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WfJlIllEI' '''''fiOllll' 25¢No. 445 29 January 1988

Yankee Im~erialism-Hands Off Nicaragua!

Finish 011 the Contras·-­Complete the Revolution!SandinistasConciliate

Reagan's Terrorists

JANUARY 25-The battle over Cen­tral America which has raged through­out the '80s has reached a watershed. Ata Central American summit meeting inSan Jose, Costa Rica January 15, heldto "verify" compliance with the Arias"peace" plan, Nicaraguan presidentDaniel Ortega made risky. concessionsin order to appease Washington. TheSandinista leader agreed to direct 'nego­tiations with Reagan'scounterrevolu­tionary mercenaries, a broad amnestyincluding former members of dictatorSomoza's murderous National Guard,and lifting the state of emergencyenacted to clamp down on the "internalcontras." Just a Sandinista trick, de­clared Reagan, so on February 3-4, theU.S. Congress will vote up or down theadministration request for more contraaid. Ortega warns that "a single dollar ofaid to the contras in any form, humani­tarian or otherwise ... will kill the peaceagreemen t."

The Reaganauts aren't interested innegotiating with the Sandinistas, only inobliterating them. And despite all thetalk of a "new Reagan" followingDecember's Washington summit meet­ing with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorba­chev, the contra godfather hasn'tchanged his stripes. Waving the spectreof "a communist Central America," hedeclares that if Congress nixes contraaid "the Soviets will have already suc­ceeded in establishing another Cuba,this time on the American mainland."Trying to whip up a war atmos­phere against his favorite bugbearof "Sandino-communism," Reagan de­clared in his "State of the Union" speechthat "there are no Republicans, noDemocrats, just Americans." Hisspeechwriters must have been readingKaiser Wilhelm's proclamation' ofWorld War I in which he saw "no par­ties any more, only Germans."

The contras' failure on the battlefieldand the widespread unpopularity ofWashington's Central American warprogram in the U.S. was why the Rea­ganauts had to go to ludicrous lengths,running a drug trafficking and arms

smuggling operation out of the WhiteHouse basement, to keep the contrasalive. But despite the spectacular implo­sion of the Reagan regime with the IraniContragate revelations, and its paralysisduring months of Congressional hear­ings, a year later the Sandinistas are stillunder Washington's guns. For the U.S.Central American war drive is not thecreation of an Ollie North and a

gung-ho "cabal of zealots," but abipartisan policy of the Americanimperialist ruling class. They just havesome tactical differences over how topursue it.

The Democrats' aim in this two-trackprogram is to try to win at the bargain­ing table what Reagan's contras havelost on the battlefield. As we have notedfrom the outset, the so-called "peace"

BarricadaWhile Nicaraguan troops trans­ported by Soviet helicopters battleCIA's contras, Sandinista leaderDaniel Ortega (below, at right) pur­sues "national reconciliation" withcontra cardinal Obando yBravo.

plan named after Costa Rican pres­ident Oscar Arias was brain trusted bythe Congressional Democrats. It's nowreported, that House Speaker JimWright was "in close communication"with Arias last summer. In NovemberDemocrat Wright brokered talks be­tween Nicaraguan president Ortega andthe contra cardinal Obando y Bravo. Atthe Washington summit, the "S peakerof State" urged Soviet leaders to offer tocut off arms to Nicaragua, which Gor­bachev then did. And at San Jose therewas a full delegation of Democrats, sentat Wright's behest, which met behindthe scenes with every Central Americanpresident, urging Ortega to makeconcessions.

So the key vote on the "peace" planwill be held in the House and Senate onFebruary 3-4. But there is no peace inCentral America. Since. the Arias planwas signed by the five presidents lastAugust in Esquipulas, Guatemala, there

continued on page 10

YoungSparlaens

Down with Dixie Flag of Slavery! 5Ann Arbor: Students Seize Racist Dean's Office 7

***

Spartacist Publishing CO.. 801( 1377 GPO, New York, N.Y. 10116

We again thank PDC supporters formaking the 1987 Holiday Appeal a suc­cess. In all we raised more than $7,500 .for gifts and stipends to the class-warprisoners and their families, and raisedan additional $3,500 during the last tenweeks from our monthly sustainers andold and new contributors. The hardwork of our friends in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area helped raise more than$2,000 from over 75 contributors.Cleveland .supporters enlisted ten newPDC sustainers in Ohio and Michigan.In less than two years since we issued anappeal for monthly sustaining contribu­tors we have grown from 12 to 110sustainers, accounting for about $2,000per month. One friend from SanFrancisco recently wrote, ..... looks like1987was the year the PDC set course for'recognition and leadership in the strug­gle to free labor internationally. Makesa cynical (sometimes) beefing (always)working stiff smile now and then."

Join our struggle. Become a sustain­ing contributor. Send a donation of $5or more and receive a subscription toClass-Struggle Defense Notes. For asingle copy send $1 to: Partisan DefenseCommittee, P.O. Box 99, Canal StreetStation, New York, New York 10013.•

ernment's fink. But Smith was immedi­ately thrown back in jail, under statemurder charges! The UMWAtops,under Richard Trumka, haven't lifted afinger to defend the five miners, and lackof funds endangers their legal defenseand appeals.

The feds and mine bosses railroadedthe miners under provisions (includingair piracy laws!) of the 1984Crime Con­trol Act, enacted in the government'sphony "anti-terrorist" campaign in­tended to criminalize labor militancyand all political opposition to govern­ment policies. After years of strike­breaking, givebacks and layoffs, thiscountry's largest and most powerfulunions now face union-busting "RICO"prosecutions. Labor must be mobilizedto back these miners whose "crime" is todefend their union! Send your con­tributions now to Citizens for Justice,Box 8, Canada, KY 41519. Send lettersand telegrams demanding all chargesbe dismissed to: District Judge HenryWilhoit, United States District Court,Ashland, KY 41101.

Cop Terror Stalks Black America

Chicago: Black Family DefeatsPonce Frame-Up

Callie Bryant andCassandra Seay Win!

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The Freedmen's Fightfor Education

Breaking theChains of Slavery

Claude McKay:From Harlem to Moscow

Blacks and Bolsheviks

The Killing Floor-A Review

Chicago 1919: Racismand Union-Busting

SpartacistPamphlet

Just Out!

-Contents-

Funds are urgently needed for anappeal by four members of the UnitedMine Workers of America (UMW A),railroaded on charges stemming fromthe shooting death of a scab coaltruck driver during the 1984-85 strikeagainst A.T. Massey Coal Co. DonnieThornsbury, David Thornsbury, Ar­nold Heightland and James DarrylSmith face up to 50 years in prison.On January 25 their union brother PaulSmith wasacquitted of the same chargesby a jury which didn't believe the gov-

In the RevolutionaryVanguard of the Civil War

Harriet Tubman:Fighter for,Black Freedom

Order from/make checks payable to:Spartacist PUblishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10016

$1.00(32 pages)

For 28 months Juan Segarra Palmerand Filiberto Ojeda Rios, fighters forPuerto Rico's independence from U.S.colonial rule, have been held in jailwithout bail under the police-state pre­ventive detention law-the longest pre­trial detentions in U.S. history. Alongwith 14 others, Segarra and Ojeda faceconspiracy charges stemming from a1983 robbery of a Wells Fargo Bank inHartford, Connecticut. With the dis­closure of widespread illegal wiretapsand doctoring of tape recordings, thegovernment frame-up of the PuertoRico/Hartford 16 is falling apart.Portions of the more than 1,000hours ofbugged phone calls have been ruledinadmissible. On January 26 the DistrictCourt in Hartford heard Segarra's andOjeda's renewed. application for bail.The PDC wrote to Judge T. EmmetClarie demanding that Segarra andOjeda be immediately released and thatall charges be dismissed.

represented Mumia while' the Ameri­can Civil Liberties Union and NationalConference of Black Lawyers jointlysubmitted an amicus curiae brief on hisbehalf. The city's 'main daily news­paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, cov­ered the proceedings.

The racist butchers who rule thiscountry have opened the sluice gate oflegal murder. Murnia's case must be thecause of all blacks, workers and defend­ers of democratic rights. Publicize thiscase, raise it in your unions and com­munity organizations. Send letters andtelegrams protesting the frame-up. to:Pennsylvania Supreme Court, CityHall, Philadelphia, PA 19107. SaveMumia!

.~Revolutionary Worker

29 ,January 1988:

on January 7 at the same time his law­yer was calling the governor's office toadvise them the Supreme Court wouldconsider a new motion for appeal!

Two Partisan Defense Committeerepresentatives joined Mumia's mother,his wife Wadiya, and about a dozenfriends and supporters at the hearing,Philadelphia attorney Marilyn Gelb

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Parti§fto Defeo8e£o......ittee

No. 445'

f!~A!!.lt!..,yf..'!!!}!..~~!s~DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Noah WilnerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Jon Lawrence

EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Liz Gordon, Frank Hunter. Jane Kerrigan.Len Meyers, Jan Norden, James Robertson, Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour,Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg, Noah Wilner (Closing editor)

Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December,by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: 732-7862 (Editorial), 732-7861(B'!siness). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $5.00124issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard,Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.

Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters dO not necessarily expr.ss the editoria' viewpoint.

CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court isdeciding on life or death for MumiaAbu-Jamal. On January 19 the Courtheard oral argument in Mumia's appealfrom the racist vendetta which has kepthim on death row for the past six years.As a former Black Panther and well­known journalist who supported thePhiladelphia MOVE organization, Mu­mia was framed up on charges of killinga Philadelphia cop in 1981.

The one-hour oral argument focusedon the frame-up tactics used by the rae­ist capitalist state to get a death sen­tence for Mumia: the Court seated awhite juror who admitted he could notbe impartial, while excluding elevenprospective black jurors peremptorilychallenged. by the D.A.(!); the prose­cution slandered Mumia's characterwitness, renowned- poet and TempleUniversity professor Sonia Sanchez, asa "friend of cop-killers"; they politicallywitchhunted Mumia for his past mem­bership in the Black Panther Party, andmisled the jurors by telling them that adeath sentence would not be carried outbecause Mumia would have "appealafter appeal after appeal." Tell it to thefamily of 27-year-old Robert Streetmanwho was put to death by lethal injection

For a StrongRevolutionary Government

The Sandinistas, by maintaining a"pluralist," i.e., predominantly capitalist,economy while waging war against Rea­gan's contras, have undermined andweakened the defense of the NicaraguanRevolution. Following the overthrow ofthe tsarist autocracy in February 1917,Lenin insisted that the only way to combat

TROTSKY capitalist economic sabotage, on top of LENINthe enormous destruction of World War L

was for the workers to take power. This was the socialist program which led theBolsheviks to victory in the October Revolution.

We are for a strong revolutionary government. Whatever the capitalists and theirflunkeys may shout about us to the contrary, their lies will remain lies., The thing is not to let phrases obscure one's consciousness, disorient one's mind.

When people speak about "revolution," "the revolutionary people," "revolutionarydemocracy," and so on,nine times out of ten this is a lie or self-deception. Thequestion is-what class is making this revolution? A revolution against whom? ..

The conclusion is obvious: only assumption of power by the proletariat, backed bythe semi-proletarians, can give the country a really strong and really revolutionarygovernment. It will be really strong because it will be supported by a solid andclass-conscious majority of the people. It will be strong because it will not, ofnecessity, have to be based on a precarious "agreement" between capitalists andsmall proprietors, between millionaires and petty bourgeoisie ....

It will be a truly revolutionary government, the only one capable of showing thepeople that at a time when untold suffering is inflicted upon the masses it will not beawed and deterred by capitalist profits. It will be a truly revolutionary governmentbecause it alone will be capable of evoking and sustaining the revolutionaryenthusiasm of the masses and increasing it tenfold ....

~V.1. Lenin, "A Strong Revolutionary Government" (May 1917)

Save Mumia Abu-Jamal!

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

They're Waging War on the Homeless

Homeless take shelter in New York's Penn Station. '

It was New York City's Port Author­ity bus terminal, where hundreds havetaken refuge from the winter and thefrightful "shelters" and welfare hotels.In the early morning hours.of January20, as they slept beneath a layer ofpapers for warmth; two homeless menwere set on fire by four youths.The twomen escaped with minor burns, thistime. Last August a woman was seri­ously burned and required hospitaliza­tion after she and a companion weredoused with gasoline as they slept inProspect Park.

A few days earlier, the New York,Times (9 January) reported on a groupof homeless young people who hadbanded together for survival behind therailing of Gate 8 at Port Authority. Theycalled themselves the "Breakfast Club,"and by pooling the money they had col­lected panhandling, they managed tobuy a five-inch TV set for $54. It was apoint of pride in their struggle to liftthemselves above their bleak existence."We are trying to turn ourselvesaround," explained Charlene Turner.But after the TV 'set was brought to theattention of officials, two cops wan­tonly bent the antenna and ripped thecord in half.

On January 19, joyce Brown (known

as Billie Boggs) was released from an84-day psychiatric lockup at Bellevue.This black woman was the first victim ofMayor Ed Koch's vindictive racist drag­net against the homeless. Miss Brown

said after she beat Koch's attempts toforcibly medicate her: "I wasted 12weeks of my life in the hospital. I wasnot insane when they picked me up-Iwas homeless." Invited for an interview

on Channel 5, owned by media sleazeking Rupert Murdoch, she was viciouslyattacked by a snarling anchorman indig­nant at her steadfast defense of herrights. After hundreds of protest callsfrom outraged New Yorkers, he wasslapped on the wrist with a suspensionfrom the station.

Behind these individual acts of delib­erate cruelty there is a war against thelegions of homeless in America. In NewYork, as officials proclaimed there was abed for everyone, the Coalition fortheHomeless witnessed dozens of menbeing turned away from the FortWashington armory. Now homelesspeople in NYC will be asked to "volun­tarily" identify themselves to be admit­ted to a shelter, supposedly in exchangefor a pittance that wouldn't even paysubway fare to work and back, if theycould find a job. In Chicago, with tem­peratures hovering at 14 below, home­less were turned away every night; fivepeople froze to death. Atlanta seeks toestablish "vagrant-free" zones in antici­pation of its hosting the DemocraticNational Convention. '

Mass homeless ness is no more anatural calamity than mass hunger, it'san outgrowth of decaying American

continued on page 9

Maimed Protester Brian Wil~son SuedblWould-Be Killers

Navy Ordered Death Train

Andy PeriNavy munitions train runs over antiwar activist Brian Willson last september,severing both his legs.

APWillson testifying before Congress.

vant" enough for Congress, which grov­eled before Oliver North, giving thekiller elite's crazed mouthpiece free reinto preach the glories of contra terror.

The Navy employees who drove thedeath train over Willson were "onlyfollowing orders" in U.S. imperialism'scampaign to terrorize all those whooppose its bloody wars. Now they'relooking for a bounty, just like killer copAnthony Sperl, who shot five-year-oldblack child Patrick Mason in his OrangeCounty home in 1983, then collected$35,000 for "psychological damage."What's next, asked an outraged Califor­nian in a letter to the Los Angeles Times(23 January), "a suit by SS men againstvictims of the Holocaust"? Anotherwrote: "I was struck by the arrogance,the naked evil of the American militarymachine; men who believe that nothingmust stand in the way of our war inCentral America, that nothing must haltthe flow of arms to the Contras, ourmercenary army of murderers andtorturers."

The Contra Costa County' D.A.,continued on page 4

ing the train the green light to proceed.'You might as well let them go ahead.We are going to have a confrontationsooner or later,' he was quoted as say­ing.Thedocumentalso quotes Bantaassaying he 'hoped a demonstrator ordemonstrators would be on the tracks'so that the initial confrontation wouldoccur and arrests would be made."

Last; November, a House ArmedServices subcommittee "investigated"the bloody incident at the ConcordNaval Weapons Station. It was revealedthat the Navy heavily censored its initialreport documenting that security chiefBanta gave the go-ahead for the "con­frontation" which ripped Brian Will­son's legs and smashed a gaping hole inhis skull. The Navy claims it did notknow protesters would be on the trackthat day. Yet Willson had written a let­ter to base authorities spelling out thedemonstrators' plans to kneel on thetracks. The initial report showed theNavy circulated memos on the plannedaction days 'before it occurred.

Willson has been greeted as a hero inNicaragua, while the Soviet Unionoffered him free medical care. (His hos-

. pitaI bills in the medicine-for-profitUSA have already surpassed $150,000,and he lacks medical insurance.) Withthe American population deeply op­posed to Reagan's Central Americapolicy, Willson's determination has wonbroad admiration. Many recall the 'heroic example of Ben Linder, theyoung U.S. internacionalista murderedlast May by Reagan's contras for help­ing to bring electricity to Nicaraguanvillages. '

While Willson's courage has inspiredadmiration of decent people around theworld, the American ruling class seesprotesting imperialist war as' a' crime.And the victims of that war machine aremade the criminals. In November, theHouse Armed Services subcommitteesilenced Willson's testimony when hesought to explain the reasons for hisprotest and to expose the deadly ship­ments to EI Salvador from the NavalWeapons Center. This was not "rele-

brought the contra war home!Brian Willson was mutilated as he

and 'his Nuremberg Actions group,along with other pacifists, were carry­ing out months-long protests against thedeath cargoes ..Millions of dollars worthof demolition bombs, white phos­phorus rockets, fuze extenders (detona­tors) and machine-gun ammo areshipped from the weapons station to theU.S.-backed Salvadoran army whichhas killed over 60,000 people in sevenyears of civil war. Willson was the vic­tim of attempted murder-premed­itated and ordered by the U.S. Navy. AsABC News (12 January) reported:

"Nowdocumentsobtained by the Cen­ter for Investigative Reporting revealthat the train's engineer, David Hum­miston, said he was told by his super-

. visor not to stop outside the base area,, to preventprotestersfrom boarding the

locomotive."Another document quotes John Ban­ta; thestation'ssecurity manager, as giv-

Brian Willson barely escaped with hislife last September I, when he wasdeliberately rundown by a Navymunitions train, which severed both hislegs. Now this courageous antiwar pro­tester and Vietnam vet is being sued byhis would-be killers-the three crew­men on the arms train that plowed intoWillson as he knelt on the tracks out­side the Naval Weapons Station in Con­cord, California, The grotesque lawsuitcharges the pacifist activist Willson with"conscious and deliberate disregard tothe rights, feelings and consequences" tothe train crew and plotting to"intentionally inflict emotional harmand distress" on them (San FranciscoExaminer, January 12). Behind thisobscene attempt to hound and furthertorment the man they have alreadymaimed for life is the Reagan gang,whose killer contras have murdered andmaimed thousands in their terrorist waron the Nicaraguan pe.ople. They have

29 JANUARY 1988 3

The Wages of Perestroika

Soviet Workers Protest in Yaroslavl

ell?

As Mikhail Gorbachev's "marketsocialist" economic reforms were aboutto take effect in the Soviet Union, work­ers at the huge Yaroslavl engine worksstaged a week of demonstrations at theplant gates. They were protesting amanagement decision to make theworkforce put in 15 Saturdays in 1988.Beginning on December II, up to 300workers' gathered each day, carryingsigns including "We Are for Glasnostand Perestroika," "We Are for an Eight­Hour Day" and "We Are for EightWorking Saturdays Maximum." It wasthe thiidreported instance of laborunrest since September, including twofull-blown strikes over work rules,highlighting the inherent .contradic:-·tions of perestroika (restructuring) andglasnost (openness).

The working Saturdays scheduled byYaroslavlplant managers are stan­dard practice"by Soviet bureaucrats tomeet production quotas by month-end"storming" to make up for lost time due.to shortages or machinery breakdowns.The official union rubber-stamped theirdecision without consulting the 40,000­strong workforce at the engine worksand its satellite facilities, so the workersselected their own "initiative group,"demanding-and getting-i-a vmeetingwith management. The dispute was soimportant (more than 300 factoriesdepend on this one plant for diesel en­gines) that the deputy minister of 'theUSSR's automobile industry, and trade­union, party and government officialsup to the regional level were hauled in.

Moscow News (3 January) called the.work action "Another Lesson in De­mocracy," but was annoyed that Sovietworkers might actually take talk aboutdemocratizing the workplace seriously.Ata December 18 meeting, a worker,Lev Makarov, labeled the main "insti­gator," was sitting on the presidium"without seemingly any official groundsfor this." The "story got blown out ofproportion," complained MN. "Thisshould not have led to agitation of theplant, the city and all industry," saidthese champions of glasnost who seemto yearn for the days when the workersjust shut up and took it. Management'schoice of working hours carried-butonly by the barest margin.

Facing speedup, layoffs and vastly in­creased wage differentials under Gor­bachev's reforms, some Soviet workersare getting involved in perestroika in away the bureaucracy never intended.Last fall, Moscow News (27 September1987) reported a bus drivers strike atChekhov, about 40 miles outside Mos­cow, headlining their account "Inci­dent." A month later, workers at theLikino bus factory stopped work forthree days. This time MN called it "An

Yaroslavlworkers'

spokesmanLev Makarov

(right) confrontsengine works

director lastDecember.

Emergency." Today "strike" is theunmentionable "S-word" in the USSR,but Soviet workers will soon teach theStalinist hacks the meaning of the word"stachka," the title of Sergei Eisenstein's.film Strike! on the Bolshevik-led work­ers' actions at the tum of the century.

The new State Enterprise Law-whichtook effect on January I, could wellincrease "incidents" like those at Che­khov, Likino and Yaroslavl. Some 60percent of Soviet industry will now beon a' system of "self-financing" ikhoz­raschot), including the threat of bank­ruptcy for enterprises which fail to makea profit. The Yaroslavl engine works,like the rest of the auto industry, wenton this system a year early-one reasonwhy the problems there attracted wideinterest from Soviet workers and man­agers alike. Under the new law, workershave the right to elect local factoryofficials. But there's a built-in contra­diction-what happens when workersvote against a program of speedup, lay­offs, unemployment and "Stakhano­vite" wage differentials?

Older plants, likeYaroslavl, willbe ata particular disadvantage-they willhave to make choices between expen­sive retooling and the size and pay levelof their workforces, and many willprob­ably be able to afford neither. Sovietprime minister Nikolai Ryzhkov report­ed last June that 13 percent of Sovietplants already run at a loss,while Sovieteconomists sayan additional 12 per­cent can't afford newequipment on theirown. In the meantime, by 1992 hugesubsidies on basic goods .and serviceslike bread, meat and housing are slatedto go-and these changes have alreadybeen postponed because they are suchpolitical dynamite. "Some are worriedthat their standard of living Will de­cline," said a leading Soviet economist'

(Los Angeles. Times, 25 December1987).

The petty-bourgeois appetites of theStalinist bureaucracy only add to theproblems generated by the market­socialist "solution" to the economicproblems created by the Stalinist per­version of central planning. "Upscale"shops with fancy displays of high-pricedconsumer .goods are springing up-.open to all, but affordable only to asmall minority. Thousands of small­scale entrepreneurs have recently beenlicensed to do business in everythingfrom auto repair to beauty salons."Legalized theft," one irate Soviet cit­izen was overheard to say on a trolleybus about the flowering of "individ­ual enterprise" permitted under thenew laws (Christian Science Monitor,3 December 1987).

In agriculture, a system resemblingnothing so much as sharecropping isspringing up: "production units," fre­quently families, work up to IS hours aday in return for the ability to sell aportion. of their product on the openmarket. One collective farm directorcomplained, "There is a huge exploita­tion of people. The Revolution wasn'tcreated for this purpose" (BusinessWeek, 7 December 1987). .:

A bigeffort is on to woo foreign cap­italists into joint ventures with Sovietenterprises, dangling the prospect of aconvertible ruble to aid repatriationof profits. Asked why companies shouldbe interested in forming joint ventures inthe Soviet Union, Gorbachev's topeconomic adviser Abel Abanbegyanreplied: "Our land is cheaper. Labor ischeaper" (New York Times, 14Decem­bet 1987). This "socialist" is trying to sellthe Soviet Union to Western capitalistsas the new Hong Kong!

A New York Times editorial note

(29 December 1987) saw "an ironicglimmer of Marxist truth" in the resis­tance of Soviet workers to wage-cuttingand layoffs. Peter Passell complained:

"Ordinary Soviet citizens accept theprivileges enjoyed by the top of thenomenklatura [the bureaucracy]-thedachas and eating clubs, special ho­tels, even stretch limos with policeescorts. . .. By contrast, Russians doopenly complain about. the profits ofthe tiny number of successful entre­preneurs. By no coincidence, the twotouchiest issues are the people'sfeudal [!] rights-s-cheap food and guar­anteed employment."

Two days later the same commentatornoted thatv'l'hese days, the mere men­tion of the U-word-unemployment­sends shivers through the ranks ofMoscow's economic reformers." Yes,Soviet workers are strongly attached totheir rights to eat and to work, which arehardly "feudal," but tremendous gainsof the Russian Revolution, rights whichmillions of hungry and jobless in cap­italist America don't enjoy.

Passell's pseudo-Marxist verdict onperestroika: "No good Marxist histo­rian would be optimistic about thisattempt to create a semi-capitalisteconomy without the bourgeoisie." Theattempt by the Stalinist bureaucracy tointroduce market-oriented economicreforms is in sharp contradiction to thesocialist goals of the October Revolu­tion. But while the Times yearns for a"Western-style economic system"-i.e.,the restoration of capitalist exploita­tion-the Soviet workers will sharplyoppose that, as their growing resistanceto Gorbachev's reforms demonstrates.And working-class resistance to pere­stroika could well.be the first step to­ward proletarian political revolutionagainst the Kremlin oligarchy, leadingto restoring soviet democracy andgenuine socialist economic planning.•

Contributions for Brian Willson'slegal defense and medical expensesshould be made payable to the BrianWillson Trust Fund, and sent to hisattorney's office: Larsen & Weinberg,523 Octavia Street, San Francisco, CA94102.•

alist wars is to bring down the capital­ist system which produces them. As wewrote in "Contra War Comes Home"( WV No. 436, 18 September 1987):

"At Concord the ruling class has showna glimpse of its plans for detention ofHispanics and radicals to crush protestagainst an invasion of Central America,a taste of its Oliver North-style blue- .prints for a military coup. Only thepower of the revolutionary workingclass can defeat the state terrorists inthe White House and Pentagon."

Death Train...(continued from page 3)

backed up by Ed Meese's cohorts in the.California state attorney's office, de­clared last November that no criminalcharges were warranted against thosewho maimed Brian Willson. They claimit was an "accident" because the crewsupposedly thought the protesters

. would move. As Willson's lawyerDoron Weinberg said, "It's like sayingI'm not responsible for murder becausewhen I shot the guy, I thought he'dduck" (San Francisco Chronicle, 24September 1987). The" real accident isthat the train, which accelerated to threetimes the Navy's own speed limit, didnot kill Brian Willson.

On December 12 a fired FBI agent

confirmed that committed pacifist BrianWillson was targeted by a federal inves­tigation as a potential "terrorist"! He isone of 8,000 people on the FBI "terror­ism" list-a label which sets you up forthe kill by the forces of "law and order."And government-sponsored yiolencehas continued against protesters at ·theConcord base. Sheriff's deputies havegotten special training in the "chokehold" and are now using this deadlytechnique. They deliberately broke oneprotester's wrist and the elbow ofanother, saying: "This will teach you."Like Willson, both victims were Viet­nam vets. A pistol-toting thug threat­ened to drive a munitions truck over agroup of demonstrators that includedWillson's wife Holley Rauen. BrianWillson has filed a suit for $45million indamages against Contra Costa County

and plans a suit against the Navy. Wehope he gets every penny.

But from the attempted murder andmutilation of Brian Willson to Duarte'sdeath squads in El Salvador and theCIA contra killers in Nicaragua-s-anddon't forget the killing of two millionVietnamese-it should be clear thatAmerican imperialism's war machinecannot be brought down by "moral wit­ness," no matter "how courageous. Liedown on the tracks and they will run youover. It's no more effective than pres­suring the Democrats in the "contraCongress" which regularly votes mil­lions for Reagan's terrorists. What's ur­gently needed is a program for power,to mobilize the broad opposition toU.S. imperialism's bloody wars behindthe leadership and muscle of thework­ing class. The only way to stop imperi-

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4 WORKERS VANGUARD

Young Sparlacuse e

IXleown"an intensive lobbying effort." It's goingto take mass labor and black-struggle tomake the whistling Dixiecrats changetheir tune. The Alabama state capitolserved as the seat of the secessionistswhen Jefferson Davis was inauguratedas the first president of the Confeder­acy. In 1961, Jefferson Davis' politicalheirs brazenly proclaimed "the Southwill rise again" by raising the flag ofslavery over the state capitol (just oneblock from Martin Luther King'schurch) to mark the centennial of theConfederacy's capture of Fort Sumter.

The days of Jim Crow segregationwere already numbered in the post­World War II period when black GIsreturned home, armed, and determinedto fight for their rights. The. nakedoppression of the Southern black pop­ulation had also become something ofan economic anachronism and anembarrassment for the American rul­ing class which postured as the guard­ians of "freedom" and "democracy" topolice the postwar world. But the wholepower structure of the South hinged onthe Dixiecrats successfully disenfran­chising the black population. All overthe Confederacy the racist flags went upas the white rulers threw down thegauntlet and met the civil rights move­ment with truncheons, fire hoses anddogs. The Georgia state legislature dugup the old Confederate battle flag andslapped the state seal on it in 1956 inopen defiance of the Supreme Court'sBrown v. Topeka Board of Educationdecision against segregation in publicschools. Alabama and South Carolinafollowed suit.

Mississippi, notorious from the daysof slavery as the deadliest destinationfor blacks in the Deep South, has barelyhad a period when this insignia of ter­ror didn't fly. When Union troops werepulled out of the South in the Compro­mise of 1877, the black population wasleft unarmed and defenselessagainsttheplantation owners, who drowned Rad­ical Reconstruction in a tide of blood.As soon as Mississippi ratified its"states' rights" constitution in 1894,theflag of slavery was hoisted as the officialemblem of the state again. Yet in 1983,agroup of courageous black studentsfought to rid "Ole Miss" of the flag ofDixie racism and won! Their fight is aninspiration for all anti-racist militants.The school's first black cheerleaderrefused to wave the Confederate flag atschool games, sparking a protest move­ment that faced down Klan deaththreats and a march of 2,000 white rae-

o ists who besieged a black dormitorysinging "Dixie" and screaming racistslurs. The anti-racist students weren'tderailed by local black politicos whotried to "chill out" the situation andwere told where to go (see "How WeDrove the Confederate Flag from OleMiss," Young Spartacus No. 117,April1984)..

The Hoax of the "New South"All the rhetoric one hears about the

"New South" is belied by the.symbol ofcontinued on page 6

But Governor Hunt pre-empted with athreat to arrest Representative Reed ifhe tries anything bolder than lobbyingthe Reaganites and Dixiecrats in thestate legislature.

We applaud Thomas Reed's efforts.But the NAACP's faith in the neutralityof the state is a dangerous misconcep-'tion. It's the Klan in blue uniformswho are the overwhelming source ofViolence against blacks and workingpeople. The racists that are already.mobilizing in opposition to the cam­paign against the flag of slavery aregoing to have to be met by more than

hotoSpartacist League supporter Richard Bradley, clad in a Union Army uniform,cuts down the hated flag of slavery, San Francisco, April 1984.

Alabama State Representative and the.NAACP's state president, called t;he flaga "symbol of slavery and oppression ofblacks" and vowed to climb the capitolflagpole in' Montgomery and tear itdown himself if the state's Republicangovernor didn't remove it by Febru­ary 2. The NAACP told our reporterthat Meese's Justice Department, theFBI and the state police would be onhand along with the local forces of "lawand order" run by the racist nut EmoryFomar (who dresses in battle fatigues

~ and is referred to by local blacks as the"Ku Klux Mayor") to "defend" Reed!

, From Forsyth County, Georgia toNew York's Howard Beach, theConfederate flag is the emblem ofKlanterror and race-haters. No mere his­torical artifact of the Old South, it hasbeen adopted as a universal battle flagfor racists. The raising of this racist,seditious banner of the Confederacyover Fort Sumter on 15 April 1861 sig­naled the opening of the Civil War.Frederick Douglass, the great leader ofthe militant wing of the abolitionistmovement, saw the attack on Sumter asthe long-awaited opportunity to get onwith the necessary and inevitable waragainst the monster of slavery:

"Our rulers were ready enough to sacri­fice the Negro to the Union so long asthere was any hope of saving the Unionby that means. The attack upon Sumter,and other movements on the part of thecotton lords of the lash, have about con­vinced them that the insatiate slave­holders not only mean peace and safetyof slavery, but to make themselves mas­ters of the Republic. It is not merely awar for slavery, but it is a war for slav­ery dominion ......Friends offreedom! be up and doing;-now is your time.... Let the longcrushed bondman arise! ... snatch backthe liberty of which he has been so longrobbed and despoiled."

-Douglass' Monthly, May 1861

The issue of property in human fleshwas settled in blood and iron in the CivilWar, but the battle flag of the slavoc­racy still flies-the banner of resurgentracism North and South. It's carried byracist white ethnics defending lynchmob murderers in Howard Beach anddisplayed by right-wing death squadkillers in Central America. That banneris a call to arms, a program for thosewho want the kind of society we'd haveif the South had won the Civil War..Everywhereand any time it isunfurled isa searing reminder that there's a lot ofunfinished business to take care, of inthis country. It's going to take a social­ist revolution iofintshthe Civil War andmake good on the unfulfilled promise ofblack equality.

We tore down the flag of slaveryfromSan Francisco's Civic Center in 1984.Richard Bradley, a supporter. of theSpartacist League and the Labor Black.League for Social Defense, donned aUnion Army uniform, climbed a 50-footflagpole twice to cut down the Confed­erate flag, and replaced it with a replicaof the Union's Fort Sumter garrisonflag. Then-mayor of San FranciscoDianne Feinstein, a Democrat, shred­ded this flag and so affronted the decentworking people or"the San FranciscoBay Area that the flagpole itself wassomehow brought to the ground. Theracists not only felt the wind go out oftheir sails, but they lost the sail and themast too! Today the flag of the"California Hundred" volunteers whofought on the Union side of the CivilWar flies at the Civic Center.

Four states of the old Confederacy(Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama andSouth Carolina) fly a version of theConfederate flag as their official statebanners. The NAACP has launched acampaign to bring down these filthyDixie rags this year. Thomas Reed, an

29 JANUARY 1988 5

Over the Rainbow with the Democrats

Pan-Africanist Kwame Ture Goes for Jessesharp reply from the floor at the Berke-ley meeting: ~ .

"Now, you spoke about how Jackson isgoing to perhaps lead to the destructionof capitalism. Genuine revolutionariestell the truth to the masses at all limes,namely, they warn against-the treacher­ous misleaders. He is running for theDixiecrat racist Democratic Party.They take the black vote for granted.They are out to get the white racist vote.So what we counterpose to that is tobuild in this country today an integratedrevolutionary working-class party thatcan lead the working class and theoppressed to the seizure of state power."

Comrade Alexander also noted thatthe Spartacist League and the AAPRP"have made common cause around 'cer­tain issues despite very profound polit­ical differences." These issues includea joint protest action against the U.S.bombing of Libya, and struggling to freeformer Black Panther Party leaderGeronimo Pratt from a lifetime prisonterm imposed as the result of a dirtyFBI/COINTELPRO frame-up. How- ~

ever, as the SL spokesman said:"Pan-Africanism is a despairing strate­gy, it is a defeatist strategy with regardto resurgent racist reaction in this coun­try, and it is directly counterposed tothe program of militant, integratedworking-class struggle.... When theSpartacist League initiated several largelabor/black mobilizations and stoppedthe Klan and Nazis from marching in 'the streets in Detroit in 1979; SanFrancisco in 1980; 1982in Washington,D.C., in which 5,000 black workers andyouth came out-those important vic­tories showed the way forward, becausein this country it's only the program ofrevolutionary integrationism to fightfor the assimilation of blacks in an egal­itarian society that actually offers theway forward. And so we say the eman­cipation of black Africa, no less than theemancipation of blacks in this country,requires a program of proletarian revo­lution. That program can only be car­ried out by a multiracial vanguard partythat's really a tribune of)hepeople.".

the nation's ugliest ghettos. NowKwame Ture tells a new generation ofblack youth to put their faith in JesseJackson, whose campaign for the Dem­ocratic Party consists of glad-handingDixiecrat politicians of the likes ofGeorge (Segregation Forever) Wallace.

. Spartacist League spokesman DonAlexander cut through Ture's convo­luted claptrap about Jackson with a

consciously rejected the organizedworking class as a force for revolution­ary change and spun off in the directionof impotent, anti-struggle black nation­alism while others (such as ex-SNCCactivist Marion Barry) .sold their soulsto the Democratic Party and today lordit over the black masses as the mayors of

after a civil rights delegation fromMississippi was booted out of theDemocratic National Convention and aracist Jim Crow delegation was seated inits place. Carmichael helped found theLowndes County Black Panther Partyin Alabama and was the man most asso­ciated with the slogan "Black Power!"-

a slogan which, briefly, symbolized thedefiant opposition of young black mil­itants to Martin Luther King's "turn theother cheek" pacifism and subordina­tion of the civil rights movement to thewhite liberal establishment.

The road to freedom for the blackmasses is the fight for workers power instruggle against the root cause ofracism, the capitalist system. Stokely

UPIJesse Jackson woos racist Dixiecrat George Wallace in bid for DemocraticParty nomination.

You've come a long way, Kwame, Asa leader of the Student NonviolentCoordinating Committee (SNCq,Stokely Carmichael once captured thejagged reality of racist America, statingthat it was "as ludicrous for Negroes tojoin [the Democratic Party] as it wouldhave been for Jews to join the NaziParty in the 1930s." This was in 1964,

Black students at the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley are looking foranswers on how to fight the racistthreats and raw violence which brokeout and spread like brush fires 01} thiscampus last fall (see "Students: Allywith Labor to Smash Racist Attacks!"WV No. 441, 27 November 1987). OnNovember 17, some 60 Berkeley stu­dents came out to hear what kind ofprogram Kwame Ture (formerly Stoke­ly Carmichael) had to offer at a forumsponsored by the African Students Alli­ance. But it seems Kwame Ture of theAAPRP (All-African People's Revolu­tionary Party) is not "part of the solu­tion" but "part of the problem," dishingup the old dead-end strategy of votingfor the bosses' Democratic Party, andtrying to hide it. under a blanket ofpseudo-socialist rhetoric.

"Socialism is sweeping the world,"Ture announced, and here in the UnitedStates it's none other than "Mr. BlackCapitalism," Jesse Jackson, who is pre­sumably providing the leadership andpushing the broom for this great sweep!Ture explained:

"We are convinced that the right actionfor Jesse Jackson is going to lead to thesmashing of the capitalist system.Because of the forces which he repre­sents, he will have to represent us. Andhe will have to have change in theDemocratic Party to honestly repre­sent them. And the lack of which, willcause the destruction of the Dem­ocratic Party."

Down withDixie Flag...(continued from page 5)

racist reaction that fliesover it. The cityof Atlanta is ruled by a black adminis­tration and dubbed "the city too busy to

. hate." But the surrounding white sub­urbs are "enemy territory" for blackpeople. For people unfamiliar with theSouth, traveling there can be a terrify­ing trip back to days you hoped werebygone. One comrade of ours reportedhow a Northern friend first adjusted tolife in the predominantly black neigh­borhood around Atlanta University:

"At the beginning ofthe semester, I raninto one of my classmates, a guy justrecently arrived from Detroit. I noticedhis eyes fixed on something behind me,his face ashen. 'My God!' he said, 'it'sthe CONFEDERATE FLAG!' I turnedaround and following his gaze saw a

group of white construction workersand a Confederate flag atop an all-blackelementary school. It looked as if theKlan had taken over the building andplanted the banner of race-terror in tri­umph on the roof. My friend thoughtwe were under attack and started to flee.I grabbed hisjacket and said, 'That's thestate flag of Georgia'."

For Southern blacks the Confeder­ate flag is everywhere a reminder of theirprecarious situation. Black students atGeorgia Tech in Atlanta protested and-put an end to the school's annual "OldSouth" parade where the dean of stu­dents, dressed in a Union army uni­form, surrendered the campus to the all­white Kappa Alpha Kappa fraternitymembers, dressed as Confederate offi­cers. Now the dean surrenders in plainclothes instead (!) and delivers a speechon the morals' of "Southern gentlemen"to racist frat rats. Meanwhile, a blacksorority house on campus has been thesite of several cross-burnings. .e-

Defenders of the Confederate flag

"Up South":Racist punks inBensonhurst,NY threatencivil rightsmarchers withConfederate flagand chants of"Bring backslavery!"

protest that it's a precious item ofSouthern "culture," not a symbol ofrace-hatred. Bullshit, Ii's the pre­eminent symbol of'facist terror "UpSouth" in New York too, and restassured they don't drink mint juleps inHoward Beach. In Atlanta, the "Sonsof Confederate Veterans" showed updressed in Confederate uniforms de­manding the flag remain as it is andthe very sinister Southern HeritageFoundation has launched a "save theflag" region-wide campaign. This isobscene! Maybe banners of GeneralWilliam Tecumseh Sherman flying from'every schoolhouse and governmentbuilding would remind these scum thatthey lost the war!

Even some opponents of the flag arepandering to this reactionary "culturaltradition." Frank Redding, a blackState Representative who introduced abill against the Confederate flag lastyear (it died in committee), argues thatthe flag is "misused" and wonders how"Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Daviswould have felLto see 'one of thosecrazies' [in Forsyth County] wavingtheir emblem. 'I personally have a greatdeal of respect for the Confederacy'"(Atlanta Constitution, 18 February1987). The Klan and the Nazis who mur­der and terrorize under the Confeder­ate banners and swastikas are the aux­Wary forces of the capitalist state andcannot be lightly dismissed as "somecrazies"-remember Greensboro!

There can be no economic equalitynor justice for black people in this cap­italist society. As Frederick Douglasssaid, "Experience demonstrates thatthere may be a slavery of wages only alittle less galling and crushing in its

I:r ,

•. _-> _.

National Park Service

14 April 1865-:-After victory in theCivil War the original Union flag israised again over Fort Sumter.

effects than chattel slavery, and that thisslavery of wages must go down with theother." To bring down this rotting sys­tem of "democracy for the rich" requiresbuilding a revolutionary workers partywith a strong black leadership compo­nent. And when the victorious proletar­iat marches to power, it will burn everyfilthy Confederate banner in its pathand raise in its stead the red banner ofthe international working class. Blackliberation through socialist revolution!Finish the Civil War!. .

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

Ann· Arllor:· Students Seize Racist Dealt's O"ice~lOn January 13, over 100 University

of Michigan students occupied DeanPeter O. Steiner's office and held it for26 hours to protest Steiner's blatant callto keep the university an enclave ofwhite privilege. Despite abysmally lowblack enrollment at Ann Arbor (nowdown to 5 percent), Steiner quipped thathe didn't want "to change this universityinto another kind of institution whereminorities would naturally flock inmuch greater numbers." Aping the dis­credited pseudoscientific racist WilliamShockley, Steiner also wrote in a col­lege economics textbook he authoredthat "many scientists are not prepared toconsider evidence that there may be dif­ferences in intelligence among racesbecause as good liberals they feel that allraces ought to be equal." .

The United Coalition Against Racism(UCAR), which' initiated the sit-in,brought out more than 300 students,black and white, to pack a Regents.meeting the next day and demanded 'that Steiner be fired. Formed last year tocounter a series of racist threats againstblack students, UCAR is now demand­ing that the Justice Department investi­gate racism on the Ann Arbor campus.But from the bombing of Philly MOVE

<I):>

~Ola.(/)

Olc::>§:

Dean Steinerwants to keep

blacks offAnn Arbor

campus, butstudentmllltants

who took overhis office say

racist deanhas got to

hit the road.

to cutbacks in federal funds for educa­tion, Ed Meese and his boss Reagan aretwo of the biggest racists around! Alliedwith the power of the integrated labor

movement in nearby Detroit, studentscould run .the perpetrators of racistviolence off campus. Against the raceand class bias inherent in education

under capitalism, we demand free qual­ity education for all! For open admis­sions, no tuition and a state-paid stipendfor aU!-

NEW YORK BOSTONThursday, Feb. 1.1, 2:00 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 27, 4:00 p.m.Room to be announced Room to be announcedNorth Academic Center, CCNY Harvard UniversityFor more infOrmation: (212) 267-1025 For more information: (617) 492-3928

Speaker: John Sharpe, Spartacist League

CHICAGOSunday, Feb. 14, 3:00 p.m.Reynolds Club North Lounge'University of ChicagoGuest Speaker:Bernard Branchemember, ATU Local 308For more information: (312) 663-0715

NEW YORKWednesday, Feb. 24, 2:00 p.m,Room to be announcedBorough of ManhattanCommunity CollegeSpeaker: Mark KellermanSpartacist LeagueFor more information: (212) 267-1025

WASHINGTON, D.C.Thursday, Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m,Undergraduate Library Lecture RoomHoward UniversitySpeaker: Brian ManningSpartacist League'For more information: (202) 636-3537

LOS ANGELESFriday, Feb. 19, 7:30 p.m.Room to be announcedUCLASpeaker: Don AlexanderSL Central CommitteeFor more information: (213) 380-8239

MADISONSaturday, Feb. 20, 2:00 p.m,See "Today in the Union" for roomUniversity of WisconsinGuest Speaker:Bernard Branchemember, ATU Local 308For more information: (608) 251-6431

OBERLINSaturday, feb. 27, 7:00 p.m.Room to be announcedOberlin CollegeGuest Speaker: Bernard Branchemember, ATU Local 308Speaker: Gregg BurtonSL Central CommitteeFor more information: (216) 881-3700

NEW YORKFriday, Feb. 19, 7:30 p.m.Room to be announcedColumbia UniversitySpeaker: Ed KartsenSL Central CommitteeFor more information: (212) 267-1025

BERKELEYFriday, Feb. 26, 7:30 p.m.Room 126 BarrowsUC BerkeleySpeaker: Don AlexanderSL Central CommitteeFor more information: (415) 839-0851

Video showing of 27 November 1982 Labor/Black Mobilizationof 5,000 that stopped.the KKK in Washington, D.C.

NEW YORKAlt~rnate Saturdays, 4:00 p.m,Feb. 13,27, March 1241 Warren Street(one block south of Chambers)For more information: (212) 267-1025

MADISONSaturdays, 2:00 p.m.Feb. 6, 13, 27See "Today in the Union" for roomUniversity of WisconsinFor more information: (608) 251-6431

CHICAGOThursdays, 7:30 p.m.Feb. 4, 18, 25Cobb Hall, Room 112University of ChicagoFor more information: (312) 663-0715

Spartacus Youth Club Class Series,

BERKELEYAlternate Tuesdays, 7:00 p.m.Feb. 2, 16, March 1, 15Room 146 DwinelleUC BerkeleyFor more inf~rmation: (415) 839-0851

CLEVELANDMonday, Feb. 29, 12:15 p.m.University Center, Room 109Cleveland State UniversityFor more information: (216) 881-3700

CLEVELANDSunday, Feb. 28, 3:00 p.m.Room to be announcedCleveland State UniversityGuest Speaker: Bernard Branchemember, ATU Local 308Speaker: Gregg BurtonSL Central CommitteeFor more information: (216) 881-3700

ANN ARBORSaturday, Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m,Anderson Room A, Michigan UnionUniversity of MichiganFor more information: (216) 881-3700

ITHACASaturday, Feb. 20, 7:00 p.m,Room to be announcedCornell University"Black Freedom, Women's Rightsand the Civil War"Speaker:Amy Rath, Associate EditorWomen and RevolutionFor more information: (607) 277-1834

29 JANUARY 1988 7

Just last year, Boston University pres­ident Silber tried to ban distribution ofcondoms on the college campus (this inthe midst of an AIDS epidemic!).

They want to run high schools likejails. Private universities have long beenrun as priggish fiefdoms, where consti­tutionally protected rights to free speechare subverted on private property sur­rounded by ivied walls intended to keepout the public "rabble." Public universi­ties may also be affected by thelatestSupreme Court edict. Columnist T0(0

Wicker wrote in the New York Times(18 January), "Despite the differences inhigh schools and colleges, it's hard tosee why the rationale of the decision... could not be cited by universityadministrators."

Democratic rights are not some ab­solute truths enacted by fair-mindedrulers of a just society-they are the pre­cious conquests won by working peoplein hard-fought battles against theiroppressors and exploiters. It was socialstruggle that was key to winning basicliberties for university and high schoolstudents in the first place. The FreeSpeech Movement began at Berkeley in1964 when Cal students joined in theSouthern-based civil rights movementto fight for black equality. The land­mark 1969 Tinker ruling established' aprecedent for free speech for high schoolstudents who stated their opposition tothe imperialists' dirty colonial war inVietnam by wearing black armbands toschool.

The recent Supreme Court decisionssuppressing students' rights are part of adrive to regiment youth into being goodclean cannon fodder for new imperial­ist wars, But on campuses across thecountry, recruiters for the CIA's Mur­der Inc., contra war criminals and thedragon lady Jeane Kirkpatrick havebeen met with militant student protest,which is why the Reaganauts are look­ing to put youth in a legal straitjacket.Today's rulers have a real problem,namely that students are not going tosit home and eat edicts. Down withthe reactionary Supreme Court gagorder!.

parentis-stripping youth of funda­mental democratic rights that everyAmerican is supposed to have. "Age ofadulthood" laws are not only a re­actionary state-sanctioned means ofrepressing youth, but serve as a spring­board for attacks on the entire popula­tion. The aim is to create a generation ofeternal "children," accustomed to theidea that they have no rights. One oftheways the state has whittled awayabortion rights, for instance, was to firsttarget teenagers. Young women havebeen denied access to birth control inpublic schools and their right to legalabortions has been repeatedly chal­lenged by "squeal rules" and otherdemands for parental consent. Thisthreatens university students as well.

$f~P0.'('Ofq (ttl:..'r:

'~ t.(,.,."".. ,~,;y~. ~

Finley/AP Sachal urnesPrincipal"Big Brother"Reynolds andhisnarrow§~trum. LeslieSmartandLeeAnnTippett-West(above)joinedCathyKuhlmeierin fight forfreespeechfor high school students.

into 'enclaves of totalitarianism' that'strangle the free mind at its source'." .

This decision marks the third time inthree years that the Supreme Court hasdrastically curtailed the rights of highschool students. In 1985, it eliminatedFourth Amendment protection againstunreasonable search and seizure in thecase of a Piscataway, New Jersey stu­dent whose purse was searched after shewas caught smoking cigarettes in thehigh school bathroom. In 1986, freespeech for high school students wasattacked when the court ruled that a stu­dent could be suspended for making a"lewd" campaign speech (and the only"four letter word" in his speech was"firm")!

The issue here, in part, is in loco

Supreme Courl GagsHigh School Sludenls

The bigots running this country have,another legal weapon to help imposetheir powers of "thought control." OnJanuary 13,the Supreme Court imposeda gag order on high school students, rul­ing that "A school need not toleratespeech that is inconsistent with its 'basiceducational mission'." The case, Hazel­wood v. Kuhlmeier, began in 1983whenCathy Kuhlmeier, Lee Ann Tippet-Westand LeslieSmart, three staffmembers ofthe Spectrum, a newspaper produced bya Journalism class. at Hazelwood EastHigh School near St. Louis, Missouri,fileda lawsuit on the basis that their FirstAmendment rights had been violated. .Two Spectrum articles on teenage preg­nancy and the impact of divorce on stu­dents were banned 'from publication bythe school's principal, who deemed thearticles '''inappropriate and unsuitable'reading for teenagers" (Los AngelesTimes, 14January).

Where school newspapers are con­cerned, the law of the land is "all thenews that fits the principal." Studentswho try to report on anything racierthan a film review of Bambi or more rel­evant than a pep rally face the-choice ofgoing underground with samizdat pub­lications or risk having their wordsreduced to blank spaces in history. AsJustice Brennan noted in his dissentingopinion:

"A student who responds to a politicalscience teacher's question with .theretort 'Socialism is good,' subverts theschool's inculcation of the message thatcapitalism is better.... If mere incom­patibility with the school's pedagogicalmessage were a constitutionally suffi­cient justification for the suppression ofstudent speech, school officials eouldcensor each of the ... foregoing hypo­theticals, converting our public schools

Smokers Revolt Against "lfealth Fascism"white, middle-class eco-freaks and"beansprout totalitarians." RememberDoris Collum, the black woman stu­dent stabbed at San Francisco StateUniversity in 1982: "She thought shehad a right to pollute myair," raved eco­fascist attacker Richard Moss. Andwhere else would you get the infamousDan White "Twinkies defense"-aftercoldbloodedly murdering Mayor Mos­cone and Harvey Milk, he claimed junkfood made him do it!

These attempts to impose "purer thanthou" morality on everybody have in­tersected the ruling class' continuingattempts to enforce docility and obedi­ence in the population through MoralMajority terror-from drug witch­hunts and mass testing to abortion clinicbombings. In the face of the truly horri­ble health care conditions in this coun-

. try, this "secondary smoke" moralismis literally a smokescreen. We're sup­posed to get all upset about somebodylighting a cigarette in a bus terminal?What about the miserable, homelesspeople huddled in blankets along thewalls and stairwells! '

The Hitler Youth used to be all forclean living, too. "Social purification"was a rallying call of the German Nazisin the face of capitalist collapse andeconomic desperation. How far is itfrom "smoke pollution" to "race pol­lution"? We salute those TWA passen­gers who refused to give in to thismoralistic tyranny-at least they hadthe courage of their compulsions.•

agency CalOSHA (a move recentlydelayed in the courts).

We wrote last spring about the waveof "smokeout moralism" sweeping thecountry: "People should be able to read,eat, drink and enjoy whatever consensu­al activities they want without the copsor yuppie power prudes sticking theirnoses in" (WV No. 427, 1 May 1987).California is a haven of these mostly

governor Deukmejian, who approvedthe anti-smoking bill, meanwhile suc­ceeded in his yearlong attempt to gutalready minimal job safety inspectionof workplaces by slashing the state

New York Times"Health fascism'~ with a vicious twist: they tum commercialplanesintoflyingcoffins, but won't let you have a last smoke.

law, one Republican state senator aptlydenounced "health fascists."

This creeping "health fascism" hasnothing to do with the public's welfare.Medical evidence on the effects of "sec-

ondary smoke" is inconclusive, and theobvious solution is to provide adequateventilation for everybody. But that isn'tprofitable, so of course it's not even seri­ously proposed. It's bad for your healthjust living in smog-ridden Los Angeles,and who even knows how much radio­active and chemical poison is leaking

~ out of U.S. military and industrialdumps across the nation? California

Flying is scary enough these days inthe wild, unregulated skies of America;now, adding insult to injury, they'retrying to 'take away our right to whatcould well be a last smoke. Even con­demned men used to get a final cig­arette before the firing squad opened up.But not on union-buster Carl Ieahn'sTWA: last December 30 the crew of aTWA Boston to Los Angeles flightabruptly announced a total smokingban for the "second-class citizens" incoach and businessseats (first class ispresumably still sacred). When somebrave souls lit up anyhow, a scufflebroke out and the pilot called for thecops, who seized passengers at the L.A.airport. They were released afterquestioning, although reportedly theFBI is still "investigating"-for what? A"Ten Most Wanted Smokers" poster?

Meanwhile, a California law ban­ning all smoking 011 public transporta­tion went into effect January 1:you cannow get slapped with a $100fine for tak­ing a puff on a bus, train or plane inCalifornia airspace (as well as in mostparts of a bus, train or airline terminal),arid up to $500 for "repeat offenders."It's not just in lotus land, either. InDecember the New York City Councilpassed a bill banning smoking in mostenclosed public places, including stores,indoor sports arenas and even taxicabs.And on April 22 a federal law is to gointo effect banning smoking on all com­mercial flights of two hours or less. Dur­ing the bitter debate over the California

8 WORKERS VAN.GUARD

For Militant Waterfront Unity],

Northwest Port Shutdown

Militant longshoremen stream into strike meeting at TacomaJanuary 14.

TACOMA, Washington-At 6p.m. onJanuary 13, the International Long­shoremen's and Warehousemen's Union(ILWU) shut down every West Coastport from Coos Bay, Oregon north to ,the Canadian border. For 38 hours,3,500 longshoremen struck to protestplans by the giant ITT-Rayonier Cor­poration to open up, non-union logloading operations at Port Angeles,Washington. During the shutdown, vir­tually the entire membership of theILWU in Washington and Oregon, aswell as retirees from Canada andCalifornia, met at the Tacoma DomeJanuary 14. The Rayonier plan is the'opening wedge of a drive by the PacificMaritime Association (PMA) bosseswhich threatens the entire union. If ITTimplements their plan to hire up to 2,000non-union longshoremen, there must bean immediate coastwise strike by theILWU!

ITT-Rayonier, one of the largestforest products companies in the North­west, is aiming at the guts of the ILWUin the area-log operations make up alarge percentage of cargo in manyNorthwest ports. ILWU presidentJimmy Herman claims that the long­shore division has "thus far emergedunscathed by the attacks on labor overthe last decade" (Dispatcher, 15 Janu­ary). But longshoremen know Hermangave away union gains. Last summer'sILWU contract, which set up a six-tierpay scale, abandoned the six-hour dayand gave the PMA sweeping changes inwork rules. Only a heavy vote in theNorthwest ports for Herman's sellout

, enabled the ILWU tops toram the con­tract through on a second vote. NowHerman's givebacks, coupled with hissabotage of the tugboat workers strikeagainst Crowley Maritime, has encour­aged more forays against the ILWU bythe maritime bosses.

But the 3,800 longshoremen whogathered at the Tacoma Dome were inno mood for more concessions. Arriv­ing in a blinding rainstorm, longshore­men snapped up copies of the WorkersVanguard supplement "Labor's GottaPlay Hardball to Win"; over 450 WVsand supplements were sold and distrib­uted as workers streamed into theDome. They knew they had the power to

War onHomeless...(continued from page 3)capitalism. And it is a result of biparti­san policy decisions, from the big cityausterity programs begun under theDemocrats in the mid-'70s to the Rea­ganites' systematic assault on everysocial program from Medicaid to SocialSecurity. Tens of thousands of mentalpatients were thrown out of the hos­pitals onto the streets. A court has ruledthat in New York City alone, 15,000people were improperly removed fromdisability programs, and today are eligi­ble for retroactive grants of up to$20,000 each. ,

Even in the most desperate condi­tions, many of the homeless haven'tgiven up the fight. In Oakland onChristmas Eve, squatters took over aVictorian house near the ConventionCenter; cops then dragged them away.Similar occupations have occurred inChicago and Seattle. In New York,while the homeless huddle on the streets, ~

Condo King Trump rakes in billions.During the NYC 1985 election cam-

29 JANUARY 1988

bust the bosses' scab plans. But inside,the ILWU tops were singing'a differenttune. ILWU president Jimmy Hermanand a host of local union officials fromup and 'down the coast proposed ...more givebacks!

When Herman called for "flexibility, in work rules" an angry longshoreman'shouted, "These are concessions!"

(Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 15January).Damn right-Herman's suicidal "flex­ibility" ,means fewer longshoremenworking harder and longer for less. Heeven gave the PMA three weeks noticeof the port shutdown, "far enough inadvance to schedule around it" (Dis­patcher, 15 January). As a result, only18ships were tied up in Northwest ports.Obscenely, the ILWU bureaucrats usedthe strike rally to raise $8,000 for their"friend of labor" Democratic politi­cians. At the end, Herman sent long­shoremen back to work with emptypromises that there would be noreductions in log gangs.

West Coast longshoremen are notalone in facing the threat of scab opera­tions. ITT has already established anon-union facility in the South Atlantic,taking on the International Longshore­men's Association (ILA). For the first

paign, Spartacist candidates demanded:"Restore and extend rent control!Homeless should seize Trump City!Expropriate the real estate robberbarons!" As for the 60,OOO-plus emptycity-owned apartments-take 'em!

Faced with the vast arson-for-profitdevastation wreaked by barrio slum­lords, one city councilman a few yearsback called for "Soviet Aid to the SouthBronx." And the Soviet Union has madea powerful point about human rights inAmerica over the homeless. Followingthe Reagan/Gorbachev summit, Wash­ington, D.C. homeless activist MitchSnyder received a $5,000donation fromthe Soviet Peace Fund for his work. Onecouple from Erie, Pennsylvania soughtand received political asylum in theSoviet Union. Their mother said, "Theywere assured of ajob there and an apart­ment. That's more than he could seem toget here" (Newsday, 20 January).

There are an estimated three millionhomeless people in the United States,including a generation of children vir­tually without a future. Yet side by sidewith the homeless, there is the glitzynouvelle arrogance of the Trumps andthe old money opulence of the Rocke­fellers. As the 19th-century German

time, the 1986 ILA contract brokecoastwise wage parity and instituted atwo-tier wage scale.: Newly installedunion president John Bowers called this"the worst contract we have ever givento the membership" (Journal of Com­merce, 23 March 1987). Yet these con­cessions haven't saved a job. Mean­while, non-union shippers are trying topenetrate the Mid-Atlantic ports. InOctober 1985,Baltimore ILA Local 333member "Jackson Taylor was run downby a police car while picketing againstan unprecedented attempt to use scablabor.

In the Gulf, scab operations fromHouston to Mobile pose a deadly threatto the ILA. This summer in New Or­leans, ILA freight handlers had piece­work rates for bagged goods rammeddown their throats, after the DockBoard threatened to bring in scab labor.In December a, company tried to usenon-union labor in New Orleans, butthis time pickets from ILA Local 3000ran them' off the docks. The giantCrowley Maritime has shifted opera­tions of its Coordinated' 'CaribbeanTransportation subsidiary in New Or­leans and Miami to non-I LA portsin Lake Charles, Louisiana and Port

Billie Boggsreleased after

madmen Koch hadher Iocked up for 12weeks in Bellevue:

"I was not insanewhen they picked

me up-I washomeless."

Jacobin revolutionist Georg Buchnerproclaimed: "War to the palaces, peaceto the cottages." There can 'be no solu-

Everglades, Florida.The latest attack on the ILA is a

recent Federal Maritime Commissionruling which has struck down a provi­sion in the ILA contract which gives theunion jurisdiction over container workwithin 50 miles of union ports. The con­tainer rule, similar to one in Vancouverripped up by the Canadian courts lastyear, was part of a deal (along with "payguarantees" and royalties) which theILA made in exchange for massive jobcuts accompanying the introduction ofcontainers and automation. The 50-milerule only saved a fraction of the jobsslashed. But from its inception the rulehas been repeatedly challenged, not bythe shippers, but by the capitalist laborboards and courts,

Union jurisdiction over stripping andstuffing of containers was a focus ofGeorgia Democratic Senator SamNunn's 1981 Senate hearings on "cor-

'ruption" on the waterfront FromRobert, Kennedy's "Get Hoffa" cam­paign to Reagan/ Meese's RICO witch­hunt against the labor movement, thebosses' government uses the excuse of"mob influence" in order to break unionpower. Like their vendetta against 'theTeamsters, both Reagan and the Dem­ocrats have the powerful ILA in theirsights. Both of the bosses' parties hatethis beachhead of union power in theJim Crow South.

Last month ILA president Bowersattended the ILWU Longshore Caucusand called for common contract expi­ration dates "to tie up the SOBs atthe same time" (People's Daily World,31 December 1987). But there has beenno action against union-busting, aslongshoremen are under attack now,from Port Angeles to the Gulf. What'sneeded is class-struggle waterfront la­bor unity by all the longshore/trans­port unions-the ILA, ILWU, Team­sters and seamen-to smash these scaboperations, organize the unorganizedand fight for jobs with a shorter work­week with no loss in pay.

The longshore unions, with theirheavily black and Hispanic member­ship, can be a powerful force for laborand black rights. But this requires inte­grating the ILA's segregated locals, tak­ing on the government's Taft-Hartleyinjunctions against hot cargoing andtransport strikes, and breaking thestranglehold of the union tops whopolice the labor movement for capital­ism. The key to unleashing the power of

.the ILA and the ILWU is the con­struction of a militant leadership thatbreaks with the partner parties of Amer-

o ican capitalism to forge a class-struggleworkers party.•

tion to the housing crisis or any other ofthe desperate social conditions in thiscountry short of socialist revolution.•

9

I

War;'Wearlness FuelsCounterrevolution

Sandinista Nicaragua is econom­ically and socially exhausted after adecade of war. In this there is a certainsimilarity between Nicaragua today andBolshevik Russia atthe end ofthe CivilWar in 1920-21. To be sure, there arealso fundamental differences. Bolshe­vik Russia was the product of a prole­tarian revolution led by an internation­alist, Marxist party. The NicaraguanRevolution which overthrew the Yan­kee puppet Somoza was a political rev­olution placing in power radical petty­bourgeois nationalists. Moreover, thereremain significant survivals' of the oldruling class crystallized around Arch­bishop Obando y Bravo. The economicexhaustion of Bolshevik Russia,agigantic country, was the by-product ofthree years of imperialist war followedby four years of civil war and foreignintervention.' The devastation of tinyNicaragua is the calculated policy ofYankee imperialism to destroy therevolution.

Today in Nicaragua, a "patriotic"opposition leader like Luis HumbertoGuzman of the Popular Social Chris­tians appeals to the masses' war­weariness in attacking the Sandinistas:

"The people say,nowwehavea revolu­tionary government,but wedon't haveenoughfood. The peopledon't want thewar. The war started in 1977 againstSomoza and in '87 we still havewar.And some peoplehavestarted to think:under Somoza we had more food. Wedidn't have war."

A leader of the more conservative SocialChristians declares that

"If the United States invaded... hewould pick up a gun and stand shoul­der to shoulder with the other Nicara­guans against the invaders. But to jointhe Sandinista Army and fight contraswho are Nicaraguans themselves in

Spartacist'LeaguePublic Offices

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Bay AreaThurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.rn., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.rn.1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street)Oakland, Ca,l/fornia Phone: (415) 839-0851

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~~~~~~~ttt..\\}1.~~~recently giving a carte blanche toimperialist companies with a new for­eign investment law.

Yet their sought-for "patriotic bour­geoisie" is nonexistent, as, everyonefrom the electoral opposition of thePopular Social Christians and Inde­pendent Liberals to the open contrasupporters of the "Democratic Coordi­nator" are on the CIA payroll. And evenwhile admitting that they're making aprofit and that "the Sandinista govern­ment is becoming more tolerant ofprivate enterprise as the years pass"(Business Week, 1 February) the cap­italists sabotage production by refusingto invest and using every opportunity tosmuggle profits abroad. Reformistcheerleaders for the FSLN such as theAmerican Socialist Workers Party(SWP) try to close their eyes to theominous economic reality, printingarticles with Pollyannish headlines suchas "Nicaragua: Why the 'black market'.is not a black market" (Militant, 20November 1987). But the Nicaraguanmasses can't eat Militant articles. Andwhile battered taxis are held togetherwith rope and wire, resentment isgrowing against Sandinista coman­danteswho zip around town in theirSoviet Lada sedans, forming a new"Ladacracy,"

attrition against the Sandinista regime.They eliminated wheat shipments, can­celed Nicaragua's sugar quota, strong­armed international agencies to cancelloans, got Mexico and Venezuela toslash oil shipments. In 1985 Reaganordered a' total trade and financialembargo against Nicaragua. With pro- .duction stoppages due to lack of spareparts and imported inputs, electricitycutoff as much as five hours a day underemergency rationing, water suppliesturned off two days a week, gasoline cutto five gallons a month, there have beenspiraling shortages and inflation whichlast year topped 1,800 percent. The inev­itable result has been frustration andexhaustion among the Nicaraguanmasses.

In popular terminology, Nicaraguabecame the country of "there isn't any";the national airline Aeronica is dubbed"Aeronunca" for its record of neverarriving on time. Workers have to walkeverywhere; or else stand in line forhours to catch one of the.few buses stillon the road. But while the poor inManagua barrios such as Villa Revolu­cion are desperately trying to find rice,beans and sugar, the middle-class andbourgeois elements up the hill in Alta­mira still dine on churrasco steaks. Theyspend dollars in the "diplomatic" storesstocked with Japanese electronics andScotch whiskey. The Mercado Ori­ental is stocked to the gills with goodsand food priced too high for. workers'families living on $50 a month to afford.This flourishing black market is fed bydollar remittances from relatives whofled the revolution to Miami, and bygovernment dollar subsidies seeking tobuy offthe remaining professionals andcapitalists.

Contrary to Reaganite propaganda,the Sandinistas are not communists butsemi-Stalinized or plain nationalists.They took. power with the "anti-

, -Somoza" capitalists in tow, and soughtto maintain "national unity" by sanc­tifying the Sandinista National Lib­eration Front (FSLN) program of"political pluralism, mixed economyand nonalignment." The unstable petty­bourgeois regime is committed neitherto defending capitalist property rela­tions nor to establishing a collectivized,proletarian economy through expro­priating the bourgeoisie. But in theirdoomed attempt to straddle the funda­mental class divide between capitalismand socialism, the FSLN has increas­ingly tilted toward the capitalists, break­ing up state farms, guaranteeing private

o $2/4 issues ofWomen and Revolution

0$2/10 introductory issues ofWorkers Vanguard(includes Spartacist)

icopters greatly aided the battle­hardened Sandinista Army to inflict astrategic defeat on the contras in1985-86..And while liberals and conser­vatives join in yelping about Nicara­guan defense minister Humberto Orte-

~ . ~.'.... ~. Larry Boyd/Impact Visuals

Nlcaragu~ women march in Managua last fall against amnesty for imprIs­oned National Guardsmen and contras. Many carry pictures of their childrenkilled by Somoza's butchers and Reagan's terrorists.

ga's declaration that Managua wasseeking MIG jets capable of interceptingthe CIA's supply flights, the SpartacistLeague.continues to insist: "Smash Rea­gan's Bay of Pigs, Nicaragua needsMIGs!"

In the meantime, the U.S. is tighten­ing the screws of its economic war of

445Make checka payllble/IMII to: SptIrtec:Ia' PublIahlng Co., Boll 1377 GPO, New York. NY 10116

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Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League'

• • ••• _. Sylvia PlachyWaiting at train station In Managua. Nicaragua Is economically devastatedafter a decade of war organized and t»ankrolled by Yankee imperialism.

So the war goes on and on, and nowthat "the drums of peace" are beating,the warmasters in Washington havesharply escalated the killing. But now,

the Sandinistas have shot down anothercontra supply plane, flying from theCIA's base on Honduras' Swan Island(the site of an Agency radio transmittersupporting the 1961 Bay of Pigs inva­sion of Cuba). This small victory wasmade possible thanks to Soviet SAMmissiles. Likewise, Soviet-supplied hel-

Washington's War to MakeNicaragua's Economy Scream

have been more than 3,000people killedin the war-torn region. Twice the San­dinistas declared cease-fires and twicethe contras used them to resupply andcarry out murderous raids in whichscores of civilians were killed. In El Sal­vador, the Arias plan is dead in thewater as the tottering Duarte regime isunder attack from all sides and leftistguerrillas of the Farabundo MartiNational Liberation Front (FMLN)have struck sharp blows at the demor­alized army.

Meanwhile, the Nicaraguan regimehas certainly been bending over back­wards, making concessions left andright. In a private letter to Reagan(conveniently leaked to the kept mediaalthough U.S. assistant secretary ofstate for Central America ElliottAbrams says it hasn't been shown to thefigurehead in the White House yet),Ortega reportedly offers to "respect theoutcome of elections," reduce the size ofthe Sandinista Army, expel Soviet andCuban military advisers and become"partners" with the U.S. But as the rad­lib Guardian, (27 January) accuratelyheadlined, "Managua gives a lot, U.S.wants more" and "Reagan won't takeyes for an answer."

~lcaragua...(continuedfrom page 1)

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

Defend, Complete, Extend theNicaraguan Revolution!

Nor are the impoverished and embat­tled Nicaraguan masses inclined to tol­erate this. Even as he was pleading withReagan to become "partners" and deny­ing all speculation about splits in theFSLN, Daniel Ortega admitted:

" ... with regard to the common people,people on the street, well, a lot ofexplanation has to be made because alot of people are frankly not happy withpardons to members of the contra, par­ticularly those whose relatives havebeen killed by these individuals."

-National Public Radio,25 January

On January 23, tens of thousands ofManaguans attended a Sandinista rallyvowing not to let Reagan defeat theirrevolution.

Now more than ever, defense of theNicaraguan Revolution means com­pleting the revolution by destroying theinternal "fifth column" that leeches offthe desperate masses-Expropriate thebourgeoisie! For agrarian revolution totake back the land from the cattlebarons, sugar and cotton plantationowners and coffee capitalists who them­selves "expropriated" the impoverishedpeasantry under the Yankee-protectedSomozasand their predecessors. TheNicaraguan Revolution can surviveonly by igniting social revolutionthroughout the Central American isth­mus, drawing into the battle the power­ful proletariat of Mexico, and linking upwith sharp class struggle in the heart ofAmerican imperialism.•

-to be a tiny deformed workers state inCentral America surrounded by Yan­kee imperialist puppet regimes. .Thecountry is too small and backward, thepressure of the United States too greatto afford the luxury of a perniciousbureaucracy standing between themasses and the direct appetites ofimperialism;

where he and his supporters negotiateda secretpact with the White general (andformer Baltic baron) Wrangell The Bol­shevik leaders understood that theKronstadt mutiny had to be crushed ifthe revolution was to survive.

The suppression of the Kronstadtmutiny was the final, tragic act in thecivil war in which the Bolsheviksdefended proletarian power against theforces of world imperialism. Yet theeconomic and social exhaustion of Bol­shevik Russia and the imperialist encir­clement took .their toll, leading. to thebureaucratic degeneration of the youngSoviet state and the triumph of Stalin inthe mid-1920s. But Stalin is no historicoption in Nicaragua. There is not going

lives. Day by day they come closer todeath. The Communist betrayers havereduced you all to this."

-cited in Paul Avrich,Kronstadt /92/ (1970)

The Kronstadters' own declared pro­gram was the anarchist utopia of aloose-knit federation of autonomouscommunes. But their overriding hostil­ity to Communist rule was inevitablyforcing them into the arms of the WhiteGuards and their imperialist backers. Infact, during the mutiny its principalleader, Stepan Petrichenko, appealedfor aid to the main agent of the counter­revolutionary National Center in near­by Finland. After the mutiny was sup­pressed, Petrichenko fled to Finland

PenguinBolshevik leaders Lenin and Trotsky stand among soldiers sent to suppressKronstadt mutiny in March 1921. War-weariness and economic exhaustionfueled forces of counterrevolution.

order to preserve a .state that heregarded as totalitarian-this was .outof the question."

-Village Voice,3 November 1987

But the contras are the cutting edge ofthe U.S.' war against the NicaraguanRevolution: only a fool or a Yankeeagent would pretend otherwise. This isthe same line that Social Revolutionaryand Menshevik agitators used as theyallied with White Guard agents againstthe Bolsheviks at the end of the CivilWar.

By the winter of 1920-21 the Bolshe­vik government of Lenin and Trotskyhad defeated the main White armies, butthey ruled over a devastated country. Inthe countryside peasant uprisings de­manded an end to grain requisitioningfor the Red Army and city workers. Inthe cities conditions were even worse,with workers living on near-starvation'wages. Strikes broke out in Moscow andPetrograd as the workers demanded anincrease in food rations and immediatedistribution of all available winter cloth­ing. The most dangerous revolt was theKronstadt mutiny in March 1921.Kronstadt was the strategic naval baseguarding the approach to Petrograd(now Leningrad). In 1917the Kronstadtsailors had been in the vanguard of therevolution. But after four years ofbloody civil war the best of them hadbeen replaced by raw peasant youth,and the masses at this inactive navalbase easily reflected the unrest in thecountryside. Demanding freedom oftrade for the peasantry and an end tothe policies of "War Communism,"the Kronstadt mutineers attacked theBolsheviks:

"Communist rule has reduced all ofRussia to unprecedented poverty, hun­ger, cold, and other privations. The fac­tories and mills are closed, the railwayson the verge of breakdown. The coun­tryside has been fleeced to the bone ....The peasants and townsfolk have lostall hope for an improvement of their

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. Cairo, even if this means provoking theultimate holocaust."

As Israeli nuclear technician Morde­chai Vanunu courageously revealed­for which he is now on trial for"treason"-the Zionist state has hun­dreds of nuclear weapons, enough tolaunch even against the Soviet Union.This only reinforces our urgent warn­ing from 1982:

"If the Jewish people in the Near Eastare to be anything other than a catalystfor a nuclear World War III, the Zion­ist state must be smashed."

And that requires above all the con­struction of a proletarian internation­alist vanguard party that fights for theright to self-determination for boththe Palestinian and Hebrew nationsthrough a socialist federation of theNear East..

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the women's mosque" (WashingtonPost, 16 January). With all the arro­gance of their "master race" outlook, theZionists think they can treat the thirdmost holy shrine for 550 million Mus­lims around the world aathough it werea police station dungeon.

At the time of the massacre of theSabra and Shatila refugee camps in Leb­anon, we said in "Zionist Holocaust"( WV No. 314, 1 October 1982):

"Today the Palestinians face the Zion­ist holocaust. But there are only threemillion Jews in a sea of l50 millionArabs. Israel's military expansionismand mass terror against the Arabs ulti­mately lead to the self-destruction of theHebrew-speaking people. Some day theIDF [Israeli army] will be cracked, andthen the Begins, Sharons and Peres willbe tempted to launch their nuclearbombs .at Baghdad, Damascus and

from wood to hard rubber riot sticksbecause "The wood batons have anirritating quality, they get broken ...."Their [the Palestinians'] heads becomeharder" (Ha'aretz; 14 October 1987,translated by Israel Shahak), A recentsurvey revealed that 29 percent ofIsraeliJews support mass expulsions of Pales­tinians, while one in two believe thatArabs in Israel should remain "second­class citizens."

The bankruptcy ofthePLO's petty­bourgeois nationalism in the face ofZionist terror has indeed increasinglydriven the youth of the Occupied Ter­ritories into the arms of Islamic fun­damentalism.: The PLO has alwayspreached reliance on the surroundingArab sheiks, kings and colonels, who

.have themselves bloodily suppressed thePalestinian people. Today PLO leaderYasir Arafat repudiates the PLO'sopposition to UN 'Resolution 242acknowledging the integrity of theZionist state. The Shi'ite Amal militia's"gift" to the embattled people of theOccupied Territories is to lift its gro­tesque three-year-long siege of Pal­estinian camps in Lebanon. One Gazanexpressed the sense of frustrationsuccinctly: "We're all alone in this fight;Amman, Cairo and the PLO don't do athing for us" (Newsweek, 25 January).

The invasion of Al Aksa and theTemple Mount by the border police wasan unprecedented provocation. Jihads

, ("holy wars") have been waged over farless.The Zionist authorities denied theyhad actually entered the mosque itself, acover-up dutifully parroted by the NewYork Times (16 January), which report­ed the incident as a "clash" betweenIsraeli police and "stone-throwing Pal­estinians." But an Italian reporter whowas inside the mosque described how he"saw soldiers enter and take more than30 people, one by one, and beat themwith batons," including an old man who

~ was slammed against a wall and slappedaround. A Canadian TV crewman sawpolice "force open the door and enter

(continued from page 12)

themselves expressions of secular ide­ologies. Both Jews and Arabs areincreasingly being pushed into theembrace of religious extremists who seethemselves as prophets armed" (NewYork Review of Books, 4 February).Would Hertzberg so facilely equate theNazi beasts with Jewish anti-Nazipartisans?

For all the social-democratic rhet­oric of Ben-Gurion's "Labor" Zionism,it was always based on terrorizing anddriving out the indigenous Arab popu­lation from the Jewish "promised land."It is this that leads the Zionists to soundand act like Nazis. Speaking at a pressconference last October, a senior officerof the West Bank military occupationregime explained that they switched

Palestinians...

AP

Israeli Arabs protest in Nazareth·against Zionist reign of terror In

. occupiedGaza and West Bank•.

29 JANUARY 1988

W,/iIlE/iS "NfitJ,/i1)Muslim Holy' Site Invaded J. Army' Starves Gaza>Cam~

Israeli tormtroopersTerrorize Palestinians

Givon/APClouds of tear gas pour over AI Aksa mosque in Old City of Jerusalem asIsraeli police beat Arabs, desecrate Muslim shrine.

As ten thousand people stood inprayer on January 15, the Al Aksamosque in the Old City of Jerusalemwas enveloped in clouds of tear gas, thesteps were stained with blood, elderlyworshipers slammed against walls,women clubbed over the head with riotsticks, young kids shot at with rubberbullets. For two million PalestinianArabs, the "Holy Land" has become ahell on earth. The Gaza Strip has beenturned into a huge ghetto, 'sealed off,subjected to a deliberate starvationpolicy. Soldiers systematically go fromhouse to house, camp to camp, village tovillage, beating children in front of theirparents, beating fathers in front of theirwives and children. Young women areshot dead as they hang laundry outsidetheir houses. Men are dragged awayfrom their homes and families in orderto be deported to places they've neverseen before, in Lebanon. Scores havebeen killed, thousands more arrested,

Deportation, starvation, religiousdesecration, "collective punishment"­this is the "Iron Fist," Israel's Hitleritepolicy for subjugating the OccupiedTerritories. Yet, after eight weeks, themost widespread revolt of the bitterlyoppressed Palestinian Arab massessince the creation of the Zionist state in1948continues with full force. Even theIsraeli rulers no longer try to pass it offas simply the work of a handful of PLO"terrorists." Defense minister YitzhakRabin admitted that the uprising "start­ed without instructions from outside.It came from within the. .people"(New York Times, 21 January). Sothey declare open war on the wholepopulation.

On January 19, Rabin announced a"new" policy of "force, might, beat­ings." For years the border police haveroutinely broken into homes to beatPalestinians; the Shin Bet secret policeroutinely hang people by their hands

12

and beat male victims in the testicles;but now the entire occupation army iscarrying out massive, naked, randomterror. The Americans don't like watch­ing young kids shot down on their TVscreens, rants Rabin, so we'll beat themby the hundreds in the dead of night.Arresting a youth means he "will befreed in 18 days unless the authoritieshave enough evidence to charge him,"explains a Jerusalem Post military cor­respondent, "but if troops break his .hand, he won't be able to throw stonesfor a month and a half." One 25-year­old Palestinian shopkeeper who was

savaged by Israeli soldiers described hisordeal: '

"They tied my hands and took me to themain square of Ramallah, where thesoldiers gather. They didn't check who Iwas even though I tried to explain inHebrew and English that I own a store."All the way to the square, they beat mewith clubs, sticks and fists and cursedme. They broke sticks on my shouldersand head, and all the time yelled to thepeople around, 'Watch, watch!'"Then they sat me next to a pile of gar­bage. I tried to explain I am a business­man, but they weren't willing to hear aword. They asked me to say 'Arafat's amaniac.' I refused. They kicked me in

Palestinian"'omen, underIsraeli starvationsiege of Gazacamps, dash tobUy food.

the mouth with their boots. They hit mein the back and spit on me for an hourand a half."

-New York Times, 23 January

Holocaust survivors witnessed suchscenes when Hitler's SS stormed into theJewish ghettos of East Europe. Todaythe Zionist rulers are turning their wholearmy into SS thugs. And when this lat­est attempt at "pacification" backfires,as all the other attempts have, it willprepare the way for a much bloodiermassacre. When the Israelis first imple- .mented the "Iron Fist," during theoccupation of southern Lebanon, itsucceeded only in turning a previouslyfriendly Shi'ite population into a solidlyhostile mass.

In order to counter a two-week-oldcommercial strike by shopkeepers in theOccupied Territories, the army has notonly attempted to force the shops openat gunpoint; it has sealed off wholedistricts of the West Bank and virtuallyall of Gaza, refusing to allow even emer­gency food shipments by United Na­tions relief agencies.•When Israeli Arabsdonated five truckloads of food­bedecked with banners reading, "Foodfor the Palestinians in the refugee campsunder siege and occupation"-for theresidents of Gaza, the trucks wereturned back.'

Israel's American quartermastersbemoan the destabilizing effect this ran­dom terror is having on the region. TheU.S. even voted against Israel, for thefirst time in six years, in a UnitedNations Security Council resolutiondeploring the deportation of ten Pales­tinians. When Washington chastised theZionists over the deportation of moder­ate Palestinian West Bank mayors

,several years ago, the mayors wereallowed to return to the West Bank,where the "Jewish underground"-thelikes of Brooklyn-derived Meir Ka­hane's fascist thugs-proceeded to blowtheir legs off with terror bombs. Ka- .hane's goons are implicated in the assas­sination of Arab American spokesmanAlex Odeh in the U.S., yet the FBI hasdone nothing to track them down.

On January 23, 6,000 Israeli Arabsdemonstrated in Nazareth against theIsraeli occupation, while 30,000 "PeaceNow" supporters marched in Tel Aviv(by comparison, Peace Now mobilizedfive times as many against the invasionof Lebanon). The liberal Peace Nowprotesters chanted "two countries fortwo peoples" while waving Israeli flags.One kibbutznik carried a sign reading,"The occupation is bad for Zionism."But the occupation is Zionism.

"Liberal" Zionists wring their handsover the need for a political solution, yetthey have none to offer. Arthur Hertz­berg wrote. recently: "The conflict

.between Israel and the PLO was once aquarrel between two Western-stylenationalisms, both of which considered

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29 JANUARY 1988•• .' ." c .-~ , _' '.'.' • _. .