W'liKlliS,I111",1I1' 25C1:No. 551 ~X-623 15 May 1992

For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!

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dan, SF's former chief ofpolice, declared a state ofemergency and curfew, giv-ing police sweeping pow­ers. Jordan rode to office ona racist backlash vote. Hisnew police chief is formersheriff Richard Hongisto, aliberal darling who brags heis a card-carrying member

of the ACLU as he busts demonstrators'heads. After thousands were arrested lastweek, including student protesters whosat down during rush hour on the BayBridge, Hongisto crowed that policedepartments around the country "will besending people here to take lessons onhow to do it right" (San FranciscoChronicle, 2 May).

In New York, meanwhile, a racistscare-mongering campaign swept thecity on April 30. As the rumors got wil­der and wilder, big companies in mid­town sent workers home early, smallshopowners slammed down their shut­ters from Harlem to Bedford-Stuyvesant,night-shift workers were told not to

. continued on page II

Angeles with a force larger than thatused in the 1965 U.S. invasion of theDominican Republic. And in the wakeof the riots, from L.A. to SF to NYCthere is an ominous escalation of policebonapartism, as the uniformed thugsact as a law unto themselves on thestreets.

In San Francisco on Friday, May 8,some 575 protesters were busted in apolice trap. Cops blocked the agreed­upon march route and then charged intothe anti-racist demonstrators, arrestingand photographing them, then loadingthem onto Muni buses for transport toPier 38, where they were warehousedinto the early hours of Saturday morning.This came a week after Mayor Frank Jor-

up anger of America's poor, minorityand working people exploded againstthe armed enforcers of this racist capi­talist state. Across the country, youngblacks, Hispanics, Asians and whiteshave poured into the streets to protestthe "not guilty" verdict acquitting theLos Angeles cops who savagely beatblack motorist Rodney King, and toshow solidarity with the L.A. upheaval.The match that lit up L.A. has burned agaping hole in the New World Orderthat is widening with each passing day.From the White House to the Californiastate house, America's rulers know they.are all guilty, and they're nervous ashell. Bush dispatched an army of U.S.troops and federal agents, occupying Los

Free the Victims of the Racist Roundups!Cops, Troops, Migra Out of the Ghettos and Barrios!For Labor/Minority Action Against Racist Cop Terror!

MAY ll-The U.S. imperialpresident's 31-car motorcadeswept into South-CentralLos Angeles at dawn likeNorman Schwarzkopf mov­ing into Kuwait City. Fed­eral agents and police werestationed on rooftops, armedwith sniper rifles and auto-matic weapons. Soldiersflooded Slauson and Crenshaw Boule­vards; Secret Service agents, cops andhandlers with bomb-sniffing dogsstreamed through the area. As the motor­cade sped past the burned-out rubblefrom the Crenshaw district in South L.A.to the Salvadoran immigrant area ofPico-Union to Koreatown, the Bush bri­gade met with unmasked bitterness andseething hostility from Los Angeles'poor. "Go to hell, you hypocritical liar!"one man jeered. A 35-year-old father ofthree, laid off for nearly a year from hisaircraft construction job at McDonnellDouglas, screamed out, "We need bettereducation, more jobs, a stake in thecommunity."

A week earlier, on April 29, the pent-

The Ramona Africa SuitThroughout the press in Pennsylvania, and perhaps

throughout the U.S. press as well, the story of theRamona Africa suit, or "the MOVE suit" as theyoften term it, has garnered banner headlines.

This civil suit, initiated by Ramona pro se (withouta lawyer), is a civil claim of a violation of her civilconstitutional rights, stemming from the policebombing of MOVE headquarters in West Philly, leav­ing at least eleven MOVE'men, women and babiesdead on May 13, 1985. The suit claims the stateknowingly and intentionally used excessive andunlawful force against the occupants of 6612 OsageAvenue, and created a holocaust that night.

Among prisoners, the articles have stimulated com­ment, among them, the ever-present comment, "Shegonna get paid." This comment never ceases to irkme, for, over and above the fact that Ramona couldcare less about money (as with all MOVE people),the fact remains that this is a civil suit, seeking civildamages, for an act that Ray Charles and Stevie Won­der both could clearly see was criminal.

Contrary to published opinion, as Ramona neatlypoints out, the May 13th bombing of MOVE by policewas; not even!, an accident, not a technical blooper,nor, as former mayor Goode said, "a bad day."

No! May 13th, 1985 was the most premeditated

police raid and destroy mISSIon in U.S. history; aday planned and prepared for, months, even years inadvance by local, state and federal officials swornto one unholy aim-the destruction of the MOVEorganization.

Their "bad day" began when one determined,scarred, smouldering Black woman dodged a hellfireof cop bullets to escape the plans of government toincinerate her and her family alive, and survived.

For this she was dumped into Pennsylvania's hell­ish prisons, sentenced to seven years in a prison mad­house of loss, pain and alienation at Muncy's WomenPrison-for daring to not die!

Well, Mona's back, y'all.Fueled by the generating influence of John Africa's

teaching, this MOVE soldier is marching back intobattle, to point out how corrupt, how thoroughlydecayed this system is, using their own so-called"law." Long Live John Africa!

Her dark, muscled arms are mottled, seared andscarred in some places, silent testament to the flamesof Osage, but her eyes are clear <and calm, her finemind sharper than the hot shards of glass that litteredthe back yard of Osage, sharper than the pain thatstabbed at her heart, when she looked back, andthrough the black clouds of smoke, saw her people,

her brothers and sisters, the children, shot back bya rain of death, back into the inferno of Osage, forcedback by a steady deadly rain of automatic policeweapons fire, forced back into eternity.

And they talkin' bouta civil suit-for damages!To date no official, former D.A. Edward Rendell

(who was himself recently declared immune from suit),former D.A. Ronald Castille, former U.S. Attorney

, Edw. Dennis, nor present D.A. Lynne Abraham, hasever called any action by police or any other official,"criminal"-not one charge. Not once. Nobody.

Just, maybe, a civil violation, here or there, and if"proven," will only mean you, the taxpaying public,will foot the bill, and pay hard-earned bucks for polit­ical incompetence.

As I look around this dungeon on Pennsylvania'sDeath Row, I see not one soul who dared premeditatemass murder like police and political officials didon May 13th, 1985, and until I do-don't tell meabout a criminal justice system, 'cause there ain't no"justice" in it-it's just a criminal system.

1 April 1992

Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Philadelphia blackjournal­ist, is on death row at Pennsylvania's Huntingdonstate prison. Framed up because of his politicalviews, Jamal faces death for his defiance of theracist, capitalist order. His columns appear periodi­cally in Workers Vanguard and other newspapers.

To get involved in the fight to save MumiaAbu-Jamal and abolish the death penalty, contactthe Partisan Defense Committee, P.O. Box 99,Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013. Ifyou wish to correspond with Jamal, you canwrite to: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM8335, Drawer R,Huntingdon, PA 16652.

!!w!.!!~y!~'!..!!~'!.! ~DIRECTOR OF PARTYPUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Joan Parker

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Valdez

EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson,Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg

The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist) .

Workers Vanguard (USPS098·770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with a-week interval December,by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial),(212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domesticsubscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changesto Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.

The Massacre of MOVE

UPI"

As American cities explode in outrage over the racist acquittal of thecop beaters of Rodney King, it is appropriate to commemorate 13 May1985, when eleven black people lost their lives and hundreds were burnedout of their homes in the Philadelphia police bombing of MOVE. ThisMay marks seven years since the Mother's Day siege of Osage Avenue.Black Democratic mayor Wilson Goode gave the order, the FBI suppliedthe C-4 explosives, and Philly cops dropped the bomb, then opened upwith 10,000 rounds of machine-gun and rifle fire to drive back into theflames those who sought to escape.

Not one of the government officials guilty of ordering and carryingout this calculated mass murder was even penalized, much less jailed,for their monstrous crime. But Ramona Africa was imprisoned for sevenyears for the "crime" of surviving this massacre. She and other MOVEmembers have been denied parole for refusing to renounce their beliefsor their organization.

Now after "maxing out," serving every day of the maximum sentence,Ramona is scheduled to be released on May 13. So the spiteful authoritiesat Muncy prison have been trying to set her up, particularly in light ofthe civil suit she has launched against the state. And sinister policesurveillance has been stepped up around the MOVE residence.

Reports have reached the Partisan Defense Committee that in late Marchprison officials closed the library, where Ramona worked, for two daysand tore it apart in a search. They suspended her from her detail becauseshe had been keeping legal papers there concerning her suit againstPhiladelphia officials. Meanwhile, city officials have started up theirintimidation and provocation tactics, with unmarked vans shining a spot­light on the house and a police helicopter circling the house for hours.

Eleven black people, including five children, are dead, and manyMOVE members are still in jail as part of the Philadelphia rulers' ongoingracist vendetta against these black radicals. We demand freedom for allthe MOVE prisoners! Stop the surveillance and harassment! The Amer­ican workers revolution will avenge the MOVE martyrs.

13 May 198515 May 1992No. 551

Black Freedom andRevolutionary Leadership

The arrogant refusal of the two parties ofcapitalist exploitation to offer anything otherthan increased repression to the impoverishedblack masses ofthe urban ghettos in the wakeof the Los Angeles upheaval underscores thecrying need for revolutionary leadership. Atthe time ofthe 1964 Harlem upsurge, the firstofa series ofghetto rebellions that rocked the

TROTSKY 1960s, the Spartacist League intervened with LENINthe aim of bringing to bear the social power

of the integrated workers movement in the struggle against cop terror and racist oppres­sion. As we wrote then, the key to black liberation lies in the forging of a proletarianparty committed to socialist revolution.

Revolutionaries in the Negro freedom movement need to pose transitional demandswhich, at each point, tend to bring the Negro masses to the recognition in struggle thatfundamental solutions to their problems are not possible within the framework of thecapitalist system, a system which incorporates in its very being inequality, racism, andmass destruction.

.... the Democratic Party is merely the preferred political tool of the very classesresponsible for oppression. The Democratic Party has been the most powerful politicalforce in this country for three decades; the fact that it has done nothing of anysubstance to advance the position of the Negro people is because it doesn't want to:it is controlled by powerful financial interests who benefit from the oppression ofNegroes.... The only alternative is the development of a mass Labor party based onan alliance of black and white workers committed to a socialist solution to the prob­lems of the working class-unemployment, speedup, lowwages, slums, and racism ....

Out of the struggle for and implementation of such a program will come a newrevolutionary organization capable of organizing the Negro masses and leading themin struggle. Such an organization, through fighting for the special needs of the Negropeople, will form its link through the Revolutionary Party to broader struggles­ultimately the struggle for workers power and a socialist reorganization of society.The Negro people, the most exploited section 'of the working class, will, by virtue oftheir long experience in struggle for a better life, playa leading role in the emancipa­tion of the entire American working class-and through them, of all humanity.

-"Harlem Riot and After" (Spartacist No.3, January-February 1965)

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

•

All· Out to StopNY Times Union-Busting!

MAY ll-"Turn 'em back! Turn 'emback!" pickets shouted as scabs drovetractor trailers belonging to the New YorkTimes into the New Rochelle, NYwholesale outfit owned by ImperialDelivery Service. Workers, members ofthe Newspaper and Mail DeliverersUnion (NMDU) from all over New York,were there to defend the jobs of 220 fel­low NMDU members who are being rail­roaded out by a union-busting operationcarefully orchestrated by the Times. Hun­dreds of thousands of copies of the NewYork Times went undelivered this pastweekend, as some trucks developed"mechanical failure" and one burst intoflames.

Last year we warned, when the uniontops caved in to Daily News owner Rob­ert Maxwell's job-slashing contract, that"if this deal goes down, the labor-hatingNew York Times bosses, with a $450­million ultra-modern printing facility atEdison, NJ ready to roll, are ready tosock it to the unions." Now the Timesarrogantly proclaims it will impose"labor peace for the rest of the century"through a no-strike pledge, slashingwages, ripping up work rules and guttingthe one union with the power to enforcea strike in the newspaper industry in NewYork. The demand to eliminate overtimepay alone will cut wages in half!

After years of submitting to arbitrationdecisions which hacked away at uniongains, on May 6 the NMDU tops put upthis giveback deal for a vote by the 2,900drivers.in the NYC area. It was rejectedas 60 percent voted "no." Drivers knowthat the rest of the industry will. quicklydemand the same givebacks as the Times.As one worker declared, "if they want awar, that's what will happen."

Times management moved quicklyafter the vote. Their front man in thisunion-busting campaign is one ArthurImperatore, owner of Imperial and thehuge APA Transport trucking companyin Jersey. He is taking over newspaperwholesaling operations in Long Islandand Westchester. In the words of aNMDU officer, "Imperatore owns halfof Hoboken." He is trying to use his 350acres of Jersey waterfront to build some­thing called "Venice on the Hudson." InNew Jersey??

Imperatore fired the 220 NMDU mem­bers, threatening to replace them withTeamsters from Local 917, who staff histrucking business. Teamsters headquar­ters in Washington warned Local 917to observe NMDU picket lines, soImperatore moved in scabs. The Timesmay claim that Imperatore is acting onhis own, but as one driver told WV, "TheTimes is the head of the snake. They leasetheir trucks from him, they've beensleeping together for years."

The haughty Times publishers got ajudge .to issue a midnight restrainingorder to prohibit the union from inter­fering with delivery. Allied PrintingTrades Council chief George McDonaldcapitulated even before they got theorder, telling the Times that "other news­paper unions would be very unlikely tostrike in defiance of a court order." Butas a driver said, "When you go into waryou don't carry a manual in your baskpocket that says what you can and can'tdo." Already, 16 drivers have beenarrested on the picket line.

What's needed is joint strike actionby all the unions at the Times to shut thepaper down now! Stop all deliveries,"defy the capitalist courts' injunctions

East Farmingdale,Long Island, May 8:

Drivers unionpicket arrested at

scab New YorkTimes delivery

operation.

with mass pickets to stop the scabs! Driv­ers must demand that Teamsters, railworkers and longshoremen refuse tohandle the newsprint. That's the kind ofaction that would have won the DailyNews strike of 1990-91 hands down,instead of dragging it out for months.

As in the Daily News strike, the rulingclass exploiters at the Times are playingthe race card, going after the NMDU fordiscrimination against blacks and otherminorities. But the exploiters on 43rdStreet, the spokesmen for this racist rul­ing class, have a lot of nerve pretendingto defend black rights! The drivers, whoin fact are now one-third minority andwomen, must join with the pressmen andturn the tables on the Times-demandingspecial union-run recruitment and train­ing programs at the capitalists' expenseto create jobs.

At the Daily News, while driving outthe Tribune Co. union-busters, the work-

ers were bled dry and saddled with acontract which sacrificed hundreds ofjobs, especially among the drivers andpressmen who were the backbone of thestrike. Well, Cap'n Bob went off theback of his yacht in the Canary Islandsand now his sons are peddling the Newsto a crew of media moguls who willdemand yet more givebacks.

The New York Times and the rest of thecapitalist press are big business; youneed hard class struggle to beat them. Tocounteract the press bosses' playing oneunion off against another, workers mustforge a fighting industrial union of thenewspaper industry; from the pressroomto the newsroom. By relying on thebosses' parties and bowing to the bosses'courts, the trade-union bureaucracy pre­pares the way for defeat. Newspaperworkers in NYC need a class-struggleleadership that will fight for a workersparty! Victory to the drivers strike! _

TA, TWU Tops Impose Contract Vote Rip-Off

WVPholo1,500 transit workers marched across Brooklyn Bridge to protest Sonny Hall'ssellout contract, February 12.

MAY 12-With voting on yet anothermail ballot finishing today, NYC transitworkers are being steamrollered by theTransit Authority and their own unionmisleaders into essentially the same sell­out contract they massively threw backonly weeks ago. The regime of TransportWorkers Union Local. 100 presidentSonny Hall constantly threatened thepowerful, racially integrated 32,000TWUers with dire consequences underthe no-strike Taylor Law.

First, the exec board extended the con­tract for a year. When 1,500 angry transitworkers marched over Brooklyn Bridge,Hall called in the police to keep themout of their own union hall! And whenthe contract was massively voted down,the TWU tops got together with the TAand Democratic governor Cuomo andcooked up a deal to automatically submitthe contract to binding arbitration ifworkers nixed it again.

The current mail ballot was blatantlyrigged. The choice on the ballot waseither "yes" for their stinking contract,or "no ...knowing that [it] will beresolved by binding arbitration in ac­cordance with the requirements of NewYork State law"! Workers across the sys­tem were furious. As a militant in theCommittee-for a Fighting TWU told WV:

"Workers don't have to 'know' anythingof the kind! We're fighting to smash theTaylor Law arbitration. Transit workerscan vote this down again, and with amassive repudiation of the Hall gang, goon to fight for a leadership that will mo­bilize the union in a solid strike."

15 MAY 1992

The Committee fought for a mass rrieet­ing of the entire TWU Local 100 atMadison Square Garden, collecting over1,000 petitions for a meeting to decidehow to fight and win.

The bureaucratic "opposition," NewDirections (ND), called for workers towrite "none of the above" on their ballot,but never offered a program for struggle.On the contrary, they voted with Hall toextend the contract last year, and thecloser it came to a showdown, the moreloudly ND opposed a strike. Meanwhile

they sought to funnel transit workers'anger into pressuring the DemocraticParty-like ND's "threat" to "disrupt"the Democratic convention... next July!Yet the rigged ballot deal came straightout of Cuomo's office.

This hasn't placated Hall, who haslaunched a witchhunt against ND offi­cers in the union. In a transparentbureaucratic maneuver on behalf of theTA aimed at suppressing dissent, Hallhas filed bogus union charges that his'hacks were "kidnapped and held hos-

tage"! This was over the union meetingwhere hundreds of angry workers gavethe labor traitors hell for selling themout! This witchhunt must be fought!

At every turn, New Directions and thereformists who champion them havesought to limit transit workers' struggleto what is "possible" in this racist, cap­italist system. "Solidarity" tells workers,"Recessions may be unavoidable," onlyarguing over "who suffers the most."Socialist Action praises ND, cynicallyimplying that it is for strike action andagainst the Democratic Party wheneveryone, including the New York Timesbosses, knows the opposite is the case.

TWU Local 100, the most powerfulmunicipal union in the country, is seeth­ing. The narrow Hall bureaucracy canonly stay in office by witchhunting andblatant rigging. The last few weeks havemade it crystal clear that transit workersmust roll over this roadblock and sweepaside the "New Directions" fakers byforging a genuinely class-struggle lead­ership with the determination and pro­gram to fight to win. _

CitationThe archival listing for the 1917

leaflet by Lenin and Trotsky, "Tothe German Soldiers!" printed in ourlast issue with the permission of theZentrales Parteiarchiv in the Institutfur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewe­gung (Berlin), is: ZPA, I 2/8/84.

3

IThe Murder of American Trotskyist Martha Phillips I

International CampaignPuis Heat on Moscow Authorities

After ten weeks of stalling, smoke­screens and incompetence by the Mos­cow militia (police), in late Aprilthe International Communist Leaguelaunched a worldwide campaign of pub­licity and protest to pressure the author­ities to begin a serious investigation intothe February 9 murder of our comradeMartha Phillips. Capping a series ofdemonstrations outside embassies andconsulates of the Russian governmentaround the world, on May 5 ICL spokes­men and a Soviet lawyer representingMartha Phillips' family held a press con­ference at the House of Journalists inMoscow which was attended by morethan 40 representatives from the Sovietand international media.

Reporting on the international cam­paign and what necessitated it, ICLspeaker Jon Branche stated:

"In the twelve weeks since Martha wasfound brutally strangled and stabbed onthe morning of February 9, Moscowauthorities show no progress in trackingdown those guilty of this abominablecrime. For weeks Phillips' comrades,friends and loved ones have cooperatedin good faith with the militia investiga­tion. But our urgent inquiries have met

AParis

Appel aone manifestationapres I'assassinat

d'une trotskiste americaineaMoscou

4

DemonstratorsIn more than

a dozen citiesilround the world

demandedan energetic

investigation ofthe murder .of

Martha Phillips.Above: London,

April 30..

with incompetence, evasion of responsi­bility and constant delaying tactics."

Among the documents distributed to thepress was a 21 April letter to the Moscowprocurator's office by Yossi Schwartz, aCanadian lawyer retained by MarthaPhillips' family. Protesting the handlingof the investigation, Schwartz detailedthe grievous shortcomings of the inves­tigation. Criticizing the numerous omis­sions from the autopsy report, the failureto perform essential laboratory tests and

the stonewalling of those charged withpursuing the case, he concluded thatit was impossible to know "whether itis a case of negligence or a consciousattempt to prevent a thorough investiga­tion leading to the prosecution of theguilty party.". A 1 April article by Oleg Rubnikovich

in the Soviet newspaper NezavisimayaGazeta pointed to the opaque and mys­terious manner in which the police inves­tigation has been pursued. As late asMarch 20, Moscow Morgue No. 5 saidthat "the preliminary diagnosis was sud­den heart failure," the article reported."Meanwhile by 11 February an autopsyshowed that the death was violent, andwhy the spokesman of the morgue triedto deceive the reporter remains unclear."

Now more than two dozen leadingpapers around the world, ranging fromthe San Francisco Chronicle arid Exam­iner and the New York Times in the U.S.to the London Independent, Le Monde(Paris), Frankfurter Rundschauand theJapan Times, have put the spotlighton the Moscow authorities. An articleby Seamus Martin in the Irish Times(4 May) noted that the case "is currentlyraising a minor storm here in Moscow."

Remarking on the virtual press black­out which preceded this campaign, AstritDakli noted in the Italian II Manifesto(3 May): "The violent death of an Amer­ican citizen is an event that in other caseshas raised a lot of noise in Moscow."Just how unusual this case is was under­lined by Howard Witt in the ChicagoTribune (10 May): "The circumstancesmight have been lifted from the pagesof a Cold War-era thriller. Phillips was,in fact, the first American murdered inMoscow in recent memory, according toU.S. embassy officials."

In what amounts to the first pub­lic response by the Yeltsin regime,the government-controlled ITAR-TASSnews agency issued a tortuous justifica­tion for the lack of official progress ina 30 April dispatch, which scurrilouslysought to put the blame on the victim.The dispatch retailed the Moscow proc­urator's office claim that "there are noreasons to suggest that the investigationis being conducted in secret." Yet thefirst brief account of the murder inthe Soviet press, in Vechernaya Moskva(26 February), said flatly that the inves­tigation was "being conducted in thestrictest secrecy."

A 27 April Reuters dispatch from

Moscow by Anthony Barker brokeground in the international press. Barkerinterviewed Moscow case investigatorPavel Marchenko, who "said he couldnot yet disclose details of his inquiry."It also cited the dismissive response froma U.S. embassy spokesman: "The Mos­cow police have assured us that they aredoing everything that they can."

Many of the articles emphasized theICL's Trotskyist politics and oppositionto Yeltsin counterrevolution. Barker, forexample, wrote of Martha Phillips: "Herorganisation was critical of the formerruling Soviet Communist Party, the pres­ent government of Russian PresidentBoris Yeltsin, which is introducing freemarket reforms, and the anti-SemiticPamyat nationalist movement."

The II Manifesto article, headlined"Moscow, the Strange Death of MarthaPhillips, Trotskyist Militant," pointedout that "This is a case with many anom­alies that aren't part of normal crimestories." Reporter Astrit Dakli noted howthe doctors who first arrived at the sceneof the murder "diagnosed 'sudden deathof natural causes' in spite of the evi­dence of knife wounds and marks ofstrangulation. The functionaries of themilitia did the same thing." She added,"The functionaries respond with annoy­ance to relevant questions (in other sim­ilar cases there was always an extra­ordinary mobilization, often with veryrapid results)."

Judi Buehrer, writing in the English­language Moscow Times (30 April),encountered the same stonewalling fromMoscow militia and U.S. embassy offi­cials. Investigator Marchenko "declinedto comment on any of the specifics ofthe case," while chief police investigatorAndrei Voyeikov "refused to commentabout why the doctors didn't imme­diately suspect foul play" and "alsodeclined to divulge other informationabout the case." The U.S. embassy, anofficial told her, had "done all it could."

An article "on the mysterious stabbingin Moscow of a Trotskyist" in the Lon­don Independent on Sunday (3 May) bySteve Crawshaw' reported that an aide toDenver Democratic Congresswoman PatSchroeder, who intervened in the caseon behalf of Phillips' family, complainedto him about the State Department'sresponse: "First we were told that it wasnatural death-then a knife wound. Westill haven't seen an autopsy report,

continued onpage I4

WORKERS VANGUARD

The Independent3 May 1992

©1992 by The Independent. Reprinted by permission.

'Accidental'death ofaSpartacist

.SeekingMoscowInquiryInto a Killing

San Francisco Examiner3 May 1992

©1992 by the San Francisco Examiner. Reprinted by permission.

world,lncluding the nearest one inSan Francisco, demanding a full in­vestigation of Ms. Phillips's death.

Ms. Phillips's sister, ElizabethGreenberg, a lawyer in Denver, saidthat from the Information she had re­ceived, only a list of names of the p0­litical people with whom she had beenworking was stolen from her sister'sapartment when she was killed.

Astatement issued by the Sparta­ctst League here said that membersdiscovered Ms. Phillips's body in bedon Feb. 9. It said the authorities ini·tially declared the death to be a resultof natural causes,later reversing thisfinding and saying they had discov­ered a stab wound in her chest andbroken bones in her throat.

The league's statement said Ms.Phillips, who was Jewish, had beenassaulted by members of Pamyat, anationalist group with overtones ofanti-Semitism, at a public demonstra­tion near the Kremlin three weeks be­fore.

Yossi Schwartz, a lawyer in Toron­to, has travelled to Moscow and hiredprivate investigators in an effort tolearn more. And while the Spartacistshave not taken an official positionconnecting her political work and herdeath, some friends and fa~i1y memobers believe the two are linked.

"She lived her life forber politics,"Ms. Greenberg said. "And I think shewas killed because of them."

in keeping with her."Phillips' move last spring to

Moscow was a "culmination of herlife's work," Coleman said.

Landing a job as an English in­structor at. the Russian AmericanUniversity, Phillips during hermonths abroad was a visible, vocalproponent of the Trotsky ideals.She was also publicly critical of thefree-market government ofYeltsin,and spoke in July at the MoscowWorkers Congress.

On March 9, friends found herlying in bed, seemingly asleep. Anautopsy later revealed that she hadbeen stabbed, then strangled, sus­taining several broken bones in herthroat.

Phillips' son and her parentslive in Colorado.

"She had one of the strongestcharacters of anyone I've .everknown," said Al Nelson, an Alame­da resident and longtime friend ofPhillips. "Martha was a youngwoman still. Not knowing who orwhy makes it so unfinished and itmakes grieving so much harder todeal with."

•••Like Ms. Phillips, many began their

political activism opposing the Viet­nam War. Be they Leninists, Stalin­ists or Maoists, it is here that they.come, believing that the city's work­ing people have a lot to gain and notmuch more to lose and that is there­fore an ideal place to launch theworkers' state.

On April 30,people picketed Rus­sian consulates in 11cities around the

League, the small group of radicalfollowers of the teachings of LeonTrotsky to which she belonged, have anew political fight on their hands:forcing the Russian authorities to findout who killed her.

When most people think about radl­cal leftist political organizing, of daysspend picketing and handing out leaf­lets and nights consumed by arguingtheory, they frequently think of thiscity's northern neighbor, Berkeley,where students have fanned thenames of civil rights and anti-Viet­nam war sentiments for decades.

But to spend a lifetime dedicated tothe certainty of the ultimate victoryof the workers' revolution, one mustlive and work side by side not with theIntellectual elite, but with the workingclass. Thus it is this City,where somany people go off to work wearinghard hats, that has always drawnstaunch revolutionists from aroundthe country.

unsuccessfully ran for the CityCouncil.

Employed as a typesetter, Phil­lips was 39 when she decided tostudy Russian as a prelude to mov­ing to the Soviet Union. She stud­ied at City College of San Francis­co.

"She had always wanted to livein the Soviet Union. She saw it asthe home of the first successfulworkers' revolution," said longtimefriend Diana Coleman of Oakland.

She is also a member of theSpartacist League, which followsthe tenets of radical communistLeon Trotsky, slain in exile after apower struggle with Joseph Stalin.The group says it has several hun­dred members in the UnitedStates.

They carry the mantle of Trots­ky who, in bitter opposition to theStalinist bureaucracy, founded amovement to fight for the rights ofthe working class.

"It's a pretty unusual personwho in their late 308 decides tolearn Russian in their spare time,"Coleman say&. "It was very much

,Martha .......... murdered in Moacow on Feb. 9, shown hereas candidatefor 0aItland City Councilin 1983.

The New York Times5 May 1992

©1992 by the New York Times Company. Reprinted by permission.

She was strident and dogmatic,she fought an unpopular cause.

She was also a woman of pas­sionate commitment and fervid be­lief in the power of the commonpeople, so willing to put her princi­ples on the line that last May, atthe age of 43, Martha Phillips up­rooted herself from- her Oaklandhome and moved to the SovietUnion.

In early February, the radicalactivist and one-time candidate forthe Oakland City Council }'asfound brutally and mysteriouslymurdered in a Moscow apartment.

After months of what they con­sider inept and inadequate policeinveatigation, supporters demon­strated last week outside the Rus­sian Consulate in San Franciscoand in a dozen other cities fromLondon to Tokyo to Sydney todemand that the slaying of the"fallen revolutionary hero" be thor­oughly investigated.

"We don't know why Marthawas killed," said Jim Robertson,head of the Spartacist League, apro-Bolshevik organization thatopposes the Boris Yeltsin regime."We're not claiming that there hasbeen a (coverup). But the investi­gation has lagged, it's been incom­petent. We want a clear, robustpolice investigation."

Andrei Rogov, the San Francis­co consulate's press attache, said acriminal investigation is being con­ducted by the Procurator General'sOffice of the Russian Federation."But so far, despite the measurestaken, the criminals have not beenlocated," Rogov said. "It's a com­plex matter, it's not easy."

He declined further comment.Known in Bay Area political cir­

cles for her radical militancy, Phil­lips had lived in Oakland for about20 years, friends say. In 1983 she

Probe urged inmystery death of'revolutionary hero'ByElizabeth FernandezOF TIE EXAMINER STAFF

Oakland woman's murderin Moscow draws protests

Oakland Journal

OAKLAND,Calif., May 4- Inmiles, it is a longway from scars­dale High School in

suburban Westchester countyout­side New York City to this city on theeast side of San Francisco Bay.

But to one)965graduate, MarthaPhillips, who once wrote of "hatingand despising bourgeois society," thisracially diverse city of auto and ship­yard workers and neighborhoodsfighting the devastation of crack andurban gangs felt more like home.

Afixture in radical political circleshere for nearly 20years, Ms. Phillipsorganized labor demonstrations, ranunsuccessfuliy for the City Council,worked as a typesetter and dreamedofgoing to the birtbplace of the Octo­berl917 revolution. Last May. thatdream came true. After studyingRussian In night school for years, shewas orr to Moscow to teach and to de­fend "the fractured apparatus of theworkers' state."

On Feb. 9, a few hours before shewas scheduled to attend a rally as asenior leader of the InternationalCommunist League protesting the re­formist policies of President BorisYeltsin, Ms. Phillips was found

.stabbed and strangled to death in herapartment.

Back here, Ms. Phillips's friendsand comrades in the Spartacist

on the mysteriousstabbing in Moscow

.of a Trotskyist

SteveCrawshaw

(Fourth· International), as theSpartacists described themselves,declared loyalty to Lenin andTrotsky - but,unlikemostTrots­kyist groups, they were not anti­Soviet. Indeed,Phillips wanted tosee a reconstitution of the oldSo­viet Union and was prepared todemonstrate alongside hardlinecommunists in Moscow in theirprotests against the Yeltsingovernment.

Phillips's comrades talk of herattempts to "smash the Bush­Yeltsin counter-revolution", andeven complain of "Stalinophobicanti-Sovietism".

But however unusual Phillips'sown politics may have been, theapparent lack of enthusiasm topursue the possible political or'anti-Semitic aspects of her mur­der is striking.

Joyce Simson, a campaignerfor Jewish rights, notes that Jewsin Russiaare increasingly accusedof responsibility for all the coun­try's failings. "They blame theJews for communism - or forcapitalism. Whichever."

an unwillingness to intervene forthe moment: "The best stance isto waitfor an officilil report. Youcan't say anything till you haveasmoking gun."Sheaddedthat theconclusion of a Moscow reportonthe death was understood to be"imminent".

In Moscow, the newspaperNiezavisimaya Gazeta - in a re­port last month - complainedthat a morguespokesman hadde­scribed .the cause of death as"heart failure", when it was al­readyclear that Phillips had beenmurdered. Niezavisimaya com­mented: "Why the spokesmantried to deceive the reporter re­mains unclear."

Yossi Schwartz, a Canadianlawyer, has complained that evi­dence has been destroyed. Thereare fears that, on past form, noone will ever be charged withPhillips's murder.

Phillips's political allegiancesstraddled a peculiar divide. TheInternationalCommunist League

WORKERS VANGUARD

ON 9 FEBRUARY this year, awoman was found strangled andstabbed in her apartment in Mos­cow. This was nothing special. Inwhatwasonce an almostpeacefulcity violent crime has soared inrecent years.

But this was no common-or­garden Moscow killing. The vic­tim was an American left-wingpolitical activist. And theft wasnot the motive. No valuables inthe apartment - which includedWesternCurrency and a computer- were stolen.All that was takenwas an address book, a watchmade in the former SovietUnion,and a carving knife, which was,presumably, used for the murder.

Martha Phillips, 43, was anEnglish teacher in Moscow and amember of a tiny ultra-leftgroupcalled the SpartacistLeague.Herfellow Spartacistsare now accus­ing the police of failing properlyto investigate the murder.

The case has certainly ap­peared confusedat best. One ear­lypolice theory,for example, wasthat despite the knifewound andthe bruises on her neck Phillipsdied of "natural causes".

This did not go downwellwiththe Spartacists. In their world,conspiracy theoriesare twoa pen­ny. Their newspaper, Workers'Vanguard, is full of stories aboutplots hatched by Reagan, Bush,the Pope - and even BorisYeltsin,whois perceived as a newoppressor of the working class.

But in the case of the death ofMartha Phillips, there are reasonsto be wary. Phillipswasa Jewandhad received threats from theRussian nee-fascist group,Pamyat,whichhas madeno secretof its anti-Semitism. Pamyat hasbeenwidely blamedfor a growingnumber of anti-Semitic attacksand killings carried out in St Pe­tersburg and 'Moscow.

Yeltsin supporters talk of a"brown-red"coalition - betweenneo-fascist groups like Pamyatand hardline, old-style commu-,nists. The left-right alliance hasbeen more explicit recentlyin thatthe nationalists have frequentlyshared a platform with hardlinecommunists such as ViktorAlksnis.

The American embassy saysthat it is "continuingto follow thematter closely". But VictorGranovsky, a friend of Phillips,told the English-language Mos­cow Tunes: "This is an Americancitizen who was brutally killed;nothing has been done - thefamily and friends have receivedonly a minimal response."

PatriciaSchroeder,a congress­womanin Phillips'shome townofDenver, Colorado, has beenasked by the victim's family topursue the case. An aide to MsSchroeder complained yesterdayof a "conflict" in the evidencewith which they have been sup-plied so far. .

"First we were told that it wasnatural death - then a knifewound. We still haven't seen anautopsy report, although we'veasked for it," she said.

But a State Departmentspokeswoman said that there was

15 MAY 1992 5

Young SparlacusBlack Stue/ents

• . • Michael HarrelsonAtlanta University students take to the streets on April 30 in protest of racist L.A. verdict. The next day, the cops seizedcampus to clamp down on student unrest. .

Cops Off Campus!The news of the acquittal of the

cops who beat Rodney King piercedAtlanta University Center like a siren.People poured out of classrooms anddormitories and into the streets in pro­test. And just in case students didn'tget the message from the videotape thatit's open season on black people forthe racist enforcers of law and order,it was beaten into their heads by thearmy of police and GBI (Georgia Bureauof Investigation) agents who rampagedagainst the students' protest of policebrutality.

It looked like television clips of Bir­mingham in 1963 when Police ChiefBull Connor unleashed savage cop vio­lence against young black demonstra­tors. Except this time it wasn't whitecracker racists leading the charge againstblack youth-it was black DemocraticParty mayor Maynard Jackson and theblack chief of police, Eldrin Bell.

On Friday May 1, the Atlanta Uni­versity complex was sealed off by athick blue line of cops. Students whoattempted to march downtown in protestof the verdict were denied a permit todo so by the mayor. Then an on-campusmarch and rally was surrounded bypolice who clubbed and gassed demon­strators and bystanders, and hauled awayanyone they could grab. Students werebeaten into buildings, under orders thatno one was to be in the open, then policefired tear gas canisters inside crowdeddormitories! Overhead, military helicop­ters bombed the campus with tear gas.When a number of police were them­selves overcome by the fumes; theauthorities equipped dozens of statetroopers with stun guns. A curfew wasslapped on. Police forcibly dispersed anygroups larger than two (!) on campus.Women at Spelman College were lockeddown in their rooms like prisoners.

The Spartacus Youth Club fired off atelegram to Mayor Maynard Jackson:

"The maelstrom of police violence atAtlanta University against black stu-

dents is a national outrage.... Scoresare injured and many languish injail. We demand: Drop the chargesagainst the Atlanta protesters! Cops offcampus-Now!"

. Waving their civil rights credentialsin one hand, the city fathers lecturedthe students on "nonviolence," and withthe other hand they ordered a violentcop siege of the campus. Having longago sold their souls to the DemocraticParty, these miserable "leaders" playedtheir appointed role as the black over­seers on George Herbert Walker Bush'splantation.

The Atlanta Constitution moaned thatstudents no longer heed "the voices ofthe civil rights establishment," but aretuned into rap music with its "uncom­promising eye on social, economic andpolitical injustices." Maynard Jacks~nlamented that this generation of youthare not steeped in "King's philosophy ofnonviolence." It could not be clearer thatwhat this politically bankrupt layer ofelected officials mean by "nonviolence"is submission.

Thirty years ago, establishmentpoliticians and the media demonized

Malcolm X for speaking out for blackself-defense in counterposition to Mar­tin Luther King's turn-the-other-cheekpacifism. Against charges of "incit­ing violence," Malcolm wrote in hisAutobiography:

"It takes no one to stir up the socio­logical dynamite that stems from theunemployment, bad housing, and in­ferior education already in the ghet­toes. This explosively criminal con­dition has existed for so long, it needsno fuse; it fuses itself; it spontaneouslycombusts from within itself...."I believe it's a crime for anyone whois being brutalized to continue to acceptthat brutality without doing some­thing to defend himself. If that's how'Christian' philosophy is interpreted,if that's what Gandhian philosophyteaches, well then, I will call themcriminal philosophies."

While many Atlanta students haverejected the "criminal philosophies"shoved down their throats by the cityfathers, there are still plenty of illusionsin petty-bourgeois black nationalism, theutopian belief that establishing a sepa­rate black economic community can takethe racism out of capitalism. In the after-

math of the cop siege, a group called"Students for African American Empow­erment" designed an insignia for "black­owned businesses" so you could knowat a glance which stores to patronize,boycott or trash.

Justified anger against police violenceand the whole racist system is being mis­directed by the would-be "talented tenth"into schemes for "black capitalism" andbase bigotry, especially against Asianmerchants. Atlanta is already the citadelof "black empowerment" in racist Amer­ica. What that means under capitalismis that a small layer of self-satisfiedblack businessmen and political hustlerslord it over the masses of black peoplewho suffer under desperate economicconditions.

Real power will come when we linkup with the power of the organized,integrated working class in an uncom­promising fight against the capitalistsystem that keeps black people forciblysegregated at the bottom of the economyand subjected to all forms of racialoppression. Black liberation throughsocialist revolution! •

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Join the Labor Black Leagues!The Labor Black Leagues stand for mobilizingminorities and working people in militant integratedstruggle against the brutal system of racist capitalistoppression. The LBLs are fraternally allied to theSpartacist League, and are part of the revolutionarymovement of the workers and oppressed against thebosses and for socialism.

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Class Struggle

A Spartacist Pamphlet 75c

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

WfJlillEliS """'lil)

Outrage Over· Racist Acquittal01 Cops in Rodney King .Case

Chinn/SF ExaminerAs outrage swept the West Coast after the verdict In the Rodney King case,a San Francisco protester Is seized by the cops.

MAY 3-Even as the first flames leaptinto the sky over Los Angeles, accumu­lated seething anger erupted in citiesacross the country as word of the racistverdict spread. As L.A. burned, turmoilspread coast to.coast. While paramilitarycops, National Guard and U.S. troopsoccupied South Central L.A., a state ofemergency was clamped on San Fran­cisco and Atlanta, the National Guardwas called in to Las Vegas, and curfewswere imposed in half a dozen cities fromBerkeley to Atlanta. In every city whicherupted in indignation over this verdict,bitter memories were stirred of the manyother victims of rampaging cop terror.

The searing image of a lynch mob inblue uniforms sadistically, methodically,repetitively torturing a black man lyinghelpless on the ground became the sym­bol of racist police brutality in America.Now the verdict broadcast to the worldwhat black people already know well:there is no justice in the racist capitalistcourts. "They've been killing us, stomp­ing us, slapping us for years," bitterlyremarked a street gang member in L.A."And when we get 'em on tape, they getfound not guilty in a system that doesn'tcount for us," added another.

"This says it's open season on blackpeople," said Jody Earl, a blackAngeleno, 33. Ron Boyle, 40, added,"The justice system doesn't work inAmerica" (San Francisco Examiner, 1May). This conspicuously interracial

outburst against the oppressive cops andcourts spread so dramatically because ofyears of grinding poverty and social con­ditions oppressing Latinos and many

whites as well as blacks. Polls show anoverwhelming majority of the popula­tion disagreed with the verdict absolvingthe cops who beat Rodney King. One

reported that even 47 percent of whitesthink the rioting is "understandable."

The racist media, while playing overand over pictures of the vicious beatingof a white truck driver, hesitated in vil­ifying the desperate crowds that took tothe streets. They whine that "there arebetter ways" to protest, but it's obviousthat the wave of unrest has at leastfocused world attention on the griev­ances of black America. As demon­strators from Berlin to New Delhisolidarized with the explosion of rage inLos Angeles, and racist rulers from Japanto South Africa scoffed at Washington'spretensions to world "leadership," Bush& Co. worry that their "New WorldOrder" could go up in smoke.America'srulers know they are guilty, and they'renervous as hell-as well they should be.

The malicious California governorPete Wilson-who wants to starve wel­fare mothers and just ordered the firstexecution in the state in 25 years-ealledout the National Guard, at the behest ofblack Democratic mayor Bradley. Andthe haughty imperial president GeorgeBush got on TV with a "get tough"speech announcing that U.S. troops werebeing deployed. Armored personnel car­riers rolled into South Central. It wasthe Seventh Infantry from Fort Ord,which carried out the invasion of Pan­ama, Marines from the Gulf War, SWATkill squads made up of FBI, federal

continued on page 8

There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts!L.A. Racist Cops Walk

The following is adapted from a state­ment by the Partisan Defense Committeeissued on April 30.

The videotape of Los Angeles copsviciously pummeling black motoristRodney King sparked a wave of outragein L.A. and across the country. The ama­teur video caught the cops in their rou­tine practice of terrorizing blacks andother minorities. Now the despicableverdict by a no-blacks-allowed Simi Val­ley jury acquitting the would-be killersis a green light for racist terror-fromskinheads and KKKers to big-city andsmall-town cops across the country.

Moving the trial out of L.A. to virtu­ally all-white Simi Valley-where activecops and their families outnumber theblack population-was a sure way theracist capitalist state could come up witha not-guilty verdict. The jury watched

the same videotape the whole worldsaw-they saw over and over again howRodney King was stunned by Tasers,repeatedly beaten and kicked as he layhelpless on the ground. But it didn't mat­ter. The judge instructed the jury to seethe videotape "through the cops' eyes"and that's what they did.

Now the rage and explosion over thishideous injustice will be used to jus­tify more repression and more cop vio­lence in the name of white racist "lawand order." Already the National Guardhas been placed in readiness to im­pose martial law. A state of emergencyhas been declared and a dusk-to-dawncurfew imposed. We say: cops andNational Guard, army of occupation­out of the ghettos and barrios!

This racist verdict was a provocationcontinued on page 9

Mass arrests of suspected looters: Free. all the victimsdragnet! Stop the migrs raids!

Cops, Troops, Migra Out of the Ghettos and Barrios!15 MAY 1992 7

that they won't get anything until theybum the place down. But as many havepointed out, after the '67 riots that dev­astated black Detroit, it was never builtup again. But the deeper truth is thatDetroit turned into a ghost town becausethe auto bosses looted the industry andclosed down plant after plant. It's thecapitalists who have destroyed thewealth of this country built up by thesweat of the workers. It's not who's inthe White House but the inexorableworkings of an irrational system.

For Black Liberation ThroughSocialist Revolution!

A program for black emancipationmust start with the knowledge that thewhole system of racist capitalist oppres­sion has got to be brought down. In the'60s this was taken as a given by militantradical leaders, like Malcolm X and thePanthers, but many were gunned downby the FBI's murderous COINTELPROor thrown behind bars, while more oppor­tunist elements joined the DemocraticParty. But even the best of these militantfighters failed to understand that the onlysocial force that could eliminate this rac­ist system is the integrated working class.

To change the consciousness of frus­trated black youth, in the first instancewhat is required is a powerful strugglefor jobs. This is not a matter of goinghat in hand to lobby (beg) Congress, butof mobilizing the organized labor move­ment in militant struggle for a shorter

- workweek at no loss in pay, for unionhiring halls with union-run job trainingand skills upgrading programs to enrollminority youth. In sweatshop havens likeL.A., organizing the unorganized cangreatly reduce the rampant poverty.

The power of labor, breaking with thetame trade-union bureaucrats, must bebrought to bear in the fight for blackemancipation, acting as a champion ofall the oppressed. For mass organizedlabor/black defense against racist ter­ror-gun control kills blacks! And theworking people must be mobilized polit­ically to defend their class interests. AsSpartacist League spokesman Don Alex­ander said at a May 2 Bay Area SL edu­cational conference, "From black Dem­ocratic Party mayor Tom Bradley to JesseJackson and Bill Clinton and WillieBrown and Ron Dellums, the capitalistruling class and their political repre­sentatives are united in defense of whiteracist 'law and order'and in suppressingwith cops and troops the burning rageof the masses." "Workers revolution...that's when we'll get our justice!"

This generation has grown up withoutseeing mass social struggle, so manydon't see where the power will comefrom to accomplish this. There is a basisfor multiracial unity in this country, butit can never be on the basis of "reforming"a status quo which forcibly keeps onerace on the bottom. Not empty appealsfor "brotherhood" but the fight to smashcapitalist exploitation and oppression canbring the working people of all racestogether. The key factor in that struggleis the building of a multiracial workersparty on a revolutionary program. _

We are Dot belple.s and i.potentl......-. I

Oraanized labor's Y01ce must be heard I It'. pover and oraan­

1zation must be wielded to stop police terror aaaiDst blackand III1nority comqunit1esl

The decent folk of this count~y are in shock, and outraaed.

THE TIKI TO ACT IS NOVI

'il, thil 1DIendpd, d!aaIil the .1I:IiaB 1Il'Ob!lIt. tJxIa ndst 1qj1llt1c.e.

DRID SCOTT, 1857RODNIY IIRG, 1992

Labor Must CallOut It'. lanksl

'Ibe L.A.P.D. brutal.J.y beet. JlccIne)' r:u. to thil pa1nt of fIlllIr deBth'Ibe ~ syst8D IIl$ JlOI( exmerated til! L.A.P.D. rBdst torture squad:'Ib!se EllIe c:ourts eutJaw our 8t:l1ke 'oIlllIPXlS, 8Ild II1leeSI thil poljce to beat8Ild arrest st.r1lcI.na 1Gicers.

This petition is being circulated in the Bay Area by a militant black socialist.

for plebeian resentments. This was crys­tallized by the killing of black teenagerLatasha Harlins last March, shot in theback of the head by a Korean storeowner. Now, caught in a vise, Koreanmerchants responded to the looting withmurderous gunfire, while thousands ofKoreans then marched with desperateappeals for "peace and justice." The rac­ist hostility against Koreans, whipped upby black nationalist demagogues andaspiring black businessmen who want toexploit "their" market, is a poisonousdiversion from the real enemy of theblack masses. Most West Coast Asiansare among the most miserably exploitedpeople around.

While the bourgeoisie fumed about the"criminality" of looters trucking awaygoods from broken store windows, byall indications this was a thoroughlyintegrated affair of downtrodden andimpoverished people. This is indeedunderstandable, but won't do anythingto eliminate the entrenched poverty ofAmerica's inner cities. As we wrote atthe time of the 1960s ghetto explosions:

"For the last three summers ghettosacross the country have been rockedby elemental, spontaneous, non-politicalupheavals againsttheprevailing propertyrelations and against the forces of thestate which protect these relations. In nocase have they been genuine race riots.The risings have usually been provokedby the police, in the course of 'nonnaI'brutalities (Watts 1965) or in an effortto crush a movement whichis exceedingthe bounds set for it by bourgeois society(Harlem 1964). As the struggle againstthe police expands, the black street­fighters turn on the-merchants and shop­keepers, the visible representatives ofthe oppressive class society, and smashwhatever cannot be carried off. Yetdespite the vast energies expended andthe casualties suffered, these outbreakshave changed nothing. This is a reflec­tion of the urgentneed for organizationsof real struggle,whichcan organize anddirect these energies toward consciouspolitical objectives. It is the duty of arevolutionary organization to intervene

'where possible to give these outburstspolitical direction."

- "Black and Red-ClassStruggle Road to NegroFreedom," SpartacistSupplement, May-June 1967

The point is not to seize articles of con­sumption but to expropriate the meansof production. And that takes a leap inconsciousness and organization to doaway with the capitalist order.

Riots are an expression of despair,often including ugly incidents of indis­criminate attacks on individuals whohappen to find themselves at the wrongplace. In the '60s, ghetto uprisings werethe product of the failure of the civilrights movement to make a dent in theracist conditions in the urban centers ofthe North. To do so meant going updirectly against the Democratic Party­to which the liberal preachers like MartinLuther King Jr. were beholden-andattacking the capitalist economic under­pinnings of black superexploitation anddiscrimination. While avowed revolu­tionary nationalists like the Black Pan­ther Party were active in the ghettos atthat time, today what is most striking isthe utter vacuum of black leadership.

There's a sense among many blacks

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King Verdict Lit the Match

Day after day, black L.A. watched onTV the "trial" of four of the more thana dozen racist cops involved in beatingRodney King. Once the case had beenmoved out of L.A. to lily-white SimiValley, a bedroom suburb for cops andhome of the "Ronald Reagan MemorialLibrary," it was all over. In Simi Valleythey love L.A. police chief Daryl Gates,the Sultan of SWAT, who earned hisspurs as an LAPD commander in Wattsin '65 and defended his killer cops by"explaining" that blacks just die moreoften than "normal people" from thechoke hold. For anyone trying to get aconviction of the cops (which the pros­ecution wasn't), this was "the jury fromhell," as one commentator put it. As hisaunt, Angela King, said on TV: "RodneyKing is out there on that ground beggingfor his life, and I'm sure those jurorssaw that videotape 1,000 times and feltno remorse."

In contrast to Simi Valley, South Cen­tral is 95 percent non-white, equallyblack and Latino, "a flat plain ofpovertyand high unemployment" (San Fran­cisco Chronicle, 1 May). A decade ago,ten of the twelve largest non-aerospacefactories in the area were shut down, dec­imating the unionized black workforce.Between 1973 and 1986, the averageyearly income of black high schoolgraduates in Los Angeles declined by44 percent, while Latino earnings fell35 percent. This is the tinderbox inwhich the racist verdict in the "RodneyKing trial" lit the match, One effect ofthe rioting was to bring together thewarring black and Latino street gangsagainst the cops. Graffiti on one wallread, ''Crips Bloods Mexicans togetherforever tonite 4/30/92."

The ghetto explosion exacerbated ten­sions between black residents andKorean merchants (as well as the com­munity of Koreatown just north of SouthCentral). When Jewish shopowners leftafter the '65 Watts riots, the Koreansmoved in-and became a lightning rod

cop to hang for ordering a 1988 massacreof eleven black people, but the deathpenalty has been suspended there.

The rage of the inner city intersectswidespread frustration and disgustextending throughout the population.Particularly in this election year, it isself-evident that both capitalist partiesare bankrupt. Meanwhile, the abjectbetrayal by the UAW tops of even themainly white, middle-aged Midwest Cat­erpillar strikers has driven home the needto sweep cut the racist, bought-and-paid­for AFL-CIO bureaucracy.

The Rodney King verdict has illu­minated the whole system of Ameri­can capitalism, built on a bedrock ofracist oppression. It cannot be reformed,it must be smashed. The question is how.The situation cries out for revolutionaryleadership, to organize the social powerof labor and unite behind it all theoppressed in a struggle for state powerthat gets rid of the whole rotten racistcapitalist system and opens the road forgenuine emancipation for all.

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old black man remarked, "Martin LutherKing was a waste. His methods havechanged nothing." Black people arebeing pushed beyond the limit, terrorizedby cops and courts, driven out of theindustrial workforce, denied decent edu­cation and housing. U.S. capitalism hasno use for a whole generation of blackghetto youth who were once kept on thebench as a "reserve army of labor." Nowall that awaits them is death-slow deathfrom epidemics of disease, malnutritionand drugs, or fast, in the gas chamberor gunned down on the streets. Onpoints, the U.S. is now worse than SouthAfrica, where they just sentenced a white

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist LeagueNational Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860

ii

Philadelphia Magazine

Mumia Abu-Jamal is on Death Row inPennsylvania because this crusadingblack radio journalist, known as the"voice of the voiceless," earned theenmity of Philadelphia rulers and copsfor his outspoken defense of blackradicals against racist repression. Thefight to save Jamal has become a rally­ing cry for death penalty abolitionistsaround the world.

Name -,--_

Address '----- _

Outrage...(continued from page 7)marshals and Border Patrol. Now thisarmy of occupation of 30,000 heavilyarmed troops aims its bayonets at blacks,Latinos and Asians at home.

In the face of the police-state occupa­tion of black and Latino L.A. it isnecessary to mobilize the power of theintegrated union movement. Hours afterthe cops moved in, the Partisan DefenseCommittee issued a leaflet (see page 1)demanding that the major unions includ­ing longshore, aerospace and city work­ers must organize work stoppages andmass mobilizations to solidarize with anddefend the ghettos and barrios now lit­erally under the gun. We demand: Cops.troops out of the ghettos and barrios!

After three days in L.A., the death tollexceeded that of the 1965 Watts riotsand even that of Detroit in 1967: it cur­rently stands at 49 dead, of whom atleast 17 are black, 15 are Hispanic, 8white, and 2 Asian. The police and pressare covering up the numbers of victimsof the cops. As CNN reporter CharlesZewe reported from the scene, of the dead"most of those who died were black, mostof those who died were shot in confron­tations with police." There were 1,765reported injuries and 6,345 arrests.

L.A. is "seething with a kind of rageI've never seen," said Zewe. A 52-year-

8 WORKERS VANGUARD

Paul O'Dwyer: "This Heinous Murder Must Be Solved"

American Trotskyist Murdered in Moscow

Worldwide Protests DemandSerious Investigation

Protest pickets were held in a dozen cities aroundthe world on April 29 and 30 demanding a seriousand energetic investigation of the murder of MarthaPhillips.an American Trotskyist murdered in Moscow.Phillips, 43, was the leading spokesman in the SovietUnion of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist). She was found brutally strangled andstabbed on the morning of February 9, just hoursbefore a major demonstration against the starvationpolicies of the Russian regime of Boris Yeltsin. Yet12 weeks later, Moscow authorities show no progressin tracking down those guilty of this abominablecrime.

The demonstrations were called in response to anappeal by the Spartacist League/U.S. and the PartisanDefense Committee on behalf of the ICL. Held onthe eve of May Day, the international workers holiday,they also denounced the drive to impose capitalismon the Soviet peoples. Seventy protesters outside theRussian consulate in New York City chanted, "Yeltsinis tool of Wall Street rule!" and "Free market misery,we say nyet-Power to workers soviets!" Signs inRussian and. English demanded, "No more stalling!Full investigation of the murder of Martha Phillips!"

Martha Phillips lived and worked in the S.P. BayArea for nearly 20 years, where she was activelyinvolved in the antiwar, civil rights and labor move­ments. In 1983, she ran as Spartacist candidate forOakland City Council on the program "You Can'tFight Reagan with Democrats-For Mass StrikeAction to Bring Down Reagan." She was a founderof the Bay Area Labor Black League for SocialDefense, which grew out of her election campaign.

Pickets were also held in Washington, D.C., Ottawa,Sydney,' Warsaw, Rome, Milan, Berlin, Hamburg,Paris and London. In Tokyo, despite a ban on dem­onstrations and a heavy presence of riot police, theSpartacist Group Japan delivered a statement to the

Russian embassy. Earlier in the week, when a repre­sentative of the Lega Trotskista d'Italia brought apacket of information to the Russian consulate inMilan, he was given a seemingly concerned hearinguntil he mentioned that Martha Phillips was Jewish,whereupon the vice consul launched a stream of anti­Semitic abuse. Our comrade indignantly walked out.

The week of protests began with a press conferenceat the Leon Trotsky Museum in Coyoacan (MexicoCity) on April 27, the house where the Bolshevikleader was slain by a Stalinist assassin in 1940.Esteban Volkov, Trotsky's grandson, declared: "Wewish to add the name of Martha Phillips to the longlist of fallen revolutionary heros, a list that is headedby the great revolutionary and Marxist Leon Trotsky,who initiated this struggle in 1923 when the wholeprocess began of betrayal and moving away from theOctober Revolution which today is reaching its finalstage, that of the return to' capitalism." Volkov added:"We still cannot say clearly the circumstances inwhich she was murdered, but there are many elementswhich suggest that it was a political crime of reprisalagainst the Spartacist group. And the actions of theRussian militia leave a lot to be desired and raisemany doubts."

The following statement was received from formerNew York City Council president PaulO'Dwyer.

An American Trotskyist has been murdered in Mos­cow. This fact alone demands a serious and energeticinvestigation by the Moscow authorities. Martha Phil­lips was a woman who devoted her life to fightinginjustice wherever it appeared. A proud, member ofthe union movement, she fought the encroachmentsof industry against the interests of labor. A Jewish

Martha Phillips10 March 1948 - 9 February 1992

At the New York demonstration, a spokesman forthe SL/U.S. noted that "Talking of 'freedom' and'democracy,' the imperialists want to impose a societywhere vicious cops can brutally beat a black manbloody and then get off free, as just occurred in LosAngeles. We are doing everything in our power toprevent that. We dip our red flags in honor of MarthaPhillips, and we raise the red banner of revolution incontinuing her fight."

woman and socialist, she organized on behalf ofall minority groups and all oppressed people againstthe Nazis and Klan. In the last year of her life, in acountry not her own, she struggled on behalf ofthe working people of the Soviet Union in a time ofterrible crisis. I add my voice and support to thoserallying worldwide in memory of Martha Phillips.This heinous murder must be solved.

April 30, 1992

Geronimo (ji Jaga) Pratt, America's foremostclass-war prisoner, has spent over 20 years in theprison hellholes of San Quentin and Folsom for acrime the government knows he didn't commit,because their own phone taps showed he was inOakland when it happened. A former leader ofthe L.A. Black Panthers, he survived a 1969LAPD/SWAT machine-gun raid on Panther head­quarters, only to be framed for murder as part ofthe FBI's infamous "Counter-Intelligence Program"(COINTELPRO) to "neutralize" radical blackleaders. Freedom now for Geronimo Pratt!

No Justice...(continued from page 7)

guaranteed to generate desperate outrageby the city's besieged minority popu­lation. The point is not to seize articlesof consumption but to expropriate themeans of production. That's a big leap,representing the shift in consciousnessfrom that of outraged poor people to thatof conscious and organized workingpeople.

This country today "leads" the worldin the percentage of its population incar­cerated by its "justice" system, exceed­ing even apartheid South Africa. Unableto provide jobs and homes to millionsof people, this country's rulers are will­ing to spend ever greater sums of moneyto lock up those the system has nouse for, as well as those who want tofight for something better. The only"growth industry" in America today isconstruction of new prisons, where thenumber of blacks and Latinos behind

LA Times

Remember Patrick Mason, The five­year-old black child was blown awayin his own home in 1983 by an OrangeCounty cop who kicked in the doorand shot the little boy with a ,357 mag­num from a. distance of 3 feet.

15 MAY 1992

- '

bars is vastly disproportionate to theirweight in the population.

This is life in the "New World Order,"The beating of Rodney King took placejust days after the U.S. mass murder mis­sion in Iraq, prompting Bush to declare,"The kind of moral force and nationalwill that freed Kuwait City from abusecan free America's cities from crime."Rodney King knows well the immoralforce of the Los Angeles police, as doesformer Black Panther leader Geronimoji Jaga (Pratt) who has spent over 20years in prison framed by the LAPD andFBI, and the families of the 28 victimskilled over the past 25 years by theSpecial Investigations Section (LAPD'ssecret hit squad). This is what blackDemocratic mayor Thomas Bradley calls"the finest large-city department in thenation." '

The cops and courts are instrum~ntsof racist class oppression. This is howthe thugs in blue "serve and protect"their capitalist masters, not just in L.A.but in the inner cities across the country.When not terrorizing the ghettos and bar­rios they are out busting picket lines,like the 1990 cop riot against strikingLos Angeles janitors. Wednesday's ver­dict is a grotesque reaffirmation ofSupreme Court Justice Taney's decisionin the Dred Scott case 135 years ago thatblacks "had no rights which the white

man was bound to respect." The mes­sage written in blood and bruises uponthe body of Rodney King, and nowbuttressed with all the pomp of "dueprocess," is that the racist cops can doanything they want to anybody they wantanytime they want.

Black people in Los Angeles areincreasingly vulnerable-shoved out ofthe labor force, they are pushed backand forced to survive on the shrinkingmargins of the dangerous inner cities.The working class must not allow theblack population to be isolated-thepowerful L.A. unions such as longshore,aerospace and city workers shouldorganize work stoppages and mass mobi­lizations to solidarize with and defendthe black community as the LAPD looksto spill more blood to "celebrate" theirracist victory over Rodney King. It isa measure of the craven prostration ofthe pro-capitalist union "leaders" inthe face of this racist crime that insteadof organizing powerful actions againstthe cops who torture and kill blackpeople, who arrest strikers and protectscabs, they are busy whipping up anti­Japanese protectionism and turning outworking-class votes for the Democraticpoliticians.

There is no justice in this racistcapitalist country for Rodney King, forPatrick Mason, the five-year-old black

child shot and killed inside his ownapartment by a trigger-happy OrangeCounty cop, for the countless victims ofcop terror nationwide. Justice will comewhen the killer cops are tried by tribu­nals of their intended victims-when thepower of the capitalist class and of theirracist hirelings in blue is smashed by athoroughgoing revolution so that thosewho labor will rule.

Over a century ago this country prom­ised freedom to its black citizens,200,000 of whom fought in the UnionArmy to smash the slaveholders' rule' inthe South. But that promise was betrayedby victorious Northern capitalism. It willtake a third American Revolution, a rev­olution by the working people and allthe oppressed, to win black liberation­in a socialist America.

* * *For more information about the Parti­

san Defense Committee and our programof class-struggle defense contact thePDC at P.O. Box 99, Canal St. Sta., NewYork, NY 10013, (212) 406-4252.•

Spartacist LeaguePublic Offices

-MARXIST L1TERATURE­

Bay AreaThurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.rn.1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street)Oakland, California Phone: (510) 839-0851

ChicagoTues.:5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11:00a.m.-2:oo p.m.161 W. Harrison St., 10th FloorChicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715

New York CityTues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m.41 Warren St. (one block below

Chambers St. near Church St.)New York, NY Phone: (212) 2~7-1025

9

Policias racistas de L.A. absueltos

iNo hayiuslicia enloslribunalescapilalislasl

racista para Rodney King, ni para PatrickMason--el nifio negro de cinco afiosmatado a balazos dentro de su propiacasa por un policia de Orange Countysediento de sangre-ni para las incon­tables vfctimas del terror policiaco entoda la nacion. Habra jasticia cuaridolos policfas asesinos sean juzgadospor tribunales de los que sedan victi­mizados---cuando el poder de la clasecapitalista y de sus matones.a sueldouniformados sea aplastado por una pro­funda revolucion, para que- los quetrabajan sean los que manden.

Hace mas de un siglo este paisprometio libertad a sus ciudadanosnegros, 200.000 de los cuales pelearonen el ejercito de la Union para aplastarel dominio de los esclavistas en el sur.Pero esa promesa fue traicionada porlos capitalistas nortefios victoriosos. Senecesitara una tercera revolucion en estepais, una revolucion por los obreros ylos oprimidos, para lograr la liberacionde los negros--en una Norteamericasocialista. _

postracion abyecta de los lfderes sin­dicales procapitalistas ante este crimenracista es el hecho de que en lugar deorganizar poderosas acciones contra lapolicia que tortura y asesina negros, quearresta a huelguistas y protege. a losesquiroles, se dedican a azuzar el pro­teccionismo antijapones y acarrear 'lotosde los trabajadores para los politicosdemocratas,

No hay justicia en este pais capitalista

el cual los negros "no tenian derechosque el hombre blanco estuviera obligadoa respetar," El mensaje escrito conmoretones y sangre sobre el cuerpo deRodney King, y ahora reforzado con toda .la pompa del "proceso legal", es que lapolicia racista puede hacer 10 que Ie dala gana, a quien Ie da la gana y cuandole da la gana.

La poblacion negra de Los Angeles escada vez mas vulnerable-marginada dela fuerza laboral, echada arras y obligadaa sobrevivir en los margenes cada vezmas miserables de los peligrosos ghettosen las grandes ciudades. La clase obrerano debe permitir que la poblacion negrase quede aislada-los poderosos sindi­catos de Los Angeles como el de los esti­badores, el de la industria aeroespacialy los trabajadores municipales debenorganizar paros laborales y moviliza­ciones masivas para solidarizarse con lacomunidad negra y defenderla ahoracuando la LAPD busca derramar massangre para "celebrar" su victoria racistasobre Rodney King. Una medida de la

Video Gear e Holliday

"sirven y protegen" a sus amos capita­listas no solamente en Los Angeles sinoen todas las ciudades del pais. Cuandono andan aterrorizando los ghettos y losbarrios, estan atacando piquetes de huel­gas, como el asalto contra los janitors(conserjes) en huelga en Los Angeles en1990. El veredicto del miercoles es unareafirmacion grotesca de la decision deljuez Taney de la Corte Suprema en elcaso de Dred Scott hace 135 afios, segun

Mundial", La golpiza a Rodney Kingocurrio pocos dfas despues de la masacreque EE.UU. perpetro en Irak, motivandola declaracion de Bush de que: "La clasede fuerza moral y voluntad nacional quelibero del abuso a Ciudad Kuwait puedeliberar a las ciudades norteamericanasdel crimen." Rodney King conoce bienla fuerza inmoral de la policia de LosAngeles, como la conoce el antiguo lfderde los Panteras Negras, Geronimo ji jaga(Pratt), quien ha pas ado mas de 20 afioseli prision bajo falsas acusaciones de laLAPD y el FBI, como tambien la cono­cen las familias de las 28 vfctimasasesinadas durante los iiltimos 25 afiospor la Seccion de Investigaciones Espe­ciales (el escuadron de la muerte secretade la policia de Los Angeles). A estese refiere el alcalde democrata negroThomas Bradley como "el mejor depar­tamento de policfa de una ciudad grandeen la nacion."

La policia y los tribunales soninstrumentos de la opresion racista declase. Asf es como los matones en azul

Dbreros, negros, latinos, asiaticos:iDrganicemonos para barter este podrido sistema racista!

Alps/Santa Monica Outlook FotoiMovilizar al movimiento slndical en defensa de los negros, latlnos y asiatlcos! Combatlvos janitors se enfrentarona pollcias, ganaron reconoclmlento de su sindicato, junlo de 1990 (Izqulerda). Almacenistas dellLWU protestan contraellminaci6n de sus puestos, febrero de 1992 (derecha).

puestos a gas tar sumas cada vez rna­yores de dinero para encarcelar a todosaquellos que el sistema considera super­fluos, y a quienes desean luchar poralgo mejor. La unica "industria enaumento" actualmente en EE.UU. es laconstruccion de carceles nuevas, dondeel mimero de negros y latinos tras lasrejas supera enormemente a su por­centaje en la poblacion.

Asi es la vida bajo el "Nuevo Orden

EI video que asust6 al mundo: una docena de pollcias racistas golpean a Rodney King (derecha, hablando a la prensadespues del veredicto).

Publicamos a continuacion una ver­sion adaptada de la declaracion emi­tida por el Partisan Defense Committee(Comite de Defensa Clasista) el 30 deabril.

El video de los policias de Los Ange­les-apaleando salvajemente al automovi­lista negro Rodney King detono unaoleada de indignacion en esa ciudadyen todo el pais. La imagen filmada porun vecino muestra a los policias en supractica rutinaria de aterrorizar a losnegros y otras minorfas. Ahora, el vere­dicto infame emitido en Simi Valley porun jurado del cual se excluyo a todociudadano negro, al absolver a esosmatones criminales Ie da luz verde alterror racista, desde los cabezas rapadasy el Ku Klux Klan hasta la policia delas grandes ciudades y los pueblos delpais.

Trasladar el juicio de Los Angeles aSimi Valley-donde casi todo el mundoes blanco, y los policias activos y susfamilias son mas numerosos -que lapoblacion negra-era asegurar que elestado capitalista racista obtuviera unveredicto de no culpabilidad. EI juradoobserve el mismo video que vio todo elmundo-vieron como una y otra vezRodney King era aturdido con picanaselectricas, era golpeado y pateado repe­tidamente mientras yacfa indefenso enel suelo. Pero nada de ello importo, Eljuez ordeno al jurado que observara elvideo "a traves de los ojos de los poli­cias" y asf 10 hizo.

Ahora el estallido de indignacion poresta horrenda injusticia va a ser utilizadapara justificar mas represion y mas vio­lencia policiaca en nombre de "la ley yel orden" racistas. Ya se ha puesto enestado de alerta a la Guardia Nacionalpara imponer la ley marcial. Se hadeclarado un estado de emergencia y seha impuesto el toque de queda de atar­decer a amanecer. Nosotros decimos:[Policfa, Guardia Nacional, ejercito deocupacion-s-fuera de los ghettos y losbarrios!

Este veredicto racista fue una provo­cacion que no pudo sino desatar laindignacion desesperada de la acosadapoblacion minoritaria de la ciudad. De10 que se trata no es de apoderarse deartfculos de consumo sino de expropiarlos medios de produceion; 10 cual re­presentaria un cambio de concienciasubstancial: de la de desposeidos indig­nados a la de trabajadores organizadosy conscientes.

Este pais es hoy dfa el mimero uno enel mundo en cuanto al porcentaje de supoblacion encarcelada por su sistema de"justicia", superando incluso a la Sud­africa del apartheid. Incapaces de ofrecerempleos y techo a millones de personas,los gobemantes de este pais estan dis-

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

Demonstrations from coast to coast expressed outrage over acquittal of racist cops who beat Rodney King. Left: Parker Center in downtown L.A. the nightthe verdict was announced. Right: Times Square, New York City, May 1.

Rodney King beating followed decades ofracist cop brutality. Left: Philadelphia policebrutalize rebellious black youth, 1964.Above: Martin Luther King preached turn-the­other-cheek pacifism, supported federaltroops to suppress 1965 unrest in Watts.

L.A. Upheaval...(continued from page 1)

come in. With the pictures of L.A. burn­ing fresh in their minds, white propertyowners were worried that blacks ~ere

rising up to demand justice, and con­vinced that "they're coming to get us."

, As protesters gathered in Times Squarethat afternoon, they were surrounded byhundreds of riot cops, who provocativelyand repetitively broke into their line ofmarch as demonstrators headed down­town. It was later reported that on thePolice Citywide-One radio band, for aperiod of minutes a voice repeated:"Shoot them. This is a direct order. Shootthem" (Newsday, 6 May).

And in L.A., driving through down­town when a demonstration is antici­pated is like being in Guatemala City,with armored vehicles and M-16-totingcops and troops everywhere. On Satur­day, May 9 a small group of leftist pro­testers was surrounded by an army ofpolice. The day before, cops charged intoKorean students protesting the' racistverdict and demanding aid to rebuildburned-out stores.

The Los Angeles riot was the largestin the U.S. in this century, and staterepression was the bloodiest. At presstime, the death toll was 58, injuries2,383, arrests 16,291. Little reported isthe fact that hundreds of Border Patrolcops and Immigration.and NaturalizationService agents have been brought in toround up undocumented workers fordeportation. The dreaded sea-green vansof lamigra are cruising the Mexican andCentral American neighborhoods. Be­tween a third and a half of those arrestedwere Latinos, and more than 2,00Q "ille­gals" have been rounded up, mostly incurfew sweeps and raids. In the past,L.A. has ordered its police not to coop­erate with the INS, but now a reported

15 MAY 1992

500 of those arrested have already beenturned over for deportation back toEI Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras andMexico.

Meanwhile, police in Los Angeles aregoing on house-to-house and apartment­to-apartment searches looking for bootyand those suspected of looting it. Copskick in the doors and begin hauling outTvsets, clothes, etc. If residents don'tprotest, this supposedly "proves" theitems were looted! As for the well over1,000 people still being held behind bars,on May 5 Governor Pete Wilson signedinto law an emergency measure extend­ing the period during which suspects canbe held without charge from 48 hours toa week. If some Third World countryordered such a draconian police-statemeasure they would immediately becited by Amnesty International. But thispassed the California legislature withouta single dissenting vote. Moreover, it isbeing illegally used on people alreadyarrested.

Now the Bush administration hasannounced the formation of a jointfederal-state law enforcement task forceto prosecute those involved in the riot.This unit is reviewing videotapes toidentify suspects. Among those targetedare members of leftist organizations,with the L.A. county sheriff trying topin the riots on the Maoist RevolutionaryCommunist Party (RCP) in particular.The White House has ordered the "Jus­tice Department" to charge any riotersthey can under federal laws, no matterhow obscure, in addition to state prose­cution. And in order to pursue the witch­hunt against leftists, they're going todust off old L.A. Red Squad records. Afew years ago, the cops were directed todestroy the tens of thousands of pagesof their witchhunting surveillance. Butinstead, they just took them home. One

. stash was found in a cop's garage after'he moved.

The press is filled with squabbling inthe ruling class about the response, orlack thereof, by the LAPD during thefirst hours after the verdict came down.As angry demonstrators descended onParker.Center police headquarters, ChiefDaryl Gates headed out to a fund-raisingdinner to oppose the timid police-reformmeasure Proposition F. Fires blazed asfirefighters waited for escorts, whilescores of cops were standing around theSouth Los Angeles command post. Atthe comer of Normandie and FlorenceAvenues, the first flash point of theunrest, the cops were ordered out. It washere that for over an hour a TV helicop­ter broadcast the scene of white motor­ists being pulled from their cars, of lum­pen black toughs viciously kicking andbeating white truck driver ReginaldDenny as he lay in a pool of blood.Denny was finally rescued by local res­idents who took the profusely bleedingman to a hospital unit.

The conclusion is inescapable thatGates and the police command wantedthe riot to explode, deliberately lettingthe fires spread and refusing to inter­vene, while the cameras rolled. Their aimwas to build up a mood of popular hys­teria among whites, in order to justifymurderous. repression in the name of"restoring law and order." Now Bushintends to use the image of that gruesomeincident of Reginald Denny being bru­talized as the Willie Horton TV cam­paign ad of 1992, as he runs forre-election against the L.A. riots. How­ever, as the Washington Post (11 May)noted, most of those who died wereblacks, killed in black neighborhoods;many blacks were killed by cops, butnot one cop killed by blacks; no one diedin interracial violence in Koreatown, norwere any Koreans killed by blacks."And: The video images of white peoplebeing savaged by mobs had little to dowith the way people actually died." .

In the aftermath, Los Angeles' mayorBradley attacked police chief Gates fromthe "law and order" right, for letting theprotests get out of hand. After 17 yearsof the administration of black Demo­cratic mayor Tom Bradley, ghetto poorhave little more regard for him than forGates, the personification of racist copterror. George Bush denounced thisuprising of the black and Latino poor as"the brutality of mob, pure and simple."His spokesman Marlin Fitzwater blamedthe L.A. conflagration on the "liberalprograms of the'60s and '70s." TheDemocrats blamed it on 12 years of"neglect" by the Reagan/Bush WhiteHouse. But black and Latino youth ofSouth-Central understood in their ownway they were up against the wholerotten, racist system.

Yet the impoverished residents of theghettos and barrios lack the class con­sciousness and social power to movefrom protest to the struggle for statepower. To bring down this racistsystem requires the leadership of afighting, multiracial workers movementthat truly champions the cause of theoppressed, rather than acting as job­trusting bureaucrats and labor cops forthe capitalists, holding down and divid­ing up the ranks as the sellout laborofficialdom does today.

"Just as Much About Class asAbout Race"

There have been several waves ofurban riots in the U.S. during this een­tury, all at times of great social tensionsbut with different political characters.The post-World War I race riots in EastSt. Louis and Chicago were a result ofthe return of white troops who pushedblack labor back out of industry. The1964-68 ghetto upheavals came in thecontext of the civil rights movement,as Northern blacks wanted to fight forequality but found no road to struggleunder the liberal leadership. The repenteruption in L.A. comes after morethan two decades in which the workingclass and minority poor have beenground down while the rulers revelin their wealth and flaunt their racism.In an elemental way, the explosion ofrage over the Rodney King verdictbecame a backlash against the "greeddecade" of the '80s. Business Week(18 May) quoted a black businessman:"These riots have been as much aboutclass 'as about race."

Reporters on the street during the firstnight were at first incredulous and thenfinally said it over the air: the "rioters"were not just young blacks but alsoHispanics and even white street kids.The Wall Street Journal (l May) labeledit "a multiracial free-for-all." WhileTV anchors at first called the looters"thugs," it soon became apparent thatthis' was a popular, community affairinvolving whole families. "A lot of peo­ple feel it's reparations; it's what alreadybelongs to us," a self-described formergang member said of the looting. Last

continued on page 12

11

(printed in this issue) declared: "thepowerful L.A. unions such as longshore,aerospace and city workers shouldorganize work stoppages and mass mobi­lizations to solidarize with and defendthe black community." Within hours afterthe racist acquittal, the labor movementshould have pulled out its ranks through­out the area. This is not "pie in the sky."The longshoremen of the ILWU havebrought together allied unions in theHarbor Coalition, which on more thanone occasion in recent years has shutdown the vital L.A.-area ports, includ­ing, in October 1990, to protest copsinvading the union hall.

In the time-honored style of Stalinistand social-democratic ILWU chiefs be­fore him, the new International presidentDavid.Arian issued a statement denounc­ing the racist verdict and the "corporate­controlled government," only to endup calling on George Bush's "Justice"Department to prosecute the cops on civilrights charges! Our call for labor actionagainst racist cop terror was well receivedamong workers, youth and minorities(over 27,000 copies of the special WVsupplement have been distributed to datein the Bay Area and L.A.). The brightflames in the night sky over L.A. makeit clear as day that the pro-capitalist uniontops must be swept away in order to bringout the power of the working class indefense of the oppressed.

Against White Liberal andBlack Nationalist Despair

The L.A. upheaval and its sympatheticechoes throughout the country give thelie to the preachers of both white liberaland black nationalist despair. In recentyears a school of academic liberalism,best represented by Andrew Hacker,has put forward a pessimistic view ofblack/white relations in this country. Theconditions of most blacks are terrible andgetting worse, they acknowledge, butnothing can be done about it because ofthe deeply ingrained racist prejudice andnarrow economic self-interest of themajority of whites. This view is mirroredby nationalistic black intellectuals likeSpike Lee. In fact, Hacker's latestbook is titled Two Nations: Black andWhite, Separate, Hostile and Unequal(Scribner'S, 1992).

Hacker shows that in 1990 the medianincome of white families was $37,000,more than 70 percent greater than blackfamilies. But that median income is astatistical fiction embracing Wall Streetyuppies and unemployed Midwest indus­trial workers, well-heeled· doctors andrural store clerks. What do the country­club types in Simi Valley have incommon with the Caterpillar workers inPeoria, Illinois, who just waged a des­perate five-month strike to preserve theirlivelihood only to be knifed in the backby their union bureaucracy? It hasbecome practically a cliche for olderwhite workers, like those at Caterpillar,to declare that "the American dream isdead." They've seen their own livingstandards cut sharply over the last twodecades and expect that their childrenwill have it even worse.

A sophisticated social scholar likeHacker is, of course, well aware of theeconomic and class divisions within thewhite population. However, like mostliberals, he believes that the more afflu­ent whites are, the less likely they areto be racist, to feel threatened by theclaims of the so-called black "under­class." Thus he maintains: "The term'liberal' tends to be associated with menand women who are at least minimallymiddle class." The white working classis here presumed to all share the bigotedoutlook and social values of an ArchieBunker. '

It is true that the economic resent­ments of lower-class whites can be chan­neled by racist demagogues against theblack poor. Witness Klansman DavidDuke's campaign for Louisiana governorlast. year. But the widespread outrageover the King verdict and the L.A.upheaval show that American societycan also be polarized along different

Needless to say, no charges were broughtagainst the rioting cops. Nonetheless, thejanitors won union recognition, a dem­onstration of labor's potential power. OnFriday, May 8, SEIU Local 399 repre­senting the janitors held a march of 200­300 from their union hall around the Pico­Union area to take back the streets.Chanting "Gates must go!" they protestedthe police and media branding "illegalaliens" as criminals.

The paramilitary L.A. cops-withtheir armored personnel carriers, tankswith battering rams, Blue Thunder heli­copters, their SWAT teams and chokeholds-think they can get away withmurder, and do, because they have neverbeen on the receiving end of workerspower. L.A. has been an "open shop,"anti-union city ever since 1910 when twolabor organizers, the McNamara broth­ers, were railroaded after the Los Ange­les Times building was damaged by anexplosion. But in 'recent years unionorganization has spread.

It is long overdue .for the multi­racial labor movement in, Los Angelesto give the LAPD a well-deserved les­son in justice. The April 30 statementby the Partisan Defense Committee

Rodney King

the "wage slaves," as Karl Marx put it.Police attacks on picket lines and scab­herding-abetted by the cowardice andtreachery of the sellout labor bureauc­racy-have been key to defeating everymajor strike in this country over the pastdecade-PATCO, Greyhound, Hormel,Eastern. Reca11 the leaders of the air con­trollers union being hauled to prison inchains, like black slaves in the Old South.

The coincidence of racist and anti­labor cop terror was graphically demon­strated in Los Angeles two years agowhen predominantly Latino janitorssought to organize Century City, a glitzycomplex of skyscrapers and high finance.A union march was attacked by theLAPD, who clubbed strikers even as theysat on the ground completely defenseless.

. Kennedy/L.A. TimesLAPD's murderous suppression of uprising in South-CentralL.A. (left) is lauded by imperial president George Bush.After Gulf War, Bush praised L.A. police chief Gates, vowedto bring "New World Order" to American cities.

cops who beat Rodney King extendedfar beyond the black community. For thefirst time ever, Latino gangs joined withthe Crips and Bloods in going after thepolice in South-Central. Moreover, manywhite youth have been so ground downin recent years that they joined with theblack and Latino poor in seizing anopportunity to break into the consumersociety. In Seattle, a young white lootershouted into TV cameras: "It's not blackvs. white. It's rich vs. poor. And we'repoor."

The white youth who joined blacks,Hispanics and Asians in protests acrossthe country were not just the children ofmiddle-class liberals, who reminisceabout how they once marched in the civilrights demonstrations of the 1960s. InSeattle, San Francisco and elsewherethere is a layer of white street kids who,like blacks and Hispanics, cannot findjobs at a living wage. The issue of Busi­ness Week (27 April) which came outshortly before. Los Angeles went up inflames put it bluntly: "Let there be nomistake: The current job outlook isbleak." The cop acquittal and L.A. con­flagration became a lightning rodfor theanger of a broad range of people whofeel oppressed, exploited, degraded anddeprived by this racist, capitalist system.

Cops Are. the Armed Thugs ofthe Capitalist Class

Just as the videotaped beating showedthe everyday reality of racist cop brutal-

, ity in the U.S., the "trial" showed theroutine workings of the capitalist courts.The cops, courts and D.A. offices protecttheir own: that is the highest law in theAmerican system of racist "justice." It'snotorious that until recently not one Sal­vadoran military or police official wasever jailed for violating human rights,but when has a police officer anywherein this country ever been convicted ofcriminal charges in beating or killing ablack man? Every cop regards his badgeas a license to brutalize and terrorizedark-skinned people.

Nowhere is that license used with suchabandon as in Southern California. Thelist of victims is huge: five-year-old Pat­rick Mason, shot to death while watchingTV; pregnant Delois Young, shot in thestomach, killing her near-term fetus; Cal.State Long Beach football star Ron Set­tles, stopped for speeding' and brutallybeaten like Rodney King, found dead injail; Eulia Love, shot down on her frontlawn over a $22 gas bill; Arturo Jimenez,shot as cops drove by the Ramona Oar­dens project in East L.A.

The rulers of this country unleash thecops to commit such racist atrocities, andthen protect them from the ensuingdemands for justice, because the policeare the guard dogs to "serve and protect"their capitalist masters. Of course, theowners of the Fortune 500 and their keptpoliticians have contempt for blacks andLatinos and see them as a threat. Thebasic role of the police in this and every~capitalist state is to defend the interestsof property against the working class,

L.A. Upheaval...(continued from page 11)week the, poor of South-Central movedto get theirs. "Looting? What about theS&L ripoff?" everybody asked. But thesavings and loan scams garnered hun­dreds of billions. For working people andthe ghetto poor to get their hands on thereal wealth and power we have to expro­priate the means of production andreclaim the product of our labor.

It was a new generation of black youthwho erupted in L.A., disturbing the orderof Bush's America. They have littlereason to be moved by the celebrationof Martin Luther King Day or impressedby the legal gains of the civil rightsmovement. Joe Hicks, local head of theSCLC (Southern Christian LeadershipConference), the historic organization ofMartin Luther King, noted: "There is anincredible lack of respect for blackelected officials. They are consideredsymbols of the white power system.They are impotent and unable to deliverthe goods for blacks. They get absolutelyno respect." There was more than a littlehostility on the streets toward black yup­pies living in upscale enclaves likeLadera Heights. And the words "black­owned" scrawled on store windowsdidn't save a lot of businesses fromgoing up in smoke.

If the symbols of South-Central arethe book of food stamps, the crack houseand the prison cell, Simi Valley-the siteof the trial-is symbolized by the Amer­ican Express gold card, the backyardswimming pool and the country clubgolf course. Separated from L.A. by theSanta Susana Mountains, it's the quin­tessential "white flight" suburb. Hereracist prejudice is the flip side of eco­nomic privilege. The manager of a localMcDonald's boasted: "It's one of fewcommunities left where you can goshopping and not get hit up by peo­ple wanting money." One residentexclaimed between hitting golf balls,"I'm happy to live away from that kindof atmosphere ... gangs, homeless peoplewho don't work and don't have moneybecause they don't work."

This is s;op heaven: out of the 8,300members of the LAPD, fully 2,000 livein Simi Valley, report Marc Cooper andGreg Goldin in the Los Angeles Reader(8 May). Simply to be able to afford tolive there shows that they have becomea highly paid praetorian guard. The home­owners of Ventura County look to thepolice to seal off their world from thosewithout jobs and without money in thehellish ghettos and barrios-and if thecops have to break some black heads toinstill respect for the rights and privilegesof property, so be it. This is the mindsetthat bought the racist cops' defense thatthey were protecting "society" from "thelikes of Rodney King." Actually, millionssaw on TV that Rodney King was a thor­oughly decent person, and the real ques­tion is who.is going to protect him andall of us from the cops.

Outrage over the acquittal of the killer

12 WORKERS VANGUARD

MultiracialLos Angeleslabor movement.must act againstracist cop terror.Left: HeavilyLatino janitorsorganize CenturyCity complex,1990. Right:LongshoremenprotestSouthern Pacific'sunion-bustinglast February.

lines. An overwhelming majority of thepopulation disagreed with the acquittal.And, significantly, the black nationalistshad little to say to the conspicuouslymultiracial protests following the ver­dict. A New York Times/CBS poll showsthat 61 percent nationwide said the U.S.was spending too little on improving the .conditions of blacks, and 78 percent saidwhat's needed is more jobs rather thanmore cops (New York Times, 11 May).

Hacker explains the decline of theDemocratic Party and seemingly perma­nent hold of the Republicans on theWhite House in terms of white racism:"The increased visibility of black menand women in its [the Democratic Par­ty's] councils has some bearing on thefact that none of its presidential candi­dates has won a majority of the whiteelectorate since Lyndon Johnson's vic­tory in 1964." Similarly, two moderatelyliberal publicists, Mary D. and ThomasByrne Edsall, argue that the Republicanhold on the White House stems in goodpart from "fear that a Democratic pres­ident will raise taxes from the largelywhite lower-middle and middle classesin order to direct benefits towards thedisproportionally black and Hispanicpoor" (Chain Reaction: The Impact ofRace. Rights, and Taxes on AmericanPolitics [Norton, 1991]).

The Democrats cannot counter theRepublicans' racist demagogy because,as a partner party of the capitalist system,they share the responsibility for thedeclining living standards of the multi­racial working class. In Los Angeles,Atlanta, New York and virtually everybig city, it is black Democratic Partyadministrations who are today bustingheads and calling for more cops to crushthe masses outraged by the racist verdictin L.A. In the last four presidentialelections the Democrats' candidates­Carter, Mondale, Dukakis and now Clin­ton-all deliberately distanced, them­selves from black causes and presentedthemselves as more efficient managersof the American capitalist enterprise.

Right-wing ideologues charge that lib­erals want to improve the lot of blacksby taking things away from lower- andmiddle-class whites. Such an idea pre­supposes that all white Americans sharesome fundamental, common interest. Butpoor black and Latino youths in South­Central L.A. and older white Caterpillarworkers in Peoria, Illinois are victims ofthe same basic economic forces-i-anexploitative economic system, whosedestructive effects are compounded bythe decay of American capitalism as itsrulers become ever more violence-crazedand rapacious. It is necessary to polarizethis society on the basis ofclass struggle.It's almost commonplace today to saythat what's needed are jobs, decent med­ical care for all, quality housing and edu­cation. But the only way to get this isto smash capitalism and build a socialisteconomy, based on production for humanneed not profit.

Ghetto Wastelands andDecaying American Capitalism

Before World War II the majority ofblacks lived in the rural South as adeeply impoverished American peas-

15 MAY 1992

antry. In the early '40s, millions weredrawn into the Northern .cities to workin the shipyards, munitions factories andother booming war industries. Untilthe mid-1960s the U.S. economy wasexpanding enough to employ mostblacks who migrated to the cities. Duringthis period the black industrial proletar­iat formed the core of the Northern blackcommunities, and gained increasingweight in the local trade unions, espe­cially in the Midwest. As a result therelative incomes of black working-classmen increased from 45 percent of thoseof white workers in 1939 to almost 70percent in 1969, and the relative incomeof black women increased even moresubstantially.

However, in the late '60s, as U.S.imperialism suffered a stunning defeatin Vietnam, American capitalism ceasedgrowing fast enough to absorb the chil-

dren of black workers into industry. Afterthe 1974-75 world downturn, the ownersof capital increasingly shifted their man­ufacturing operations to low-wage coun­tries abroad while increasing the rate ofexploitation afhome. The threat of plantclosures or moving offshore was used toforce through union givebacks, two-tier.wage systems and speedup. Under Dem­ocrat Carter, the UAW gave back billionsto Chrysler and GM, while the bosseswere dismantling plants like DodgeMain. Soon after, Reagan's breaking ofthe PATCO air controllers strike in 1981signaled the beginning of a massiveunion-busting offensive.

As a result, the average weeklyincome for production workers has fallenby 20 percent from 1973 to 1991. Andwith the manufacturing sector shrinking

.drastically, young unskilled workerscoming into the labor market had beenforced to accept poverty-level wages infast-food restaurants, supermarkets, carwashes and the like. From 1973 to 1990,the income of working parents under theage of 30 was driven down by 32 percent,and of young black families by a phe­nomenal 48 percent. The effects of thishave been devastating, both for the indi­viduals and for the communities wherethey live.

As the fat cats and junk bond artistswallowed in their schemes for loot­ing industry of productive investment,two million manufacturing jobs havedisappeared in this country over the

- past decade. The number of steel work­ers in northern Indiana-a union-

ized, relatively well-paid and raciallyintegrated workforce-has been cut inhalf. Over 1,200 textile and apparelplants in North Carolina-the mainindustry in the upper South-have' beenclosed down. The Oakland Tribune(l May) described the impact of thedeindustrialization of America on theLos Angeles black community:

"Famous manufacturers, like GeneralMotors, Firestone, Goodyear, and Beth­lehem Steel, all used to provide SouthCentral residents the chance for a livingwage and upward mobility-includingthose without education,"By the 1980s, most such jobs vanished,a result of declining U.S. competitive­ness. In the ashes, residents were forcedinto a lower-wage economy of lightindustry, welding shops, furniture mak­ers, garment factories, fast food restau­rants and other employers."

At the same time, the so-called social"safety net" was slashed to ribbons. Bush

Black PanthermilitantsIn chainsafter theirheadquarterswere shot upin SWAT teamattack,Los Angeles,1969.

..is blaming the L.A. riots on Lyndon John­son's "Great Society" programs of the'60s, which supposedly habituated blacksto accept joblessness and dependence onwelfare. What hypocrisy! Over the past20 years funds for Aid to Families withDependent Children-the main welfareprogram-has been cut by 42 percent inreal terms (adjusted for inflation).

In response to Bush's attacks, manyliberals are now glorifying the LBJ "waron poverty." Even Spike Lee, inter­viewed on his way to the Cannes FilmFestival, declared, "The Democraticadministration tried to help the poor, butReagan and Bush are not concerned"(Liberation, 5 May). In fact, the "GreatSociety" was never intended to elimi­nate poverty. Its main aim was to co-opta layer of black activists in order tore-establish control over the rebelliousghettos. Already in 1967, we wrotethat the millions of dollars being pouredinto various programs "have succeededin confusing or buying off a largenumber of potential youth leaders inHarlem through a combination of moneyand pseudo-radical nationalistic rheto­ric. The so-called 'anti-poverty' proj­ects have also served to foster a certainamount of illusions among the ghettomasses" ("Black and Red-Class Strug­gle Road to Negro Freedom," Spartacistsupplement, May-June 1967).

Once the turmoil in the black commu­nities was damped down, in the early'70s these poverty programs were mas­sively cut. By 1980, the last year of theDemocratic Carter administration, poor

mothers were getting 25 percent less infederal and state funds to support theirchildren than ten years earlier underNixon. When Reagan came in, he delib­erately manufactured a budget crisis bycutting taxes for the rich in order to takean ax to what remained of social welfareprograms in this country. But while theblack poor were being ravaged, a layerof black yuppies emerged, moving outof the ghettos. Currently, the top 20 per­cent of black families account for almosthalf of all black income-a degree ofinequality greater than among whites.

Despite the Bush administration'sattacks on the "liberal social policies ofthe 1960s" and the liberal Democrats'counterattacks on "Reaganomics," thetwo capitalist parties have put forwarddifferent variants of the same policy-topromote a dependent black petty bour­geoisie-and both have carried outthe devastating cuts in the inner cities.Today Bush's housing and "urban devel­opment" secretary Jack Kemp, Demo­cratic front-runner Bill Clinton andblack nationalist demagogue Louis Far­rakhan are all promoting black-ownedbusinesses as the "solution" to ghettopoverty. They even use the same"empowerment" rhetoric, mocking theradical 1960s "black power" movement.

Yet compared to the situation in 1965,at the time of the L.A. Watts riot, con­ditions in the ghettos have been gettingworse, much worse. Black urban povertyis up, non-white unemployment is upsharply, and among non-white teenagerstoday only one in four has any job atall, usually at minimum wage. The NewYork Times (7 May) editorialized: "Thefires of Los Angeles cast harsh new lighton the way America writesoff places ....Even worse, America writes off peo­ple-another generation of young blackmen." We put ·it even more starkly a fewyears ago, writing of the bogus "work­fare" reforms in our article "GenocideU.S.A." (WVNo. 463, 21 October 1988):

"This is not welfare reform, it's a planto turn the ghettos into vast cemeteries­because there are no jobs to get. The aimof this legislation is to see to it that layersof the minority population die, becausethis decrepit capitalist system no longerneeds them."

But we have also insisted that the des­perate condition and increasing numbersof the black ghetto poor must not obscure

. the fundamental fact that black workersstill playa strategic role in the Americaneconomy and even more so in the organ­ized labor movement. Twenty-five per­cent of all black workers are unionizedcompared to 17 percent for whites andHispanics. Older black workers haveenough seniority to remain a strong pres­ence in shrinking but still basic indus­tries like auto and steel. And blacks ofall ages are disproportionately repre­sented in those basic jobs which keepAmerican society functioning-bus driv­ers, subway motormen, longshoremen,garbage collectors, postal workers, nursesand other hospital workers.

These black proletarians can serve asa bridge between the ghetto poor and theorganized labor movement. Conditionsare overripe for a massive social explo­sion in this country extending from the

continued on page 14

13

Ravenswood_Steelworkers...(continued from page 16)in trailers on plant grounds while theVance thugs patrolled barbed-wirefences surrounding "Fort RAC," as itwas called by the locked-out strikers.Boyle arrived daily via helicopter, touch­ing down on a specially built landingpad atop the plant.

In contrast to the UAW tops whobetray.ed the Caterpillar strike, theRavenswood unionists did not fold whenthe company threatened to run the alu­minum foundry with scabs. During theentire lockout, less than 20 workersscabbed. And Boyle and RAC could notfind scabs in the Valley, because of thestrong pro-union local traditions bred byyears of class battles by the United MineWorkers of America.

This was a highly visible battle in theheart of union territory, and the USWAInternational poured in money to keepthe RAC fighters afloat as food and med­ical bills and mortgage payments stackedup. But fearing class-struggle methodslike the plague, the Pittsburgh USWAbureaucracy played softball, with a "cor­porate campaign" strategy that centeredon vilifying Marc Rich as a "rogue" cap­italist. And the USWA tops pushed aweak consumer boycott of brewers thatused Ravenswood aluminum, while cav­ing in to injunctions from the bosses'courts.

Now an NLRB administrative judgehas obliged the company by withholdinga decision which may force it to coughup back pay until June' 1. And whilenegotiations have resumed, scabs arestill in the plant. Many strikers are sus­picious, and rightly so, that even withBoyle gone RAC will try to stick it tothem. Ravenswood workers: you've gotRich on the run, now drive his scabs andgun thugs out for good!

Ravenswood workers could have won

Ravenswoodworkers vow

they won'treturn until

every last scabis out of

the plant.

a decisive victory-and many monthsago-if the thousands of miners, autoworkers and other supporters throughoutthe region had marched on Fort RAC,torn down the barricades, smashed thecompany goons and shut down the plant.Such a militant labor action wouldhave had broad support in coal countryand would have electrified the labormovement.

That's the kind of solidarity in actionthat's needed from the rest of the labormovement-including workers refusingto bring in the aluminum ore on bargesor to handle the aluminum in the canplants and breweries. One USWA mem­ber told WV, "I wish they had done that.But every step we would take there wasa law passed that you can't do this stuff."

The union bureaucracy is tied handand foot to the bosses and their govern­ment, subordinating the workers move­ment to the class enemy. The AFL-CIO'scampaign for a law to ban permanent"striker replacements" is an appeal tothe Democrats in Congress. Senator TedKennedy argues the bill will lead to the"containment of labor-management dis­putes" and prevent the "bitter disputes

that preceded enactment of the NLRA."In other words, it is designed to preventstrikes.

So RAC and the USWA are talking,but there is a joint union-company black­out about what is transpiring. At RAC,

Robert Buck, 27 years old, and a pop­ular member of Steelworkers Local 5668at Ravenswood, has been in prison sincelast January, railroaded by the federalgovernment for defending his union andhis job from the scabs and thugs broughtin by Marc Rich and RAC.

Buck was convicted of two charges ofpossessing an explosive device, after thefeds alleged that he and another USWAmember threw a small homemade blackpowder 'charge outside the home of ascab on 4 March 1991.

The feds'''evidence'' consisted of thetestimony of the scab, Edward Piggett,and a turncoat named Gerald Church.

workers have vowed that they will notgo back if even one scab remains. Everystriker must be guaranteed their jobback-and that includes USWA memberBob Buck, who was railroaded on fed­eral charges and is imprisoned for threeyears on bogus charges.

During the fight at Ravenswood, therewas tremendous solidarity from the min­ers. At two "road tolls" (bucket collec­tions on highways) in southern WestVirginiaRAC workers collected over$20,000. And USWA Local 5668 mem­bers intend to return the miners' support:one worker said that they would aidminers in their upcoming battle to defendthe health and benefit trusts and theindustry contract: "We're trying to geteverybody together and take them on asone."

But to take on the bosses "as one," aclass-struggle opposition must sweepout the bureaucrats who have knifedthe labor movement in the back, fight­ing to forge a revolutionary workersparty that will take the mines, foundriesand factories out of the hands of thecapitalists. _

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire­arms agents nabbed Buck in order to, ashis attorney William Kiger said, "makean example of someone." This is whyBob was sentenced to 33 months inprison.

The real criminals are the scabs, fed­eral marshals and the Vance Securitygoons who have tried to intimidate andprovoke Ravenswood workers during thelockout.

It was brothers like Bob Buck whobuilt the Steelworkers and every otherunion in this country. The labor move­ment must defend its own! Free RobertBuck! _

For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!

L.A. Upheaval Shakes America

spartac;stlfl Forum

resents a dramatic breakdown of capital­ist "law and order." Thus on the one handit poses the danger of a much harsherbonapartist regime marked especially bythe police-state suppression of any blackunrest. At the same time, it can open theroad to revolutionary social struggleuniting the working class, whose condi­tions have been driven down over thepast two decades, and the desperateminority poor in the ghettos and barrios.Decisive in the outcome will be theconstruction of a multiracial communistvanguard party such as Lenin andthe Bolsheviks built in tsarist Russia's"prison house of nations," which ledthe multinational working class in asuccessful insurrection against the cap­italist order.•

and "unlike most Trotskyist groups, theywere not anti-Soviet." He concluded,"however unusual Phillips's own politicsmay have been, the apparent lack ofenthusiasm to pursue the possible polit­ical or anti-Semitic aspects of her murderis striking."

Martha Phillips was not a nameless,faceless victim. The attention by theinternational press to this suspiciousmurder has thrown a sharp light on thecase.We have served notice on the Mos­cow authorities that we will not allowthe tracks of the murderer to be coveredover by bureaucratic indifference orworse. To date, no further progress hasbeen reported in the murder of ourcomrade. As ICL spokesman VictorGranovsky told the Moscow Times: "Wecan't allow the case to be forgotten. Mar­tha never backed down, she would neverlet anyone else down, and we can't lether down." We demand a serious inves­tigation into the murder of MarthaPhillips!. .

the U.S. in its wake mark a consider­able escalation of police bonapartismand a sinister contraction of the right ofexpression at the base. The American rul­ing class was given a fright and they'rebringing in a whole army to banish it.With its economy declining, the bour­geoisie feels its power slipping away.Meanwhile there is a widespread dis­gruntlement with the traditional politicalestablishment, a discontent that is capi­talized on by such types as the fascistDavid Duke, ultrarightist Pat Buchanan,Democratic populist maverick JerryBrown and now Texas billionaire RossPerot, who is running as an "outsider"against the "politicians" at whose troughhe fed for many years.

The mass eruption in Los Angeles rep-

InternationalCampaign...(continued from page 4)

although we've asked for it." Crawshawelicited a blunt admission from the StateDepartment of "an unwillingness, tointervene for the moment." One canhardly imagine the same posture' beingtaken if the victim were a Reaganitebusinessman rather than a Jewish Trot­skyist woman.

Crawshaw, whose own wife wasnearly murdered two years ago in anattack on their Moscow apartment bywhat were presumed to be Pamyat thugs,noted Phillips' Jewish background andthe possibility of fascist implication inthe murder: "Pamyat has been widelyblamed for a growing number of anti­Semitic attacks and killings." Crawshawexplained that the ICL "wanted to see areconstitution of the old Soviet Union"

just such a "popular front" with the Dem­ocratic Party, and even sowing illusionsthat George Bush can be pressured intoserving the interests of black people.Thus, for example, the reformist Com­munist Party, which seems to havebecome mentally unhinged since the fallof the Kremlin bureaucracy last August,"demanded," no less, "that President·Bush speak out and order the JusticeDepartment to act to end police brutal­ity"! Bush spoke out, all right, andordered the National Guard and U.S.Army, Marines, Marshals, Border Patrolet al. to abet the LAPD's racist brutality.

The self-styled "socialist-feminists"of the Freedom Socialist Party likewisecalled on Bush's Justice Department totake action, and for the White House to"make billions of dollars available to thecities." Other leftists echoed the liberals'pleas for civilian review boards andother face-saving reforms for the sys­tem ... at the precise moment that mil­lions of people are drawing the lessonthat "the system doesn't work."

The' mobilization of massive fire­power to put down the L.A. upheavaland the wave of cop rampaging across

Speaker: Brian Manning, Spartacist League

Wednesday, May 20, 7:00 p.m. Blackburn Center, Room 150For more information: (202) 872-8240 Howard University

L.A. Upheaval...(continued from page 13)ghettos and Hispanic barrios to whiteskilled workers, many of them one pay­check away from bankruptcy and evic­tion. The eruption of integrated protestsfollowing the acquittal of the racist copsin the Rodney King case signals thepotential for just such a new wave ofmilitant social struggle.

For a RevolutionaryWorkers Party!

The revealed widespread hatred forracist cop brutality, the desire for broth.erhood among the diverse peoples of thiscountry, the demand to eliminate povertymust be directed toward a program ofsocialist revolution, not a revival of theDemocratic Party "coalition." It will bea defeat for the working class and theblack and Hispanic poor if the strugglesare diverted into a phony New Deal, anew "rainbow coalition," a new liberalagenda. For then nothing fundamentalwill change.

Yet much of the left is pushing for

14 WORKERS VANGUARD

NorfolkBox 1972, Main PONorfolk, VA 23501

OaklandBox 29497Oakland, CA94604(510) 839-0851

San FranciscoBox 77494San Francisco, CA 94107(415) 777-9367

Washington, D.C.Box 7S073Washington, D.C. 20013(202) 872-8240

VancouverBox 2717, Main P.O.Vancouver, BC V6S3X2(604) 687-0353

EdmontonPSSE P.O. Box 9605Edmonton, AB T6E5X3

is currently administering the attacks.Revolutionaries fight to bring the

enormous social power of the workingclass to bear as the only force capableof smashing the government and bosses'attacks. This struggle requires a revolu­tionary program which starts from an un­derstanding that the partnership oflabour and capital is a lie and that impe­rialism in its death agony is driven inex­orably toward war. The only way out isworldwide proletarian revolution. Forhard class opposition to the ALP, partyof war, racism and depression! •

Trotskyist party to lead a fight for work­ers political revolution to defend andextend the gains of October.

The ISO's loyalty to the imperialistanti-Soviet Labor government has notspared them vicious government andcop harassment. Their politics are inca­pable of even beginning to mount aneffective struggle in defence of theirown members, let alone the whole ofthe left and labour movement. TheISO's strategy, stripped of its "studentpower" drivel, amounts to a call to"pressure" the very government that

DetroitBox 441043Detroit, MI 48244

Los AngelesBox 29574, Los Feliz Sta.Los Angeles, CA 90029(213) 380-8239

MadisonBox 1492Madison, WI 53701

New YorkBox 444, Canal S1. Sta.New York, NY 10013(212) 267-1025

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADATorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, ON M5W1X8(416) 593-4138

MontrealC.P. Les Atriums, B.P. 32066Montreal, QC H2L 4V5

SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORYNational Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860

AtlantaBox 4012Atlanta, GA 30302

BostonBox 390840, Central Sta.Cambridge, MA 02139(617) 492-3928

ChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, IL 60680(312) 663-0715

ClevelandBox 91037Cleveland, OH 44101(216) 781-7500

moves to establish a strong state appa­ratus, are the fruition of a near-decadeof vicious union-busting Labor govern­ment rule that has implemented massiveattacks on workers, students and all theoppressed. Yet the ISO has been Labor'sloyal supporters in every election. Theycheered on and back Yeltsin and Bush's

counterrevolutionary drive in the USSRand have lined up behind the Labor gov-

. ernment in fulsome support of everyimperialist provocation against theSoviet deformed workers state through­out Cold War II. This includes supportfor the reactionary Islamic mujahedin inAfghanistan who have fought a 12-yearcivil war to deny women the right toread and write. In sharp class counter­position, revolutionaries stand for Sovietworkers struggle to smash Yeltsin's coun­terrevolution! Our comrades in theUSSR fight to build a revolutionary

busting racist government. Smearingleftist organisations as "violent agita­tors" is the codeword for unleashing thereal violence of cop provocation andattacks. The next day cops announcedthe establishment of a "special inves­tigation unit aimed at cracking the vio­lent socialist organisations" (Herald­Sun, 29 March) and threatened that infuture demonstrations they would beequipped with riot gear. Rupert Mur­doch's Herald-Sun (28 March) chimedin with calls to deport "foreign" ISOmembers. What is urgently needed is thebroadest union, student and minorityaction to oppose these frame-ups andattacks! Down with this dangerous anti­communist witchhunt!

. Today the Keating and Kirner Laborgovernments celebrate. the "death ofCommunism," and proclaim the triumphof imperialist chief George Bush's "NewWorld Order" which was heralded bythe bloody massacre of over 100,000Iraqi soldiers and civilians. Sinking everdeeper into recession and squeezed byincreasing economic rivalry and ten­sion between Japan and the U.S., theAustralian ruling class is deeply fear­ful that mounting working-class angercould shatter the Keating Labor gov­ernment's brittle "social consensus."Such uncertainty fuels its desire for astrong state and a cohesive and obedientpopulation. .

Youth are amongst the hardest ~ hit.Youth unemployment stands at a stag­gering 32.7 percent and the governmentplans to further slash youth wages. Atthe same time, as part of the drive toinstill social conformity in the serviceof reaction, youth are bombarded withmoralist propaganda on the "evils" ofdrugs and sex along with new laws andpolice to keep them off the street.

Today's government attacks againstthe left and labour movement, alongside

Castle/TheCOPS scramble as Australian students storm Victoria State Parliament in mass protest march, March 26.

League, ISO and Left Alliance. We notedthat the Age misspelt our name as"Sparticist" which has been invariablyconnected with the attentions of the cap­italist political police.

This is an undisguised attempt tointimidate all those who would standup for their rights against the union-

paods Off the ISO! Drop All the Charges!

~; Sinister Government Witchhunt Targets Leftists

to.e Student Protest Rocks Australia

Militant student protests are sweepingAustralia against cutbacks in fundingfor education by the ruling AustralianLabor Party (ALP) government ofPrimeMinister Paul Keating. When the ALPannounced in March its plan to slash"Austudy" (the paltry financial aid doledout to some full-time college students),youth in Melbourne stormed the VictoriaState Parliament and marched on theLabor Party headquarters in Sydney. Inretaliation the government launched asinister red hunt, including dawn raidsand arrests of members of the Interna­tional Socialist Organisation. We reprintbelow excerpts of a leaflet issued byour comrades of the Spartacist Leagueof Australia. .

At dawn on 14 April Victoriancops staged Gestapo-style raids on thehomes of seven students including sup­porters of the International SocialistOrganisation (ISO). The cops seizedcomputer files, address books and notesand charged five ISO supporters withoffences ranging from "unlawful assem­bly" to "rescuing prisoners from lawfulcustody." A 16 April protest statement,sent to the Victorian Attorney-Generalby the Spartacist League and Parti­san Defence Committee, described thisattack as an unmistakable threat to clampdown on all opposition to Labor govern­ment union-busting and capitalist auster­ity. An injury to one is an injury to all!Drop all the charges against the studentactivists! Hands off the ISO and all leftand working-class organisations!

These arrests were planned as retribu­tion for the nationwide student demon­strations on 26 March when thousandsof students marched to protest the Keat­ing government's plans to further slashstudent Austudy allowances. In Mel­bourne 3,000 students marched to theruling class' "seat of democracy" Parlia­ment House and took over the entrancebefore being flailed by mounted cops.But the cops got a rude shock whenstudents defended themselves againstattack and secured the release of fourarrestees, leaving [Victoria State[Laborpremier Joan Kirner cowering in"heroffice.

The demonstrations highlighted thewretched state of education services inthis country after years of Labor gov­ernment rule. The pitiful Austudy allow­ance, barely 60 percent of the povertyline, is available to only 40 percent offull-time students. The Keating govern­ment is considering replacing Austudywith a loans scheme-a form of inden­tured servitude, reinforcing the viciousclass bias of Australia's education sys­tem. We demand free education-openadmissions to all tertiary institutions!For a real living stipend for all!

The bourgeois press, fearful that stu­dent protests may signal wider socialstruggle against the rotting capitalist sys­tem, immediately howled for "action"against students who dared to challengethe bosses' "authority." The MelbourneAge (27 March) headlined its frontpage "Students' City Brawl." With theassistance of self-proclaimed studentleaders like National Union of Students(NUS) president Tony White and anti­communist nerd Brendan Darcy, theyblamed "violence" on leftists whoattended and solidarised with the dem­onstrationincluding the Spartacist

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W'liltEliS """'li'

Spartacist CanadaDemonstrators protesting cop terror from Los Angeles to Toronto are met at City Hall by mounted pollee.

Blake/Reuters

Toronto: 3,000 Take to the StreetsAgainst Racist/Cop Terror

On May 4, probably the largest everanti-racist demonstration in Toronto tookplace, with close to 3,000 at the peak,two-thirds black, and many whites,Asians and Near Eastern protesters aswell. After rallying outside the U.S. con­sulate, outraged demonstrators surgedthrough the streets of Toronto, pastMetro police headquarters to City Hall.They stopped traffic throughout rushhour and into the evening as the protestcontinued until a phalanx of cops andmounted cossacks repeatedly chargedinto the march on Bay Street.

Chanting "From L.A. to T.O., racistcops have got to go!" protesters wereoutraged over the Rodney King verdictin the U.S. and police terror at home.Only three days after the Los Angelescops walked free, 22-year-old Jamaicanimmigrant Raymond Lawrence was shotto death by an undercover cop in Toron­to's west end. Lawrence is the eighth

Toronto-area black to be gunned downby police in less than four years.

Other black, Latino and Native Indianmen have been murdered by cops inWinnipeg, Ottawa and Montreal. Eachand every time, the gun-toting cops havebeen acquitted of all charges, if theywere even charged at all. Like its seniorpartners to the south, Canada's con­temptible junior-league imperialism­which so readily joined with Washingtonin the Gulf War massacre of 150,000Iraqis-has declared war on dark­skinned minorities.

At the rally outside the U.S. consu­late, a spokesman for the TrotskyistLeague of Canada addressed protesters,receiving strong applause. "We cannotrely on the capitalist courts, we cannotrely on the capitalist government," hesaid. "The only thing we can rely on isstruggle by the multiracial working classto smash this capitalist state and replace

it with a working-class state."The march was sparked when half a

dozen "white power" fascists showed upacross the street. Hundreds of demon­strators clobbered them before the copsled the Nazis into a bank. Later, windowswere broken and a few stores looted asblack, white and Asian youths marchedback through the downtown shoppingdistrict. At least 30 anti-racist protesterswere arrested in the course of the eve­ning. Drop all the charges!

As the bosses' press whipped up scarestories about "mob violence" and hun­dreds of riot cops were marshaled toharass and arrest black youth on thefollowing evenings, the demonstrationorganizers in the Black Action DefenceCommittee called another rally outsidethe provincial government buildings forMay 7. This time, the anger was co-optedas a succession of speakers, includingOntario New Democratic Party premier

Bob Rae, droned on about "tolerance"and "unity."

Rae was heckled by large sections ofthe crowd; only days before he had cometo the defense of Toronto police chiefWilliam McCormack and his thugs-in­blue against charges of racism. And threemonths ago the social-democratic NDP,which now rules Ontario for the BayStreet bosses, railroaded three postalunionists to jail for defending picketlines during last year's postal strike.

Canada's working class is increas­ingly integrated as hundreds of thou­sands of immigrants arrive from theCaribbean, Asia, Africa and Latin Amer­ica. As the Partisan Defense Committeeleaflet distributed at the rally underlined:"Mobilizing labor in defense of theoppressed requires a break with the pro­capitalist social democrats and sharppolitical struggle against the pro-NDPunion misleaders.t' a

Steelworkers Hang Tough in IS-Month Lockout

Ravenswood Union-Busting Boss SackedHolding out for a year and a half, the

1,700 workers at the Ravenswood Alu­minum Corporation (RAC) managed tooutlast the vicious company executivewho ordered the workers locked out inan attempt to break the United Steel­workers (USWA). Local 5668 ralliedthousands of unionists from Clevelandto-New York in a battle widely viewedas a test of labor's ability to defend itselfagainst a determined scabherding boss.On April 21, the company retreated,announcing the departure of chairmanEmmett Boyle and asking for newnegotiations.

The mouthpiece for the American rul­ing class, the New York Times, currentlyengaged in its own union-busting cam­paign against the newspaper driversunion, marked the significance of theUSWA's stand at RAC, noting thedecline of major strikes from hundredsper year before the smashing of PATCOin 1981 to just 40 last year.

In 1989, the West Virginia plant was

16

bought out, in a leveraged buyout fromKaiser Aluminum, by an outfit headedby notorious billionaire metals mer­chant, arms dealer and international fugi­tive Marc Rich. Now, by ousting Boyle,Rich is apparently trying to make adeal with the Justice Department for hisreturn to the U.S.

When the union contract expired inNovember 1990, the USWA rejected]~.AC's "final offer" which eliminated thecost-of-living adjustment and a bonussystem which accounted for 10 percentof take-home pay. Boyle and Rich im­mediately implemented their master planfor mass firings of Local 5668 mem­bers, who have an average seniority of27 years in the plant.

A menacing goon squad from VanceSecurity-the same outfit that Pittstonand ,A.T. Massey strikers faced-whichis staffed by mercenaries from the CIA'scontra war against Nicaragua, was

-brought in by RAC. Scabs were housedcontinued on page 14

Ravenswood rallies have mobilized thousands of miners, auto workers andother unionists to fight union-busting. .

15 MAY 1992