalstrike, making a mockery of their "final"ultimatum to the government. Afterdumping his minister of industry and

UPIWorkers protest In the streets of La Paz, November 1982, one month afterpopular front comes to power.commerce, Siles finally pulled thedecrees out of his pocket and granted amiserable 57 percent raise in theminimum wage (to 47,000 Bolivianpesos, or US$23.50 a month). In acountry where inflation is over 300percent and is expected to reach 1,000percent this year (Presencia, La Paz, 26February), Siles' decrees- represent ahuge wage cut. The UDP well deservesthe sobriquet "starvation democracy."

With the PCB acting as hatchetmenfor SHes, with the Lechin union bu­reaucracy dissipating militancy throughrepeated marches and demagogicallyplaying with the general strike, thecrying lack of coordination among the­struggles of different sectors poses thedanger of demoralization of the com­bative Bolivian proletariat: The urgentneed is for a revolutionary, Trotskyist-leadership to smash the popular front ofstarvation through a revolutionarymobilization of the exploited for aworkers and peasants government. Aprincipal obstacle to the construction ofsuch a genuine Trotskyist party is thecentrist Partido Obrero Revolucionario(PaR) of veteran revisionist GuillermoLora. While denouncing the Siles re-

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Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartaclst League

o $2/9 issues of Young Spartacus

LA PAZ, February 26-Bolivia today isa classic case of the bankruptcy ofpopular frontism. The government ofHernan Sites Zuazo's Unidad Demo­cratica y Popular (VDP) flounders fromcrisis to crisis, satisfying no one andinfuriating everyone. After numerousreshufflings, SHes' cabinet is made up of

. representatives of his own bourgeoisRevolutionary Nationalist Movement­Left (MNRI), the pro-Moscow Com­munist Party (PCB), Christian Demo­crats and military officers. Faced with'urgent social and economic problemsderiving from Bolivia's backwardness,18 years of plunder by military despotsand the capitalist world economic crisis,during its year and a half in office the'UDP's incapacity has been total. In this,the poorest -country in Latin America,social contradictions are posed withrazor sharpness, and cannot be as­suaged by sermons of class peace, nor bythe MNRl's' stenciled wall slogans:"Strikes and Work Stoppages-No!Democracy and Productivity-«Yes!""A Democracy Without Order Perishesin Disorder" and "Down With Ultra­Left Demagogy!"

The social contradictions are notmerely explosive-they are explodingeverywhere. Public employees strikesparalyzed many government functions;unions prevented even some ministersfrom entering the ministries. Telephoneworkers and employees of the CentralBank of Bolivia are out. The country'sdoctors, employed by the governmentor social security agencies, went onstrike for higher salaries; their averagemonthly pay is less than US$40! For aweek all ground transport to and fromthe capital city of La Paz was cut off by aroad blockade of peasants protestingrising transport costs, low prices fortheir produce, and the government'speasant affairs minister. In the south,angry .peasants "held a train with 2,000passengers hostage. Inside La Paz,slum-dwellers associations-which holdlarge outdoor meetings of womendressed in the traditional garb of bowlerhats, multicolored shawls and mul­tiple skirts-have organized marchesthrough the streets and blocked trafficto protest transport costs. In Potosiminers' cooperatives blocked highwaysand roads with stone barricades andtrucks. Meanwhile, factory workers'organizations in La Paz and the indus­trial center of Cochabamba officiallydeclared SHes an enemy of the workingclass. All this follows the miners' seizureof the state mining trust COM IBOL lastspring, "resolved" by a decree establish­ing "majority workers co-management"of the mines.

The Central Obrera Boliviana (COB),the powerful labor federation, centered

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

~

Toronto Ral~ to Defend Anti-Fascist Unionists Demands:- ,

Stop·the Frame-Up byKKK/Nazi Union-Busters!

Spartacist Canada photos

Postal union militants Mike Mares (left) and PaulSchneider. At right: Rally to defend anti-fascistunionists in Toronto, February 11.

and have been charged with assault,"The Vancouver local told McGarry toshove it and endorsed the Schneider/Mares case. As Schneider and Marespointed out in a January 17 leaflet co­signed by five other Local I members,McGarry's witchhunt may not be unre­lated to the fact that his two brothers.Daniel and John, owned CenturionInvestigation. Ltd. and were convictedfor its terrorist activities. And it wasCenturion which employed Richardsonto conduct his murderous, union­busting bombing!

The witchhunt against Paul Schnei­der and Mike Mares is part of a broaderattack on labor and minorities. InsideLCU C Local I. supporters of the fascistCASAC have put forward motions toexpel 32 members from the union.Audrey Minton, a spokesman for theCommittee to Defend Anti-FascistUnionists, commented to the TorontoClarion, "Fascists crawl out of thewoodwork in the current atmosphere ofanti-Soviet hysteria," What is posed bythe .figh]. against this fascist frame-upwas laid out at the February II rally in awarmly received statement by OliverStephens, speaking for the TLC:

"Stopping this frame-up of Paul andMike is going to take a lot more thansome arguments in the courts. WhatRichardson and Graham have startedwith their charges. they and their ilkintend to finish in the streets. with theirlynch ropes. their gas ovens and theirdeath camps. The Trotskyist LeagueofCanada is struggling to build a fighting.multiracial working-class party. tosweep the fascists from the streets. Weneed a workers government to avengelill our martyrs becausethere have beentoo many. And we will not let Paul andMike be added to that list. What weneed is North American socialist revo­lution to put an end to this system thatlets the Richardsons and lets theGrahams walk the streets withitnpunity!"•

A few LCUC officials with their ownsinister connections to the fascists wantto sabotage this defense. In their localSchneider and Mares have had tocombat open defenders of William LauRichardson and other fascist causes likethe Canadian Anti-Soviet Action Com­mittee (CASAC, which encompassesthe old Canadian' fascist WesternGuard, the Nazis and Klan). Whilesabotaging any effort to stop the state inconjunction with proven union-bustingfascist terrorists from jailing militantmembers and defenders of the union,the Local I executive (unsuccessfully)attempted to get the membership toreadmit a scab who attempted to runover a shop steward in a recent strike!

Further, LCUC national president.Robert McGarry has conducted his ownwitchhunt of Schneider and Mares tosabotage LCUC support for this case ofvital interest to the whole labor move­ment, one involving their own members.For example, in a letter to the Vancou­ver LCUC local McGarry wrote: "Fromthe information we have these membersshould be treated the same as any twomembers who belong to other rivalorganizations outside of the LCUC andwho have gone out, taken part in a fight

denied any involvement with fascistorganizations, only to testify in the nextbreath that he' and .Richardson spenttheir time at the KKK headquarters inToronto. He went on to admit that hepersonally knew every major Klansmanin Canada including the head of theCanadian KKK, Alexander McQuirter.Finally he was confronted in court withan "Official Supporter of the NationalSocialist. White People's Party" cardbearing his name,

At the. center of the campaign todefeat the KKK/Nazi frame-up of

Schneider and Mares is the mobilizationof mass protest by the labor movementand minorities for whom Richardson'sname is synonymous with union­busting and racist terror. Speakers atthe rally represented a wide spectrum ofpolitical opinion and organizationalaffiliation, including Judy Rebick of theOntario Coalition for Abortion Clinics;Andre Kolompar, vice president of theCU PW Toronto local; veteran Canadi­an socialist Ross Dowson; CharlesDubois, a Detroit auto worker andorganizer of the 27 November 1982Labor/Black Mobilizationthat stoppedthe Klan in Washington, D.C.; and aspokesman for the Partisan DefenseCommittee.

Statements of support were alsopresented by the Canadian groupsrepresenting the two wings of ErnestMandel's pseudo-Trotskyist "U nited

. Secretariat": the Revolutionary Work­ers League (followers of Jack Barnes'American SWP) and the pro-MandelSocialist Workers Collective. Ironically.two evenings earlier the RWLpoliticallyexcluded Paul 'Schneiderfrcm.a 'publicforum as asupporterof the TrotskyistLeague, thereby preventing him frompresenting his case. Meanwhile, JudyRebick and the SWC were peddling theanti-communist calumny about TLC"sectarianism" as they spoke from therally platform representing a broadspectrum of political opinion.

Another speaker at the rally, OntarioFederation of Labour vice president andIron Workers Local 721 president JohnDonaldson, pledged: "I'm going to usethis platform today to tell the labormovement, and I speak specifically ofthe OFL, that the OFL should rally allgroups, no matter what their politicalphilosophy is, all groups to get behindthese two brothers. And in so doing, wecan attack racism."

charges:"We're supporters of the. TrotskyistLeague [Canadian sympathizing sec­tion of the .international Spartacisttendency], a socialist organization thatstands against capitalism and the filth itbreeds like the KKK and Nazis.. ..Richardson and Graham are comingafter us because we went out, to ademonstration to defend Dr. Morgen­taler. a man who is a victim.of racist

"slander, a concentration camp survivor,a guy who's had his [abortion] clinicsraided by Gestapo methods. Whenthesecreeps turned up wedefendedthatdemonstration and ourselves againstthem. That's why we're being framed

up. It's becausewe're opponents of theKlan and fighters for socialism."

This case has generated widespreadsupport across Canada. From theMaritimesto British Columbia, morethan 300 organizations and individuals,including five union locals and over 75union officials. have endorsed thedemand of the Committee to DefendAnti-Fascist Unionists: "Drop theCharges Against Paul Schneider andMike Mares!" To build the rally, some7.000 leaflets and 1.000 posters weredistributed, and the Committee hasraised over $5.000. of which more than$1,200 was raised by its February II

. Toronto rally.As a demonstration of the widespread

backing for Paul and' Mike. on Febru­ary I more than two dozen supporterscame out for their preliminary hearing.With counsel provided by well-knownCanad ian civil liberties lawyers PaulCopeland and Clayton Ruby, Schneiderand Mares intend to pursue a vigorouslegal defense while placing no confi­dence in the "justice" of the capitalistcourts. That day in court gave a taste ofthe forces lined up behind Richardsonand Graham. Ostentatiously trying tointimidate LCUC members from dem­onstrating their solidarity with Schnei­der and Mares were two postal supervi­sors in uniform. In the corridors-of thecourthouse Richardson, Graham and acop were overheard discussing issuingarrest warrants for supporters of the twopostal unionists. And according to alocal reporter there were at least five"intelligence" agents in the courtroomthat day.

Playing' his part, the "Crown"attorney attempted to stop the defensefrom cross-examining their first witness,Graham, about his Nazi and Klanconnections. But his objections wereoverruled by the judge. Graham at first

Spartaclst LeaguelSpartacus Youth League

PUblic Offices-MARXIST L1TERATURE­

Bay AreaFri.: 5:00-8:00 p.rn. sat, 3:00-6:00 p.m.1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street)Oakland, California Phone: (415) 835-1535

ChicagoTues.: 5:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 2:00-5:30 p.m.523 S. Plymouth Court, 3rd FloorChicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 427-0003

New York CityTues.: 6:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.:12:0Q-4:oo p.m.41 Warren St. (one block belowChambers St. near Church St.)New York, N.Y. Phone: (212) 267-1025

TorontoSat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m.299 Queen St. W., Suite 502Toronto, Ontario Pbone: (416) 593-4138

Trotskyist League8f Canada

TORONTO-"Labor must show theway, stop the Nazis and the KKK!"chanted nearly 100 unionists, leftistsand other opponents of fascism whopacked the Canadian Union of PostalWorkers (CUPW) Toronto local hallon February II. They had come to pro..test the frame-up of two postal union­ists, Paul Schneider and Mike Mares,by self-declared KKK "intelligence di­rector" William Lau Richardson andhis Nazi sidekick, George Graham.Schneider and Mares, members ofLetter Carriers -Union of Canada(LCUC) Toronto Local I, face a pos­sible ten years in jail on charges of"assault causing bodily harm" fordefending themselves and others againstRichardson and Graham's provocativeharassment and intimidation of aToronto demonstration in defense ofabortion rights last October.

Behind Richardson and Graham'soutrageous frame-up charges stands thecapitalist state whose attorney (knownas the "Crown" in this country whereQueen Victoria's birthday is still cele­brated as a solemn national holiday) isprosecuting on behalf of these fascistscum. To paraphrase the motto of theRCMP (the "Mounties"), the govern­ment always defends their man-andRichardson has a long career as aprofessional agent provocateur andterrorist for the capitalist state. Born inthe United States, this Ku Klux Klan"chief of intelligence" has also workedfor the CIA and U.S. Army intelligenceas well as the RCMP. In mid-1983,Richardson was congratulated in theKKK Action newsletter for becoming a"Great Titan.'~

After he moved to Canada. Richard­son, an explosives expert, was hired bythe notorious union-busting outfitCenturion Investigation, Ltd. Richard­son had admitted under oath that whileemployed with Centurion he madebombs that were planted in the cars ofunion officials. militants and foreignworkers. in order to break strikes (e.g..the 1974 Douglas Aircraft strike) anddisrupt union organizing drives.He alsobrags about collecting information onChilean refugees in Toronto for ITT.Now this convicted criminal terrorist istrying to throw Schneider and Maresbehind bars.

Speaking at the rally Paul Schneiderexplained why he and Mike Mares werebeing targeted on these frame-up

2 MARCH 1984 7

The "External Tendency":

From Cream Puffs toFood Poisoning

ET fled from risks and responsibilities confronting revolutionists In theReagan years.. Left: At behest of revistonlst left, cops seat off SL's Antl­Imperialist Contingent, 27 March 1982. Rlght:SL-lnltlated Labor/BlackMobilization of 5,000 stopsthe KKK in Washington, D.C. 27 November 1982.

WORKERS VANGUARD

slightly biased reports of union meet­.ings, based on what I thought he wanted''to hear rather than what I thought orwhat had actually transpired." .

Mandel, self-styled defender ofworkers democracy against the bureau­crats of the SL regime, was also in hotwater with the conference delegates fordisrupting a Socialist Workers Party(SWP) public forum two monthsearlier. This was the only breach ofworkers democracy in the history of theiSt, and was acknowledged as such inWorkers Vanguard (see WVN.o. 259, 27June 1980). The event took place in theBay Area at a moment when the SWPhad already been for some time exclud­ing SLers from SWP "public" forumsfalsely claiming we were "disrupters."At this forum, unaccountably, a sizableSL intervention team was permittedinside, and found itself in effectivecontrol. This fortuitous occurrence wasa golden opportunity to make the SWPhave, for a change, a public "public"meeting with an orderly democraticdiscussion. But, finding themselves withthe upper hand, our comrades wereunruly and gave the SWP an excuse todissolve the forum. We made public self­criticism in WV, and internally foughtfor a full accounting. Bob Mandel wasthe main architect of the incident, as headmitted after a struggle and acknowl­edged in his written statement.

Co-leader of the West Coast ETs isHarlan, who resigned from the SL inSeptember 1981 complaining of" ... aninternal life characterized by a defen­sive, hierarchical regime combined witha personalistic, Jesuitical method ofinternal argument and discussion. Thisprocess has advanced to the point wherethe S.L./S.Y.L. membership is increas­ingly composed of 'true believers' andcynics." Harlan's god-that-failed lan­guage bespeaks his renegacy.

Harlan's quit carne just six days aftera Bay Area district membership meetingdeclared him" ... unfit for membershipin the organized Marxist movement."Why? Because the now so anti­bureaucratic Harlan had grossly abusedhis position as a member of the ControlCommission for his own factionalpurposes. Harlan had gone into opposi-

Some recentSL internalbulletins. Whatkind of "bureau­cratic" partyscrupulouslymakes availableto all itsmembersthe attackspenned byhostile oppo­nents whowalked out yearsearlier?

learned that just prior to the conference,Mandel had taken a job circumventingunion hiring hall procedures. A hypo­crite to boot, Mandel had publiclyobjected to striking union brothersbeing put at the top of the list fordispatching from the hiring hall, aheadof Mandel, although he had argued inthe union just two nights earlier for"solidarity" 'with the very same strikers.Mandel's signed statement dated 17August 1980 acknowledged this andadmitted "lying to the party for years."

Today Mandel claims ',the writtenstatement was obtained from him whilehe was in a state of "collapse." (Since hedid not attempt to repudiate it untilJune 1982 we can only marvel at thelength of this "collapse.") His repudia­tion itself speaks volumes. "I did not 'lieto the party for years'," he protests. Heexplains he merely " ... gave Nelson

record reveals about these victims ofSL"bureaucratism."

We will begin with Bob Mandel, apetty-bourgeois New Left princelingwho rtow howls the loudest about the SL"regime:" Mandel quit at the 1980 SLNational Conference, in the face ofoverwhelming sentiment by the confer­ence delegates to seek his expulsion. Thedelegates were furious when they

Darkness at Noon?

To alibi their absence of politicalspine the ETs want to lay the separationat our door. They refer to their cowardlydepartures as "purges," and describethemselves as having been "driven out"and even "expelled." Let us see what the

WV Photos=••t ....

increasingly exhibits hyper-centralist,paranoid and personalist characteris­tics. These tendencies on the part of theleadership have reached a point wherethey call into question both the possibil­ity of significantly enlarging the organi­zation and of reproducing Trotskyistcadres within it."

-"Declaration of an externaltendency of the iSt,"15 October 1982

These sentences are themselves a decla­ration of bankruptcy. The ETs quit,found one another, and declared them­selves to be a "tendency't-s-havingalready separated themselves from andspurned the one organization theyrecognize (0 be the embodiment ofrevolutionary Marxism on this planet.

to our program and hostility to our"bureaucratic" leadership. The ET~ payunacknowledged tribute to their politi­cal heterogeneity by their choice ofname. They define themselves purely inorganizational terms, "external" to theiSt-an open appeal for rotten blocs.

The E'Ts central thesis was that:".,. while the SL's program remainsrevolutionary, its leadership collective

8

On 17-18 December 1983 the Sparta­cist League/ U.S. held a well attendedplenum of our Central Committee.Although the plenum was.convoked todeal with other subjects and problems,an exotic issue was an agenda point onthe self-styled "External Tendency"(ET) of the international Spartacisttendency (iSt). The plenum directed thatwe prepare an article for publication inWorkers Vanguard.

The ET claims .. to be a politicaltendency wrongly excluded from theiSt. This is their genteel way of sayingthat they quit. As we have remarkedbefore, in the political climate of the"Reagan years," with U.S. imperialismmaking ready for war against the SovietUnion, a slice of our party membershiphas cut and run: Most of these quitsgrow out of fear of this period anddistaste for the SL's response to it: ourwork among the black masses togalvanize militant resistance to fascistprovocation and racist terror; ourpolitical confrontations with the pro­imperialist union bureaucracy; andabove all our Trotskyist defense of theUSSR against imperialism.

The ETs are composed of severalinterlinked clots united by their anti­Spartacist hostility. They mainly taketheir coloration from a couple-of small­time aspirants to union-bureaucraticinfluence on the U.S. West Coast. Thesecharacters logically would fit right inwith the Weinsteinites, late of theSocialist Workers Party, behind whomstands the lure of America's "main­stream" social-democrats, the Demo­cratic Socialists.' There are also someCanadians, former Mensheviks andcliquists in the Canadian section, andsome Germans whose leader, long arightist critic, quit after having opposedour Iran slogan, "Down with the shah,

. down with the mullahs!" The Germansquickly pronounced the iSt beyondreform; the North Americans stillprofess a desire for readmission to fightthe iSt's purported degeneration.

Though linked by the' -rightistcharacter of quits in.this period, the ETis a partly accidental and whollyunprincipled association. Never a ten­dency inside the party, these dropoutscoalesced in October 1982 into agrouping with the posture-widelydifferingly applied-of being a loyalopposition professing general support

WV PhotoSL protest against the seating of genocidal Pol Pot at the UN lastSeptembertriggered more ET accusations of Stalinophllla.

The Russian QuestionComes Home

The ET in Action

If the ETs had wanted to look like aloyal opposition, it wouldn't be hard todo. In the period since the ET quit, theSL has been made the target of physicalexclusionism and the vile slanders thatseek to justify the exclusionism, on thepart of the reformist U.S. "left." Bystanding out in front on the Russianquestion, particularly with our sloganson Central America, where our call formilitary victory to the leftist insurgentscuts squarely against the pro-imperialistpopular front with the DemocraticParty which our reformist opponentssee as their way to get rich in the Reaganyears, we have come to be seen by the"left" as in the way. At El Salvadordemonstrations (and in other kinds oftense Situations when the size anddiscipline of our contingents becomes aparticularly significant factor), we havebeen glad of the disciplined support ofnumerous ex-SL members. And manySL ex-members are proud that theystood with us when, more times than welike to remember in the last four years,we have put our organization on the lineas the hard defenders ofthe black peopleand others against racist terror backedup by the state. The key to understand­ing the ET is to know that while they arefond of telling us we should havemarched with them in this or that pro­Democratic parade, and may in factturn up with very revolutionary slogansfor some large tame liberal event, whenit counts they are nowhere. When the SLis called upon to demonstrate againstracist cop brutality, when we spearheadmass labor/black mobilizations to stopthe fascists-issues tending to bring outthe worst in cops-the ETs can becounted upon to disappear.

Where were the ETs on 27 Novembercontinued on page 10

orientation to members of the iSt~you

know, the serious, hard-working, devot­ed socialists still inexplicably to' befound in our ranks. In fact theirorientation is not to our members, butto the actively. hostile elements amongour ex-membership. Case in point.There was a prominent senior iStcomrade expelled in 1982. It's not thateasy to get expelled from the iSt, so theETs were sure they were on to some­thing big. They found out the comrade'snew whereabouts, which shouldn't havebeen easy, and phoned him up. Theysaid: we know you were expelled, weknow it was a frame-up, we'd love tosend you our documents. The comradereplied: I'd love to get your documents,but I have to tell you, there was nothingunjust about my expulsion. He neverheard from the ET again, and he nevergot the documents.

II)

~Q>

E'"o'>.is:0>::>oo

ET enthusedover U.S.

Marine dead InBeirut. The

further the ETIs from the

scene the morebloodthirsty

they are; whenthey get close

to the needs ofthe U.S. laborbureaucracy,

they go tame; .as over the

sellout ofPATCO.

Internationale" aka German ET is bestsummarized by the old Yiddish wordchutzpah.

The Wall Street Journal took thetrouble to threaten us after our anti­Solidarnosc New York demonstration.The ETs are among those who foundthis a good time to leave. Then thefurther selection took place. Comradesget conservatized, demoralized, scared,tired. Some quit. But only some ofthosechoose to make a program of theirweaknesses. The ET has also had somesuccess picking up characters whosemanner of departure from.the iSt was soshameful that the ET prefers not toacknowledge them as recruits. Withother ex-members the ET has had lesssuccess.

The ET likes to posture as having an

Soviet intervention into Poland, whichthe ET quotes:

"We take responsibility in advance forwhatever idiocies and atrocities they(the Stalinists) will commit."

To show how shamefully we covered up. this position, the ETdocument then. quotes from WVNo. 289 the supposedly

"official version":"If the Kremlin Stalinists, in theirnecessarily brutal, stupid way. intervenemilitarilv 10 stop it, we will support this.And we take responsibility in advancefor this: whatever the idiocies andatrocities they will commit, we do notflinch from defending the crushing ofSolidarity's counterrevolution."

The ET document triumphantly urgesits readers to "think twice" about "the~ubtle difference- between the internaland the public position." We thoughtthree times, and either we're really verystupid, because the distinction betweenthese twostatements of ours escapes us,or the demagoguery of the "Gruppe IV.

.Politicallv the ET is animated bytrade-union economist appetite and adeep flinch from Trotskyist defense ofthe Soviet Union, which particularly inthe context of today's wretched rightist"left" puts us way out in front, with ourprogrammatic positions from Afghani­stan and Poland to Central America.Although they seek support based onthe "regime" question, and hence they

sie on the workers movement, expressedas virulent and philistine anti-Leninism.In this country, with its economicallycombative but racially divided andpolitically backward working class, andits powerful and arrogant ruling class, ithas never been easy to be a communist.A whiff of repression, a hint of war and alittle class struggle can easily producehysterical anti-Leninists of the ET stripe(yellow). '

tion over the SL's line on the PATCO(air controllers) strike. 'He argued aversion of the reformist CommunistParty's (CP) consumer-boycott line­"flying is scabbing." This posture of"solidarity" via consumer was simply analibi for the labor bureaucrats' refusal totake effective action to defend PA TCO:to shut down the airports by realsolidarity action by pilots, Machinists,Teamsters-the unions that continuedto service the airports.

Harran's one co-thinker on PATCOwas i recent recruit from the CP to theSpartacus Youth League, Lisa. Follow­ing a youth meeting where Lisa foundherself a minority of one, Harlanencouraged her to bring organizationalcharges against the Bay Area youthleadership; he aided her in writing them,and then proceeded to launch a uni­lateral "Control Commission investiga­tion" into the charges brought byhimself.

Harlan had every right to makecommon cause factionally with the SYLcomrade, and no right to do so underControl Commission cover. Harlan quitwhen his manipulation of the youthdiscussion was exposed. He left hisyouthful co-factionalist behind to con­tinue the struggle. No organizationalmeasures were taken against Lisafor hercover-up of Harlan's machinations. Lisawrote up her views on the PATCOdiscussion in a document which wasprinted in the SYL internal bulletin. Sheargued for these views in her branch.And, although she was still a minority ofone at the time of the SYL national

'meeting, she was given equal time thereto present her case. Lisa resigned on13 December 1981, still lamenting theiSt's lack of "the spirit of democraticcentralism." .

Life in the Spartacist gulag is rough.And we even have our own Siberia, theTrotskyist League of Canada. CanadianET leaders Nason and Riley claim to bevictims of a "major purge." Actually, acquired a couple of West Coastthey both quit. Riley's resignation said: elements whose differences with the iSt"In my 6-1/2 years in the organization I program always went in the oppositenever really assimilated any Cannon- direction, the ETs political profile isism-instead on the org. question I have manifestly Shachtmanite. The ET saysalways tended to New Leftism." Nason that since their departure, the iSt haswrote: "I am a Menshevik now and have gone Stalinist. We knew we would hearbeen throughout my membership in from them when we semi-seriouslythe organization." When the ET was christened an SL-led contingent "theformed, two years later, Nason and Yuri Andropov Brigade" (see last issueRiley's quits had become transformed of WV). They similarly objected at someinto the following: length to our demonstration last fall

'The successoftheSLjUS leadership in against the UN seating of formerconducting the purge in Canada was Cambodian mass murderer, and presentaided by the extreme organizational U.S. imperialist puppet against Viet-loyalty and consequent disorientation nam, Pol Pot. If the ET were moreof their victims. Knowing the charges to honest, they would admit that (heybe false, yet continuing to support the hated it when we hailed the Soviet Redleadership and, most importantly. theprogram of the tendency, the targets of· Army's military intervention in Afghan-the attack responded passively in a . istan. Our unconditional military de-futile attempt to remain in the fense of the deformed workers states isorganization." . not new.

Sounds a lot like the Moscow Trials. What is new is the heated up anti-Only we wonder what we used to Soviet climate. In every iSt section,approximate the cellars of Lubianka, particularly outside the more stronglynot being possessed of the instruments led SL/U .S., it was our stance onof state power. Did the Canadian Poland that brought U.S. imperialism'ssection of a couple of dozen members new Cold War home to our weakestshine bright lights in your eyes while elements. Polish Solidarnosc, companykeeping you up all night with your feet union for the CIA and Western bankers,in pails of ice water? Did Mandel evolved into the stalking horse. for"collapse" after being given the third

bloody capitalistrestoratien- Our line todegree in a dark warehouse full of old "Stop SolidarnoscCouaterrevolution"hot tubs in San Francisco?

put us right up against the EuropeanBig parts of the ET founding declara- social-democrats and the American

tion read like Darkness at Noon. At the "AFL-CIA," who were leading the "freesame time, the document is replete with trade unionism" chorus on behalf of thequotes from the Left Opposition's U.S. State Department and NATO.struggle against the rise of Stalinism. As evidence of the iSt's· newfoundSome people have no sense of "Stalinophilia" over Poland, the Ger-proportion! man ET in its major opus ("Where is the

Trotsky in 1940observed ina letterto iST Going?" dated February 1983)a Shachtman supporter: "You state in points to the September 1981 confer-your letter that the-main issue is not the ence of our German section as theRussian question· but the 'internal pinnacle of Spartacist degeneration andregime.' l have-heard this accusation cover-up. The resolution. adopte~ atoften since almost the very beginningof~at conference, the ET says, containedthe existence of our movement in the ahideous formulation so openly pro-United States."lndeed, Trotsky's obser- Stalinist that it "could be used forvation indicates the depth of the, purges in the organization, but itideological pressures of the fantastically couldn't be used in public." Here's thewealthy American imperialist bourgeoi- sentence, regarding the possibility of a

2 MARCH 1984 9

"ExternalTendency"...(continued from page 9)

1982 when .the SL-Ied Labor/BlackMobilization of 5,000 stopped the Klan?Where were the West Coast ETs,normally such a peripatetic lot, when400 people, mainly union militants andblack activists, marched in Oakland on290ctQDer 1983 to d~fend SL support­ersLauren Mozee and Ray Palmieroagainst a racist anti-labor frame-up?

The ETs have other fish to fry. Theycatry out union "work." And their workis what you would expect from a coupleof small-time opportunists who foundour party-which through collectiveinternal struggle seeks to arm fallibleindividuals politically against alien classpressures represented by the pro­imperialist labor bureaucracy-a hin­drance to their egos and aspirations.

The main document (dated 23 June1983) distributed by the ET to our lastnational conference discerned in ourwork, and in our black-eentered prole­tarian perspectives, a retreat from "theworking class." The document claimedour policy that phone union stewardsshould be elected by the ranks torepresent them, not appointed by thesellout bureaucrats, was a flight fromunion work. And they cried out inshocked disbelief at the SL's likeningVAW president Douglas Fraser's join­ing the Chrysler Board of Directors -tothe German Social Democrats' votingfor war credits on 4 August 1914. Thiswas the point at which the SocialDemocrats acted not as just sellouts butas direct agents of the Kaiser. LikewiseFraser became an open company cop inthe pay of the auto bosses. But to theET, calling Fraser a company cop istantamount to saying the VAW hasbecome a company union.

The ET implores the SL to "return toits Trotskyist analysis of the contradic­tory nature of the union bureaucracy."Elsewhere they talk about the "dualnature" of that bureaucracy, withoutever revealing what this "dual nature" is.In his last ~ords on this questionTrotsky made his position crystal clear:"It [monopoly capitalism] demands ofthe reformist bureaucracy and the laboraristocracy, who pick up the crumbsfrom its banquet table, that they becometransformed into its political policebefore the eyes of the working class"("Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperi­alist Decay"). And this was not somenew trend espied by Trotsky only in1940. In a 1935 article ("Advice onCanadian Farmers") he observed; "Thepassing over from fraction work inrevolutionary trade unions to illegalwork under war conditions is imper­ceptible. The trade union bureaucracybecomes the police spy system-that isall."

The union bureaucracy is not "con­tradictory" per se but it reflects the classcontradiction between the capitaliststate and the unions as defensiveorganizations of the working- class. Thecentral task of revolutionists in theunions is therefore the struggle, for thecomplete and unconditional independ­ence of the unions in relation to thecapitalist state. This means a struggle tooust the social-imperialist labor traitors,

10

so that the unions can become instru­ments of the revolutionary movement ofthe working class, rather than secondaryinstruments of imperialist capitalism todiscipline the workers and obstructrevolution.

Serving the Bureaucrats

The ETs whining that we calledFraser by his right name only shows thatthe ET shares his standpoint­criticizing the leadership is an attack onthe union, i.e., the bureaucracv is theunion. When the ET accuses the SL ofabandoning the workers, they mean thelabor bureaucracy. They have nostomach for the Leninist regime of therevolutionary party, but lots of sympa­thy for poor old maligned Doug Fraser.In practice, it quickly comes down to

'acting as the bureaucracy's agent todrive revolutionists out of the unions.

The ETs real program is demon­strated concretely in the actions of itsone trade-union supporter of local note,Howard Keylor in the InternationalLongshoremen's and Warehousemen'sVnion (IL WU) Local 10. When Keylorbroke politically with the SL his first actin the union was to redbait his fellowunionist, SL supporter and MilitantCaucus spokesman Stan Gow. WhenGow was witchhunted by the localleadership, Keylor stood aside and'offered alibis for the witchhunters.

Keylor opposed the Militant Caucus'

Trotskyist positions the ET loves tohate: defense ,of the USSR, class­struggle opposition to sellout labortops.

Even if the ET isnot interested indefendlni theSL's unionsupporters, whydidn't theycome out Just tomeet the 400mill,tants at this29 October 1983defensedemonstration?

campaign for a port shutdown againstthe war in EI Salvador. When thebureaucrats put Gow on trial forpicketing a ship bound for EI Salvador,Keylor launched an "independent in­vestigation"; during the trial Keylor satsilent when caucus supporters werehauled from the room and the city copswere called in. Keylor's line was that theSL deliberately set Gow up for expul­sion as part of its supposed turn awayfrom the unions. Gow, however, galva­nized enough support among his unionbrothers to defeat the -expulsion at­tempt. Key to this victory was a picket ofa South Africa-bound ship, protestingthe execution of African NationalCongress fighters. Keylor mocked theaction but it found a ready response inthe union local, which is two-thirdsblack.

In the 29 January 1982 issue ofKeylor's longshore newsletter, he red­baited Stan Gow in no uncertain terms.Keylor is a former CP supporter wholived through the McCarthy period. Heknew exactly what he was doing whenhe penned these lines:

"Some Brothers commented that thefamous January 6 MILITANT CAU­CUS attack on Keylor sounded unbe­lievable and at times incomprehensible.That's right-the leafletwasnot writtenfor longshoremen! The leaflet waswritten for a wideraudience than Local10; it was to be reprinted and quotedfrom in publications addressed to -theleft in Chicago, Toronto, Melbourne,Hamburg, Paris and London. The liesand distortions contained therein couldbe used to discredit Keyloroutside theunion." (emphasis in original)

Beware the outside agitator! This is theETs' real face, the implementation oftheir stance against the SL "regime."

Worse than Debsian

The-same ET opus distributed at ournational conference explicitly links theSL's supposed turn away from theunions to our strategic orientation to theblack proletariat, and especially ourefforts to build labor/black defense

leagues. For the ETs this is merely alatter-day "community organizing"diversion from class struggle in theunions. 'This view is worse than Debs­ian, as it sees "the working class" asseparate from and counterposed to theblack plebeian masses. The ETs seeblack struggle through the eyes of apetty union.bureaucrat whose idea ofthe "working class" is his own dues base.

Indeed, the West Coast ETs immedi­ate response to our campaign aroundstopping the Klan in Washington on 27November 1982 (an action brought offby our small communist forces by massagitation among black unionists andtheir unions) was to urge us in a letterdated 3 December to make an urgentturn toward the Canadian Chryslerstrike. Scarcely able to conceal theirdisdain for our anti-fascist work, theET Jetter mentions the D.C. actionas evidence that the SL is' still capable.of waging a campaign when it wantsto. They urged us to get back, toreal business by publishing a mass­distribution WV supplement on Chrys­ler solidarity.

Sounds very proletarian. In fact theshort-lived Canadian Chrysler strike,deliberately called only after the V.S.locals had been cooled down, involved afew thousand workers; the plant accessi­ble to us, in Windsor, was notable fora workforce containing a high propor­tion of recent East European anti­communist immigrants. Meanwhile upin Sudbury, the nickel/copper minerswere locked in a bitter, months-longstruggle against massive cuts in theworkforce, placing at stake the survivalof a key and historically militant sectorof the Canadian proletariat. Our Cana­dian comrades, instead of makingempty agitation around Chrysler (toimpress U.S. UAW officials, presuma­bly), were making trips to Sudbury tosell their front-page article directed tothe 'Sudbury miners., And they wereactively campaigning with the rest of usto spread the word about and collectsome money for the Labor/BlackMobilization of 5,000 that stopped theKlan in Washington. Our WV supple­ment was "We Stopped the Klan!"highlighting our slogan, "Finish theCivil War!", "and we distributed inexcess of halfa million copies. Evidentlythe Canadian ETers did not sharethe West Coasters' contempt for theD.C. action, as on December 13 threeToronto members of the ET sent a smallcontribution, sincerely appreciated,along with their first protest regardingthe "Yuri Andropov Brigade."

In ILWU Local 10, all Keylor saw fitto say about this demonstration undercommunist leadership, the most massiveanti-fascist action in decades backed by

- key sections of labor, was that theMilitant Caucus and the SL "areincreasingly directing their organizingactivity away from the unions" towardghetto unemployed. And Keylor has yetto make any mention of the union­centered Mozee/Palmiero defense case,despite his own union hewing endorsedthe defense rally held in Oakland. TheET knows what it doesn't like: militantblack-centered labor, action, evidently.If you touch the black question inAmerica you touch social tinder, you

. touch revolution. And the ETs have nostomach for struggle.

ET Goes Bloodthirsty

The ETs aren't above pretending to aleft-oppositional face upon occasion. Ofcourse, their leftism is in directproportion to the distance involvedfrom the social-imperialist labor skates.Thus they proclaimed, "ImperialistsOut of Lebanon-By Any MeansNecessary!" following the bombing ofthe V.S. Marine compound in Beirut.The ETs solidarize with whoever blewup the Marines, as an act of "anti­imperialism." But no side in Lebanon isfighting imperialism! The ETs tell ustheir line is "U.S. Marines: Live Like

WORKERS VANGUARD

, WV PhotoET s own photo (top left) shows Howard Keylor and his hoped­for white constituency at longshoremen's mass picket inRichmond, 27 June 1982. Bottom left: SL supporter Stan Gowwith black union brothers at the same demonstration; at right,larger crowd shot of demo shows it was 95 percent black.

ET Petition: Worthy ofCOINTELPRO

The plenum discussion was reportedto the SL membership, and we beganwork on the present article to publiclypresent our offer. And then we foundthat the ET was circulating a petitionIyingly charging us with physicallyassaulting Bob Mandel at a demonstra­tion. Can the timing be an accident?Well maybe, but nobody can blame usfor believing that somebody got wind ofthe plenum discussion and rushed toforeclose the reintegration option.

The petition is a classic provocation.Its core is this statement:

"Further, I understand that BobMandel was physically assaulted by anSL supporter. and a Militant Caucusmember in the course of a politicaldispute. While I did not witness theassault. I want to make clear to the SL/U.S. and to the Militant Caucus thatI condemn this and any use of phys­ical violence within the workersmovement."

This is a device straight out ofthe FBI'sCOINTELPRO campaign to frame upand destroy the left. Mandel alleges anassault to have taken place at a SanFrancisco demonstration on 3 Decem­ber 1983. Well, what happened therewas-nothing. Mandel showed his faceat a labor demo and was loudly

continued on page 12

last national convention so as to finishbooting its dissidents out in piecemealwaves of purge, because the aforemen­tioned 1965 Organizational Resolutionand subsequent case law had left onlyone partial loophole in the abolition ofparty democracy: the pre-conventiondiscussion period.

Having the SWP horrible examplebefore our eyes helped the SL plenumarrive at the decision to offer to engagein an act of even excessive democracytoward the ET, who by their own choicemade themselves "external" to ourdemocratic-centralist party and internallife. Yes, comrades of the ET, sooner orlater and if we do not take state powerfirst, a revolutionary Marxist organiza­tion outlives the effective politicallifetime of its founding cadre; thedefense of the party's original purposeand intent characteristically involvesorganizational discontinuity (i.e., spliton behalf of the new revolutionarygeneration). But not yet for us, ETs, andin any case you stand in no relationshipto that process.

includes the right to private factionaldeliberation.

In taking the decision to offer the ETa second chance to fight for their viewsinside the iSt, the SL plenum took as anegative yardstick the bureaucraticSocialist Workers Party (SWP). TheSWP has lately finished a massivepolitical purge as, having failed toachieve any niche as reformists, JackBarnes has shifted his party towardbecoming would-be Stalinist hangers­on. The bureaucratization of the SWPwas the organizational handmaiden ofits transit through centrism to left­reformism: in 1963-66the Farrell Dobbsregime got rid of about a third of theparty membership, beginning with theexpulsion'of the Revolutionary Tenden­cy (RT, forerunner of the SL) simply forits views. The ex post facto justificationof the political purge of the RT was theexplicit rationalefor the SWP's 1965Organizational Resolution effectivelybanning factional rights in the party.

Now again the SWP's attempt to shiftits place on the political landscape hashad organizational expression. Today'sreformist and bureaucratic SWP ex­ploded in factional ferment whenBarnes started seeking to shift his partyin a quite Stalinoid direction. Overabout the last three years, perhaps athird of the SWP membership has beendispatched, now to go in their variousdirections. Barnes' party canceled its

am not necessarily indicatinor Ho~ard. However I d g politicalsubject to La d' 0 not chooses n er and assault.

f~~ DECLARATION

Bob Mandel, Ursula andlovers' Howard Ke~lor lire I .•, /tntl-Senll' t es i" ouVlously t Npe h ' r-ae s t s or finks J b . no Hzirsoll 11',0 has known or worked' • elleve any honest1 t~erefore protest the "1 WIth them cnn testify to that.£llIllons lhat they are ~1I:nd:rous lIn~ provoclltive public accu­U.S. and by members of th Me'l~ memhers of t~e Spartaci ..t Lnogue/e I Itant Caucus .. ~

Such slanders lid' ••physicaJ n re angcroU£l. ]f believ dCllUC~s rp.~~~~~~:·lhJ demand that the BLiu.~~e~n~O~~d l~ad toUrsula and Howard. ese Rl~nderou£l accusati~ns again:tM~~~tant,Fur t he r- ] under "by a 51.' su ers t and that Bob Mandel waR .'a poli ii cafP~r~:~ie an~i \ ~Jj :it~nt Caucus DJ~:b:~C:~l{hasseuj tedto make clear to thO 11 e dId not witness tbe a e course ofcondemll this and a e 5L/U.S •.and to the Militant c ssault, I wanters movement ny such u~e or Physical vi I au~us that 1

• 0 ence w1thin the work-

By signing this statement Iagreement ~ith Bob Uto si t back and lei th~:t.l~:

ET's COINTELPRO-style petition fits right in with reforrnlst left's lyingportrait of SL as disrupters, goons, crazies and pollee agents.

pedagogical function for our members.The ET has been useful asa crystalliza­

.tion of everything that is backward andwrong in the SL; particularly during atime when the risks of communistmembership are palpably great, com­rades with differences tend to just dropout rather than fight inside for theirviews. We use the ET to keep us on ourtoes. Having been, through our internalbulletin, a presence in our nationalconference, as sophisticated proponentsof a kind of Debsian disdain for ourefforts to sink real roots among theblack working people, the ET's argu­ments on Lebanon were a foil whichvastly enriched our "Marxism andBloodthirstiness" article and associatedpropaganda.

The motion coming out of the plenumwas to publish in Workers Vanguard anarticle proposing to the ET an offer ofreadmission to the iSt, necessarilyexcluding of course those few individu­als expelled from the iSt for gross crimesagainst the workers movement. The ETwould have full membership rightsbased on-democratic-centralist democ-·racy and discipline. That is, on the basisof our norms, which are well known tothese people: party activity, financialsupport and discipline toward oppo­nents; the right to responsible work andappropriate party posts, and the respon­sibility to do such work and accept suchposts; the right to factions, which

Pigs, Die Like Pigs." Of course, this is avery attenuated and vicarious blood­thirstiness-we don't see Mandel strap­ping himself to a load of dynamite andhitting Bay Area army bases. Or theCanadian ET shooting up Canadianarmy barracks.

In the wake of the Beirut bombing,with Reagan launching an invasion ofGrenada to divert attention from thedebacle, WV headlined: "Marines Outof Lebanon, Now, Alive!" We weredeluged with ET documents taking us totask "for this allegedly social-patrioticstance. In "Marxism and Bloodthirsti­ness" (WV No. 345, 6 January) weexplained the elementary propositionthat Marxists are not in favor of killingfor its own sake. We stand for thevictory of just causes. Thus we have astake in the victory of the Salvadoraninsurgents against the bloody junta andits U.S. imperialist backers. In Grenadawe had a side-in defense of the self­determination of that small black islandagainst the U.S. invasion. We are notbloodthirsty and we are not pacifists, asthe violence of the capitalists does notallow the oppressed to renounce the useof force necessary to accomplish thevictory of just causes. But even when wehave a side, as at that moment overGrenada.where we said "U .S. Out Deador Alive," we don't share the ETs'vicarious bloodlust which glories in thekilling of young men for 'the crimes oftheir rulers.

The ETs want to find a contradictionbetween our stand on the Beirutbombing and our remark during the1982Israeli invasion of Lebanon that inIsrael "opposition to the war right nowdepends, above all, on how manysoldiers come home in coffins" (WVNo.309, 9 July 1982).We observed correctlythat, particularly given the small size ofIsrael, casualties have an enormouslyexaggerated impact and therefore apolitical effect. It is the political effectthat we are after, it is not dead youngIsraelis for the hell of it. In any case theETs new posture, the ET red in toothand claw, is just window-dressing. Atthe time of the Israeli invasion ofLebanon, the ET omitted any mentionof defense of the Palestinians. Mandelsays this -was because of "tendencyconsiderations." We think the tendencyconsideration was Mandel himself­throughout the summer of 1982Mandelwas quietly attending meetings of therad-lib New Jewish Agenda.

A postscript on the Lebanon debatecomes from the West Coast ETs Ursula,who opined to several comrades lastNovember that the SL would not havehad the "Marines Out of Lebanon,Now, Alive" slogan before, our "turn"away from the unions to th-e ghettos.Asked to explain the connection, shereplied that "there are a lot of blacks inthe military." Well we didn't derive ourline from the existence of black Marinesin Lebanon. But we take the accusationas a compliment. The bourgeoisie hasthe opposite attitude-its troops areexpendable and its black troops aremost so.

A Modest Proposal

The discussion on the ET at the SLCentral Committee plenum centered onthe disjuncture of the ET posture: on theone hand, they claimed to be our loyalopposition, seeking to reverse unjust.exclusion from a deformed revolution­ary party; at the same time, wheneverour party is out front) its meager forcesand resources committed to urgentundertakings, and the target of thecombined hostility of the capitalist stateand the reformist "left," then does theET show at best indifference to oursurvival and often an active appetite tosee us go down.

The plenum discussion acknowledgedagain a point from our last nationalconference: that the E'T'spolemics, boththeir rightist critiques of us and theiroccasional forays into leftism, serve a

2 MARCH 1984 11

ET vs. the Test of TruthIt's always hard to judge a political

dispute from a distance. Those whohave some familiarity with the SL,some involvement in radical socialstruggle in this country, some directknowledge of the concrete politicalevents so hotly disputed by thecontending parties should be able, byexamining the actions and writtenmaterials of ourselves and the ET, tomake a determination of rights andwrongs. Those at a great distance,however, would properly hesitatebefore making definitive judgments.But there are decisive tests which canbe applied at a distance. The matter ofsimple truthfulness is a decisive test:the liar is one with something to hide.

The German ET's long ,opus,"Where is the iST Going?" of February1983, is the only attempt ofany wing ofthe ETs thus far to deal comprehen­sively and "theoretically" with ourparty. The core of its analysis is thatthe iSt has basically come to termspolitically with the Kremlin Stalinists.The document cites WV's article"Reagan, Begin & Hitler" (WV No.308, 25 June 1982) in the effort to showthat we have abandoned the Trotskyist

program of political revolution in thedeformed workers states. Look, saysthe ET's Wolfgang, pointing to thisarticle, the filthy Robertsoniteixt isreduced to pathetically offering adviceto the Brezhnevites! Here is what theET document says:

"In the place of a political fight againstStalinism there are radical phrasesand advice to the Kremlin startingwith the idea 'if weare in power'. In thearticle 'Reagan, Begin, Hitler' ( Work­ers Vanguard 308) there is a wholecatalogue of hints for Brezhnev: to'clean up Afghanistan', to threatenReagan with the bombing of thecentres of the American bourgeoisie,and to reduce differences with China.The pretended hard stance of Brezh­nev .: against U.S. imperialism meetsthe approval of the iST combined witha lip-service position that the bureauc­racy is an obstacle to any effectivedefense."

This is an egregious political fabrica-. tion. Our whole article is nothing but

an inductive development of the needfor proletarian political revolutionagainst the Stalinist bureaucracy. Thearticle presents some of the immediateand obvious measures which must betaken to defend the USSR againstimperialism's global anti-Soviet war

drive, precisely in order to show that­while the bureaucracy could perhapsselectively institute one or another ofthem-these measures taken togetherrequire political revolution!

A few quotations from our articleshould suffice to make this crystalclear:

"What is the necessary response to theinsane Americaniprovocations? In thefirst place, reach an understandingwith the Chinese.... That's whatsensible defenders of Soviet interests,not to mention proletarian interna­tionalists, would do. But every singleone of these Stalinist bureaucracies isnationalist to the core and refuses togive up one sacred inch of themotherland."Next. clean up Afghanistan .... In­stead of capitulating to the mullahreaction. by limiting land reform andliteracy campaigns, the Soviets shouldhe pouring the money in there on amassive scale: land to the tiller andcheap credit. health programs, etc.But that means social revolution....And that does not square with theKremlin'~, policies of detente and 'two­stage' revolution. Reformism abroad,by conciliating the forces of reaction,undermines defense of the SovietUnion."And the true facts of the situation

must be communicated to the Russianpeople...."But all this requires a high degreeof workers democracy. combiningtoughness and generosity indefenseofthe fundamental conquests of theOctober Revolution. And this cannotbe accomplished without a workerspolitical revolution to oust the Stalin­ist bureaucrats who only dream of anaccommodation with the imperialistWest. ..."What's needed to defend the land ofthe Soviets against rapacious imperi­alism hell-bent on a nuclear show­down requires above all a rebirth ofLeninism. As Leon Trotsky wrote inthe 'Manifesto of the Fourth Interna­tional on the Imperialist War and theProletarian World Revolution' (May1940): ' ... Only the world revolutioncan save the USSR for socialism. Butthe world revolution carries with it theinescapable blotting out of the Krem­lin oligarchy'."

The quote from Trotsky is the article'sconclusion; the whole article is nothingbut an argument for political revolu­tion derived from the concrete imperi­alist threats confronting the USSRtoday and the means for combatingthem. -

Of course this does not prove thatthe iSt is right, about Stalinism oranything else. But it proves that theETs are wrong, in the most fundamen­tal sense, because they are liars. Andthis you can tell, from anywhere at allon the planet.

5M

• WV Photo

ILWU Militant Caucus campaign for boycott of South African ship last Junehelped mobilize support for Stan Gow against bureaucratic purge attempt.

"anti-Semites" or "racists"-that's theirchoice of words. We have however beenaggressive in scandalizing the compo­nents of the ET rotten bloc over a seriesof their positions and statements.

First there was their championship ofone Uli Sandler in Germany. Expelledfrom the iSt's German section in August1982, Sandler's whole political profilewas that of an "early Nazi Brownshirt.There were fights with Sandler overparticulars, but the whole picture-hisdisdain for colored immigrant workers,his gross male chauvinism, his fondnessfor skin-head punk rock and Nazimemorabilia-wasn't put together untillater when he was exposed for hisdeclaration that one German was worthfifty Tamils. He was expelled; we calledhim a proto-fascist. If the ETs weresmart, they would take us to task fortaking so long to get Sandler's number.Well, indeed, our German section,drawn from a postwar generation whichmainly didn't want to know what theirdaddies did, was slow to See what theyhad in Uli Sandler. A resurgent Germanbourgeois nationalism is the mood inthe "new Germany"; it shades over tothe social-democrats' "left" tails. Oursection was a bit slow to catch the drift(unlike the German ET, which seems tobe going with the flow wherever elsethey may be headed).

Our German comrades expelled UliSandler and then kept him out of aforum. Thus we gave the ET its firstcause celebre. They howled: "Theslander hurled at Uli Sandler is the mostegregious departure from workersdemocracy by any section of the iSt todate." The German ET ran a petitioncampaign protesting the .violated hu­man rights of a proto-Nazi kept out of a

Spartacist League Forum

Women's LiberationThrough

Socialist RevolutionBolshevik Revolution and

Prospects for RevolutIon To~ay

Speaker: Diana ColemanSL Central Committee.Former Sparlacist candidatefor SF Bd. of Supervisors

Thursday, March 8, 7:00 p.m.145 Dwinelle .UC BerkeleyFor more information call: (415) 835-1535

BERKELEY,

shown that they know nobody strong­armed Mandel at a Bay Area demon­stration. Midwest-based E1ers havehad no hesitation in mounting interven­tions in our public class series-atOberlin. Nor was the Toronto ET crewafraid to turn up one afternoon at ourNew York public office for a session ofour public class. Obviously they had nofear that by sitting down amongst-20 orso New York S L members and contactsthey were risking a stomping by frenziedStalinist goons.

Keeping this in mind, let us return tothe ET petition. The COINTELPROflavor is not restricted to the inventionof a physical incident to slander us asgoons, in the context of attemptedbourgeois repression against our partyand the corresponding reformist cam­paign to portray us as violence-crazed.The petition begins with a declarationthat Bob Mandel, Ursula and HowardKeylor "are obviously not Nazi lovers,anti-Semites, racists or finks." ThisHooverite device is sometimes called"when did you stop beating your wife?"Whereas the ETs have been veryforward in their characterizations of usas selling out to everything from YuriAndropov to black Marines, we have'been reserved and empirical in ourcharacterizations ofthem. We do pointout how the ET's union work consists of I

applauding a red baiter who backhand­edly supports bureaucratic efforts topurge our friends from the labormovement. As for the rest of it, we havenot called the ETers "Nazi lovers" or

assault took place! Mandel's witnessobserved vehement shouting, and itlooked to him like Bob Mandel lookedscared. Mandel's witness, one JosephBlum, wrote up his 9 January account atMandel's request. Even so, the best hecan do to back up Mandel's lying story isto say t~at there was an argumentbetween Mandel and two men: the manfacing Mandel was "yelling very loudly"in Mandel's face, while the man stand­ing "slightly behind" Mandel was givingthe first man "verbal if not physicalsupport." In other words, Blum thinksthat maybe Mandel might have been hitin the back. But now the Canadian EThas been saying that Mandel waselbowed in the stomach. How, by a manstanding behind him? This would ofcourse be a crucial discrepancy in court,but of course the whole matter is afabrication.

Meanwhile, it seems that to knowMandel is to disbelieve him. Thepetition provocation is a spectacularfailure: after intensive work in threecountries (total population: about 350million), the ETs have secured 15signatures. We don't doubt that othervariously motivated individuals willpresent themselves to the ET now thatWV has formally introduced them. Butapparently the number of ex-socialistsso swept up in guilty personalism andoutright anti-communist venomousnessas to take the word of Bob "I lied to the~party for years" Mandel seems to bequite small.

Of course the ETers themselves have

SpartacistPamphletMake checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co..Box 1377 GPO. New York, NY 10116

(continued from page 11)

politically confronted by indignant andvocal SL supporters who called him ascab. They never laid a finger on him. IfRitchie and Wooly had wanted to getphysical with wimpy Bob Mandel, hewould have been on the ground and thenin an emergency ward.

Mandel is using a device oftenemployed to great effect, by the FBI'spoison-pen experts. If there had been afist-fight with Mandel, we would have adefense. We would have eyewitnesses tosay that our friends engaged in an act ofself-defense, or, conversely, that acouple of hotheaded supporters imper­missibly took a swing at the wormMandel. But nobody believes eyewit­nesses who say: nothing happened.

So there we were, not knowing whatto do about our eyewitnesses to the factthat nothing happened, and realizingthat we weren't about to offer to takeback into the party the instigators andsigners of a petition that might as-wellhave been written by the FBI.

But then Bob Mandel, after a monthof promising to surface his own eyewit­ness,finally brought forth a buddy withan account which itself shows that no

"ExternalTendency"..'.

12 WORKERS VANGUARD

Spartacist forum. But somehow the EThasn't lifted a finger to protesthundredsof exclusions of us from fake-leftmeetings in the U.S. and elsewhere. TheSL has been slandered as violentcrazies ,and sinister Soviet surrogates by reac­tionary bourgeois forces; we've beentreated repetitively to the "left" reflec­tions of this bourgeois witchhunt. TheET doesn't bother with crocodile tearswhen the reformists cal1 us FBI agentsand violent disrupters to justify exclud­ing us from "public" meetings and rad­lib demonstrations; the ET is too busybleeding for a proto-fascist.

We didn't cal1 the ET "Nazi lovers"­wejust made them eat the consequencesof. embracing every expellee as one ofnature's noblemen. We quoted back atthem their pathetic defenses of Sandler(it's just a fireman's helmet he wears,and anyway he never wore it in public;he only sings "Deutschland Uber Al1es"in the shower). If it's a fireman's helmet,we said, why not wear it on the streets?Could it be because it's illegal inGermany to sport the swastika inpublic? (Sandler's steel helmet, com­plete with swastika and eagle, is mostprobably a World War II Wehrmachtflak helmet.) Of late the ET seems tohave become rather reticent on the Uliquestion. Have they final1y recognizedwhat he is and decided they don't reallylike it that much? What about it,comrades of the ET?Tel1 us: are you stil1defending Uli Sandler? If so we want tohear your defense. And if not, we wantto see a groveling apology.

And we know what Ursula's upsetabout too. An SL comrade wrote up anaccount of this conversation withUrsula:

"[Ursula] said that she thought peoplemade too big a thing of what hadhappened to the Jews during WW II. Iwas stunned. I asked [her] what shemeant by that. She said that manySocial Democrats. trade unionists andeven Catholics were put in concentra­tion camps. but all people seemed tohave heard of were thefate of the Jews:"

Indeed the German social-democratswere persecuted by Hitler if they madethemselves obnoxious. They remainedpart of the German, nation and theirsons went into the Wehrmacht. Thosewho persisted in oppositional activitieswere sometimes locked up; nothinghappened to the rest. The Jews wereexterminated. Systematically. Genocide.

We have not attributed motives toUrsula in making those remarks. Wedoubt she meant to mimic apologists forgenocide; we imagine merely that shewas seeing fascism through the eyes of aGerman social-democrat. (Whereas weare America's hard communists, and,like the black people in this country, Wethink we'd get what Hitler gave theJews.) We aren't, cal1ing the ETs"racists" either-no,' comrades, we justthink that you don't give a shit about theblack people, because you have otherfish to fry.

And let's be clear about thisCOINTELPRO-style pennon. Youdon't have to be an FBI agent to servethe Big Lie campaign that serves thewitchhunters. An FBI agent couldn'thave written the petition any better, aswe have shown. But yours is doubtlessanother purpose-to seek to destroy usin sheer subjective malice, of course, andbehind that, shaped by the climate ofbourgeois society in this pre-war period,to ingratiate yourselves with those whoshade over into the Democratic Party,to show yourselves the sort of peoplewith whom the bureaucrats can dobusiness, as opposed to the "violent"and "crazy" Spartacist League.

As we go to press, we have receivedfrom the Canadian ETs, who seem notto have signed their bloc partners'petition, a letter stating their intentionto seek reintegration into the iSt as atendency. For those who wil1 agree tostruggle against the leadership of the iSton the basis of Leninist democracy anddiscipline, eschewing col1aboration withthose who have shown their appetite to ~

destroy us by any means, our door is stillopen.•

2 MARCH 1984

Labor...(continued from page 1)felt no fear.

The kil1ing of strikers is becomingroutine' practice. Today no companyfeels like they've gotten satisfaction witha mere 15percent wage cut-s-they've gotto have a dead striker as a scalp to wavearound. Ray Phillips, a Greyhounddriver in Ohio run down by a' scab"trainee" in December. A few weekslater, Greg Goobic, a young Union Oilstriker kil1ed by a scab driving an 18­wheeler through a picket line at aRodeo, California refinery. This ismurder as company policy. And it mustbe stopped! It won't be stopped by thecops and courts-they're on the otherside, the guardians of the capitalists'"law and order." Potential strikebreak­ers should be educated to understandthat you can't cross a picket line on twobroken legs, and county hospitals arerotten places. The next time a scab even

, thinks about, or is coaxed by his bossesto run down a striker, he should go palewith fear. Then we can talk aboutwinning some battles for a change.

The misleaders of American labor areliteral1y letting the bosses get away withmurder. Why? Charles Craypo, aprofessor of industrial relations at'Cornel1, put his finger on it. As theGreyhound strike was going, under heremarked that union leaders "are carefulto stay within legal boundaries, and ifyou stay within legal boundaries, thereis not a whole lot you can do" (NewYork Times,7 December 1983). Damnright, there isn't! The Greyhound unionleaders even voluntarily limited thenumber of pickets, guaranteeing thatthe scab buses would "roU, so theycouldn't be accused of "breaking thelaw." And when the Auto Workersscabbed on Greyhound strikers inDetroit, the excuse was-that they were"'upholding the contract." Solidarity isnot sending $500 and a valentine.Solidarity is respecting picket lines, it issecondary boycotts, hot-cargoingstruck products. "But that's illegal," thebureaucrats whine. So maybe somelabor leaders go to jail six months afterthey surround the terminals with thou­sands of pickets and cal1 a solidaritystrike and the battle is won. Throughoutmost of the history of this country therehave always been numerous labor menin prison, as a necessary cost ofmaintaining some kind of social equilib­rium on behalf of the workers. Buttoday the union leaders are takingcasualties lying down, for nothing.

The futureof the unions ison the line.And while the capitalists are grabbing

every gun in their closet, the unionbureaucracy is handcuffing the workerswith the bosses' laws. They're bluntingour weapons. The bureaucrats inventedthe "informational picket line." We say,along with every miner and self­respecting trade unionist, "Picket linesmean you better not try to cross I"WhenPATCO strikers were in chains, theAFL-CIO's response was to cal1 an

.•~.~WV Photo

Militant black auto workers walk outagainst Fraser's sellout contract atDetroit's Jefferson Avenue plant, 16September 1982.

impotent consumer boycott. The Spar­tacist League said: "Shut Down theAirports!" Machinists and Teamstershad the power to bring the country to ahalt-they just had to say the word, theranks were ready. Over Greyhound wesaid: "Stop the Buses! For a NationalTransport s Strike!" Again the labortraitors cal1ed for a consumer boycott tohide their refusal to fight.

The bureaucrats are allowing thebosses and their state to hack up theunions not only by their cowardlylegalism but also and no-less important­ly by their racism. It was not just themilitant and "illegal" tactics like the sit­down strike and mass picketing whichbuilt theindustrial unions in the 1930s.

Cops assaultGreyhound strikers(top right). At left:memorial march byCa1lfomla oil workersfor labor martyrGregory Gooblc rundown by scab truck.Goobic's body liesbeside police car(lower right).

Q.-c

The great CIO organizing drives in auto,steel, meat packing, maritime and otherindustries broke down the traditionalJim Crow system as black workers tooktheir place as rock-solid union militants.In the 1930s-1940s the black ghettomasses identified with the labor move­ment. But today what black man doesnot see in a Lane Kirkland or a DougFraser a defender of the racist statusquo? To organize the open-shop South,for example, will mean pitched battleswith the Ku Klux Klan and crackersheriffs. Can anyone imagine the AFL­cia tops involved in, much less leading,this kind of fight? In white racistAmerica the fate of organized labor andthe oppressed black masses is closelybound together. The bureaucracy'saccommodation to the racist status quoset the stage for the union-bustingoffensiveof the Reagan years. And therewill be no effective defense against thisunion-busting unless the labor move­ment becomes a powerful champion ofblack rights. Reagan's shock troops forhis war on unions, blacks and otherminorities are the fascist KKK andNazis. The SL strategy of mass labor/black mobilizations to stop thefascists-powerful1y displayed in actionwhen the Klan was stopped in Washing­ton, D.C. on November 27, 1982 by5,000 black and other working peopleunder our leadership-heralds the kindof fighting, class-struggle labor move­ment and revolutionary workers partythis country needs.

Labor's Gatta PlayHardball to Win

No decisive gain of labor was everwon in a courtroom or by an act ofCongress. Everything the workersmovement has won of value has beenachieved by mobilizing the ranks oflabor in hard-fought struggle, Ofl thepicket lines, in plant occupations. Whatcounts is power. The strength of theunions lies in their numbers, theirmilitancy, their organization and disci­pline and their relation to the decisivemeans of production in modern capital­ist society. The bosses are winningbecause the power of labor, its strengthto decisively cripple the enemy, has notbeen brought to bear. So how do youfight to win? After the recent string ofunmitigated disasters, thousands ofunion militants must be asking them­selves this question. We do not advocatethe practice of the McNamara brothers,the early Iron Workers organizers whountil they were sent away for dynamit­ing the Los Angeles Times building in1910 (thanks to, Clarence Darrowpleading them "guilty") were some of

continued on page 14

13

•

Alameda Central LaborCouncil Resolution

of these militant unionists. Numerousprominent individuals and over 20 localunions are also supporting the defenseof Lauren and Ray. All out March I!Down with South Africa-style "justice"!Freedom and jobs back for Lauren andRay!

(continued from page 16)

banned Communists from holdingunion office. The present wretched,legalistic and racist labor leadership isvery much the product of the anti-redpurge of the McCarthy era. UnderMeany/Reuther the AFL-CIO becamean instrument of Cold War fanaticism.Indeed, George Meany and his errandboy Lane Kirkland supported theVietnam War to the bitter end, evenafter Nixon andKissinger had given itup as a lost cause. Today, whether itcomes to financing Solidarriosc, Polishcompany union for the CIA andbankers, or lobbying Congress for fundsfor the MX first-strike missile orSalvadoran death squads, RonaldReagan has no more fervent allies thanthe AFL-CIO tops.

The present union-busting offensive,the attacks on blacks, the poor, the agedare directly linked to the anti-Soviet wardrive. This government with bipartisansupport is literally taking food out of themouths of ghetto school children tobuild nuclear missiles. Defense of theSoviet Union-the social gains of theBolshevik Revolution despite subse­quent Stalinist degeneration-is inte­gral to defense against union-bustingand racist attacks on black people.

As this capitalist government be­comes more and more directly involvedin union-busting as it mobilizes for waragainst the Soviet Union, every majorworkers' struggle becomes a politicalfight requiring class-struggle leadership.Labor militants must therefore link thefight to oust the die-on-your-kneesunion bureaucrats to building a revolu­tionary workers party. Such a workersparty would fight for a workers govern­ment to expropriate capitalism to endonce and for all the hideous socialsystem that turns the enormous indus­trial wealth squeezed out of the lifeblood of the working class into misery,poverty and the spectre of nuclearholocaust. 8

Lauren &Ray...

liability. In the middle of the strike,when you need it most you will see your'funds cut off. (The NYC transit workersunion had its dues checkoff removed forover a year as punishment for their 1980strike.)

The cowardice of the labor tops hascertainly emboldened the anti-laboroffensive to pass e.~~m more reactionarylaws. Kirkland & Co. squeal like stuckpigs over legislation such as the recentruling allowing companies to rip upunion contracts when they become"burdensome."

But there is an explosive potentialhere as every union weapon becomes

"illegal" and the bureaucrats rely evenmore heavily on the state. It means thatnearly any hard fought struggle willthrow the ranks of labor up against thestate as well as the labor bureaucracy.Consider the elementary tactic of thesecondary boycott in this context.Under Reagan, a solidarity strike insupport of PATCO would certainlyhave been a confrontation with thestate. If the Machinists had refused tocross air controllers' picket lines and theairports had been shut down, Reaganmight even have had to bring in thearmed forces. Militant labor strugglecould bring down Reagan the way theVietnamese Tet offensive' sealed the fateof Lyndon Johnson.

The bureaucrats understand that suchmilitant action would not only-put theworking class on the offensive againstTaft-Hartley, it would spell the end of WHEREAS:their reactionary game in the labor During the CW A legally authorizedmovement. Thus the desperate necessity strike against the Bell System, thatfor labor to fight means a political commenced August 6, 1983, criminalstruggle against the union tops, for a charges were filed in Alameda Coun-revolutionary leadership that will take ty, in the City of San Leandro, againstlabor and jts allies into a confrontation Daniel Nadeu, local 9495; Douglas E.with the state and win it, on the road to Snider, local 9496; Ray Palmiero,winning a workers state. local 9410; James Welsh, local 9415;

As Leon Trotsky wrote in a document and Lauren Mozee, local 9415, andthat was found on his desk after he was WHEREAS:assassinated in Mexico in August 1940: Three employees 10sLtheir jobs as a

"In other words, the trade unions in the result of the criminal charges, and twopresent epoch cannot simply be the' .,organs of democracy as they werein the employees received a written warmngepoch of free capitalism and they in their personnel files, andcannot any longer remain politically WHEREAS:neutral, that is, limit themselves to These charges include both misde-serving the daily needs of the working meanor and felony charges, andclass. They cannot any longer beanarchistic, i.e., ignore the decisive WHEREAS: .influence of the state on the life of This is another example of the policepeople and classes. They can no longer department siding with the businessbe reformist, because the objective interests at the expense of workersconditions leave no room for anyserious and lasting reforms. The trade rights, also known as union busting,unions of our time can either serve as THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:secondary instruments of imperialist That the AFL-CIO Central Laborcapitalism for the subordination and Council in Alameda County go ondisciplining of workers and for ob-structing the revolution, or, on the record asking the Alameda Countycontrary, the trade unions can become District Attorney's Office to drop thethe instruments of the revolutionary criminal charges against DANIELmovement of the proletariat." ."..,.,:y NADEU RAY PALMIERO

-L.D. Trotsky, "Trade Unlons..-'· , .,in the Epoch of Imperialist JAMES WELSH, DOUGLAS E.Decay" (1940) SNIDER and LAUREN MOZEE.

It is no accident that the same Taft- BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:Hartley "slave labor" Act which out- That a copy of this resolution be sentlawed the secondary boycott also to the District Attorney's Office.

Minneapolis, Toledo and San Franciscogeneral strikes of I934-all led by reds,which set the stage for the rise of theCIO-and the 1937 Flint sit-downstrike.

Smash Taft Hartley-ForSecondary Boycotts!

Labor's weapons are inherent in itscollective organization: the picket line,solidarity strike, secondary. boycott.The capitalists' arsenal is their state:courts, cops and ultimately the army.The unions must be independent of thebosses' state! But the "lieutenants of thecapitalist class" inside the labor move-

APClasswar on the streetsof Minneapolis as Trotskyists leadvictoriousgeneralstrike In 1934.

ment weaken the capacity for unionstruggle by supporting corporatist lawsto undermine that independence.

Take the matter of elementary laborsolidarity, for instance. Every decentunionist has the reflex to refuse tohandle struck goods, to "hot cargo."There is a long tradition of use of thisbasic trade-union tactic during themilitant period of the rise of the CIO'and industrial unionism. In the battle

- that smashed the open shop at Ford in194I, the car haulers refused to trans­port scab autos. One of the reasons forthe Kennedys' vendetta against JimmyHoffa was his use of the "hot cargo"technique-a tactic Hoffa said helearned from the Trotskyists who led theMinneapolis Teamsters strike.

But "secondary boycotts" are "ille~gal," say the union tops from coast tocoast. Unions !hemselves were oncebranded as "illegal criminal conspira­cies." The entire history of the Americanlabor movement is one long string' oflaws broken and court injunctionsdefied. Otherwise there would be nolabor movement. And how did "hotcargoing" become illegal? The "secon­dary boycott" was banned by the Taft­Hartley Act in 1947. This was linked to aban on Communists holding unionoffice, a key part of the Cold Warwitchhunt. Communist-led unions werebarred from going to the NLRB,

-supposedly more sympathetic to laborthan the regular courts, and could nothave Labor Department-supervisedunion elections.

These corporatist laws and institu­tions were supported by the bureaucratsand reformists in the labor movement.Today the labor reformists continue tolook to the state claiming it can' be"reformed" in the workers' interest. Atthe same time they use the state as anexcuse to refuse to struggle in theinterests of the unions. At bottom, theydo not want to struggle and see in thebosses' state a willing "partner."

These corporatist laws integrating theunions into the state are also closelylinked to the question of the' duescheckoff. If you are going to wage amilitant strike, then a system wherebythe company acts as banker for the.union by collecting the dues money is a

Labor...(continued from page 13)

the most successful labor organizers thecountry had ever seen. The key ismobilizing militant mass action in athought-out way, one which minimizesthe damage in terms of jail sentences andother casualties.

Take the Union Oil strikers in Rodeo,California where Gregory Goobic Waskilled. Refineries are generally locatedout in the boondocks and the companiesare tight with the highway patrol, sotake a look at how the miners take careof business in similar situations. Back in1977 striking coal miners in Stearns,Kentucky were faced with a squad ofgun thugs who began throwing leadfrom their steel-reinforced bunker. Thestrikers put up a sign-"Warning: TheStearns Miners Have Determined ThatScabbing Is Dangerous to YourHealth"-and responded in kind. Some

'cowardly company guards complainedthat one night they were disarmed byminers, given a tour of the county anddropped off minus their pants. Laterwhen state police attempted to herdscabs into the struck mines, the entireforce of strikers showed up to face themdown. Even though scores of UnitedMine Workers (UMWA) men werearrested and' the Stearns strikedefeated-because it was criminallyisolated by the UMWA leaders-theirmilitancy set the stage for the historicllO-day coal strike in 1978.

Phone installations, unlike oil refiner­ies or coal mines, are generally locatedin urban centers. Highly technologicallyadvanced, the system can be run forweeks, perhaps months, with onlysupervisory personnel. And ·there hasnever been a successful telephone strikein this country. The CommunicationsWorkers (CWA) started out as acompany union and then hooked upwith the CIA (via its AIFLD "labor"front). How do you win in phone? InFebruary 198I- the telephone union inBritish Columbia, Canada showed how:instead of marching out they occupiedevery major BC Tel installation aroundthe clock. They held the propertyhostage while the company ran to thecourts. During last summer's nation­wide telephone strike we put forward astrategy to bring the arrogant, parasiticand widely hated monopoly to its knees:hundreds of thousands of phone work­ers occupying the buildings, rallyingunionists throughout the country, and"with a flick of the switch; phoneworkers could win millions of alliesamong working people by providingfree phone service...."

Or in New York City transit, whichhas been run downhill for, a coupleofdecades. In 1966 the newly electedliberal mayor John Lindsay arrogantlytried to humiliate the Transit Workersand got his head handed to him instead.When TWU leader Mike Quill wasarrested for defying a back-to-workinjunction, he replied:

"It is about time that someone,somewherealong the road, ceasesto berespectable. Many generations of greatAmericans before us have taken thisroad, and if they didn't take this road,half of you would be on home relief. ...The judge can drop dead. in his blackrobes, and we would not call off thestrike."

Quill went to jail and died shortlythereafter of a heart attack. But theycouldn't arrest 40,000 transit. workers.As the strike wore on, the bosses werereminded that they couldn't run thecenter of American world financecapital without the subways and buses.Transit workers got their best settlementin years, and for a few years afterwardtransit was the best job in town.

For American labor today, a damngood slogan is: It's better to fight onyour feet than die on your knees. To besure, many strikes will be lost, even ifthey are hard fought, as at Stearns or the1937 Little Steel strike. But when animportant strike is won, it dramaticallyalters the entire situation, as in the

14 WORKERS VANGUARD

TorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, Ontarib M5W 1X8(416) 593-4138

VictoryAgainstMoonies...(continued from page 5)

I've put up the materials on the victoryin the unian hall and spread the wordaround our union ..

What happened on November 27 wasvery important, especially since it wasmade possible by the endorsement andsupport of more than 70 union localsand union officials.

A local union official in theWashington, D.C. area

Keep Up the Good WorkAlfonso Wells, President of West

Eight Mile Road Citizens DistrictCouncil, congratulates the SL on theirvictory over the Moonies. We all shouldpraise such groups like yours who willstand up and fight for the rights of thosewho are not able to defend themselves,both black and white. Again, I congrat­ulate you. Keep up the good Work.

Alfonso WellsEndorser, Labor/BlackMobilization to Stop the KKKin Washington, D.C.,November 27

Richard E. RubensteinProfessor of Law,Antioch School of Law, D.C.

A Model of IntelligentSelf-Defense

The Spartacist League and theSpartacus Youth League are to becongratulated on their important victo­ry in forcing the Washington Times toretract its vicious libel alleging that SLmembers and supporters fomentedviolence at the November 27 anti-Klandemonstration in Washington, D.C.There is no doubt that this libel was part

. of an effort by the Moonie Cult andothers to set up the SL for futureinvestigation and prosecution as a"violence-prone" or "terrorist" organi­zation. The vigorous response of the SLthrew a monkey wrench into theseplans. It should serve all those commit­ted to radical change in the interests ofthe working class as a model ofintelligent self-defense. As a lawyer andlaw professor, I am particularly im­pressed by the SL's understanding ofwhen to use the courts (against slander­ers like Deukmejian and the Moonies,and against the F.B.I.) and when not to(the SL refuses to drag the judiciary intointernal disputes within the labormovement). Keep up the good work,which serves the interests of all workingpeople!

TROTSKYIST LEAGUEOF CANADA

~-_.-

National Office Cleveland New YorkBox 1377, GPO Box 91954 Box 444New York. NY 10116 Cleveland. OH 44101 Canal Street Station(212) 732-7860 (216) 621-5138 New York. NY 10013

(212) 267-1025Ann Arbor

Norfolkc/o SYL DetroitP.O. Box 8364 Box 32717 Box 1972. Main P.O.Ann Arbor. MI 48107 Detroit. MI 48232 Norfolk. VA 23501

(313) 961-1680 OaklandAtlantaP.O. Box 32552Box 4012Oakland. CA 94604Atlanta. GA 30302 Los Angeles (415) 835-1535

Box 29574 -Boston Los Feliz Station San.FranciscoBox 840, Central Station Los Angeles. CA 90029 Box 5712Cambridge. MA 02139 (213) 663-1216 San Francisco. CA 94101(617) 492-3928 (415) 863-6963

Chicago Madison Washington, D.C.Box 6441, Main P.O. c/o SYL P.O. Box 75073Chicago. IL 60680 Box 2074 Washington, D.C. 20013(312) 427-0003 Madison, WI 53701 (202) 636-3537

SPARTACIST LEAGUEI U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY

It should be crystal clear that Imerzelis the source of the friction. Over the lastsix months, I have worked closely withMarie Malliett, Frank Tanner, BarbaraAndrews, Margie Marks and HaroldJackson-from the InternationalUnion-on the Ray Palmiero andLauren Mozee defense case. We certain­Iy don't see eye to eye on many politicalquestions, but we've been able to worktogether to defend this brother andsister against the company.

The other good thing that came out ofthis trial is that we helped ax Imerzel'schance to be District 9 Vice President.While we have our differences withBrother Ibsen, at least we can sit downand deal with him reasonably. He's not amegalomaniac. Why is it that. onlyIrnerzel is different? The only conclu­sion I can come to is that Imerzel is aman with no honor. He is a weak,cowardly and sick man who needs help.And I pity the poor International. Whatwill they do with this basket case? I thinkour union ought to give Imerzel all themedical care he needs.

This trial body has been put in animpossible position. If you vote forlmerzel what you are doing is banningfree speech and outlawing any criticismthat lmerzel doesn't like. This would seta dangerous precedent of no oppositionin the union. Such a decision could verywell come back to be used against youand this union in circumstances moreserious. The company is emboldened bylmerzel's lying and sniveling policies.He is disarming the union at a time whenwe must fight. This trial body will haveto live politically with its decision longafter Imerzel is gone.

P-urging fighters from the unioncripples the union and encourages lessunion-conscious members -to becomeanti-union, It's a policy of makingenemies of those who want to make ourunion strong. It's the militants whobuild unions and win strikes. Imerzel isplaying right into the hands of Ma Belland her union-busting propaganda.

To continue this trial would be afarce, subjecting me, the trial body andthe membership to further egotisticalabuse. We have to get on with whatshould be the real business of thisunion-defending our members againstthe company, throwing out all the scabsthat slithered across our picket lines lastAugust, and defending the victims ofthose scabs-like Ray and Lauren.

We were intending to call variousmore witnesses to ask them briefquestions. But it is cl~r from Imerzel'sprojected eight more tdill sessions thathe is bent on making surethis trial neverends. During the' prosecution's case,which took over a year, we had ampletime to raise our points. Wefor one willnot be responsible for squandering anymore of the local's time and money.Therefore, we intend to call no morewitnesses and rest our case.

1-18-84

tionist scheme, from QWL to factfind­ing, that binds us to the bosses. Heaccepts the company's "right" to harass,fire and lay us off. He's for funneling ourmoney and votes into the racist strike­breaking Democratic Party. One of thefew good things that came out of thistrial is that everyone knows that Imerzelcoddles racist Klan lovers like JoeMcKenna. Imerzel wants to forceunanimity to his world view. I'm certain1110st members including yourselveswould find this to be a horrifyingprospect!

Testimony in this trial has broughtout that Imerzel will lie, squanderthousands of dollars and years of ourunion's time, and indulge in his childishPerry Mason fantasies in order to smashany political opposition. Testimony hasshown that Imerzel has fingered me andother MAC members to the company,to the S.F. Red Squad, to the SecretService and to the FBI. And when thisdidn't work, Imerzel and his bullyboys-Knipe, McKenna and Ander­son-s-physically assaulted one lonewoman, MAC member Kat Burnham­during the strike. Even some membersof Imerzel's own Executive Boardcouldn't stomach that cowardly act.

All that Imerzel has proved during his"case" is that there are no limits to howfar he will go to suppress opposition.This would-be McCarthy reaches outand endorses the infamous Moscowpurge trials of Josef Stalin, and thenaccuses me of "totalitarianism." Imerzelapplauds the thugs of the International­ist Workers Party who launched amurderous hammer attack on an L.A.phone worker. This is a group whoseleader Nahuel Moreno is infamous onthe left for his history of lying andswindling. No doubt the NationalUnion wondered what sort of lunaticthey'd unleashed as Imerzel cited hisrogues' gallery list of "leftist experts"against me.

Many of Imerzel's witnesses providedsome amusing entertainment as theyfast-shuffled to keep from tripping overtheir own lies, and then tripped over thelies of others. The last session endedwith Linda Zupan trying to decidewhich of her conflicting answers abouthanding out the racist scab sheetMalignant Action was the best one. Togive credit where it's due, I must thankMiss Zupan for testifying that herboyfriend McKenna was in fact arrestedon the same trip where McKeimaadmitted attending a Ku Klux Klan

.meeting. During the trial; this racistcompared going to Klan meetings withgoing to church. McKenna also deniedsaying that the black splicer, DovardHoward, "crippled by a Klan terroristwas shot by "an irate father." ButImerzel confirmed the remark, calling ita "joke." No joke, brothers and sisters,it's racist filth pure and simple.

But lrnerzel's testimony crowns thelot. After months of local pronounce­ments of no danger from layoffs,followed by claims he told the membersevelJ.'thiQg from the beginning, Imerzeladmitted here that his taped message tothe members was "not accurate." Trans­lated from Imerzel's language thismeans he lied to the membership. Butwe told the truth. That's why I have beenon trial here for a year and a half.

2~

$1.00 Make checks payable/mall to: $2.50Spartaclst Publishing ce., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

KathyIkegami...(continued from page 16)means is I have refused to be arubberstamp f~r Imerzel's policies. Thisunion uses Roberts Rules of Order toprovide an orderly procedure to discuss,debate and come' to decisions. Butnowhere do any of these rules demanddecisions to be unanimous. And I'll bedamned if I'll bend to his concept ofdemocracy and debate. His notions ofdemocracy have more in common withthe Salvadoran junta., One of the charges alleges theexistence of an AP dispatch in which Iam supposed to have told the truthabout Irnerzel, thereby bringing theunion into disrepute. Where is it? It wasnever produced here by Imerzel becauseit never existed.

Then there's the famous MAC leafletfrom April of 1982which triggered thesecharges. First I want to say that we standby every word in that leaflet. Our leafletwarned the members about layoffs,exposed the leadership's collaborationwith the company, and called for strikeaction to stop layoffs, forced transfersand downgrades while we still have jobs.And Imerzel's response? Like Nero whofiddled while Rome burned. Imerzel hasbeen conducting this purge trial whilethe company has been busy smashingour union.

But the real reason I'm on trial isbecause of my politics. Imerzel"charges" me with being a supporter ofthe Spartacist League. That's right andeveryone knows it. It's no slander,Imerzel, it's a badge of honor! What do Istand for? I'm for building anti-fascistdemonstrations like November 27th inWashington, D.C. where I helped aSpartacist League-initiated mobiliza­tion organize 5,000 blacks and tradeunionists. We stopped the Klan frommarching. I stand for the independenceof labor from the capitalist Democratand Republican parties. Neither offerany solutions for working people andminorities. It's the capitalists and theirgovernment that have brought thiscountry to the brink of economic ruinand war, I stand {or building a workersparty based on the unions, throwing outthe capitalists and setting up a workersgovernment which will end racialoppression, poverty. unemploymentand war. Then we can organize asocialist planned economy based onhuman need, not profit.

I have the right and responsibility tosay and organizefor what I believe in. Infact. I urge all members to interestthemselves in these questions and alsobecome supporters of theiSpartacistLeague. It is their right and my right as.U.S. citizens to hold these politicalpositions.

lmerzel, on the other hand. has adifferent view of how I and all membersmust think and act. What does Imerzelstand for? This trial has shown that hestands for purging from the unionanyone who wants to fight the phonecompany. He's for sucking up to thecompany and turning our membershipover bound, gagged and powerless. He'sfor every company class-collabora-

2 MARCH 1984 15

W'RIlERS "II'II'IIIJFreedom and Jobs Back for. Lauren and RayJ/

Alameda Labor Council Backs Phone StrikersOn February 27 the Alameda'

Central Labor Council of the AFL­cia added its backing to the defenseefforts on behalf of Lauren Mozee andRay Palmiero, the two Bay Areaphone workers facing four years instate prison for defending themselvesand their picket line from a racist scabassault. This welcome albeit belatedsupport comes just three days beforethe March I preliminary hearing onthe frame-up charges against thecouple.

The Central Labor Council motion

demands that the Alameda CountyD.A. drop the charges against Laurenand Ray, and against three otherphone workers who face misdemeanorcharges stemming from last summer'snational phone strike. The PhoneStrikers Defense Committee, which isorganizing the defense campaign for"freedom and jobs back for Laurenand Ray," has demanded that thelabor movement use its collectivestrength to defend all phone workersvictimized as a result of the strike.

The PSDC has called fora demon-

stration March I at 8 a.m. at theHayward Municipal Court prior to thepreliminary hearing. Committeespokesmen expect a large turnout ofsupporters to fill the courtroomafterwards to show their determinedopposition to the conspiracy betweenthe vindictive phone company, copsand D.A. to railroad the labormilitants.

While on picket duty last August inthe racist suburb of San Leandro,Lauren was called a "black niggerbitch" and struck in the face by a racist ~

scab manager, one Michelle RoseHansen. Lauren defended herself; hercompanion and fellow unionist Raycame to her assistance. Now Laurenand Ray are fired, denied unemploy­ment compensation and are singledout for the only felony charges thePSDC is aware of stemming from thestrike. The racist scab, of course, stillhas her job.

The Central Labor Council joins themore than 200 labor officials who aredemanding an end to the persecution

continued on page /4

"Militant Action" Bulletin

lkegami to Imerzel:Take Your Trial and Shove It!

Throw Out the Witchhunt Verdict!

Phone Workers:Defend Kathy Ikegami!SAN FRANCISCO-On February 10,the longest-running witchhunt trial inthe history of the CommunicationsWorkers of America (CWA) reached aclimax as the kangaroo court returnedits "verdict." The target of this purgeattempt is Kathy lkegarni, a formerexecutive board member ofCWA Local9410,'. steward and nine-year member of,the union, and a leading spokesman ofthe Militant Action Caucus (MAC). theclass-struggle opposition in the tele­phone union. After a year and a half ofphony deliberations the trial court.hand-picked by Local 9410 presidentJimlmerzel, declared lkegami guilty ofall charges. sentencing her to a six­month suspensionfrom the union and a$300 fine. Imerze1. and his_ co­conspirators on the local executiveboard lost no time' in . suspendinglkegami, in direct violation of CW Arules that specify that a member isentitled to an appeal before their localwithin 30 days before any sentence iscarried out.

Ikegami told WV: "Since the execu­tive board is not complying with the trialprocedures by failing to call a member­ship meeting. I am compelled to call aspecial membership meeting, as man­dated by our local bylaws in order togive the mem bers of Local 9410 the rightto hear my appeal and cast their voteagainst this outrageous and unjustconviction. It is also my right to beheard and judged by my peers, themembers. To forbid the membership toexercise this right places the union in aposition of jeopardy." A MAC-initiatedpetition for a special meeting gatheredover 500 signatures. more than twice therequired number, in just one week.

As we reported at the outset (see WVNo. 313.17 September 1982), this purgetrial was triggered by MAC's exposureof the CW A bureaucrats' collusion withthe company in agreeing to mass layoffs,forced transfers and downgrading and awar of attrition against the membership.Since that time the company has cut18,000 jobs throughout California.

16

MAC members in East Bay Local 9415told WV that phone workers are under avirtual reign of terror there withgrueling forced overtime and stepped­up management harassment. spying andvictimizations. The suspensionof Ikega­mi isan open invitation for the companyto fire her and an attempt to intimidateand silence any opposition to the bu­reaucrats' no-fight agreement with thecompany. The central charge on which1kegami was convicted. she., told WV,was "divid[ing] the leadership of thisUnion and its Rank-and-File mern­bers"! But it's theIrnerzel gang's unitywith the company that divides -thernfrom the membership.

As the MAC's bulletin "MilitantAction" (15 February 1984) underlines:

"We all know they're goingafter Kathy'because of herpoliticalviews. Kathyisaproud supporter of the labor/socialistSpartacist League. She stands for theindependence of labor from the capital­ist Democraticand Republicanparties.She's for buildinga workersparty basedon the unions. to throw out thecapitalists and form a workersgovern­ment. She's for. ending the union'snotorious tiesto the CIA-AIFLD. She'sfor buildinganti-fascistdemonstrationslikeNovember 27th[1982] inWashing­ton. D.Cwhere a Spartacist League­initiated mobilization organized 5.000blacksand trade unionistswho stoppedthe Klan from marching. She's forbuilding a class-struggle union leader­ship that doesn't kneel before thecompany."

This is the kind of leadership andprogram the CWA membership desper­ately needs. And when CW A nationalpresident Glenn Watts put out the wordat the 1982convention to "Stop MAC."it's because he is opposed to everythingKathy Ikegami stands for! As the"Militant Action" bulletin pointed out.referring to the pro-Watts Imerzel gang:"These people should go to work for theCIA-AI FLO, but then again, maybethey already have."

lkegarni told WV that in illegally~ suspending her from the union Imerzel

and the local executive board chargedKathy with having "utter and complete

Kathy Ikegami. .(lower left) supports

Greyhound s~rikers atSan Francisco rally.

contempt -for, and disregard of theunion membership and the policies andprocedures established by them." Thisfrom the very same people, who aretrampling on the members' 'rights andthe CW A's own rules by suspendingIkegami before her appeal to the local!In total disregard for the will of themembership Imerzel had earlier gerry­mandered lkegami off the executiveboard, simply dropping her on the basisthat since divestiture her job is in adifferent company than the one she waselected from! Ikegami then ran for re­election to the executive board on theMAC slate. Now to keep Ikegami off theexecutive board and to deny themembership even the democratic rightto elect its own leadership, the Imerzelclique has,demanded that the ballots bedestroyed uncounted. The bureaucratsare trying to simply declare lkegamiineligible to run based on their ownillegal suspension of her (which tookplace after the ballots were already out).They have declared their own candidate

From' the beginning it's been clearthat this isa political purge trial. Imerzelbrought these charges because I'm in the~'Militant Action Caucus which is aneffective. organized. political opposi­tion to the policies of the National andlocal leadership. Imerzel has proventhat he is the disrupter: He has brought

the winner by acclamation!This rule-or-ruin policy of the Imerzel

gang is not- new. Last year over 1.000local members demanded the recall oflocal officers lmerzel, Malliett, McKen­na and Anderson for their harboring ofMcKenna, who admitted attending aKKK meeting, and for their disruptionof the local in their attempt to purgeIkegami. The bureaucrats, elected byonly half the number of votes as thesignatures on the recall, simply threwthe petitions in the trash. Local 9410members can and must squash theverdict against Kathy Ikegami. As theMAC wrote: "The trial court's decisionbans free speech and outlaws anycriticism that Imerzel and his croniesdon't like. If this conviction is carriedout it will set a dangerous precedent­no dissent, no opposition will beallowed in our union."

We print below Kathy lkegami'sclosing statement to the trial court,taken from the January 18 "MilitantAction" bulletin.

the union into disrepute. This trial hasbeen' an exercise in self indulgence forone man's sick ego.

Let me quickly answer each charge.The first charge says I willfully violatedthe by-laws by voting against stewardand committee appointments. What this

continued on page15

2 MARCH 1984 -