WfJRNERS ,,1NfJIJI1R' 25¢No. 198 f'_~~ •

.. ..."....,; X-!)13 24 March 1978

Dump Miller!Elect on Emergency UMWA Convention!

e

For Strike Action toDefend the Miners...&

The mine workers urgently need amilitant new leadership to really wintheir strike! An emergency conventionmust be called now to dump Miller andhis negotiating team, to elect a newBargaining Council and to coordinatethe miners' efforts to keep scab produc­tion shut down. It is not necessary to takea poll of the UMWA membership toknow what they think of Miller. :l is notnecessary to guess at what the keydemands of this strike are. What is

leadership with a program to take thisfight forward to victory.

Miners' Vote no and get rid of thetraitors in your union headquarters. Callmass district-wide and sub-district meet­ings to elect delegates committed to takewhatever action is necessary to secure theminers' fighting demands. Coordinatethem in district strike committees andthrough a national convention, todemocratically select a militant leader­ship of the strike.

This is the only way to combat thebitter resignation that is spreading in thecoalfields. Many district officials, eventhose who voted against the contractwhen it came before the UMWA Bar­gaining Council, have predicted ratifica­tion. Local officials who denounced thelast agreement are reluctantly support­ing the new one. And union memberswho burned the previous contract almostimmediately and then voted it down by a70-to-30 margin are trying to figure out ifthey can possibly live under the newagreement.

These sentiments must be franklyconfronted. A good section of theunion's International Executive Boardand Bargaining Council, composed ofIEB representatives and district presi­dents, is willing simply to throw in thetowel, settle for the miserable terms andthen try to oust Miller and advance theirown fortunes in the union hierarchy. Ameeting held in Ohio last weekend drewrepresentatives of seven UMWA dis­tricts to plan a special convention a.!terthe miners are hack to work. One of theparticipants. Don Nunley of Ohio's

con! inucd on page 9

wv Photo

Miners from District 5 protesting Miller's latest contract proposal outsideUMWA headquarters in Washington last week carry banner proclaiming, "WeWon't Go Back to the Pits for Peanuts'"

a ,:'lC~" .... ~~l~.(·;(cCt'~):':'2':J :.~ LJ

MARCH 21-Tens of thousands ofangry, frustrated miners, disgusted withtheir leadership, are preparing to voteonce again this Friday on the latest rottencontract being offered them. Rarely hasthe fine print of a contract been scruti­nized with more care. After meetings onSunday and Monday briefed local

·officials and rank-and-file members onthe contract. the consensus in thecoalfields is clear: the neVi pact is a sellouton every crucial issue the miners went out\::-;: ~:~ :~.. ~ fc,l;- o\"er roo .jay~ 3.g~:'!. Theyhave won :1either the right to strik':. fullrestoration and control of their healthbenefits. nor equalization of pensions.The terms the miners face are. in almostevery respect. a historic step backwardseven from the wretched agreementnarrowly ratified in 1974.

Miners must vote no on this cruelhoax! Yau have spared no sacrifice oreffort in fighting the coal bosses to astandstill. You have defied Jimmy Carterand his strikebreaking Taft-Hartleyinjunction and won the respect andadmiration of millions of trade unionistsby your courage and determination. Youhave repudiated your leadership's at­tempts to sell you down the river one timeafter another. You can win this strike!Vote no and stick to your demands!

Miners know that the contract theywill be voting on is a defeat for the union.The only real debate in the union now isnot over the pros and cons of theagreement but is centered on whether theminers can do better while saddled withtheir current leaders. For over threemonths the miners have solidly repelledevery attack by scabs, state troopers, thecourts and Jimmy Carter. But at everyturn they have been confronted withArnold Miller. his hand-picked flunkiesand so-called "dissident" BargainingCouncil members no more willing tostand up to the federal government andthe coal operators than Miller. It is clearthat the miners, despite their unmatchedmilitancy and ironclad solidarity. willnn t fight on indefinite]:. if thev becomecpn\ mced that all they will see 3re thesame' lousy contract proposals presentedo\er and (her again.

Blue Collar is the first film in along time totake the Americanworking class as its subject.

Certainly it is the first to make theDetroit auto plants the background andshaping force in the lives of its heroes.And it is surely the first film to treat theexplosive material of racial antagonismsin this context.

Small wonder then that its release hascaused something of a stir in left andliberal circles. The Village Voice, forinstance, devoted its entire February 27film section to the movie with criticTerry Curtis Fox calling it "the singlemost overtly political movie made for amajor Hollywood studio in a decade."And while there have been mixedreviews in the left press, the primitiveworkerists of the International Social­ists (IS) considered Blue Collar of suchtremendous political import that theFebruary 27 Workers' Power ran afront-page rave review under the head­line, "A Great Film." But despite this

rotten union bureaucracy, the profit­greedy company and the treadmill ofnever making ends meet.

Blue Collar suggests the interpenetra­tion of the Detroit auto plants and thecity's ghetto street life. It looks directlyat the apolitical, escapist, anti-unioncynicism of many workers. But if autoworkers see themselves in Blue Collar itis a reflection distorted through thecracked ideological mirror of PaulSchrader who has a use for his twisted"truths." Blue Collar is from beginningto end an ideological tract; Schrader'sforemost concern iS'not portraying theconditions and attitudes of auto work­ers but reinforcing and exploiting themas a vehicle for the propagation of hispolitics of despair. And to this end henecessarily centers his fire on the tradeunions-after all, who would nowexpect the company and government tobe on the workers' side? But as theworkers' instruments ofcollective strug­gle, the unions could offer hope for

still he can't make enough to pay for hisdaughter's braces.

Schrader's real hero, however, isSmokey, powerfully performed byKotto with a calm intensity and charm,a burning rage frozen as knowing"cool." Fiercely loyal to his friends, this"playboy" bachelor escapes through hiscocaine parties, fancy car, red-velvetfurniture and black-velvet paintings.Smokey spans the distance between theproletariat of the plants and the lumpen­proletariat of the streets. In the openingscenes it is strongly suggested that hiscriminal past includes murder.

Blue Collar presents the story of theinevitable corruption of the three, aresult of a conspiracy by the company,the government, but mostly the unionbureaucracy to set otherwise decentindividuals against each other and drivethem to personal betrayal. To conformto this schema Schrader creates a seriesof unbelievable conditions, the mostglaring of which is the unusual and .

liberal mood in post-WatergateAmerica..

Rare indeed in the movies, BlueCollar's footage of conditions in the autoplants is interesting, although prettylaid-back compared to the actual killingpace of production. These scenes impartthe complexity, mammoth size and noiseof the assembly line-it all looks veryindustrial--but aside from a crudelypounding (and very slow) musical score,the film gives no sense at all of the singlemost characteristically oppressive aspectof auto production: the maddeningrhythm of the production line.

This omission is deliberate and, givenSchrader's purposes, necessary. For hedoes not want to show the auto workers'misery originating in a system whichenslaves men to machines and destroystheir bodies and their minds in itsruthless drive for profit. His enemy is"Them"-the conspiratorial "powerelite." Instead of zeroing in on theexploitation rooted within capitalist

AReview of Blue Collar

•0100

by Pat Kincaidues

•o I-

Universal City Studios, Inc

Harvey Keitel, right, having turned Informer confronts Richard Pryor who hasturned union bureaucrat in the movie "Blue Collar."

Marxist Working-Class Weeklyof the Spartacist League of the U.S.

WORKERSVANGIJARD

Published weekly. except bi-weekly In Augustand December, by the Spartacist PublishingCo, 260 West Broadway. New York, NY 10013Telephone 966-6841 (EditOrial), 925-5665(Business). Address all correspondence to:Box 1377, GPO, New York. NY 10001Domestic subscriptions: $5.00 per year.Second-class postage paid at New York. NY

Opinions expressed in signed articles orletters do not necessarily express the editorialviewpoint.

raving and the claims of writer-directorPaul Schrader that Blue Collar issympathetic to the problems of the"ordinary worker," the film is contemp­tuous of the working class and hostile toits organization of economic defense­the trade union.

Hollywood has periodically madeanti-union films: the hero fighting toretain his personal integrity against thebig, soul-destroying, mob-run menacehas been off-and-on fare for cinematicbourgeois individualism for decades.What is unusual is that Blue Collarseems to have struck a responsive chordamong many auto workers, one onlypartly explained by the novelty of a filmwhich departs from Hollywood's near­exclusive preoccupation with the prob­lems of the petty bourgeoisie. In BlueCollar's treatment of the experiences ofthe working class, auto workers seereflected a portion of their lives, theiranger and their frustration. In the film'scharacters and situations~sometimes

desperate, sometimes ludicrously ab­surd-they recognize something of theirown biller feelings as they face the

production itself, Schrader substitutesevil men in the form of a carping top­sergeant foreman.

And while the pent-up rage ofassembly-line workers often explodesinto violent outbursts, not infrequentlymurder, in Blue Collar this finds itsexpression as comic relief! In a comedysequence one worker, frustrated with adysfunctional Coke machine, drives uphis forklift and smashes it. In fact, aworker at the Fremont, CaliforniaGeneral Motors plant was recently firedin a strikingly similar incident (the unionwon his job back), An even moredramatic case of this sort was theshooting of a foreman by James Johnsonin the summer of 1970 at Detroit'sChrysler Eldon Avenue plant. Johnson'slawyer took his jury (which containedmany auto workers and wives of autoworkers) to see for themselves theinhuman situation at Chrysler. The juryacquitted Johnson, finding that theconditions drove him temporarily in­sane. But in Schrader's Blue Collar thissocial phenomenon is treated as irration­al aggression in "freak out scenes."

Interestingly, one of the movie's bettermoments is the scene where Zeke isdragged into Labor Relations aftertalking back to his race-baiting foreman.Although this also ends implausibly withthe foreman forced to grudgingly con­cede and "buy him (Zeke) a bottle ofCUlty," the scene reflects the realcollusion of management, governmentand the union bureaucracy to victimizethe worker. But while this collusion isreal, and union officials often cooperatewith management to get rid of "reds" or"troublemakers," this is not the heart ofthe oppression of factory workers undercapitalism.

Not only does the union never fight forthe workers in Blue Collar-on thecontrary, it is portrayed as their mostpernicious enemy of all-there are no

Thus to suit Schrader's purposes theunion is depicted as a cross between theTeamsters and the Mafia. In fact theUAW bureaucracy is not a collection ofgangster cliques at all, but a well-oiledmachine whose crimes are fundamental­ly political. Not the least ofthese has beenits crass indifference to special oppres­sion, an indifference which has ledalmost an entire generation of blackworkers to view the union itself as anobstacle in their struggle. But it would bea mistake to confuse the hostility /indifference toward unions of the ghetto,or even the more politically formedsyndicalist/black nationalist anti-unionviews of groups like the League ofRevolutionary Black Workers, with theproduct Schrader is pushing. Themessage of Blue Collar is bourgeoisindividualism. If it seems less virulentand more cynical than in earlier Holly­wood fare it is because of the changed

unexplained racial rapport of the threeprotagonists. Before the film's heroesrun up against "Them" they are shownas innocents living in social harmony, aMotown Garden of Eden wherein blackand white families bowl together inHamtramck and the guys hold interra­cial orgies in the heart of the ghetto.

To a certain extent one is willing togrant Schrader the need for this improb­able construct in order to discuss theeffect on individual lives of living in theU.S. racist society. So vast is the presentsocial gap between blacks and whitesthat it would be nearly imp9ssible topresent a believable common terrain ofeveryday life. But the audience is askedto accept this relationship as a naturalpremise, in order that the director canpresent its inevitable break-up into racehatred. Throughout Schrader's me­chanical schema is filled with hollowimplausibilities all aimed at arriving atthe same conspiratorial conclusions.

the future. Therefore, they must beexposed as part of a giant conspiracy­big business! big government! biglabor-which oppresses all free-spiritedind ivid uals.

Liberal Schemas and Working­Class Heroes

The plot of Blue Collar is a straight­forward, three-track ride to defeat,death and disintegration. Its trio ofheroes-two black and one white-planand carry out a robbery of their union'ssafe. They do not find the big cash bootythey hoped would alleviate the crushingweight upon their lives. Instead theyfind evidence of the union's connectionto organized mob activity. When thethree-dubbed the "Oreo Gang" afterthe robbery-attempt to blackmail theunion, they become the victimsof a company/union/government­mafia conspiracy to destroy and corruptthem.

Zeke, played by Richard Pryor,eventually sells out to the union bu­reaucracy. Jerry (Harvey Keitel), theethnic white worker, becomes an FBIinformer and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto),the unbreakable street-wise black work­er, is murdered. As Zeke, Pryor uses his"straight" material to playa family manwhose family seems to spend most of itstime watching black "sit-com" on acredit-purchased color TV set. In theabsurdist style that dominates the firstpart of the film,Zeke himself seems likea character out of Good Times as hecreates a "situation" to fool an over­drawn Jewish IRS man who has come tothe ghetto to investigate Zeke's cheatingon his income tax. Jerry, the otherfamily man, like Zeke is hounded bycreditors and bills. He works a secondjob pumping gas in view of Detroit'sgrotesque monument to ruling-classhypocrisy, the "Ren Cen" buildings. But

24 March 1978No. 198

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront": classic American anti-union filmportrays government informer as hero.

,- ...~ .)'"

WV Photo

b\.':.:':: asked ~r:(~ik {.\Vh~:n ~t ;-nill;~n~ :\ittl-..:, (~r~ ,i \, h "~:\

'were alrc~dy L."\lkHlg arnong th, h'CSabout ways to get thi.' I 'ade JI1!onstogether to build a party of la!')J

-rhe co\\'ardlv L \1\\//\ hu:\.';'. '. ,iC\,'. .has responded with climh w, '::p upanti-CODirnunisfn again:;~ the \\'hoexpC'se its pro-compel'!; scilo\<,~ lC'jes.On March 14 in the small Pellnsyi';aniatown of Nanty Glo. east of Pittsburgh, aDistrict 4 official called the cops over to

continued en? page II

~L.;t-~"jl')!ri...:t ;!1r':f~tl"fg :;) \\c.< ~ '-~, ,H~;::

a!!~\cd Ii; LcgdTL he IU~j;'~~,~ '_;~~l~ fI"":l:~

to pr:'s< ~81 slng:c \.'opics hav~~ «)h_'by Wi fieid teams i:l the mif1i"" ('''.ns.

Santiago Carrillo crossing the campusworkers' picket line at Yale University.

At umon meetings, strike-supportrallies and door-to-door sales in miningcommunities. WV has met with anoverwhelmingly positive response. Cer­tainly we have met miners who do notlike the paper. But even some of thesehave come to respect WV for daring totell the hard truth: that the strike is beingundermined from within the union bythe sellout Miller bureaucracy. Whenone West Virginia miner was askedwhether he liked WV's strike coverage.he replied. "Hell no, I don't like it. butit's the truth."

But WV is more than a paper thatdoesn't pull its punches. It is also thepaper that has a program for victory andhas pointed the way forward each stepalong the way. One UMWA localofficial in a District 5 local south ofPittsburgh said the reason he prefersWorkers Vanguard to the SWP'sMilitant is that WV "not only gives youa lot of information, but it gives youideas about what to do."

WV has insisted on the crucialresponsibility of the U.S. labor move­ment to support the miners--who arefighting on behalf of all workers-withconcrete acts of militant solidarity. At aUMWA meeting in the Pittsburgh arealast week a visiting Chicago~area steelworker told miners how he was rightingfor his union to hot-cargo scab coal andgo out on solidarity strike. After themeeting, where more than half themine; s walked out with copies of WV,one striker told a WV reporter. "TheTeamsters say they're helping us withmoney. Hell, I don't need the money.Stop the trucks! If the Steelworkerswant to help us, don't handle scab coal."

With Carter invoking the union­busting Taft-Hartley law, lasl ,nek's~vr" den-landln? ~\Bre3k \\ith the, 5-:t,nk~>

hreaking I),:"rncl..:ratic Party:~~ h~.:'-:... bi:\~n

',\'cn rcce!.\t'd i~~ the coalf~ck~~: /~~ '.,~,,~-- L

:lg L'~t.;rn t:"!: /}-ir.i;([;:':.:;FJ

Stearns mine strike support rally, July 1977.

!'d rt~::,d ~~'

/i.\ Star {~nd ;~!; '~hc little locdp~1pcr~, hu~

vou were the only people that had thetrue acccunt of that story'"

>';ear Cabin Creek in West \irgima'sl \1\\A J)iq:i~t 17. one lucal offirlalbought a fi i. He: sat down and rc3d itcover to cuver. then tl)ok the KTreporter d own to a nearby bartodistribute copies to some of his men,"Tell them about that Spanish scab," hesaid. referring to the story in that issueabout Spanish Communist Party head

In recent months, the UMWA coal­fields have been uniquely the hot spot ofthe U.S. class struggle. And WorkersVanguard has been there, covering thestrike directly from the mining areas. Inrecent weeks, as the government escalat­ed its direct strikebreaking pressure onbehalf of the coal bosses, the SpartacistLeague intensified its presence withseveral additional WV reporting/salesteams traveling through the Appalachi­an district. Despite the region's perva­sive anti-communism-and despitesome good grounds for miners tomistrust reporters (reporters for thebourgeois press have repeatedly beenchased out for lying about the strike)­WV found a warm reception fromminers who appreciate a paper that is ontheir side and tells their story.

Last May WV was the first paper togive national publicity to the then nine­months-old strike of the Stearns, Ken­tucky miners for a UMWA contract.WV No. 160, headlined "Class War inStearns," called on the entire union togo out in solidarity with the embattledStearns strikers. At a mid-July strike­support rally there, almost 200 copies ofWV were sold.

Early on in the present strike, ourreporter contacted some of the minerswhose roving picket squads had beenmost active in stopping the flow of scabcoal. They were glad to read a sympa­thetic paper which reported the strikefrom the miners' side of the picket lines.One local official in northeasternKentucky remarked. "NBC, ABC, thenetworks are out because they don't tellthe truth." He invited the WV teamdown for a look at the strikers' caravans.

The 24 February WV article "State ofSiege in Indiana Coal Fields" told howIndiana miners' homes Vicre beingbuued by helicopters; how the guards.attack dog~ and scabs arrned to the ~,eeth

thrC:Jtened the ~trtker~' li\'CS a~ thejt to Sh~it dO\Vfi. the ~.;:c~~h mines. H"~'

rcpoc:tJ the L'lurdt'T of Por,.';k;; rn;r'\:rjuhn HuH by a scab on Feh'·,.;ory :I ·i,nIn\:Lar;a :i1 nc~' ~:1t>._~~ '-r}l;~~ ~tl

"riI1 r-run-l tI;;~-- ~;1r-:'.~;: ;_~-'Ld; :i~ .!,:,;t-:l-.; ,i'

"h's the Only PaperThat Tells tile TruthAbout the Strike"

ONd~~";lII

More Than 800 WV's a Week to Miners

Columbia

Despite these claims Blue Collar is notMarxism, jukebox or any other kind.What Smokey's final statement proves isthat the film is a schema, although not aMarxist one, not even of the crudeStalinist social-naturalist variety. It is astatement of conspiracy claiming toexplain the ferocious race antagonismsthat cripple the struggles of the workingclass.

Smokey's character is key to the anti­proletarian world-view of Paul Schrad­er. Schrader, remember, was the scriptwriter for Taxi Driver, a film whichfortunately for its audience had thetalented Martin Scorceseasdirector. Butdespite the obvious differences betweenthese films there is similarity of politicalvision that goes deeper than a compul­sive attention to the underside of streetlife. The nihilistic individualism whichpervades Taxi Driver is also present inBlue Collar, although in different andless effective form.

Just as the hero of Taxi Driver,grounddown to paranoia by the bleak madnessof perceived social reality, must strikeout in violent individual action against ahopelessly corrupted society, Smokey,the violent street-wise individualist is theonly character who does not sell out. Butthere is no room in Blue Collar forsuccessful heroic action. The socialinstitutions are too pervasive and en­compassing and Smokey's murder isseen as the result of a fate born of hisessential decency and toughness ofspirit.The union, company and mob conspireto destroy him in what must be the mostimprobable murder sequence sinceGoldfinger.

It is Smokey who recognizes the FBIman in an early rather good bar scene.What is good about it is the way itcaptures the workers' almost instinctualunwillingness to rat on the union. ButSmokey recognizes and exposes theagent precisely because he has theantennae of a lumpen hustier and ex-con.It is Smokey who resists the mob'smurderous plans against his friends withclub in hand (although the idea that agiant black man can go into Ham­tramck, beat up two whites within inchesof their lives without having to face theneighbors and the racist cops strainsone's credulity). It is Smokey who doesnot sell out (he is recognized by theconspirators as the "hard case") and so hemust die.

In Schrader's view the relationshipbetween the fac~ory and the street findsits moral imperative with the lumpenethic of the street where life is a matter ofpersonal survival. It is the black street­style and consciousness of the youngerblack auto workers that Schrader sees asthe basis for dignity. Blue Collarpresents a struggle for survival whoseterms-individual and anti-social-are

continued on page 5

No Kind of Marxism

It is being said that Blue Collar hassomething to do with Marxism, primari­ly due to a key political statement whichSchrader places in the mouth ofSmokey:"Everything they do, the way they pit thelifers against the new boys, the oldagainst the young, the black against thewhite, is meant to keep us in our place."And at the end of the film when the lastfreeze-frame cliche reveals Zeke. theblack bureaucratic sellout, and Jerry. thegovernment informer-sellout, about toslug it out, it is a scene fully loaded withthe racial antagonism that Schrader seesas the stuff of inevitable race war. And itis Smokey's voice-over that explainsonce again how "they" conspire to set"black against white."

According to the Village Voice inter­viewer. Schrader claims that this endingfor his film is a "bald 'paraphrase ofMarxist ideology'," and the intervieweragrees, calling Blue Collar 'a Marxisttract." Similarly Paulene Kael, in aperceptive review for New Yorkermagazine (27 February). which caughtboth Schrader's "manipulative cyni­cism and Blue Collar's "lowentertain­ment value," nevertheless takes Smok­ey's statement as the basis for her chargeof "jukebox Marxism." And IrwinSilber, who to hiscredit understands thatBlue Collar isfundamentallya statementof despair in social struggle. strains tocompliment Schraderfor this "Marxist"finish: "One can hardly quarrel withhaving such a message be the one thataudiences will walk out with freshest intheir minds" (Guardian. 8 March).

scenes ofany social struggle in the movie.We are not Stalinist "socialist realists"who seekafairy tale ofheroic proletarianfighters untouched by bourgeois ideolo­gy and without any concerns but the classstruggle. In contrast, the CommunistParty's Daily World (16 March) com­plains that the workers make "no effortto organize a rank-and-file movement."(The CP is also upset by scenes of druguse, "cheating on their wives" and an"endless stream of sexist gutterlanguage.")

It would of course be absurd to askthat every film about American autoworkers end in a general strike. But BlueCollar's "tell-it-Iike-it-is" account syste­mati"ally ignores even the low-level jobactions which go on in the plants all thetime. What about heat walkouts. forinstance, which as last summer's experi­ence showed can be pretty explosive. It isnot that the film's characters or plot arethin--which they are. Rather, just asSchrader studiously avoids the subject ofexploitation, he also cannot show socialstruggle against it. To do so would goagainst the central theme of Blue Collar:the hopelessness of the individual in theface of the monolith.

24 MARCH 1978 3

WSL Left Wing,London Spartacist Group Fuse

SpartacistLeague Foundedin Britain

WV Photo

Time:Place:

JOE JAMISONCentral Committee, SpartacistLeague/Britain; former memberWorkers Socialist League CentralCommittee and Irish Commission

7:30 p.m.Ferris-Booth Hall,Columbia University,Room 203-204

For more information call (212) 925-5665

Speaker:

NEW YORK CITY

Forum-Friday, March 31

Ireland and theNational Question

cally cohered leaderships in its nationalsections.

Another comrade noted:'The fusion taking place this weekend isin marked contrast with the realign­ments that are taking place among theso-called Trotskyist left in Britain....The comrades who have gone throughvarious political journeys by which theyhave arrived in this room have seen anumber of potentially valuable cadresfor Trotskyism either broken, burnt,demoralised or rendered cynical. In myopinion the comrades who come fromthe Trotskyist Faction represent someof the best of their political generationwhich the iSt has managed to salvagefrom the political wreckage thaI goesunder the name of British Trotskyism.The man who is above all responsiblefor this political debris is GerryHealy.... In Britain a number ofsizeable centrist and revisionist obsta­cles have been able to flourish preciselybecause of Healy's criminal politicalpractise and his blinkered sectarianism.Our fused organisation will confrontthe task of clearing a path through theseroadblocks which stand between us andthe building of a revolutionary van­guard party."

A major theme of the conference wasthe centrality of the revolutionaryprogramme in the formation of aLeninist party. The present fusion wasfirmly based in a thorough explorationof such critical issues as the history ofthe Fourth International, the workersgovernment, the popular front and thenational question.

The conference also adopted a per­spectives document, "Tasks in Britain,"which outlined major priorities for theSL/ B in the coming period. High on thelist of tasks for the new organisation isto move toward a regular monthly press:

"We must provide a press in Britainwhich reflects the political tasks and theorganisational strength of the Sparta­cist League. This must be the interven­tionist press of a fighting propagandagroup; it must be polemical, taking up

continued on page 11

The conference participants stressedthat the British centrists' workeristphilistinism has deep roots in the historyof the British movement. A memoir by afounder of British Trotskyism testifiesto the incredible "little England" paro­chialism of some of the early self-styledTrotskyists:

"As the British section, Left Opposi­tion, we were invited to send someone toan enlarged meeting of the Left Opposi­tion's International Secretariat, to beheld from 4 to 8 February 1933, in Paris.On 30 January, Hitler had been ap­pointed Chancellor of Germany byPresident Hindenburg, and it was feltthat we ought to send someone to themeeting. A reluctant delegate, I tra­velled to Paris, and sat through com­plex. heavily-jargonized discussions inFrench and German, with someonewhispering occasional explanations inEnglish, on Saturday, and again onSunday....'That evening, walking through thestreets of Paris with aching head andjaded spirits, I saw newspapers beingsold on the streets, the newsvendorscarrying placards-'250,OOO [anti­unemployment demonstrators] at HydePark'. So the movement was on themend...."There was, too, something unreal inevening retrospect about the LeftOpposition conference solemnly pro­nouncing on those controversies of theComintern, and even earlier ones ofRussian Social Democracy.... Surelythere could be no true renovation ofsocialist ideas, or renewal of the forcesand spirit of rebellion and resistance, inthose old, obscure contentions, arguedout again in the thick accents of a nowdegenerate communism? .."

-Reg Groves, The Ba/hamGroup: How BritishTrotskyism Began

Another inauspicious tradition recalledat the conference was the shotgun fusionof various warring British factions andfragments engineered by the Interna­tional Secretariat and the SWP in 1944.Seeking to stand in the best traditions ofLeninist democratic centralism on theinternational plane, the iSt aims to forgean authoritative international leader­ship through the development of organi-

internationalist consciousness of thepressures emanating from the intenselyparochial, Labourist British left milieu.Members ofthe Trotskyist Faction havefirst-hand experience from the worker­ist WSL of how accommodation to thepresent consciousness of the workingclass is an unbridgeable impediment tothe fight against the trade-union bu­reaucracy and to the strategic goal ofsplitting and destroying the LabourParty, reformist obstacle to revolution­ary struggle.

Founding conference of the Spartacist League/Britain,

involuntarily imposed national isola­tion. The false hopes held by theserevolutionists in Gerry Healy's SocialistLabour League-based on such earlydocuments as the SLL's 1961 "WorldProspect for Socialism"-were frustrat­ed by Healy's bureaucratic high­handedness: his 1962 splitting of the leftopponents to the SWP's headlong rushtoward Pabloist centrism (and on tooutright reformism) and his expulsion ofthe Spartacist delegation from the 1966Lon<1on Conference of the InternationalCommittee. H is little Stalin-style organi­sational machinations soon found theirconcomitant programmatic expressionin accommodation to the so-called"Arab Revolution" and the Maoist RedGuards and political support to theHanoi Stalinists. Today Healy / Banda'snationally centred militant economism isovershadowed by their slander cam­paign against SWP leaders Hansen andNovack and their activities as publicityagents for the Muslim fanatic dictator ofLibya, Qaddafi. Healyism has become adangerously cynical travesty of"Trotskyism."

Despite Healy's frustration of theearly Spartacist tendency's internation­alist commitment, the tendency pursuedan aggressive regroupment orientationthrough polemical presentation of Trot­skyist positions on decisive program­matic issues facing the internationalproletariat. The tendency was successfulin polarising and splitting a number ofcentrist formations, outside the U.S.mainly from the United Secretariatorbit. as part of cohering iSt groups in anumber of countries. Thus comradesfrom twelve countries attended theLondon fusion conference. Greetings tothe conference were presenred by repre­sentatives of the German, French, Aus­tralian, Chilean and Canadian iStsections as well as by a representative ofthe International Secretariat of the iSt.

While saluting the formation of theBritish sympathising section, the Inter­national Secretariat spokesman notedthe immense tasks which lie ahead:

"With all of the pleasures, apprehen­sions and enthusiasms that I experiencein seeing this conference being con­vened, it has a bittersweet component t'Jit because our tendency has a certainimbalance. This kind of imbalance Ifirstnoticed at the end ofthe 1950's, where thesplit between the International Secretar­iat and the International Committeeseemed to be between the Europeans andthe English-speakers ... and you noticethey have the same re-establishment ofthat old division after nearly ten years offaction fighting-that's the presentformal agreement between the SWP andthe French. And that is of course quitedeadly. You can only know the world ifyou are in it and if you are confined toonly a section of it, however big,powerful or broad, you are objectivelyset up for deformations."

Many speakers at the fusion confer­ence noted the corrosive effects on

Continuity and Internationalism

From its origins in 1961 as theRevolutionary Tendency of the U.S.Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the iSthas struggled to overcome its initial,

LONDON, March 5-This weekend theLondon Spartacist Group fused with theTrotskyist Faction which recently splitfrom the Workers Socialist League(WSL) of Alan Thornett. With thisfusion, the British supporters of theinternational Spartacist tendency (iSt)constituted the Spartacist League; Bri­tain (SL/ B), sympathising section of theiSt. The fusion represents more thansimply a doubling of the cadres groupedaround the Trotskyist programme oftheiSt in Britain. The accretion of theexperience of an authentic left opposi­tional current cohered in struggle withinthe right-centrist WSL, providing theiSt's British section with real if modestroots in the British left milieu, repre­sents an important gain for the tendencyas it seeks to transform itself into anInternational Trotskyist League in thestruggle for the rebirth of the FourthInternational.

This advance was prepared throughthe iSt's painstaking efforts to intersectleftward-moving forces looking for anauthentic Trotskyist alternative to theparochial Britishcentristswamp. Frank­ly avowing its regroupment per­spective-rejecting the fake "masswork" gimmickry pervasive on theBritish far left-the iSt established apropagandist presence in Britain andworked to polarise and split the existingfa ke-revo Iu tio na ry orga nisa tionsthrough counterposing Trotskyist politi­cal clarity to muddleheaded centrism.While the little-Englanders who peoplethe British left baited the LondonSpartacist Group because its initiatingcadres were for the most part externallydeveloped, the internationalists of the iStsought to constitute a pole of attractionfor serious subjective revolutionists inand around groupings like the WSL. Thepresent fusion and the fusions of thefuture constitute the most graphicvindication of the London SpartacistGroup's insistence that the struggle forthe authentic Leninist and Trotskyistprogram among already organized farleft elements is a crucial tactic inassembling the cadres for the nucleus ofan authentic Trotskyist party of theBritish proletariat.

Britain is one of the more politicallyimportant countries in Western Europe,with a working class which has a longhistory of combativity. In addition, asthe centre of a former empire, Britainoffers important opportunities for therecruitment of comrades from a wholehost of different nationalities. Initiatingcadres of other sections of a reforgedFourth International are being recruitedin Britain.

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

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Blue Collar heroes: from left, Jerry (Harvey Keitel), Zeke (Richard Pryor) andSmokey (Yaphet Kotto).

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strategy developed in the 1950's as aweapon of the capitalist state (and inconsequence also as a cinematic tradi­tion) (las been widely accepted. Gov­ernmerH informing, suing the unions,calling in the Labor Department hasbecome a standard response of theMillers and Sadlowskis and all thereformist leftists who tail after them. Inthis sense Blue Collar grasps a reaction­ary aspect ofcurrent political reality andpresents it as an eternal bind.

Consider Schrader's cynical individu­alism applied to the striking miners whohave also been known to wear bluecollars, but who have not been socarefully taught that their union isworthless, that picket lines are meaning­less and that the government representstheir only chance for survival. PaulSchrader simply does Qot understandthe working class as a historicallydeveloping force. The Detroit workingclass is not the sum of individualaspirations. It is a powerful social forcewhose members will change in thecrucible of social struggle. Woorkers whotoday may identify with the despair of aZeke or Smokey and cheer for Schrad­er's movie may tomorrow be part of arevolutionary struggle for statepower. •

appreciation of the contradictory char­acter of trade unions-that in spite ofeverything they are the only instrumentsof collective struggle available to work­ers. Kazan the Cold War liberal had torecognize the fact of the importance ofthe union if he was to help win the ranksof labor to the idea of governmentintervention. The union was part of thelives of the dockers and they "dummiedup" when the G-man came around.Marxists and any good unionists wouldunderstand the sentiments of the youngboys who kill Marlon Brando's pigeonson the roof after he testifies before thestate's crime commission.

Unlike Schrader, Kazan understoodthere was class struggle because he andthe rest of the Cold War liberals werefacing it as they built their case. The veryyear that Waterfront was released,'24,000 members of the InternationalLongshoremen's Association (lLI\)struck the East Coast ports against thegovernment/Meany attempt to busttheir union and replace it with an AFLaffiliate. There islittle question that JoeRyan who was the mobster head of theILA was the real life model for themurdering gangster-union top of Wa­terfront, Johnny Friendly, played mas­terfully by Lee J. Cobb.

But unlike in the film the lLA rankswere not buying the idea that. thegovernment .was going to simply "cleanup" the union and throw the gangstersout. They knew that their union was atstake. And when the government usedthe secondary boycott provisions ofTaft-Hartley, the ILA responded withstrikes and work-stoppages throughout1953 and 1954. Eventually, throughdefiance of the government and its ruseof "cleaning up crime" the ILA retainedits position on the waterfront (see ArtPreis, Labor's Giant Step).

The dramatic tension that existed onfilm existed also in reality. Thus TerryMalloy's decision has to be presented asa way forward for the whole union, notjust an individual solution. In Water­front it is necessary for Malloy to winthe ranks to his decision in order forKazan's anti-union message to havepower. At the end of the film Malloystands on the bridge hook in hand,bloody but victorious over the mobsterunion leader and he leads the ranks intothe hold.

In Blue Col/ar there is no victory,even in government informing. InSchrader's film their is neither faith inliberalism nor an understanding ofworkers' collective struggle. The heroesof Blue Col/or do not have to win theranks to any particular view becauseSchrader does n'lt admit of any possibil­ity of collective struggle.

Schrader's liberalism of the 1970's isnot so confident in the "morality" of thegovernment as was Kazan's liberalismof the 1950's. And Blue Collar iseverywhere punctuated with this post­Watergate liberal cynicism. Allinstitutions-the union, the govern­ment, the company-are corrupt. Thereis a conspiracy afoot by all the biginstitutions against all the little individ­uals. The class struggle has given way torace war and all because of a plot toundermine the wholesome instincts ofpeople. The complex sources of theracism deeply rooted in capitalist socialrelations are treated as if RosemaryWoods had erased the tapes of racialharmony.

Waterfront was part of the propagan­da machinery which helped to create theliberal myth of the need to bring in the"neutral" government against the cor­rupt union. Liberals had to create thatmyth against the existing trade-uniontraditions which were hostile to govern­ment interference with the independ­ence of the trade-union movement. Thereal enforcers of course were right therein the bureaucracy of the trade unionshelping their liberal pals in the Demo-cratic Party. f

The sad truth is that Terry Malloywas successful with the help of Reuther,Meany and the rest. The union-busting

choices exist for them develops into anapology for their miserable actions!Zeke explains. that Jerry can go to thegovernment because it is white, but thathe, being black, can only join thebureaucracy. Jerry, presented as a"good union man," turns informer onlyto save his life and that of his family.Like all the other characters in BlueCol/ar he is driven by the sociologicalfuries which in Schrader's view controldestiny. Even selling out to the govern­ment is not examined as an act thatmight be seen politically as either avictory (from the standpoint of liberal­ism) or as a betrayal (from the stand­point of trade unionism). Instead the actis offered as inevitable personal betrayalbecause there is no decision to be madebeyond the one in favor of personalsurvival.

Ii is different for Terry Malloy. Hechooses to fight. As he says to hisbrother in the famous scene in the backof the car, "I coulda been somebody, 1coulda been a contender, Charlie." Butfighting against the mob in Waterfrontmeans informing to the government. Itis something which Terry Malloychooses to do against his conditionedreflexes (and of course he couldn't do itat all without the help of the CatholicChurch and the love of a "goodwoman").

Part of the aesthetic superiority ofWaterfront is due precisely to its partial

strategy for militants, Schrader at leastis more realistic and presents it as thepolitics of despair!

The headline writer at the New YorkTimes titled its review of Blue Collar,"On the Auto Front." Comparison withthe 1954 film, On 'the Waterfront, isinevitable and in fact quite proper.

On the Waterfront is the classicAmerican anti-union film. Where elsebut America .could a governmentinformer, Terry Malloy (Marlon Bran­do), be the hero? Directed by EliaKazan, himself a despicable governmentfink against Communist "infiltration"into the entertainment industry,Waterfront-unlike Blue Collar-is agreat American film. The difference liesnot entirely with ~he respective talents ofthe directors but also with the times.

The mechanical fatalism and anti­political claptrap of Blue Collar has ledsome to brand Schrader "a propagan­dist without a cause." In fact he has acause, the same one that Kazan cru­saded for 24 years ago-liberal anti­unionism. But the myths of liberalismhave since found some new gods anddevils. The political differences be­tween Waterfront and Blue Col/or arethe differences between Cold Warliberalism and post-Watergate liberalcynicism.

Unlike Jerry of Blue Col/or, TerryMalloy, the waterfront "bum," is aconscious hero who can choose "right orwrong." But the only scene in which theheroes of Blue Collar even pretend that

"I Coulda Been a Contender,Charlie"

The Workers' Power review, signedby "Enid Eckstein, UAW Local 51,"cannot recognize anything more thanthe workers' shouts of "right on" in themovie theaters of Detroit. Eckstein seesthe film through the eyes of one of itscharacters--Zeke-who IS obsessedwith getting his broken locker fixed.Eckstein is obsessed with it too, as she iswith the Stroh's beer the charactersconsume.

But if the I.S. grooves on the sub­political minutiae of working-class life,the main reason Workers' Power lovesBlue Collar is that the film has the IS'political program. Thus Eckstein writesthat Blue Collar "successfully deals withracism. company-union corruption andinternal union corruption." Successful­ly'? Of course. Zeke sells out to thebureaucracy. Jerry rats on the union tothe government. The I.S. does both. soconsequently it finds nothing remark­able about these stark facts. The I.S.reviewer sees Zeke and Jerry as "tryingto better themselves and fight for abetter world for their families. And isn'tthat what life is all about?" Is it? While,the I.S. presents this program as a

because it undermines the proletarianneed for collective struggle, Schradersees it the other way around.

Love the Workers, Hate theUnion

(continuedfrom page 3)those of the street. It is not accidentalthat for Schrader and his characters thepurest act of interracial solidarity is therobbery of the union. For all the film'sindustrial montage, its portrayal of theworkers' social alienarion, Blue Collarposes survival as an inevitable process ofshrinking bands of loyalty that beginsand ends with the self and the sellout. Inorder to survive the worker must jointhe institutions that conspire to rob himof his humanity and perhaps his life.Ultimately, the ex-minister Schraderhas maintained his religious faith. Itshould come as no surprise that he wrotesome of the religious psycho-babble forClose Encounters and is planning to doa film on the life of St. Paul.

Certainly in noting the real impact ofghetto consciousness on young blackauto workers, Blue Collar has done areal service. The concentration of blackworkers at the heart of Americanindustry is one of the key sociologicalchanges of the mid-20th century. Blacksare generally more open to radicalpolitics and militant social action thancorresponding groups of whites, buttheir forced ghettoization and the'astronomical level of black unemploy­ment ha's also meant the widespreadpenetration of lumpenproletarian con­sciousness in the Detroit factories.

But while Marxists understand thatthis street consciousness must be fought

Anti-UnionBlues...

24 MARCH 1978 5

Reformists Rally' Round the Bureaucrats

WV Photo

is to keep "labor peace" in the plants insubmissive cooperation with the capital­ists and their state.

The only statements made by thelabor skates were almost universallyindifferent or overtly hostile to theUMWA cause. George Meany said he"wouldn't criticize" Carter if he invokedTaft-Hartley and called for governmentseizure of the mines to end the strike, asdid Doug Fraser of the U AW. NewYork City union leaders, facing negotia­tions with a new city administrationintent 'on imposing more take-awaydemands on the already chewed-upmunicipal unions. began openly worry­ing about "miners fever" among the cityworkers. Most labor leaders preferredto just keep an aloof silence and pray theminers strike would quickly end.

But as the miners rejected oneoutrageous "tentative agreement" afteranother and it became clear that theCarter government would step in tostrongarm the miners back to work (orat least try), the bureaucrats came underincreasing pressure. from two sides. todo something on behalf of the strikers.On the one hand. there \\dS mountingsupport for the miners in the unionranks which the bureaucrats fearedmight get out of hand. On the other side,Carter's use of the Taft-Hartley "back­to-work" injunction (rather than gov­ernment seizure of the mines, whichmost bureaucrats preferred) sent a chillthroughout the union hierarchy. IfCarter could get away with crushing themost militant sector of Americanorganized labor in the most dramaticconfrontation between the governmentand the unions in 30 years, who wouldbe next? Relations between the anti­labor Carter regime and the unions werebad enough already; Taft-Hartley madethem worse.

The decision' of union leaders to beginraising funds and collecting food andclothing for the miners had anotherpurpose: to direct pro-miner sentimentin the ranks away from more direct andmilitant action. In 1947, 300,000 autoworkers walked out of the plants andrallied in downtown Detroit in opposi­tion to Taft-Hartley and over 200,000miners struck against its final passage afew months later. Mass protest strikeson that scale today in opposition toTaft-Hartley and in defense of theminers would bring Carter's strike-

continued on page 8

c" Cf.NT!l

The intensity of the miners' confron­tation with the coal bosses and thefederal government has drawn the classline in this country with a sharpness notseen in decades. Capitalist politicians of

Mine strike support rally in Pittsburgh last month.

more ice with most workers than theydid with the defiant miners. In fact,labor support for the miners rose mostsharply after' Carter invokedTaft-Hartley.

Pressure on the Trade-UnionTops

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Striking farmers give out food to striking miners In Kentucky.

Rouge plant contributed $10,000 to both parties have rallied to the side ofUMWA District 17 and an additional big business and strikebreaking while$12,000 worth of shoes. Plant gate the trade unions have more and morecollections have been held in Detroit at lent their support to the UMWA. ButChrysler's Lynch Road plant, G.M.'s the motives of the trade-union official-Fisher Body, Dodge Truck and Dodge dom are quite different from those ofMain. Chicago UAW locals teamed up rank-and-file union members.with the Meatcutters to send three semi- While thousands upon thousands oftrailers offood into southern Illinois last workers have looked to the miners strikeweek, and Ohio and Pennsylvania with steadily growing enthusiasm, littleUAW locals collected $15,000 in just more than a month ago most trade-one day. union leaders were doing their best to

The widespread, almost unprecedent- ignore the heroic struggle of the miners.ed and still-growing support among The last thing these piecards wanted toworkers for the embattled miners is a see was the mine strikers' no-holds-sharp slap in the face to Jimmy Carter. barred militant tactics, their openMost U.S. presidents have been able to rebellion against their own unionbreak strikes with Taft-Hartley injunc- leadership or the miners' repeatedlytions by mobilizing public opinion with expressed intention to defy the Demo-flag-waving "national security" argu- cratic Party's strikebreaking plans. Allments. But Carter's Sunday-school style of these acts of "indiscipline" arelectures on "respect for the law" cut no horrifying to the union tops, whose job it

These caravans have become anincreasingly regular feature of the strike.The largest to go into the coalfields sofar arrived in Martinsburg, West Vir­ginia on March 12. Five hundred cars,trucks and vans-stretching over fourmiles-were packed with 100 tons offood donated and, purchased byBaltimore-area unions, led by the largeSteelworkers local at U.S. Steel'ssprawling Sparrows Point complex.The Baltimore union coalition, whichincluded the Longshoremen, Teachers,Transit Workers, Shipbuilders andUAW, had kicked off the collection aweek earlier at a miners support rallythat drew nearly 800 participants.

UAW locals have also been active inaiding the miners. Nearly 60 vehiclesloaded with food and clothing collectedfrom members of Detroit's CadillacLocal 22 were driven into West Virginiaand Kentucky in the first week inMarch. Local 600 at Ford's giant River

for StrikeAction toDefend theMiners'

The American working class hasresponded to the coa I operatorIgovernment attacks on the 160,000striking members of the United MineWorkers of America (UMWA) with anoutpouring of support and solidaritysuch has not been seen in many years.Stirred by the determination and fight­ing example provided by the coalminers, workers all over the country arerallying to the miners' cause withfinancial contributions, donations offood and clothing, caravans into thecoalfields and mass meetings in defenseof the miners.

The bulk of the aid to the miners hascome from the mass industrial unions,most of which were crucially aided intheir early formative years by moneyand organizers from the UMWA. T,",eAuto Workers, Steelworkers, electricalunions and others have dramaticallyescalated their assistance to the minersin the wake of Carter's invoking thehated Taft-Hartley strikebreaking lawagainst the more than IOO-day minersstrike.

In a country where union solidarity isdiscouraged by legal fiat and bureau­cratic suppression, it is clear that theminers strike has gripped Americanlabor. Tens of thousands of workershave dug into their pockets to makecontributions. Even labor leaders whoare used to breaking strikes and policingthe same kind of contracts the mine­workers are resisting have been forcedto ante up. The International ExecutiveBO.lrd of the United Auto Workers(U AW) v6ted the miners $2 million, theSteelworkers gave $1 million and evenGeorge Meany the AFL"CIO chief­tain whose proud boast is that he has

. "never been on strike and never walkeda picket line"--was forced to cough up$75,000. The International Longshore­men's and Warehousemen's Union(I LW U) gave the miners $25,000 andasked each member to contribute $1 amonth for the duration of the strike.More importantly, the ILWU becamethe first major national union to call fora one-day strike against imposition ofthe Taft-Hartley injunction against theminers.

Support for the miners clearly ex­tends beyond the ranks of organizedlabor. One of the most striking exam­ples was the I50-car caravan offarmers,on "strike" against the price paritypolicies of the Carter administration,which rolled into Central City, Ken­tucky on March 6 with tons of foodfrom 14 states. Many farmers, squeezedbetween low market prices and highinterest rates, are just as mad at JimmyCarter as the miners and decided they'drather give their food away than sell it ata loss. Seven thousand appreciativeminers and their families showed up togreet the farmers' caravan.

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

WORKERS VANGuARD

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Who Told the Truth aboutMiller in 1973?

The IIIDers'IIistoric 'jcto~

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Miners Victorious,Movement Develops

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Reformists hailed the Miller victory in 1972. From the top: soclal- democratic International Socialists' Workers' Power; Maoist October League's(now Communist Party Marxist-Leninist) Call; Revolution, paper of the Maoist Revolutionary Union (now Revolutionary Communist Party);Communist Party supported Labor Today. Right: Workers Vanguard of the Spartaclst League refused to capitulate to Miller's popularity.

Excerpts from

Labor Department WinsMine Workers' ElectionWV No, 17, March 1973

"For the first time, you have replaced anentrenched labor bureaucracy with leaderschosen from the rank and file." So the UnitedMine Workers Journal (December 1972) pomp­ously told the membership after the Miller­Trbovich-Patrick slate defeated the incumbentsheaded by Tony Boyle in the Labor Department­supervised UMW elections last December,

And indeed, at first glance Arnold Miller of the"Miners for Democracy" (MFD) appears to bethe archetype of the "honest rank and filer"courageously taking on and defeating the statusquo, But stripped of liberal romanticizing,Miller's victory over Boyle was significant onlyas a step in the U.S. government's campaign tocurtail even the formal independence of theunion movement., ..

The Miners for Democracy is the captivecreature of the liberal section of the bourgeoisieand has been subordinated to these interestsfrom the start. MFD was founded, built and runby liberal Democratic Party politicians andlawyers, Instrumental in transforming it into apermanent group were Yablonski's two sons,both lawyers, and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., one-timehead of Americans for Democratic Action. Bothof Yablonski's lawyer sons declared that the onlyreason neither would run for union office himselfwas that the UMW constitution requires acandidate to have worked five years in themines!.,.

Relying on the government and the courts forits strength, MFD practically handed the unionover on a silver platter in May 1972 when itsought to have Boyle ousted and replaced by acourt-ordered tribunal-again the work of Rauh.

Miller's campaign represented no more of a"rank-and-file movement" than did Yablonski's.The miners realized that Miller was the liberalestablishment's and government's choice fortheir leader. They so resented Miller's overt

government sponsorship that, even after theYablonski murder scandal, 40 per cent of theminers voted for the nakedly corrupt andtyrannical Tony Boyle, whose regime had beenan endless series of disasters for the miners....

With Boyle's record, union democracy was aready-made issue for Yablonski and the Minersfor Democracy. But rather than building a realmovement of the ranks to clean up the union, theMFD relied on legal battles in the federal courtsand intervention by the federal government ininternal union affairs, Yablonski repeatedlycalled upon the Labor Department to conduct aninvestigation of the 1969 Boyle campaign, uponthe advice of Joseph Rauh, the chief strategist ofhis campaign,."

Far from indicating any change in the funda­mental aims of the government, however, theLabor Department's acquiescence to the MFD'sassumption of power was simply anothermaneuver in the interests of the capitalist class,

The era of labor peace in the coalfields wasover. An exposed and discredited Boyle couldno longer effectively discipline the work force.Disgusted with the Boyle regime's corruptionand collusion with the coal operators, minershad begun to take things into their own hands.Wildcats had spread over contract settlementsand health and safety issues. ,..

Given the liberal view of the state as a class­neutral entity, it is certainly logical that liberalsshould look with favor upon appeals to thegovernment to intervene to democratize theunions. Avowed Marxists, however, shouldcertainly be capable of understanding that theU.S, government is nothing less than thepolitical embodiment of the U,S, bourgeoisie(including the coal operators). The unions,despite their corrupt and reactionary leader­ships, represent the workers' first step inovercoming atomization and impotence at thehands of their employers. Going to the LaborDepartment to "protect" workers' rights isinviting the class enemy into the workers'organizations. The elementary first principle of arevolutionary proletarian policy toward the tradeunions is the struggle for the class indepen­dence of the workers, ...

To "overlook" this principle in the pursuit ofopportunist appetites is to cut away the very

basis of communist opposition to the reformistbureaucracy! Scum like Boyle must be thrownout by the organized and conscious union ranks,not by the capitalist government and its courts,whose interests lie not in democratizing theunions, but in destroying them""

But the proletariat develops only trade­union consciousness through ... spontaneousstruggle. The mobilization of workers in econo­mist struggle, around reformist illusions underthe control of left-posturing bureaucrats doesnot set the stage for the building of therevolutionary party, but is an obstacle to it.Without the intervention of conscious commu­nist cadres, the miners' struggles, no matter howmilitant, will never go beyond the level of simpletrade unionism. Support to Miller, in lieu ofposing the necessary alternative of buildingcommunist-led caucuses based on a full transi­tional program, condemns the miners to thispath ....

At bottom, Miller's program is speciousbecause it is the campaign promises of anindividual rather than a systematic defense ofthe workers' basic interests; he has no ties to adisciplined political caucus but only to anelection campaign committee of his friends.When a union oppositionist wins leadership onthe basis of a powerful, organized movementamong the ranks, he cannot so cheaply betrayhis program or that movement might sweep himout of office again, But Miller has no realprogram, and he must keep faith only with theLabor Department/liberal Democrat cabalwhich installed him at the head of the UMW.

This is the real lesson ofthe UMW elections.For communists, whose fundamental aim in thelabor movement is to transform the unions into atool of the revolutionary will of the proletariat, noreform can increase the power of the workingclass if it is won by placing the unions under thetrusteeship of the capitalist state, thus destroy­ing the first pre-condition for their mobilizationin the struggle to smash that state. Thosepretended Marxists who offer excuses for thisdisastrous policy, posing the MFD's ties to theliberal bourgeoisie as merely a negative item ona linear balance sheet, demonstrate their"com­plete abandonment of a revolutionary working­class perspective,

24 MARCH 1978 7

I

Wide World

Striking coal miners picket deliveries of scab coal near Pittsburgh.

against it. These "yellow socialists" thustook up aposition to the right of a majornational union!

When miners want to know who isreally defending their strike. they shouldremember that the bureaucracy's lapdogs in the SW P and CP have done theirbest to head off a mobilization of laborstrike action in defense of the coal strike.The C P had the gall to then report theILW U's strike call (while not mention­ing its own despicable role in sabotagingit) in the 15 March Dailr World, whilethe SWP's 24 March Militant doesn'teven mention it.

Anothe~ disgusting betrayal had beencarried out by the Stalinist and social­democratic reformists just days beforeat a meeting of USWA Local 65 inChicago. On February 26, at a Local 65­sponsored public meeting, CP and SWPsupporters at Southworks had joined inlusty cheers for a representative of theBrookside Women's Club from HarlanCounty, Kentucky when she calIed forshutting down steel in solidarity with theminers. But at a regular businessmeeting of the local on March 8 whenthe issue was re-posed for a vote, thesetwo-faced opportunists tucked theirtails between their legs and ran.

FolIowing the Winslow, Indianameeting mentioned earlier, two minershad traveled to the Southworks meetingthat night to request solidarity actionfrom Local 65, They backed a proposalby USWA militants that steel workershot-cargo scab coal and calI on District31 to undertake a work stoppageprotesting the Taft-Hartley injunctionagainst the miners strike. But "progres­sive" Sadlowski-ally and Local presi­dent John Chico-whom the SWP andCP supported in the last elections-­refused to even allow the miners into themeeting! Moreover. Joe Kransdorf.national secretary of the NationalSteelworkers Rank and File Committee(NSRFC), which is regularly hailed inthe pages of the Daily World, voted withChico to keep the miners out"of themeeting, while SWP supporters ab­stained. With such assistance, Chicothen maneuvered to keep the hot­cargoing/ strike motion off the floor byadjourning the meeting. The next day.

came last week in San Francisco. TheInternational Executive Board of theIL WU had voted for a one-day coast­wide dock shutdown in opposition tothe use of Taft-Hartley against theminers and called on the rest of labor tojoin it. When this motion-a potentialIysignificant break in the bureaucracy'santi-strike front-Was presented to am~eting of Bay Area labor leaders whohad earlier hosted a miners strikesupport rally, the SWP and CP spokes­men present were in the forefront of themost right-wing, conservative andcowardly labor bureaucrats who op­posed it! While embarrassed CPersabstained on a motion to implement theone-day strike call, the shamelessSWPers loudly argued and voted

WV Photo

UMWA vice president Sam Churchhailed defeated coal pact at Balti­more support rally as proof of uniondemocracy.

ers president dared to show his face inpublic in the coalfields ... except atcompany-sponsored prayer meetingsfor an end to the strike! When Millerbecame too hot to handle. the CP'sDaill' World cOIHinued to hail Antal,even though Antal served on theUMWA negotiating committee. hasvoted "yes" on every sellout pact anddenounced the miners who voted downhis agreements as "greedy" men who"want everything." The SWP, for itspart. built and advertised a March 3meeting in New York, chaired by SWPunionist Ray Markey, whose featuredkeynote speaker was to have beenWilliam Esselstyn, the UMW A Interna­tional secretary-treasurer. Esselstyn isMiller's hand-picked boy and was thekey spokesman for each of the give­away agreements that have been turneddown by the UMWA ranks.

The SWP and CP blocs with the labortraitors have meant more than simplyproviding them with platforms andrefusing to argue for any action thebureaucrats cannot tolerate. In the lasttwo weeks both groups have demon­strated their loyalty to the bureaucracyby sabotaging every proposal to mobi­lize the labor movement in strike actionagainst Taft-Hartley.

Surely the most shameful and disgust­ing performance of the CP and SWP

Western Pennsylvania Committee toSupport the UMW composed largely ofPittsburgh-area bureaucrats. This coali­tion held a 600-strong mine strikesupport demonstration in the steelcapital on February 6. But the SWP,executing its "turn" to the labor bu­reaucracy. was not far behind, engineer­ing blocs of union leaders who spon­sored rallies in L.A. (600 people), SanFrancisco (1.000) and New York(1,400) in late February and earlyMarch.

Featured speakers at ralIies backed bythe Western Pennsylvania Committeehave been UMWA District 5 directorLou Antal and Arnold MilIer himself.This was about the only time dudng thestrike that the discredited Mine Work-

Aureaucrats, Fake Lefts OpposeSolidarity Strikes

That most of the labor bureaucracywould oppose these militant policies isunderstandable enough. But the bu­reaucrats have found some allies in theirefforts to squash attempts to mountsolidarity strikes. Both the CommunistParty (CP) and the Socialist WorkersParty (SWP). the two lar,gest organiza­tions on the American left, have teamedup with the labor fakers and, assentiment in the labor movement grewin favor of strike action in defense of theminers. sought to both head it off andprovide cover for the bureaucrats whooppose it.

The CP and SWP share a commonpolitical appetite: to become massreformist parties by carving out a nichefor themselves in the pro-capitalistunion bureaucracy. The Stalinist CP isslavishly loyal to every sneeze and sneerfrom .the Kremlin while the social­democratic SWP seeks respectability inanti-Communist America by increas­ingly distancing itself from defense ofthe historic gains of the RussianRevolution. But their common reform­ist aims make SWP and CP policies inthe labor movement strikingly similar.Thus both supported Arnold Miller forUMWA president in 1972. For the nextfive years they glossed over his betrayalsuntil this Labor Department-backed"reformer" had become the most hatedman in th~ coalfields. and fawning overhim seemed no longer productive.. Lastyear both supported Ed Sadlowski, theArnold M iller of the Steelworkers. in anunsuccessful bid to ride the coattails of apopular dissident bureaucrat into posi­tions of influence.

When the coal strike erupted. bothgroups saw an opportunity not to helpthe miners win this crucial struggle butto ingratiate themselves with an ever­broader layer of union bureaucrats. TheCP, with deeper roots in the labormovement, struck pay dirt first, with itssupporters helping to put together a

greeted proposals for strike action fromworkers in other unions.

On March 7, 270 miners gathered in aWinslow, Indiana high school gymna­sium for the daily strike meeting ofseven UM WA locals: The strikers,many of whom were among the 194arrested earlier in the strike for shuttingdown a scab coal dock near Rockport,have been facing conditions of a virtualcivil war in southern Indiana. withmarauding armed scabs, state policeand National Guardsmen riding shot­gun for scab coal convoys. Many woreblack armbands' in memory of JohnHull, the Indiana miner killed on apicket line by a trigger-happy gun thug.

The miners broke into cheers. after aChicago steel worker told them of hisand other militants' efforts to get theirunion to hot-cargo scab coal and to shutdown the industry in solidarity with theUM WA strike. Miners took the floor todenounce the Taft-Hartley law and tosupport the call for a joint coal/steelstrike. One striker. referring to therepeated verbal pledges of support ofSteelworker officials. declared, "Wedon't need just resolutions .... We needa sympathy strike by steelworkers!"When Frank Hicks, a member of UAWLocal 600 (Ford River Rouge) inDetroit. spoke about the importance ofbringing out auto workers to back upthe miners' defiance of Taft-Hartley. theminers broke into another round ofapplause.

A similar response a few days latergreeted Chicago steel worker Jay Frankat a meeting of several hundred minersin Logan. West Virginia. Frank, amember of USWA Local 65 at U.S.Steel's Southworks plant, told theminers of the fight against the hide­bound. anti-strike USWA bureaucracyand read from the resolution he has beenbacking in his local for hot-cargoingscab coal and going out in defense of theminers. Once again. the miners ap­plauded their approval.

WV PhotoS.F. Central Labor Council leaderJack Crowley "goes on the record"in support of miners strike, Twodays later he endorsed Taft-Hartley.

reimpose with fines and jail termsshould the miners reject the latestproposed agreement, the labor move­ment has an obligation to act in defenseof the miners and stay the government'shand. If "you can't mine coal withbayonets." you also can't fight gun­toting strikebreakers with cans of tunafish and hand-me-down sneakers.

From the wry beginning of thisstrike. the Sparracist League said thatthe coal miners were in the forefront ofthe class struggle and must not beal/oll'ed to stand alone. We urgedrailroad. transport and steel workersnot to handle scab ccal as an elemfl1taryact ofso/idarity \I'ith the miners, whosestrike-and the very existence of theirunion-\l'as threatened by the nearly 50percent of U. S. coal production that isnon-union. We caJ/edfor steel workersto shut dOlI'n the steel industry, not onlyin defense of the miners, but to \I'in theiroll'n demands: tearing up the no-strike

,"Experimental Negotiating Agreement"and rewrsing the steel bosses' layoffo/fensi\'e. As it became clear that thegovernment lI'ould directly inten'eneagainst the union. we cal/edfor proteststrikes by the unions to repulse Carter'sassault.

These are the steps the labor move­ment could take that would really backup the coal'strikers, who clearly needand welcome them, Though throughoutmuch of their strike the miner~ havehad their hands full just trying to keepscab operators shut down. they havealso made efforts to bring out otherunionists. Railroad yards have beenpicketed in West Virginia along withcoke plants in Pennsylvania. Severalutility power plants using scab coal havealso seen miners picket lines ih'rown up.Miners know they are up against thecombined forces of the coal operators, ~their big business allies and the federalgovernment and have enthusiastically

For Strike Action to Defend theMiners!

The coal strikers, of course, need allthe financial aid, clothes, food, etc. theycan get. The UM WA has no strike fundand the miners. already hard pressed bylast summer's massive ten-week wildcatstrike against health benefit cutbacks,have been forced to live off credit andsavings. But it was clear early on in thisstrike that, faced with armed scabs,vicious state troopers and fhe NationalGuard, the miners needed more from thelabor movement than food and money.Particularly in light of the Taft-Hartleyinjunction which the courts threaten to

(continuedfrom page 6)

breaking maneuvers to a screechinghalt. But they would also threaten tocompletely disrupt the labor leader­ship's desire for a cozy relationship withthe bosses' and the Democratic Party.For that reason, the union tops preferthe "humanitarian" course of raisingrelief funds to the class-struggle tactic ofmilitant protest strikes.

Defend theMiners...

8 WORKERS VANGUARD

'-........,

TROTSKYIST LEAGUEOF CANADA

SPARTACIST LEAGUELOCAL DIRECTORYANN ARBOR (313) 663-9012

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

BERKELEY/OAKLAND. . .(415) 835-1535

Box 23372Oakland. CA 94623

BOSTON. .(617) 492-3928Box 188M.IT StationCambridge. MA 02139

CHICAGO .. (312) 427-0003Box 6441. Main POChicago. IL 60680

CLEVELAND. . ... (216) 566-7806Box 6765·Cleveland. OH 44101

DETROIT. . ... (313) 868-9095Box 663A. General P 0Detroit. MI 48232

HOUSTONBox 26474Houston. TX 77207

LOS ANGELES. . . ... (213) 662-1564Box 26282. Edendale StationLos Angeles. CA 90026

NEW YORK. (212) 925-2426Box 1377. GPONew York. NY 10001

SAN DIEGOPO Box 2034Chula Vista. CA 92012

SAN FRANCISCO. . .. (415) 863-6963Box 5712San FranCISCO. CA 94101

the mortal threat to the very existenceand bargaining power of their unionwhich is posed by the skyrocketinggrowth of non-union coal production,they will have a contract that will make'it doubly hard to organize non-unionminers.

The principal issue before the minersever since the 1974 contract has been theright to strike. Miller traded this off fora cumbersome five-step grievanceprocedure that culminated in bindingarbitration that almost always favorsthe coal bosses. With the grievancesystem/arbitration weapon in theirhands, the coal operators stepped uptheir harassment, violation of unionrights and disregard of safety precau­tions. It was the bosses' arrogance thatprovoked the numerous walkouts underthe 1974 contract, as even some of thebig business press has admitted.

The coal operators entered thenegotiations last fall determined tocrush the miners' militancy and windraconian no-strike measures includingfines on wildcatters, firings for strikeleaders and penalties for miners whorespected picket lines, the most sacredtradition in the coal fields. They werebacked up in their determination by theCarter administration, which is pushinga coal-oriented energy policy and isvitally interested in "labor peace" in themines.

After rebelling against one no-strikeagreement after another and staying outfor over 100 days, the coal miners haveforced the operators and government toback off (}O their demands for explicitno-strike language in the contract.Squeezed between the miners' intransi­gence and their need to replenish theirrapidly dwindling stockpiles, big busi­nessmen began yelping for a "softer"approach to the miners. The 20 Marchissue of Business Week, a major journalof business opinion, wrote:

"The biggest sticking point in thenegotiations has been the effort bymanagement to use this year's contractto push through productivity incentivesand penalties that would stop wildcatstrikes. At this point they should refrainfrom insisting on dramatic changes inthe new contract and agree instead to aneasier-to-achieve settlement along thelines of the earlier 1974 agreement."

That the proposed agreement doesnot contain a no-strike clause orenforcement powers is a real setback forthe coal operators, won by the miners'determined drive not to sacrifice theirmost honored traditions. But by failingto win an explicit unlimited right tostrike, written into the contract, theminers are left open to renewed attacks

continued on page 10

one of the Indiana miners took hismessage to a miners strike support rallyat the University of Chicago initiated bythe Spartacus Youth League:

"We're fighting for our lives: they'retrying to run over us. They've killed acouple of our brothers already. We'vegot gun-toting scabs down there. We'refighting local and state cops too. We'refighting our own leadership as well."U .S. Steel is over here running scabcoal .... I would like you to know thereis blood on that coal. Don't handle it!Hot-cargo it!

Solidarity with MinersWhile Local 65 tops managed to

squelch the demand for strike action,the miners' call for militant solidaritywas heeded three days later at a meetingof UAW Local 6 at the InternationalHarvester plant in Melrose Park justoutside Chicago. A motion defendingthe miners had been circulated in theplant earlier in the week by MarcFreedman of the Labor Struggle Cau­cus, an opposition group in the Local.The motion called for a UAW-wide two­day shutdown to oppose the use of Taft­Hartley against the miners, a mass laborrally, hot-cargoing of scab coal bythe entire labor movement and carcaravans to be dispatched to thecoalfields to aid the miners in theirefforts to shut off the mining andshipment of scab coal. Forty-six mem­bers of Local 6 co-signed the motion.

In one of the largest local meetings inmonths, 175 workers this time defeatedthe treachery of the bureaucrats andtheir "left" allies. The entire executiveboard opposed the motion. CorneliusCobb, a well-known spokesman for theNational Alliance Against Racial andPolitical Repression, one of the CP'sinnumerable front groups, spokeagainst the motion. So did Norm Roth,former president of Local 6 and currentpresident of Labor Today, newspaper of"Trade Unionists for Action and De­mocracy," which parrots the CP line onunion affairs. Roth said he was totallyopposed to the content of the motion,but would vote for it as he didn't want tolook like he was against the miners!However, one Local 6 member afteranother took the floor in a 45-minutediscussion to stress that the plant gatecollections and food caravans were notenough. When the final vote came, themotion was voted up by a three-to-onemargin.

The same day, a similar motioncalling for a work stoppage of organizedlabor to back the miners was presentedto workers at Dodge Truck's UAWLocal 140 in Detroit. Though the Local140 bureaucrats dragged in everyhanger-on and hack they could find tothe meeting, the militants who stood forstrike action in defense of the minerssucceeded in polarizing the meetingaround their proposal and demanded astanding division of the house. Assupporters and opponents of the motionlined up against opposite walls for thevote, who was left sitting alone in themiddle of the room, furiously caucus­ing, but ... three self-proclaimed sup­porters ofthe SWP's misnamed newspa­per, the Militant! Realizing they werethe only members still ..sitting in themiddle of the hall, the "militants" finallyscurried over to support the motion.These hypocrites later told the sponsorsof the motion, which failed by a narrowthree-to-two margin, that they reallydidn't agree with it anyway. Indeed not.As one Dodge Truck worker said toWV. "They voted their embarrassment,not their program."

Their "Solidarity" and OursIn the last week CP and SWP

supporters have made c1ear­particularly by opposing implementa­tion of the ILWU's motion for a one-daywork stoppage to fight Taft-Hartley­that their quest for a slot in the laborbureaucracy means actively fightingagainst those militant steps which couldspell victory for the miners. Supportingthe miners strike means more than"explaining the miners cause," especial­ly when the strikers already havewidespread working class support.

24 MARCH 1978

,.Smash the Taft-HartleyInjunctionl Victory tothe UMWAI

The following motion was passedoverwhelmingly at the March 12meeting of VA W Local 6 (Interna­tional Harvester, Melrose Park,l//inois). Local 6 members andChicago-area trade unionists, aswell as VA W members throughoutthe U.S., must fight for its immedi­ate implementation to defend theminers strike.

Whereas, President Carter hasinvoked the reactionary Taft­Hartley law in an attempt to forcestriking coal miners back to workand thus break their strike; and

Whereas, Carter's action is a state­ment to all labor that anyeffective strike in this country willbe declared illegal and that there$ources of the federal govern­ment will be mobilized to smashit; and

Whereas, this action by PresidentCarter is a declaration of war onand is an extreme danger to theentire labor movement; and

Whereas, while the coal minershave from the beginning of thecoal strike fought a determinedbattle to shut down scab minesand to stop the movement of scabcoal, the state and federal govern­ments together with the utilitiesand steel companies are continu­ing to replenish their stockpileswith scab coal; and

Whereas, United Auto Workersand the rest of the labor move­ment have the power to crush thisgovernment / energy / steel trustassault and throw Carter's union­busting injunction back in hisface; and

Whereas, as an elementary act ofclass solidarity steel, utility andtransport workers must hot­cargo all steel shipments for thestrike's duration;

Therefore be it resolved, UAWLocal 6 calls on the Internationalto declare and implement animmediate two-day strike inprotest against Carter's Taft­Hartley injunction; and

Be it further resolved, that UAWLocal 6 calls on Region 4 to call amass meeting of Chicago arealabor to (a) declare and imple­ment an immediate two-dayshutdown of Chicago area indus­try to demand, (I) Down with theTaft-Hartley injunction! Handsoff the miners' strike! (2) Drop allcharges against striking coalminers; (b) organize caravans ofpickets from Chicago area laborto join with the coal miners inshutting down all scab coalshipments; (c) call on steel, utilityand transport workers to hot­cargo coal shipments for theduration of the strike.

Every miner should know that theSpartacist League has stood alone onthe left in fighting for a program ofmilitant solidarity with the coal strike.Certainly the CP and SWP reformiststalk a lot about strike support, but whathave they done to confront governmentstrike-breaking and the bankruptcy ofthe UMWA leadership-the two mainfactors holding back the miners fromwinning? Nothing, because even totouch these burning questions wouldsend their plans for braintrusting andproviding a left cover for the laborbureaucracy up in smoke.

When the CP disingenuously reportsthe ILWU 24-hour strike motion andthe SWP recalls the mass 1947 strikesagainst Taft-Hartley, their wordsshould cause them to choke. For thesetreacherous backstabbers have donetheir best to fight those in the labormovement who are trying to implementthese critical steps today! The SWP andCP may get a few jobs out of theirmarriage of convenience to the bureau­crats, but they deserve the contempt ofevery militant coal miner and realdefender of the union cause.•

Vote No!...(continued from page 1)District 6, told WV that "We have to getback to work. Then we can get togetherand take action on Miller." Nunley saidthat another meeting is being plannedwith representation from 19 UMWAdistricts expected.

This is the program of defeatism andcareerism. The miners who have been onstrike for over three months have no needof new leaders simply to police andenforce a contract engineered by the nowthoroughly discredited Miller. (Mili­tants will recall that Miller defended hisbetrayals during his first two years inoffice with the excuse that he was saddledwith Boyle's contract.) This scheme is, nodoubt, attractive to ostensible "anti­M iller" bureaucrats like Tom Gaston,Jack Perry and Ken Dawes, whojumpedon the union bargaining team at thebehest of the Carter government only tocapitulate within just a few days toCarter's dictated terms. Having seenArnold Miller climb into power in theUMWAin 1972 through the interven­tion of the Labor Department, thesedistrict officials hoped that they toocould get the nod from the government ifthey demonstrated their loyalty to itsorders.

But the contract boosted by the"dissidents" and passed by the Bargain­ing Council was massively repudiated byan outraged UMWA membership.Though the most recent agreement waspassed bya more narrow margin than theprevious one (22 to 17), those whoswitched their votes did so only as a resultof the overwhelming pressure of theranks. This should deceive no one.District 17 president Jack Perry, forexample, told the press that he consid­ered the latest contract offer-which hevoted against-"a hundred times better"than the previous one-which he votedfor! Such flip-flops are simply the resultof the crassest opportunism. They wouldbe downright comical were the issuesposed not so serious.

It is logical that bureaucrats of thisstripe would now favor a return to workon Miller's atrocious terms and thenseek to convene a convention to replacethe UMWA chief. These off-and-on­again "rebels" have no more stomachfor a prolonged fight than does Miller.They just want his job. Such a strategywould be a disaster for UMWA mem­bers who will have to live with Miller'shandiwork for the next three years.

Vote It Down!

For the last three years, the minershave fought massive wildcats for theright to strike, to get court injunctionsoff their backs and to win back their fullhealth card benefits. This contractsurrenders everyone of these demandsand would mean that all these battleswere in vain. The miners will have towildcat and strike all over again, undermuch less favorable circumstances, justto win back lost ground that will besealed in the new contract. Faced with

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stated bluntly. "If we were a coal miner,we'd have voted against the proposedcontract, too." Though the Journalretracted its editorial a few days later inan embarrassed statement, "EatingCrow," the point was clear enough. Thebig capitalists were hurting and scared.

Carter jumped into the dispute andalso proved unable to make his threatsstick. The federal judge who initiallyissued the back-to-work injunctionunder Taft-Hartley later refused toextend it, admitting: "The miners arenot paying any attention to what I amdoing anyway."

The miners' enormous strength hasalso shaken the coal operators. Hard­liners like Joe Brennan and U.S. Steel'sJ. Bruce Johnson were removed fromthe BCOA negotiating team as themajor coal firms grew nervous at theminers' rising anger.

Victory is within the miners' grasp.What thev need now is to stick to theirguns and -to replace their sellout leaderswith an elected strike committee com­mitted to winning the strike. And therest of the labor movement can playacrucial role in making sure that theminers are not isolated and beaten downby renewed government threats orcorporate resistance. Solidarity strikesnow would both freeze the government'sstrikebreaking ploys and unify the labormovement behind the miners.

Such a decisive break with Jimmy("Taft-Hartley") Carter's DemocraticParty would also be an important steptowards the formation of a workersparty to. fight the capitalist partiespolitically. This is the next great task onlabor's agenda. And there has been nobetter occasion than the current minersstrike. The Democrats stand exposed asa party of strikebreakers. For a WorkersParty! For Solidarity Strikes with theMiners! Victory to the Miners Strike!.

SUBSCRIBE NOW!$2/10 issues

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v.-ho hd\;:' fU:Jgbt unstintingly !o \~.. intheir strike and push Ihrough tc a rcalVIctory, /\nd there is no rcasrm forminers to accept now wh(\' they haverejectej bcfore t -rinlc and tnne i1t!~nn theenemy camp has been on the \crge ofcollapse, lwo weeks ago. when theminers overwhelmingly rejected the lastproposal. the Wall Street Journal. theleading journal of American financecapitalism. wrote an editorial in which it

..Jcontract, as compared to the 37 percentin the recently rejected proposal.

For the first time since the 1940's,when the miners won their health andpension funds, miners will beforced to pay up to $200 a year inmedical dcductibles. The conversion tocompany-by-company insuranceschemes ends the last shred of unioncontrol over the health funds. TheUMWA historically fought for the rightto control these funds, precisely so thatthe miners would not be subject to thewhims of the blackmailing companies.Any time the company says the contractis violated, as in a wildcat or after thecontract has expired, the coal baronswill seek to cut off benefits. The mineFs'health clinics, which provided impor­tant services not available on a fee-for­service basis, will be doomed.

There will be no pension equalizationunder this contract. Pensioners whoretired before 1975 will get their miserly$25 increase now, instead of over athree-year period. Yet the older pen­sioners will still starve.

The UMWA negotiators also gaveback what they had earlier rejectedunder the pressure of the membership:the companies' right to institute incen­tive speed-up schemes. These will beallowed at the discretion of the compa­nies and the vote of individual localunions, another step towards breakingthe solidarity of the miners which IS theirprincipal strength. Incentive!productivity drives will produce onlymore death and injury in what is alreadythe nation's most deadly industry.

The miners' safety is thrown into thehands of pro-co~pany arbitrators.Mine safety committeemen can bearbitrarily removed from their elected

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Fremont UAW Calls forSympathy Strike

At an executin board meeting oft:nited Auto Workers Local 1364(Fremont, California GM) onMarch 15 the Committee for aMilitant VA W put forward thefollowing motion of solidarity withthe coal miners strike:

"Motion: That VA W Local 1364immediatel) prepare for a sympa­thy strike of no less than 24 hours insupport of striking mine workerswho haH' heen rejecting unaccept-

, ahle settlemt'nts and dt'f)ing Taft­Hartle) and all forms of gOH'm­ml'nl stri!id)f('aking. And tintLora; L\64 initiate a ma~s ~aiJor

ralh the d", ilfthe~lrik2andca))(",

41f! ;-j:ht>T uili;;n, and ((-Yifral lahorfOlHlCi!s in th an';! to juin us in thestrik' and ra h. Aod In at locall3h·l i.[pr',~(·d iit('~~: \>inL~('1 &udfOUT· jr;:.-.;;:' t~·U"'!IH'~. ··~;n; ~t\Y,,; II_flfai J.~ ;Lii~ An~:·;,;'·,\, 1.;)('-)1 Itft:--eat!lt'}. lllrallll :!ja';"rea). antiII EI I oell ] :"55 )\ no hi:! 'or alrflllilpassed similar motions."' .

Rather than setting a specificdate. howner, this motion waswatered down before being passedb~ the l'\ecuthe board. by sa~ing

that Local 1364 would "get in touchwith other unions and the miners ona date and time for a possiblesympathy strike."

that tradition by picking off miners onthe picket lines and firing them until theproud militancy and strength of theU M W A is broken.

Informed sources close to thenegotiations told WV this week that aninitial memorandum of understanding,attached to the contract and endorsingARB 108, was withdrawn at the lastminute. Union and BCOA bargainersalike agreed that its inclusion would belike waving a red flag at the miners andwas essentially superfluous, as ARB 108will continue in full force anyway,without its inclusion in the contract.Without an explicit right to strike in thecontract, the miners will still be open toattack from this sweeping decision.

The other major issues of the strikecentered on restoration of the miners'health cards and equalization of pen­sions. On both scores, the currentcontract doesn't come close to satisfyingthe miners' demands and needs. Theadditional health and pension paymentsthe BCOA will make are paltry-theyraise the wage and benefit package to a38.8 percent increase over the 1974, ,

dffnZI~{~ .r~~:;;jr~') Ln supp,;ri (If thr,\muican minn.. striil:_' iil front nfl.S. ,:ofbulates in S!dlH'~ and\l('lhourne on 14 and 15 "archr('specti, rl). At thesf dtI110'F,tril­tions nnd i,li its press HH' SI/\,\Zra!!d for a blark banlhol-('ar~:Ging1on all eOI'd to the I .S. for theduration of thf: strike. i! demand forwhich it alune on the t"ustralian lefthas consistently fought.

Vote No!•••

Australian LabourCouncil VOWS to Aid

U.S. Coal StrikeSYDNEY-On 16 March the New­castle, New South Wales Trades andLabour Council approved the fol­lowing statement of solidarity withstriking coal miners in America:

"The U.S. coal miners are currentlyin the forefront of American labourin their battle to safeguard theirunion rights and working condi­tions against the onslaught of thecoal bosses and the Carter govern­ment. A victory by the miners intheir strike is in the interest of thelabour movement internationalhand all attempts at strikebreakingby t- .S. employers and the Cartergonrnment must be resisted. Wepledge our full support and wecondemn the t; .S. gonrnmentunion bashing through its useoftheTaft-Hartley Act."

The motion was referred foraction to the Waterfront Group ofLnions in Newcastle, which is amajor port for shipment of Australi­an coal. On 21 I\larch the \V G l alsopassed this motion and sent Ii cablein soliJarit~ with C .S. millers. BobHose, ',fU£!ap of tilt' \\H1I'rfrqnt(;rou p ,staid that they are no1 !!opingt" ship roal to the !. ,So ,1" anexprt'\,iD!1 vf s()lidaril~ \\ j,ll the coal~1dkf'.

1 hr Spar!3d"l Lr;q~" ,,(\u~'lt~a>:;-f ;j~1d ~t'-~ l~t·~d~\;l:i hc~d

(continuedfrom page 9)

by the companies, courts andarbitrators.

The weapon the coal bosses will nowtry to wield against the miners isArbitration Review Board decision No.108. Handed down last October, shortlybefore the strike began, ARB 108 ruledthat the companies had not only theright to fire their own employees forpicketing, but that "roving pickets," oneof the miners' most crucial weapons,could be fired. "Picketing" was con­strued to include even handing outliterature at another mine site! Thisincredible decision deserves to bequoted, since it will now be the majortool the companies will attempt to use tocrush the miners' militancy:

"We now turn to the rule which we aredeclaring with respect to picketing. Tobegin with. we lump picketing withstrike instigation and other strike­leadership manifestations as being ofthe same gravity. They constitute acapital offense-by which we mean anoffense which itself warrants dischargeand which Management therefore neednot treat as an offense calling for theapplication of progressive discipline."Next, we do not believe that adistinction can be properly drawnbetween the picketing of an employee'sown mine and the picketing of othermines. be they mines of the employee'sEmployer or mines -of anotherEmployer."The choice is the Miners'. Thev cannotlegitimately argue that their survival isdependent on adherence to their picket­ing and strikll1g tradition. For theshedding of that tradition merely meansacceptance of the grievance procedureas the proper disputes-settling forum-­which. in turn. amounts to no morethan the honoring of the Agreement.There cannot be both pride in thetradition and respect for theAgreement."

the last sentence is certainly true! Theminers' powerful traditions are incom­patible with the UMWA bureaucracy'ssellout contracts and binding arbitra­tion. With ARB 108 continuing ineffect. the bosses will attempt to destroy

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

Zionists...(continuedfrom page 12)lot with the so-called "Muslim-leftist"warlords. And they are all refugees fromthe creation of the Zionist state of Israel.

Israeli ground troops have beencareful so far not to venture above theso-called "red line" demarked where theLitani River flows into the Mediterrane­an 15 miles north of the Israeli border.The red line is the product of theLebanese civil war and its suppressionby the Syrian-dominated 30,000 manArab "peacekeeping" force. This virtualSyrian occupation army didn't venturebelow the Litani for fear of confronta­tion with Israel. As a consequence theLebanese communal war has continuedbelow the Litani. Israel, through its"open fences," provides military andlogistical support to the MaroniteChristian militas. Last fall Israeli troopseven crossed into Lebanon to fightbeside the Maronites' militias butwithdrew under U.S. pressure. Israelwould like to use these militias as itsborder guards but even with Zionistmilitary aid they have up to now provenunable to fulfill this function.

Reprisals and Genocide

Begin's defense mInister Ezar Weiz­man rushed back from Washington,where he was begging for more arms forthe Israeli arsenal, to take charge of theLebanese invasion. He called the cam­paign "not a reprisal operation in theusual sense"-that is, the usual sense oflast November's reprisals where 300Arabs were killed in revenge for threeIsraelis. These reprisals in fact areseldom aimed at the Palestinians them­selves so much as at the governmentsthat give sanctuary to Palestinianrefugees. They in turn were supposed to"discipline" and police the Palestinians.

This Israeli strategy proved successfulin Jordan, where a'series of reprisals in1968-69 led to the Jordanian civil warand the tragic "Black September" of1970 in which King Hussein was able tomilitarily crush the Palestinian resis­tance. However, this strategy has notworked in Lebanon because its armywas too weak or more recently non­existent. Therefore the present cam­paign is, in Weizman's words, designedto "uproot the terrorist concentrationsin southern Lebanon once and for all."But as Arab civilians are indistinguish­able from "Arab terrorists" the cam­paign which has already created 100,000refugees and countless casualties seeks

Only Paper...(continued from page 5)get a visiting trade unionist arrested forselling wv. The absurd claim was thatsince the articles mentioned the minersunion by name, the WV salesman was"using the name of the UMWA" tosolicit funds! The miners on the spotcame to his defense and the cops finallyhad to let him go. Despite the bureau­crats' shamef.ul harassment, 24 subscrip­tions to WVwere sold in Nanty Glo thatday.

The reporting/ sales teams who aretouring the coal mining areas to coverthe story of this crucial class confronta­tion are leaving j)ehind them hundredsof readers of Workers Vanguard. In lessthan two weeks of intensive touring, thefield teams have sold nearly 200 WVsubscriptions in the mining communi­ties. In addition more than 30 bundles of3 to 50 copies are being mailed to minersin five states who have asked to circulateWV's coal strike coverage among theirunion brothers and friends. At unionmeetings and strike-support rallies fromIllinois to West Virginia, in door-to­door sales in the coal mining regions,WV has found a receptive audienceamong miners who recognize the valueof a crusading newspaper which tells thetruth from the standpoint of the workersand presents a program to take the classstruggle forward to victory.•

24 MARCH 1978

to uproot an entire Arab population.Egypt's foreign minister Muhammad

Ibrahim Kamel did not exaggerate whenhe stated, "The Israeli invasion aims atthe complete annihilation of the Pales­tinian people." The government­controlled Egyptian press also chimedin, denouncing Begin as a "new Hitler."But today's "new Hitler" was yesterday's"good friend" of Egyptian presidentAnwar el-Sadat's "peace initiative."Ironically, Sadat's pilgrimage to Jerusa­lem where he fawned over all theleaders of Zionism, including thebutcher Begin, took 'place in the after­math of Israel's last brutal anti­Palestinian "retaliation," the Novemberair strike against Lebanon.

"Steadfastness Front?"

Meanwhile, those Arab states whichjoined with the PLO to oppose Sadat's"peace initiative"-Syria, Algeria,South Yemen and Libya-and whichformed the so-called "steadfastnessfront" has up to now remained "stead­fast" in doing nothing to materially aidthe PLO in the face of the Zionistgenocidal aggression against the Pales­tinian people. Syria, which was crownedthe "main confrontation state" since it isthe only member of the "steadfastnessfront" which borders Israel, has kept itstroops north of the Litani River andaway from contact with Israeli groundforces. The Syrian forces, the butchersof Tel al Zaatar, are as much thepolicemen of the Palestinian comman­dos in the north as the ChristianMaronite militias are in the south!

Syrian president Hafez aI-Assad, everwilling to fight bombs with bombast,declared Saturday, "Syria will remainthe big power forming a spearhead inthe resistance to every in'vasion andaggression against the Arab nation." Hethen proceeded to offer the rights ofpassage over Syrian land or airspace forany Arab who wanted to go to the aid ofthe Palestinians in Lebanon. Abstractly,such an appeal has meaning only forIraq, but in reality such an offer is utternonsense as Iraq and Syria are in a stateof war with one another, and each hastroops tied down guarding its respectiveborders from the other.

Beneath the bombast Syria's real lineis to appeal, along with its puppetgovernment in Beirut, to the real "bigpowers" on the United Nations SecurityCouncil to "assume their responsibili­ties" and force Israel to withdraw to bereplaced with UN "peacekeeping" forc­es. Such forces have ringed Israel for 28years and have permitted four full-scalewars and countless border incursions. Infact, there are already UN "peacekeep­ing forces" in southern lebanon! Thisis probably the solution preferred byboth the United States and the SovietUnion. However, Israel is not about towithdraw its forces from southernLebanon unless under substantial U.S.pressure and not until it finishes"uprooting" Palestinians and theLebanese that it does not considerfriendly.

For now Syria and Israel are stayingon their respective sides of the "red line."Nonetheless the Zionist invasion ofLebanon and the placing of 25,000Israeli troops directly on the other sideof the Litani tremendously destabilizewh~t is already a volatile situation. TheIsraeli invasion already has the magni­tude of a fifth Near East war. It couldrapidly escalate into a major confronta­tion between Israel and Syria-againthreatening to drag in their respectivepatrons, the United States and theSoviet Union-thereby sparking aglobal confrontation and perhaps nu­clear holocaust.

Consistent Nationalism IsGenocide

Fatah and the PLO hailed the March12 terrorist raid as a "big success." Evena spokesman for the reactionary Kuwai­ti sheikdom stated that· it was "naturalthat the Palestinian revolution should

carry out actions to prove its presenceand effectiveness." And the SaudiArabian state radio labeled the opera­tion a "courageous action."

The Fatah raid was timed to occuronthe eve of Begin's trip to Washington.Clearly, the PLO wanted to disrupt thepresent round of negotiations sparkedby the Sadat "initiative" and U.S.pressure on Israel to make some tokenconcessions to Egypt while leaving outthe PLO. This was Fatah's answer toU.S. national security strongman Brze­zinski's remark, "Bye, bye PLO." Inforcing Begin to postpone his trip toWashington for one week Fatah haswon a pyrrhic diplomatic victoryindeed.

Yasir Arafat also sought to call worldattention to the existence of the Pales­tinian question and to reclaim for thePLO the designation of "sole represen­tative" of the Palestinian people. Thesuicide raid was most certainly adesperate act by self-sacrificing ele­ments of an oppressed people aban­doned on all sides by their self­proclaimed allies and with no otherprospects but another 30 years ofpoverty and the squalor of refugeecamps in hostile countries. But the raidwas an act of indiscriminate terrorism inwhich the guerrillas simply killed atrandom- whomever they came across,from the first person they encounteredon the beach where they landed, a 19­year-old girl, to the young childrencaptured in a hijacked tourist bus.

It is no accident that the Fatahguerrillas were launched from andprobably trained at Damur. Damur wasconsidered the most militant of thePalestinian camps, the reason why it hasreceived such brutal punishment fromthe Israeli air strikes. This town wasbrutally sacked and its entire popula­tion, mainly Christian, massacred by themisnamed "Muslim-left" gang whosebosses happen to be Muslim ratherthanMaronite religious leaders. They are nomore left-wing than different families inthe Mafia could be distinguished be­tween left and right. The resettling of theTel al Zaatar survivors at Damur was atbest another macabre episode' in thecycle of vengeance and counterven­geance that characterized the squalidLebanese communal war.

I

Thus it is not surprising that the Pal-estinian refugee concentration at Dam­ur spawned the desperate indiscriminateterrorism of the recent raid. But it makesthat terrorism no less criminal. Indis­criminate terror-whether it is aimed atthe Hebrews, Maronites orPalestinians-asserts that a wholepeople, rather than its ruling class andorganized state power, is the enemy.Fatah's rampage on the Haifa-Tel Avivhighway asserts that the liberation ofPalestinian people requires not justdestruction of the Israeli state and rulingclass but the annihilation of the Hebrewpeople, just as Zionism asserts thatsurvival of the Hebrew people requiresannihilation of the Palestinians.

The program of Palestinian nation­alism-which is the program of allfactions of the PLO, from Habash toArafat-is no different from the pro­gram of Zionism carried out to itslogical conclusion. The program callsfor "national liberation" through geno­cide. The difference is that the Zionistshave the means to implement theirprogram, the Palestinian nationalists donot. But this does not mean that wesupport the program of the victim, theprogram of Palestinian nationalism. Weconsider utterly indefensible the Fatahatrocity on the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway.

What must be supported are the realstruggles of. the Palestinian massesagainst the real enemies of the nationalliberation of the Palestinian people: inthe first instance the Zionist ruling class,its army, police and prisons. Therefore,we unconditionally defend (irrespectiveof their present political leadership) the

struggle of the Palestinians against theIsraeli armed forces in Lebanon and inthe occupied territories. We also defendthe struggle of the Palestinian refugeesagainst their Arab oppressors, fromU.S. client Hussein to the "militant"Assad. who are no more interested in thenational liberation of the Palestiniannation than is Israel. While taking adefensist position on the side of thePalestinians under Israeli attack inLebanon and exposing the hypocrisy ofthe Arab regimes which have turnedtheir backs on the embattled guerrillas,we point out that if Syria directly entersthe fighting the conflict would betransformed into another reactionarynationalist war not different in kindfrom the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeliwars.

The Hebrew workers must be brokenfrom their Zionist rulers, a task mademuch more difficult by the tactics ofindiscriminate terror practiced by thePalestinian nationalists. Israeli workersmust be made to see that the Begins,Allons and "left" Zionists can lead onlyto more war and destitution. At thesame time the Palestinian people mustbe broken from the PLO, its militantswon over to the perspective of the classstruggle and internationalism. Theymust seek their liberation not throughthe dead-end nationalist policies ofgenocidal terrorism and reliance onreactionary Arab Lt:ague regimes orimperialist diplomacy, but in the classunity of the Hebrew and Arab proletari­at. An internationalist communistleadership must be forged in the NearEast that fights for the realization of theself-determination of both the Palestini­an and Hebrew nations in a socialistfederation of the Near East. Israel out ofLebanon and all the occupied territo­ries! For Trotskyist parties in the NearEast! For the Rebirth of the FourthInternational! •

~, G& WE' FilM ..

SUBritainFounded...(continued from page 4)

the inadequacies and betrayals of ouropponents; it must deal with the broadtheoretical questions of the workersmovement internationally; it must showhow the class struggle can be intersectedby the communist vanguard and theway forward for particular struggles."

Another important task will be toaccelerate the polarisation processamong the myriad fake-Trotskyists inBritain. The present fusion must pointthe way forward for subjectively revolu­tionary militants who, in the absence ofa strong Trotskyist pole of attraction,have not yet broken from the opportun­ism of the decomposing centristorganisations.

Thus a decade after Healy's Interna­tional Committee proved its decisiveinability to combat the Pabloist revi­sionism which politically destroyed theFourth International, the British nu­cleus of authentic Trotskyism has beenfounded. But whereas then the Sparta­cist tendency confronted a period ofinvoluntary national isolation, todaythe British section is born as part of asmall but real international Trotskyisttendency. Recognising the need forcareful determination of priorities in thecontext of deepening organisationalconsolidation, the conference partici­pants saluted the fruitful possibilities forwork in Britain in the period ahead. Andas the first ripples of the present fusionspread across the cesspool of Britishfake-Trotskyism, the iSt's opponents aswell as its supporters demonstrate theirrecognition of the significance of theprincipled programmatic struggle of theTrotskyist Faction of the WSL and thesubsequent principled fusion whichmake possible the formation of theSpartacist League/ Britain.

Forward to the International Trot­skyist League!-For the Rebirth of theFourth International!.

11

."

W'liIlEliS "N'(JAlilJIsrael Out of the Occupied Territoriesl

raou ern eoanon

Israeli 175-millimeter gun fires into Lebanon from border position.

..Jf

A Review of Blue Collar

refugee camps including Sabra on theoutskirts of Beirut where 15,000 Palesti­nians are concentrated. Damur, IS milessouth of Beirut, whose present inhabi­tants are the survivors of the long Syriansiege of the Palestinian refugee camp Telal Zaatar, was reduced to rubble.

After the bombing, strafing andartillery attacks had "softened up" thearea Israel launched an armored andinfantry invasion along the full length ofits 65-mile border with Lebanon, secur­ing an area six miles into Lebanon fromthe Mediterranean coast to Arkoub.where Israel, Syria and Lebanon meet.The Zionists added more than 215square miles to their "occupied territo­ries." By March 20 Israeli ground forceshad advanced beyond the six-milecordon sanitairl?, occupyIng most ofsouthern Lebanon up to the Litani mer.Though the campaign is not over yet theIsraeli war machine has already claimedthousands of casualties and producedover 100.000 refugees streaming out ofsouthern Lebanon. Many of these latestPalestinian refugees, like those who nowflee Damur, are in turn refugees fromthe 1975-76 Lebanese communal war inwhich the PLO guerrillas threw in their

continued on page 11

AP

On Tuesday rains and winds relentedand Israel launched its massive air.naval and ground attack. Gunboatsbombarded the southern Lebanese portcity of Tyre, and fighter bombers strafedand bombed villages and Palestinian

Israel Invades

Begin's furious call for Arab blood.Claiming that their crimes were equal tothe J\azis. who killed six million Jews,Begin vowed to "cut off the evil arm ofthe PLO."

Prior to the raid Begin was underincreasing pressure from the more"moderate" wing of the Zionist move­ment for his intransigence in dealingwith the U.S. and Sadat's "peaceinitiative." But now yesterday's "moder­ates" try to outdistance the butcher ofDeir Yassin in murderous fanaticism.One of Begin's harshest critics, YigalAllan. a former foreign minister andleader of the "Labor" Party. today callsfor the "use of active defense in order tohreak the strength of the PLO." Eventhe self-proclaimed "lelt-wing" Zionists1n Mapam trumpeted:

"The hand of Israel \\ ill reach them\\herner thn ma\ he and they \\iil hepunished."· - .

state over the dismembered body of thePalestinian nation.

Begin's outfit, the Irgun, was anembarrassment even to the blood­stained official Zionist movement. Itwas disarmed and integrated into theIsraeli army, an integration facilitatedby the fact that long before the creationof the Israeli state this army (then theHaganah) had adopted the Irgun'smethods. In dividing the spoils of statepower Begin and his fellow gangstersbecame the official opposition and re­emerged as the right-wing politicalparty, Herut. Last May's electionselevated into the premiership the manwho personifies the most sanguinary,racist and genocida] aSj:'cct s of ZionIsm.

Torrential rains and gale force windsthat pounded the Levant early last weekprevented an immediate Israeli militaryresponse But the respite was filled with

Anti-Union Blues ... 2

Criminal PLO AttackUsed as PretextButcher Begin:ATerrorist with

State PowerMARCH 20-0n Saturday, March 12an eleven-man Palestinian guerrillasquad armed with automatic rifles andhand grenades went on a terroristrampage along the Haifa-Tel Avivhighway. abducting two busloads ofpassengers and randomly firing onpassing cars. By the time the Palestiniankamikaze attack came to a bloody endin a hail of gunfire from an Israeliambush 37 Israelis had been killed andanother 76. wounded along the way.Fatah. the largest Palestinian guerrillagroup and the backbone of the PalestineLiberation Organization (PLO). imme­diately took credit for this massacre.

The world nervously awaited theIsraeli response. Zionist vengeance wasswift. murderous and massive. Unlikethe poorly armed Palestinian guerrillasit can and does mobilize all of theresources of a state power equippedfrom the arsenals of U.S. imperialismwith the most advanced weaponry in theworld. To give but one stark contrast,the PLO guerrillas of course have notone single plane whereas Israel has thethird most powerful air force in theworld equipped with. for example, F-15Eagles (which cost $17 million apiece).

The last Zionist "retaliation" tookplace in November after rocketslaunched from southern Lebanon killedthree Israelis in the coastal village ofNahariya. Israel responded by launch­ing massive air strikes which leveledwhole Lebanese villages. murduring 300civilians.

The March 12 Palestinian raid wasthe largest in Israel's history. And itsresponse was this time not limitedto the usual mass cruelty of Zionist"justice" which takes 100 eyes for anyeye. Israel is today led by that genocidalmaniac Menahem Begin. the Zionistterrorist whose murderous atrocitiesagainst the Palestinian population in the1940's brought about their physicaldispersal and the creation of the Zionist

12 24 MARCH 1978