WfJRKERI "'1NGO'1" 25¢No. 210 ~--,...• .-.- .. III ')1) 30 June 1978

Skokie Pullback No Victory

Labor Must Drive NazisOut of Chicago!

Courts OkayBrownshirtMarches in

Jewish Suburb,Southside Ghetto

CHICAGO With the recent Sko­kie court decisions. the capitalistjudges have handed Frank Collin'spunk brownshirts what they want­ed all along: cop-protected freeaccess to the streets and parks ofChicago for organizing murderousracist terror. Federal judge GeorgeLeighton ruled June 22 that theChicago Park District could notrequire an insurance bond fromthe Nazis. thus opening up Mar­qu~tte Park as a staging area forCollin's thugs. It was in this ethnicstronghold of white racism thatthe Nazis managed to I:::ad "whitepower" mobilizations against openhousing marches two years ago.The quick court action was part ofa deal made with the Nazis to calloff their threatened June 25provocation in the heavily Jewishsuburb of Skokie.

Collin, a sociopathic little creepwho fashions his hair and politics

after Hitler and dreams of asecond holocaust. was delightedwith the Skokie-for-Marquettetradeoff. He declares the Naziswill indeed rally in MarquettePark July 9. ''I'm more interestedin Marquette Park. It's -our hornebase. It's only a stone's throwfrom our headquarters. and I can'tspeak there." he complained as heset forth his conditions for thedeal.

Racked up by the AmericanCivil Liberties Lnion (i\CLL) inthe courtrl,OIll and in the press.the :\a/is haw pla~ed the '"humanrights" angle for all it is worth.Sitting at his desk in '"GeorgeLincoln Rockwell Hall" in frl~nt ofhis giant swastika flag and flankedby uniformed stormtroopers, the"little FUhrer" Lf"wed t6 reportersthat the decision guaranteed the!\'azis' "rights":

'"It was pure agitation to restoreour right to free speech. Thisagitating pressure has nowworked. I have decided thatbecause our rights were restored.the demonstration scheduled forSkokie is cance:led."

-- UPI. 22 JuneWhat has "now worked" for

Collin is the capitalist state-thecontinued on page 2

~

UPI

Chicago cops mobilize to defend two-bit FUhrer Collins (with bullhorn) andhis Nazi scum from angry protestors.

Behind theJDL Turn

4

3

6

ILWU StopsBombs toChile

"Eurotrotskyists"Fete Euro­communists

A Ruling-Class Squabble

'"Slash taxes~" is the new rallyingcry of middle-class backlash inAmerica. The .June 61andslide votefor the Janis-Gann amendment(Proposition 13) in California.which slashed property taxes 60percent for big business and home­owners alike. has touched off anexplosion of aggressi\e right-wingpoliticking and sent elected offi­cials across the nation scramblingto jump on the budget-cuttinghandwagon.

This outburst against high taxesand gmcrnment spending is fed inpart by \\idespread grrevancesagainst spiraling taxes and govern­ment corruption and inefficiency.With inflation at record levels inrecent years. many small home­owners have seen their propert~

taxes triple. quadruple. even quin­tuple mer the past ten years. Rut

COllliIlIlCc! Oil paRc 8

Right Wing Whips UpTax Revolt Fever

Thousands Massed, Scab Trucks StopP-l!d

Strikers Backed Down Daill News

WORKERS VANGUARD

crossing the street without permission.Two strikers were struck by cars thatnight one after dodging ice cubes andfruit thrown from the roof of a luxuryapartment building.

After hours of closed-door meetings agroup of d rivers emerged to join thepicket line at 10 p.m. carrying hand­lettered signs reading, "This DriverSupports the Guild." Rumors wereflying. however, that La Chance hadordered the drivers to scab in exchangefor a promise by the News to write offthe huge damages assessed against theDeliverers Union bv a court in theaftermath of a drive(s' wildcat last year.At II p.m .. as on the previous night, thetrucks began to pull out, dispatched by adetective with a walkie-talkie. Strikerssucceeded in trapping one truck andpulled the driver out of the cab. Only apolice charge saved the scab from hiswell desened reward. Just two blocksaway a striker had been knocked to theground with a metal pipe by a scabdriver returning from deliveries. Atmidnight more drivers defected to theGuild side of the picket lines, to thecheers of the strikers. The night'sbusiness ended at four in the morningwhen two Neil'S trucks parked nearbywere allegedly firebombed.

On the third day of the strike, June 15,the management of the Times enteredthe fray by canceling their contract withthe Guild and announcing their solidari­ty with the News bosses by unilaterallyending the closed shop and dues check­off rights of the union. In addition, theTimes hinted that it would shut downand lock out Times workers if the strikec·ontinued. However, pressure con­tinued to mount on La Chance to callout the drivers. After a meeting in.theNews garage the drivers walked out withtheir fists in the air at 10:20 p.m. andjubilation spread through the Guildranks. "We're gonna win! We're gonnawin!" they shouted. A chorus of picket­ers addressed the scabs in the printingplant: "Back to Oklahoma! Back toOklahoma!" The News didn't evenattempt to publish that night andattention shifted to the negotiationswhich had resumed the previous day.Late Friday night a contract wasapprovedgy Guild negotiators andratified by an overwhelming majority ofmembers on Saturday.

The strike ended as a partial victoryfor the Guild only in the negative sensethat the worst of the News owners'demands were rejected and the Guildwas not weakened in a long losing strike.But the contract is worse than even thefederal mediator's proposal! Sick pay,severance pay and medical benefits wereall reduced. In addition all futureemployees will be hit with lower wages,reduced job security and other cuts inbenefits. Most importantly, the eightcraft unions that honored Guild picketlines returned to work without acontract. Whatever these workers maywin without a strike would surely havebeen improved if the picket lines hadstayed up until all workers had settled.

The Guild's partial victory is mostimpressive when compared with thelong string of broken newspaper strikesculminating in the Washington Postdebacle-and is a real tribute to thetrade-union militancy of the Ne ....·sworkers. But the basic question in thisindustry, job security in the face ofmassive automation, was not settled inthe News strike and will not be settledwithout a fight for a shorter workweekwith no loss in pay. This struggle, inturn, can be waged only by fighting for aclass-struggle leadership in the newspa­per unions.•

secured at bayonet-point if necessary.It is no surprise that the swastikacomes wrapped in the stars and stripes.

The word went down from Wash­ington: let the Nazis organize. And so itwas done. For the ACLU, which hasacted as the consistent civil libertariandefender of fascists from Camp Pendle­ton to Far Rockaway, the decision was"a ringing victory for democracy." The,Veil' York Times (25 June) was similarly

· ....·ont to let freedom ring for the Nazis,editorially "gratified that his [Collin's]right to speak has been upheld." TheTimes editors echoed the developingliberal consensus: "As for the Nazis, letthem march."

For the bourgeoisie and the Nazis.the real victory consisted in defusingthe momentum toward what mighthave been the largest anti-fascistmobilization in this country in dec­ades. Skokie had become a focus for

continued on page 9

contract had already been negotiated.would deliver it.

Two thousand picketers chanted"Kecp 'cm out!" as Doug La Chance, thedrivers' union leader, walked past policelines into the Ne\l's garage Tuesdaynight. Half of the Ne\l's' 760 driversfailed to report for work but 176 of thosewho did obeyed La Chance's order toscab and trucks began pulling into theloading docks at about I J p.m. Onehundred fifty cops were on hand to holdback the picketers and usher the scabtrucks out onto the street. The scab­herding cops quickly moved in to dragoff and arrest strikers who tried to blockthe trucks and nightstick-swingingmounted police repeatedly charged thepicket lines. As each truck careened outof the loading dock and swerved downSecond Avenue, a squad car withflashing lights shot out after it to escortthe scab trucks past the angry strikers.By the next morning less than half theusual circulation had been delivered.

On the picket lines the next day,Wednesday, June 14, the mood was sourand angry. Cheers greeted Guild unitsfrom the Times and Post as they joinedthe line but strikers were bitter about thepolice violence. Many swore they wouldnever support the threatened New Yorkpolice strike. Several strikers werenearly trampled as mounted policecharged into a group of "strollers." Oneman was beaten and arrested just for

Monaster/N. Y Daily News

Dally News delivery truck burning near the News building before driversagreed to honor Newspaper Guild picket lines.

and labor organizations over Skokie­consisted primarily of the hard core ofright-wing Jewish Defense Leaguesupporters and a broad range ofleftists.

As the "Jazis goose-stepped behindtheir cop escort. the crowd surgedtoward the police' line. Eggs, woodenstaves and debris began arching overthe wall of cops. striking Nazis (whowere armed with wooden shields) andphotographers. Several times the copsbeat their way forward"to drive backthe crowd, while plainsclothesmen andfederal marshals picked out individualsand dragged them away.

Swastikas in the Land of"Human Rights"

The showdown which was shapingup for Skokie had become a nationalissue. The Nazi m{)bilizations weredebated in the highest bodies ofgovernment, which decided that theNazis' "human rights" were to be

lengthy strikes at such papers as the LosAfl{;eles Herald-Examiner and morerecently the Washifl{;ton Post. newspa­per unions have either been crippled oroutright broken. The key in each ofthese defeats was the ability of thepublishers to print and distribute scab­produced papers. The Neil'S followedthis pattern by importing live-in strike­breakers from Chicago and the notori­ous Publishers Association scab­training school in Oklahoma City. Ifmanagement had succeeded in printingand delivering their scab paper the veryexistence of the Guild as an effectiveunion would' have been called intoquestion.

Victory or defeat for the Guild strikethus hinged on the willingness of tenother unions at the Dai(1' Neil'S to honorGuild picket lines. Strikebreaking byone or more unions has unfortunatelybeen the rule and not the exception innewspaper strikes. During this Ne'onstrike printers in the InternationalTypographical Union betrayed theirunion brothers and scabbed from theoutset. But eight other craft unionswhose contracts had expired along withthe Guild's honored the picket lines.Despite their support, however, man­agement and scab labor succeeded inproducing a reduced-size paper on June13, the first night of the strike. Thequestion in everyone's mind waswhether or not the drivers, whose

Skokie...(continued from page 1)courts, cops, troops and prisons whichwait for any "disrupter" of the Nazis'"right" to organize racist terror andanti-Semitic provocation. Just how wellit worked was demonstrated within daysafter the court decision. At the Nazivictory rally June 24 in the downtownLoop, 800 Chicago cops protectedCollin's 25 stormtroopers by crackingheads and arresting some 14 of an es­timated 2,000 anti-Nazi demonstrators.

The Nazis arrived at the FederalPlaza in a police paddywagon andemerged from the Federal Buildingbehind a solid wall of riot-helmetedcops who surrounded them on threesides. The counterdemonstration-apale reflection of the confrontationwhich had been brewing between theNazis and community groups, leftists

2

Labor solidarity and militancy wonthe da'y for the Newspaper Guild when,after three days of strike against the NewYork Dailr Nell·s. management wasforced on June 17 to abandon anaggressive assault on journalists andother newsroom employees. Qne of themost electric strikes in NYC duringrecent years was marked by three tensedays in which the striking Guild mem­bers were joined by thousands of angryfellow workers in surrounding the Ne\l'sheadquarters building on East 42ndStreet almost 'round the clock.

Groups of "strollers" tied up traffic asthey slowly crossed and recrossedintersections: hundreds of militantsharassed scab drivers at the loadingdoc",". occasionally tl~sslng bottles: onedriver \ery nearly received an unforget­table. lesson in the consequences ofstrikebreaking, and two delivery vanswere torched before the strikersmanaged to stop the trucks. But by thenthe /Vell'.\· bosses had had enough anddecided to bide their time until a betteropportunity.

The turning point in the five-daystrike came on the third day when rank­and-file pressure forced the president ofthe "Jewspaper and Mail DeliverersUnion, Doug La Chance, to call out thedelivery drivers and join eight othercraft unions in support of the 1,340Guild strikers. In the face of thisunanticipated union militancy, theSell's O\'iners resumed negotiations andquickly agreed to a contract whichdeleted the lengthy list of so-called"retrogressions" in union benefits, jobsecurity, automation protection and payraises which they had originallydemanded.

It was the Nell's publishers whoforced the walkout by rejecting acontract proposed by federal mediators(and approved by the Guild) whichwould have included cutbacks in sickpay and other benefits. In demandingnumerous unacceptable "givebacks:'such as a proposal to award 75 percentof all pay raises on the basis ofmanagement-determined "merit," theNe\l's owners' goal was obvious--toprovoke a strike which would weakenthe power of the Guild and craft unionsto block future automation and union­busting attempts. "In the entire time I'vebeen here:' one reporter observed, "I'venever seen management so intent on astrike" (Nell' York Timfs, 16 June).

For many years the printing tradesunions have been steadily ground downby massive automation and attacks onunion-enforced work rules. In a series of

First U.S. Union Action Since '73 Coup

ILWU Stops Bombs toCh;lel

Karen Kerschen WV Photo

ILWU refused to load bomb casings (left) destined for Pinochet junta. At June 24 suppprt demonstration (right,Stalinists tried to censor slogans against popular frontism.

Marxist Working-Class Biweeklyof the Spartaclst League of the U.S.

30 June 1978No. 210

WfJ/iKE/iS',NGIJ,/iIJ

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION Darlene Kamiura

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mike Beech

EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule, CharlesBurroughs, George Foster, liz Gordon,James Robertson, Joseph Seymour

Published biweekly, skipping an issue inAugust and a week in December, by theSpartacist Publishing Co., 260 WestBroadway, New York, NY 10013. Telephone:966-6841 (Editorial), 925-5665 (Business).Address all correspondence to: Box 1377,G.P.O., New York, NY 10001. Domesticsubscriptions: $5.00/48 issues. Second-classpostage paid at New York, NY.

Opinion$expressed in signed articles orletters-do not necessarily express theeditorial viewpoint.

carried out by Pinochet and hisgenerals.

Demonstrating their deep hatred forthose who challenge and expose theirreformist treachery. the rally organizersattempted-unsuccessfully~toexcludecontingents from the Spartacist League.the "Longshore Militant." the MilitantCaucus of IL WU Local 6 and theCommittee for a Militant UA W. Stalin­ist goon Tony Wilkinson, a member ofthe Local 6 executive board, denouncedthe class-struggle contingents as "fas­cist," while Billy Proctor of Local toobjected to their signs and chants. at onepoint trying to grab the SL megaphone.(The SL banner read "Support ILWUAction-No Pop Front Illusions--ForWorkers Revolution in Chile.")

The hot-cargoing of the bombshipments is certainly a step forward bythe longshormen. But genuine interna­tional labor solidarity cannot be consis­tently carried out by reformists who tiethemselves to the dictates of the imperi­alist U.S. government. which helpedengineer the bloody 1973 coup andwhich tomorrow will again seek tothrottle the Chilean masses. Realsolidarity can be achieved only throughan independent class policy: No faith inthe imperialist Democratic Party! Nopopular front coalitions with the bour­geoisie! Boycott all military goods toChile! For workers revolution inChile!_

tional solidarity only when it coincideswith U. S. imperialist hypocrisy. BothILWU International and Local 10

- officers have been quick to note that theboycott had the backing of SenatorKennedy. And in a later press release.dated June 21. Herman declared: "Wehope to get the White House and theState Department to take a very closelook at what they are doing to furtherinvolve the U.S. in support of a brutalmilitary regime -the final answer mustcorne from the White House."

In line with this. State Departmentspokesman John Trattmer announcedin Washington that the bomb shipment"will not be loaded while this assessmentof the human rights situation is goingon" (San Francisco Chronicle. 24 June).The same day as this statement the U.S.recalled its ambassador to Chile. offi­cially because of the foot-dragging ofthe Pinochet regime (not to mentionthat of the FBI/CIA) in the investiga­tion of the assassination of OrlandoLetelier two years ago. Presumably afterthe U.S. "assessment." the bomb ship­ments will be resumed unless longshore­men take matters into their own hands.

As for the role of the Stalinists. theypursued their usual course of tailing theILWU bureaucracy. When ArchieBrown's associate Billy Proctor wasapproached by Gow and Keylor at theEsmeralda rally May 20 for a jointappeal to Local 10 and the Internation­al to hot-cargo the bombs, Proctorrefused. urging instead moral appeals toCarter and declaring: "We have tosupport President Carter against theU.S. military. which is getting out ofhand!" ("Longshore Militant," 2 June)

Of course, after the ILWU officialsreversed their policy, the Stalinistshailed what they had opposed! OnJune 24 a demonstration of about 75people took place at the Oakland ArmyBase to support the ILWU action. Therally was addressed by such speakers asCPer Archie Brown, ILWU bureaucratHerb Mills and a representative of ChileDemocnhico. which politically sup­ports the Chilean popular front. TheStalinists, trade-union hacks and ChileDemocratico all have in common theirkowtowing to bourgeois politicians andthe capitalist legal order. In fact, it wasthe illusion. sowed by the Allende gov­ernment. that the Chilean militarywould abide loyally by the constitutionthat left the working masses unpreparedand defenseless before the savage coup

Gow and Keylor presented theirresolution:

'"21 crates of bomb fins are sitting on thedock at Pier 32 consigned to be shippedto the Chilean Air force on the Pruden­tial Sea .lei .I une 4. Local 10 will nothandle this shipment of military goodsto the Chilean Junta (by executiveaction)."This Local refuses to load am militancargo for shipment to the Junta whichdestroved the trade union mmementand suppresses the Chilean workingclass."

"Longshore Militant." 2 June

Without batting an eyelash. and withhardly any discussion, the executiveboard majority routinely voted themotion down. But the heat was on. OnJune 2 Gow and Keylor issued a leafletblasting this treachery and demandingan end to the inaction of the bureau­crats. While the Dispatcher now assertsthat the union informed the stevedoringfirm as early as May 31 that it was nothandling the bombs, the ILWU mem­bership was kept in the dark until mid­June. The Local 10 executive memberswho earlier voted against the Gow /Keylor motion are now walking aroundwith egg on their faces. while Local 10secretary-treasurer Herb Mills. who wasnot present at the May 25 vote. isbelatedly and hypocritically praising the"progressisve" tradition of the ILWU.

Whatever the truth about the murkychronology of events that underlie theabrupt reversal in ILWU policy, whatseems unmistakable is that the actionsof Jimmy Herman & Co. have beenclosely synchronized with a shift in theattitude of Democratic Party leaderstoward the Pinochet dictatorship. Aftera period of pressuring thejunta to adoptcosmetic reforms, the Carter adminis­tration has recently begun openlyexpressing displeasure with Pinochet~

an obvious invitation to a palace coup tooverthrow the tyrant the U.S. helpedinstall. Herman's June 14 press releaseannouncing the boycott was swiftlyfollowed by an endorsement fromSenator Ted Kennedy, just returnedfrom Geneva and a meeting withChilean exiles participating in a widelypublicized hunger strike initiated inSantiago. whose purpose was to press­ure the junta into disclos.ing the wherea­bouts of over 2,500 "disappeared"political prisoners. Kennedy piouslyurged the Carter administration to haltthe shipment of bombs "at least until thehuman rights situation is clarified inChile."

The bureaucrats "discover" interna-

SAl" FRANCISCO, June 25~Forovera month, a shipment oj' 21 crates oj'bomb assemblies bound for the blood­drenched Chilean junta has beenstranded in the Bay Area, thanks to theexemplan action oj' the InternationalLonKshoremen's and Warehousemen'sUnion (lLWUj! The refusal of ILWUlongshoremen to load the deadly cargoon any ship marks the first time since theCIA-backed Pinochet junta overthrewthe democratically elected Allendegovernment. outlawed trade unions,and jailed and killed tens of thousandsof Chilean work'ers that an Americantrade union has implemented such agenuine act of solidaritv with theirChilean class brothers. .

According to an account carried inthe Il.WlJ Dispalcher of 16 June. theunion learned via a phone call from ananonymous longshoreman of the pres­ence of the cargo at Picr 32 in SanFrancisco. where it was awaiting thearrival of the Prudcntial Lines ship, theSS SeaiCl. The Dispalcher asserts thaton May 31 the IL WU notified theCrescent Wharf and Warehouse. theemployer responsible for loading thecargo. that they would not handle thebombs. (In fact. however, the ILWUpolicy was not made public until twoweeks later.) Meanwhile, the cargo hadbeen moved from the San Franciscodocks and was again "discovered" by theILWU ostensibly through anotheranonymous tip~to be at the OaklandArmy Base. where it was awaitinganother ship.

When the ILWU action became frontpage news in the San Francisco Examin­er on 18 June ("ILWU Halts Bombs toChile"). a U.S. Air Force spokesman inWashington tried to defend the ship­ment on the grounds they were merely"practice bombs" with no explosivecharges! But the ILWU rightly contin­ued to refuse to load the cargo. A fewdays later. a spokesman for the OaklandArmy Base announced that "As of now.they are not going to be loaded, period.on any ship" (San Francisco Examiner23 June).

In a statement issued June 14, ILWUpresident Jimmy Herman asserted thatthe refusal to work the military cargowas in accordance with past ILWUpolicy. including convention resolutionsauthorizing a boycott of all shipments ofcargo to Chile. This self-congratulatoryclaim is a complete phony. For the pastfew years. the ILWU International hasrepeatedly ignored calls for dockwork­ers' action against the Chilean junta.For instance, when the InternationalTransport Workers Federation issued acall for a two-day boycott of Chileancargo on 18 September 1974. the ILWUInternational did nothing to mobilizethe ranks. and in Los Angeles ILWUpresident Harry Bridges personallyordered the unloading of Chilean cargo.I! was only the efforts of militants wholater formed the "Longshore Militant"group, along with picket lines initiatedby the Spartacist League, which stoppedChilean cargo in L.A. and San Francis­co in that two-day period.

As recently as May 25, the Local 10executive board voted down a motionby "Longshore Militant" publishersStan Gow and Howard Keylor demand­ing that the bombs be hot-cargoed. Gowand Keylor first learned of the shipmenton May 20 ~a full three days before theILWU ostensibly got its anonymoustip!- when now retired CommunistParty (CP) docks leader Archie Brownmentioned the presence of the bombsduring a rally against the Chileantorture ship Esmeralda. Five days later

30 JUNE 1978 3

Behind the JOt "Turn"

How Jewish Backlash Aidedu.s. Neo-Nazis

Terrorist Wing of InternationalZionism

JDL contingent at Skokie demonstration against Nazll lalt year.

11m/--, \'

"-Der Spiegel

RUlsel Kelner at JDL office in 1974threatened to kill PLO leader Arafatwith .38.

local right-wing white ethnic groupsfolded up. In contrast. the JDL turnedtoward another target. exchanging itslead pipes for fire bomhs.

While most Jews in the U.S. and WestEurope have greater or lesser sympathyfor Israel. few intend to go there andsettle. The only potential significantpool of Jewish emigration to Israel is inthe Soviet Union. In the early 1970'sright-wing Zionists in the U.S. andIsrael were determined to force the massemigration of Soviet Jews to Israel.Some Russian Jews did \vant to emi­grate to Israel and were prevented fromdoing so hy the Soviet bureaucracy.Many Soviet Jews who did go to Israeldiscovered that they didn't like theZionist "Promised Land" and tried tore-emigrate to the U.S .. West Europe oreven back to Russia. H oweyer, right­wing Zionists conspired to force theKremlin to encourage Jewish emigra­tion. Moscow obliged in order toappease Western public opinion.

What we had here was a genuineinternational Zionist conspiracy againstthe USSR, and Kahane's JDL was at theheart of it. In the early 1970's theseZionist criminals waged a campaign ofviolent harassment and terror againstSoyiet diplomatic. economic and cul­tural activities in the U.S. and also WestEurope. In 1971 Kahane publiclyproclaimed: "The life of every Russianhere will be made miserable" (quoted inThe I Story of' the Jel-t'ish Def'enseLeague). Actually, the JDL's terroristtactics were not limited to harassment.Kahane's gang attempted to make thelives of Soviet citizens in the U.S. notonly miserable. but shorter.

• In January 1971 a fire bombexploded in the Soviet embassy's cultur­,!I building in Washington. D.C.

• In April 1971 Soviet trade offices inAmsterdam. Holland were fire bombed.

• In October 1971 four shots from ahigh-powered rifle were fired into theSoviet U'\ mission in 1\1 ew York City.

• In June 1972 the offices of SolHurok. a major promoter of Sovietcultural events in the U.S .. were firebombed. One woman was killed andthirteen other people injured. After eachof these terrorist acts, the police ornewspapers were called by people who

UPI

However. the J 0 L was more thananother ethnic "white backlash" group.a Brooklyn Jewish version of the SouthBoston Marshals. Its leadership hadglobal political ambitions and connec­tions. Meir Kahane was not only aveteran Zionist agitator. but also aprofessional anti-communist. The origi­nal JDL manifesto contained an attackon the left and black radicalism thatcould haye been written by a moreliterate version of Spiro Agnew orRonald Reagan:

"The Left has arisen with startlingspeed. nourished by youthful horedom.personal rehellion. the search for ne\\excitement and meaning. the lashingout against parental. school and allother authority. Seiling upon a univer­sal desire for peace. plenty and justice.the Left cynically uses the young toattack authority. destroy order. incitehatred and bring closer the day thatdemocran and freedom perishes. Tyr­anl1\ and totalitarianism is the Leftaltei native."A minority of Black '\Ialis has sudden­1\ arisen to'declare war on white skins in,in ohscene and ironic duplication of theworst of Klanism. This movementwould destroy its own people even whilevowing to destroy white America. Itsbaggage is intellectual know­nothingism. brute force. the moloto\cocktail and the incendiary speech."

Jewish Defense l.eague.A Hani(es/()

A year before he formed the JDLKahane co-authored The Jell'ish Stakein Vietflam under the pseudonym ofMichacl King. When the black national­ist wave ehhed in the early 1970's, most

reaucracy. In early 1969 the JDL brokeup a meeting of the New Left-StalinoidFreedom and Peace Party which fea­tured Leslie Campbell, Jew-baitingleader of the Afro-American TeachersAssociation, a black nationalist groupout to destroy the UFT. A few monthslata JDL goons marched onto thelargely Jewish Brooklyn College, beatup some SDSers. forced their way intothe dean's office and warned him not togive in to the demands of "Third Worldstudents." Throughout this period theJDL operated vigilante squads to bring"law and order" to the Jewish neighbor­hoods of Brooklyn and Queens,

tendent in Brooklyn, Rhody McCoy,attempted to break the heavily JewishUnited Federation of Teachers (U FT) inhis district and turn the teaching staffinto his personal fiefdom. This fit neatly.into plans by New York's liberal mayor.John Lindsay. and the Ford Founda­tion to bust the power of the UFT andset minorities against the unions bydecentralizing the school system. TheSpartacist League was one of, he few leftorganizations which defended the or­ganized labor movement against thismajor attack by black petty-bourgeoishustlers a nd their bourgeois liberal allies.

In this period when blacks and Jewswere clawing at each other over jobs,college placements and social services,the Spartacist League strived to turnblack militancy instead against thecapilGlists. One of the black demandswhich furthered the growth of the JDLwas that admissions to New York City'spublic colleges be proportional to theethnic make-up of the high schoolstudent population. While we criticallysupported this demand as preferable tothe class- and race-biased "merit" svs­tem. we campaigned for open admis­sions. no tuition and a state-paid stipendfor all students.

The kind of appeal which the JDLmade to the economic insecuritv of theJewish middle class is indicated bv itsfounding leader. Meir Kahane, i~ hisbook. The Storr of'the Jewish Def'ensel-eague (1975):

"Merit was the on Iv vardstick thatguaranteed hundreds' of thousands ofI(mer middle-class Jews the opportuni­t\ to make a living. :"iow Blacks (andfollowing them. other ethnic groups)were demanding an end to the systemand calling for reverse discriminationand lluotas. a return to the I1lIll/crus

,lal/llIS of Europe that had seen Je\\ishopportunity limited to their percentageof the general population."

The JDL was the terrorist wing of theJewish backlash. Formed in May 1968,its first public act was picketing NewYork University to demand the ouster ofJohn Hatchett. head of the school'sAfro-American Student Center. Hatch­ett, a black nationalist, had beendismissed as a New York public schoolteacher in part for denouncing Jewish"domination" of the educational bu-

On 9 May 1969 the well-known blackmilitant James Forman was supposed toappear at Manhattan's prestigious Jew­ish synagogue. Temple Emanu-EI. todemand "reparations" for the centuries­old oppression of his people. That day asmall group of young men armed withlead pipes and baseball bats stood infront of the Temple and said they would"break both Forman's legs" if he showedup. He didn·t.

Shortly thereafter this little-knowngroup placed an ad in the Se\\ }'orkTillles (~4 .I une 1969) head lined: "Is This'\ny Wa\ for "ice Jewish BO\s toBehan:"" The answer:

"\1'1\ he there is onl\ one \\'1\ to lletaL'ro~s a clear respori,e to peo'plc \\110threaten sei/ure of synagogues and<:"torti'1l1 of monC\. \la\he nice Je\\lshhovs do not al\\',:\S get throullh tope()ple \\ ho threatei1 t(; carry te,;chersout in pine ho:\es and hurn downmerchants stores."

Thus the world was introduced to theJewish Defense League (.IDL).

Last month. almost nine years later.the JDL once again placed an ad in the.\'1'\1 }'ork Tillles (28 May). This time.howewr. the target of the JDL'shostility was quite different:

"We have watched the rise of anti­semitism in America over the pastdecade. and we are frightened. We see'a7i parties springing up around thecountry and gaining momentum eachvear. ";'1 n view of this. our 'ational Board hasdecided that for the present andforeseeahle i future. that our mainpriority will he fighting the 'a/is in thiscountry."

This seemingly significant shift inactivity represents not so much a changein the nature of the JDL as in thepolitical climate in the country since thelate 1960's. And the anti-black. anti­communist JDL helped create thepresent political climate in which "whitepower" fascist groups are growing.

Jews Join the White Backlash

While the JDL gained internationalnotoriety by its attacks on Sovietdiplomats in the early 1970's. it originat­ed primarily as an anti-black nationalistorganization. The emergence of thisright-wing para-military Jewish organi­zation was in the main a reaction to theaspirations and activities of late 1960'sblack radicalism. Even more so thanother white urban ethnic groups, thedemands of black militancy affected thetraditionally liberal and heavily middle­class Jewish community. A large pro­portion of merchants. landlords. etc. inpoor black neighborhoods were Jewsand they were a natural target of theghetto outbreaks of the 1960's. Evenmore importantly the path out of ghettosqualor for a small percentage ofblack youth -through the public col­leges and a career in the governmentbureaucracy threatened the narroweconomic base of the Jewish middleclass. Black demands for a larger shareof college admissions and civil serviceposts affected the Jewish populationmore than the Italian, Irish, Polish, etc.

The most important confrontationbetween black nationalism and the"Jewish community" was the 1968 NewYork City teachers' strike (which oc­curred a few months after the JDL wasfounded). In the name of "communitycontrol," a black school district superin-

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

Former JDL leader Meir Kahane speaking at 1975 rally In New York City.

used the JDL slogans "Free SovietJewry" or "Let My People Go."

While its terrorist acts against theUSSR were capturing front page head­lines throughout the world, the JDL wasalso using its weapons against Americanleftists who agitated against Zionistrepression of the Palestinian people.Our own organization had occasionto defend itself against Kahane'sarmed thugs. In early 1973 the Sparta­cist League/ Revolutionary CommunistYouth (predecessor of the SpartacusYouth League) initiated a united-frontdefense campaign for members of twoIsraeli leftist organizations who hadbeen imprisoned and tortured. A fewdays before a planned demonstrationoutside the Israeli UN mission, wereceived a call in the name of the JDLthreatening to "kill" all "the commies."We were not cowed by the Zionist thugsand the demonstration took place asscheduled. In the middle of the demon­stration JDLers armed with iron pipes'and brass knuckles charged from acrossthe street. They were effectively repulsedwith only slight injuries to the anti­Zionist protesters.

While reportedly one policeman wasseriously injured by the JDL attack. theZionist gangsters involved were onlycharged with "disturbing the peace." Ingeneral. these self-avowed Zionist ter­-rorists were treated exceptionally le­niently by the U.S. authorities, exceptwhen the SO\iets really turned on thediplomatic pressure. For example, onpuhlic tele\'ision JDL leader RussellKelner threatened to kill Yasir Arafatwhen the Palestinian leader visited theUN in 1974. For this act he was given aone-year suspended sentence! One canimagine what would happen to anAmerican leftist who publicly thr;eat­ened to assassinate Chilean butcherAugusto Pinochet on a visit toWashington.

The JDL, Israel and AmericanFascism

The JDL arose out of a convergenceof extreme right-wing Zionism and the.Jewish component of the whitebacklash a kind of cross between theStern Gang and the South BostonMarshals. However. Zionism andAmerican .Jewish communal politics donot always march arm in arm. Kahanehimself is an extreme Zionist fanatic.and not only in the sense that he wantsto exterminate any and all possibleenemies of the Israeli state. He standsfor the immediate "return" of all Jewse\erywhere to Israel. While the JDLersare all hard-line right-wing Zionists.most have no more desire to emigrate toIsrael than does the rest of AmericanJewry. The JDL was founded primarilyto preserve the economic and socialposition of the Jewish population in thiscountrr.

In 1972 Kahane put his doctrine intopractice and emigrated to Israel. wherehe allied himself with Begin's right-wingopposition bloc. Since then Kahane'sprovocations have embarrassed succes­sive Israeli governments. In late 1972 hewas arrested and charged with smug­gling arms to followers in Europe foranti-Arah terrorist actions. In July 1973he was arrested again. this time forconspiring to disrupt Brezhnev's visit tothe U.S. He admitted instructing hisfollo\\er, to homh the Soviet embassy inWa,hington and kidnap Russian diplo­maI"-, For this he was given a two-yearsuspended ,entence for "conspiring todamage relation, hetween Israel and theLoS.'" \;1ore recently he has heenit1\oln:d aiong \\ith the Gush Emunimin trving to estahlish settlements ofZionlq fanatic, in the West Bank.

i\lthough Kahane has returned to theL.S. for lengthy stays since 1972. hispolitical concerns have hasically beenIsrael-centered. In 1974 he resigned asofficial head of the American JOt.,ayi"g he would remain its "spiritualleader." Howe\er. Kahane's increasingdistance from the New York-based J OL

30 JUNE 1978

was not so much geographical aspolitical.

Following the 1973 Near East warand Arab oil boycott, the Nixon/Kissinger regime put increasing pressureon Israel to give up most of the occupiedterritories. Like most right-wing Zion­ists. Kahane reacted with violent out­rage to America's "betrayal" of Israel.Upon returning to the U.S. in late 1974,Kahane attempted to turn the JDL intoessentially the far right wing of the Israellobby. In 1975 he set up anotherorganization. Committee Against Is­raeli Retreat, whose slogan "Not OneInch!" (of occupied Palestinian land)displaced the JDL's earlier slogan of"Never Again!". Kahane's main activityduring this time ,was a petition campaignfor the dismissal of Henry Kissinger assecretary of state.

Many JDLers evidently did not shareKahane's Israel-centered political out­look. They viewed the JDL primarily asthe militant defenders of American Jewsagainst their specific enemies. In the late1960's black radicals and their left andliberal allies were seen as the mainenemies of the "Jewish community," butby the mid-1970's black nationalism andthe New Left were rapidly fadingmemories. The politics of the countrywere shifting increasingly rightward. in

part as a result of the earlier whitebacklash. In this more favorable climateof opinion. fascist organizations weregrowing and becoming far more ag­gressive. The JDL began to see in theNazis a serious. deadly threat toAmerican Jewry.

Around 1975 Kahane's views andthose of the mainstream JDLers beganto diverge. He wanted the JDL to devoteitself to pressuring Washington tosupport Israel: they wanted to turn theirenergies more against the Nazis. As anextreme ideological Zionist. Kahane isand must he fatalistic about the triumphof anti-Semitism in the U.S. In The.\tOI"\ of the Je\\'ish fJ1'II>I1.\£' l.eaKlIc hewrites: ... ,. so long as one gentile livesopposite one Jew. the possibility of aHolocamt remains." For Kahane thegrowth of American Nazism can he,l(med. hut it cannot ultimatelv hestorped. The only possible sahation for.le\\ s i, their 0\\ n national ,tate--Israel.

I.ast .Juh the rift hetween the Israel­centered Kahane and the American.le\\ ish communalists in the .J OL led toan organizational parting of the \\ays.Since then Kahane has publicly criti­cized the JOL's anti-fascist militancy.He even claims that militant JOLattacks on the Nazis help the Hitler­1m er, grO\\ hy publicizing theirexistence (!):

.. the Jcwish militant groups \\ho

protest Nazis and demonstrate againstthem. do enormous harm for they doindeed give the Nazis publicity. One ofthe grave mistakes I railed at (fromIsrael) was a J DL demonstration inPhiladelphia i1gainst Nazis. What hap­pened was that not only did the pressand television turn out to announce topreviously ignorant sympathizers that aNazi office existed. but the neighbor­hood poured out also to fight the JDL."

Jell'ish Press. 24 February 1978

In' turn. the J DL has implicitly criticizedthe period of Kahane's leadership formisdirected priorities, or rather lack ofany:

"Many people have been asking wherethe Jewish Defense League is goingsince our break from Meir Kahane lastJuly .... When JDL was originallyconceived, its purpose was to protectJews from the growing anti-semitism inthis country through physical action.However. JDL was more than a toughstreet gang it was an idea and philoso­phy based on 'Ahavat Yisrae\" the loveof Jewish people wherever they were.Based on this theorv. we could notignore the cries of our brethren behindthe iron walls of the Soviet Union orfenced inside the ghettoes of Damascus.JDL launched a full scale program cnalmost everv international issue thatdealt with Jewish suffering. In doing so.however. we wandered far from ouroriginal intent. Looking back. we haveno regrets about the diversity of ourpriorities we only regret there weren't

Dukes/New York Times

more Jews involved with this smorgas­bord of Jewish problems...."

This position paper by the JDL nationaldire~tor. Bonnie Pechter goes on tostate. "for the present and foreseeablefuture ... our main priority will befighting Nazis in this country" (NewYork Times, 28 May).

In the past the JDL has also periodi­cally physically attacked the Nazis: inthat sense its present activ,ity is not achange in line. However, heretofore theJDL's anti-fascist activities have beenvery much secondary to its attacks onblack radicals, Soviet diplomats, Arabsand anti-Zionist leftists. In making itsmain priority fighting the Nazis. the.JOL has by no means shed its nature asa terroristic organization of ultra­rightist Jewish communalists. AtBrooklyn College the .JDL continues toact as unpaid administration goomagaimt the Puerto Rican nationalistsand their \1aoist allies (sec "Police Riotat Brooklyn College." Yo wig Sparta­CIIS. Summer 1978). H owe\er. in theIlcar future class-..'onscious workers andre\olutionary SOCialists may well findthemsehes in common protest action\\ ith the J OL against the small butgro\\ing American fascist movement.

Ho\\e\er. revolutionarv socialists donot ,eek out united front, with theJDL.We do not want to gi\e respectability tothis dangerous group of Zionist terror-

ists, implying they are simply anti­fascist militants. Also the virulentlyanti-communist J DL is capable toturning against leftists in the context ofanti-Nazi actions. Furthermore, aLeninist revolutionary vanguard seeksto mobilize the labor movement againstfascism, while the JDL is committed toadventurist tactics which often involveattacks on the police who are protectingthe Nazis.

Why American Fascists MustAttack the Jews

Because the JDL was the mostaggressive. violent anti-communist or­ganization in the U.S. in the early1970's, many left groups raised the cry of"Jewish fascism." As Marxists. werejected this superficial view. In anarticle entitled "Jewish Defense League:Jews and American Fascism" in theMarch-April 1972 issue of the Re\'olu­tionar.!' Communist Youth NewsletTer(forerunner of Young Spartacus). wepointed out that Jews will be the victims.not the shock troops. of Americanfascism:

"Drawing on Christian fundamental­ism. American fascism wilI be deeplyanti-black and anti-Semitic. Thus Nix­on's support for BilIy Graham andGeorge WalIace's drive for power basedon racist and populist sentiment are farmore ominous portents. within bour­geois democracy. than the J DL andLeroi Jones."

We further pointed out the nationalismof the JDt. unlike that of the "whitepower" fascists. was not simply thechall\inism of the oppressor:

"Right-wing Zionism bases itself partlyon the numericall\ insignificant smallJewish businessmen who exploit theblack ghetto.... and partly on those./ewish skilled workers and petty bour­geois who feel threatened by the desireof black people for good neighbor­hoods. college education or civil servicejobs. But the JDL--with its slogan of'''",cver Again: referring to the Naziextermination of the Jews - also basesitself. ideologically and emotionally. onthe historic oppression of the Jews andtheir insecurity in a Christian society."

Given the intense black-whitepolarization in late-1960's America.many Jews helieved that they were now

- part of the dominant majority, safe inthe U.S. from reactionary anti­Semitism. This was a major factor in theAmerican .Jewish community's right­ward political motion in the pastdecade. H 0\\ ever. the notion of a "Wo hitecommunity" was always a fiction. Anti­.Jcwish prejudice remains significant inAmerican society. For the dominantAnglo-Saxon Protestant section of theruling class. Jews are a good deal lessthan white. The attitude toward Jews inthe dormitories of West Point (thetraining ground for the trigger-men ofthe American ruling class) is not muchmore liberal than it was in the militaryacademies of Kaiser Wilhelm'sGermany.

It is obvious that the rightwardmotion in this country. associated withCarter's religious fundamentalism andCold War anti-Sovietism, encouragesthe growth of fascist groups. It is lessobvious to many that fascist groupsshould attack the Jews. at least at thepresent time. 1t is of course recognizedthat hlacks will he the main target of thefascists. One often hears the notion inthe radical/liheral milieu that if theNazis were smart. they would concen­tratc on attacking the blacks and leavethe Jews alone. After all. present-dayAmerican society is very different fromWeimar Germam.

Howcver. the Nazis' announcedmarch into Skokie was not jmt amechanical copying of Hitler's m0'e­ment. having no relation to Americansocial realit\. The fascists' attacks on.In\s arc nr;t ,0 much a substitute forattacks on blacks. as complementary tothem. Even white racists know thathlacks arc poor and powerless. Dema­gogy ahout welfare chiselers aside. noone helincs that "shipping the hlacks

(,olltinued on page 8

5

French LCR Dl!fends HSocialist" Generals and Admirals

"EUROTROTS ISTS".........

FETE EUROCOMMUNISTS

WORKERS VANGUARD

"For us this was not a publicity stuntor a factional operation. but theapplication of a policy for which wehayc been fighting for years and\'Cars. frequently against the stream:the policy of the unity of theworking people in action againstthe common enemy ... the breachhas been opened. the precedent set.nothing will bc the same as before."

RouRe. 30 May

.. , ..a line which of course is neitherthat of Stalin nor of Mao. but which isalso not that of Lenin or Trotsky. apath which is the original pathtoward socialism imposed on us byhistory and is precisely. I'll say it: theEurocommunist path."

This meant. said Elleinstein. first ofall support for "representative de­mocracy" and the "extension ofpublic liherties." He added. "I thinkthat in many respects Rosa Luxem­burg was right in 1918 in criticizingcertain aspects of the Russian Revo­lution," endorsing in particular herclaim that "lack of representative

Leading off the discussion onEurocommunism Elleinstein reaf­firmed his support to a Union of theLeft and declared that "unity isdebate." This was music to the earsof the LCR. which had been seekingdebates with the PCF ever since wellbefore the March elections. Ellein­stein also called for joint actionbetween the Eurocommunists and theLCR. between "we who are in theParty and you who are a vital forcebut who today arc feeling the deadend you are in." But the basis forsuch collaboration. he specified,must be:

crack at the big time. LCR leaderAlain Krivine underscored thesignificance of the ROlif;e Fete.

Discovery of "Eurotrotskyism"

The path of'Eurocommunismleads straightacross picketlines. into thearms of' Carter's.. Human Rights"On hook cover.PCE leaderCarrilloscahhing onYale strike.

..Le Bolchevlk

from left, "premature Eurocommunist" Fernando Claudln, LCR leader Henri Weber, Ukranlan dissident LeonidPlyushch and translator, French CP dissident Jean Ellelnsteln and French Socialist Party National SecretaryGilles Martinet. Elleinstein hailed "the original path toward socialism" which "Is neither that ot Stalin or Mao, butwhich is also not that of Lenin or Trotsky ... the Eurocommunlst path."

Can't Go On This Wav in the March 19 electoral defeat of "theCommunist Partv." and' historian left" b\ breaking the "unity momen-Ellcinstein. deputy director of the tulll ... · This charge. raised by aPCFs Center for Marxist Studies. "Declaration of 100" PCF militantscalled in his series for dropping the (Le Mom/e. 17 May). is the theme ofname "Communist" as a liability a propaganda barrage initiated by PSbefore French public opinion. At the leader Mitterrand and picked up byRuuge Fete the LCR provided a virtually the entire bourgeois press. Itplatform for the most thoroughgoing ignores the fact that the PCFsEurocommunists seeking to pressure reflexive "hardening" came in re-those CPers resistant to exchang- sponse to threats to its electoral baseing pro-Soviet Stalinist reformism by the Socialists and indications fromfor anti-Soviet social-democratic Mitterrand that the PCF would havereformism. little effective power in a Union of

Although at first glance the speak- the Left government. Thus theers' platforms at the fete appeared Pabloists and super-Eurocommunistscontrary to nature. there was in fact a find common ground on the rightistpolitical logic uniting PCF right program of unconditional unity ofwingers with LCR "far leftists": both the reformist bureaucrats.accused the Communist Party leader- Commenting afterwards on theship of being responsible for the star-studded weekend. the LCR's first

It \\asa Pabloist'sdreamcometrue:a star-studded gallery of Euro­communist notables. prominentsocia I democra ts. "progressive"generals and SO\iet dissidents. all

brought to you courtesy of the FrenchLigue Communiste Rbolutionnaire(LCR). "lot content with the companyIl1 the little cesspool of "far­lelt" opportunism. these pseudo­Trotsbists h,ne been looking for anllpportUlllty to jump into the reformists\\amp of class betrayal where thn cans\\ill1 \\Itb the big boys. Thcysawtheirchance and leaped with both feet.turning the LeWs Ruuge Fete into agala \\cekend in honor of Eurocol11­munism. More than IO.nOn attendedthl' !\1a\ 27-2r1 gathering at the Portcde Pantin on the outskirts of ParIs.entitled "'len 19f,rI Ma\ 1l}7r1 Re­IlHlll or RC\ l)!util1n""

I he LCR lost no time makingclear \\ hich it was for. In this grandcelebration l)f classless "democraC\."the\ courted the right-\\ing Com­munist Party (PCF) dissidents. whoin recent weeks have become thedarlings of the bourgeois press. anddefended "socialist" officers of theFrench imperialist armed forcesagainst enraged protest from theaudience. Guests of honor at the"fraternal debate" included notedFrench Eurocommunists Jean Ellein­stein. Jacques Frernontier and JeanRony. "premature Eurocommunists"Roger Garaudy and FernandoClaud in. an official delegation of theSpanish Communist Party (PCE).French Socialist Party (PS) nationalsecretary Gilles Martinet. Ukrainiandissident Leonid Plyushch and mili­tary reserve officers air force GeneralBecam and Admiral Sanguinetti.

The bourgeois press took note ofthe unusual event. Le Monde of 30May observed that the weekendgathering "made it possible forrepresentatives of the families of theleft and the far left to begin thedialogue." Even the New York Times(4 June) covered it. commenting that"A new current is stirring in theFrenc~ left. bringing together repre­sentatives of a broad sweep of viewsfrom extremists to ecologists andmoderate reformers in opposition toCommunist Party orthodoxy," Andalthough the presence of the PCEdelegation stayed the hand of theFrench Communist Party from tak­ing direct reprisals against the PCFdissidents who participated. this didnot stop L'Humanite (29 May) fromfuriously denouncing the meeting as"a factional undertaking directed atthe Communist party. its policies.principles and leadership."

The weekend fete was indeeddesigned to capitalize on the currentuproar in the PCF. which has spilledover into a heated public controver­sy. as leading party intellectuals havetaken to the pages of Le Monde. theleading French daily. to denounce thePCF leadership as responsible for therecent electoral defeat of the Union ofthe Left. Neo-Stalinist philosopherLouis Althusser published a four-partco!Jrrightcd series entitled "Things

6

The U Progressive" Generals vs. The LTFThejii//o\\'inX exchanxes look place in the/orum on the army at the Rouge/hesponsored hI' the French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire. On the platformwere "socialists" General Bec'am and Admiral Sanguinetti, who were repeatedlvmn/ronted hI' our comrades o{the Lixue TrotskI'ste de France.

Becam: "What do I think of the wars I participated in? Well, weparticipated in the World War in '39 to '45.... What helped thepeople who carried out these operations [bombing missions)not to pose these problems about what they were doing was therisk they ran. Because in spiteof all the bombing gear they ran anabsolutely enormous risk during the war and only one out of twosurvived .... "

LTF: "Bombed the German proletariat with a little risk-that's whatyou were doing!"

Becam: "It was a question of beating German fascism .... "

LTF: "Hamburg was German fascism?'"

Becam: " ... and I do not regret this war at all, absolutely not. Then I was inthe Indochinese war.... "

Spokesman of LigueTrotskyste de Francedenouncing presence ofFrench imperialistofficers at Rougefere.At rear on podium,General Becam,Admiral Sanguinetti.

Sanguinetti, who had run forparliament in March on the PSticket. justified attempts to "democ­ratize" the army on the grounds thatit would be more "efficient" in"maintain[ing] order." Likewise, hepleaded for a draftee army asnecessary to provide the numbersnecessary for such tasks as "search­and-destroy operations in Algeria."After a supporter of the Ligue.Trotskyste de France (LTF), sympa­thizing section of the internationalSpartacist tendency, protested thescandalous composition of the speak­ers platform. the LCR chairman ofthe session denounced "the 'insults'

cont inued on page 9

bourgeois League for the Rights ofMan with the participation of tworanking reserve officers, GeneralBecam and Admiral Sanguinetti.These two general staff officers hadstar billing in the oh-so-fraternal"debate" on a podium chaired by theLCR leadership. .

Sanguinetti:"A draftee army is better ableto maintain order. ...You neednumbers to search and destroy. When we had to carry out searchand destroy operations in Algeria, our strength rose to twomillion men .... "

LTF: "It's a scandal, the way the speakers platform is composed .... "

Chairman of the session protests:" ... against the insults addressed to theAdmiral inside this hall."

Becam: "An army cannot be really efficient if it's not democratic... There was a certain democracy in the Wehrmacht, that's why

it was so efficient .... But you have to watch out for workersmilitias, they risk becoming even less democratic than thearmy .... There is an example of a workers militia: the GermanSA. A workers militia can rapidly resemble the SA.... "

[Cries of protest in thehall],

LTF: "That's what comes of making blocs with the General Staff.... This man is consciously fighting against the working class.He just said it. He bombed the German proletariat, with noregrets."

so long as they are not caught bomb­in-hand. The remarks by Bensaidduring this debate constitute adeliberate attempt to present acommon platform on which theEurocomrnunists and Pabloist "Euro­trotskyists" can "cohabit": namely.left-talking social democracy, formal­ly independent of the Second Inter­national and modeled on post-WorldWar I Austro-Marxism.

While Bensai'd's discourse on the"articulation" of bourgeois and pro­letarian democracy provided the polit­ical framework for a Eurocommunistj"Eurotrotskyist" lash-up, it was in theforum on the army that the LCR mostvividly demonstrated the depths towhich it will descend in order to gainadmission to the reformist swamp.Krivine, Bensai'd & Co. have beenassisting in the formation of a Com­mittee for Rights and Freedoms in theMilitary Institution. organized by the

Defending the Popular-FrontButchers

could cohabit. but that the forms ofself-organization must have the lastword.... As for us, we say it isnecessary to take the question to itsconclusion and sav which shouldpredominate." -

So ... instead of smashing the capital­ist state. and with it bourgeoisparliamentary forms of government,to replace it with the proletariandemocracy of soviet rule, it isnecessary to comhine them. to"articulate" them; and like theAustro-Marxists. this arch-Pabloistsays that it is simply necessary tospecify that forms of "grassrootsdemocracy" should predominate overparliamentary forms!

The reference to Austro-Marxismis. as Bensai'd remarks, not anaccident. Together with the GermanIndependent Social Democrats, theAustrian Socialist Party was themainstay of the ill-fated "Second anda Half International" set up inreaction to the proclamation of theComintern. and Friedrich Adler wasits architect. As far as the "cohabita­tion" of parliamentary and sovietdemocracy. this program was actual­Iv carried out hy the Austro­~1,irxlsts, who used their dominationof the Vienna Workers Council toprevent any revolutionary attempt tos\\eep away the institutions of capi­talist rule. In Berlin. where theSpartakushund had ·found supportamong sectors of the proletariat. this"articulation" was achieved bv thehloody massacre of the January 1919uprising and the assassination ofLuxemhurg and Liebknecht' Bensaidwill no doubt say that there the\\Tong clement predominated. but itwas only hecause the IndependentSocial Democrats refused to call forall power to the workers councils.instead hoping for peaceful coexis­tence between the councils and thenational assembly. that the "majori­ty" social-democratic butchers Ebert.Scheidemann and Noske could carryout their bloody work. eventuallysuppressing the workers councils aswell. These are the fruits of thetradition with which the "Eurotrot­skyists" solidarize!

Comrade Bensai'd has a history ofgetting carried away with whatever isthe current line of the majority of the"United Secretariat of the FourthInternational" (USec), as when heproposed importing to Europe theUSec's guerrillaist policy for LatinAmerica. However, in this case he issimp~y making explicit the capitula­tionist policy toward Eurocommu­nism authored by the USec's toptheoretician. Ernest Mandel. Thus inthe introduction to his book, FromStalinism to Eurocommunism, Man­del refers to the Eurocommunistcurrent as analogous to "classicalSocial Democracy of 1910-1930,which should not be confused withcontemporary Social Democracy."Social Democracy before World WarI. the world historic event whichmarked the passage of social democra­cy to the camp of defense of thebourgeois order? Without saying soexplicitly. Mandel is implying that theEurocommunists have not yet defini­tively betrayed.

As for Bensai'd's defense of "repre­sentative democracy" and politicalpluralism, this is already foresha­dowed in the USec resolution on"Socialist Democracy and the Dicta­torship of the Proletariat" (/nprecor.7 July 1977) in which the Pabloistsreject the Trotskyist position ofdemocratic rights for all partiesstanding on the gains of the OctoberRevolution, instead calling for "free­dom for the defenders of reactionaryideologies [presumably includingfascism] to defend these ideas. [for]ideological cultural pluralism" evenfor active counterrevolutionaries, just

democracy" would lead to "thedomination of a bureaucracy."

"Eurocommunism," said the PCFhistorian. "implies total independencefrom the Soviet Union." The repre­sentative of the PCE, Malo deMolina. declared that it "assuV\es thenegation of the model of the Sovietrevolution, the model of class againstclass. and the model according towhich one must end up with thedestruction of the state." Neither herenor at any time in the weekend didthe LCR defend the Leninist "model"or even mention the need for defenseof the Soviet degenerated workersstate against imperialism.

There were a few murmurs fromthe audience when Molina praisedthe Italian Communist Party's auster­ity policy as a "theoretical inno­\ation" and went so far as tooppose cost-of-living escalatorsas "intlationary." LCR spokesmenattacked this apology for the anti­working-class. wage-cutting policiesof the Andreotti and Suarez govern­ments. hut refused to criticize thepolicies of the French Union of theLeft. 'l;ot only did they fail todenounce this coalition as a popularfront. tying the working class to thehourgeoisie. but throughout the\\eekend these fake-Trotskyists hard­1\ e\en mentioned the Communist­Socialist-Left Radical hloe which hasdOl11lnated French plliitics for the pastSl:\ \ car ...

In contrast there was stormvi applause when PS national secretar;'

Martinet. an e:\-Stalinist and Kri­\ inc's father-in-law. denounced anti­Irohkyism as "the anti-Semitism ofthe workers movement." FernandoClaud in. the former memher of thePCE central committee e:\pelled in1964 for ult ra-reformist positionssimilar to those of the present-dayEurocommulllsb, went even further.suggesting that the- debate be ex­tended to include "Eurotrotskyism:'since they were in the presence of"non-sectarian" Trotskyists:

" ... this is perhaps the sign that thereis also a 'Eurotrotskyist' phenomen­on. that is a certain opening ofTrotskvism toward other currents ofthe communist movement."

In response, LCR leader DanielBensai'd returned the compliment andwent out of his way to demonstratethe compatibility of "Eurotrotsky­ism" with social-democratizing -Eu­rocommunism. Thus he defended thePabloist perversion of Trotskyismagainst charges of "underestimatingthe struggle for democratic rights"by saying: "It seems there isagreement-everyone says 'represent­ative democracy, democratic rights:and we defend them too...." Bensa'ldalso solidarized with Rosa Luxem­burg's critique of the Russian Revo­lution for "limiting freedom of thepress. limiting freedom of associa­tion. which leads to sclerosis ofdemocracy" and approved of Ellein­stein's use of this reference which hasbeen cited for decades by socialdemocrats as part of their attack onLeninism.

In answer to Claudin's opposi­tion of parliamentarYi to non­parliamentary forms of democracy,Bensai'd made a fundamental and far­reaching revision of Leninism on thecentral question of the state:

"You will find the debate on thearticulation of parliamentary democ­racy and grassroots democracy withLenin vs. Kautsky on the subject ofthe constituent assemblv in Russia.vou will find it beiween RosaLuxemburg and Lenin on the sameproblem. you will find it inTrotsky. you will -find it broadlyamong some people who are corningback into stvle todav. and not bvaccident. thai is the Austro-Marxistslike Adler. However (left-wing)social-democratic thev were at thetime. they said that - parliamentar)lorms and forms of self-organization

30 JUNE 1978 7

Tax Revolt...(continued/rom page l)

basically it is an explosion of pent-uppetty-bourgeois resentment against thetraditional conservative bugbears of biggovernment. big labor (in this case.unionized public employees) and bigwelfare rolls. One Jarvis fan. a southernCalifornia grandmother. brought outinto the open the implicit racist appealthat lies just below the surface of the"tax revolt" fever. remarking: "It's thesesocial services that annoy the heck outof me social services for the colored.the Mexicans and so forth. Who wantsto pay it all in taxes that go for thingslike thatT (Nell'.nt'eek. 19 June).

Howard Jarvis himself. sponsor ofProp 13 and long-time director andlobbyist for the Los Angeles ApartmentAssociation. has become a new middle­class folk hero to such types. who roarapproval of his down-home homilieslike. "The only way to cut the cost ofgovernment is not to give them themoney in the first place." (The latestsouthern California fad is a pop wrist­watch featuring Jarvis' walrus-likeprofile. which is reportedly outsellingthe more classic Mickey Mouse modeL)But the outcry over taxes has quicklygone far beyond the affluent L.A.suburbs.

In June primaries around the nationopposition to government spending wasthe common theme in a series of upsets.One of the biggest was the defeat ofveteran liheral Republican CliffordCase of '\ew Jersey by brash youngconservative Jeffrey Bell. who cam­paigned almost entirely on his strongadvocacy of the Kemp-Roth proposal.which calls for a 30 percent cut in federalincome taxes over three years. In.Cleveland and Columbus. Ohio (and inIllinois) voters rejected school taxincreases. even though warned that

·without them many schools would heforced to close in the fall. Meanwhile. aconstitutional amendment to ban feder­al deficit spending has actually beenapproved hy 2J state legislatures!Congressmen in Washington. alwaysattentin~ to the polls. took a look at theJune 6 primaries and in one weekslashed roughly SI hillion from variousfedera I programs.

Many conservativ'e politicians haveseiled on the great "taxquake" withjubilation. sensing in it the best gut-levelemotional issue since "law-and-order."But the Democrats are hard on theirheels. with everybody from small-townmayors and California governor JerryBrown. who's heard "the voice of thepeople" and is quickly learning to loveProp 13. to President Carter joining into praise "the people's" wisdom. ,

Governor Brown. whose run for re­election as governor this fall is a warm­up for the 1980 presidential elections.executed a deft spin on Prop 13, whichhe had opposed before its victory. Herighteously reminded the nation that itwas he who "began the effort atgovernment frugality. and what I hearout of this vote is that people want moreof it." Jettisoning his own pet projects toheat the state capitol with woodchips and launch California's own spacesatellite. Brown announced "bone andmarrow" cuts to offset the expected lossof some $7 hillion in state revenuesresulting from the property tax cut.These included: a ban on hiring and awage freeze for all state workers. anacross-the-hoard 9.8 percent cut in allstate operating expenses and a 525(>million cut in support to health andwelfare programs.

San Francisco mayor Moscone \\asem powered by the board of su penisorsto lay off 2.000 city employees. eliminateO\ertime pay. rescind an 5II million payhike for 16.000 employees and doublecity transit fares. In Los Angeles. \1ayorTorn Bradley initially announced animmediate cut of 8.300 employees.which is now being "negotiated" withlahor tops. Across the state municipali­tICS instantly began shutting down

8

puhlic playgrounds and libraries. can­celing summer school programs, layingoff fire fighters and other local govern­ment employees.

The initial cutback fever seems tohave subsided recently. as Brown has letit be known that $5 billion in surplusstate revenue will be made available tocover the gap. Estimates of mass layoffshave been drastically revised down­wards. so Moscone, for example,currently projects laying off "only" 200workers. However. the state legislaturehas moved to impose a freeze on anycost-of-living increases for both govern­ment workers and welfare recipients.who together make up ten percent ofCalifornia's population.

Taking Money from the LeftPocket Instead of the Right

The politicians' chorus of approval atthe California voters' decision is for themost part sheer ballot-box opportun­ism. Many are no doubt grinding theirteeth in private. as their precious fiscaland legislative pork-barrel wheeling anddealing has been rudely undercut by the\oter referendum. Such "popular refer­endums,'- particularly on vital questionslike money. are in fact not at all popularwith bourgeois politicians.

The reaction of many leadingcapitalist spokesmen who don't havc toworry about getting elected has beenwary if not out-and-out disapproving.Speaking for the "responsible" bour­geois establishment. such organs asBwiness Week and the Nell' York Timeswarned against the dangers of drasticmeasures like Prop 13. The Times (19June) has taken the sober world states­man approach. warning "Anti-TaxM ovcment Poses Danger to ForeignAid Bill." while Business '..Veek of thesame date points out that the amend­ment is riddled with inequities. The Ipercent property tax assessment. forexample. is good (mIl' so long as nomoves or improvements are made. sothat "A new homeowncr could paydouble or triple the property tax of a

JDL "Turn" ...(continued/i'om page 5)

hack to Africa" would improve condi­tions for lov\er-class whites.

It is differer£with thc Jews. They archighl\ visihle in the llpper reaches ofAmerican society in the mass medIa.high finance. the·universities. the \\!ash­ington elite (from Bernard Baruch toHenry Kissinger). The notion that theJews really run the country (indeed theworld) is widespread among lower-classwhites. particularly those from Protes­tant fundamentalist and ethnic Catholichackgrounds. And. of course. U.S.support to Israel strengthens the notionof a powerful international Jewish­Zionist conspiracy.

The fascists' attacks on the Jewsprovide the populist element in theirappeal. If only we get rid of the Jews.they say. and replace them with a "realwhite man's government," things willget better. Many decades ago theGerman social democrat August Hebelsaid: "Anti-Semitism is the socialism offools." This is still true. In attacking theJews. the '\azis seek to channel thecconomic discontents of white pett\hourgeois. lumpenproletarians andoack\\ard workers in a reactionandlri:ction. American fascists attack thehlacks hecause they are economicall\helo\\ those the::- appeal to. the Jcwshecause thn arc a \ulnerablc targeta ho\e thcm.

Zionism: Suicide for Jews

;rhe J DI was part (~f In some \\aysin the \anguard of the white hacklashAnd under the slogan "Free SO\ietJewry." the JO! turned out to he theadvance guard of Jimmy Carter's"human rights" crusade against "Soviettotalitarianism." But the most consis-

neighbor who has not moved for years."Further. Business Week noted, "Most

cities will probably also boost fees forservices. such as refuse collection. LosAngeles and other cities are studying a'license fee' on the salary of employeeswho work there: the state's supremecourt upheld such a fee. of 1 percent, inOakland last month. Thus. if politiciansshow their usual resourcefulness, it maywell be that Jarvis-Gann's net fiscalimpact will be to pull money from thetaxpayer's left-hand pocket instead ofthe right." In San Clemente, whereRichard Nixon stands to save some$27.600 in taxes on his hideaway.they've already instituted a new $160-a­ride (!) charge for ambulance service.

The Spartacist League called forahstenrion at the California polls onProposition 13 (and Proposition 8. amore moderate version cooked up at thelast minute by Governor Brown).because the issue involved is at bottom adispute within the capitalist class onhow to finance their government. inwhich the working class .does not takesides (see "California Property TaxSquabble," WVNo. 208, 2 June). Whilecalls for "tax revolts" are a favoredtheme of ultra-rightist demagoguestrying to find a mass base of oppositionto "welfare state" measures, socialistsare not for high taxes. which willinevitably fall heavily on the workingpopulation. As long as the governmentcontrols the money supply. it can alwaysfinance any level of expenditure it feelsnecessary. Through deficit spending.I.yndon Johnson spent tens of billionsfor the Vietnam War without new taxes.Thus the present tax squabble is part ofa broader argument between the liberalinflationists and the right-wing defla­tionists which has dominated bourgeoiseconomic policy since the GreatDepression.

The position of Marxists in suchdebates is quite clear. As Leon Trotskywrote over 40 years ago:

"In this period of social crisis. ofeconomic shocks. in/lalion and de/la-

tent haters of hlack militancy. the mosthitter and violent enemies of the left andthe workers movement are the fascists.Where Meir Kahane puts down the leadpipe in order to lohhy for Israel a FrankCollin picks it up. The fact that Collinintends to use it to beat Kahane'serstwhile followers to death does notchange the fact that the JDL helpedcreate the climate in which '\azis andother fascist groups could reassertthemsel\es after some veal's ofqUiescence.

The .I 01 's specific contrihution to thegrowth of fascist groups is hut oneaspect of a larger historic truth: Zionismmeans suicide for the Jewish people. In1937 when Hitler's atrocities werespurring the Zionist immigration intoPulestine. Leon Trotsky commented inan interview with a liberal Yiddishpaper:

"But the facts of e\ery passing daydemonstrate to us that Zionism isincapable of resohing the Jewishljllestion. The conflict between the Jewsand /\rabs in Palestine aCljllires a moreand more tragic and mort: menacingcharacter."

lenn Tmtsh. 011 Ih(' .Ic\li.\hQ/I ['.\ I iO/1 .

Despite 30 years of Zionist warvictorics and the huild-up of a powerfulIsraeli \\ar machine. the Hehrcw­speaking pcople in the '\ear East arccloser to annihilation today than the::­\1 erc in 19411. I.\/"(/c! is a dca/I! traJ! fiJr./C\l\. It does not hale the long-termmilltar::- and economic strength todominate its Arah ncighh()rs. and thel'.S. alliance which the Zionist leadershale depended upon in the pa',1 is not ahlank check to crcate the Greater Israel.stretching from the Euphrates to the'\ile. of\\hich 13cgin and Kahane dream.The arrogant racialism ilIld expansion­ism of the Zionist state iIl\ite "theHolocaust" of an all-out Arab "hol::­\\ar" to dri\(:~the Jews of Israel "into the

I

lioll are 111'0 ('omplemellfary inslrll­mellfs/i'r t"rOlI'iIlK 01110 Ihe people the('WI o( "e('ariIlK capitalism. Bourgeoisparties organize formidable discussionson the ljuestion: is it better to cut theworkers' throats with the saw ofinflation or with the simple knife ofdeflation'! Our struggle is directed withthe same energy against the saw andagainst the knife."[emphasis in original]

"The Belgian Dispute and theDe Man Plan," in Wrilil1Ks.1934-35

Strike Against Layoffsl

The credibility of the current layoff/cutback scare has been somewhatdiminished by Brown's discovery of thestate surplus. However, the politicians'eagerness to seize the kn.ife and beginhacking away at social services and jobsdemonstrates quite clearly that it will bethe working class and poor who mustpay if any cutbacks are to be made. '

The amendment is now being chal­lenged in the courts on at least fivecounts and it is. at best. unclear that itwill be upheld. Between 1960 and 1976five of the seven California initiativespassed by the voters were totally orpartly overturned by the courts. But inthe meantime the capitalist politiciansare trying to use Proposition 13 todemonstrate their "fiscal responsibili­ty." Rallies and meetings have alreadybeen held by some AFT and AFSCM Elocals in Los Angeles. However. up tothis point. union leaders have channeledall 0RPosition to "Prop 13" layoffs andcuthacks into Court suits. This legalismhas provided Jarvis, Gann et a!. with theconvenient pretext to paint the unionsas the real enemy of small propertyowners.

'\ow is the time for labor to rally thesupport of large sections of the pettybourgeoisie who are also threatened bythe proposed cuts in social services. Fora statewide strike to stop the cutbacksand layoffs! Don't be fooled by the Prop13 scare! Cancel the debt service on cityand state hands' For a workers party tofight for a workers government!.

sea." which could even trigger theultimate Holocaust of nuclear incinera­tion. engulfing the rest of humanity inWorld War III.

In the U.S .. too. Zionism breeds anti­Semitism. The Jewish community'sintense solidarity with their "own"national state of Israel reinfOlces fascistpropaganda that Jews are an alien.unpatriotic element in American socie­ty. As Washington shifts toward a morepro-Arab stance. ruling-class opponentsof the Israel lobby. like General GeorgeBrown. will make little-disguised ap­peals to popular anti-Semitism. "Ameri­can foreign policy should not becontrolled by the Jewish vote," is likelyto become a more prominent theme inAmerican politics. Already the fascistic~ational States Rights Party puts out abumper sticker: "Oil. Yes-Jews, No."How many Americans will make serioussacrifices for the cause of Jewishnationalism?

The connection of anti-Semitism withimperialist militarism, religiousohscurantism and the political right\\ ing has long heen well known. That iswhy the Jewish population in Europeand the U.S. has traditionally heen lcft­of-center politically. with a dispropor­tlonatc numher of Jews participating inthe socialist mo\ement. In the pastdeca(k thc pyrrhic \ictories of the Israelistatc and naITO\\-minded ethnic politicshaw caused the American In\ ishcomIllunity to s\ling right. The J Dl. isthe most extrcme expression of thisrightward motion. But neither aggres­si\(: Je\\ isll communal militancv in thet' .S. nor Israeli militarism offers afuture for In\s. As long as Je\\, li\e inthis racist capitalist society they \\ ill li\ein the shado\\ of an()\her Ausch\\ltl.Onl\ the victory of proletarian socialistrevolution can de...rroy fascism once andfor ,til..

WORKERS VANGUARD

NEW YORK

SL/SYL PUBLIC OFFICES

No Tradeoffs! Defend Skokieand Inglewood!

Skokie ...(continuedfrom page 7)addressed to the Admiral inside thishal!." Thereupon, General Bccamintervened praising the "democracy"of Hitler's Wehrmacht (!) and warnedagainst workers militias as potentiallyless democratic than the army. Hishorrible example? The Nazis' SA!!Again LTF comrades protested, nowaccompanied by shouts of disappro­val throughout the hal!.

In a subsequent interventionduring the debate an LTF spokesmanagain denounced the presence ofthese professional butchers of theVietnamese and Algerian peasantsand workers:

"The question is. what is there todebate with ex-officers. generals whodefend the bourgeois army. who arefor the defense of the fatherland,when you are an organization thatsavs it is socialist. that even claims tobe· Trotskyist. As for an ex-general,an ex-admiral. so long as theyhaven't renounced their past ... 1think these characters still merit thename given them by the soldiers'committees themselves. namelyerhures [roughly "butchers." theworst insult a soldier can make to anofficer in the French army. punish­able b: long stretches in thestockadc I"

A second LTF comrade linked theI.CR's incredible call for an "allianceof thc workers movement, the sol­d iers movement, the career officers" tothc Pabloists' capitulation to popu­lar frontism, and counterposed therevolutionary Trotskyist program ofopposition to collaboration with theclass enemy:

"Obviously the question of the armyis the key question for a popularfront. The LCR, if it wants tomaintain its alliance with the popularfront. its essentially popular-frontistpolicy. is compelled to have areformist policy toward the army.Which. moreover. explains why theyhave also abandoned all their guerril­laist postures. . .. while today theytake the Side of the bourgeois statcagainst the Red Brigades in Italy...."The question for Trotskyists isessentially the question of the offi­cers. What is the officer caste') Theofficer caste is precisly the lastbastion of the bourgeoisie. Andthat's what the reformists never wantto touch.... Today the LCR wants usto believe that the officer caste ... canbe split between the elements infavor of the proletariat and those infavor of the bourgeoisie. The officercaste is selected. educated andstructured to destroy the organizedproletariat. And the Trotskyistprogram is the destruction of theofficer caste...."The objective of Trotskyists in thearmy is to effectively defend thedemocratic rights of soldiers in thearmy -but we link the defense ofdemocratic rights with the goal ofthe destruction of the bourgeoisarmy. the destruction of the officercorps, the constitution of workersmilitias, the creation of a Red Armywith nuclear arms against the imperI­alist armies that will intervene. Andwe will struggle also for the creationof a Trotskyist party which can leadthe struggle of the proletariat againstthe bourgeois army!"

In a recent special issue of Inprecordevoted to the May 1968 events, theUSec announced that its analyses inthe post-1968 period had been toooptimistic and called for Communist­Socialist parliamentary governmentsas the axis of its propaganda insouthern Europe. In an interviewBensai'd remarked that "everyonenow agrees" that the elusive "newmass \anguard" "will be radicalizedmainly in the reformist parties andthe unions" (lnprecor, 25 May).Hence the USee's new orientationtoward Eurocommunism. If Euro­communists like PCF leader Carrilloand PCF dissident Elleinstein areready to renounce Leninism, and"Eurosocialists" like Spanish leaderFelipe Gonzalez renounce Marxism,then in order to get into the actMandel & Co. are prepared to takeoff their tattered fake-Trotskyism asthe price of admission in this obscenepolitical striptease.•

...French LeR...

Mobilize the Organized laborMovement!

The mass outpouring of opposition tothe Nazis over Skokie carne only aftermonths of newspaper publicity andvarious false starts. Moreover, it standsin sharp contrast to the previouslackluster response to the increasingboldness of the Nazis and the Klan.which has been due in large measure tothe bureaucratic stranglehold whichmutes the power of the only forcecapable of decisively crushing fascism:the organized labor movement. True totheir pro-capitalist purpose. the laborbureaucrats depend entirely upon their"friends" in the Democratic Party. thelegislature and courts. Their criminalfailure to militantly mobilize the inte­grated labor movement against fascismis a mortal danger to every worker.

A resolution passed by UAW Local 6(International Harvester) calling for amass militant mobilization of Chicagolabor went beyond moralistic tokenismand bureaucratic do-nothingism topoint the way forward toward analliance of organized labor withminority-group organizations to smashthe fascist menace. Adventurist con­frontations by small groups of leftists,which inevitably run up against thearmed might of the state, are nosubstitute for the organized power of theworking class.

In the absence of any such action, it isno wonder that groups like Collin'sNazis have found fertile soil in which toplant their seeds of race hate. Thesegroups are more visible today than theyhave been in years. And their growthand aggressiveness are linked to theincreasing racist sentiment fostered bythe Carter government.

The Nazis cannot fail to understandwhich way the wind is blowing. Busing isdead. Capital punishment is very muchalive. The ERA can't pass. The anti­black Bakke campaign aga:nst "reversediscrimination" has general liberalrespectability. Anita Bryant's anti­homosexual crusade continues to winvictories. The Nazis know they canrecruit in such a climate-in the racistanti-busing milieus of South Boston,Louisville, Cleveland's near West Sideand Chicago's Marquette Park. Theyseek to appear as the consistent andaction-oriented faction of this generallyracist mob.

Today, the Nazis' intention of asecond holocaust remains a sick fantasyin the fevered brain of Collin and otherHitler-Iovers. For the moment his groupand others like it exist as isolated gangson the lunatic fringe of the ultraright,attracting the criminally insane andvarieties of sociopaths. But undercircumstances of economic and politicalcrisis, the Nazis gain the help of a sectionof the ruling class and can grow into amass movement of intimidation andgenocide. Then they are called intoaction to crush the organizations of theworking class. In the meantime, they donot simply wait. Anywhere they areallowed to exist, they organize terrorraids 'upon their intended victims. Theymust be stopped now.

The working class and its allies have avital interest in smashing fascism whileit is small. And the organized labormovement has the power to do so. Allthat is lacking is the leadership.

Organized labor must drive the Nazisout of Chicago!.

Revolutionaries do not call upon thestate to ban fascism. We do not want thebourgeois state to mediate the applica­tion of general bourgeois-democraticrights, which would invite the state touse the Nazis as a pretext to use any suchlaws against the left and workersmovements. But neither do we defendthe Nazis against bourgeois repressionand, unlike the SWP, we are not at alldelighted that the Skokie law was struckdown as part of government efforts tolegitimize the Nazis.

Throughout the fight to keep theNazis out of Skokie, the communityorganizations, liberals and reformistshave pursued the suicidal course ofrelying on the capitalist state. TheACLU. with its "it can't happen here"confidence in the neutrality of thebourgeois government, is simply themost consistent of the liberals. But it ispaying for its consistency as itsmembers--properly repelled by theorganization's defense of the Nazis'"civil liberties"-are quitting in droves.The SWP, which has in the past calledfor "free speech" for fascists anddenounced the Spartacist League sloganof "N 0 Platform for Fascists" as "ultra­left," is cynically beating a tacticalretreat and has taken to sparring withthe ACLLJ over the issue.

But that the state has once againexposed its anti-democratic indifferenceto the rights of the oppressed has notstopped the reformists from preachingfaith in the government to "ban theNazis." The Illinois Communist Party isdemanding "a law to outlaw racism inour state.... The City Council and statelegislature should take immediate force­ful action" ("Skokie: The Time to StopNazism Is '\ ow"). Appealing to the anti­Soviet "human rights" crusade, the CPwails that Carter "says nothing aboutthe people of Chicago and their humanrights" (Daih World, 22 June). In fact,Carter did insure the "human rights" ofsome people in Chicago just as hedefends such rights internationally-the"rights" of the ultraright wing.

The argument now underwaybetween the ACLU liberals and the anti­Nazi liberals and reformists is really atactical debate over how best to pressurethe capitalist state to defend against thethreat offascism.

No Reliance on the CapitalistState!

celebration." But for whom the "victo­ry'''! Certainly not the blacks nearMarquette Park.

The Skokie tradeoff is a directthreat to the blacks of Chicago'sSouthside. Inglewood-area blacks havebeen a target of Collin's racist gang foryears. Blacks have also been tricklinginto the previously all-white MarquettePark area, which has been the site ofmassive racist mobilizations. Duringprotests against segregated housingorganized by the small religious­pacifist Martin Luther King, Jr.Movement in the summer of 1976,racist mobs wearing Nazi-supplied"white power" T-shirts assembled on adaily basis in the park for terror foraysinto nearby Inglewood. Blacks goingto work in local steel plants wereassaulted. And the cops arrestedcommunity residents who defendedthemselves.

The startling danger signal in theSkokie-to-Marquette shift is the col­lapse of the anti-'\azi momentum nowthat Collin has shelved Skokie in favorof "business as usual" fascistmarauding- i.e.. terrorizing blacks.And the "leadership" of the disorgan­ized and defenseless black communityhas no response to make except to implya gO\ernment/Jewish "conspiracyagainst black residents of MarquettePark" instigated by the Justice Depart­ment (Chicago Defender. 21 June).

The main target of the Nazis~ frontalassault is the black population. But forthe liberal Jewish organizations toimagine it is only when the Nazis marchin Skokie that they are threatenedrecalls the middle-class Jews of pre-N aziGermany who thought their patriotismwould save them (after all, it was theCommunists who were the realtarget. .. ). The question of Skokie orMarquette Park is not a choice for Jewsor blacks-or anyone who woulddefend democratic rights. Whether it isin Skokie or in Inglewood that they stickup their swastika. so long as the Nazisare free to maraud, neither the Jews noranyone else will ever really be safe.

300-600 p m

CHICAGO

Marxist Literature

BAY AREAF"day and Saturday.

1634 Telegraph 3rd floor(near 17th Street)Oakland. CaliforniaPhone 835-1535

The "tradeoff" and court decisionwere heralded by Skokie mayor AlbertSmith as "a victory for the freedomguaranteed by our fathers" (New YorkTimes. 25 June). The liberal Jewishorganizers of the counterdemonstra­tion termed Collin's cancellation a"great victory for decent morality andhumanity" (Chicago Sun- Times. 23June). Their parochialism shading overinto criminal indifference to the Nazimenace to the city's blacks, theycanceled the eounterdemonstration­with not a word about MarquettePark! The reformist Socialist WorkersParty (SWP) chided the liberal organ­izers for not turning the plannedcounterdemonstration into a "victory

Monday-Friday. 630-900 pm

Saturday 100-400 pm

260 West Broadway. Room 522New York. New YorkPhone 925-5665

Tuesday 430-800

Saturday 200-530 pm

523 South Plymouth Court. 3rd floorChicago. IllinOIS

Phone 427 -0003

(continuedfrom page 2)the confrontation, a symbol of acontinuing battle to stop the racist andanti-Semitic provocations. That thisfascist band meant to brazenly wave itsblood-stained swastikas in the faces ofthe survivors of Hitler's death campswas justly seen as an unendurableprovocation. It was a provocation notonly against the Jews of Skokie. whosehatred of Nazism is burned perma­nently in memory as it is burned intothe forearm. It was also a provocationagainst the black population, mostimmediately threatened by the stirringsof genocidal reaction, and againstforeign workers, leftists, unionists,anyone labeled "social deviants" andothers who make up the Nazis' mass"hit list" for cyanide chambers. flam­ing ovens and concentration camps.

Jewish organizations, some blackgroups and the left, with support fromthe labor unions. had promised tomobilize upwards of 50.000 for ananti-'\azi counterdemonstration. Forthe first time in years. the powerfulorganized labor movement was talkingabout fighting fascism: the ChicagoFederation of Labor had sponsoredthe planned mobilization. and out-of­town unions including Detroit'smassi\e LJ AW Local 600 were consid­ering sending buses to Skokie.

As the mood of confrontation built,the '\azis' fear of being crushed andhumiliated in Skokie became evidentas Nazi henchmen talked of "suicide"and Collin threatened his bully-boyswith expulsion if they refused to showup in Skokie. Splits in the Nazi frontwere developing as the governmentcame to their rescue. Washingtontherefore jumped at Collin's offer totrade the Skokie provocation (tempor­arily) for permanent free access toMarquette Park. The Justice Depart­ment's "Community Relations Ser­vice," formed in the mid-1960's as flak­catchers for local racist officials,intervened behind the scenes to find"alternatives" to the Skokie march.According to Midwest director Rich­ard Salem, the point was to "avoid aSkokie demonstration" (Chicago Sun­Times. 9 June).

30 JUNE 1978 9

"Not One More Cent for Kneeling to the PhoneCompany"

1"I'!irilltl'dli'O/}/ nail\' Procl'l'dillg,\ alld Rl'ports. 40th A 1111110/ COIII'l'lIlion o(l!le(111.13.111111'/97X

WfJ/iIlE/iS,,16fiIl1l1l1)

2'10

Some 30 delegates joined WithMargolis in voting against the resolu­tion while hundreds abstained. This isthe first time to our knowledge that aCW A foreign policy statement has metwith any opposition at a convention.

This is also the first time in theCWA's history that a class-struggleoppositIOnal grouping has won repre­sentation at the union's convention.While the MAC grouping won limitedsupport on some issues for its positions,it is clear that it is a very small pole thatmust make every attempt to link up withlike-minded militants in other areas ofthe country if a class-struggle opposi­tion seriously capable of challenging thebureaucratic misleadership of the Wattsregime is to be forged.

Only through the fight for a class­struggle program can the discontent ofthe ranks with the CWA bureaucracy bechanneled into a militant policy againstthe companies and the government.This requires patience and painstakingwork in explaining this program to themembership.•

members in defense of grievances.But I know where the money will

go. It will go to more of the same.Layoffs have not been opposedunder this leadership. There hasbeen an increase of firings. We havenot been able to stop absencecontrol. And money is going intosupporting strikebreakers. anti­labor politicians, Jimmy Carter whobrought the Taft-Hartley againstthe miners' strike, who were fightingfor the right to strike and for healthcare. (Applause)

Money is going into anti-laborpoliticians who threatened to usethe troops against the upcomingmail strike. And Jimmy Carteractually threatened to use the Taft­Hartley against a national phonestrike.

So I am for money to build astrong. militant union. but not onemore cent for inaction and kneelingto the Phone Company. (Applauseand "Boos")

documenting the CIA connections ofthe AIFLD and demanding the CWAbreak all tics with this cover forimperialist intrigue.

"The real story of the AIFLD is to hefound in the prisons and torturechamhers of the military juntas in Chileand Brazil. where thou'silrids of union­ists are still imprisoned. and thousandsmore have heen executed...."This is the organization Glenn Watts istreasurer of. This is the organizationCWA gives thousands of dollars toe\'en Year. The hanner of CW A hasheer; s'tained with the hlood of thou­sands of workers in Latin America."

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League48 issues-$5; Introductory offer (16 issues): $2. International rates:48 issues-$20 airmail/$5 seamail; 16 introductory issues-$5 airmail.

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Make checks payable/mail to: .Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, N.Y. 10001

DELEGATE JANE S. MARGOLIS(Local 9410): I am speaking againstthe Phillips amendment. I amopposed to any dues increase. Iwould be for a dues increase if wehad seen action to defend ourmembers.

The main reason we are in thisbind today in our union is the lossof jobs. Everyone knows that ahundred thousand jobs have beenlost in the last four years.

I'd be for a dues increase if wehad had a national strike whichwould have won real job securityfor our members. which would havestopped the company offensive toreduce the work force.

I would be for a dues increase ifthe Union had fought againstabsence control: if we had paid sick!cil\e. I'd be for a dues increase ifthe Union had stopped forcedo\ertime. and if we had the legalright to strike to defend our

chaU\inist proposals to toughen up the"Buy America Act." It was very clearfrom the standing ovation given JerryBrown and from the fact that only twodelegates voted against a proposal tohonor Hubert Humphrey that deepillusions still exist concerning theDemocratic Party.

Watts has been a particularly avidsupporter of Carter's "human rights"crusade. Thus on June 15 the ex-RedArmy general turned demoralized anti­Communist Pyotr Grigorenko was afeatured speaker at the convention and auseful front man for Watts' attempt towhip up support for the foreign policiesof U.S. imperialism.

Watts' flag-waving did not gounopposed. however. Following areport on a CW A position paper onforeign policy. MAC member anddelegate Margolis took the floor andcalled on the delegates to reject thereport:

"Therc has heen concern and discussionhere from many union members on theAmerican lnstiiute for Labor Develop­ment and Operation South America.... on the Board of AIFLD sit. besidesrepresentatives of several unions. sixrepresentatiws from Anaconda Cop­per. United Fruit. Chase ManhattanBank and ITT. and the AIFLD sets upcompany unions in Latin America... there has heen CIA money funneled

into the AIFLD. ."What is the interest of these corpora­tions in Latin America. Asia andAfrica') They are the same corporationshehind the right-wing offensive to builda union-free environment here in theUnited States."

"Daily Proceedings......16 June 1978

MAC had distributed another leaflet

governor Jerry Brown. "Yes." Mosconehypocritically bragged, "we are proud tobe known as the finest trade-union cityin the countrv." What he didn't tell thedelegates was' that just two years ago hehad locked out striking city craftworkers and forced them to accept paycuts of up to 25 percent.

Jerry Brown. for his part, also put onhis "friend-of-Iabor" mask, pointing outthat he had even worked one summer asan unorganized telephone messenger.Referring to the recently passed Propo­sition 13 property tax cut and thebudgetary crisis it has created. Brownobserved. " ... for every problem there isan opportunity. For every lemon there isa lemonade." After making a mercifullyshort. though typically demagogicspeech, the busy governor rushed off toattend to making his "lemonade". Hecalled a press conference to announcethat he was freezing the wages of some220.000 state workers. tearing upcontractually mandated cost-of-livingrellses.

In a leatlet addressed to the delegates.the Militant Action Caucus attacked theCWA bureaucracy's subsenience to theDemocratic Party:

"Make no mistake ahout it. There is aconncction het\\een C\vA's prostrationhefore AT&T and the International'ssla\ ish courting of government offiCialsand Democr,:tic Part\ politicos. Am­nnc serious ahout mounting seriousstrike actlnn must he prepared to takl'nn not onl\ the Bell System, hut also thecapitalist !1lnernmen't with its courts.sca hherd mg cops. judges. st rikehrea k­ing injunctions and troops. The govern­ment is not for the working people. orC\en a neutral arhitrator. but exists toprotect the interests of the higcapitalists Carter's strikebreaking ac­tions against the coal miners' strike arehut one examrlc."

Counterposed to Watts' strategy ofrelying on the Carters. Moscones andBrowns, the MAC called for theconvention to prepare for a solidnationwide phone strike to protectCWA jobs and working conditions. TheMAC bitlet went on to explain the needfor the unions to stop supporting thecapitalist Democratic and Republicanparties and to instead launch a workersparty to fight for a workers governmentand a planned economy.

MAC members attending the comen­tion told a J{'orkers I'anguard reporterthat their leatlet and Margolis' speechwere very \\ell received by a number ofdelegates. Particularly popular was aMAC-initiated proposal to amend theunion constitution to give CW A localsthe unrestricted right to strike overworking conditions and grievances.

Gary Adkins. a building steward anddelegate from Local 1150 I in LosAngeles tried to get this amendment onthe tloor during the agenda pointdevoted to constitutional amendments.But w.atts arrogantly ruled the motionout of order. claiming that it would befrivolous to allow discussion since thedelegates had not had proper time toconsider the proposal. Margolis how­ever told WI'. "The amendment wascirculated to everyone attending theconvention and was endorsed by morethan 30 local presidents and chiefstewards." The CW A convention rulespermit constitutional amendments to besubmitted from the floor. but Wattswanted no challenge to the "no-strike"clause in the CW A contract with Bell.

While the rejection of the dues hikeshowed that Watts could not steamroll­er the convention, it was also an easy actfor many delegates. Yelling about duesis a fairly standard method for lower­level union bureaucrats to curry favorwith the ranks without really challeng­ing the leadership's sell-out policies. Ameasure of the fact that few delegateswere prepared for a sharp politicalbreak with the Watts regime was theroutine and near-unanimous supportfor the rest of the CW A president'sproposals, which ranged from minorchanges in the union constitution toendorsement of such meaningless re­formist sops as the Humphrey-HawkinsFull Employment Act to support for

Watts Defends Jimmy Carter

WV Photo

In his opening remarks to thecomention. Glenn Watts defended hisstrategy of banking on the good will ofthe Democratic Party and imperialistchief Jimmy Carter: " ... CW A has aproven friend in the White House.Jimmy Carter's record as President hasindicated that although he is by nomeans in labor's hip pocket. as thesaying goes. he is basically sympatheticto the interest of working people, andhis record thus far has proven that."This is Watts' judgment after Carterinvoked Taft-Hartley to crush theminers strike; after he threatened phoneworkers with a Taft-Hartley injunctionin 1977; and right on the heels ofCarter's threat to use federal troops tobreak a postal workers strike should oneoccur.

As in t!).e past the CWA tops invited afew "friends-of-labor" Democratsto add ress the convention. These"honored guests" were San Franciscomayor George Moscone and California

jobs. She called for "a union offensive tofight for a shorter workweek with noloss in pay."

(COn! inuedji'ol/1 paRe 12)dues increase because to vote a duesincrease to the CWA Internationalwould for many local officials be an actof political suicide.

For his part. Watts made it very clearthat the dues increase was needed if theCW A tops were to pursue business asusual i.e.. to confine the CW A tobeing a lobby. pressuring phony "friend­of-labor" Democratic Party politiciansto throw the unions a few crumbs.

While disgruntlement with Watts'policies was widespread. the onlyfundamental opposition to the CW Abrass. which offered a sweeping andcounterposed program to Watts' hat-in­hand collaboration with the phonecompany. was led by delegate JaneMargolis of CWA Local 9410 in SanFrancisco. Margolis. a founding mem­ber of the Militant Action Caucus(MAC). a class-struggle oppositiongroup in Local 9410. led off oppositionto the Union's financial report. denoun­cing Watts & Co.'s complete prostrationto Ma Bell's attacks (see box). Margoliswent on to note that the kev issue thecomention should be discussing was nota dues increase but the drastic loss at

Jane Margolis

CWA•••

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

Inland...(continuedfrom page 12)

Sadlowski!Balanoff forces proved tohe no different from their hideboundadversaries in the McBride camp: bothordered the Steelworkers across thepiCKet lines.

The picket line is the battle line ofthe class struggle. Its message issimple: don't cross. Whenever theselines of elemental labor solidarity arebreached. workers are lined up on thehosses' side and directly pitted againstother workers in struggle. There is asimple. widely recognized term forsuch activity--scabbing. And theSteelworkers bureaucrats who imple­mented this policy at Inland arenothing less than scabherders.

The strike at Inland began June 13after the Bricklayers. who performcrucial maintenance and constructionwork on the plant's furnaces. hadworked without a contract for eight­and-a-half months. The key concern ofthe 285 Bricklayers. in addition to fairlymodest contract proposals, was reversalof the 22 disciplinary layoffs meted outto members of their union last year forrefusing to work forced overtime andwalking off the job. Unlike many otherunions (such as the USWA), BricklayersLocal 6 has the contractually guaran­teed right to refuse overtime. By seekingto encroach on that right, Inland alsothought it could teach a lesson to theSteelworkers, who have been subjectedto a cost-cutting campaign of speedupand massive layoffs throughout theindustry. The company was also eagerto reinforce the authority of the hated"no-strike" Experimental NegotiatingAgreement (ENA) with the Steelwork­ers. so it dug in on the walkout(discipline issue and provoked theBricklayers strike.

With months of notice that the strikemight occur, the bourgeois IT'ediareflected the company's fears that picketlines might shut down the entire plant.Numerous articles appeared in April,May and June in local newspapers,citing Bricklayers secretary-treasurerJames Teuell saying he expected theSteelworkers to honor the picket linesand that he was working closely with theLocal 10 I0 and District 31 leaders. The

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c/o SYL, Room 4102'Michigan Union, U. of MichiganAnn Arbor, MI 48109

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Box 23372Oakland, CA 94623

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Box 7198, Station AToronto, Ontario

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30 June 1978

Hammond Times (20 April) warned,"Another strike threat is taking shape,and it could shut down Inland Steel." Anervous Inland management sent lettersto all 18,000 USWA members at theplant, claiming it was making "fair andequitable" offers to the Bricklayers atthe negotiating table.

Inland had plenty of reason to bescared. Unlike any other major steelcompany, the sprawling Indiana Har­bor complex is Inland's only steelproducing plant. In addition, construc­tion work on a new blast furnace­slated to be the largest in North Americawhen completed-was halted by a strikeof Operating Engineers at the same timethe Bricklayers were out. Had theSteelworkers honored the picket lines, itwould have brought the entire companyto a dead stop. As one of the strikingBricklayers told WV, "If they'd all juststay home for one day' it'd be over."

But Inland had trusty allies at everylevel of the USWA bureaucracy. On theday the Bricklayers walked out and set upsmall picket lines on the access roadsleading to the mill gates, Local 10 10president Bill Andrews announced, "TheInternational Union has instructed us tohonor the binding contract." Andrewssaid that any steel workers who respect­ed the picket lines would do so "on anindividual basis and without unionsanction." Local 10 10 officers set thestandard for the ranks, crossing thepicket lines day after 'day.

But at least two members of Local10 I0 refused to cross the picket lines andstood up to their leadership's miserablecapitulation to the company. In aninterview with WV, militants Anwarand Thurtell told us what hadhappened:Anwar: "The Bricklayers were fightingour fight, too. If the company couldmake them work more overtime and getaway with it, they'll do it to us next.Already they force us to put in extrahours, sometimes double shifts, in themost incredibly unsafe conditions."Thurtell: "Look at the coal miners. Oneof the things that has made them sostrong is that they never cross a picketline. That's what our union ought tod "o.WV: "What happened when you raisedthis issue in your union?"Anwar: "We went to our local meeting,just a couple of days after the strikestarted. Steve and I tried to present amotion calling on the local officers totell the members not to cross the linesand for the District to back us up. Afterall, all these guys were elected claimingto defend the right to strike."Thurtel/: "But now that they're in office,it's a different story. President Andrewsgot up and read us a letter from theInternational's attorney directing thelocal to take all the necessary steps topersuade the members to report towork. In short, that equals organizedscabbing. We were accused of being"irresponsible" and violating the con­tract. Hell, the company violates thecontract every day and the union honorstheir right to do whatever they please.But they won't honor a picket line."Anwar: "After about a half-hour ofdebate, Andrews just ruled the motionout of order and refused to even take avote. Sadlowski and his guys ranpromising 'union democracy'-somedemocracy!"

The next day, June 16, a District 31conference opened at Chicago's Pick­Congress Hotel and it was more of thesame-and then some. Early in theproceedings on Saturday Anwar went toa floor microphone and began, "TheBricklayers strike at Inland requiresimmediate action by this conference."But at the very mention of the strike, aclot of supporters of the NationalSteelworkers Rank and File Committee(NSRFC), a caucus supportingSadlowski! Balanoff which is uncritical­ly hailed by the Communist Party,began shouting, "Not a delegate! Shutoff his mike!" A grateful Balanoff hadthe floor microphone clicked off, told

Anwar'to sit down and ordered himescorted off the floor.

Under pressure from at least some ofthe delegates, however, Balanofffinallyrelented near the end of the conference,allowing Anwar to address the body"for a statement only." "We won'tconsider any resolutions," he warned.Anwar explained the situation at Inlandand pointed to the stirring example ofthe miners' strike: "The miners' strikeshowed that strikes do work if workersstick together and honor each others'picket lines." But as soon as Anwarreferred to the motion for honoringthe picket lines, Balanoff inter­rupted. ''I'm not going to let thismotion on the floor." When Anwarconcluded with a plea for a delegate toplace the motion on the floor for a vote,Balanoff demonstrated his support forunion democracy by hastily adjourningthe conference.

Back on the Picket Line ...

The striking Bricklayers were nottoo surprised by the backstabbing of theUSW A bureaucrats. Referring to theBalanoff!Sadlowski! Andrews crew,one striker told WV: "It's kind of hard toput pressure on an organization [theUSWA] that doesn't give a shit abouttheir own membership."

But though abandoned by the fake­progressives in the USW A District 31leadership, the Bricklayers were notwithout resourceful tactics of their own.Increasingly disgruntled with their ownunion leaders, who kept urging avoid­ance of real mass picketing to shutInland down, militant strikers resolvedto up the stakes. When they turned outin force at 6:30 a.m. June 19, about 30 ofthe Bricklayers handed out 5,000 flyersto steel workers containing the resolu­tion authored by Anwar and Thurtellurging respect for the picket lines. Therest assembled at the gate leading to theblast furnace construction site. Thoughjittery Inland security guards shouted atthe gathering crowd of constructionworkers to proceed to work, nonecrossed the picket line. Five squad carsof East Chicago police were brought in,with a paddy wagon in tow, but still theline held firm. When Anwar andThurtell joined the pickets, carryingsigns reading, "Support the Bricklayersstrike-Don't cross their picket lines"and "Balanoff(Sadlowski! Andrews:Picket Lines Mean 'Don't Cross',"cheers and applause went up from thestrikers.

The Bricklayers victory, secured thatvery day, should put to shame thecowardly traitors in the USWA hier­archy. But these hardened sellouts will,no doubt, simply slough it off, just asBalanoff tried to downplay the issue ofthe Bricklayen; strike at the District 31conference, though the Gary PostTribune's Sunday edition (18 June)devoted its report on the conferenceentirely to the clash over the pickets atInland.

In attempting to excuse their strike­breaking activity, the Balanoffs andSadlowskis will doubtless find plenty ofsupport among their fake-left enthu­siasts, who jumped on the "reform"bureaucrats' electoral bandwagon. Hav­ing based their hopes for increasedinfluence in the labor movement onsnuggling up to left-talking "progress­ives," these so-called "radicals" are loathto abandon their mentors over some­thing so "trifling" as crossing a picketline. The Local 10 10 militants told usthey had approached a number of thesefake-militants at the District 31 confer­ence, trying to find a delegate to presenttheir motion:Anwar: "I talked to Rodi Schneider,who is chairman of our local StrikeSupport and Boycott Committee and iswith the NSRFC. Schneider told mehe'd been crossing the picket lines,which is a hell of a thing for a guy who'ssupposed to be in charge of strikesupport. and that he didn't support ourmotion. I also approached Simon Kent,a delegate from Southworks, Local 65.

Gary PressReports InlandStrike .Reprintedfrom Gary Post­Trihune. 18 June 1978

CHICAGO-A second attempt foran official United Steelworkersresolution to urge 18,000 membersemployed at the Indiana Harborplant of Inland Steel Co. not tocross union bricklayers' picket linesfailed Saturday.

Bricklayers Local 6. whosecontract with the company expiredlast Oct. I, has been on strike sincenegotiations reached an impasselast week. About 200 bricklayers.who took a strike vote last April 13,are involved.

William Andrews, president ofUSW Local 1010 at Inland Steel.had said his local, the largest in theSteelworkers union. would supportthe striking bricklayers, but he alsosaid the cooperation doesn't includean official decision to cross picketlines. since the USW has a bindingcontract with the company.

However. some members of hislocal have said it would be unionsacrilege for any organized workerto cross another union's pickets.Two active supporters of Bricklay­ers Local 6-Keith Anwar andSteve Thurtell. who have beenhonoring the picket lines at the costof losing wages and at the risk oflosing their jobs-proposed a reso­lution at the Local 10 10 meeting lastweek calling on Local 10 10 toinstruct its members to honor thepicket lines and to demand thatUSW District 31 "commit its fullresources and efforts to the supportof this policy."

Andrews declared the proposedresolution out of order last week.

-I--He explained that Local 1010members are bound by the basicagreement with the company andthe local union can't go on strikejust for sympathy.

At the US W District 31 confer­ence at Chicago's Pick-CongressHotel Saturday, Anwar addresseddelegates and pleaded for the sameresolution.

District 31 Director James Bala­noff ruled his plea out of order.

Striking bricklayers met Fridayto consider the latest developmentin the labor dispute, and The Post­Tribune learned the members de­cided to continue the strike. Theythereupon returned to the picketlines.

He was busy handing out the Steelwork­er and said he couldn't put up ourmotion because he had another motionto present. But, funny thing, he nevertook the floor of the conference topresent another motion. It was just adodge not to confront Balanoff. You'dthink, especially after the miners' strike,these guys would get the importance ofnot crossing a picket line. But theydon't. "

The apologists for the USWA bu­reaucracy in the NSRFC and theSteelworker group, which is endorsedby the Maoist Revolutionary Commu­nist Party, turn their backs on such basiclabor principles as not crossing picketlines in order to curry favor with thebureaucrats. They deserve the contemptand scorn of Steelworkers no less thando the Sadlowskis and Balanoffs wholead them around by the nose. Only ifthe rank and file are won to follow theleadership of militants, such as those atInland, who know what a picket linemeans and show real solidarity, can theUSWA become a fighting union insteadof defending the bosses, as the entirebureaucracy, from McBride to Sad­lowski. shamelessly does.•

11

WfJ/iIlE/iS ,,INfilJlI/iIJ

Picket Line Showdown WinsStrike at Inland Steel

StrikIng Bricklayers picket Inland Steel Co. plant in East Chicago.

CHICAGO The power of an angrypIcket lin,· \\on a ~udden victon June19 lor ~trlking ~ki!led tradesmen atInLtnJ Steel's huge Indiana Harborplant. Aftcr nearly a week on strikehad failed to budge Inland's negotia­tors, who were assisted by the scab­herding policies of officials of theUnited Steelworkers of America(USW'A) who told the IH,OOO steelworkers at Inland to cross the craftunionists' picket lines, 80 members ofBricklayers Local 6 turned out earlyMonday morning prepared for a show­down.

Squared off against private guardsand city cops rushed to the scene, thestrikers set up a solid picket line at acrucial gate, shutting down construc­tion work on a massiw new blastfurnace. Owr 200 craft unionists andlaborers honored the picket lines. Theshow of force caused Inland, whichhad stonewalled it through almost ninemonths of "negotiations," to capitulatethe same day. The company agreed tothe strikers' main demand-clearingthe records of 22 workers givendisciplinary layoffs last year.

The Bricklayers' successful picketline was joined that morning by twoInland steel workers, members ofUSWA Local 1010, who had beenwaging a fight to swing the power ofthe _ Steelworkers behind the strike.Keith Anwar and Steve Thurtellwalked the lines and, in solidarity withthe Bricklayers, demanded that theirunion officers instruct the membershipnot to cross the lines. However, both

at a Local 1010 meeting'and at theannual conference of USWA District3 L held in Chicago, June 16-17, theUS W A "leaders" gaveled the issue ofrespecting picket lines "out of order."

The Bricklayers won their strikewith no thanks due to the "dissident"wing of the USW A bureaucracy whichruns District 31 and is led by formerdistrict director Ed Sadlowski. WhenSadlowski challenged Lloyd McBride

last year for the Steelworkers presiden­cy, he invoked the nostalgia of 1930's"bare-knuckled unionism" and claimedto be for the right to strike. JimBalanoff. past president of Local 1010and Sadlowski's hand-picked successoras District 31 chief. echoed the samerhetoric (and promptly appointed "OilCan Eddie" his executive assistantwhen Sadlowski's electoral bid failed).Once in office Balanoff(Sadlowski

WV Photo

have done everything to sabotage afighting policy for Steelworken,.. refus­ing to call for an industrywide strikewhen the basic steel contract expiredand when the companies institutedmass layoffs, and allowing USW Amembers to handle scab ore and coalduring the militant iron and coal minerstrikes. And when the picket lines wentup at Inland Steel, the liberal

continued on page 11

Militants Fight For Jobs, Right to Strike

Dues Increase Stopped at CWAConventionSA:\ F-RA:\CISCO Man:> of the,:I,,:I()() phone workers. including the! ,HOO de1cgate~, attending the 40thannual convention of the Communica­tions Workers of America (CWA) heldhere last week (June 12-16) must ha\ecome away from this convention feelingfrustrated and disappointed. The Bellsystem, which is hated by just abouteveryone who uses a telephone andsuffers endless gouging rate increases,has laid off or dismissed over 100,000phone workers in the last four years andplans to slash tens of thousands morejobs through increased automation. Yetinstead of using the convention tohammer out a program of union actionto fight for jobs and improved workingconditions, union president Glenn E.Watts spent four out of the five days ofconvention time trying to sell reluctantdelegates on his proposal to jack up

12

union memhership dues.It was no sale' After four days of

parliamentary maneU\ering and hag­gling, of motions, amendments. amend­ments to amendments. points of order.divisions of the house and a roll callvote. the delegates finally decided totable the question of union financesindefinitely. The Watts regime, whichhad been promoting the dues increasefor months, was handed a stinging voteof no confidence.

In large part the delegates, many ofthem local union officers. voted to rejectany dues increase out of fear of theirmemberships hack horne. Across thecountry CW A members are disgruntledwith a union leadership that sabotagesstrike actions and stands hy while Bellmanagement slashes jobs and degradesworking conditions. Watts didn't get his

cOlltinued Oil page 10President Watts at the podium at recent Communicationsconvention in San Francisco.

30 JUNE 1978