WfJliNEIiS "NfitJ'ft' 25¢No.329 ~~~~ X:S23 6 May 1983

u.s. Get Out!Not a Dollar, Nota Bullet to Central American Butchers!

•Icaraaua,e ReVolutionl

elenomplele

Kill the Invadersl Sandlnlsta army must crush CIA-backed Invaders.

MAY I-It is the hour of socialrevolution or bloody counterrevolutionin Central America. In EI Salvador,leftist guerrillas have dealt the U.S.­backed genocidal butchers a series ofstunning blows. Meanwhile SandinistaNicaragua, which arose out of theoverthrow of the murderous Somozadictatorship, is being subjected to anundeclared war controlled from Wash­ington. With the apocalyptic vision of aglobal Cold Warrior, Ronald Reaganproclaims to ajoint session of Congressand a nationwide TV audience that "Thenational security of all the Americas is atstake in Central America. If we cannotdefend ourselves there, we cannotexpect to prevail elsewhere." This hasbeen the constant theme of an adminis­tration which vowed to "draw the lineagainst Communism" in Central Ameri­ca and prevent the "proliferation ofCuba-model states in the region." Thattranslates into a slow-motion Bay ofPigs [[ aimed at wiping out the radical­nationalist Nicaraguan regime by bloodand fire. We say: Look who won at Bayof Pigs [! Kill the imaders-"roachmotels" for the CIA!

From the moment he took office. thecenterpiece of Reagan's foreign policyhas been to undo the "Vietnam syn­drome." the fear of suffering anotherhumiliating defeat such as the oneinflicted by the heroic Indochinesepeoples on the world's most powerfulimperialist state. This factor stood inHenry Kissinger's way in Angola in1975-76, limiting U.S. intervention tosupporting South Afric~'s invasion.When CIA plans to overthrow theSoviet-allied regime in Afghanistanwere frustrated by the Red Army in1980, it limited Jimmy Carter's responseto impotent gestures like the Olympicsboycott. The Republicans proposed toovercome this popular resistance to newimperialist adventures by getting avictory on the cheap in Central Ameri­ca, traditionally the U.S.' "back yard."where the Soviets have little leverageand where Reagan hoped to accomplishwhat he and his predecessors couldn'tdo in Angola, Afghanistan or Poiand.

When he talks of "prevailingelsewhere," Reagan means "striking atthe source" and rolling back the gains ofsocial revolutions which have over­thrown capitalist rule from Havana andHanoi to Warsaw and Moscow. That isthe axis of U.S. policy in the Caribbeanbasin, gearing up the anti-Soviet wardrive, not cornering the market oncoffee, bananas or nutmeg. So theadministration took aim at a localinsurgency in EI Salvador and a radical­nationalist regime in Nicaragua, blow­ing totally out of proportion theminuscule amount of Soviet aid andturning Central America into the front

line of the Cold War. But the planbackfired. The effects of the Vietnamdefeat are still ever-present from theCapitol to the Pentagon. Not onlyliberal "doves" but the J oint Chiefs ofStaff oppose plans by Reagan "hawks"for a military solution in CentralAmerica. judging that there is littlesupport for a serious war. Now it's beingshown on the battlefield in EI Salvadorthat pumping in several hundred milliondollars and a few score U.S. adviserscan't even stave off defeat at the handsof leftist guerrillas enjoying wide popu­lar support. And next door in Nicaraguathe Sandinistas are whipping Reagan'sdogs of 'war using only their militiaswhile keeping their army in reserve.

Staring another defeat in the face,sections of the American bourgeoisieare trying to rein in the Reaganites andtheir "formula for failure." But whileJeane Kirkpatrick is practically callingthe liberals crypto-communists, theDemocrats only have a different strate­gy to "oppose the establishment ofMarxist states in Central America" andprevent the "creation of Soviet militarybases." They want to take up the leftistinsurgents' call for unconditional nego­tiations, hoping in this way to block therevolution which Reagan's policies onlyencourage. As usual, the reformistpseudo-socialists join hands with theimperialist liberals. Now they have

called a social-patriotic demonstrationfor the July 4 weekend in Washingtonon the demand. "No Vietnam War inCentral America." Revolutionariesoppose this treacherous attempt to pullthe imperialists' chestnuts out of the"fire in our front yard." The SpartacistLeague calls for military victory toleftist rebels in EI Salvador, to open thedoor for workers revolution throughoutthe region. We say: Defend. complete.extend the Nicaraguan revolution!Defense of USSR/Cuba begins inCentral America! And to the reformistand liberal lament of "no more Viet­nams," we answer: Vietnam was avictory! Two. three, many defeats forimperialism!

Smash Reagan's Bay of Pigs,Nicaragua Needs MIGs!

When the guerrilla forces of theSandinista National Liberation Front(FSLN) marched triumphantly intoManagua on 19 July 1979 it opened arevolutionary situation throughout theregion. The Democrats sought to holdback the tide of revolution with offers of"aid." Ronald Reagan was elected thenext year on a Republican platformvirtually demanding that the Sandinis­tas be overthrown. And now, three yearslater, we are witnessing an escalatingmercenary invasion of Nicaragua. The

Franken/Sygma

internationalist duty of socialists every­where is to fight for the defeat of thisimperialist onslaught.

As Reagan has upped the voltage.social polarization has increased in:\icaragua. "There is no longer anymiddle ground in our revolution," saidLeticia Herrera. national director of theSandinista Defense Committees (CDS),to a crowd of slum dwellers in one ofManagua's poor barrios last month.The fighting on the borders has been feltin the capital and other Nicaraguancities and towns as thousands ofmilitiamen and army reservists havebeen mobilized. In every barrio therehave been mass funeral marches to burymartyrs who fell defending their home­land against the U.S.-backed contrainvasion. In addition to the militarythreat, economic pressure is mounting,producing shortages not only of luxuryitems but also of basic goods like soap,medicine, flour, cooking oil, toothpasteand toilet paper. The reactions aresharply class-divided. As the New YorkTimes (9 April) put it, "Although somemiddle-class Nicaraguans expresseddiscouragement and even despair attheir prospects here, many poor peoplepointed to positive changes they haveseen since the Sandinists took power."

Yet the FSLN, instead of mobilizingthe working class to carry out a social

continued on page 6

Sri Lankan Leader Picketed in England, France

Paris: Hundreds ProtestAnti-Tamil Terror in Sri Lanka

Paris, April 21: French Trotskyists, Tamil activistshangman Premadasa.

WORKERSVANGIJARD

6 May 1983No. 329

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly ofthe Spartacist League of the U.S.

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Noah Wilner

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Linda Jarreau

EDITORIAL BOARD: Charles Burroughs.George Foster, liZ Gordon. Mary JoMcAllister. James Robertson. ReubenSamuels. Joseph Seymour, Marjorie Stamberg

Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) publishedbiweekly. skipping an issue in August anda week in December. by the SpartacistPUblishing Co" 41 Warren Street. New York,NY 10007. Telephone: 732-7862 (Editorial),732-7861 (Business). Address all corres­pondence to Box 1377. GPO, New York, NY10116. Domestic subscriptions: $5.00/24issues. Second-class postage paid at NewYork, NY.

Opinions expressed in signed articles orfetters do not necessarify express the editorialviewpoint.

treacherous role of his former leader,CIA-tainted trade-union bureaucratBala Tampoe.

In Sri Lanka, the parliamentaryopposition to the cringing pro-Westernregime of "Yankee Dickie" Jayewar­dene has been led by the popular frontheaded by the Sinhala chauvinist SriLanka Freedom Party (SLFP) of Mrs.Bandaranaike. Like J.R .. the SLFP hasinstigated pogroms against the Tamilsand fought to make Sinhala the "offi­cial" language. The brutal regime ofMrs. B also bloodily suppressed the1971 JVP uprising by Sinhala youth.Thus the struggle against the popularfront is crucial to the fight againstbonapartism and anti-Tamil terror inSri Lanka.

The Spartacist League/Lanka haspursued the politics of revolutionaryclass independence on which it stoodwhen, two years ago, it emerged fromthe now moribund RevolutionaryWorkers Party of Edmund Samarak­kody after a bitter political fight. TheSLIL has distinguished itself by itsconsistent fight against anti-Tamilterror even when the rest of the left hasbeen silent. It publishes both LankaSpartacist in Sinhala and JIlangaiSpartacist in Tamil. Our comrades haveforged a crucial link between students ofthe mainly Sinhala Colombo Universityand Tamil students at Jaffna University,organizing militant protests againstJ. R. 's plans for total segregation ofSinhalese and Tamil students and thenear-elimination of higher education fO£Tamil youth.

"The Tamil question is the question ofinternationalism in Sri Lanka." asstated in the "Agreement for Fusion" atthe time of the formation of theSpartacist League/ Lanka (Spartacist,No. 31-32, Summer 1981). It is"theacidtest for revolutionaries in the struggleagainst Sinhala chauvinism." As Lenin­ists we support the right of national self­determination for the Tamil people, thatis, the right to a separate state in theNorthern and Eastern Provinces ofCeylon. But the Tamil nationalistprogram for a mini-state of "Eelam" inthis barren section of the island is bothutopian and an obstacle to the strugglefor power. These entrenched national­ists refuse to reach out to the statelessTamil plantation workers of the crucialupland tea-growing region, the main­stay of the Sri Lankan capitalist

continued on page 10

League/Britain (SL/B) picketed outsideNo. 10 Downing Street as Premadasaarrived to take tea with British primeminister Margaret "Iron Lady" Thatch­er, representative of the former colonialoppressors of the Lankan people andloyal ally of Reagan and his anti-Sovietwar drive. As Premadasa's limousinesped through the gate, chants rang outof "Sinhala, Tamil. men. women­Workers bring down UNP!" Two daysearlier a Spartacist contingent joinedthe Tamil Women's League ilfa protestoutside the Ceylon Tea Center inLondon against the arrest of Tamilactivists Nirmala Nithiyananthan andher husband and several others inJaffna. The SLIB contingent alsohighlighted the struggle against thebrutal exploitation of women in SriLanka. On the tea, rubber and coconutplantations, where the stateless maleTamil workers toil for less than $1 Iday,women are paid even below this pit­tance. And in the "Free Trade Zones,"where to encourage foreign capitalinflow the UNP government has set upvirtual slave labor camps, young womenworkers live in barracks and unions areoutlawed.

While the SL/B was organizingmilitant protest action in defense ofTamil rights and against UNP represen­tative Premadasa, Upali Cooray of thefake-Trotskyist Revolutionary MarxistParty (RMP), Lankan supporters of theUnited Secretariat, was busily orches­trating a popular-front-style "Interna­tional Conference on the Problems ofPlantation Workers in Sri Lanka" overthe weekend of April 23-24. For twodays the RMP clung to the coattails ofthe Liberal/ Labourite parliamentariansand Christian do-gooders who pontifi­cated from the pulpit. Our comradesintervened with a hard revolutionaryperspective highlighting the record ofthe Spartacist League/Lanka. TheSpartacists call for full citizenship rightsfor the stateless "Indian Tamil" planta­tion workers who not only face gruelingworking conditions but pogromist raidsand deportation. Cooray continuallysought to suppress the SL's Trotskyistpolitics, even censoring the photodisplay of protests initiated by the iStagainst anti-Tamil terror. Cooray final­ly rammed through our expulsion fromthe conference when we exposed the

Prime MinisterPremadasa, SriLankan flunkyfor Imperialism,meets hismaster.

oCD<

'"a.'"(J>

Independence for Reunion island'France out of Mavotte' Down withReagan/Mitterrand"s anti-Soviet wardri\e'"

The joint demonstration ended withTamil activists singing their anthem,"Tamil Eelam," and the comrades of theLTF leading the "Internationale."

The next day, April 22, a protestcalled hy Tamil rights groups drew 300people outside the Sri Lankan embassy.There, in a bizarre incident, a policecommissioner twice threatened to arrestan LTF militant on the pretext his sign,"Mitterrand, anti-Soviet warmonger!"attacked the "dignity" of the chief ofstate. The authority cited was Article 26of the Law of 29 July 1881 on "freedomof the press"! The LTF refused to give into this blatant attempt at police censor­ship and the commissioner retreated. Inthe semi-bonapartist regime installed bya military coup in 1958, De Gaullefrequently used this law to suppressprotest by magazines and newspaperswhich criticized France's dirty colonialwar in Algeria. Moreover, the "crime"of offending the president of therepublic stems from the ancien regimelaws of lese majeste, in which theslightest criticism of the king could landyou in the dungeons. In the interests ofelementary democracy, the LTF de­mands, "Down with the Law of ~9 July1881 !"

LondonIn London on April 18, despite a

heavy downpour, the Spartacist

In Paris April 21, some 200 militantdemonstrators chanting "Stop anti­Tamil terror" filled the sidewalk outsidethe Air Lanka office, occupying most ofa city block along the Rue du 4­Septembre. They were protesting thearrival of Sri Lankan prime ministerRanasinghe Premadasa who had cometo beg favors from French imperialismfor the brutal regime of President J. R.Jayewardene. The demonstration, call­ing international attention to the des­perate plight of the oppressed Tamilminority in Sri Lanka, was initiated bythe Ligue Trotskyste de France (LTF,section of the international Spartacisttendency) and supported by the People'sLiberation Organization-Tamil Eelamand the Tamil Eelam Liberation Coun­cil. Over 150 Tamils attended andslogans in French, Tamil and Englishwere vigorously chanted one afteranother for over an hour. Tamilactivists' chants included "Stop thetorture of Tamil youth!" and "TheTamil people must break the state of

I"SIege.The Paris demonstration followed

earlier protests in Washington, D.C. onApril 13 and in London, April 18, asSpartacist comrades together with theTamil activists denounced the Lankanruler on each leg of his trip through theimperialist capitals. Premadasa is therepresentative of the Jayewardeneregime which is moving even closertoward naked dictatorship. Taking itsorders from the International MonetaryFund, J.R.'s United National Partyenforces vicious austerity at home whilelining up behind U.S. schemes to furtherits hegemony in the Indian Ocean. Staterepression against the Tamil people inthe North has put hundreds in militarycustody, held incommunicado withoutcharges and subjected to torture underthe vicious Prevention of TerrorismAct. At the demonstration, LTF de­mands included: "Support the right ofthe Tamil people to self-determination!""Immediately free all imprisoned Tamilliberation fighters!" and "Premadasa/UN P: anti-Tamil butchers, pro­imperialist flunkies!"

An LTF spokesman told thedemonstrators, "Reagan has a loyal allyin Mitterrand for his imperialist wardrive against the Soviet Union." As anLTF statement read:

"The U.S. base at Diego Garcia andtheir attempt to gain access to themilitarily key Trincomalee harbor arecrucial to the counterrevolutionarydesigns of the imperialists to reconquerthe workers states like the Soviet Unionand Vietnam. Not one inch of Lanka tothe imperialists! Stop imperialist armsdeals with the J.R. government! Franceand U.S. out of the Indian Ocean!

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

Hands Off Vietnam!

Sygma

Victorious Vietnamese parade after the fall of Saigon, Spring 1975. U.S.Imperialism longs to crush Vietnamese Revolution after humiliating defeat.

For u.s. imperialism. Vietnam wasmore than a humiliating defeat. itshowed the world (not least the Ameri­can people) that this mammothmilitary! economic power could bebeaten by a small but heroic anddetermined people. The spectacle of theU.S. Marines in a desperate scramble toescape from the roof of the U.S.embassy in Saigon (now Ho Chi MinhCity) inspired the oppressed massesfrom Central America to southernAfrica to struggle for their own libera­tion. Vietnam was ripped from theclutches of French and then Americanimperialism by nearly 40 years of armedstruggle at a cost of a million Vietnam­ese lives. For the past decade, theAmerican ruling class has been venge­fully obsessed with overcoming the so­called "Vietnam syndrome" both athome and abroad.

Now, eight years after the fall ofSaigon, U.S. imperialism remains irrec­oncilably committed to crushing the lifeout of the Vietnamese by all availablemeans. The U. S. has welded together forthis sinister purpose an unholy allianceof Thai militarists, Chinese Maoist!Stalinist bureaucrats and the Cambodi­an genocidal maniac Pol Pot. And nowthe U.S. is tightening the vise aroundVietnam. The country is being starvedby a Washington-orchestrated blockadeof trade and credits. As Vietnameseforces in Cambodia (Kampuchea) arebeing attacked with napalm by Thaiwarplanes, the U.S. is rushing ultra-modern weapons-including anti-aircraft missiles and long-rangehowitzers-to Thailand. Vietnam'snorthern border is being bombarded byChinese artillery using U.S. satelliteintelligence. In clashes on the China/Vietnam border on April 21, the

Chinese claim to have killed 16 Viet­namese soldiers. And Washington'sCambodian front man, Prince Sihan­auk, is openly threatening a Chineseinvasion of Vietnam.

Today, on the eighth anniversary ofthe fall of Saigon (30 April 1975), wesalute the courageous workers andpeasants of Vietnam. Unlike the main­stream "peace movement" of pro­imperialist politicians, liberals andreformists-which dried up when the

U.S. withdrew its massive troop pres­ence from Vietnam-our international­ist solidarity with the VietnameseRevolution demands implacable oppo­sition to the renewed U.S./Chinesemilitary pressure against Vietnam. AsTrotskyists, as American revolutionistsin the "belly of the monster," during theVietnam War we raised the slogan, "AllIndochina Must Go Communist!"Again today, it is urgent that the

working people of the world standagainst the crazed revanchist provoca­tions of U.S. imperialism. US./China:Hands Oft" Vietnam.'

We are not the only ones to remember30 April 1975. So do the Vietnamesegusanos, the strutting colonels of thepuppet Saigon regime, imported here attaxpayers' expense, now appropriatelyaffiliated with the aging fascist warcriminals of the "captive nations" Anti­Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. In Washing-

ton, D.C. on April 30, two thousand ofthese counterrevolutionary scum dem­onstrated for the overthrow of Commu­nism in Vietnam. In New York ahundred of them including ARVN(South Vietnamese puppet army) offi­cers attacked a Socialist Workers Party­sponsored "Evening in Solidarity withthe People of Vietnam" and reportedlysent three SWP members to thehospital.

~- ~ "'~~ '.. ;" -

In Sydney, Australia on April 20, ourcomrades of the Spartacist League/ANZ demonstrated outside a statebanquet for Chinese premier ZhaoZiyang (see article, this page). RabenHawke's Cold War Labor Party govern­ment recently took office and immedi­ately reversed Labor's pledge of eco­numic aid to Vietnam. The protestersdemanded, "Down with Hawke. Rea­gan's Man in Southeast Asia!"

Even leaving aside the vast quantitiesof military hardware shipped to thesemi-colonial countries to be used byimperialism's brutal local lackeys torepress their own citizenry, most imperi­alist "aid" goes straight into the Swissbank accounts of the local junta chiefs,latifundists, oil sheiks, political pimpsand the like. The famine-strickenpopulations of sub-Saharan Africa areunlikely to see a penny of the "humani­tarian aid" which goes to their govern­ments. The "Third World" is deep indebt to Chase Manhattan, Barclays, theDeutsche Bank, etc.. and thus theinternational financial system is set upso that much of this money goes tofatten their profits. The intent of aid to"Third World" countries is precisely toprop up the class relations whichguarantee mass misery for the people ofAsia, Latin America and Africa. All themore bitter, then, is the AustralianLabor Party's reneging on its promisesto Vietnam, where a profound socialtransformation created the conditionsto productively use vast sums of aid.Break the Imperialist EconomicBlockade!

Since early 1979, when the Vietnam­ese toppled the genocidal Cambodianregime of Pol Pot, which had killed atleast two million of its own people, theU. S. has armed the terrorist bands of thedeposed dictator for murderous attacksinside Cambodia. Vietnamese andCambodian troops have scored recentmilitary victories in the area of the Thaiborder, wiping out several major nestsof counterrevolutionaries. But once

continued on page 9~:

SL/ANZdemonstratesagainst China'sattacks onVietnam whenChinesepremier cameto Sydney,April 20.

with Suharto and his generals, thebutcher of Indonesian workers andpeasants and the Timorese people, andechoed the lies of the CIA's Cambodianflunky Son Sann about Vietnamese"massacres" in Thailand.

Behind the hoopla on "aid" theLaborites are fronting for Reagan inSoutheast Asia, trying to line up an anti­Soviet "consensus" at home andthroughout the region for bloodyannihilation of the heroic Vietnamese.As Wran and Zhao toasted their

continued on page 9

USJ~'~nff V~Down 'W\\\\ \\iwI'f.\,~S man in

Soutlleas\ ~S\a\Spartacist • league

resume its token economic "aid" to

Vietnam, cut off by Fraser's Liberalsfollowing the Vietnamese ouster ofCambodian butcher Pol Pot. Hawke,who had already shelved the ALP's"aid" policy until "consultations" withits U.S., China and ASEAN allies. wasbriefed before the Zhao talks by "closefriend" U.S. Secretary of State GeorgeShultz. Meanwhile of course Austra­lian aid continued to Thailand and anti­communist guerrillas in Cambodia.And just before Zhao's arrival Laborforeign minister Hayden sat in Jakarta

If the U. S., using China as its instru­ment, goes ali out to get Vietnam,continued the speaker, "then all peoplemust rally to the defence of Vietnam inall ways."

Throughout Zhao's visit Chineseshelling continued against northernVietnam. Following talks in Tokyo andAuckland the Chinese premier came toAustralia to beat the war drums andpressure the Hawke government not to

chanted "Zhao! Hawke! Reagan­Hands Off Vietnam!" and "SmashANZUS, ASEAN! Defend the SovietUnion and Vietnam!" Spartacist signsread "Labor Fronts for Anti-SovietU.S.-China-Japan Axis!" "Smash U.S.Imperialist-Backed Chinese/Thai Prov­ocations Against Vietnam!" and "StandReady to Defend Vietnam AgainstThreat of Destruction!" For behindthese provocations stands the anti­Soviet war plans of U.S. imperialismaided and abetted in every way by itsAustralian junior partner, led byHawke's Australian Labor Party (ALP)government. A Spartacist spokesman atthe rally set the anti-Vietnam provoca­tions in the context of U.S. global anti­Soviet strategy:

"The Thais' use of napalm epitomisesthe genocidal intent behind this mostdangerous assault on the Vietnamesev.orkers state and the people of Indo­china. What is going on here is thatReagan is telling the Russians to get outand stav out of Central America or tolose Vietnam. A counterrevolutionarvbioodbath in Central America andCuba. or extinction of Vietnam."

*****SYDNEY, April 20: "US/China: HandsOff Vietnam! Down With Hawke,Reagan's Man in Southeast Asia!" readthe banner at a Spartacist League (Sl)demonstration here outside a Statebanquet for visiting Chinese premierZhao Ziyang thrown by New SouthWales Labor premier Neville Wran. Thedemonstration was called at short noticeby the SL to sound the alarm to thElabour movement in Australia andinternationally against the dangerousescalation of U.S. imperialist-backedChinese and Thai provocations againstVietnam.

Helmeted police along with W fan'sspecial SWAT-type Tactical ResponseGroup cops lined the pavement i1roundthe entrance to Sydney's Stat:: Off:ceBlock as 30 spirited demonstrators

Shortly after reports of Chineseartillery bombardment against Vietnamour comrades of the Spartacist Leagueof Australia and New Zealand held aprotest demonstration denouncing theattacks by Peking in collusion with US.imperialism. The new(v elected Austra­lian Labor Party (A LP) government ofright-wing social-democratic primeminister Robert Ha~vke has made itclear that it will continue to run pointfor Washington's anti-Soviet war drive,pledging loyalty to the Australia/NewZealand/ U.S. (ANZUS) military pactand promising to consult with the neo­colonial Association ofSoutheast AsianNations (ASEAN).

Australian Spartacists DenounceChinese Attack on Vietnam

36 MAY 1983

"God's Banker" Sent Millions to Solidarnosc'

A2rtacistPamI

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

$1.00

Socialists (PS) in their campaign tohead off the restless Portuguese workingclass:

"United States money for the Portu­guese Socialist party and other parties isbeing funneled by the Central Intelli­gence Agency through West EuropeanSocialist parties and labor unions, thesources said. The C.I.A. involvement,the sources said, amounted to severalmillion dollars a month over the lastseveral months...."Until the spring, most of the Westernaid to anti-Communist forces in Portu­gal was being given secretly by the WestGerman Social Democratic party andthe Belgian Socialist party ....

-New York Times,25 September 1975

Throughout the summer of '75, Soares'PS staged anti-Communist rallies whileclericalist and fascist-inspired mobssacked and burned over 50 offices of theCommunist Party and other left groups.Once again the Catholic church wasclosely involved. After a rally in Bragaaddressed by Msgr. Da Silva, a support­er of the ousted Salazar/Caetanomilitary dictatorship, several hundredparticipants attacked CP headquartersscreaming "Death to the Communists!"

From Portugal to Poland, theVatican and Western social democratshave worked hand-in-hand for counter­revolution. And these are the sameimperialist and pro-imperialist forceslooked to by supposed "leftists" tobroker a "political solution" in EISalvador. Today, the European socialdems are at loggerheads over CentralAmerica with the Reagan administra­tion, which sees in every "parlor pink" aflaming red. But from Warsaw toManagua the social traitors' aims arethe same: to head off socialist revolu­tion. Thus Second International spokes­man on Latin America Pierre Schoriwarned two years ago, "the longer peaceefforts are postponed [in EI Salvador],the bloodier and more radical will be theultimate solution" (New York Times, 28February 1981). And the Polish popewho in EI Salvador calls for "dialogue"in Costa Rica denounces "collectivistsystems" while proclaiming a holy waragainst Sandinista Nicaragua.

Beware of $ocialists bearing D-marksand dollars, and of unionists in papalrobes.•

Where doesSolldarnosc

counter­revolution get Its

money? SocialDemocracy,Reagan, the

church and theAFL-CIO

bureaucracy.

CIA D-Marks for Social­Democratic Counterrevolution

Not only the size of the imperialistsubsidy of Solidarnosc is significant,which made possible its extensivepropaganda apparatus, but also theconduit chosen to launder the dollars(for it certainly didn't run on Italianlire): the West German Bank fUrGeineinwirtschaft, linked to the social­democratic-led unions. This is hardlythe first time that West German SocialDemocrats have helped finance coun­terrevolution. During the pre­revolutionary upsurge in Portugal in1975 they bankrolled Mario Soares'

was the German Bank fur Gemein­[wirt]schaft, which is the bank of theGerman trade unions."PBS/BBC: "But the money definitelywent to Solidarity."Modolo: "I mean, that's what sourcesfrom the Vatican and other internation­al financial circles told to the press."PBS/BBC: "How much money are wetalking about?"Modolo: "They are talking about 40million dollars."

-"Frontline," 14 February

It was widely reported that the Ameri­can labor union federation had sentseveral hundred thousand dollars toSolidarnosc as part of its infamousinternational operations which in LatinAmerica have earned it the label "AFL­CIA." We had publicized Solidarity'sinvitation to known CIA labor opera­tive Irving Brown to attend its foundingcongress, and Solidarnosc leader LechWalesa's secret meeting with U.S.capitalists including Ford Motors presi­dent Caldwell. But $40 million is bigbucks for the anti-Soviet "union" hailedby an unholy alliance stretching fromthe Vatican to the "far left."

Further investigation has producedmore references to large-scale Vaticanpayoffs to Solidarnosc. The WestGerman Frankfurter Rundschau of 15July 1982 reports that "a check of thebalance sheet of Banco Ambrosiano hasbrought out that its director Calvi hadtransferred about 25 million marks tothe Polish unions." And the magazineDie Neue (6 August 1982) draws thefinancial link from Walesa to the Polishpope Wojtyla:

"But Wojtyla's trust in Marcinkus alsohad a very material basis: for manyyears the U, S. bishop used his ties toright-wing political circles in the USAand Italy as well as to the financialworld to mobilize millions in subscrip­tions to the Polish church. Auditing ofthe Ambrosiano bank has now addi­tionally shown that via Calvi's estab­lishment between autumn 1980 andautumn 1981 about 10 million dollars(roughly 25 million OM) flowed toPolish 'Solidarnosc',"

It's no surprise to Marxists. Walesa wasU.S. imperialism's great Polish hope tospearhead an anti-Communist rollbackin Eastern Europe-the long-cherisheddream of "captive nations" refugees, theCatholic church and assorted ColdWarriors. Anti-Sovietism is the com­mon denominator linking Reagan, theCIA, the Vatican and fake-left cheer­leaders for Solidarnosc.

VancouverBox 26, Station AVancouver, B. C. V6C 2L8(604) 681-2422

tion. However, he let stand his sub­stantive charges, including those regard­ing Vatican financing of PolishSolidarity: "The evidence is provided byan unidentified author in Milano, whoapparently read about it in a Germannewspaper." The Italian journalist, whowas identified more than once, wasGianfranco Modolo, co-author of Ilbanco paga (1982), an in-depth investi­gation of Roberto Calvi and the collapseof the Banco Ambrosiano. WorkersVanguard had cited an article in theItalian paper Il Giornale based on aninterview with Carlo Calvi, in which thebanker's son "confirmed the story of thefinancing of the Polish trade unionSolidarnosc by the Banco Ambro­siano"; and quoted a tape recording(first published in L'Espresso magazine)of Calvi Sr. screaming at ArchbishopPaul Marcinkus, head of the Vaticanbank (the lOR), about the church'sunderwriting of this company union forthe CIA and Western bankers.

$olidarity with Solidarity ...

In one area "God's Banker" did add tothe WV article-the scope and means ofthe Vatican financing of Polish Solidari­ty. The PBS/BBC co-production in­cluded the following exchange withjournalist Modolo:

Modolo: "The channel of the financingby Banco Ambrosiano to Solidarnosc

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

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

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Box 840, Central Station Los Angeles, CA 90029 San Francisco, CA 94101

Cambridge, MA 02139 (213) 663-1216 (415) 863-6963

(617) 492-3928Madison

Chicago c/o SYL Washington, D.C.Box 6441, Main P.O. Box 2074 210 7th SI S.E, Suite E12Chicago, IL 60680 Madison, WI 53701 Washington, DC 20003(312) 427-0003 (608) 251-3398 (202) 636-3537

APPortugal 1975: CIA-aided social democrats and Catholic hierarchy led mobsIn attacks on Communist Party offices.

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA

A couple of months ago we reportedthe sinister ties linking the Holy See to abillion-dollar international bankingscandal,. Latin American death squadsand Polish Solidarnosc (see "TheVatican Connection," WV No. 323, IIFebruary). Shortly afterwards, thisstory, which had been hushed up in theAmerican press, was aired on the PBStelevision network's "Frontline" seriesin an hour-long documentary entitled"God's Banker." The program waspanned as "the television equivalent ofwhat was once called tabloid journal­ism" in a preview by the New YorkTimes (14 February) TV critic, whocomplained of unidentified sources anda lack of hard evidence. This is quite amouthful coming from the "free butresponsible" Times which suppressednews of the impending Bay of Pigsinvasion in 1961 and recently disap­peared the secret Senate session on CIAactivity against Nicaragua, yet hasdeemed "fit to print" every concoctiondreamed up by Readers Digest and theJames Jesus Angleton paranoids abouta KGB/Bulgarian hand in the popeassassination plot.

Our article provided ample docu­mentation for every major assertion inthe "Frontline" program, citing chapterand verse from a broad range of sources.And after the show was broadcast, theTimes reviewer made a partial retrac-

SPARTACIST LEAGUE LOCAL DIRECTORY

Vatican Connection II

4 WORKERS V~NQU.~R~.

Spartacist Candidate Does Well in Black Oakland

Phillips Campaign SparksLabor/B/ack League

OAKLAND

SPECIALBLUES BENEFI'

Nicaragua and for completing theNicaraguan revolution by expropriatingthe capitalists there who stilt controlthree-fifths of the economy and arebacking the counterrevolution. We saidthat in EI Salvador no less than in theU.S.. the capitalist state must bereplaced through workers revolution­it cannot be "negotiated" into servingthe interests of the impoverished work­ers and peasants. We champion the callof militants in the ILWU for a 24-hourshutdown of the West Coast ports tooppose Reagan's stepped-up militaryaid and CIA operations.

Reagan's dirty wars in CentralAmerica, the front line today in the anti­Soviet war drive, are not popular withthe working people we spoke with. Es­pecially among black people, there is avery widespread recognition that theirmain enemy is that yahoo in the WhiteHouse. They know it isn't the Russianswho are throwing them on the unem­ployment lines, cutting back welfare andslashing all kinds of social services. Theyalso know, a point we made with a lot ofeffectiveness, that the Klan doesn't ridein Moscow.WV: The Labor/Black League justparticipated in a demonstration againstpolice terror in Richmond. How didthat relate to your campaign?Phillips: We went to the Richrnonddemonstration demanding that the copswho strangled and killed Willie LeeDrumgoole be jailed. Afterwards weshowed the November 27 video at alocal black club where some of thedefense committee activists are mem­bers. It was easy to link the rise of Klan/Nazi race-terror to the escalation ofpolice violence under decaying capital­ism. We got a very good response andenrolled a number of new members inthe Labor/Black League.

In Richmond and throughout thecampaign in Oakland, we called forvengeance for Patrick Mason, the five­year-old black child murdered in hisbedroom by a cowardly white cop inOrange County. This racist atrocity isonly the most recent sickening exampleof the war on black America beingwaged by the state's hired thugs in blue.In all the heavily black cities in Americathe fight against racist terror is a life-

continued on page 10

1P

people not to struggle but to get outthere and vote Democrat to solve theirproblems. It's a lie and I think the 1,548people who voted for our campaignknow it.

The capitalist politicians of all stripespush the idea that the capitalist state canbe reformed, can be pressured intomeeting the needs of the explgited andoppressed. We know from all h'istoricaJexperience that this is not true. As Leninwrote in State and Revolution, theworking class cannot take hold of acapitalist state and make it meet ourneeds. The workers must lead all theoppressed in replacing the bourgeoisstate with our own state, a workers state,that can organize a planned collectiv­ized economy. And it will take arevolutionary workers party to lead thefight for that state power, That revolu­tionary truth was at the heart of ourcampaign.

I'll tell you one story. Molders Local164 is on strike out here against anumber of foundries that are demand­ing a $2 an hour wage cut. Theworkforce is largely black, Hispanic andPortuguese. We spent a lot of hours onthose picket lines. I would point to theplant and say to the strikers: "Look,very likely the guy who owns thiscompany is a Democrat. How can thatparty represent both your interests? TheDemocratic Party regime sends itspolice in to harass your picket lines. Ifthe strike heats up, the DemocraticParty judges will issue injunctionsagainst your strike. But a workers partywould organize other workers in thesesurrounding plants to come out here, tobuild your picket lines, to help you winthe strike."

Then I would talk about the history ofthe Oakland General Strike in 1946, thelast general strike in this country. When110,000 workers hit the bricks, nothingin Oakland moved. I'd explain that'show a workers party is going to be built,through massive class struggle. Wefound a lot of workers interested in thatand almost none who would defend theDemocrats.WV: International working-class soli­darity figured prominently in yourcampaign. How was this received?Phillips: As internationalists, wecampaign for the interests of the entireinternational working class. We call fordefeating the CIA-backed invasion of

ii~WV Photo

Martha Phillips (right) campaigns In Oakland: "In all the heavily black citiesIn America the fight against racist terror Is a life-and-death Issue ..."

on their own strength and fight.The highlight of our party on election

night was when I gave out 25 redmembership cards to the new chartermembers of the Labor/Black League.On that card there's a quote from KarlMarx before the Civil War: "Laborcannot emancipate itself in the whiteskin where in the black it is branded."It's going to take a third Americanrevolution, a workers revolution, tofinish the Civil War, to bring about realequality and justice in this countrythrough socialism. We think the Labor/Black League can be an importantaction-oriented organization in helpingto bring people into this struggle.WV: Oakland is a heavily Democratic­registered town. What kind of responsedid you get to the call for a workersparty?Phillips: Oakland is run by Democratsand it's falling apart. When we said thatOakland is itself the best argumentagainst the Democratic Party, that hithome. The mainly black Democraticmajority on the school board is cuttingeducation so far back that it is genuinelya question whether the next generationof working people's children will be ableto read.

As a result of this election, the newcity council is going to be a majorityblack and it's not going to mean a damnbit of difference in the lives of black andworking people in Oakland. A lot ofpeople know that and it's one of thereasons the voter turnout was less than23 percent. Both wings of the Demo­crats in Oakland, the big businessdevelopment machine around MayorWilson and the rad-lib "progressives"like Ron Dellums and Wilson Riles, tell

••••••••\ ..

JAIL THE KILLER ca~sl,LABOR/BLACK lEAGUE

Protesting racist cop terror In Richmond, California.

H,'e print helow an interview withMartha Phillips. Spartacist Party candi­date in the recent elections for citycouncil in Oakland, California.

WV: How would you evaluate theoverall response to your campaign?Phillips: Our campaign was directed atthe poor and working people of Oak­land, who are in their majority blackand Hispanic. I've been a Trotskyist for13 years but I never before saw suchopenness to the breadth of our revolu­tionary Marxist program. When wesaid, "You can't fight Reagan withDemocrats-Build a workers party";when we said, "For mass strike action tobring down Reagan"; when we talkedabout the need for workers revolutionhere and internationally, hundreds ofpeople listened and were interested.That has something to do with themassive social decay, the increasingdesperation, the terrible unemploymentin Oakland as in all the major U.S.cities.

But there was another factor, too.Featured in our posters, in the electionbrochure, in our speeches on televisionand radio was the victory of ourSpartacist-initiated Labor/Black Mobi­lization that stopped the KKK frommarching last November 27 in Reagan'sWashington. The demonstration gave aconcreteness and credibility to ourprogram of integrated working-classstruggle that was very important.

We showed the November 27 video anumber of times at the homes ofworkers who would invite their friendsover, The response was always over­whelming and enthusiastic. At onehouse, eight phone workers gave morethan $200 to support the campaign.Auto workers, laid off from the Fre­mont G M plant and now facing Toyotaand GM's union-busting plans, saw thestrength of integrated class struggle. Itwas for that kind of action that wecampaigned and signed people up forour new organization, the Labor/BlackLeague for Social Defense.WV: Could you tell us more about theLabor/Black League?Phillips: Unlike the various reformistsin this campaign, we said repeatedly thatit's impossible to reshuffle the prioritiesof capitalism. What's needed is aworkers revolution and that meansorganizing people fOi struggle, todefend themselves and fight for whatthey need. We made it very clear thatvictories like November 27, the fightagainst police terror, against racial andsexual discrimination, will not be won atthe ballot box. They will be won byuniting the working people and unem­ployed, black, white and Latin, to rely

6 MAY 1983 5

Reininger/Contact

Sandlnlstalbourgeols Junta, July 1979: (from right) Borge, Robelo,Chamorro, Ramirez, Ortega. Now Robelo and Chamorro are with thecontras.

..,,~],prag.~Complete 1he Revolution!

reformists to end the civil war in ElSalvador), capitalists like cooking oilking Alfonso Robelo would be in powerin Managua instead of cooling theirheels in exile. And many of the contraswould be in the Nicaraguan armyinstead of based across the border inCIA camps in Honduras. But thecapitalist state apparatus collapsed, andinstead a petty-bourgeois governmentwas installed which "was not committedto the defense of either bourgeoisprivate property or the collectivistproperty forms of proletarian classrule," as we wrote earlier of the firstmonths of the Castro regime in Cuba,before the capitalists were expropriatedin mid-late 1960.

Initially the "governing junta ofnational reconstruction" included twodirect representatives of the bourgeoi­sie, Robelo and Violeta Chamorro,widow of the publisher of La Prensawho was murdered by the Somozas. Inaddition, many of the ministries were inthe hands of pro-capitalist technocrats.We called this a Sandinista/bourgeois"government," in quotes, because therea! power was in the hands of the FSLNwhich held the guns. By the end of theyear the governing apparatus began toreflect social and political reality moreaccurately as Sandinista cadres tookover key ministries. In May of 1980,Robelo and the widow Chamorroresigned from the junta when theSandinistas restructured the Council ofState so that it had a majority of FSLN­led organizations instead of a majorityof bourgeois organizations (chambersof commerce, capitalist parties and soon) as originally announced. But twoother bourgeois figures were then placed011 the junta: Central Bank directorArturo Cruz, who has since resigned,and COSEP (the main businessmen'sassociation) leader Fernando Chamo­rro, who is today mounting a CIA­financed anti-Sandinista guerrilla groupfrom Costa Rica.

From the beginning the emphasis ofSandinista policy has been on "nationalunity" with the "patriotic/progressive"bourgeoisie under the "hegemony of theFSLN." They went out of their way todemonstrate the "generosity" of theirrevolution. Thus there were no execu­tions of the former National Guards­men, including the most notoriousbutchers. This caused considerable andjustified discontent among the masses.Further, after the trials were completed,some of the guardias were released,whereupon they simply crossed theborder and rejoined the contras inHonduras, from where they launch theirterrorist attacks. Thus the Nicaraguanpeople are paying for this "generosity"with their lives. And just last month theSandinistas were finally forced tointroduce "people's tribunals" to try thecounterrevolutionary killers-a meas­ure the Trotskyists have called for from

elements, of course). However, Somo­za's praetorian guard knew well that theNicaraguan masses were crying forvengeance after a bloody war of exter­mination in which 50,000 people werekilled, 90 percent of them youths from 8to 20 years old. So the guardias fled,throwing down their guns, stripping offtheir uniforms, scrambling aboardhelicopters and fishing boats in scenesreminiscent of the fall of Saigon.

If the '''agreement of San Jose" hadheld, if the existing capitalist stateapparatus, centrally the army, hadremained intact, Nicaragua would be avery different place today. Had therebeen such a "political solution" (such asis now proposed by the liberals and

UPIPopular militia can crush counterrevolutionaries, but Sandlnlsta nationaliststolerate capitalist fifth column.

if under Reagan's guns the petty­bourgeois bonapartists turn around anddecree the expropriation of the bour­geoisie, the result would be a bureau­cratically deformed workers state on theCuban model. Moreover, Nicaraguamay well be denied the Soviet lifelinewhich, at a cost of more than $3 billion ayear, has kept Castro afloat for the lasttwo decades. The Trotskyists have asharply counterposed program: to builda Leninist vanguard party to lead theworker-peasant masses on the path laiddown by the Bolsheviks in October1917. We make use of every opportunityto struggle for workers revolution, fromCentral America to the U.S. And thatmeans above all breaking the politicalchains which bind the oppressed to theiroppressors.

Shortly before their triumph of armsover the Somoza dynasty in July 1979,the Sandinistas reached an agreementwith representatives of the anti-Somozabourgeoisie which called for a coalitiongovernment that would respect privateproperty and preserve elements of theexisting army (the "honest, patriotic"

schema of "nonalignment, mixed econ­omy and political pluralism." This wasthe programmatic expression of theFSLN's strategy of alliance with the"floating sectors of the middle bourgeoi­sie" which brought them to power. Buttoday the choice of social revolution orbloody counterrevolution in CentralAmerica is unavoidable. The Sandinis­tas' own experience is making thisclearer day by day: yesterday's "anti­Somozaist bourgeoisie" has becometoday's "sellout bourgeoisie." As na­tionalists, the FSLN keeps fightingagainst that choice, and because theyplace themselves at cross-purposes tothe march of history, they can preparethe way to defeat for the masses. At best,

message to Soviet leader Andropov:"Get out of Nicaragua and El Salvadorand we will let you have 'Nam." Butsince the Russians don't have muchgoing in Central America, for theSoviets to "give us Central America"would mean nothing less than tacitSoviet complicity with Americancounteri nsurgency.

What will be Moscow's response toReagan's blackmail over Vietnam, itsthreats to "strike at the source"?Communist Party leader Yuri Andro­pov, reflecting the narrow nationalistoutlook of the Stalinist bureaucracywhich sits atop the Soviet degeneratedworkers state. recently compared U.S.policy in Nicaragua with Russian policyin Afghanistan:

"Would the United States not care whatkind of government rules in Nicaragua?Nicaragua is an enormous distancefrom America. We have a commonborder with Afghanistan, and we aredefending our national interests byhelping Afghanistan."'

-Der Spiegel, 25 April

This sounds ominously like an offer to"exchange" Afghanistan for Nicaragua.The Kremlin's willingness to sacrificeNicaragua was clearly spelled out by thedirector of the Soviets' Latin AmericanInstitute in Moscow (see box p. 7). Thistreacherous policy has nothing incommon with the proletarian interna­tionalism of Lenin and Trotsky. Theinternational Spartacist tendency (iSt),which proclaimed "Hail Red Army!" inAfghanistan where they are fightingCIA-aided Islamic reactionaries, says inCentral America: "Junta butchers onthe run, leftist rebels need Russianguns!" and "Smash Reagan's Bay ofPigs, Nicaragua needs MIGs!"

"Political Pluralism"... For theCounterrevolutionaries

For close to four years, the Sandinis­tas have governed Nicaragua along their

(continued from page 1)revolution to complete the politicalrevolution which overthrew the blood­sucking Somoza dynasty, insists onmaintaining "the strategic schema ofnon-alignment, a mixed economy andpolitical pluralism" and call for theunity of "workers, peasants, students,intellectuals, professionals, business­men" ("FSLN Calls for Defense of theFatherland," Barricada, 9 April). Thepetty-bourgeois nationalists seek"peaceful coexistence" with the bour­geoisie at home and abroad, even at thislate date when the imperialists anddomestic capitalists are openly foment­ing counterrevolution. Communistsunderstand that the way to defeat acounterrevolutionary war is throughsocialist revolution. The contras mustbe crushed not only by guns on thebattlefield, but also by unleashing thetremendous energy of the workingmasses, fighting to liberate themselvesfrom the life of poverty and oppressionto which they have been condemned bycapitalism.

Shortly after the counterrevolution­ary bestias (vermin) launched theirrecent onslaught against SandinistaNicaragua, the two counterposed politi­cal lines were captured at a protest onMarch 25 in New York. The SpartacistLeague (SL) carried a banner proclaim­ing, "Defend Nicaragua-Complete theRevolution! Kill the Invaders!" andchanted "Contras no, workers si­Overthrow the bourgeoisie!" Aroundthe corner the reformists and Latinnationalists were chanting the old stand­by from Chile, "The people united willnever be defeated." As Trotskyists wepoint out the fact, so tragically proven inChile, that the popular front, the"people united"-namely the workingmasses "united" with their exploiters­is the guarantee of defeat. In the U.S. thepopular-frontists look to the liberalDemocrats to tie Reagan's hands withlegislation against covert intervention.But there already is a law on the booksmaking it illegal for the U.S. to aid anti­Sandinista mercenaries, passed 411-0 inthe House of Representatives, and thathasn't stopped Washington.

In his March 10 speech to theassembled capitalists of the NationalAssociation of Manufacturers (NAM),Reagan accused an "aggressive minori­ty" in Central America of having"thrown in its lot with the Communists"and preaching a doctrine of "revolutionwithout frontiers." Unfortunately this isfar from the truth. Only the Trotskyistscall for workers revolution throughoutCentral America, extending to thepowerful Mexican proletariat and theUnited States as well. Yet the Yankeeimperialists hardly recognize nationalborders in spreading their Cold Warcounterrevolution.

In his NAM speech the U.S. presidentalso accused the Soviets of attemptingto "tie down our forces on our ownsouthern border and so limit ourcapacity to act in more distant places."Hardly. Jeane Kirkpatrick to the con­trary, there have been no "boatloads,planeloads, truckloads" of Soviet weap­ons making their way to the Salvadoranguerrillas via Managua. But on theother side of the world, in the Far East,Reagan is following exactly the strategyhe attributes to the Kremlin. Onceagain the U.S. is trying to close the ringon Soviet ally Vietnam. The Chinese, incollusion with Washington, bombardVietnam's northern border while theThais, using rush-delivered sophisticat­ed American weapons, attack Vietnam­ese forces on the Cambodian frontier.Recently we wrote that the U.S. intendsthese anti-Vietnamese provocations as a

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

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private farms. Meanwhile, many ofthese kulaks in the provinces of Mata­galpa and Nueva Segovia have shownsympathies for the mercenary contrasoperating there with the aid of the CIA.

According to one apologist for theSandinistas. "The clamour for landfrom the dispossessed peasants andsmall proprietors ... cannot be easily orrapidly satisfied. The inequalities ofland ownership generated by Somozaistcapitalism will take years to remove"(George Black, Triumph of thePeople- The Sandinista Revolution inNicaragua [1981 D. Not so. It could beaccomplished in a matter of weeks. as itwas in Russia in 1917. But then therewould be no more alliance with the"floating sectors of the middle bourgeoi­sie." What is required is an agrarianrevolution, unleashing the peasantryand seizing all the latifundia. But everyattempt to raise such a program hasbeen repressed by the FSLN. When theFrente Obrero organiled land takeoverson the morrow of the victory againstSomoza, the peasants were repulsed byFSLN troops and FO's paper £1 Pueblowas seized. As one peasant in theChinandega area commented, "I don'tunderstand it at all. One minute seizingthe land is revolutionary. then they tellyou it's counterrevolutionary."

Maintaining the "mixed economy"has required above all repression of theleft. This was particularly acute in early1980 when the Managua constructionindustry, 18 textile factories and thelargest sugar mill in the country werestruck by unions following the lead ofthepro-Moscow Socialist Party (PSN), thedissident Brezhnevite PCN and the pro­Albania FO respectively. The FSLN'sresponse was adroitly implementedrepression: arresting leftist leaders whilemobilizing Sandinista union leaders tointervene with a "unity" offensive to tryand bring the dissident union federa­tions under their control. The most no­table case was that of the largest tex­tile plant in the country, FABRlTEX,which repeatedly struck for higherwages, led by the PCN-affiliated CAUSunion. The first time they struck, theSandinistas forced the workers backand the CST government union mobi­lized a mob to sack the CAUS offices,accusing the leftist union of links withthe CIA. The next time FABRlTEXworkers struck, the government waseven more decisive: it simply closed upthe state-owned factory.

Cheerleaders for the FSLN defendsuch moves with the usual "CIA"

continued on page 8

world socialist svstem. which ofcourseincludes Cuba, there is no limit to theprinciple of internationalism.' Cuba.therefore, is inviolate. Nicaragua­and anywhere else in Central Americaand theCaribbean forwhom the SovietUnion expresses solidarity-is vulner­able and lies outside the Sovietshield.'·

Particularly in light of Andropov'sominous comparison of Nicaraguawith Afghanistan in his recent DerSpiegel interview, Gott's conclusionabout Soviet intentions seems inescap­able. So to Reagan's blackmailing offerofa "deal hecan't refuse" over Vietnam,Andropov makes a counteroffer that isno less counterrevolutionary! Volskyconcludes his interview with the Guard­ian complaining, incredibly, that Rea­gan's policy is contrary to Americanimperialist interests. "What seemsunintelligent on the part of the UnitedStates is that they push countriestoward socialism." Certainly thatcannot be said of Soviet policy underStalin and his heirs, who not only sellout other peoples' struggles but danger­ously undermine the security of theSoviet state and the defense of theconquests of October by their poli­cies of appeasing imperialism. TheTrotskyists say: Defense of Cuba/USSR Begins in Central America!Smash Reagan's Bay of Pigs, Nicara­gua Needs MIGs!

•

the Soviet leader offered nothing morethan "sincere solidarity." The articlecontinues:

"So what happens when solidarity isnot enough? 'Well,' says ProfessorVolsky somewhat embarrassed, 'thestruggle is a long one. There have beendefeats before. Sandino himself wasdefeated .... I don't often quote fromMahatma Gandhi, nor do I believe inthe pacifist road. But he once said,'Each new defeat inspires me.' And thatis what I believe. Did the defeat of theChilean government of SalvadorAllende hinder the victory of theSandinistas? Of course not'."

But what about the Chilean masses?They certainly suffered a tragic defeatas the result of the treacherous policiesof the popular front and the "peacefulroad." pushed not only by Allende butalso by the Kremlin.

Gott quotes another Soviet LatinAmerican expert, Karen Katchaturov:

'''For Nicaragua we have a feeling ofsolidarity, but for the countries of the

nationalized a few more large landhold­ings, but the basic picture has notchanged. In industry only one-quarterof production is in state hands. So todaythe bourgeoisie still has the capability ofstrangling Nicaragua economically.Moreover. there has been no net privateinvestment in the country since 1979.The capitalists are subsidized with low­cost loans from the nationalized bankswhich provide their working capital. Inother words, the Nicaraguan bourgeoi­sie is being kept in business exclusivelywith government aid.

On the morrow of the FSLN victory,Sandinista leader Borge said explicitly,"Private property in this country will berespected." And they have held to thatpromise. This has meant, for example,

that the Nicaraguan agrarian reform isless extensive than even the phonyreform legislated by the u.s. puppetjunta in £1 Salvador. Cotton productionis still in the hands of la·rge estateowners, many linked to Robelo's MDN.Coffee production is overwhelmingly amatter of kulak or rich peasant hold­ings, which employ large amounts ofhired labor during the recolecta, theharvest season. Since, however. some ofthe landless peasants have received landor had their rents reduced under theland reform. there is now an acute laborshortage in the countryside. This hasbeen made up by the FSLN mobilizingurban youth and government employeesfor volunteer or low-wage labor on

The anti-Soviet Cold War is global,and so is the class war. But just asCastro counsels the Sandinistas toavoid his "mistake" of overthrowingthe bourgeoisie, the Moscow Stalinistsseek to avoid "another Cuba" in theAmericas. A recent article in theLondon Guardian (27 April) gives ahair-raising account of the Kremlin'santi-~evolutionary line in Latin Amer­ica. Respected journalist and LatinAmerican expert Richard Gott quotesViktor Volsky, the director ofthe LatinAmerican Institute in Moscow, saying,"It has cost usa lotto send oil toCuba­two tankers a day for twenty years. Wewouldn't like to have to repeat that on alarger scale." Gatt notes that whenFSLN leader Daniel Ortega met withSoviet party chief Yuri Andropov inMarch, the official communique em­phasized that Nicaragua has "all thenecessary resources to defend thehomeland and rout the invaders," and

Defense of Cuba/USSR Beginsin Central America!

Stalinist Treachery!

The Capitalist "Mixed Economy"

The sharpest expression of the Sandi­nistas' conciliation of the bourgeoisiehas been in the economic sphere.Expropriations of the means of produc­tion have ·been largely limited to theproperties of Somoza and his hench­men. An estimated 57 percent of theeconomy remains in the private sector.The agricultural reform announced onthe second anniversary of the revolution

which has received a publicly admittedmillion-dollar subsidy from the U.S.government. operates freely. La Prensauses ali the psi-war techniques perfectedby CIA media "assets" in Chile duringthe U.S. campaign to "destabilize" theleftist Allende regime. And while Alfon­so Robelo organizes anti-Sandinistaguerrillas from Costa Rica, his Nicara­guan Democratic Movement (MDN),which was behind the shootings inMasaya last August, continues tofunction as a legal political party. Evenmore egregious, the owner of theNicaraguan subsidiary of Coca Cola,Adolfo Calero Portocarrero, continuedto plot inside the country for more thana year after he was named as a memberof the CIA's shadow junta and secret

arricada

Association of Rural Workers: "We aren't birds that live In the air, nor fish thatlive In the sea. We are men who live off the land." But Sandlnlsta leadershiphas protected the landlords and kulaks who live off the peasants.

member of the Somozaist NicaraguanDemocratic Forces (FDN) high com­mand. Indeed, the Sandinista revolu­tion has been "too lenient"... with thebourgeoisie.

the beginning. A leader of the ruralworkers union commented "it wasabout time." and "we've wasted morethan three years trying for unity withmany people wasted by Somozaism andimperialism" (Barricada, 12 April).

But while conciliating the bourgeoisiepolitically and above all economically,the FSLN has concentrated on mobiliz­ing the masses. And this can provideopenings for intervention by commu-.nists, the Trotskyists who put forward aprogram for victory, not conciliatingthe bourgeoisie but to defend, completeand extend the Nicaraguan revolution.The Sandinista mass organizations aredefinitely bureaucratically controlled,although with a good deal of "consulta­tion" Cuban-style. They are pretty mucha one-way transmission belt, from top tobottom. But they are more than holloworganizational shells. They all havetraditions of struggle beginning beforethe overthrow of Somoza. Thus theSandinista Defense Committees (CDS),modeled on the Cuban Committees forthe Defense of the Revolution, actuallygrew out of the Civil Defense Commit­tees (CDC) which played a major role inthe September 1978 uprising and incarrying out the mass insurrection ofJune-July 1979. This military action, farmore than the fighting by FSLNguerrillas on northern and southernfronts, was what actually toppled theSomoza tyranny. In the first weeks afterliberation, the CDCs administered mostof the country. Today the CDSs are theinstrument by which most mass demon­strations are organized; they administerthe rationing in addition to vigilanceagainst counterrevolutionary activity.

For the most part these organizationshave been used for bureaucratic mobili­zations, both against opposition (fromthe right and left) and to give theappearance of popular participation inmajor shifts of government policy. Butthey are not yet fully regimentedStalinist-style apparatuses. and onoccasion they have gone further thansome in the FSLN leadership wanted to.Thus in October 1981. after the presshad reported statements by Robelojustifying armed counterrevolutionaryaction against the Sandinista regime, ademonstration marched on the rightistleader's house and stoned it, rejectingattempts by guards sent by the FSLNheadquarters to protect the house. InJanuary of 1982, when a leadingConservative Party politician protestedto the French government its sale ofarms to Nicaragua, the CDSs of theManagua market districts marched onLa Prensa to protest and were met witha hail of bullets.

While the Sandinista mass organ­izations may "overstep limits" oc­casionally, open left-wing oppositionto the FSLN is quite another matter.Here the bonapartist regime reactssharply and immediately. Already in itsfirst weeks of existence. the Sandinistaregime suppressed the Simon BolivarBrigade, followers of pseudo-TrotskyistNahuel Moreno, and the pro-AlbaniaFrente Obrero (FO-Workers Front).The most revealing case of Sandinistarepression against the left came in thefall of 1981, when the governmentsimultaneously arrested three leaders ofthe COSEP businessmen's associationand two dozen leaders of the dissidentpro-Moscow Stalinist CommunistParty (PCN), on charges of "boycottingproduction" (i.e., leading strikes). Therewas an imperialist outcry on behalf ofthe COSEP tops, who could have beenreleased upon payment of a $66 fine butpreferred to stay injail as "human rights"martyrs. In contrast, more than 100members of the PCN were arrested andthree of their leaders were sentenced tothree-year jail terms for leading afactory occupation. The SpartacistLeague called for freeing all the leftistmilitants in the Sandinista jails.

While there is little "pluralism" forsocialist oppositionists in Nicaragua,even today the bourgeoisie continues itscounterrevolutionary activities. COSEP,

6 MAY 1983

Mike checks pIYlble/mln to: SperllClst PUblishing Co., Box 13n GPO, New York, NY 10116

society. It must be the vanguard instruggle for the liberation of women, forexample. The Sandinistas, in contrast,refuse the right of abortion explicitly inorder to conciliate the Catholic church,as part of its attempt to coexist with thecapitalists. Or on the question of theMiskito Indians: the FSLN is clearly notguilty of the massacres which Reaganand Kirkpatrick have accused it of, butthere have been abuses in the treatmentof the English-speaking Atlantic Coastregion where the FSLN victory was seenas a "Spanish revolution." Such abusesgrew out of the fact that the Sandinistasare nationalists not communists. Thusthe FSLN has not raised the obvioussolution of regional autonomy.

Workers Revolution from CentralAmerica to the U.S.

Above all a proletarian leadershipwould be internationalist. In the firstinstance this would mean providingeffective aid to Salvadoran leftists, sothey could achieve a military victoryagainst the V.S.-backed butchers. TheFSLN has an internationalist debt topay while it is paying offSomoza's loansfrom Wall Street. Several milliondollars of the Salvadoran guerrillas'$ I50 million war chest, accumulatedthrough bank "expropriations" andkidnappings during the late '70s, went tobuy arms for the Sandinistas. And in thefinal stages of the anti-Somoza strugglea Salvadoran "Farabundo Marti Bri­gade" fought on the northwestern front.Yet Borge and other Sandinista leadershave repeatedly denied providing armsto the guerrillas of the Farabundo MartiNational Liberation Front (FMLN) inEI Salvador, challenging Washington toprovide any evidence at all. (And withdaily V.S. spy plane flights over Nicara­gua, a spy ship in the Gulf of Fonseca,surveillance so intense that "we can heara toilet flush in Managua," you can besure that if there was any arms traffic theAmericans would have come up withsome proof by now.) Stalin's dogma of"socialism in one country" was acounterrevolutionary rejection of theLeninist program of world socialistrevolution. but the idea of socialism inone banana republic is patently absurd.

The key to workers revolution in theCentral American isthmus lies not inany of the five tiny countries thatcomprise it, which are primarily agricul­tural, but in Mexico with its many­millioned proletariat. The land of theAztecs is where the heavy battalions ofthe working class are to be found. Notjust in light industry (textiles, electronicassembly) but in strategic sectors such aspetroleum, auto, steel. There have beenperiodic "solidarity" demonstrations inMexico for EI Salvador and Nicaragua,but there is a great deal more that theworkers movement there can do: mili­tary aid to the Salvadoran rebels,formation of international brigades,and above all socialist revolution athome. This is the spectre which theAmerican imperialists, Democrats andRepublicans, fear above all. And nowwith the combination of the oil crisis,the international financial crisis, ageneral economic and political crisis inMexico, talk of workers revolution inMexico is more than a Reaganite night­mare. Yet virtually the entire Mexicanleft, including ostensible Trotskyists,seeks not to bring down the "institution­al revolutionary" capitalist regime butto push it to the left. The governments ofLopez Portillo and De la Madrid are fora "political solution" in Central Ameri­ca out of bourgeois self-interest: theywish to take the heat off Mexico bydamping the fires of social revolution onits southern border. And Mexicanpseudo-socialists aid them in thiscounterrevolutionary enterprise.

Support for the foreign policy of theruling PRI is the Mexican equivalent ofthe popular front. In EI Salvador it isthe alliance of the FMLN with thephantom-like bourgeois liberal politi-

WV Photo

NYC, March 25: Spartaclst Leagueprotests at Honduran mission.

alliance of the workers parties withthe supposed "anti-Francoist bour­geoisie"-prevented the proletariatfrom undertaking socialist revolution."We must not frighten the democraticbourgeoisie," Stalin wrote to Spanishprime minister Largo Caballero. TheRepublic depended on the imperialist"non-intervention pact," as the Sandi­nistas and their supporters today looktoward empty Congressional resolu­tions or to the "Nonaligned" bloc in theUnited Nations.

"They shall not pass; the peopleunited will never be defeated"-theseare the lies of the reformists, who denythe lessons of October 1917, thatworkers revolution is the only way tosweep away the legacy offeudal reactionand break the chains of imperialism. IfLenin and Trotsky's Bolsheviks hadfollowed Stalin's program of the popu­lar front there would have been noOctober Revolution. The Russianworkers would have been told tosupport an alliance with Kerensky onthe grounds that it was necessary toforge the broadest unity with the "anti­tsarist bourgeoisie." The Bolsheviksfought for "all power to the Soviets."Today in Nicaragua, the Trotskyists callfor the expropriation of the bourgeoi­sie-the revolutionary measures nottaken by the Spanish Loyalists-for theformation of a soviet-style body, inde­pendent of control by the FSLNbureaucrats, based on the mass organi­zations (unions, defense committees,militias), as the framework for mobiliz­ing the working class against theirexploiters and establishing a workersand peasants government.

This requires the leadership of aTrotskyist party which fights not fornarrow Nicaraguan nationalism but forproletarian internationalism. Whichdefends the just struggles of the workersof FABRITEX and elsewhere againstthe domestic and imperialist bourgeoi­sies and the state capitalist sectors of theFSLN's "mixed economy." But theTrotskyists seek to raise the strugglebeyond the level of simple wage de­mands and transform it into a fight forworkers revolution. With the programof permanent revolution, the Trotsky­ists understand that even bourgeois­democratic tasks such as land to thepeasants (expropriation of the latifun­dists) cannot be secured short of thedictatorship of the proletariat. So weraise a series of transitional demandsleading in the direction of workersrevolution-such as workers controlagainst the sabotage of the capitalist"fifth column" and the pro-capitalistelements of the FSLN governing appa­ratus. And for armed workers militias:militiamen train with sticks instead ofrifles not because Nicaragua lacks guns,but because the FSLN took them awayfrom the masses during 1979-80 andlocked up leftist militia leaders.

A Leninist-Trotskyist party mustfight as a tribune of the people, onbehalf of the oppressed sectors of

Algeria as a French neo-colony, whileReagan is fighting a global war.

Sandinista Nicaragua could become"another Cuba," but will it? There areplenty of parallels. The Sandinista/bourgeois junta closely corresponds tothe formal Cuban government fromJanuary to June 1959, with ManuelV rrutia as president and Jose MiroCardona as prime minister. MiroCardona was later the president of theCIA-engineered "government-in-exile"which was supposed to be installed bythe Bay of Pigs invasion. Will Robeloplay a similar role today? The pro­imperialist wing of Castro's July 26Movement included air force chief DiazLanz and provincial army commanderHuber Matos. Eden Pastora is theNicaraguan Huber Matos, except thatPastora was the head of the Sandi­nista Peoples' Militias. And the Sandi­nista army today still has many Pas­tora sympathizers. As for the rest ofthe government bureaucracy, the headof the national bank left to join the"democratic" counterrevolutionaries, ashave two succeeding Nicaraguan am­bassadors to Washington.

Initially all the actors in theNicaraguan drama wanted to avoidanother "Cuba-model state." JimmyCarter tried to tie the Sandinista regimedown with imperialist aid. The Sandi­nistas pledged to defend private prop­erty, blocked land invasions, etc. EvenCastro himself joined the effort. WhenFSLN leaders came to Cuba shortlyafter their victory in 1979, Castroproclaimed at the annual July 26thcelebration, "To those who have saidthat Nicaragua will become a new Cuba,we respond to them ... that Nicaraguawill become a new Nicaragua." WhenCastro later visited Nicaragua his advicewas summarized as "Avoid the earlymistakes we made in Cuba, the politicalrejection by the West, premature frontalattacks on the bourgeoisie, economicisolation." And the FSLN has followedhis advice. But with what reward?Reagan could care less, and the Robe­los, La Prensa, COSEP, the entiredomestic capitalist class appears to belined up against the regime. Only a fewisolated bourgeois figureheads are stillallied with the Sandinistas, such as Cruzand a couple of priests like foreignminister D'Escoto. The FSLN could beforced to carry out a social revolutionsimply for reasons Of self~preservation.

But the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie is stillintact: it did not immediately flee astheir Cuban counterparts did in 1959­60. The question in Nicaragua today iswhether the Sandinistas will react toReagan's Bay of Pigs II as Castroites oras Spanish Loyalists. During the Span­ish Civil War of the 1930s, the workersvaliantly defended the Republic, arms inhand. (There was no talk of a "peacefulroad" as there was in Allende's Chile.)The Stalinists' slogan in defendingMadrid was" No pasarim-They shallnot pass," which is also one of theSandinistas' main slogans today. Butthe Francoists did pass. The reason wasthat the Loyalist popular front-the

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slanders, claims that the workers are"privileged," references to backward"economist" consciousness, and claimsthat Sandinista Nicaragua has brokenout of the imperialist orbit and thus anystrike is really an attack on "the people."They argue that while 75 percent ofindustry is still in private hands, theconfiscation of Somoza's properties andnationalization of the banks has giventhe government controL turning thecapitalist owners into little more thanadministrators. This is a dangerousillusion. The capitalist "fifth column" isa powerful aid to the contras inside thecountry, enabling the imperialists tocreate economic chaos in the cities thatcould seriously undermine the wareffort against the invaders in the borderregions. And that appears to be what ishappening, as scenes reminiscent ofAllende's Chile multiply. Numerousbasic goods are now rationed andseldom available, sometimes not evenfor exorbitant prices in Managua'sEastern Market. Cases of hoarding byshopowners are discovered daily, andthe government has uncovered a plot tomanipulate gasoline supplies. TheSandinistas are facing an economic warwhich they cannot win so long as theeconomy remains in capitalist hands.

Cuban Castroites orSpanish Loyalists?

Reagan vows to stop the creation offurther "Cuba-model states" in theCaribbean region. Yet, as the Demo­crats complain, he seems to be doingeverything possible to push the Sandi­nistas down the Cuban road, because heintends to smash the FSLN regime inthe course of obliterating leftist insur­gencies throughout Central America.Nicaragua could, as we have said fromthe moment the Sandinistas toppled theSomoza family-state, become "anotherCuba." The FSLN is officially formaintaining its present "mixed" capital­ist economy, but there is not today acapitalist state in Nicaragua in theMarxist sense of armed bodies of menwedded irrevocably to the defense ofprivate ownership of the means ofproduction. With their backs to thewall, under imperialist pressure andfacing a weak domestic bourgeoisie, theSandinistas could expropriate the capi­talists and institute a bureaucraticallydeformed workers state. Even then theworking class would be deprived ofpolitical power, which would remain inthe hands of the Sandinista coman­dantes and their rule by decree. But thiswould be an exceptional development.The usual outcome of petty-bourgeoisguerrillas in power is the consolidationof a new capitalist state, as occurred inAlgeria after independence, for in­stance. That requires acceptance by themetropolitan power, however. DeGaulle was willing to have a nationalist

DefendNicaragua...(continued from page 7)

.8 WORKERS VANGUARD

WV Photo

New York, April 30: Vietnamese "gusanos" storm meeting commemoratingliberation of Saigon. Send back Vietnamese war crlmlnalsl

cians of the Democratic RevolutionaryFront (FOR) and their call for a"negotiated solution" to end the civilwar. In Nicaragua it is the Sandinistas'desperate attempt to preserve "nationalunity" with the bourgeoisie. And in theU.S. it is support for Democratic Party"doves" who agree with Reagan strate­gically but feel his tactics arecounterproductive-"picking a loser,"as Democrat Dodd said in response toReagan. Communists seek to inflict justsuch a defeat on American imperialism,the scourge of the Latin Americanmasses whether under Republicanreactionaries like Reagan or Democrat­ic hypocrites like Carter with his"human rights" fa<;ade (FOR's "goodneighbor" policy, JFK's "Alliance forProgress," etc.).

The Trotskyists seek to mobilize theNorth American proletariat in sharpclass struggle against its "own"bourgeoisie. The Spartacist League hastaken the lead in fighting for a laborboycott of military goods to El Salvadorand other Central American rightistbutchers. Recently we have supportedcalls by class-conscious militants in theWest Coast dock workers union for aone-day port strike against Reagan'sCentral American war. And we raisesuch demands as part of our struggle forworkers revolution against the mainenemy at home: for sitdowns againstmass layoffs, for labor/black mobiliza­tions against racist terror, for class warnot race war.

The Nicaraguan revolution must notstand alone! In the days of TeddyRoosevelt, the Yankee imperialists sawCentral America as their "back yard."Today the Reaganites refer to theCaribbean basin as the U.S.' "fourthborder." The Monroe Doctrine isproclaimed an eternal principle; theWestern hemisphere is to be cleansed ofCommunism in the name of "nationalsecurity." Three times already Nicara­gua has been occupied by Americanforces-by freebooters in 1855-57, bythe Marines in 1912-26 and 1927-33­and now it is facing a fourth invasion.We say, crush the contras! Defense ofthe democratic conquests of the over­throw of the Somoza dictatorshipurgently requires the expropriation ofthe bourgeoisie, junior partners with theimperialists in the exploitation of theCentral American masses, who grew fatoff four decades of Somoza rule. Itmeans smashing all the contras, not justthe Somozaists but also the Pastorasand Robelos, who gained fame in theanti-Somoza struggle because of theFSLN's alliance with the oppositionbourgeoisie, and who are today beingused by the CIA in the cause of capitalistcounterrevolution. Following the pathof October and of Lenin's Comintern,we fight for workers revolutionthroughout the region and a SocialistUnited States of Latin America, led byTrotskyist parties built in the struggle toreforge the Fourth International, worldparty of socialist revolution.•

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Vietnam...(continued/rom page 3)again American imperialism finds Chi­na, with her ambitions for regionalhegemonism in Indochina, a readyinstrument to harass Vietnam. It was theVietnamese intervention into Cambodiawhich prompted China's 1979 attemptto "teach Vietnam a bloody lesson,"with the avid connivance of U.S.imperialism. Then, the attempt toinvade Vietnam with Chinese troopswas smashed by the Vietnamese army,perhaps the best fighting force man-for­man in the world. On that occasion, wewrote:

"We call on the workers and peasants ofthe Chinese deformed workers state todemand an end to the obscene, sinisteranti-Soviet Peking-Washington alli­ance now aimed at bloodying theworking people of Vietnam."

-"China Get Out!" WVNo. 226,2 March 1979

Now again, the Chinese heirs to "social­ism in one country," maneuvering forimperialist favor at the expense of otherpeoples' revolutions, endanger the gainsof the Vietnamese Revolution (and ofthe Chinese Revolution itself) by collud­ing with the U.S. in an aggressive anti­Soviet military crusade which ultimate­ly poses the nuclear extinction ofhumanity. China: Don't Be Cat's Paw ofu.s. Imperialism!

China's 1979 military adventureagainst Vietnam was convincinglycrushed. But Vietnam is a small country;the population of China is about 20times that of Vietnam. And even if theU.S./China alliance pulls back fromanother full-scale invasion now, theU.S.-orchestrated stepped-up militarypressure against Vietnam via the Thais,the Chinese and the Pol Pot/CIAterrorists is forcing the Vietnamese toexpend massive military resources. U.S.imperialism wants to starve the Vietnam­ese people and prevent the govern­ment from rebuilding the economyravaged by four decades of war. At apress conference in New York on April27, Vietnamese officials announced theywill withdraw the equivalent of threearmy divisions from Cambodia by theend of May. Citing the recent militarysuccesses, the Vietnamese say Cambodi­an troops will be able to take greatermilitary responsibility in safeguardingthe country from the sinister forces ofPol Pot, Son Sann and Sihanouk. Theyinvited foreign journalists in to witnessthe troop withdrawals.

Indeed, the many-sided attacks onVietnam are mainly beingjustified in thename of "self-determination" for Cam-

AustralianSpartacists...(continued from page 3)

common struggle against Soviet andVietnamese "hegemonism" demonstra­tors outside chanted "Vietnam was aVictory! 2,3, Many Defeats for Im­perialism!" "Son S-ijnn/Sihanouk/ PolPot-Wipe Them Oilt!" and "1,2,3,4,Hawke is fighting Reagan's war! 5,6,7,8,Defend the Vietnamese workers state!"and carried placards reading "China:Stop Being a Cat's Paw for U.S.Imperialism!" "Unconditional MilitaryDefence of Vietnam/USSR AgainstImperialist Attack!" "Stalinism Under­mines the Workers States" and "ForWorkers Political Revolution fromPeking to Moscow to Hanoi!"

Revolutionary opposition to theimperialist war drive means standingagainst one's "own" ruling class. InAustralia the touchstone is the U.S.bases like Pine Gap near Alice Springs,which the anti-Soviet "peace" move­ment, obedient to the ALP's loyalty toANZUS, dare not oppose. SL placardsat the demonstration demanded, "U.S.Bases Out of Australia and the Indian

bodia. What hypocrisy from the peoplewho invent lying stories of Communist"yellow rain" to cover their own decadesof real, wholesale chemical devastationof Southeast Asia. In fact, Pol Pot'sKampuchea by comparison made Sta­lin's Gulag look like a country club. Andthe first people to be wiped out by PolPot's Khmer Rouge mass murdererswere the Cambodian Communistsassociated with the the Vietnamese. TheKhmer Rouge themselves were a bunchof college boys who sat out the waragainst French colonialism studying inParis, then returned to take over theCambodian party by murder andWhipping up Khmer chauvinism. In theyears immediately following the Viet­nam War, imperialist propagandistsseized on Kampuchea as the ultimatehorrible example of "Communist totali­tarianism." Henry Kissinger and the likepointed to the Khmer Rouge's unbe­lievable atrocities to claim retrospec­tively that the U.S. war against Indochi­na was a "human rights" crusade. Butthat didn't stop the imperialist outcrywhen the Vietnamese occupied Cambo­dia. The U.S. war criminals embracedthe deposed mass killer Pol Pot as afellow member of the "free world." "Tothose who lived through the years of hisrule, Pol Pot has become the personifi­cation of every evil," reported a LosAngeles Times journalist after a recentvisit to Cambodia. But Pol Pot retainshis UN seat thanks to his patrons inWashington.

Shortly after the Vietnamese inter­vention we wrote: "Given a choice,would the Cambodians rather havenational independence or schools,marriage of their own choice, food,

Ocean!" and "Defence of Vietnam/USSR Begins in Alice Springs, DiegoGarcia and Trincomalee!"

This Cold War Hawke Laborgovernment is the enemy of workers andminorities at home and the enemy of theAsian masses abroad. The Australianimperialists and their U.S. patronssuffered a humiliating defeat on thebattlefields of Indochina and long toreverse what the Vietnamese workersand peasants won at the cost of decadesof struggle and over a million lives. Tothese threats the Trotskyists reply withthe call for revolutionary class struggleat home. As the SL speaker noted:

"Vietnam means something in thiscountry. The organised labour move­ment in Australia, especially the mari­time unions, have in the past used theirpower in militant solidarity with theVietnamese workers and peasants.Seamen blocked supply ships in 1968.Maritime unions blacked [boycotted]U.S. shipping in protest against theChristmas bombing in 1972. Wharfies[dock workers] struck against the war.In 1979 Sydney wharfies blackedChinese ships in a week-long protestagainst China's invasion of Vietnam.We say: Australian workers: don't letHawke get away with it! Not oneAustralian bullet or plane to theASEAN butchers! Nothing heading forthe Thai generals or Son Sann's

children, medicine and wages?" Well,the verdict is now in. Even some U.S.diplomats admit that the Vietnamesehave brought economic progress and anincalculably more humane social order.Former U.S. diplomat Emory Swank,who served as ambassador in PhnomPenh to the U.S. puppet regime of LonN01 in the early 1970s, stated in a recentinterview:

'The Vietnamese, who occupied atotally disorganised, almost destituteland, have provided assistance of allsorts. . . . Practically starting fromscratch, Cambodia has made an aston­ishing and remarkable recovery."

-Far Eastern Economic Review,17 March

The pro-imperialist campaign againstVietnam's presence in Cambodia is partof a bloodthirsty vendetta by the mostirreconcilable enemies of the Vietnam­ese Revolution. The Chinese aredemanding Cambodia-and ultimatelyVietnam-as the price for rapproche­ment with the Soviet Union. And we donot find reassuring the Kremlin's appar­ent willingness to dump any pretense ofinternationalism in pursuit of detentewith imperialist madmen, as signaled byAndropov's recent pronouncements onNicaragua (see article, page I). We onlywish the lie of Reagan/ Kirkpatrick weretrue, that the vast military and techno­logical resources of the Soviet collectiv­ized economy were put fully at thedisposal of the leftist insurgents inCentral America and the resolute,courageous Vietnamese. Truly the needfor proletarian political revolution inthe deformed workers states has neverbeen more urgent. Vietnam Was aVictory!- Two, Three, Many Defeats

for u.s. Imperialism!.

butchers should get out of Australianports! Chinese shipping should beblacked in protest!"

The bourgeois press blacked whatwas the first protest thus far against therecent U.S./China anti-Vietnam provo­cations. As for the Laborite left theytook a big dive, and no wonder. Theysupport Hawke and across the boardgreeted Labor's election as a greatvictory. The Spartacist League said "NoVote to Labor!" and told the Australianworking class the truth: that Hawke'sLabor government, no less than theFraser government, would be a ColdWar government of capitalist austerity.

As a Spartacist spokesman summedup:

"From Indochina to west Beirut to SanSalvador Reagan's drive to anti-Sovietholocaust is bloodying the toilingmasses. And the task of Marxists is totell the simple truth: only workersrevolution will prevent nuclear annihi­lation. Australia's future lies with theworking masses of Asia. The strugglefor an Australian workers republic mustgo hand in hand with the perspective ofsocial revolution throughout SoutheastAsia. Above all this means buildinginternationalist, Trotskyist parties inAustralia and across Asia, the strugglefor the rebirth of the Fourth Interna­tional, world party of socialist revolu­tion. For a workers Australia, part ofsocialist Asia!".

,9

Militants Demand TWU Actionto Smash Racist Mobs

"This Wasn't Justice I"~

Supreme Court License forRacist LAPD Choke Hold

It happened again, only a mile fromGravesend where NYC black transitworker Willie Turks was beaten to deathby a racist lynch mob last June! Shortlyafter midnight on Tuesday, May 3, agang of white racists viciously attackedthree black men-employees of theVeterans Administration Hospital­after they stopped off at the CropseyNewsstand in the Bath Beach section of

William Turks is dead. Gino Bova,the racist murderer who killed him, isalive and can walk the streets to killagain in five years. That's how cheap ablack man's life is. William Turks wasmurdered by a lynch mob just outside ofthe Coney Island shop. Those of us whoattended the trial witnessed this so­called justice system in action. We, notGino Bova, were put on trial. TheBrooklyn District Attorney-LizHoltzman-allowed a jury to be select­ed which excluded blacks. Gino Bova'slawyer made arguments that could havebeen made by a Klansman: "What wasWilliam Turks doing in that neighbor-

Paris Protest...(continued from page 2)

economy. These workers are key to theunited struggle for a workers andpeasants government in Sri Lanka.

And those who dream of "Eelam"must make no mistake: it will take astruggle for power, not least because theharbor of Trincomalee, situated in theEastern Province, is of strategic interestto U.S. imperialism. The international­ist character of the Tamil question ismade strikingly clear by the fact thatacross the Palk Straits-only 25 milesaway-live millions of Tamils in thesouth of the Indian subcontinent.Instead of a program for a small,indefensible, isolated "Eelam," theTamils could be the basis to forge therevolutionary link with southern India,to the social revolution of all SouthAsia.

In Lanka, where the term Trotskyismhas been sullied through decades ofbetrayal by centrists and reformistsfalsely claiming the Trotskyist mantle,the SL seeks to again bring honor to thename of Trotskyism. Forging a revolu­tionary party to fight in the interests ofthe stateless "Indian" Tamil plantationworkers, the viciously exploited womenof the "Free Trade Zone," the Sinhalaworkers, the peasant masses, the "Cey­lon" Tamils of the Northern and EasternProvinces and all the oppressed, the SLseeks to open the road to revolution inall of South Asia. Forward to a SouthAsian Soviet Federation!.

Phillips...(continued from page 5)

and-death issue for black people and itwill be a central concern of the Labor/

10

Brooklyn. The gang of seven racistyouths hurled bottles and bricks at theblack workers as they left the shop. Abottle struck Marion Manigault, 48,and split his head open. Now he's lyingin the Coney Island Hospital. The twoother workers, Charles Graves, 39, andSylvester Smith, 30, were cut by flyingpieces of glass and brick. Never was itmore urgent for a mass mobilization of

hood late at night?" This so-called trialwas a disgusting racist outrage!

The Democratic Party liberals ranthis trial! District Attorney Holtzman­an ex-big time Watergate liberal­proclaimed the verdict in the Gino Bovatrial as a victory: "The significance ofthis verdict cannot be underestimated. Itmeans a racially motivated homicidewill not be tolerated in Brooklyn." Whoare these arrogant people? What rightdo they have to spit on us by proclaim­ing that Gino Bova's sentencing was ablow against racism?

Those who call on us to rely on theseDemocratic Party politicians to stop the

Black League.WV: The Socialist Workers Party alsoran a candidate for councilmember atlarge. How would you contrast yourcampaign?Phillips: The SWP's Jan Gangel ran afairly typical social-democratic cam­paign. It was basically indistinguishablefrom that of Cassie Lopez, who ran as a"progressive" Democrat and was heavi­ly backed by the Communist Party, theDemocratic Socialists of America andthe local Dellums machine.

Both Gangel and I were interviewedby the League of Women Voters onChannel 2 television. Unless you alreadyknew Gangel was some kind of socialist.you sure couldn't tell it from what shesaid-she didn't once mention the wordsocialist, socialism or even capitalist!Where I called for workers revolution,

! she called for "putting people beforeprofits." When asked about housingproblems in Oakland, I said, "Expropri­ate the landlords." Gangel called for"affirmative action for small busi­nesses." Where I called for militaryvictory to the Salvadoran leftists andunconditional military defense of theSoviet Union against imperialism,Gangel called for "making Oakland anantiwar city."

The SWP was catering to the liberals,tailing the Cassie Lopez/Ron Dellumstypes. and this was reflected in the votes.The SWP got about 400 more votes thanwe did and these came overwhelminglyfrom the white, petty-bourgeois areas ofnorth Oakland near the Berkeley lineand the affluent Oakland hills. TheSpartacist campaign, however, beat theSWP's solidly in the heavily black andworking-class areas of West and EastOakland. We were very gratified bythat. Now our task is to organize thosepeople, into the Labor/Black Leagueand into the Spartacist League.•

the unions and black community to putan end to the lynch mob terror on thestreets of Brooklyn.

Gino Bova, the ringleader of the racistmob that murdered Willie Turks, got offeasy. The racists got the real message: it'sopen season on black people. How manymore? The race-terror that stalks thestreets of Brooklyn can be stopped, butonly by integrated working-class action.

lynch mobs have to take responsibilityfor this! The Gino Bova trial shows thatthe Democrats can't and won't deal outjustice to racist murderers.

Willie Turks was lynched and DennisDixon and Donald Cooper were beatenbloody on the streets of Gravesend. Wewant this union to mobilize a defensesquad! We want a defense guard offlatbed trucks filled with union militantson the streets of Gravesend now! Weraised this demand immediately afterbrother Turks' death. The mobilizing ofunion force-as we have said before-isthe only way this race-hating scum isgoing to be stopped! Those low-liferacist losers in Gravesend can't with­stand a mobilization ofTWU power onthe streets! We can force these rats backinto the sewers! We also need a militantpresence of TWU forces at the Mor­mondo trial which will start on May17th. He's the scum that started the

The next time one of L.A.'s killercops puts the choke hold on hisvictim, he might want to thank theUnited States Supreme Court. OnApril 21 the "highest court in theland" gave the murderous choke holda green light, overturning a lowercourt injunction which according tothe New York Times (21 April) had"limited the Los Angeles police tousing choke holds only when neededto avoid serious injury ...."

The choke-hold injunction wasobtained by Adolph Lyons, a blackman who was nearly killed by the LosAngeles cops after they pulled himover for a routine traffic infraction.The treatment he received at thehands of the cops was also "routine."He was choked into unconscious­ness. Fortunately he survived, and hesued.

But the Supreme Court says thatLyons has no basis to stop the LAPDfrom choking him or anyone else,because he can't prove that they willdefinitely do it to him again. In a five­to-four decision, the court statedoutrageously: "Absent a sufficientlikelihood that he will again bewronged in a similar way, Lyons is nomore entitled to an injunction thanany other citizen of Los Angeles."But any citizen of Los Angeles shouldbe plenty worried about the choke­holding cops, particularly blackcitizens. Since 1975 L.A. cops havekilled 16 people with their chokehold, 12 of them black. Racist policechief Daryl Gates said that so many

We reprint below a leaflet by militants inthe Transport Workers Union (TWU)Local 100 who have been fighting foreffective union action to stop these racistatrocities. A show of force-integratedworkers defense guards patrolling thestreets in Brooklyn organized by theTWU, the hospital workers unions andthe black community-would stop theracists in their tracks.

lynch mob violence by being the first tospew his race-hating filth and leadingthe attack. We need to be in thecourtroom-not to beg the courts-butto demand that this filth be locked upand the jail keys thrown into the HarlemRiver!Put the Racist Murderers from Graves­end into the General Prison Popula­tion at Attica!No Reliance on the Cops, the Courtsand the Democratic Party Politicians toStop the Lynch Mobs!For an Immediate Mobilization ofTWU Forces to Smash the GravesendLynch Mobs!Come to the Mormondo Trial at theN.Y. State Supreme Court in Brooklyn!NOTE: Pay your back union dues!E. Kartsen (S/M), D. Brewer (MMC),K. Anwar (S/M), J. Smith (M/M)28 April 1983

blacks had died from the "superhold" because there is somethingwrong with black people: "[Their]veins and arteries do not open as fastas they do on normal [!] people" (LosAngeles Times, 8 May 1982).

With this ruling the high court alsosets an ominous precedent which canbe used against any of the state'svictims who try to prevent clearlyintended potential cop violence orofficial harassment. It proclaims thatthe cops can do whatever they want,and no one can use the courts to stopit. Even Thurgood Marshall, thetoken black on the Supreme Court,called the decision "unprecedentedand unwarranted" noting in hisdissent: "Since no one can show thathe will be choked in the future, noone-not even a person who, likeLyons, has almost been choked todeath-has standing to challenge thecontinuation of the policy."

This Supreme Court decision ispart of the Reagan campaign to gearup the state's machinery of violencefor the increased repression. race­terror and domestic witchhunting ofCold War II. As capitalism sinksdeeper into economic depression andsocial crisis, its hired guns maintainlawless "order" on the streets ofdesperately poor ghettos. The Su­preme Court says anything goes inthis war on blacks and poor andlabor. It stands with the mostmurderous tactics of this country'smost deadly police force.

WORKERS VANGUARD

Reagan Democrats Attack Social SecuriJy

Norfolk Shipyard Workers Demand:Save Our Pensions!PORTSMOUTH, Virginia-On April Imore than 3,000 angry federal workerspacked into the Woodrow Wilson HighSchool auditorium here to protest theSocial Security "reform" bill. Theworkers were especially furious about aprovision in the bill, since signed intolaw by Reagan, that will force all newlJ .5. government employees to becovered by Social Security instead of themuch superior Civil Service RetirementSystem. This law was overwhelminglysupported by Reaganite Republicanand liberal Democratic Congressmenalike. It means newly hired federalworker have on I\' the pitifulpaymentsprovided under Social Security to lookforward to when they retire. But that'snot all. The rest of the federal workforcefaces old-age destitution as well: theirpension fund, deprived of the millions ofdollars the new-hires would have con­tributed, may well collapse.

When every seat in the largeauditorium was taken, the workers filledthe aisles and spilled out onto theentranceway steps. Most were produc­tion workers at the Norfolk 1\avalShipyard. These federal employees weresummoned by Ron Auit and other craftunion leaders of the Tidewater MetalTrades Council (MTC) to listen in mutesilence while a panel of notablesquestioned "our Congressmen andSenators" as to why they were flushinghard-earned pensions down the toilet.The panel was composed primarily ofbosses-federal supervisors, mana­gers and a Chamber of Commercespokesman-but Ault himself partici­pated in order to lend the event a spir­it of labor-management-governmentcooperation.

The crowd was in no mood for alibis.Over and over, tumultuous jeeringdrowned out the capitalist politicians asthe workers turned the session into ashow of mass indignation. At one pointphony "friend of labor" DemocratNorman Sisisky was silenced by cries of

"bullshit!" Ault came to the defense ofSisisky and his Republican Congres­sional colleague William Whitehurst(no senators saw fit to appear) byinsulting the enraged workers: "pleaseact like good federal employees and notlike rabble." The workers began filingout, disgusted that the MTC bureau­crats had brought them there, as oneworker told W V, only "to listen to abuneh of lies."

These workers have every reason tobe outraged. Federal employees havebeen under attack from the WhiteHouse for years. going back to Demo­crat .Jimmv Carter. It was the Carteradministration that drew up the plansfor breaking an air controllers strike.plans Reagan implemented when hesmashed PATCO in 1980. Then camethe benefit cuts, wage freezes, liedetector tests, etc. The threat of workbeing contracted out in particular hangsover the heads of the Shipyard workers.The first jobs slated to be contracted outare those of the fire fighters, whopresently get specialized training tohandle nuclear fires, chlorine leaks andother life-and-death situations. At themeeting workers told WVabout rumorsthat crane repair, elevator service andcalibration jobs are also immediatelythreatened.

1\ow, as Reagan considers upping thefederal retirement age, the Civil Servicepension plan, long considered one of themost attractive benefits of federalemployment, is about to topple. Mostfederal retirees have in the past beenable to go on pension before the age of60, at about 56 percent of their workingincome. Their future has been smashed,not simply by "Reaganomics" but by thecombined efforts of the Republicans,the liberal Democrats and even theAFL-CIO bureaucracy. Top labor trai­tor Lane Kirkland, who sat on theReagan-appointed commission thatdrew up the "rescue" scheme, didn't lethis mealy-mouthed objections to thefederal pension swindle stand in the way

of endorsing the overall plan.Far from "rescuing" the security of

any portion of the aged population, theSocial Security act is an attack on allworking people. By increasing SocialSecurity taxes. deferring crucial cost-of­living adjustments, instituting a tax onSocial Security benefits, etc., the planwill raise 169 billion dollars. most of itsqueezed out of the working people ofthis country. While the bosses'politicians-the Democrats andRepublicans-and their AFL-CIObootlickers work to save mega-bucksfor the government. the working peoplemust demand the socialization ofmedicine and the merging of SocialSecurity. unemployment insurance,SUB funds and welfare into the generalfederal budget, with guaranteed pay­ments cq ualized at the highest level andcovered by full cost-of-living protection.However. even this minimal thoughgenuine reform can only be wonthrough class struggle. since it runshead-on into the bipartisan program ofpumping /rillioflS into the Pentagon tofinance a war drive against the USSR.

When asked how he planned to turnback these attacks. MTC head Ault toldWV, "We have subscribed to theCongressional Regis/er" to help buildmore intensive lobbying! Far fromwinning "friends" in Congress or any­where else, this strategy of relying on thebosses' Democrats has contributed tolabor's status in the South as a persecut­ed minority. It has meant bowing downbefore Virginia's "right to work" laws aswell as the federal government's ban onthe right to strike. This no-fight pro­gram has left the Norfolk NavalShipyard-a potential bastion of laborand black power-only 48 percentorganized, divided into 17 different craftunions. Blacks in the shipyard face on­the-job discrimination, like gettingassigned to the most dangerous andunhealthy work (requiring, for example,exposure to radiation) while beingdenied promotions. Meanwhile the

forces of segregation are on the marchacross the Elizabeth River in the city ofNorfolk. where the school board isdismantling a decade-old busing plan.And at the 1\ewport 1\ews Shipyard tothe north. a heavily black workforce isthreatened by a union-busting drivedirrcted at the United Steelworkers ofAmerica (USWA). the largest industrialunion in the Tidewater area.

The "open shop" South cannot beorganized by the tactics of businessunionists accustomed to collaborationwith the companies and the capitalistgovernment. As the bitter struggle byUSW A Local 8888 in Newport Newsdemonstrates, it will be an explosivestruggle fully comparable to the organi­zation of the cia. centered in theindustrial Midwest, in the 1930s. Thismeans a campaign to organize theunorganized, with mass picketing indefiance of ~tate "right-to-work" laws.throughout the region. It must be anationwide campaign, mobilizing thefull strength of the American labormovement and confronting the Taft­Hartley ban on labor boycotts of scabproducts. It requires breaking with theracist Democratic Party and building arevolutionary workers party. dedicatedto bringing down the murderous profitsystem with a workers government. Andthat means forging a leadership andprogram that will make organized labora bulwark of decency defending all thevictims of capitalist oppression.

The unionization of the South willmean massive battles against all aspectsof .Jim Crow. far sharper than theliberal-led civil rights movement of thelate 1950s and early '60s. The oppressionof blacks is the single greatest obstacleto a powerful and independent workersmovement in this country. nowheremore so than in the South. It will requiremobilizing the unions to defend busing,and organizing labor/black defenseagainst racist terror. Last 1\ovember 27the Spartacist League initiated andorganized such a Labor/Black Mobili­zation which stopped the KKK frommarching in Washington, D.C. Fivethousand protesters-blacks, socialists,unionists, including a busload from theTidewater area-took over the streetschanting "Finish the Civil War­Forward to a workers state!" This mustbecome the rallying call for everymilitant union and black activist.Unionization of the South will be adecisive step toward black liberation,toward finishing the Civil War, finallyestablishing genuine racial equality andsocial justice.•

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workers party that will defend theinterests of the working class and not ofthe Reagans and the Democrats."

That evening a showing of thevideotape of the November 27 victoryover the Ku Klux Klan in Washington,D.C., sponsored by the Labor/BlackLeague for Social Defense, was an­nounced at the rally and drew 30 people;of those who attended, four joined theLabor / Black League. If you want to puta stop to racist attacks and cop atrocitiesand help lead the struggle for a socialistfuture. join the Labor/ Black LeagueforSocial Defense! .Join the SpartacistLeague! •

A SpartaClst PamphJet 2S(

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

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spoke at the rally, explaining the way tovictory:

"The Spartacist League says: Jail thekiller cops of Willie Lee Drumgooleand Johnny Roman and MichaelGuillorv and the others' Disarm thecops' N'o to gun control! Vengeance forPatrick Mason-the five-vear-old blackkid who was killed in Los Angeles! Wehave to organize the labor movement.The Labor/Black League for SocialDefense is an organization that wasinitiated by the Spartacist I.eague tofight against the rise of the Klan. We callfor mass mobilizations of the labormovement to stop fascist terror in thiscountry. You can't fight Reagan withDemocrats. So what we need to do is tobuild a workers party in this country-a

and the Communist Party. Whileorganizing a protest meeting in Watts atthe time of Patrick Mason's murder, theCP has pushed its reformist "communi­ty control" of police scheme and did noteven sail for jailing killer cop Sperl.

The SL spokesman at the rallyconcluded: "We desperately need amultiracial workers party that will fightfor a workers government and create asocialized planned economy that canend once and for all the material roots ofracism and economic exploitation.Justice for Patrick Mason, Ron Settles,Eulia Love and the endless list of victimsof racist murder means the workingclass must take power. Black liberationmeans socialist revolution.".

(continued/rom page 12)

population and black community.Unlike one of the other rally speakers. asupporter of the Communist LaborParty (CLP) who played up the electionof black Democratic hack HaroldWashington as the answer. we knowthat so long as the capitalists holdpower, they'll maintain their brutal.racist police system. Ritchie Bradley ofthe SL and the Labor/Black League

Killer COpS ...

(continued from page 12)in the rise of fascist groups from theKKK to the Nazis. Signs at the demon­stration included, "Stop Deportationsto EI Salvador" and "Labor/BlackDefense Against Racist Terror."

The Spartacist-initiated rally wasimportant for its orientation to winningthe labor movement to the fight againstcop terror which breeds precisely in suchlow-wage, open-shop, anti-union areas.The rally was endorsed by officials fromthe Teamsters, oil workers, letter carri­ers unions and phone workers stewards.Also endorsing was Geronimo Pratt,former leader of the Los Angeles BlackPanther Party. (Pratt was framed up formurder under Nixon's COINTEL pro­gram and is still jailed in San Quentinprison with his request for a new trialdenied.)

Significantly, several black militantspreviously affiliated with other organi­zations contacted the SL to help thisurgently needed protest against racistcop brutality. Refusing invitations toparticipate and speak at the rally werethe Socialist Workers Party, the More­noite Internationalist Workers Party

PatrickMason...

6 MAY 1983 11

WfJltNEItS "NII/Illtl)

Racist Killer Cop- Walks

L.A. ProtestDemands:"Vengeance forPatrick Mason!"

JAILKILLER

COPSPERL

WV PhotoLos Angeles, April 26: Spartaclst League protests the racist killing of PatrickMason.

LOS ANGELES, April 26-Fifty dem­onstrators marched today in downtownL.A. to protest the obscene decision ofan all-white Orange County grand juryto let off scot-free the racist killer copwho murdered five-year-old black childPatrick Mason in his own home. On thespirited march from the Federal Build­ing to Governor George Deukmejian'soffice in the State Building, demonstra­tors demanded, "Vengeance for PatrickMason!" "Jail killer cop Sperl!" and"Protest grand jury whitewash of child­killing cop!" Signs called "For LaborjBlack Mobilization Against RacistTerror" and "Stop Reagan Racism­Build a Workers Party!" while demon­strators chanted, "I, 2, 3, 4, Time tofinish the Civil War-5. 6, 7, 8,Forward to a workers state!" At theState Building there were speakers fromthe Spartacist LeaguejSpartacus YouthLeague (SLjSYL), the Militant Action

Caucus (MAC) of CommunicationsWorkers of America Local 11502 andthe Feminist Women's Health Center.Local KABC-TV covered the rally on theevening news.

On April21 the grand jury announcedno indictments would be handed downin their so-called "even-handed" probeof both Stanton killer cop AnthonySperl and Patrick's grieving motherPatricia Ridge. "The city of Stanton isvery pleased with the results of the grandjury investigation," said Stanton PoliceChief Ronald Johnson (Long BeachPress Telegram, 22 April). You bet theyare! Black kindergartener Patrick Ma­son was home watching TV when racistterrorist-in-blue Sperl broke into theapartment. kicked in the bedroom doorand blew the little boy away from three­foot ra nge! To get the cops off the hook,the Orange County D.A. moved on theblack mother who had been away at

work at the time, incredibly threateningto send her up on charges ranging fromchild neglect to a second-degree murderrap. As expected, the racists with statepower left killer cop Sperl free to killagain. There is no "justice" for blacks inracist, capitalist America, particularlyhere in the heart of Reagan Country.

This vile crime demanded a massoutpouring of labor and minorities tosmash racist violence. As MAC speakerManuel Delgadillo said at today's rally:

"Everv decent unionist in this citvshould be here today protesting thebrutal killing of Patrick Mason and thefact that his murderer. the cop. was setfree. When news of this shooting cameout. the immediate reaction of e\ervunion president in the area should havebeen to have their members drop theirtools and stop work."

The Feminist Women's Health Centerspeaker Toni Alamea said in outrage:"Last week the courts 'graciously'

decreed that they would not bringcharges against his mother, PatriciaRidge. Was the death of her childdeemed sufficient punishment for her'crime' of being black, poor and awoman? Anthony Sperl, the policemanwho killed Patrick was suspended withpay, which is in essence a paidvacation."

From police terror in the Watts blackghetto to the raids on the undocumentedMexican workers, Los Angeles-areacops run roughshod over thermnorifypopulations, choke-holding, terroriz­ing, gunning down in cold blood. BlackDemocratic ex-cop L.A. mayor TomBradley presides over the daily murderof blacks in collaboration with LAPDchief Daryl "Choke Hold" Gates. TheS L pointed out that the upsurge of racistterror is the domestic reflection of theanti-Soviet war drive, particularly seen

conrinued on page JJ

have a daughter who day and nightlooks for her father. The day he gotkilled-was arrested-he was sup­posed to have been picking the chil­dren up for the weekend .... Me andWillie knew Johnnv Roman realgood. He was raised up in Parchester[an all-black Richmond neighbor­hood] where 1 lived and MichaelGuillory did too. When Johnny gotkilled me and Willie sat up and talkedand he said, 'Linda, 1 never knew thiswould happen.' Then he said, 'I hopenothing like this ever happens to me.'But it did. And my daughter, one day 1was cooking and she was outsideplaying with her friends. She brokeinto the house-the police had comenext door-and she started holleringand screaming and crying. saying'Mama. they're gonna shoot younext" Night before last she got up. Shewas looking for her father. I've got totell her every day. She goes to schooland she just lays her head on her deskand cries.... (just see all these peoplethat 1knew, went to school with-likeJohnnv Roman. Thev used to comeplay in the yard. And then (look backand it's everybody that 1 know."

Calvin King, chairman of PeopleFor Justice, said he knew of at least'two candidates for Richmond CityCouncil running on a program ofvindication for the killer cops accusedin the federal case. In this economical­ly depressed, half-black industrial city,the capitalist bosses and their politi­cians need their murderous thugs toterrorize the increasingly unemployed

continued on page 11

WV PhotoRichmond, California, April 23: Labor/Black League contingent demands"Jail the killers of Willie Lee Drumgoolel"

choked to death in the city jail, and his daughter, Sabrina, spoke at the rally:killers went scot-free. Linda Simon, "I can understand what's happening tothe mother of Drumgoole's oldest that mother in Los Angeles, because 1

Stop' the Racist Ramp~g~

Jail Richmond Killer Cops!,p(.{Aaa_.WJL.__~ ~RICHMOND, California-On April

23 over 100 demonstrators rallied andpicketed next to the Richmond policestation, protesting the systematicmurder and continuing brutal attackson blacks carried out by the racistcops. The Spartacist League and thenewly-formed Labor j Black Leaguefor Social Defense, which carried abanner demanding "Jail the KillerCops!" brought almost 40 people tothe protest, initiated by People ForJustice.

In Richmond, cop terror againstblacks is still escalating-there've beensix police murders of blacks since 1980alone, including the shooting ofparolee Donald Kizart in his ownbedroom in January. A federal lawsuitbegun last fall against the city cops forgunning down Johnny Roman andMichael Guillory, two black men shotin their own homes in 1980 and 1982,respectively, is still dragging on. LastNovember, Willie Lee Drumgoole was

12 6 MAY 1983