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21 January 1977

1\. IVI. V.

P. O. BOX 134ET~~~AN 48221

fl" 25¢No. 141

WfJRltERS ,,1N'(JWhile Hundreds Wait on Death Row

STATE BUTCHERS GILMOREStop the Executions!

Peking wall poster denounces "Gang of Four."

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BureauiSygma

hours over the weekend. the "lawenforcement community" must havebeen congratulating itself on findingsuch a perfect victim for the reinstate­ment of capital punishment. The Su­preme Court opened the door lastsummer; President-elect Carter was ontheir side; demonstrations against theexecution were few and small evenGary Gilmore was on their side. Whenthe ACLU and a liberal judgethreatened to get in the way. they couldbe brushed aside.

How different it would have been forthe bloody enforcers of capitalist "lawand order" if they were dealing with amore typical resident of the nation'sdeath rows: a black man accused of the"crime" of shooting one of the killercops who every day unleash ruling-classterror in the northern ghettos.

"Let's do it." read the headlines acrossthe country. quoting Gi\more's last

contillued 011 page 8

possess magical qualities.In 17th century England the crowds

flocked to Newgate jail and jammed theroads to Tyburn prison to view tortureand hangings. Now we are told that aTexas court has cleared the way for thenext scheduled execution to be tele­vised. We are witnessing the use of thepropaganda techniques of 1984 fuelingthe social spirit of the punishment of1684.

The obscene media build-up sur­rounding the case of Gary Gilmore mustnot be allowed to obscure the funda­mental fact: the bourgeois state hasreinstituted legal murder. The sensa­tional publicity campaign was aimed atmaking it easier for the state to pull thetrigger. On the day of the executiontelevision specials announced victori­ously that 71 percent of the Americanpopulation now supported the deathpenalty.

As the death watch went into its final

JANUARY 16 -Twice purged as a "capitalist roader." Teng Hsiao-ping may yet liveto become king of the mountain in Stalinist China. The tough, sharp-tongued veteranof Peking's turbulent clique battles has survived all the architects of his two falls fromgrace. He has outlived Mao. seen Lin Piao posthumously reviled and witnessed(perhaps helped plan) the overthrow of Chiang Ching and the so-called "Gang ofFour."

The real questionsnow are when Tengwill be officially "reha­bilitated" and whatpost he will fill in theparty or governmenthierarchy. Peking wallposters proclaiming"With Teng Hsiao­ping as prime minister.Chou En-lai can rest inpeace" indicate that hemay rise right to thetop. co-equal with thenew party chairmanHua Kuo-feng.

"Gang" Out, TengBack

The Hua regime hasnot officially commit­ted itself. but is testingthe waters through thetypical Maoist meth­ods of manipulated"puhlic opinIOn.Teng's restoration isorganically linked withthe purge of the "Shan-

gl,hai jcircle" anS~hfol- _0;, ,..ows ast apace.. ort-colli illucd (Ill pa~c II Teng Hsiao-ping

What Now, Maoists?

The Return of Teng

PART 1 OF 2

Castro'sSearch forHemisphericDetente ....6

The necessary cry of outrage sticks inthe throat until the savage meaning ofthe death penalty is separated from thecult of Gary Gilmore.

The press has already fed us morethan we need to know about Gilmore. inorder to deny the enormity of what isreally at stake. Months of the mostputrid yellow journalism have oiled therifles of the Utah firing squad. We donot want to read another word aboutGilmore's last meal, his last song, thelast jerk of his body. His love letters. hispoetry, his fascination with death. hissuicide attempts are matters of indiffer­ence to history.

The parasites who arc exploiting thecult of Gary Gilmore for profit enact arepulsive ritual as old as punishment bydeath. Today. movie rights and ringsideseats to the execution are sold; in theMiddle Ages executioners found a readymarket for the sale of the hlood andparts of the criminal's corpse believed to

.. ... -IN CUBA

Gary Gilmore was executed by firingsquad on Monday morning in a stateprison at Point of the Mountain. Utah.It was the first execution in the UnitedStates since 1967.

We recoil at the spectacle of thi,

vengeful slaughter. Almost two centu­ries ago the death penalty was de­nounced as barbarous by leaders of thebourgeois revolution. Today. in thename of the future of mankind. wedemand its abolition.

The capitalist state has shot a man;hundreds more wait on death row as therepressive state machinery arrogantlywields its monopoly on the means oforganized violence. The targets: usuallythe black and the poor.

In the' weeks and months leading upto this execution. the reintroduction ofcapital punishment in the U.S. waspeddled to the public in terms of the sickpersonality of an admitted murdererwho "wanted to die."

"JjYlmcrisy.1s the Homage that Vice Pay.s to Virtue"

Joe Hansen Is an Honest Revisionist

interests of the working class. To.Capitalism we must oppose Socialism.To the Popular Front we must opposethe United Workers Front."

-Resolution adopted at the"Revolutionary Socialist Con­gress" of the London Bureau,Febuary 1938

Thus despite their anti-Trotskyistobliteration of the necessity of theproletarian vanguard party, the LondonBureau was perforce compelled to makea categoric class counterposition to thepopular front and did not expect theStalinist and reformist parties to some­how turn into their opposites. Butinstead of, and in opposition to, theTrotskyists' hard, bleak struggle for theFourth International, those centristscounterposed to reformism their innoc­uous and impotent phantom, "theRevolutionary Socialist Movement."This is why the organizations of theLondon Bureau, though nominallydisposing of forces one hundred timesthat of the Trotskyists. are a barelyknown historical footnote whose des­cendents must mas4uerade today asTrotskyists.

The hard lessons of the victoriousOctober Revolution retain their fullforce on our planet. Lenin and Trotskydid not enter or tail the provisionalgovernment of socialists and liberals­they overthrew it on the basis of sovietpower. The international Spartacisttendency stands today with Lenin'sThird and Trotsky's fourth Interna­tional in insisting not only that the issueof state power is class against class. hiltthat without the strug,2.lc to create aprogrammatically united and disci­plined Fourth International the workersare left to wander into the ne\', traps ofcapital and. as in the 1930\, with theassistance of their revisionist would-he"leaders."

[Authori/cd tC\t]

14.January 1977

international Spartacist tendency

Organilacic)n TrotskistaRe\olucionaria de ChileTrotskyist Faction (expelled) of theSpartacusbund (Germanv)

London Spartacist GroupBCM Box 4272London WC IV 6XXEngland

('('1 1\('1111/

The real political issues which placeall these squabbling slander-mongering,violence-prone elements at one pole andthe iSt at the other are currently posedby two decisive considerations: thepopular front and the Fourth Interna­tional. Of course, as in the 1930's whenthe centrist London Bureau zig-zaggedthrough the no-man's-land bctweenTrotskyism and the mass reformistparties, so today one finds more leftistephemeral groupings which seek tostraddle between a revolutionary courseand the accommodationism common toall tonight's speakers. The overridingcharacteristic of these groups is nega­tive: not to stand for a common andcoherent international program, but toposture against those (such as tonight'sspeakers) whose betrayals have becometoo overt. Thus for example there is the"Necessary Interna tional Initiative"bloc (including one Roberto from Italy,Sean Matgamna's recently split Interna­tional Communist League, the disinte­grating German Spartacusbund andmaybe somebody else). Their tendencyto themselves capitulate under pressureto popular frontism aside, they havehardly a point in common among theircomponent factions and individualsexcept their objection to the manifestrevisionism of the UScc (and to the"sectarian" intransigence of the iSt).

With the renewal internationally ofmassive proletarian unrest, the popularfront is again in the air. And allrevisionists must try, in their own ways,to accommodate on the central4uestionof class collaboration and, with their"new mass vanguards" or self-servingdescriptions of mass reformist parties assimply "workers parties." to pave theway for new betrayals.

The 1930's centrists of the LondonBureau, which Trotsky condemned, hadto verbally separate themselves from thepopular front rather more than suchtypes do today:

"The Popular Front practised by theSecond and Third Internationals is aform of class collaboration hct\\een theproletariat and the Liberal hourgeoisie(and the petty bourgeoisie which de­pends on this latter) on a Capitalisthasis which subordinates and sacrificesthe class interests of the proletariat andthe petty bourgeoisie to those ofmonopoly Capitalism... In conse­quence. thc Revolutionary SocialistMovement rejects the Popular Front asbeing absolutely contrary to the historic

('(J!II;'!I" Il:1r r/,\. 9;-

~:::~~--_~::':~:~::li~()::lil_. ~I::~JLeaflet announcing January 14 rally to "defend workers democracy." "lid"" .\,

,UBL'C M"T'NGDemocracy

*For Workers - s & Slanders*Against Frame-uP

ERNEST MANDELGEORGE NOVACKPIERRE LAMBERTMICHEL PABLOTIM WOHLfORTH~rperson TARIQ ALI

fRIDAY 14th JANUARYfRIENDS MEETING KOUSE

EUSTON ~2~~sto~O~t~~!INW1(OppOSI

n 630pm) admission SOp. 17pm (doors ope .

example, when Hansen's Interconti­nental Press (6 September 1976) pub­lished the statement "A ShamelessFrame-Up" signed by a long list ofindividuals and organizations, IP in itsinformational breakdown identifiedfrom among the hundreds of signerssixteen as "internationally knownTrotskyists." Of these, eleven weresupporters of the United Secretariat(USec), two were from the OrganisationCommuniste Internationaliste (OCI) ofPierre Lambert, two were from LutteOuvriere and one was from the iSt. Butonly some of ·the USec leaders, andLambert from the presently ingratiatingOCL and that master of intrigue, Pablohimself, are to speak tonight. Particu­larly objectionable to the meeting'ssponsors would be a spokesman of theiSt-the group which at the level ofworkers democracy campaigned earliestagainst the Healyite slanders (picketingwith our slogan "Who Gave Healy HisSecurity Clearance?") and which helpedinitiate the impartial Commission ofInquiry into the affair of the highlydubious Varga vs. the slanderous OCI.

It is not enough to describe Healy, asHansen does, as a paranoid. Theconduct of Healy's organization de­mands political explanation. TheHealyite combination of crude oppor­tunism and fake-Trotskyist "ortho­doxy" has repeatedly lost out to theslicker USec. whose internally warringwings are led by Joseph Hansen andErnest Mandel. In his slander cam­paign. Healy no doubt thinks he hasgone V.1. Lenin one better. Leninexposed Karl Kautsky as a revisionistthrough careful and savage analysis. Itw'ould therefore have been inconceiv­able for Lenin. as a Marxist. to havesubstituted the false and gratui­tous and so simplitying--accusa­sat ion that Kautskv was an aeent ofthe Kaiser. Healy ~annot foll~w thisprincipled course toward the USecrevisionists. for comparable analysiswould indict his own conduct. Heresorts to contemptible slander whichmerely brings ostensible "anti­revisionism" into disrepute. As always,Healy is the horrible example whichHansen feeds off, for his ownpurposes - in this case, an unprincipledattempted international "regroupment"parading as a rally for workersdemocracy.

WI' Photo

Gerry Healy at London meeting lastweek.

much as any other living human being todestroy the Trotskyist movement fromwithin and turn "Trotskyism" into acesspool.

Nonetheless a meeting "for workersdemocracy" and "against frame-ups andslanders" -even '. including such ele­ments as these--could be a good thing,only providing that it was an honestmeeting with full freedom of criticism.Unfortunately, as the speakers' listguarantees. this is not the case here. It isthe omissions which tell the story. For

We reprill! heloll' a leaf7et distrihUled hI'London supporters oi' the ill!ernation~1Spartacist tendenc.l' at a Januarl' 14meet inK 10 protest Heall'ite slanders ofS W P leaders Joseph' Hansen an~1George Novack.

Considering the notorious scoundrelswho mainly comprise the speakerstonight. this is not a company that we ofthe international Spartacist tendency(iSt) would freely choose to be among.But Trotsky has taught us that if theissue is just, one can unite with "the deviland his granddam" (taking due accountof the old folk saying that "when yousup with the devil, use a long spoon").But the ostensible purpose of thismeeting-to protest and expose theinfamous slanders against Joseph Han­sen and George Novack of the AmericanSocialist Workers Party (SWP) byGerry Healy and his Workers Revolu­tionary Party- is at most only one of itspurposes. For the speakers have anoth­er, overriding common denominator:they are all, to a man, revisionists anddestroyers of the Trotskyist movement,not merely guaranteed to be oh-so­diplomatic about one another's betray­als of Marxism, but actively in pursuitof new combinations and configura­tions of revisionism (the stresses of aninternationally rising line of classstruggle having deeply undermined theirold alignments).

It is only abstractly nauseating tothink of speaking from the sameplatform as e.g., a Pierre Lambert,whose organization continues to prac­tice endless physical violence against the"Vargaites" in the streets of Paris; or aservile Tim Wohlforth, now speakingfor the shamelessly reformist SWP, whohas spent fifteen years as a leadingpractitioner of Healyite slander andviolence; or, above all, a Michel Pablo(sometime arch-enemy of the formertwo), who personally has done quite as

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

Ernest Mandel speaking at January 14 London meeting.WV Photo

Tim WohlfarthWV Photo

Pierre LambertWVPhoto

~p~osingHealJ Slanders,jyp~ressing.Workers Democracy

London Meeting: Fake-Trotskyist FamilyReunion

At a London meeting attended bysome 1,500 people last Friday, ErnestMandel, Pierre Lambert, Michel Pabloand representatives of the AmericanSocialist Workers Party (SWP) were tohave shared the same platform for thefirst time in over 25 years. Behind thespeakers was a banner proclaiming,"For Workers Democracy-AgainstFrame-Ups and Slanders," and theostensible purpose of this reunion ofrenegades from Trotskyism was tocondemn the outrageous accusation byGerry Healy that .,SWP leaders JoeHansen and George Novack were"accomplices of the GPU" in Stalin's1940 assassination of Leon Trotsky.

To be sure, Healy's disgustingslanders deserve nothing but uttercontempt from revolutionists as they aremanifestly absurd and groundless, and,moreover, serve to fuel the Stalinist liethat Trotsky was murdered by "one ofhis own." But the main purpose of themeeting's organizers lay elsewhere.Planned at an October 1976 session ofthe "United" Secretariat (USec), at thesame time as an abortive pact wasworked out between the USec and theFrench OCI (see "No Tango in Paris,"WV No. 137, 10 December 1976),Friday's meeting provided a forum forthe chieftains of the squabbling factionsof competing revisionists masqueradingas Trotskyists to publicly bury thehatchet.

Much of the meeting was an orgy ofindignation against Healy and hisStalinist practices, from gangster at­tacks against other leftists to perniciouscop-baiting and character assassination.Healy richly deserves the harshestcondemnation for his venomous slan­ders and thuggery, but the ex-Trotskyistdignitaries who use his travesty of anti­revisionism to justify their own maneu­vers have little to boast about aspartisans of workers democracy.

Starring in the role of "savcd" sinnerand prodigal son was fonner Healylackey Tim Wohlforth. After a dOlenyears as servile Gauleiter of AmericanHealyism, Wohlfarth was hlackjackedby his master (and perforce accused ofharhoring a suspected "CIA agent").

21 JANUARY 1977

Wohlforth, now a book reviewer for theSWP's Militant, appealed for sympathybecause of the trials and tribulations heand his companion Nancy Fields facedafter being dumped by Healy ("no oneknocked on our door"). In the processhe inadvertently revealed his own moralcowardice and total unfitness to be arevolutionary leader.

According to Wohlforth, the "hardestthing that I ever said in my life" was toget up in a meeting with Healy and saythat he "disagreed with the proceed­ings." But this "disagreement" was notsufficient to prevent him from voting("against my convictions") for his ownremoval as head of the Workers League.By his own testimony, then, Wohlforthdemonstrates that he would have stoodin the front ranks of the capitulators toStalin in the 1920's. If he cannot stand~IP to Healy's hlustering. how could hehave resisted the onslaught of Stalin.who had the full resources of statepower at his command, or the pressuresexerted by the bourgeoisie'?

You Scratch My Back, I'll ScratchYours

In the chummy atmosphere of afamily reunion. the meeting also cele­brated the "growth and vitality of theFourth International." Mandel put itmost clearly: the meeting was not calledto refute Healy's vile frame-up, but "todefend the Fourth Internationalthrough our solidarity with comradeHansen and comrade Novack ... be­cause it needs defending."

The intervention by Lambert of theOCI- by far the most political of theevening gently chided the USecmajority for refusing to discuss with theOCI so long as the latter refused tocharacterize the Mandelites as "revolu­tionaries" (after all, he pointed Ollt,'terms such as "centrist" are a legitimatepart of political debate among ostensi­ble Marxists). But at the same time heabandoned the OCI's anti-Pabloisttradition and accepted the USec'sultimatum by several times pointedlyreferring to this gang of revisionists as"the Fourth International."

Lamhert went out of his way to imply

that the OCI had never considered theSocialist Workers Party as anything butrevolutionary. He claimed that in 1963when Healy characterized the SWP ascentrist the OCI had rejected this label.This bald assertion cannot alter the factthat during the late 1960's and early1970's the OCI referred to the SWP as"revisionist." Moreover, in 1962 Healyhad split the Revolutionary Tendency(RT--predecessor of the SpartacistLeague/ U.S.) of the SWP when the RTmajority refused to sign his dictatedstatement avowing that the SWP wasrevolutionary and not centrist.

Mandel in his closing speech returnedLambert's compliment, stating that hemust "give credit where credit is due"and praising the OCI for having played"an excellent, excellent leading role" inthe campaign to free Leonid Plyushchand to defend other left dissidents in theSoviet Union. Referring to the libera­tion of Plyushch last February, Mandelassimilated the OCI to the LJ Sec bytriumphantly proclaiming, "we got himout."

Michel Pahlo, the dean of anti­Trotskyist revisionism, did not show up,no dou bt to the secret relief of Mandeland Lambert, since Pablo no longermaintains any pretense of Trotskyism oradherence to the Fourth Internationaland might therefore give the game away.His message read at the meeting was inmany ways the frankest of all. Hedisparagingly referred to "this nastyquarrel" which was "symptomatic of acertain ideological decomposition in themovement of epigones, who have notsucceeded in linking themselves upseriously with the natural movement ofthe class." But after denouncing the"exacerbated sectarianism of the sects."in the spirit of the evening he went on topropose "our common task" which wasto "search with the utmost determina­tion for what can unite us and not todivide ourselves." All that was neces­sary, said Pablo, was a "commonprogram which corresponds to thecurrent necessities."

The speakers wholeheartedly took upPablo's admonition. Lambert declaredthat he did not wish to discuss "who was

correct" in 1953, when Pablo caused thesplit and destruction of the FourthInternational with his liquidationistprogram of "deep entrism" in theStalinist and social-democratic massreformist parties. Mandel, recallingPablo's 1950's talk of a "new worldreality" in which the Stalinists could nolonger betray, discerned that "Euro­communism" has introduced "new andtremendously vulnerable elements ofdivision" into world Stalinism, whichcan have "fairly big effects in favor ofTrotskyism." ..{Ie therefore proposedthat "all comrades present here, of alldifferent tendencies, factions and organ­izations." undertake a "common politi­cal campaign" to "ask" the EuropeanStalinists to "immediately, openly andpublicly rehabilitate all the victims ofStalin, all the victims of the Moscowtrials," and to calion the SpanishCommunist Party to expel Trotsky'sassassin' After all, "It can't hurt toask?"!

Following hard on the USec's pros­tration before a new wave of popular­frontism in Europe and Latin America,Mandel is proposing a "broad front" ofthe "family of Trotskyism" to fight

continued on page 8

WORKERSVAN(;(JARIJMarxist Working-Class Weeklyofthe Spartacist League ofthe U.S.

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3

CP Under Fire

Indira Gandhi Nods toRight Wing

Congress Party poster In praise ofthe prime minister.

ing Gandhi and the "emergency" (DailyWorld, 4 December 1976). In particular,the CPI has directed most of its fire atthe incompetent and venal SanjayGandhi, who has acted as the mouth­piece for sharp criticism of the CPI.

In response, on December 23 IndiraGandhi for the first time publiclyattacked the CPI, lashing the Stalinistsfor criticizing Sanjay and for goodmeasure raking up their betraval of theIndian indepenaence struggle duringWorld War II. (Following the Kremlindictate of allying with "democratic"Anglo-American imperialism againstJapan and fascist Germany, the CPI didindeed treacherously collaborate withthe British colonial rulers to sabotageand even suppress the mass upheavalwhich erupted in India in August 1942.)In addition, the Gandhi regime clampeda tight censorship on the pro-CPIjournal Mainstream, a clear warning tothe Stalinists.

When the Communist Party calledfor demonstrations on January I toprotest inflation, the governme~t gavethe CPI a taste of its "firm mcasures": onthe eve of the scheduled "Anti-PriceRise Day" some 70 CPI organizcrs werearrested in Uttar Pradesh. Althoughprotesting the arrests of the CPI cadres(but not of the many thousands of othcropponents of Gandhi), the CPI nev­ertheless rushed to reaffirm its so-called"critical [sic] support" for the "emergen­cy" and the allegedly "progressive"Gandhi regime.

While the betrayal of the StalinistCPI has been monumental, the otherself-proclaimed socialist tendencies inIndia have also remained mired in abjectreformism. The Socialist Party ofGeorge Fernandes has consistentlyplayed the role of fifth wheel for theopposition front led by the reactionaryJana Sangh, while the "left" StalinistCommunist Party of India (Marxist)has called for a multi-class "DemocraticPeople's Front" limited to simperingpleas for the restoration of parliamen­tary "democracy."

The "emergency" in India has also putto the test the revolutionary pretensionsof the Communist League of India(CLI), section of the factionally polar­ized fake-Trotskyist ~nited" Sec­retariat of the Fourth International(USec). Although condemning the moredraconian "emergency" measures (jail­ings, censorship, banning of left parties)and the role of the Stalinist CPI as leftprop to the government,. the centristCLI took a dive on Gandhi's demagogic"20-point program," initially differen­tiating between the so-called "progres­sive" and "reactionary" demands. Lastyear the Hindi-language central organof the CLI carried a threc-part articlc onthe "20-point program" which not onlyfailed to raise the Transitional Programbut also fostcred the illusion that theworking class could simply appropriatethe "progrcssive" aspects ofthc programraiscd hy Gandhi (in Ma;:dlir KisanKranti [Workers and Peasants Revolu­tion] 1\os. ~-5, Fcbruary-March 1976).

However, at its fourth nationalconfercncc held last June the CLI

WORKERS VANGUARD

Ashok Mehta, released from jail lastMay after more than ten monthsdetention, and stated that "it would notbe impossible to find solutions to theproblems between opposition and Gov­ernment" (quoted in New York Times, 6January 1977).

While holding the door of reconcilia­tion ajar for its bourgeois opponents,the Gandhi regime meanwhile hasintensified its repression against lesspliant political opponents and theworking-class movement. At the sametime that prominent bourgeois politi­cians have been released the Gandhiregime began staging a show trial ofGeorge Fernandes, the head of themillion-strong All-India Railwaymen'sFederation and leader of the smallreformist Socialist Party, who hadorganized underground opposition toGandhi among the working class.Captured after a year-long manhunt byspecial police with shoot-to-kill orders,Fernandes along with 2 I others has beencharged with organizing a "deep-rootedcriminal conspiracy having widespreadramifications to overawe" (!) the gov­ernment (UPI dispatch, 24 September1976).

Even more significant, however, theGandhi regime has begun to lash out atthe reformist pro-Moscow CommunistParty of India (CPI), which has been itsonly significant political ally since theimposition of the emergency. Early onthe CPI stated, "The Communist Partyof India has welcomed the declarationof Emergency and the firm measurestaken by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi"( World Marxist Review, October 1975).Since then the CPI has staunchlysupported the "emergency," eventhough the "firm measures" of Gandhihave included the banning of strikes andwork actions, slashing by half theminimum annual. bonus for workers,

imposition of a general wage freeze,massive "slum clearance" which hasdriven workers from the hovels thatwere their only shelter, and torture ofworking-class militants underdetention.

But as mass disillusionment anddiscontent with Gandhi's so-called'''socio-economic revolution" increased,and especially after the constitutionalamendment and postponement of na­tional elections reduced Gandhi's needfor parliamentary allies, the CPI lastmonth finally ventured beyond its pastoccasional soft-spoken "criticism" ofthe government. In early December theCPI called for "more bold initiatives inorder to mobilize the masses anddemocratic forces," while still support-

Kazhagam (Dravidian Progressive Fed­cration), and the Congress Organization(the Congress bosses who split withGandhi in 1969). In addition, Gandhirecently has released a number ofCongress Party dissidents, notablyformer cabinet member Mohan Dhariaand member of parliament ChandraSekhar.

In late December leaders of theseoppositicln parties hcld a three-daypalaver to discuss opening a "dialogue"with Gandhi. Signaling their willingnessto accomodate Gandhi these oppositionparties couplcd the call for an end to the"emergency" with a pledge to recognizecertain government "restraints." Inresponse, on December 23 Gandhiwrote to Congress Organization leader

passed an omnihus packagc of constitu­tional amendments which in effectinstitutionalize the "cmergency" powerswielded hy Gandhi and the Congress­dominated parliament.

The following day parliament passcda proposal introduced by Gandhi toonce again postpone the nationalelections, which were first postponedlast Fehruary. Apparently Indira Gan­dhi was advised that at best Congresscould hope to win only a razor-thinmajority with 220-270 seats, more than ahund red less than its landslide majorityof 1971. In fact, in the few local electionswhich have not been cancelled under the"emergency," Congress Party candi­dates have usually suffered stingingdefeats.

At the same time, Gandhi recognizesthat although severely crippled, theopposition has not been completelydefeated. With the illness of populistleader Jaya Prakash Narayan and thecollapse of his petty-bourgeois anti­corruption reform movement last year,the right-wing Hindu-communalistJana Sangh (People's Party) hasemerged as the leading force in theopposition. Unlikc the smaller parlia­mentary parties, whose hopes weredoused when the elections were post­poned, the Jana Sangh has been ableto organize its opposition on the basis ofits extra-parliamentary, paramilitarywing (the Rashtriya Swayam SevakSangh).

Recently Gandhi has for the first timefelt compelled to make at least gesturesof accommodation toward the bour­geois opposition. Over the past severalweeks the government has released fromdetention several prominent leaders ofthe Jana Sangh, the conservative Bhara­tiya Lok Dal (Indian People's Party),the Tamil-separatist Dravida Munnetra

"jliffGorgonl/Gamma

Gandhi supporters cheer the prime minister at Congress Party rally In NewDelhi.

JANUARY IS-Gaudy posters deify­ing Indian prime minister Indira Gandhias the Hindu goddess Durga, "the saviorof India," flutter over squalid andchoked streets in Calcutta, wherehundreds of thousands of emaciatedpavement dwellers languish in livingdeath.

Slogans hailing her rising son SanjayGandhi as "the helmsman of our newIndia" abound in New Delhi, whereMuslims resisting forced sterilization oreviction from their hovels have beenmassacred by special police under thedirection of "the helmsman."

Exhortations to "work hard, producemore, maintain discipline" bombard thedestitute masses of India, where unem­ployment has become so acute that200,000 people recently applied for asingle menial job opening at a bank.

Despite the official fa~ade of "orderand progress" in "new India" theCongress Party government of IndiraGandhi has become increasingly isolat­ed and unpopular since its imposition ofthe draconian "emergency" 18 monthsago. Since that time, when IndiraGandhi invoked sweeping dictatorialpowers to quell massive anti­government unrest across India and tocling to officc following her conviction

on charges of corrupt electoral prac­tices, the Congress government hasjailed without trial some 100,000 to200,000 political opponents of both theleft and right, gagged the press with arigid censorship, bann~d all so-called"anti-national" (i.e., anti-Gandhi) poli­tical activities and suppressed dozens ofopposition parties, dissolved the tworemaining non-Congress state govern­ments (in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu), andlaunched its notorious forced steriliza­tion campaign.

Scveral months ago Indira Gandhitook further steps toward unfctteredpolice-state rule in an attempt to find astablc footing for her increasinglybonapartist regime. On November 2 theLok Sabha (lower house of parliament)

4

The Economist

Saojay Gandhi, center

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fhe labor movement must counterat­tack against the increasing anti-alienchauvinist hysteria. Along with militantdefense of their co-workers on the job,class-conscious workers must demand:Full citizenship rights for all foreign­born workers and their families!Abolish the INS pass system~Stop thedeportations! Against all protectionisttrade legislation-- For internationalworking-class struggle! •

special telephone number in San Fran­cisco which anyone can cqll to fink 011'suI1posedly"illegal aliens:"

A new law, the Eilberg bill, signed byPresident Ford in October has widenedthe INS' legal powers to conduct raids.The bill significantly reduces thenumber of legal immigrants fromMexi<;o and abolishes previouspreferential treatment for parents ofchildren .born in the U.S. The Immigra­tion Service is also attempting tohamstring various activists engaged inlegal counseling on immigration laws, asin last April's INS raid on the ManzoArea Council in Tucson, Arizona. Fourof the counselors at this communityagency located in a Chicano ghetto wereindicted on federal charges in Octoberand others have been harassed. Allunion militants and defenders ofdemocratic rights must demand that thecharges against the Manzo defendantsbe immediately dropped!

While arresting more than 800,000"illegal aliens" annually, most of them inCalifornia and the Southwest, deport­ing tens of thousands in air- and bus­lifts without permitting the victimsrecourse to legal counsel (and frequentlyexpelling U.S. citizens who simply didnot have their papers with them),officials of the hated "migra" are alsoimplicated in smuggling rings bringingin "illegal" farm workers from Mexico.In 1972 the Justice Department wasforced to mount an "investigation" ofthese and other charges of "narcoticstrafficking, smuggling of guns, sexualabuse of women aliens" and othercrimes. But though the inquiry ended ina whitewash, newspaper reports in­dicate that the widespread corruptioncontinues.

previously when INS agents had cometo the plant with Jhe names of twowomen workers. In' -1975 Immigrationofficials arrested a union member on thejob at the Folger's Coffee plant in SouthSan Francisco, and two years ago theINS reportedly arrested two Mexican­born workers right in the parking lot ofthe Local 6 hiring hall!

In light of these dangerous probes bythe Immigration Service, the MilitantCaucus put forward the followingmotion at the stewards council meeting:

"We recognize that the bosses seek toblame foreign-born workers for un­employment in order to prevent aunited working-class fight for jobs. Weoppose all attempts to deport foreign­born workers and stand ready tomobilize the union against any suchraids involving ILWU members in­cluding if necessary union defensesquads and strikes to stop the raids."

Jack Dykinga

The Caucus correctly argues that if theunion fails to protect its members on thejob, even more widespread raids will bethe next step. When faced with lightningImmigration raids it is urgent that the

membership be rapidly and massivelymobilized to thwart the INS' Gestapo­like actions. This must includepreparations for a union flying squadwhich could be assembled on a fewminutes' notice~particularlyimportantin a Local with numerous small shops~and if necessary a resort to militantstrike action.

At the stewards meeting a well-knownSUPPUllt:1 vf Communist Party views,chief steward Joe Lindsay, predictablycame to the rescue of the bureaucracy:'Lindsay, who in last June's warehousestrike arranged for management to crossthe picket lines at Golden Grain,mumbled some platitudes againstdeportations and then moved to strikeout the section of the Militant Caucusmotion referring to defense squads andstrikes. In a typical Stalinist maneuverhe proposed to rip the guts out of themotion and turn it into an empty paperresolution for People's World (the WestCoast CP weekly). This shoddy trickpassed by a narrow margin, but the fightagainst deportations has by no meansstopped.

The INS is clearly gearing up for ever­bigger raids. In December the govern­ment announced it will soon start toissue new computerized 10 cards for"legal" aliens to replace the traditionalgreen cards. The new cards make use ofthe latest computer technology andmilitary cryptography to enforce aSouth African-style passport system onimmigrants: along with a photograph,the cards have encoded informationabout the individual which is stored in acentral INS computer bank. The Im­migration Service is also advertising a

OAKLAND-In a campaign to fanchauvinist hysteria, the u.s. Immigra­tion and Naturalization Service (INS)"has stepped up raids throughoutCalifornia in search of "illegal aliens."Recently, since the InternationalLongshoremen's and Warehousemen'sUnion (lLWU) leadership sabotagedlast June's Bay Area warehouse strike,INS agents have been emboldened insearching ILWU shops, indiscriminate­ly dragging off "suspects" and askingquestions later.

Historically the ILW U has resistedattempts by Immigration officials tovictimize foreign workers. Strongworking-class traditions and asuccessful fight against thegovernment's repeated attempts todeport Australian-born Harry Bridges(founder and International president ofthe union) gave the ILWU realbackbone. But Bridges long ago madehis peace with American capitalism, andin the recent elections gave officialendorsement to racist Jimmy Carterwithout consulting the membership.

INS roundup at Chicago plant

With the union politically pros­trate before the capitalist parties andweakened on the industrial frontthrough bureaucratic misleadershipand downright giveaways, govern­ment; employer attacks are now takingtheir toll.

Late last year ILWU secretary­treasurer Lou Goldblatt added to thechorus of anti-foreigner hysteria byappealing to the U.~. InternationalTrade Commission to reinstitute sugarquotas in order to "protect" the jobs ofHawaiian sugar workers in ILW U Local142. With classical chauvinistarguments, Goldblatt warnedNovember 30 that foreign producersemploying cheap labor "endanger theexistence of the domestic sugar in­dustry" (Dispatcher, 3 December 1976).

In an interview with a spokesman forthe Militant Caucus, a class-struggleopposition in ILWU Local 6, WVlearned about recent INS raids in thewarehouses. At the January East Baystewards council meeting, the chiefsteward at Pabco Fiberboard inEmeryville reported that just that weekImmigration agents had come to theplant looking for two of the workers byname. One of the men was not at workand the agents hauled off the other. Thearrested ullion brother, who has legalstatus, was released only after his fellowworkers made vigorous protests to thecompany and the INS. The well­deserved reputation for militancy earn­ed by these workers during the Junestrike paid off.

At the meeting another steward, fromRathjen Liquors in Union City, relateda similar incident from several weeks

Immigration Agents RaidILWU Warehouses

DerSpiegel

Camara Press

George Fernandes

Asoka Mehta

Jaya Prakash Narayan

sharply reversed its earlier position,denouncing any such "critical support"to the "20-point program" as "politicallydisorienting" and "to say the least,unprincipled" ("The Situation in IndiaSince 26 June 1975"). But the revisedline of the CLl on the "emergency" is noless reformist. inspired by the USecminority led by the ex-TrotskyistSocialist Workers Party (SWP) of theU.S.

Closely paraphrasing the SWP line'on the ,Indian' ,"emergency'" the CLlpolitical resolution adopted at thefourth national conference limits itspolitical perspective and programmatichorizon simply to the call for therestoration of bourgeois-democraticrights in India. Not one anti-capitalistdemand-not to mention the fullTrotskyist Transitional Program~

appears in this CLl tasks and perspec­tives document. The populist programof Jaya Prakash Narayan and his ill­starred Janata Morcha (People's Front)contained demands formally to the leftof the CLl's social-democratic programon the "emergency"!

Nor is this Iiquidationism anymomentary aberration by the Leagueleadership. Following the conferencethe Kanpur local of the CLl (whichpublishes Mazdiir Kisan Kranti)launched a new English-language press,Communist Commentary. The firstissue of Communist Commentary (1-16October 1976) contained the first articlein a series "The Struggle for Democra-

continued on paKe 10

21 JANUARY 1977 5

From Punta del Este to the Panama Canal

Castro's Search for

those bourgeois regimes which maintaindiplomatic relations with Havana.

During the early 1960's, this policywas reflected in Cuban support forBrazilian president Janio Quadros andhis successor J oao Goulart. As the pro­Cuban U.S. academic James Petraswrote:

"Between 1959 and 1962 the Cubanleadership basically supported a broadspectrum of Latin political forcesranging from left-wing to moderatenationalist forces, including personageslike Quadros of Sra/il."

in La/in America: Re/i!TI1l orRel'O/ution:' (196g) .

IN CUBA

In the spring of 1961 Cuban newspaperspraised the Bralilian president forcondemning the L'.S.-sponsored Bay ofPigs il1\asion and in August. whenGuevara was on his way hume from thePunta del Este conference. Quadrosawarded the Cuhan leader Bralil'shighest decoration, the Sl)lIthcrn Cross.This produced an upro~lr 1:1 which pro­American politicians and military lead­ers threatened to depose Quadros, whothereupon fled the country. Castro

SIXTEENYEARS OF

STALINISTRULE

reactionary bourgeOIs dictatorshipssuch as Franco's Sn"lin in order tf'pn:vem economic strangulation. Revo­lutionary Russia under Lenin concludedtrade agreements with England andGermany without in any way restrictingthe activities of the Communist Interna­tiona!' As Trotsky wrote:

"The fundamental line of the interna­tional policy of the Soviets rested on thefact that this or that commercial.diplomatic or military bargain of theSoviet government with the imperial­ists, inevitable in the nature of the case,should in no case limit or weaken thestruggle of the proletariat of thecorresponding capitalist country, for inthe last analvsis, the safetv of theworkers state itself could be guaranteedonly by the growth of the worldrevolution."

The Re\'()/ution Be/rared( 1936)

But Castro's Cuba has built no Com­munist International, and it has onnumerous occasions called on theproletariat to limit its struggle against

quently recalled is that he ended with anoffer of detente:

"We cannot promise that we will notexport our example, as the UnitedStates asks us to because an example is amatter of spirit and a spiritual elementcan cross frontiers. But we will give ourguarantee that no arms will be trans­ported from Cuba to be used forfighting in any Latin Americancountry."

-quoted in John Gerassi, TheCreal Fear in La/in America( 1965)

There is no doubt that the offer wassincere. After the conference, at an"unplanned social gathering" with topKennedy aide Richard Goodwin inMontevideo, Guevara proposed a Cu­ba U. S. parley on reimbursing Ameri­can interests for expropriated proper­ties. in exchange for calling off thetrade emb'llgu.

Trotskyists do not oppose Cuba'sdforts to break the U.S.-imposedeconomic blockade. On the contrary, wedefend Cuba's right to trade with allnations, from the Soviet Union andother deformed workers states to

All those who yearn for the days whenGuevara was riding high in Havanashould be reminded that it was noneother than ''Che'' who led the Cubandelegation to the 1961 Punta del Este(U ruguay) conference where the Castroregime made its first offer of hemispher­ic peaceful coexistence with U. S. imper­ialism. The conference itself had beenset up to launch American presidentKennedv's brainstorm of an "Alliancefor Progress," whose aim was to isolateCuba and thwart the chances of revolu­tion in Latin America with a few milliondollars in crumbs from the imperialisttable.

It is well remembered that Guevaramade a fiery two-hour speech at theAugust 1961 meetings, warning thatAmerican aid would not come withoutstrings attached. What is not so fre-

Right, CheGuevara atMarch 1964pressconference inGeneva

can Communist parties for theirillusions in a "peaceful road." Since thenHavana has hewed more closely to theMoscow line. But despite periodicquantitative shifts, from the consolida­tion of a deformed workers state in late1960 onwards, the Castro regime hasfollowed a nationalist course based onthe Stalinist illusion of building social­ism on one island while courting at leastthe toleration of the imperialists.

Punta del Este

Dally WorldCheddi Jagan

ceased to be for global detente. In fact,at the same time as Cuban troops werefighting CIA-financed forces in Angola,Havana voters were approving a newconstitution which wrote "peacefulcoexistence" into the basic law of thecountry!

There have, ot course, been some zigsand zags in Cuban foreign policy. In theearly 1960's, Castro concentrated on ahapless search for diplomatic supportfrom bourgeois nationalist Latin Amer­ican regimes while from time to timeoffering to strike a modus vivendi withUncle Sam. In the "heroic" period of1964-67,fidelista policy in Latin Ameri­ca concentrated on promoting guerrilla­ism and castigating certain Latin Ameri-

But this "revolutionary international­ism" was subordinate to the Kremlin'sforeign policy aims, which in no way

besieged M PLA from a South African­led imperialist power play. Americanpresident Ford hypocritically branded

Castro an "international outlaw." In theU.S. the Marcyites tried to resuscitate apetty-bourgeois antiwar movementaround political support for the MPLAand praise of Cuba's "courageousassistance" to liberation struggles theworld over ( Workers World, 30 January1976). In Europe Livio Maitan, a leaderof the fake-Trotskyist "U nited Secretar­iat," crowed that "Cuba's decisivecommitment to a crucial anti­imperialist battle has few precedents inthe history of past decades... " (fnpre­cor, 18 March 1976).

Maitan took the occasion to excoriateCastro's detractors and unnamedd ou btists:

"For some time there had been muchtalk of Cuba's desire to reach acompromise with the United States, andsome people, falling into hasty impres­sionism, had drawn the conclusion thatthe Cuban leaders were prepared to paya very high price for such a compromise.It is now clear, however, that the\' werenot prepared to pay the pr[ce ofrenouncing their courageous attitude ofinternationalist solidarity .... The inter­vention in Angola confirmed it bril­liantly.... whatever the particular tacti­cal reasons for the intervention mayhave "been, it remains exemplaryt est i m 0 n v tor e V 0 I uti 0 n a r v'internationa"lism." "

Of all the myths about Castro's Cuba,the most widespread is that of itssupposedly revolutionary foreign poli­cy. "Third World" cheerleaders in the\ew Left joined cold war liberals andMcCarthyite conservatives in agreeingthat Havana was exporting guerrillawarfare throughout Latin America.When confronted with evidence ofsuppression of socialist critics in Cuba,fldelistas dismiss this as nitpickingcompared to Castro's "titanic" hemi­spheric battle against Yankee imperial­ist domination. Just remember 'The"Guevara's noble Bolivian mission!Think how Radio Havana, beaming

nightly from the "First Free Territory ofAmerica," kept up the spirits of thou­sands of militants facing the mostsavage repression!

Among ostensible Trotskyists, thisbelief in a revolutionarv internationalistcommitment by the Cuban rulers wasone of the bases for the formation of the"United Secretariat of the FourthInternational" (USec), which pro­claimed in its founding document:

"The Cuban Revolution dealt a blow tothe class-collaborationist polic~ ofStalinism in Latin America and othercolonial countries. "ew currents, devel­oping under the intluence of the victoryin Cub'l. arc groping their wa\, torevolutionary socialism...." "

.. "For Earlv Reunification of theWorld Tr"otsk\'ist Movement,"March 1963 -

The orientation of the United Secretari­at in Latin America was "the infusion ofTroskyist concepts in this new Castroistcurrent" ("Dynamics of World Revolu­tion Today," adopted at the USec'sfounding congress, June 1963).

In recent years, however, the glitterhas begun to wear off the heroic imageof the Cuban revolution, and manyformer Castro enthusiasts have becomedisillusioned with their ':;ej"e maximo."Particularly disturbing has been hispenchant for courting nationalist gener­als, from the Peruvian junta to Panama­nian dictator Torrijos, and Castro'sexplicit support for Brezhnevite policiesof "peaceful coexistence" with imperial­ism. In the early 1970's it becamefashionable in certain "far-left" circlesto hold a "private opinion" that some­thing had gone awry in Cuba: bureauc­ratism was setting in and there had beena "right turn" in Castro's foreign policy.

There was no unanimity over thetiming of the alleged turn. Some placedit at the time of Guevara's departurefrom Cuba, or else his murder inBolivia, making the "heroic guerrilla"out to be the left conscience of therevolution. Others set the date atCastro's support for the Russian inva­sion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, anaction which deeply shocked manyLatin American fidelistas who had seenCastroism as a left alternative toMoscow-line Stalinism. What the sever­al explanations of the "right tllrn" havein common is a desire to a\"()id takingresponsibility for Cuba's latest interna­tional gambits while not breakingfundamentally from Castroism.

Then late last year several thousandCuban troops and army officers weredispatched to Angola to save the

PART 1 OF 2

Hemispheric Detente

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

Castro with Nikita Khrushchev at 1964 Kremlin reception.Prensa Latina

Former Brazilian presidents Goulart, left, and Quadros.

hailed Quadros as "one of the staunch­est supporters of self-determination."

Just who was this great "progressive"?In actuality Quadros was an eccentricconservative believer in clean govern­ment and tight money. Pro-Cubanjournalist Gerassi summarized thepolicies of this "maverick":

"He' thus clamped down hard onunions. sent federal troops to theNortheast hunger dens to S4uashprotest rallies. jailed disobedient stu­dents. tightened credit. stopped mostfederal subsidies. fired governmentfeatherbedders. and devalued the cru­zeiro almost to its free market level."

Op. cil.

In this case the Castro regime wasunable to develop extensive relationsbecause Quadros was forced to departunder fire so suddenly.

Quadros was succeeded by his vicepresident. Goulart. who trod a cautiouspath between left and right by conduct­ing a relatively independent foreignpolicy while knuckling under to thelandowners and industrialists at home.Himself a millionaire latifundista. Gou­lart headed the bourgeois populistBrazilian Labor Party (PTB) andneeded to cultivate a "left" image inorder to appear as the ally of the rapidlyexpanding workers and peasants move­ments. His reputation as a "firm frienrf'of Cuba aided this demagogy.

Maintaining state-to-state relationsdoes not reauire fmtprinlJ illusionsaDout "progressive" landowners. andthe internationalist leadership of arevolutionarv workers state would seekto aid the' development of protestmovements bv the exploited into apowerful offe'nsive against capitalistrll],- There were certainly revolutionaryopportunities at this time in Brazil.where a large and diverse peasantmovement was exploding in theNortheast. led by the Communist Party.Catholic clergy and above all by the pro-

Cuban Socialist politician FranciscoJuliao.

Castro was in close touch with thismovement through Juliao. whose tripsto Cuba were so frequent that some ofhis opponents spoke of a "shuttle"between Havana and Brazil's Northeast.But the politics which Juliao infused inthe peasants movement were hardlyrevolutionary. He refused to expandinto the coastal plantation zones andlink up with agricultural workers andthe urban labor movement; and Doliti­cally his influelll.c rcsled un an alliancewith the PTB state governor of Pernam­buco. Miguel Arraes: Significantly. aformer organizer of the Northeasternpeasant leagues wrote of the frustrationof plans for guerrilla activity (whichJuliao opposed):

"It appears that in addition to otherfactors. the existence of f~iendly diplo­matic relations between the Cuban andBra/ilian governments was closelyrelated to the failure of the militarvscheme of the Peasant Leagues. Themaintenance of diplomatic relationsbetween the two countries prevented theCubans from giving open support to theLeague's guerrilla activities. SomeCuban elements even advised theLeagues to move closer to PresidentsQuadros and Goulart."

Clodomir Moraes. "PeasantLeagues in Bra/il." in RodolfoStavenhagen. cd.. A!{rarianProblems and Peasam A.Jove­mem.1 in lA/lin America (1970)

As for Goulart's left-wing reputa­tion assiduously fostered by the U.S.,which (it is now revealed) was preparinga sizable naval/ troop intervention inBrazil on the scale carried out in SantoDomingo a year later-his most "radi­cal" measure was a land reform an­nounced two weeks before being oustedas president. This timid decree, neverimplemented. called only for dividingup large estates "bordering highways.railroads and water reservoirs" (!), to becompensated with government bonds

(Goulart speech to a mass workers rallyin Rio de Janeiro, 13 January 1964;quoted in Hispanic-American Report,May 1964).

Frustrated Search for Detente

Brazil was the most notable ofCastro's attempts to form politicalalliances with left-talking bourgeois­nationalist politicians and governments.Cuba also maintained close relationswith Guvanese nrime minister CheddiJagan. whose East Indian-based Pro­gressive People's Party was thrown outof office following a CIA-engineeredstrike by black supporters of Jagan'srival. Forbes Burnham. Another bour­geois politician favored by Castro wasformer Ecuadorian minister ManuelAraujo. who was dropped by agingpopulist demagogue president VelascoIbarra after a CIA-instigated campaignof student demonstrations againstAraujo's pro-Cuban policies.. A good example of Cuban foreignpolicy during this period was Castro'sreaction to being expelled from theOrganization of American States inJanuary 1962. Best remembered isCastro's "Second Declaration of Hava­na"" in which he dismissed the OAS as averitable "Yankee ministry of colonies.""declared that in Latin America "thenational bourgeoisie cannot lead theantl-teudal and anti-imperialiststruggle"" and denounced those who talkof uprooting the ruling class by legalmeans.

Less remarked upon is the fact thatthe Declaration called for unity with"the most progressive layers of thenational bourgeoisie."" What this meantin practice could be seen in Castro's"challenge"" to the OAS: an "Assemblyof the Peoples" held concurrently withthe Punta del Este meeting and called byten prominent Latin American "pro-

gressive"" politicians. including formerMexican president Lazaro Cardenas.future Chilean president SalvadorAllende. Juliao and Araujo.

The reward Castro reaped for hisattempt to curry favor with "the mostprogressive layers of the nationalbourgeoisie" was meager indeed. AgainBrazil was the archetype: at the time ofthe Cuban missile crisis of October1962. the Goulart government voted inthe OAS to support the American navalblockade as an act of "legitimate self­defense."" Even Goulart's left-posturingbrother-in-law. Governor Leonel Brizo­la of the state of Rio Grande do SuI.condemned the Russian delivery ofmissiles to the Castro regime as "tak­[ing] advantage of the struggle of theCuban people"" and declared his opposi­tion to "Cuba's transformation into asatellite of the Soviet Union" (quoted inHispanic-American Report. January1963).

On 31 March 1964. Cuba's "firmfriend"" Goulart was ousted in a militaryrevolt obviously planned and executedin close cooperation with Washington.It took Castro until May Day to issue apublic comment on the reactionaryBrazil coup. yet only two days after itoccurred he renewed offers of U.S.­Cuban detente. The occasion was aninterview in which the Cuban primeminister uncritically praised SenatorJ. W. Fulbright's March 25 speech on"myths and realities of U.S. foreignpolicy."" Castro commented:

"Senator Fulbright said that Cubacould be tolerated as something un­pleasant ... but was not a danger to theUnited States. This is not onlv essential­ly true but it could be addect" that Cubawill be much less unpleasant in the samedegree that Cuba is respected and left inpeace.""

-New York Times. 3 April 1964

Guevara also praised the speech of the

continued on page 10

T

Crowd hears Fidel read "Second Declaration of Havana" in 1962.

21 JANUARY 1977 I

Date:Time:Place:

Milt Rosen's Latest "Self-Criticism"

PL: Zigging and Zagging onthe Reformist Road

Order from/pay to:Spartacus Youth Publishing Co.P.O. Box 825, Canal SI. StationNew York. N,Y. 10013

Sl

demoralized than its rank and file.Fifteen years of spaghetti dinners andsoftball games; ordering its members tomarry and have babies "because theworkers do"; "uniting the many" on themost sub-reformist demands (rubbermats in campus cafeterias); and obse­quiously tailing after reformist trade­union bureaucrats have failed to "builda base in the working class." However, itseems they have succeeded in recruitinga number of members on a reformistbasis--members who now want to quit.Too late. PL's leadership has discoveredthat:

"The further danger of recruiting peopleon a militant reform line is that once theruling class succeeds in reversing thegains won through the militant reform,once the first dip in the reform strugglecomes along. this new recruit winds upleaving the Party.... But. if we havealready recruited people on a reformbasis. we shouldn't now ask them toleave; we should attempt to consolidatethem on the basis o{revolutionary ideasand struggle."

Lacking a revolutionary programaround which to consolidate its demor­alized reformist members, the PLleadership is desperately attempting tohalt the exodus and infuse life into themoribund organization through left­sounding rhetoric combined with crisis­mongering about the imminence offascism and nuclear war.

The report ends with warningsagainst its misinterpretation. the firstbeing: "thinking ... that this reportrepresents no change at all from ourprevious line." It's easy to see how aseasoned PLer might conclude that thelatest fillip is just "more of the same"from Milt Rosen's bag of petty­bourgeois moralizing and guilt­tripping. An identical earlier attempt toboost sagging morale was Rosen's 1972speech CThe Struggle for Socialism-AMatter of Life and Death," PL, January1973) in which he accused PL membersof thinking such thoughts as "I'mbored," "workers are rotten," "we can'twin" and "it is possible that we will notlive to see socialism in our country."After concluding that they were defeat­ist and hated the workers, PL memberswere expected to go right on zigging andzagging down the road to oblivion.After a period of agonized centristcontradictions and a headlong reformistplunge. PI. is very near to the end .•

The 14 October issue of Challengecarried a lengthy report from theNational Committee of ProgressiveLabor Party (PL) which effectivelydiscredits the entire history of PL'spolitical work, particularly within thetrade unions. "To avoid adventurism,"the incredible "soul-baring" self­criticism runs, "we opted for opportun­ism and downplaying the open Partyrole at the expense of avoiding sectari­anism (and getting fired immediately)."Although the report. entitled "Reformand Revolution." attempts to excusepast betrayals as a question of mistakenemphasis-i.e., too much emphasis onreform, too little on revolution-it isclear that these betrayals have flowedand will continue to flow from PL'sprogram and that. despite periodic self­criticism purification rituals. it haslearned nothing from the past.

In the absence of the 'Trotskyisttransitional program-bridging the gapbetween the immediate needs of theworking class and the proletarianrevolution which alone can meet thoseneeds- PL can only vacillate betweenreformist belly-crawling and emptyrevolutionary slogans. between leftturns and right turns. between minimumprogram and maximum program, be­tween opportunism and adventurism.The article's attempt to explain theconnection between reform and revolu­tion is confused and contradictory.claiming at one point that they arecounterposed, at another that they areunited and finally. in traditional Maoistdoubletalk, that, as in every contradic­tion. "there is a primary aspect and asecondary aspect" and PL should pay alittle more attention to the former.

PL's history has been marked bydramatic turns and line changes, eachpromising instant success. Starting outas a left-Stalinist movement in 1963, theorganization went through a Maoistperiod. then broke empirically to the leftover the national question and thestages "theory" of revolution. Subse­quently, as we noted in "PL: Road toOblivion" (Workers Vanguard No. 16,February 1973): "PL elaborated itsbreak from Maoism into a full-scaleflight from Leninism toward syndical­ism and sterile ultra-leftism," represent­ed by the appearance of "Road toRevolution III" in 1972. Then. demoral­ized by the failure of this leftist phase, itengaged in a deep plunge to the rightwith the building of the reformistWorkers Action Movement (WAM),which lifted the demand of 30 hours'work for 40 hours' pay from theTransitional Program and advanced it,out of its revolutionary context, as areformist panacea (even trying to vote itin through local referenda).

In 1973 the Spartacist Leaguepredicted that "a right turn of suchproportions is bound to result indemoralization when it fails to bring theexpected masses of recruits." And.indeed, it is the profound demoraliza­tion within PL's ranks which appears tohave motivated the appearance of thislatest and most severe of PL's numerousself-criticisms. A recent article in Chal­lenge ("Lenin's April Theses," 25 No­vember 1976) begins:

"Many Challenge readers. PI. mem­bers. and friends do not believe in Ihepossibility of revolution in our lifetime.Since state power resides in the claws ofthe bosses today, many of us believethat is how it w[1l always remain."

But PL's leadership IS no less

As we wrote last year:"In the epoch of impcrialist decay. t,hehourgeoisie and its inslitutions cannotprotect socicly. They have passed overinto the camp of naked reaction andmust bc smashed bv the revolutionanproletariat. the onh' social force whiehean establish a world social systembased on order. peace and justice."

. "Abolish the Death Penallv'"WI:\o 117.9 Juh 1976 .

(continued/rom page 1)utterance. But the bourgeois press wasnot so eager to publicile the words ofBartolomeo Van/etti: "I am and willremain to the death for the emancipa­tion ofthc working class." It did not findso titillating the political opinions of thisclass-war martyr who faced his judgesaying. "You are the one that is afraid.'y' ou are the one that is shrinking withfear. because you are the one that isguilty of attempt to murder."

Garv Gilmore is far from the firstcorpse' claimed by U. S. capitalism in thelast decade. On the contrary. U.S.imperialism is accustomed to killing itspercei\cd enemies with numbing regu­larity on a scale never before imagined.The 'same year in which capital punish­ment was' temporarily halted. 1967.marked a dramatic escalation of U.S."saturation" bombing in Vietnam. Themad killings of a Gary Gilmore pale incomparison to the calculated holocaustunleashed by a !':ixon. Johnson orKissinger.

The reinstitution of the death penaltyis not just another legal argument lostbefore an increasingly reactionarySupreme Court. It is one among manyproofs of the failure of capitalism in itsdeath agony to fulfill its promise of adecent IIle. And the bourgeois "publicopinion" which today approves of thedeath penalty out of fear of spreadingcrime will soon find that state execu­tions result in more crime and not less.

With Gilmore dead and buried thecops. courts and capitalist politicianshope it will be easier the next time. Itneed not be so. But the hangmen andfiring squads will not be eliminatedthrough civil libertarian reforms. Onlythe victorious proletarian revolutionthat overthrows the bourgeois state willabolish the death penalty for good andsmash the prisons. in the course ofrooting out the whole vicious cycle ofcrime. punishment and repressioncaused by capitalism.

excuse for a reunion of the "family" ofex-Trotskyists. the international Spar­tacist tendency insisted that a genuineand principled programmatic regroup­ment of authentic Trotskyists can comeabout only through hard. open debate.A leaflet distributed at the meeting bythe London Spartacist Group co­signed by the iSt. the Organilaci()nTrotskista Re\olucionaria of Chile andthe TrotskYist FaCfilm' (expCfltd)of theGerman Spartacusbund pointed outthat "The real political issues whichplace all these squabbling slander­mongering. violence-prone elements atone pole and the iSt at the other arecurrently posed by two decisive consid­erations: the popular front and theFourth International."

Exposing the speakers' false preten­sions to defending workers democracy.the leaflet explained that behind this laytheir capitulation to reformist programsof class collaboration. It concluded."without the struggle to create aprogrammatically united and disci­plined Fourth International the workersare left to wander into the new traps ofcapital ... with the assistance of theirre\isionist would-be 'leaders'." Forwardto the rebirth of the FourthInternational! •

State ButchersGilmore...

Speaker: James RobertsonCentral Committee,Spartacist League/U.S.

Sat., 29 January 19777:30 p.m.Barnard CollegeLehman Auditorium,Altschul Hall

Workers Democracy orBureaucratic Suppression?

Donation $1Sponsored by Columbia SpartacusYoufh LeagueFor more information call 925-5665

Any remaining doubts concerning thereal purpose of the meeting weredispelled after the scheduled speakershad finished. As chairman Tariq Ali wasannouncing the end of the proceedings.Gerry Healy rose from the audience anddemanded speaking time to answer thechorus of attackers. All serious defend­ers of workers democracy-purported­ly the central theme of the meeting­would have wanted Healy to speak. butAli. with the practised sleight-of-handof union bureaucrats and shell gameoperators. called for an immediate voteamidst the uproar. then declared that"workers democracy" had upheld him.As Healy continued to protest. withconsiderable support among the audi­ence. the chair demagogically silencedhim by bursting into the Internalionaleto close the meeting.

This outrageous violation of elemen­tary workers democracy at a meetingallegedly called precisely in order to de­fend it· -again exposes the USec's rottenbureaucratic maneuvers. Moreover. it isonly because the decomposition of the"United" Secretariat has reached such apoint that it barely exists that thismeeting was held at all. Today Mandeland Lambert exchange compliments onthe podium and defend the integrity ofHansen and \ovack; but when the SWPfirst sought statements denouncingHealy's slanders a year and a half ago. ittook Mandel & Co. quite a while beforecoming up with a statement.

\one of the organizers of this meetingare true defenders of workersdemocracy or of the Fourth Interna­tional. The OCI systematically uses thugviolence against its ostensibly Trotskyistopponents on the left. Pablo and hisacolytes (todav the Mandelite USecmaj~rity) refus~d to defend the ChineseTrotskyists jailed by Mao in 1949-51.slandering them as "refugees from arevolution" for their courageous defenseof proletarian democracy against thebureaucratic Stalinist regime. As for theSWP. it responded to Castro'sjailing ofthe Cuban Trotskyists by remarking. inthe words of Barry Sheppard. now SWPnational secretary. "There are T rotsky­ists and there are Trotskyists. But if Iwere in Cuba. I wouldn't be arrested."

While the USec and OCI use Healy'sdespicable slanders as a convenient

NEW YORK

FORUM-

Toward the Rebirthof the FourthInternational

LondonMeeting...(continued from page 3)

"what remains [his emphasis] of thepoison of Stalinism today In thework.ing:cl;]~s movement. in the Com­munist parties and the trade-ul1lonorganizations" in Europe. As the Stalin­ists seek to prove their reliability to theimperialist bourgeoisies. in classic Pab­loist fashion Mandel capitulates to theirtalk of classless "democracy" ratherthan exposing its pro-capitalist essence.Is he preparing for entrism in the "Euro­communist" parties?

8 WORKERS VANGUARD

time-that behind the "orthodox"phrases of the ReG's occasional theo­retical journal lurks an appetite to tailafter struggles in the most unoriginalopportunist fashion. Thus, she insistedthat women could not be organizedaround a revolutionary program butonly "a part of the main program," andthat there is a problem specific towomen "as opposed to the questionfacing the working class as a whole-theseizure of state power." ComradeBrosius replied curtly that "there is onlyone program."

The intervention of the comrade fromthe equally opportunist IMG empha­sized the need to "help along" thewomen's movement so that it could bean "objectively revolutionary force." Hecounterposed to the "sectarian purism"of the iSt the IMG's strategy of trying tolead struggles without changing reform­ist consciousness.

An unaffiliated British leftist an­swered the RCG and IMG criticisms bysaying, "It seems to me that what the SLare being accused of doing is actuallygoing to women on the basis of thetransitional program. Now if that is theaccusation that's being made--great! ...That's what it's all about: it's a strugglefor program, comrades."

The spokesmen for Workers Powerinsisted that groups like the BritishWorking Women's Charter and various"rank-and-file" formations were, in fact,united fronts in which revolutionistsshould slowly and over time raiseaspects of the transitional program.

Supporters of the iSt pointed out thatin reality these "united fronts" werelong-term, on-going blocs for propa­ganda in which fake-revolutionistspretended to be "just folks" in order togive the impression of mass influence.This has been well illustrated in the U.S.by the example of the now defunctCoalition of Labor Union Women(CLUW). The example of CLUW wasalso cited by a member of the audiencewho had recently left the InternationalSocialists in the U.S. and who wassharply critical of the illusions whichvarious left groups (other than theSpartacist League) had built in CLUW.

Spartacist supporters emphasizedthat revolutionists seek to participateactively in struggles against oppressionand to intervene with a revolutionary

. perspective even in these fake massformations. But we do not believe thatconsciousness can be changed on the sly,nor do we try to substitute thesepropaganda blocs for the tasks of theparty, as Workers Power proposes.Why, asked one Spartacist speaker.should revolutionaries want to organi/earound a "minimum" program whichwill so easily be inherited by other classforces?

The vigorous debate provided vividexamples of how fake-Trotskyists recoilfrom the struggle for the full transitionalprogram. The London SpartacistGroup looks forward to further suchdebates as a valuable part of the creation'of the British section of the is!. And theSpartacist tendency will continue tofight those who adapt to feminism,because, in the words of the CommunistInternational, such "non-sectarian"methods as the revisionists proposesucceed only in "delaying thereby thetriumph of the social revolution and theadvent of Communism, and thus alsopostponing the great hour of women'sultimate liberation.".

Nearly forty people including rep­resentatives of at least five ostensibly.revol utionary organizations --attendeda London Spartacist Group forum onDecember 3 entitled "Marxism AgainstFeminism - Women's LiberationThrough Socialist Revolution." Thespeaker was Helene Brosius, editorialboard member of the SpartacistLeague! U.S.journal Women and Revo­lution, and a leading spokesman of theinternational Spartacist tendency (iSt).

Comrade Brosius began with ananalysis of the emergence of the contem­porary feminist movement as an out­growth of petty-bourgeois New Leftismand presented the fundamental premisesof Leninism with regard to the womanquestion: on the one hand, recognitionof the special oppression of women andthe need for special forms of workamong women and special bodies withinthe revolutionary organization to carryout this work; on the other, theinsistence that there is only one solutionto this oppression-the seizure of powerby the working class. "The revolution­ary program on the woman question,"said Brosius, "encompasses the revolu­tionary program of Leninism itself andis not separate from that and cannot beseparate from that. The program istherefore the program of the Wholeparty; the task is therefore the task of thewhole party."

The speaker also discussed the bistor­ical development of the conflict betweenMarxism and feminism. Feminism,because it takes sex as the dividing linein society, is class-collaborationist inessence, she explained. She went on toillustrate the class-struggle approach towomen's liberation with the experiencesof principled oppositional caucuseswithin the American telephone andautomobile unions. These caucuses,which the Spartacist League politicallysupports, have consistently intervenedaround immediate questions of wom­en's oppression, such as discrim­ination in' hiring, training and promo­tion, and broader trade-union issuessuch as impending layoffs. But wherevarious opportunists pander to femi­nism with such schemes as "super­seniority" for women workers (meaning"preferentiallayoffs" [redundancies] fortheir male co-workers), these caucuseshave fought for a program of unitedclass struggle to achieve jobs for all,through a shorter workweek at no lossIn pay and strikes against layoffs. Incontrast to reformists of various stripes,they have always explicitly linked theseimmediate struggles with the need tosmash the capitalist system.

In the discussion period, the points ofview argued for by speakers from theRevolutionary Communist Group(RCG), Workers Power (a recent splitfrom the International-CommunistLeague) and the International MarxistGroup (IMG) contrasted sharply withthat of the speaker. While differingamong themselves to a degree, thesegroups all denied that it was the task ofrevolutionaries to split the women'smovement along class lines by interven­ing with a revolutionary program, andthey all· asserted that the Bolshevikapproach of the iSt was "sectarian,""ultimatistic" or "brushing aside thespecial oppression of women."

A leading member of the RCG, whichhas recently undergone a deep split,confirmed once more what the LondonSpartacist Group has insisted for some

London SpartacistForum onWomen's Liberation

Joan Baez and Allen Ginsberg, alongwith liberal politicians Paul O'Dwyerand Donald Fraser.

Using "I was a commie dupe" rhetoricwith a familiar cold-war ring, JamesForest, chairman of the Catholic PeaceFellowship during the Vietnam Waryears and one of the initiators of the"confidential" letter, claimed at thepress conference that his experienceswith the Hanoi bureaucracy had left him"sadder but wiser." 'He earlier told areporter from the Washington Star (16December) that those who still defendedVietnam were acting out of "militantnaivete" and had been sadly misledbecause of their "almost religious faithin wanting something they can respect... and the farther away it is the morethey can admire it."

Another of the participants in thepress conference, former State Depart­ment official Theodore Jacqueney, wasthe source of a 17 September New YorkTimes article alleging extensive "viola­tions of human rights" in Vietnam.Jacqueney had worked in the CIA­directed "pacification" program andacted as an adviser to the mayor ofDanang, South Vietnam's second­largest city. His tactical falling out withthe U.S. military command was basedon his belief that Thieu was doomed andmore reputable anti-communists couldhave maintained capitalism inIndochina.

In the midst of the massive imperialistcarnage of the 1960's it was difficult forthe liberal cold-warriors to mount ananti-communist mobilization. Studentsfor a Democratic Societv slipped fromsocial-democratic control and SANEwas quickly displaced from the leader­ship of the "antiwar community."However, following the demise of the"peace movement," "doves" among thebourgeois intelligentsia are seeking touse the bourgeois-defeatist commondenominator of the "peace movement"(expressed in the McCarthy! McGovernpresidential campaigns) to reaffirmtheir "free world" credentials.

In this effort they have been greatlyaided by the classless, civil-libertariandefense activities of reformists like theSocialist Worker~ Party (S WP) who callfor freeing "all political prisoners." Infact, at the December 29 press confer­ence Rep. Edward Koch, the Manhat­tan reform Democrat, proposed aprisoner exchange such as the Corvaltm­Bukovsky swap currently being hailedby liberals in order to equate Chile andthe Soviet Union as "totalitariandictatorships."

To their credit, several of the initialcOlllillllCd on paKe II

Who are these "concerned friends oflhe Vietnamese people" so piouslybemoaning their disenchantment? Alook at the list of signatories revealssome key liberal anti-communist brain­trusters, like Roger Baldwin, listed ashonorary chairman of the "Internation­al League for Human Rights" whichcalled the December 29 press confer­ence. Baldwin achieved fame by hisbehind-the-scenes engineering of thelate 1930's anti-Communist purge ofElizabeth Gurley Flynn from the Ameri­can Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)board of directors.

Other notables included SanfordGottlieb, the executive director ofSA N E, notorious for its anti­communist machinations at the Octo­ber 1965 New York "peace" parade andits demand of "all foreign troops" out ofSouth Vietnam. which accepted LBJ'scontention that the North Vietnamesewere aggressors invading the SOllth. ;\host of clergymen and "personalities"also signed the appeal, including theBerrigan brothers, Daniel Ellsberg.

Marc Rlboud/Magnum

Class for former generals of the U.S.-led puppet army at a "re-education"center in South Vietnam.

Late last month a group of 110 "peacemovement leaders" made public a"confidential" letter to the governmentof Vietnam. "More in sorrow than inanger," as the Rev. Richard Neuhaus (afounder of Clergy and Laity ConcernedAbout Vietnam) put it, the lettercriticized "grievous and systematicviolations of human rights" and citedreports that some 300,000 Vietnameseare still being held in "re-education"camps.

For Trotskyists the repressive natureof the Stalinist regime in Hanoi comesas no surprise; nevertheless we greetedthe overthrow of capitalist rule whenNLF/ DR V troops toppled the puppetThieu dictatorship in the South. Incontrast, behind the "confidential"letter's talk of "human rights" is theconcern of the right wing of the defunctpeace movement to demonstrate its"responsiblity" i.e., its fundamentalloyalty to "democratic" U.S.imperialism.

In a language of soul-searchingreligious "witness," the authors of theletter pose as naive individuals who havesuddenly discovered that the Vietnam­ese government is not based on love:

" .. the aetions of your governmentconstitute a great disappointment to allthose who expected not the 'bloodbath'so eagerly predicted by the AmericanWhite House but rather an example ofreconciliation built on tolerance."We voice our protest in the hope thatyour government can avoid repetitionof the tragic historical pattern in whichliberators gain power only to impose anew oppression."

Liberal PeaceniksFuel ReactionaryAnti-VietnamCampaign

21 JANUARY 1977 9

• •

Spartacist Publishing Co.BOI 1377. GPONew York. N.Y. 10001USA

$.75 US/Canada

Pascal AlessandriB.P. 33675011 ParisFRANCE

3,00 F.E

Indira Gandhi.

SPARTACIST edition fra:,~aise

pour toute commande s'adresser Ii:

(continued from page 5)

cy" which not only failed to raise anyanti-capitalist demands but even failedto condemn the "emergency"!

The CLl has followed the fake"orthodox Trotskyism" of the SWP toits scandalous conclusion in India.According to SWP guru Joseph H~n­sen, "capitalism in India would godownif it abided by the norms and rules ofdemocracy" (Militant, 15 August 1975).Indeed! For nearly three decades Indiawas the "democratic" showcase of Asia.But after 30 years of formal "indepen­dence" under a "democratic" govern­ment India remains mired in backward­ness, with massive illiteracy, anunchanged caste system, rural feudalismvirtually unscathed, and economicunderdevelopment which condemnsover 300 million Indians to live at, orbelow. the subsistence level. Yet thesocial-democratic SWP maintains thatthe struggle for democracy in India is~ufficient to ensure the downfall ofcapitalism!

The vanguard party that will lead theIndian proletariat to power remains tobe forged. Militants of the CLl mustbreak with the reformism of the SWP.which projects the liberation of theoppressed millions of India throul!h the"democratic" institutions bequeathedby British imperialism. No less mustTrotskyists in India repudiate the pro­Naxalite guerrilla ism of the USecmajority. which has capitulated to thepopulist movement of Jaya PrakashNarayan and has failed to counterpose aTrotskyist program to the "emergency."Only the revolutionary Trotskyist pro­gram upheld by the internationalSpartacist tendency points the wayforward to mobilizing the masses ofIndia to smash the Gandhi regime andthe class of exploiting parasites herCongress Party represents and place allpower in the hands of the victoriousIndian proletariat.•

U.S. Steel...(continued/rom page 12)

the motion was raised. the unionpresident said he would not allowanyone to be victimized but saw no needfor a motion. A prominent member ofUnited Rank and File objected to talk ofa strike and counlerposeda substitutemotion omitting any reference to unionaction, hailing the l'\LRB ruling andpraising Gary mayor Hatcher forallegedly promising that cops would notbe used a~ain to arrest leallcttingunionists. Howe\er, this pathetic mo­tion. which builds illusions in the"neut ra Iity" of t he en forcers of ca pita list"law and o:'der" !l1 a company townnamed after a former head of U.S. Steel.\Va, not voted for lack of a second. Themotil1n offered by the three milil:,n t ,

was tabled.Sadlowski's pro-capitalist platform

of "tough" but empty rhetoric. hisrepeated appeals to the bourgeois courtsto interfere in the labor movement andhis supporters' blatant disregard ofworkers democracy expose this union"reformer" as just another bureaucraton the make. Condemnation of U.S.Steers recent atrocity and a vigorousdefense of those being victimized mustbe coupled with repudiation of both theSadlowski and the Abel McBridebrands of class collaboration if aleadership capable of defeating the steelcompanies and the entire bourgeoisie isto be built. •

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Communist parties in Ha\ana in late1964 agreed to "actively aid" fighters inVenezuela, Guatemala and elsewhere:many of the participants at the Triconti­nental were from Moscow-line Stalinistparties. This should not be so surprising,since Stalin himself was hardly apacifist. In fact. virtually everyone ofthe pro-Cuhan guerrilla groups at onepoint or another h'ld (or sought) closerelations with the "official" CPo TheVenCluelan FALl\" was originally sub­ordinate to a political command domi­nated by the Communist Party: theGuatemalan FAR was led by a centralcommittee member of the pro-Moscowpart\ and maintained formal ties with it

. until 1967: and the Colomhian EL'\('\ational l.iberation Army) during theearlY months of its existencc repeatedlvsought to form a unified militaryCl1mm,lnd with the CP\ guerrilla group(see Richard Gott, Guerrilla M()1'c­IIzellt.\ ill Latin America [1972]).

Eljually important in judging the'extent of Castro's "left" phase in themid-1960's is the fact that the Cubanregime did not lift a finger to aid genuinemass struggles against U.S. imperialismand domestic reaction. A good examplewas the Panamanian student protestagainst American control of the CanalZone which broke out in January 1964.As an anti-communist academic source(who could be expected to discoverCastroite subversion behind every leftistdemonstration) reported: "[Castro's]reaction to the riots was restricted to anannouncement that his government wasready to set up, in conjunction with theother Latin American nations, a com­mon fund to assist the Panamanians"(Andres Suarez, Cuba: Caslroism andCommunism, 1959-1966).

An even more explosive struggle,where the Cuban regime could havegiven real content to Guevara's call tocreate "two, three, many Vietnams" inLatin America, was the Santo Domingouprising of April-May 1965. Though itwas under bourgeois leadership-thePRD (Revolutionary Dominican Party)of Juan Bosch-the "Constitutionalist"forces were made up of thousands ofurban workers and a section of the armythat had rebelled against the reactionaryhigh command. The masses were seeth­ing with desire to do away with everyvestige and every accomplice of thehated Trujillo dictatorship (i.e., virtual­ly the entire state apparatus and most ofthe stunted bourgeoisie); the revolution­ary possibilities were obvious.

The imperialist U.S. rulers, of course,in order to justify the Marine invasionalleged that the rising was a Castroiteplot. The FIII produced its famous listof "57 leading communists" (many ofwhom were dead, out of the country orin jail). In fact. the opposite was thecase: as we pointed out, "The Cubanleadership. and its main spokesman,Fidel Castro, failed to effectively aidthe Dominican uprising" (Spartacist,September-October 1966). This is con­firmed by Suarez:

"On April 28 the same 'imperialists' whowere bombing Vietnam landed in SantoDomingo. Fortune was giving him[Castro] a chance to show the Sovietsand the Chinese how to comply with'proletarian internationalism.' But hedid nothing."

Cuban regime made a ljuarter turn tothe left but without altering its funda­mental nationalist policies, characteris­tic of all Stalinist-ruled states.

During 1965 Castroite rural guerrillastruggles were initiated in Colombia(Januarv) and Peru (June). In Guatema­la, Lui; Augusto Turcios Lima splitfrom Yon Sosa's M R-lJ (Revolution­arv Movement of:\!0vember l3)guenil­la'front to form the FA R (Rebel ArmedForces). which had a Guevarist programand close links to Cuba. Also in 1965theVeneluelan FALl\" (Armed Forces of'\ational Liheration) led by DouglasBran) rehelled against an attempt by theComrnunistParty leadership to call off.guerrilla actions. Previously, severaldOlen pro-Cuban groups had sprung uparound Latin America, generally with­out am tie, to Ha\ana, while Guevara'sadvoc,~c\ of the Cuban model ("Cuba:Excepti(~nal Case or Vanguard in theStruggle Against Colonialism']". April1961: al1d "Guernlla Warfare: A Meth­od." September 1963) remained largelyin the realm of intellectual admonishing.l'\ow, however, in a series of countriesthere existed more or less officialCastroite guerrilla "armies" whosesuccess or failure would directly involvethe international standing of the Cubanregime.

In retrospect, various "critical Cas­troites" have seen 1965 as the beginningof a heroic period in Cuba's internation­al policies. Castroism emerged as a lettcontender against the pro-Moscow CP's.Regis Debray, an autho!,ized mouth­piece for the Cuban leader's views,denounced the "frank hostility to armedstruggle ),evealed by the leaderships ofseveral Latin American communistparties (Peru. Colombia, Argentina,Chile. Brazil)" ("Latin America: TheLong March." New Left Review,September-October 1965) and explicitlycriticized the 20th congress of the CPSUwhich "led the CPs to take the line of'national democracy', of 'United Frontwith the Bourgeoisie'" ("Problems ofRevolutionary Strategy in Latin Ameri­ca," Nell' l.Rft Review, September­October 1967).

While the period 1965-68 did, to adegree. see a more militant internationalpolicy by the Castro regime-the resultof its diplomatic isolation in LatinAmerica-there was no fundamentalshift of its narrow nationalist orienta­tion. For one thing, Cuba obedientlytoed the line whenever the Kremlin putits foot down. In January 1964 Castroissued a joint communique withKhrushchev in Moscow, hailing thenuclear test ban treatv and condemning"faCtionalist and sect~rianactivity in theranks of the Communist and workersparties"-a clear slap at China. Again inMarCh 1965 Castro obliquely warnedthe Chinese against "Byzantine battles"(following Cuba's participation in theMoscow meeting called by Khrushchevto read China out of the "socialistcamp"); and in January 1966, on the eveof the Tricontinental Congress inHavana, Castro dramatically con­demned China for halving its ricedeliveries to Cuba.

Moreover, at the beginning at least, anumber of pro-Moscow CP's wentalong with cautious references to (andeven limited applications of) "armedstruggle." A meeting of Latin American

Castro...

11 r.. UPI

"Constitutionalist" forces march during 1965 Santo Domingo uprising against U.S. Intervention. Although urbanworkers rose en masse and armed themselves, Castro did nothing to aid them.

(continued/rom page 7)

"courageous" head of the Senate For­eign Relations Committee (who duringthe 1962 Cuban missile crisis had urgedinvasion of the island).

Just what did Fulbright say that soshocked his colleagues and warmed thehearts of Castro and Guevara') He calledfor a "candid re-evaluation of ourCuhan policy," declaring that "theboycott policy is a failure" and urgingthat the trade embargo be ahandoned.HowevC!" , the senator added:

"Cuban Communism docs pose a gran:threat to other Latin American COUIl­

trics. but this threat can be dealt \\ ith.In the prompt and \igcHous use 01 theestablished procedures of the Inter­American ,ystem against am act 01

'aggrc,sion."Sell }"ork 1I1/1i'.\.~f, March 1964

Quadros, Goulart, .lagan and Araujohad alreadv had bitter experiences withthese "est'ablished procedures," butapparently Castro and 'The" hadn'tfigured them out yet!

In an interview that summer. Castrowent even further, reiterating Guevara'soffer at Punta del Este to withholdmaterial aid from Latin Americanrevolutionaries in exchange for U.S.agreement to stop trying to overthrowthe Cuban government:

"If they [the United States] are ready tolive with us in subjection to norms, thenwe would feel the same obligation...."If Cuba should finance a revolutionagainst a government that respects her,it would be a violation of the norm."

--- Nell' York Times. 6 July 1964

The interviewer said Castro was readyto ban both arms supply and economicaid to pro-Cuban insurgents, addingthat "European Communist sourceshere insist that such aid has stoppedentirely or almost entirely since thebeginning of the year."

And those who seek to contrast the"revolutionary" Guevara to the "com­promising" Castro should consult thespeech by ''Che'' at the United NationsGeneral Assembly in December 1964,where he stated that for Cuba the mostimportant problem for the UN to dealwith was "peaceful coexistence betweenstates with different economic andsocial systems," He bemoaned the factthat U.S. imperialism, while seeminglycapable of coexisting with the SovietUnion. could not seem to keep its handsoff the smaller states in Latin America."Todav, the kind of peaceful coexist­ence t~ which we aspire has. in manyinstances, failed to materialize" (Che:Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara[1969]).

Stalinist Guerrillaism versusWorkers Insurrection

But Castro's repeated bids for amodus vivendi with Yankee imperialismwere curtlv rejected. U.S. leaders con­tinued to 'regard the Caribbean as anAmerican lake and agreed with theprofessional anti-Communist punditTheodore Draper that. "if there is oneplace in the world where Communismcan be 'reversible: it is Cuba" (Castro­ism: Theory and Practice [1965]).Rebuffed bv the State Department onevery count-and seeing its Latin Ameri­can -bourgeois "friends" being toppledone by one in CIA-inspired coups. the

fc

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

TROTSKYIST LEAGUEOF CANADA

Teng...

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cia SYL, Room 4316Michigan Union. U. of MichiganAnn Arbor. MI 48109

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(COni inued from page 1)Iy aftn the arrest of the four in earlyOctober, Teng was reportedly escortedback to Peking by the powerful Cantonregional commander and political bu­reau member, Hsu Shih-yu. The "anti­rightist" campaign directed againstTeng was in effect abandoned.

If one accepts the current Peking linethat the "Gang of Four" were "vilecounterrevolutionaries," there woulddefinitely be justice in Teng's e.l.ev<;ltionto the' highest position of authority.After all, it was Teng who was the mostconsistent, intractable enemy of theChiang Ching clique; he fought them farlonger and harder than did Chou orHua--not to mention Mao, theirsometime ally.

Teng's restoration has been carefullyorchestrated. In November, provincialradio broadcasts and newspaper articlesdenounced Chiang Ching and hercohorts for having "shifted the mainorientation" of the campaign againstTeng. Communist Party sources begantelling foreign newsmen that Maointended to moderate the criticism ofTeng and in a "comradely" manner helphim "reform." However, the vicious"Gang of Four" allegedly subverted theChairman's purpose in order to politi­cally destroy the former deputy primeminister and his so-called "moderate"supporters in the leadership. In animportant speech on November 24, Huaneglected the ritual criticism of Teng,obviously a calculated omission.

The first reported pro-Teng wallposter occurred in Canton in lateNovember. Signed by the city's foreigntrade department staff, it hailed the manonce labeled as the "main unrepentantcapitalist roader in the party" as "awarrior who opposed the gang of four"(New York Times, 28 November 1976).During the past week's activitiescommemorating the first anniversary ofChou En-Iai's death, pro-Teng "bigcharacter" posters (dazibaos) proliferat­ed in the capital. Some were calling forhim to be made prime minister.

Since the Chinese bureaucracy rulesthrough police state methods, the pro­Teng posters can only exist with thetolerance of the Hua regime. Despiteclaims by Maoists and their starry-eyedliberal fellow travelers (like British

141

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Address _City _

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likewise the Rep hailed Teng's secondfall as a "victory for socialism":

"With the. guidance ofMao's~ine; t,-he ;Chinese peopre were able to recognizethe line and policies of the capitalistroaders, headed this time by TengHsiao-ping, and 10 beat back theirallempts at reversing the achievementsof the Cultural Revolution and restor­ing capitalism."

- Revolution, 15 October 1976

The Rep even produced some of Mao'sdeathless poetry, which was reputedly"one of the big salvos in this battleagainst Teng's line":

"U sing the form of a dialogue betweentwo birds, with the sparrow in the roleof the revisionists, one of these poemsdescribes how 'A sparrow in his bush isscared stiff: whining that '«This is onehell of a mess!! Oh I want to flit and flvaw"ay To a jewelled palace in eInal1d'shills There'll be plenty to cat.Potatoes piping hOI! With beef thrownin».' To this the other bird, pUllingforward the outlook of the proletariat,replies, '«Stop your windy nonsense!Look you, the world is being turnedupside down».'''

Equally if not more dramaticallyflagrant in the Teng affair was the U.S­China People's Friendship Association,whose December 1976 issue of NewChina carries an "eyewitness account"of the Tien An Men incident completewith full-page glossy color photographsand the explanation that "A small groupof counterrevolutionaries manipu­late[d] the spontaneous sentiments ofgrief and respect for the late Premier" inan attempt to "symbolically link therevolutionary Chou with the capitalist­roader Deng Xiao-ping...." TheFriendship Association, we suspect,may soon be discovering some "capital­ist roaders" in its own midst.

Since Mao's murky poem was pennedand the "friends of People's China" sawwith their own eyes the "small group ofcounterrevolutionaries," the bureau­cratic in-fighting in the ForbiddenPalace has once again "turned the worldupside down." Hua is violating theeleventh commandment of Mao. Therehabilitation of Teng will certainly"reverse the verdict" Mao handed downlast April. While those committed aboveall to securing the Peking franchise willdutifully hail yesterday's "capitalistroader" as today's revolutionary leader,the more serious militants within theMaoist movement must look to Trot­skyism to pierce through the self-servingmystifications of the ChineseStalinists.•

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that he had remained an "enemy of thepeople" all <J long and that his 1973 self­criticism was insincere.

The Ol's Call (I May 1976) explains:"The targel of this struggle was TengHsiao-ping beca usc he represented thebourgeois class in China ...."Teng launched an open allack on theparty and instigated the counterrevolu­tionarv incident in Tien An MenSquare. This incident changed thenature of the struggle with Teng into anantagonistic contradiction."

Teng's restoration is being accom­panied by a new version of the Tien AnMen incident, suggesting that the "Gangof Four" and not Teng were responsiblefor the rioting in central Peking lastApril 5. Once again Maoist groupsaround the world will have to straintheir resources to keep in step withPeking's ever-changing tune. AmericanMaoist groups like the October league(Ol) and the Revolutionary Commu­nist Party (RCP) dutifully "analyzed"the purge' of Teng in April by explaining

As the Maoist World Turns

policy differences. The decade-old fightbetween Teng and Chiang Ching's"radieals" covered such issues as cen­tralized planning versus economicregionalism; the guerrilla strategy of"people's war" versus the build-up ofsophisticated weaponry for the armedforces; the importation of foreigntechnology versus national "self­sufficiency"; and increased incomedifferentials versus labor allocationthrough social pressure! state coercion.However, this did not represent a left­right division and all wings of theChinese bureaucracy share an anti­proletanan, anti-internationalist pro­gram. None is worthy of support fromcommunist revolutionaries and theworking class.

The underlying unity ofTeng and theChiang Ching group was highlighted inthe summer of 1975 when strikes shutdown the major textile center ofHangchow (near Shanghai). First, theregime's most prominent young "radi­cal," Wang Hung-wen, was sent to talkthe strikers back to work. When Wangfailed in this assignment, deputy primeminister Teng led a Red Army detach­ment to crush the strike.

The policy questions which have atone time or another separated Tengfrom the Chiang Ching "radicals" donot express fundamental programmaticdifferences, but rather their differentrespective clienteles and power baseswithin the bureaucracy, Teng support­ers come from the administrative!technical apparatus which crystallizedJuring the 1950's and among the party's"old boy" network. The Chiang Chingclique rested on the student-centeredyouth catapulted to power through the"Cultural Revolution" of the mid-1960'sat the expense of the veteran cadre.

Thus a Teng supporter mightbe a Harvard-educated engineer whoreturned to China in the 1950's andobtained 'a materially privileged posi­tion in the industrial administration. Acharacteristic supporter of ChiangChing' would be a former studentactivist who made it into the bureaucra­cy by turning his back on fellow RedGuards when they were suppressed after1968.

There is a widespread notion thatthere exists a "moderate" or "rightist"faction (represented by Teng) and a"radical" or "leftist" faction (led byChiang Ching) whose differences can besummed up as "red versus expert." Thesometime Maoist accusation that Tengis a "capitalist roader" is based on hissupposed overriding concern for eco­nomic growth and efficiency. Thisoutlook is encapsulated in Teng'salleged statement: "It doesn't matter if acat is black or white. Any cat thatcatches mice is a good cat."

But ex-Red Guards such as WangHung-wen are no closer to beingrevolutionaries than are the technocratsfrom the First Five Year Plan. Anadministration of revolutionary com­munists requires above all thoroughgo­ing workers democracy, which can beachieved only through a political revo­lution against all wings of the ChineseStalinist bureaucracy. For the Chineseworking masses, whether Teng orChiang Ching comes out on top deter­mines nothing save the age, rhetoric andpossibly the competence of their bu­reaucratic oppressors.

What's It All About?Intrarbureaucratic clique battles and

shifting alliances often are expressed in

(continued from page 9)

signatories of the "appeal" withdrewtheir names within a matter of hoursafter it was published. Daniel and PhilipBerrigan, Don luce, Paul Mayer andDavid Dellinger almost immediatelyissued an "open letter" charging that the"confidentialletter" had "raised chargesin an irresponsible manner." They had,said the radical pacifists, "new materi­als" which "give us confidence that thenew government is deeply concernedabout human rights."

While these individuals drew backfrom or refused to be part of the liberalanti-Communist campaign, their de­fense of Vietnam~based as it is on"humanistic" grounds rather than solidclass criteria --leaves them open tobeing sucked into the cold-warriors'maneuvers at a later date. In a display ofliberal credulitv that matched the"confidential" letter's "disappoint­ment," they insisted: "We are furtherreassured by recalling that the govern­ment there [Vietnam] was a signatory tothe Paris accords" (so was HenryKissinger)! They were confident thatVietnam would offer the world "ascrupulous example of pro-humanconduct."

Without a Trotskyist understandingof Stalinism the pacifist "progressives"are condemned to either naively praiseor to take up antl-commuOist attacksagainst the bureaucratic regimes. Viet­nam must be defended because it is aworkers state, albeit qualitatively de­formed by the parasitic Stalinist bu­reaucracy which rules in Hanoi. Theoverthrow of the Vietnamese bourgeoi­sie is a historic gain for the entire worldproletariat, which must be defendedagainst imperialist attack or home­grown counterrevolution. Yet there areundoubtedly some innocent people inthe Vietnamese "relocation" camps, aswell as some genuine fighters forproletarian democracy. We have noillusions in the "pro-human" proclivitiesof the Vietnamese Stalinists, who underHo Chi Minh were responsible for theslaughter of the Vietnamese Trotskyiststhat led the heroic workers uprising inSaigon in 1945.

It is also true that a great many of the"political prisoners" in Vietnam todayare genuine enemies of the workingpeople the wretched remnants of thecorr' 'Thieu regime and its hangers­on, lurturers, exploiters and militarybutchers. Although most of the topcriminals along with their war profits,gold bars, silks and jewels were evacu­ated bY' the U.S. those that were leftbehind richly deserve to be set to workremoving unexploded mines from ricefields, one of the "violations of humanrights" discovered by the liberals.

The Spartacist League hails thetremendous victory won by the workerand peasant masses of Vietnam indriving the U.S. and its toadies out ofthe country and overturning capitalistpi ()pcrty relations. At the same time, wehave alwavs warned of the bureaucraticand natior;alist character of the Stalinistruling castc which blocks the interna­tional extension of the revolution, andwith that the road forward tosocialism-while calling for political/"('I'o!utioll to oust the bureaucracy andestablish the proletarian democracy ofsoviet rule. All Indochina Must GoCommunist! •

economist Joan Robinson), dazihausare not the Chinese version of freedomof the press. InN ovember Reutersreported that someone who had defaceda pro-Hua wall poster in Changsha wasexecuted for this act (Times [london],15 November 1976). If someone todayput up dazihaos defending ChiangChing, both the author and his workwould meet a swift and sorry fate.

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21 JANUARY 1977 11

WfJR/(ERI VIINfitJIIR'Sadlowski SUI!Dorters Reject United Defense

u.s. Steel Orders Union LeaflettersArrested in Gary

Sadlowski/McBride

WHERE'S THE MONEYCOMING FROM?

CHICAGO On Tuesday. January 4.three supporters of United Steelworkersof America (USWA) presidential candi­date Ed Sadlowski were arrested as theydistributed union campaign material atthe entrance to a parking lot at U.S.Steel's massive Gar\' Works. Thearrest­ed unionists. all members of USWALocal 1014. were At Samter. Bill Toddand H. Lee Riley. According to the GarrPost- Trihulle (5 January) the three were"arrested by mill security personnel."who then summoned the Gary police.

However. policemen arriving on thescene decided they lacked authority to

CHICAGO--The United Steel­workers presidential elections aredown to the wire. CandidatesSadlowski and McBride spend theirtime in the revolving door of thebosses' courts. flinging court suitsbaek and forth until you can't tellthem apart.

The current hot issue between thecontenders in the giant steel union iscampaign funds: where's the moneycoming from') McBride says Sad­lowski is accepting cash fromemployers. Sadlowski accusesMcBride of libel and charges himwith illegal use of union funds forhis campaign.

The top "labor statesmen"--so­called because of their notorious"respomibilit\" ... to the com­panies ha\(: sensed Sadlowski's\ulnerabilit\ on this issue andsuddenly jumped to the defense ofunion independence. IncumbentUS WA president L W. Abel tookthe "rebel" district director to taskfor receiving funds from "limousineliberals." AFL-CIO chief GeorgeMeany denounced the influence ofADA (Americans for DemocraticAction) big shots and "the string ofemployers and wealthy angelswhose treasuries they seek to tap."

So on January 9 Sadlowski madea sweeping gesture of "opennessand honesty." Two days prior to acourt-ordered deadline for turningover all his campaign sources. heheld a press conference to release aselect list of his big contributors.The ~Val/ Street Journal (10 Janu­an) announced: "United Steel­w~rkers rebel Edward Sadlowskiopened his campaign finances .. , ,"

The next day. however. theJournal said. "it was impossible forreporters to determine precisely the

12

make an arrest. as did their supervisor.l"ot until a force of five squad cars hadbeen amassed-staffed by seven patrol­men. a sergeant. a lieutenant and apolice eaptain--could an officer befound who was willing to arrest thethree. Two hours later at Gary policeheadquarters they were released whenthe company failed to press charges.However. they may be rearrested at anytime if U.S. Steel signs affidavitscharging the three with trespassing.

The reluctance of the police to arrestthe unionists and the company's unwill­ingness to press charges no doubt stem

total amount of outside contribu­tions to his campaign," And thereseems to be some reason to take alook. In the 5 January ChicagoSun- Times Sadlowski was admit­ting to $1.450 from "prominentbusiness figures"; at the pressconference the amount was up toS26.000 in "large" gifts by outsiders(but not "one penny of corporatemoney"); and by mid-January thefigure was "about $30,000,"

Having ourselves warned of thedanger represented by Sadlowski'slinks to big-money liberals­although from a completely differ­ent standpoint than that of thehypocritical Meany Abel laborfakers. who have plenty of ties(financial and otherwise) to theclass enemy- WV called up "Steel­workers Fightback" headquartersin Chicago to request to see the"open" books. Clem Balanoft(brother of Jim. who is president ofUSWA Local 1010 and Sadlowski'scandidate to succeed him as District31 director) gave us an unambi­guous answer: '" 0'"

"We're not going to be botheredby any reporter coming trompinginto our headquarters and bother­ing us." he went on, "You'll be heretoday. then tomorrow it will beWorkers POII·cr... Look. youknow the game as well as I do now;we're not opening them up toanyone else," So much for openbooks! Sadlowski runs to the courtsat the drop of a hat to get govern­ment control of the union elections.government inspection of his oppo­nent's finances. government censor­ship of the l.ISWA newspaper. Butwhen it comes to le\(:ling with theworkers movemen t. "Oil Can Ed~

dy's" word is: '0 dice'

WV PhotoEd Sadlowskifrom recent rulings by the NationalI ahor Relations Board and a federalcircuit court upholding the right ofemployees to distrihute union materialin non-work locations on U.S. Steelproperty. But the steel monopoly'slegendary contempt for the labormovement continues as plant guards arereportedly confiscating leaflets fromworkers entering the Gary Works'Broadway Street gate with more thanthree copies, as well as subjectingleafletters to systematic harassment.

U.S. Steel reiterated its arrogantstand in a press statement by its publicaffairs director for Indiana, who saidthat despite NLRB and court rulings."For the time being, we will continue toenforce our long-standing policy ban­ning distribution of literature anywherewithin the confines of our privateproperty," In other words. to hell withlegal technicalities and the rights oflabor be damned!

While the steel barons insist onenforcing their sacrosanct propertyrights. the response by victimizedSadlowski supporters typified the utterreformism and reliance on the bosses'courts which characterize the cam­paign of their touted "steel rebel."Although the court decision on leaflet­ting rights grew out of complaints filedwith the' L R B by Samter and others, atno time ha ve they ever taken this issue tothe Local 1014 membership. 'or hasSadlowski. as head of USWA District

31. ever used the power of his office toinitiate a campaign to win and enforceunion leafletting rights.

On January 5 a "protest meeting"chaired hy Todd (who is ex-vicepresident of Local 1014 and currentpresident of the Gary hranch of theNAACP) was held at the Garv head­~uarters of Sadlowski's "Stecl~orkersFightback." Although the meeting wasadvertised as open to anyone whosupported the right to leaflet, Todd andother local Sadlowski supportersmanaged to disrupt it by spending mostof the time trying to bureaucraticallyexpel those union militants who do notsupport the Sadlowski slate. Thissectarian action was instigated by theUnited Rank and File Committee. alocal reformist hodgepodge led by Toddand Samter, which is politically en­dorsed by the Communist Party (CP)and the International Socialists (IS). Itwas applauded with equal vigor by theRevolutionary Communist Party­supported Breakout grouping.

The United Rank and Fildeaders hadevidently expected to get rid of"troublemakers" without a fuss so thatthey could get on with the "real"business of the meeting: not defendingthe arrested leafletters but beating thedrums for "Oil Can Eddy." However,after anti-Sadlowski militants de­nounced the false advertising for themeeting, condemned Sadlowski's big­business support and reliance on thecourts, stated their solidarity in protest­ing the arrests and criticized the bureau­cratic exclusion. a 45-minute discussionensued. Although several Sadlowskisupporters had spoken against exclu­sion. Todd ruled the militants excludedbut said they could stay for the rest ofthe meeting without the right to partici­pate! It was a dramatic display of what aSadlowski regime would be like, givingthe lie to his demagogic talk of "uniondemocracy" and "getting the membersinvolved." After rejecting a uniteddefense. against the company. themeeting voted to continue distributingSadlowski campaign literature.

Three of the excluded militantspublished a leaflet for the January 10union meeting which criticized theexclusion for "undermin[ing] our abilityto bring union members together in acommon front agains.t company provo­cation, ... " The leaflet contained amotion to be presented at the meetingwhich would commit the Local todefense of members against discipline orcharges in connection with the arrestsand called for union action to defendworkers rights:

"He it lurther resol\ed. thdt 1..1 1• 1014

will defend through class-struggle tac­tics up to and including militant strikeaction the right of our membership andall members of the workers movemcntto the tree and open discussion anddisseflllilalion of tl1':11 \ ;e\\s."

Workers who attended the Localmeeting told WI' salesmen that when

(olllilllled Oil !)(Jge 10

21 JANUARY 1977