WfJRKERS ,,IN'U,IR' 25¢No. 298 :~:' X~2J 5 February 1982

For Polish Trotskyism!

018na?or8

Crucial opportunity to build Trotskyist vanguard in Poland.

~ ~~1IIllr.1_ w_

Reagan Weeps forCounterrevolutionary

Solidamosc

With the Polish government's pre­ventive coup on December 13, acounterrevolutionary bid for power bySolidarnosc has been checked, Previ­ously the one thing everybody seemed toagree on was that order could berestored only by Russian militaryintervf'ntion-and that would mean abloodbath, Yet it was the Pulish armvwhich not only suppressed pro-Weskr;SoIidarnosc, but did so ,,\'ith on: adOlen \)r so death~

There v.as link hloodshed bee"there was little resistance, The v,Ofhr~

intoxicated h:,· ~[-:". ~';t-i'~C:l:<'~{-';_~Clr;'J

l'c> '.;!,' 'Jf Solidarnosc have recc'l\'::(: J.

sohering~hock, Many are askint! -..'themsehc:> what went wrong C'ndare now open to new solutions. Thissituation represents a crucial opportuni-ty to create the nuclei of a Trotskyistparty in Poland, through constructingunderground cells of a propagandisticand educational nature.

Pentagon official Richard Perleadmitted "we were taken by surprise"that the Polish government could "crushSolidarity," All Washington's scenariosto whip up anti-Communist frenzy overa Soviet invasion had to be revamped,So ever since December 13 the Reagan-

ites have tried to convince the world thatit's really the Russians who have takenover Poland, They only look and talklike Poles. Frustrated at not seeingRussian and Polish blood flowing in thestreets of Warsaw and Gdansk, Reaganhas lashed out with economic sanctionsagainst both Poland and the USSR.

It was not only the American imperi­alists that were taken by surprise at the

ignominIOus defeat of their Polishcompany union, So were the Poles ... onboth sides. An aide to General Jaruzel­ski told Western journalists ratherexultantly: "If anything, I am surprisedthat it went so easily. The radical wing ofSolidarity underestimated the feelingsof the silent majority" (New YorkTimes, 6 January). A Solidarnoscspokesqmn said pretty much the same

thing, only in his case with anguish:"We always believed that Polishsoldiers would never shoot Polishworkers-and it's still true, they haven'treally. But the diabolical thing is theydon't have to."

-New York Times. I JanuaryThe Western bourgeoisie, which

glorified Solidarnosc as an uprising ofthe entire Polish nation, is hard put to

continued on page 6

--

u.s. Arms Salvadoran Death Sguads

"HumanRights"MassacresThe American-backed junta in EI

Salvador has carried out a savagemassacre in the name of defending the"free world" against Communism. Asweep through the rural province ofMorazan by an elite U,S,-trainedbrigade left a thousand corpses strewnalong the mountain trails and piled inthe village chapels, victims of the blood­crazed military butchers.

In its scope and calculated barbaritythe Moranln massacre screamed "MyLai" from the mass graves, Although ittook place in early December, it was notuntil late last month that the grislyatrocity was confirmed by Americanreporters.

Ironically. the news came just one daybefore President Reagan certified toCongress that the Salvadoranjunta hadmade progress in "human rights." Andas if to confirm that the slaughter inMorazan was no aberration, on January31, junta troops staged a "night and fog"operation. raiding homes in a working­class suburb of the capital, raping,

beating and killing 19 youths selected atrandom.

But the chilling eyewitness accountspublished in the leading U,So papers didnot embarrass Ronald Reagan, Un­fazed, he proceeded to submit hisdeclaration (required by a liberalamendment to the foreign aid bill) thatthe Salvadoran junta "has made aconcerted, significant and good-faitheffort to deal with the complex political,social and human rights problems it isconfronting and that progress is beingmade" (Washington Post, 29 January).

Reagan. in fact, is preparing to shipeven more than the $26 million inmilitary aid already allotted to EISalvador. On January 27 a successfulleftist guerrilla attack on the Salvadoranair force base at llopango left at least 18war planes and four Huey helicoptersheavily damaged. In the aftermath ofthis stunning raid. the administrationindicated it would seek $100 million inadditional aid to the murderous junta,double the current level.

The scorched-earth policy of theSalvadoran armed forces in the guerrillabase areas and the ferocious rightistrepression which has claimed somethinglike 30,000 victims in less than threeyears have not weakened the strength ofthe left-wing rebels of the FarabundoMarti National Liberation Front(FMLN). In fact, administration offi­cials admitted to the Senate ForeignRelations Committee on January 28,according to the Post, that after the I10­pango raid, "the Salvadoran military'sability to support ground operationsagainst the guerrillas had been sharplyimpaired and possibly eliminated."

Massacre at MOloteThe soldiers came to the mountain

village of Mozote on the evening ofDecember II. The 500 inhabitants,mostly children, women and old men,were gathered on the road while troopsfrom the U.S.-trained Atlacatl Brigadesearched and looted their mud-brick

continued on page 9

Montes/Gamma

Victims of Reagan-armed junta.

Malice and the Media

Sally Field and Paul Newman in "Absence of Malice."

The movie Absence of Malice hasstirred a wave of protest from newspa­per writers and editors who complain itis a slap in the face against the press.They cal1 it a "backlash" movie againstAll the President's Men where liberalmuckraking reporters wear the whitehats in unraveling the Watergate scan­dal. In Absence Sal1y Field plays agullible young city room reporter easilyset up by government investigators to"leak" phony information about sus­pected Mafia figure Paul Newman."Couldn't happen here," scream theindignant defenders of the Fifth Estate.But it could and does all the time.

The epithets have been particularlyhot and heavy at the lib/rad VillageVoice. In a major brouhaha, no less thanfive different Voice writers have beengoing at each other for weeks from theirrespective columns, writing poison penletters to their own newspaper, throwingad hominem attacks into totally unre­lated articles. Nat Hentoff, the Voice'scivil libertarian, defended the filmagainst the "snarling reaction" of peoplewith a "swollen sense of their privilegedrank." He added:

"Every single instance of journalisticmalpractice in Absence ofMalice I haveseen, in one form or another, during mymore than 20 years either at the Voice orother places I've worked."

- Village Voice,. 25 November-I December 1981

In response staff writer Joe Conasonfired off a prickly "letter to the editor"protesting Hentoff's "unsupportedsmear." Others complained the film wasa frontal attack on the First Amend­ment (logic: anyone who attacks thepress for whatever reason is attackingthe First Amendment). Feminists com­plained that it was a put-down ofwomen because no man could apoear as

.- - -~ OoJ .......J • J\,.JU a-.uu ;:)\J.JJ ut

believable. Well. .... The attack on the f1lm in the name of

freedom of the press is a smokescreenfor those who are trying to cover upgovernment manipulation of the media.It's not surprising that the ·Voice's White

Knight of the First Amendment, Hen­tof£, should lead the film's defenders.And he's got plenty of evidence to makehis case. He points to the Abscam leaksin which Congressmen, after beingentrapped by the FBI, were then tried inthe press before they had even beenindicted. He cites the case a few yearsago where a front-page New York Times

"leak" from a special prosecutor de­stroyed the reputation of an NYC judge:his exoneration was later reported witha single inch of type buried on the insidepages. Then there are the Pentagonreporters who so take on the values ofthose they cover that they later slip intojobs in Defense without missing abeat-like the New York Times'revolving-door "national security" cor­respondents Leslie Gelb, a top politicalcommIssar for the War Departmentunder Carter, and Richard Burt, head ofState's Bureau of Politico-MilitaryAffairs.

But his piece de grace is aimed atDai~r News reporter Marcia Kramer,one of those who screamed loudest

against Absence of Malice:

"In the November 22 Sunday News,Marcia Kramer wrote a piece, 'A NewsReporter Challenges a Screen Portraitof the Press.' In it, Kramer says that ifSally Field had spent a week with her, sowell-seasoned a pro, Field 'would havebalked at portraying a character sonaive' as the reporter in the movie."Is this not the very same Marcia

Kramer who had earlier told us of theWeather Underground's Cuba con­nections? ... It was vivid stuff, assertingwithout qualification tliat DGI (CubanIntelligence) trained members of thecadre in Cuba and even rebuked themfor not taking bold enough action athome...."According to their piece, theserevelations came from 'WashingtonFBI sources.' Oh. Any additionalverification? If there was. it's not in thereport."

- Village Voice,16-22 December 1981

And Marcia Kramer is not alone.Hentoffcites a New York Post storythat one suspect in the Nyack Brinksholdup, Nat Burns, was a former"SWAPO guerrilla trained by the

Cubans and Soviets in Afghanistan."Says who? "Sources said," the Postarticle's authors told Hentoff. Or theWall Street Journal editorial demand­ing an investigation of the "Cubanconnection" with the Weathermen,based on supposed first-hand accountswith Larry Grathwohl, who they neglectto mention was a long-time FBI inform­er. And the list goes on.

In the age of Lyndon Johnson's"credibility gap" and Richard Nixon's"18-minute gap," the press has beenportrayed as righteous defenders of thetruth. And today there are influentialforces out to discredit it and cut off itssources. The enormous scandal overWashington Post reporter JanetCooke's New Journalism (made-up)story on 8-year-old junkie Jimmy wasused by ex-Nixon flack William Safireas part of the right-wing/witchhunters'drive to do a plumbingjob on the media.Reagan is trying to use lie detectors(Carlucci's Chastity Belt) to stop "leaks"at Defense, just like Nixon used hiswiretaps against journalists on hisenemies list. As the press becomes moreaggressive in exposing the cruelties andirrationalities of Reagan policies, theadministration is looking hard for waysto shut them up.

But Absence of Malice shows theopposite-that the "free press" is fre­quently used by the government toframe, smear and subvert. And it's notjust through using turkey reporters. Thepowerful opinion-makers and magnateswho control the press are well aware oftheir "responsibility" to the Americancapitalist ruling class. It's well knownthat the New York Times covered upreports of the planned invasion of theBay of Pigs. And at the "crusading"Washington Post of Ben Bradlee.Woodward & Bernstei.n fame, then­editor Bill Graham also killed the storyof the CIA-planned invasion of Cuba.As New Yorker critic A.J. Leibling usedto comment, the press is only free forthose that own one. Say it ain't so,Rupert. •

LettersDeukmejian'sFrame-UpSTATE OF CALIFORNIAGovernor's OfficeSacramento 95814

Edmund d. Brown Jr.Governor

December 28, 1981

Mr. Al NelsonSpartacist LeagueP.O. Box 935Oakland, California 94604

Dear Mr. Nelson:

Thank you for your letter of December 18 andaccompanying documents regarding the AttorneyGeneral's mistake in including the Spartacist League inhis report on organized crime.

We appreciate your taking the time to bring thismatter to our attention.

Sincerely,Allen SumnerDeputy Legal Affairs Secretary

Reds and ZinovievMilwaukee, WIJanuary 14, 1982

Pat Kincaidc/o Workers Vanguard

I enjoyed your review of "Reds" in the December18th issue of Workers Vanguard [No. 295]. Having

2

read a number of reviews I was most impressed by itsanalysis. This is not to say that others weren't alsointeresting. I have enclosed two reviews that haveappeared in the Daily World. (If you haven't alreadyseen them.) You will note that after more than 50 yearsthe Stalinists have yet to get their "facts" straight. TheBaku Congress does seem to be the most controversialscene. The Militant review says Reed hardly spoke andthat his written speech did not mention class or holywar. The review does say that Zinoviev did call for aholy war however, and by their silence seeminglyapprove. Your review seems vague on this point ofwhat Zinoviev actually did. Possibly in future articlesWorkers Vanguard could expand on the up and downcareer of Zinoviev that ended in front of one of Stalin'sfiring squads.

Yours,Marc Sanders

WV replies: Our review, "Reds on REDS," noted thatwhile Warren Beatty's movie on the life of John Reedwas generally (and unusually) historically accurate,"with the figure of Zinoviev ... Beatty does make someconcessions to anti-Communist stereotypes." Particu­larly controversial is the scene late in the film whichshows Reed angrily protesting because Zinoviev hadsupposedly changed his speech to the Baku Congress.This parallels an earlier scene where Reed directs thesame protest against one of his bourgeois editors:"Nobody changes my copy," he shouts. Historicallythere is no evidence that Zinoviev tampered withReed's speech. In the stenographic report of theCongress published by the Comintern in J920, Reedcalls on the Eastern peoples to "rise in revolt" againstcapitalist exploitation, but does not speak of "holywar" (or of "class war").

Zinoviev himself did call for "a holy war against thecapitalists and plunderers," however, and this term was

HarvardGregory Zinovlev (seated second from left) at1920 Baku Congress.

used repeatedly in the manifesto of the Baku Congress.This formulation-indefensible in the program of thecommunists, projecting a national/religious move­ment rather than class struggle against the exploiters­did not represent Comintern policy. In markedcontrast to pre-1914 social democracy, which at bestignored the struggles of the colonial masses againstimperialism, the Communist International at itsSecond Congress in 1920 (shortly before Baku) calledfor Communist proletarian leadership of the strugglefor national emancipation. Moreover, the eariyCommunist parties of the East were militantly anti­clerical. For example, during the short-lived GilanSoviet Republic of 1920-21, the Persian Communistsforcibly unveiled women and closed down mosques.One may question the tactical wisdom of such actions,which were also massively undertaken by Muslim

continued on page 10

WORKERS VANGUARD

Tear Down Reagan's Racist Concentration CamP!l

Free Haitian Refugees!

5 FEBRUARY 1982

WORKERSVANGIJARDMarxist Working-Class Biweeklyof the Spartacist League of the U.S.EDITOR: Jan Norden

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Charles Burroughs

PRODUCTION: Darlene Kamiura (Manager),Noah Wilner

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Linda Jarreau

EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, LizGordon, Mark Kellermann, James Robertson.Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour, MarjorieStamberg

Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) publishedbiweekly, skipping an issue in August and aweek in December, by the Spartacist PublishingCo., 41 Warren Street. New York, NY 10007.Telephone: 732-7862 (Editorial), 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domesticsubscriptions: $5.00/24 issues. Second-classpostage paid at New York, NY.

Opinions expressed in signed articles or lettersdo not necessarily express the editorialviewpoint.

rier!" (Down with Duvalier, WorkersPower!) was vigorously picked up bymany of the more than 2,000 marchers.

The general political aim· of theHaitian support movement is to pres­sure the U.S. government to provide a"human rights" solution to Haitianoppression. As we have pointed out,"human rights" is a hopeless illusionunder the likes of DuvaJier or any otherneo-colonial puppet. And the chances ofpressuring Reagan to in any way bettertheir lot are nil. The misery and extremeimpoverishment of this eroded islandhell are such, however. that only thetiniest working class has been able toform. The liberation of Haiti can comeabout only through a struggle thatextends to the Dominican Republic(where in 1965 the Santo Domingomasses rose up against the U.S.­imposed junta), to the rest of theCaribbean (notably Puerto Rico andCuba) and to the centers of Haitianimmigration in North America. Work­ers revolution in the U.S. is key tobreaking the chains which enslave theHaitian masses.

The Spartacist League calls for"Asylum for Haitian Refugees-NoDeportations!" and for immediatelyfreeing all the inmates of Reagan's racistconcentration camps. However, once inthe U"5., the refugees, who are withoutany rights, become prey for laborcontractors who are establishing agrowing slave trade in migrant farmworkers, Thus the SL's call for full~it.i.~~ns.bin ripbts for foreigp u'Qrkers isvital for working-class unity, overcom­ing national and ethnic hatreds, as wellas combating bourgeois chauvinisthysteria. International labor solidarityis essential to bring down Reagan andsmash puppet dictatorships like those ofDuvalier. •

3

And we hope that those who donot already have a subscriptionto YSp will examine this issueand subscribe now to the pressof the SYL: "As a Marxist organ­ization we fight capitalist im­perialism down the line, fromthe intellectual pretensions oftheir haughty apologists totheir assaults on democraticrights to their long-standing com­mitment to racial and sexualinequality."

Subscribers to WV will bereceiving the latest issue ofYoung Spartacus (No. 97,February 1982), the monthlynewspaper of the SpartacusYouth League (SYL). YSpdocuments how the "gentle­men of Harvard" tried butfailed to throw SYLer KeithManning behind bars fordefending free speechwhen an SYL forum wasattacked by virulent anti­Communists. The articleuncovers the dirty busi­ness of "the Corporation," fromthe sinister Kennedy School ofGovernment and Crimson racismto napalm and the legal murder ofSacco and Vanzetti. As YSppoints out, Harvard's "reputationas one of the most insufferably ar­rogant, repressive, racist, anti­union and sexist institutions iswell earned."

We are sure that WV sub­scribers will want to read thisexcellent and important article.

StrangeThings UnderHarvard'sRocks

heavily armed Nicaraguan somocistasand thousands of Cuban gusanos areallowed and even encouraged to openlytrain in camps in Florida and Califor­nia. For the U.S. is actively fomentingcounterrevolution in Sandinista Nicara­gua and talking of again blockadingCuba, while capitalist butcher Duvalieris part of the "free world."

An increasing number of protestshave sprung up across the countryrecently. In New York on January 2, theSpartacist League participated in aspirited march down BroQklyn's East­ern Parkway carrying signs which read,"Free Haitians from Reagan's Concen­tration Camps," "Reagan WelcomesGusano Scum, Deports Haitian Blacks"and "Full Citizenship Rights for For­eign Workers." In addition, an SLchant, "A bas Duvalier-pouvoire ouv-

Should Haitians attempt to over­throw the brutal Duvalier dictatorship,they suffer even harsher consequences.So after 25 opposition leaders attempt­ed an uprising, seizing the small islandof Tortuga off Haiti's northern coast,they were arrested by the U.S. andhauled off into court on charges ofviolating the 1794 Neutrality Act.Meanwhile, more than 1,000 right-wing

corrupt Duvalier, who has amassed afortune estimated at $600 million.Principal exports are baseballs andblood plasma, and the average percapita income is $135, the lowest in theWestern Hemisphere. Only 20 percentof the population is literate. Above all,the desperate Haitian poor are seekingto escape the dreaded Tontons Ma­coutes, the secret police of"Baby Doc's"dictatorship.

In the last several months, the U.S.has ordered the Coast Guard to patrolthe waters off .Florida .to prevent, theblack Haitians from reaching theAmerican shore. Simultaneously Rea­gan began the policy of mass internmentin de facto concentration camps inpreparation for mass deportations. Bytrying to make a distinction between"economic" and "political" refugees, theU.S. welcomes Cuban gusanos includ­ing terrorists and criminals as "victimsof Communism," while the terrorizedblack Haitians are repulsed for seekingto escape one of the worst tyrannicaldictatorships in the world-because it'sa U.S. puppet.

It's also blatant racism. "If I werewhite, they would let me free," oneinmate at Fort Allen told a Newsweekreporter, a theme that was repeatedconstantly. The combination of racismand anti-Communism was protested inan editorial by the New York blackestablishment weekly Amsterdam News(2 January):

"What IS it about the ReaganAdministration that it can be soindignant about Poland and so con­cerned about the welfare of Poles whileit is so hard-hearted about Haitians?Are not these desperate Black men andwomen human? Are not their livesworth saving? Why the difference? .."The Poles who will be welcomed tothese shores will be hailed as freedom­fighters. They will be living proof of thesuperiority of the capitalist system. TheHaitians have no propaganda value inthe east-west conflict. The Haitians­and the Black South Africans areanother example of America's hypocrit­ical concern with political liberty-arenot abused by a Communist tyrant.They are Black, unskilled andilliterate."

Ficara/Newsweek

Reagan welcomes Polish "freedom fighters" and Cuban gusanos whilepersecuting desperate blacks fleeing Duvalier's terror.

5 February 1982No. 298

Nowhere has Reagan racism beenmore evident these days than in the massjailings of thousands of desperate blackHaitian refugees fleeing a brutal U.S.­backed dictatorship.

As the KKK-endorsed presidentRonald Reagan tries to rev up the anti­Soviet war machine and instill anti­Communist prejudice in the workingclass by declaring "Solidarnosc Days"and welcoming Polish defectors, Hai­tian immigrants are being stashed indesolate concentration camps. They'recarted off to the subarctic temperaturesof the federal prison in Otisville, NewYork. to barren dirt holding pens atFort Allen in "sunny Puerto Rico" orleft to rot at the Krome Avenuedetention center on the edge of theswampy Everglades of Florida. Therethey are left to the whims of club­wielding, trigger-happy Immigrationand Naturalization Service (INS)guards, riot police and rent-a-cops.

Over 2,500 Haitians are being heldindefinitely in 17 locations throughoutthe U.S. Public outcry has focused ontwo centers of refugee unrest, the KromeAvenue facility in Miami and PuertoRico's Fort Allen. Conditions at "CampKrome" are so bad that one witness saidhe had "even seen people showering inthe urinals." Like many other camps,Krome has been the scene of protestdemonstrations. And despite heavycrackdowns by security police, a smallnumber have managed to escape overthe three rows of chain-link fence andrazor-sharp concertina wire whichsurrounds the compound.

At Fort Allen where 800 refugees arebeing held, the repression is even worse.On December 19, about 200 refugeescharged the fenced cages to display theiranger at the unannounced constructionof additional barbed-wire fencingaround the sleeping quarters of theHaitians. Following this, all those livinginside the compound locked themselvesiilto camp quarters and refused to leaveuntil demands for improved medicalcare, better food and an end to repres­sion were met. A small army of 500guards occupies Fort Allen, and onDecember 28 an additional 100 weresent in to further increase the policestate apparatus.

It's a measure of the hellish conditionsin Haiti that its refugees risk their livesin flimsy 20-foot boats on the high seasto make the 800-mile journey to U.S.shores. Haiti, a country of 6 million, isbeing bled dry by a combination of U. S.multinationals and their front man, the

Breaks with Moscow Over Poland

Italian CP Dances to Reagan's Tune

Trotskyist Leagueof Canada

.......

SPARTACIST LEAGUE LOCAL DIRECTORYHoustonBox 26474Houston, TX 77207

Los AngelesBox 29574Los Feliz StationLos Angeles, CA 90029(213) 662-1564

Madisonc/o SYLBox 2074Madison. WI 53701(608) 255-2342

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San FranciscoBox 5712San Francisco, CA 94101(415) 863-6963

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

order to bring Italy under the heel ofU.S. imperialism. During the 1960s thepre-Eurocommunist PCI was justlyhated by practically every young workermilitant as the bosses' watchdog. ThePCl's role in suppressing the revolution­ary opportunity opened up by the 1969"Hot Autumn" was a historic betrayal,if anything, greater than Berlinguer'spresent line on Poland. And the Krem­lin Stalinists like Cossutta carried outthat betrayal arm in arm with the futureEurocommunists.

Large sections of the Italian CP,

concentrated in the Italian proletariat,remain pro-Soviet and profoundly anti­clerical. They know all too well thatReagan's aggressive support for Soli­darnosc is part and parcel of hiscampaign for nuclear war with theUSSR to be fought in Europe. Indica­tive of this attitude is the success of theLega Trotskista d'ltalia, sympathizingsection of the international Spartacisttendency, which despite its small sizehas been able to sell more than 900copies of a 32-page pamphlet, "StopSolidarnosc Counterrevolution," main­ly to PCI industrial workers.

Communist militants repelled byBerlinguer's embrace of NATO imperi­alism over Poland will find no alterna­tive in the pro-Moscow Stalinist "OldGuard" who disarmed the Italianproletariat after World War II andpaved the way for Berlinguer's "His­toric Compromise" with Christian De­mocracy and NATO. One of themost important opportunities in thehistory of postwar European Stalinismnow exists to appeal to the base ofthe PCI with the Trotskyist programof uncompromising proletarianinternationalism.•

Champaignc/o SYLP.O. Box 2009Champaign, IL 61820(217) 356-1180

ChicagoBox 6441,. Main PO.Chicago, IL 60680(312) 427-0003

ClevelandBox 6765Cleveland, OH 44101(216) 621-5138

DetroitBox 32717Detroit, MI 48232(313) 868-9095

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

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA

National OfficeBox 1377, GPONew York, NY 10116(212) 732-7860

Amherstc/o SYLP.O. Box 176Amherst. MA 01004(413) 546-9906

Ann Arborc/o SYLP.O. Box 8364Ann Arbor, MI 48107(313) 662-2339

Berkeley/OaklandP.O, Box 32552Oakland, CA 94604(415) 835-1535

BostonBox 840. Central StationCambridge, MA 02139(617) 492-3928

/

were CIA agents. The Kremlin enjoys awide audience for its Italian-languagepublications, particularly Tempi Nuovi,which frequently runs articles critical ofBerlinguer's Eurocommunist line (e.g.,"Resistance Veterans Meet in Genoa").

A pro-Moscow split of some sort iscertainly possible. The real question iswhether this would be a significant split,seriously weakening the PCl's role asthe mass reformist party of the Italianworking class or would result in littlemore than a glorified Italy-USSRFriendship Society. This depends on a

number of factors. Among them is theability of Moscow to capture a sizablesection of Emilia-Romagna and Tosca­na ("Red Belt") PCI apparatus, perhapsthrough lucrative trade links betweenvarious cooperatives and small concernsand the Soviet economy.

But in addition to old Stalinist hacksand a smattering of careerists, a pro­Soviet split would also aUract genuineleftist militants. For that very reason itwould be an unstable formation. Mos­cow remains committed to "peacefulcoexistence" with the Italian bourgeoi­sie. And any leftist posture by a MoscowStalinist Italian party would embarrassthe Kremlin's attempt to weaken theAtlantic alliance by playing off the"peace-loving" Europeans against Rea­gan's America.

While Italy's pro-Moscow Stalinistsare now mouthing "anti-imperialist"rhetoric, they remain no less treacher­ous enemies of proletarian revolutionand genuine internationalism than theEurocommunists a la Berlinguer.Among the "Afghans" are some of thesame partisan leaders who both foughtMussolini and then at the end of WorldWar II disarmed Communist workers in

A Pro-Moscow Split?

At the highest levels of the PCIleadership there was only a singledissent from Berlinguer's Poland line,by Kremlin loyalist Armando Cossutta,in charge of local administration. Butpro-Moscow elements are strewnthroughout the apparatus, and in theranks sympathy for the Soviet Union iswidespread. The more militant sectionof the PCI includes the so-called"Afghans," who supported the RedArmy's intervention against the feudal­ist guerrillas and opposed Berlinguer &Co.'s pro-NATO line. The Moscowbureaucrats know the Italian partyinside out. For example, in 1970 it wasthe Kremlin which informed the PCIleadership that unbeknownst to themtwo members of the central apparatus

PCI leaderEnrico Berlinguerspeaks for NATO

imperialism, butItalian workers

reply: "We won'tstrike for the black

madonna ofCzestochowa."

the 24 January Pravda charges Berlin­guer & Co. with "a serious blow to thestruggle of the people for peace andagainst war threats." It went on:

"Whose class interest does all this serve?In today's world it means a direct helpto imperialism, which for decades nowhas been trying to weaken socialism, toshake and ideologically undermine it, a

_help to anti-Communism and to allthose forces generally hostile to thecause of social progress." [emphasis inoriginal]

-L'Unitii, 25 January

The Italian ruling class has been quickto express "national solidarity" withtheir fellow Italians, albeit "Commu­nists," against the Russian bear. Thevarious bourgeois formations and bigcapitalist press have been almost unan­imous in greeting the PCl's stance. Theyunderstand that now that the PCIfinally has made a clean break withMoscow, thus ceasing to be Stalinist, awhole new range of parliamentarycombinations becomes possible. For thetroubled Italian bourgeoisie, which hashad 41 governments in the 36 years sincethe end of World War II (a recordprobably second only to coup-riddenBolivia), . this offers the chance toshackle the powerful and militantworking class by giving the PCI a fewgovernment ministries and a moreactive role in the day-to-day administra­tion of the capitalist system.

He called the Polish coup 'the end of anepoch' and said nobody could look Eastany longer for inspiration or support intransforming society,"

And the influential arch-conservativeLondon Economist (23 January) asks,"Has Italy's Communist Party defect­ed?" It answers: "The evidence of agenuine change within the ItalianCommunist Party is far too considera­ble to be dismissed."

Certainly the Kremlin thinks the PCIhas now defected to Western imperial­ism. An authoritative unsigned article in

TorontoSat.. 1:00-500 pm.299 Queen St. W. Suite 502Toronto. Ontario Phone (416) 593-4138

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New York CityTues.: 6:00-9:00 p.m.Sat: 12:00-4:00 p.m.41 Warren St. (one block belowChambers St. near Church St.)New York. N.Y. Phone (212) 267-1025

ChicagoTues.: 5:30-9:00 p.m .. Sat. 2:00-5:30 pm523 S. Plymouth Court, 3rd FloorChicago. Illinois Phone (312) 427-0003

MILANO-The open break of theItalian Communist Party (PCI) withMoscow, precipitated by the suppres­sion of SolidarnosC' counterrevolution­ary bid for power in Poland, means thatthe largest Communist party in WestEurope has now affirmed its undividedloyalty to its own bourgeoisie and moregenerally to NATO imperialism. Thishas been recognized by the imperialiststhemselves and by the Kremlin, whichlast week issued a hard-hitting denun­ciation of their former Italian comradesfor "direct aid to imperialism."

At the same time, the level of internalopposition to the PCl's pro-imperialistline on Poland is quite significant. As wereported earlier: " ... at the base, in thefactories, Italian workers overwhelm­ingly refused to heed the Eurocommu­nists' calls for strikes and demonstra­tions in 'solidarity with Solidarnosc'"(,"We Won't Strike for the Madonna ofCzestochowa'," WV No. 296, 8 Janu­ary). The large number of articles in theparty press polemicizing against itsown members indicates clearly thecentral leadership feels unsafe and isworried about a pro-Soviet split. Thusimportant opportunities are opened upamong the PCI ranks for authenticTrotskyists, who called for stoppingSolidarnosc, the company union ofPope Wojtyla and the CIA.

A central committee meeting in mid­January made it clear that the PCI topshad definitively aligned themselves withthe "free world" in defense of "freedomand democracy" for East Europe. Infact, the propaganda now coming out ofthe Botteghe Oscure (PCI headquartersin Rome) is practically indistinguishablefrom that of the U.S. State Department.And the imperialists certainly areappreciative. Berlinguer's anti-Sovietspeech at the "European Parliament" onDecember 17 was greeted with a stormof applause. To underscore the message,that same day PCI "anti-terrorist"expert Pecchioli went to Verona toexpress his solidarity with the NATOhigh command over the kidnapping ofVietnam war criminal General Dozierby the Red Brigades.

Some hard-line Cold Warriors havefavorably contrasted Berlinguer's out­spoken anti-Sovietism with the responseof the West German Social Democrats,who for their own reasons have kept alow tone over Poland. New York Timescolumnist Flora Lewis, whose viewsoften parallel those of the CIA, wrote onDecember 20:

"About the sharpest and most clear-cutstand of a Western leader on the East­West undertones of the Polish crisiscame, surprisingly, from the ItalianCommunist leader Enrico Berlinguer.

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

Fake-Trotskyists SI!!it

Son of Peron Leaves Son of Mitterrandon a 'left' basis when an appropriateopportunity presents itself."

-"Rotten Blocs Shatter UnitedSecretariat." WV]\;o. 245.7 December 1979

"Critical" ys. Uncritical Supportto the Popular Front

Moreno sniffed the scent of opportu­nity with the election of Socialist Partyleader Mitterrand as French presidentlast May 10. Soon after, in a July 13letter to Lambert. he denounced theOCI's policy as "almost total. notcritical, support to a popular-frontgovernment." They then went semi­public with the controversy in October,attacking each other with veiled epithetsand threats. Following the standards ofpseudo-Trotskyist milieus in which apolemic is judged to be weighty accord­ing to the number of pounds of paperconsumed, "Miguel Capa" weighed infor the Moreno camp with 15,700 wordsagainst opportunism on the popularfront. "Fran90is Forgue" respondedwith 12,000 words defending the OCIpolicy, and Stephane Just addedanother 5,000 justifying support forMitterrand's nationalizations. Alto­gether it took up 20 solid pages of theirinternational organ ... and within themonth the "Fourth International (Inter­national Committee)" was no more.

All the verbose obfuscations simplybelabored the obvious, namely thatLambert & Co. are in no sense anopposition to the present French admin­istration, but at most a pressure groupand more often just Trotskyoid mitter­randistes. The OCI seldom attacks thegovernment as such, even in the most"moderate" tones. And when it does, itaimost never refers to the Mitterrand/Mauroy regime as a popular front, i.e.,as a bourgeois coalition of class collab­oration. At an OCI mass rally last fall,Lambert summed up his policy: "Yes wesay it: the PS-PCF [Socialist!Communist] majority has the means tothrow back the capitalists and thebankers. . .. The government has themeans. The PS-PCF majority in theNational Assembly has the means"(Informations Ouvrieres, 24-31 October1981). To call this parliamentaristcretinism would be too generous. TheLambertists' main activity these days isbuilding illusions in Ronald Reagan'sNo. I anti-Soviet ally on the Europeancontinent!

So what's new? The OCI has beenslavishly tailing social democracy foryears. In 1975-76 Lambert beat thedrums for the (CIA-aided) PortugueseSocialists as they spearheaded a coun­terrevolutionary mobilization againstthe CPo And the best example of OCIpolicy toward the ruling pop frontcoalition in France was its election line,calling for a vote to Mitterrand on thefirst round and violently denouncing thePCF as agents of Moscow and Giscardfor running a candidate at all. In theJune parliamentary vote, the OCI calledfor support to the popular-front majori­ty, and it hailed Mitterrand's election asnothing less than "the political victoryof the working class" (CorrespondanceInternationale, October 1981). YetMoreno hailed this electoral support tothe popular front as "a good example"of Trotskyist policy! The small group ofmorenistas in Los Angeles, for example,published an article praising "TheRevolutionary Policy of the OCI andthe French Elections" (£1 Bolchevique,August 1981).

Before July, you see, Moreno waswalking hand-in-hand with Lambert.Now it discovers the OCl's capitulation

continued on page 10

Revolucion Proletaria Photos

October Correspondance Internation­ale publicly. Moreno's lieutenants inFrance were decreed to have "placedthemselves outside the framework" oftheir International Committee-i.e., tohave expelled themselves. Former mem­bers of the Bolshevik Faction weresimply chucked out of the OCI. Anypretext would do. When a Morenosupporter in eastern France said Lam­bert was a revisionist/reformist, acircular to local organizers replied:"There is no possible discussion ordifferences. Revisionist or reformist­either way it's a declaration of war to thedeath.... He doesn't have a place in theOCI. Out!" Another provincial Moren­oite was expelled for "attempting to lead[an OCI militant] into error" (fromMoreno's Correspondance Internation­ale No. 14, November 1981).

Lambert's idea of an "international"has always been a federated rotten bloc.His earlier "International Committee"(1963-72) with Gerry Healy never evenagreed if it was the Fourth Internationalor for the reconstruction of the FI. Itsimply separated into its French and

English components (with their respec­tive satellites) at the first disagreementover the domestic policies of one of thebloc partners, in this case Lambert'sBolivian associate Lora. The "Organiz­ing Committee" (1972-77) also splitalong national lines when the OCIdisagreed with Lora's Argentine follow­ers over Peronism. And now the Parity /International Committee (1979-81) hassuffered an identical fate as Morenoturned the tables on Lambert, using theOCI's policies toward Mitterrand as thepretext. Rather than struggling to forgea genuinely Trotskyist internationalparty, such unprincipled combinationsalways fall apart when one partner triesto intrude on the other's national "turf. "As for Moreno, our earlier descriptionstill stands:

"For some time now this Argentinepolitical banda/era had been sneakingup on Mandel. scurrying through thebushes and then hiding under the skirtsof a larger group. only to break from it

"Caudillo"Moreno (left)

and right­wing socialdemocrat,

PierreLambert.

single line and not even on a slogan"(letter by Moreno to the Spanish POSI,17 October 1981), the Morenoitesproposed to open an office in Paris andstaff it with 10 PSTers so that they couldagitate among the OCI ranks. Addinginsult, they called on the OCI to pay forthis factional center and to supply themwith 1,000 copies of the October issue ofthe "International Committee" paper(containing a lengthy Moreno polemicagainst OCI policies toward Mitter­rand). The Morenoites' "equal time"offer, to let ten Lambertists run aroundvisiting clandestine PST locals until thejunta catches them, was pure cynicism.And meanwhile, the Argentine adven­turer proclaims his undying love forLambert, "the most talented Trotskyistleader I have known"!

As is their wont, the Lambertistsresponded to this cynical provocationwith bureaucratic repression. OClerswere forbidden to sell the notorious

The ostensible political issues in theMoreno-Lambert split are lessinteresting than the organizational dirtydealing. Having suddenly discoveredthat "we and the OCI do not agree on a

Opportunist OperatorsRun Amok

movement was that which occurredwith the formation of the Third Interna­tional after th~, victory of the RussianRevolutIOn....

-quoted in CritiqueCammuniste, December 1981

The Theses adopted at this meeting werebombastically praised as "the mostimportant document since the Transi­tional Program" of Leon Trotsky. Yettoday Moreno belatedly notes that theylack a section on the question of thepopular front-which Trotsky definedas "the main question of proletarianclass strategy for this epoch"-andLambert admits that their lash-up neverfunctioned on the basis of democraticcentralism. It was, as we put it, one moreepisode in the game of fake-Trotskyistmusical chairs. And now the music hasbegun again.

been losing members ever since Mitter­rand took office) the Parti CommunisteInternationaliste. Meanwhile, theFrench Morenoites sent a letter to theLigue Communiste Revolutionnaire(LCR)-section of Ernest Mandel'sUnited Secretariat (USec), from whichMoreno split in 1979-proposing "com­mon action to build the revolutionaryparty."

You didn't have to be a fortune teller,or even a Marxist, to tell that theMoreno/Lambert match was not madein heaven. But for these hucksters theroad to success was to repeat ever moreextravagant claims, no matter howabsurd. In December 1980, whenMoreno and Lambert rebaptized them­selves the International Committee, theOCI leader boasted:

"In one year we have made a leapforward as has never before happenedin the history of the Fourth Internation­al. The only comparable leap forward inthe history of the international workers

It was a marriage of convenience thatjust became incoflVenient. The fake­Trotskyist conglomeration which calleditself the Parity Committee and later the"Fourth International (I nternationalCommittee)"-their quotation marks­has ceased to exist, as Argentinefilibusterer Nahuel Moreno and Frenchsocial democrat Pierre Lambert partedways late last year. The principals nowprofess incompatibility on a whole hostof issues. The Morenoites assert thatLambert's Organisation CommunisteInternationaliste (OCI) opportunistical­ly capitulates to the popular-frontFrench government of Fran90is Mitter­rand. The Lambertists denounce More­no's Partido Socialista de los Trabaja­dores (PST) for making a mockery ofinternational democratic centralism byopening a factional center in Paris. Whocould deny these charges? And whocould pretend to be surprised? As wewrote in an article under the heading"Son of Mitterrand Meets Son ofPeron":

" ... the oel is a staid social-democraticorganization with a pronounced case ofStalinophobia, while Moreno is anadventurer setting out to build apersonal international with a programof infiltrating all manner of 'ThirdWorld' nationalist-bonapartist re­gimes.... Here is the fake-Trotskyistrotten bloc of all times."

- WV No. 147, II January 1980

Barely two years later, the Parity /International Committee simply cameapart at the seams, producing a coldsplit between Moreno's former Bolshe­vik Faction and Lambert's previousOrganizing Committee. But you can'tteach old opportunists new tricks. So inDecember Lambert launched an "Inter­national Reconstruction Committee"and proclaimed the OCI (which had

Baret/Rush-Young Cambio 16

Ex-bloc partners united in support of Reagan's Polish company union, Solldarnosc: Lambertist OCI in Paris (left),Morenoite PST in Madrid.

5 FEBRUARY 1982 5

Founders of Polish Communism (from left): Adolf Warski, Leo Joglches,Julian Marchlewski.

Jogiches and the nationalist PolishSocialist Party (PPS) of Josef Pilsudskidominated the pre-World War I Polishworkers movement.

As Lenin insisted, Luxemburg waswrong to reject the bourgeois­democratic right of national self­determination, i.e., the right to aseparate state, for Poland. Her dogmat­ic stubbornness on this question weak­ened her correct struggle against Pil­sud ski and chauvinist currents withinthe Polish working class. Yet she wasright to insist that the fate of Poland wasinextricably bound up with the proletar­ian class struggle in its oppressor nations,Russia and Germany. The creation ofanindependent Polish bourgeois state in1918 was nOt the result of a nationaluprising but of the Bolshevik Revolu­tion and Germany's defeat in WorldWar I. Moreover, that defeat was ingood measure caused by the rising ofwar-weary German workers with Lux­emburg as one of their leaders. It is oneof those ironies of history that Luxem­burg's activities on behalf of the Russianand German revolutions contributedmore to the national liberation ofPoland than did Pilsudski's legionarymovement.

Today both sides in the Polish crisisdisdain Rosa Luxemburg. Poland'sgreakst representative of proletariansoci,ilism. The clerical-nationalist So­lid;;rnosc idealizes Luxemburg's arch­enemy. Pilsudski--and. moreover, notin his pre-1914 role as right-wingsocialist bllt in his later incarnation asanti-Soviet milItarist and fascistic dicta­tor. The Stalinists. too, have nothing incommon with proletarian international­ism and desperately try to give them­selves a "patriotic" coloration. Last fallfor the first time the Jaruzelski regimecelebrated the anniversary of the found-

throughout the tsarist empire. The anti­nationalist tradition of the party Prole­tariat was taken over in the nextgeneration by the greatest Polish prole­tarian revolutionary leader of all, RosaLuxemburg. Luxemburg rejected thestruggle for an independent bourgeois­democratic Poland and fought for theoverthrow of tsarist absolutism throughthe united struggle of Polish andRussian workers:

" ... the idea of making an independentPoland into a buffer and a protectivebarrier for the West against the reac­tionary Russian tsardom was unrealiz­able, the development of capitalism,which had buried this idea in the firstplace, created in its place the revolution­ary class movement of the unitedproletariat in Russia and Poland and init a far more stalwart ally of the West, anally that would not merely mechanicallyprotect Europe from absolutism butwould itself undermine and crush it."

-Foreword to the anthology"The Polish Question and theSocialist Movement" (1905),in The National Question:Selected Writings by RosaLuxemburg (1976)

The political struggle between theinternationalist Social Democracy ofthe Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania(SDKPiL) of Luxeinburg and Leo

Real Polish Revolutionary Hero:Rosa Luxemburg

to martial law circulate openly; well­known dissidents give interviews in theWestern press; the state radio polemi­cizes against underground Solidarnosemanifestos. Now is the time to startbuilding educational and propagandis­tic cells of a Trotskyist vanguard todefend and extend the historic gains ofsocialized property, inherited from theOctober Revolution, by ousting theusurpers who undermine them andcrushing those who would destroythem.

The present Polish situation coulddevelop only in a political vacuumreflecting the destruction of the tradi­tions of international communism inPoland through savage persecution­Polish Pilsudskiite, German Nazi andStalinist. The Western media nowpresent Polish history through thedistorting prism of Solidarnose. ThePolish nation is supposedly fanaticallynationalistic, fervently religious, themost anti-communist of peoples. Theregime, on the other hand, relegates thehistory of the Polish workers movementbefore 1945 to the academic realm. Inreality Poland had one of the oldest andstrongest traditions of Marxist proletar­ian socialism of any European country.A genuinely revolutionary vanguardmust build on those internationalisttradition~.

The first Marxist working-class partyin the tsarist empire. tli.: party Proletari­at, was formed in Warsaw in the early1880s. Significantly, Ludwik Waryn­ski's Proletariat rejected the traditionalPolish radical program of a nationaluprising and worked closely with theRussian populists for a social revolution

PhillipoVSygma

Polish military cracks down on counterrevolutionary Solldarnosc.

an exercise in participatory democracy.As we wrote in "Power Bid Spiked"(WV No. 295, 18 December 1981):

"The Stalinists only make hypocriticalreference to socialist forms, the ac­knowledgment that vice gives to virtue.But compared to the naked armed fist,those forms are important."

The military crackdown againstSolidarnose has been a cold shower forthe Polish masses. The bankruptcy ofthe Stalinist bureaucrats, who haveruined the country economically, isclear as day. The intoxication ofSolidarnose clerical-nationalism, whichtook Poland to the brink of counterrev­olution, is beginning to wear off. Manyare seeking new answers, and some willbe open to the authentically communistprogram of the Leninist-Trotskyists, theSpartacists, who demanded "Stop Soli­darnose Counterrevolution!" whilefighting for a proletarian politicalrevolution to oust the parasiticbureaucracy.

A tremendous political/psycho-logical shakeup has taken place inPoland. Suddenly Polish society hasbeen arrested, just plain stopped. Butthe repression has not gone so deep as toprevent the emergence of an under­ground opposition. Petitions for an end

Solidarnose and then gave up beexplained simply by tiredness after 16months of crisis? Public reaction to thegovernment's exposure of the Radomtapes ("Radomgate") point to anotherimportant factor. Western journalistsall agree that this was a big propagandacoup for the Jaruzelski regime. ManyPoles were genuinely shocked to hearWalesa say that "the confrontation isunavoidable" and that "we are bringingthis system down." And then there wasthe Solidarnose congress last Septemberwith its provocative "free elec:ions" /"free trade unions" resolutions. Oneliberal party member said that a militaryoperation against Solidarnose wouldn'thave succeeded a year ago:

"Six months earlier, I myself wouldhave turned in my [party] card. It wasby no means obvious then that Solidari­ty was opting for a confrontation. Onlythe hard-liners expected it. They main­tained that we were fooling ourselves.The pity of it is that on this point theywere proved right. They kept saying youare facing people who don't want toreform socialism-they hate socialism."

-New York Times, 5 January

While millions rallied to Solidarnoseas an oppositional movement, manypulled back from supporting it in a bidfor power. They had no confidence thatSolidarnose offered a way out of thecrisis. The organization had becomeincreasingly faction-ridden and un­stable. It was split between so-called"radicals," like Rulewski and Bujak,who wanted a confrontation no matterwhat, and the moderates, like Walesaand Kuron, who hoped to take powergradually. It was also split between theopen advocates of capitalist restoration,like the Confederation for an Independ­ent Poland (KPN), and those whosepro-imperialist appetites were cloakedin rhetoric of "self-management." Mil­lions of Poles must have wonderedwhether a government of Walesa,Rulewski & Co. would only perpetuateand deepen the social anarchy andeconomic collapse.

Nevertheless, if a certain disillusion­ment with Solidarnose has set in, thePolish working masses remain deeplyhostile to the corrupt Stalinist bureauc­racy, which has ruined the economy.And Jaruzelski's "state of war" cannotmake Polish workers love their rulers.Moreover, even Moscow is reportedlybecoming a little uneasy over army rulein Poland. The New York Times (2January) noted:

"The Kremlin has made no secret of itsdiscomfort at the party's loss of effectivepower to a military council, the firsttime that any Eastern European coun­try has had to move the Communistapparatus aside."

Already at the time of the crackdown wewarned of the danger of militarybonapartism. This was one of the mostominous aspects of the Chinese "Cul­tural Revolution" when Lin Piao'sPeople's Liberation Army essentiallytook over administration of the country.At that time a succession clause waswritten into China's constitution whichmade the selection of the pope look like

Rosa Luxemburg

democratic dissident Jacek Kuronpredicted in early December a successfulcrackdown:

"The people, he said, were tired, theywere longing for a rest, and it would notat all be difficult to intimidate themeffectively. [He said] verbatim: 'Peoplewill strike a little and then give up'."

-Der Spiegel. 18 January

And that's exactly what happened.But can the fact that workers-and

not that many-struck a little for

explain how it was suppressed so easily.Journalists now point out that Solidar­nose leaders were overconfident, be­lieved the government would never dareuse force against them and so made nopreparations to counter it. Many actedas if they already enjoyed governmentoffice.

But delusions of grandeur at the topdo not explain the passivity at the base.Some Western journalists attribute thisto fear of Soviet military intervention;others talk of the Poles' traditionalrespect for the army. Such explanationsare at best superficial. Evidence suggeststhat even before December 13 the waveof popular support for Solidarnose wasreceding. People had begun to realizethat endless strikes and demonstrationswere only making the desperate eco­nomic conditions worse. At the famousDecember 3 Radom meeting, whereSolidarnose leaders planned the over­throw of the government, Karol Modze­lewski insisted:

"The trade union has not becomestronger; it has become weaker, muchweaker. And all activists are aware ofthis. . .. There are several reasons forthis: weariness as a result of the crisis,weariness experienced by people wait­ing at the end of a line. Some peopleblame us for the prolongation of thisstate of affairs and want us to reach anagreement."

- Washington Post,20 December 1981

According to a colleague who was notinterned, the prominent social-

(continued from page 1)

What Next for Poland?

--6 WORKERS VANGUARD

.Reagan'sCounterrevolution Show

ing of the bourgeois Polish republic onII November 1918. This nationalholiday is in fact a commemorationhonoring Pilsudski.

But the Stalinist denigration of thegreat revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg isnot peculiar to the Jaruzelski regime. AsTrotsky wrote in the early 1930s:

"Yes. Stalin has sufficient cause to hateRosa Luxemburg. But all the moreimperious therefore becomes our dutyto shield Rosa's memory from Stalin'scalumny that has been caught by thehired functionaries of both hemis­pheres, and to pass on this trulybeautiful, heroic, and tragic image tothe young generations of the proletariatin all its grandeur and inspirationalforce."

-"Hands Off RosaLuxemburg!" Writings [1932J

If Rosa Luxemburg remains unhon­ored in the Poland of Stalin andSolidarnose, it is also because she was aJew. For both the Walesas and Jaruzel­skis, a Jew is not a "true" Pole. One ofthe ugliest and most grotesque aspectsof the current crisis is the revival of Jew­baiting on both sides, although almostall Polish Jews were killed by the Nazisand the few remaining tens of thousandswere driven out by the Stalinists in 1968.While the Stalinists dare not attackPope Wojtyla's hierarchy, the real forcebehind Solidarnose, they readily fabri­cate "Zionist plots." One target singledout in government propaganda is theJewish social-democratic dissidentAdam Michnik, a figure of no greatinfluence in the present Solidarnoseline-up. Also a government radioprogram after the December 13 crack­down "exposed" the fact that Solidar­nose adviser Bronislaw Gemerek wasthe son of a Jewish religious teacher. Butthe hardened anti-Semites are on theother side. Even the Wall Street Journaladmits that Leszek Moczulski's KPN, astrong faction in Solidarnose, is "taintedby a history of anti-Semitism." And lastfall the "radical" Solidarnose leader inSzczecin, Marion Jurczyk, declared thatthree-quarters of the Communist partyleadership were really Jews who hadchanged their names!

Before the Holocaust Jews played avery important role in the leadership ofthe Polish revolutionary workers move­ment, providing much of its internation­alist elan and cosmopolitanism, actingas a barrier against social-patrioticinfluences. By "purifying" the Polishnation at Auschwitz and elsewhere,Adolf Hitler indirectly contributed tothe utter wretchedness of postwarPolish Stalinism, the enormous influ­ence of the Catholic church and the riseof the clerical-nationalist Solidarnose.

The Tragedy of thePolish Communist Party

The Polish Communist Party wasformed in late 1918 as a fusion betweenLuxemburg's SDKPiL and the PolishSocialist Party-Left, a large centristparty which had split from Pilsudski inthe wake of the Revolution of 1905. Theoutlook animating these first PolishCommunists is well described by Isaac

International CounterrevolutionDay was a flop. They ran it up theflagpole and nobody saluted. But thisu.s. imperialist provocation didmanage to get 205 people arrested and14 hurt in Gdansk, where Solidarnoseactivists staged a simultaneous protest.Ronald Reagan had proclaimed Janu­ary 30 a "Day of Solidarity with thePeople of Poland," featuring a 90­minute TV spectacular to be beamedby satellite to some 400 million viewersaround the globe. Additional millionswould hear the soundtrack over theVoice of America, Radio Free Europeand Radio Liberty. It was supposed tobe the biggest show on earth. Therewould be rallies across the U.S. and inEuropean capitals. In particular,American labor leaders were to playakey role in this Cold War propagandablitz, bought and paid for by theInternational CommunicationsAgency.

The cast of "free world" rulers andtheir liberal/ social-democratic/artistichangers-on polluted the airwaves, allright. The whole hoary bunch fromReagan to "Iron Lady" MargaretThatcher, Helmut Schmidt, Franr;oisMitterrand, Jeane Kirkpatrick, HenryFonda, Frank Sinatra-piano playersand prime ministers, defecting am­bassadors and Soviet "dissidents" adnauseum-all got up to denouncemartial law in Poland. (Not a wordabout 30.000 murdered by U.S.­backed junta death squads in EISalvador. naturally.) They did ademonstration ofjamming, disappear­ing Bob Hope into the TV "snow"(watch out, people may think it's a

Deutscher in his important 1958 essay,"The Tragedy of the Polish CommunistParty" (reprinted in Marxism in OurTime [1973]):

"The Party's ranks were further unitedby a sharp awareness of their commonand unyielding opposition to the na­tionalist and reformist Poland, to thePoland of the landlords and pettynobility."

That opposition would soon be tested,and in the severest way. In early 1920Pilsudski launched a war of conquestagainst Soviet Russia. There was noquestion that the Polish Communistswould perform their internationalistduty, as they did. Deutscher explained:

"The Polish Party treated this war-asit had every reason to do-as a war ofthe Polish possessing classes (or of theirdecisive elements) against the RussianRevolution, and as an integral part ofthe capitalist powers' intervention inRussia. The Party felt it was at one with

good idea!) Reagan, identifying him­self as a "long-time union member"(what about busting P ATCO?) and"former union president" (he ran thewitchhunt in the Actors Guild), threat­ened "further steps" if conditionsdeteriorated in Poland. But itbackfired.

The heavy-handed propaganda ployannoyed the Europeans, while theAFL-CI0 / Polish-American Congressrallies in the U.S. were duds. On TVthey ran film of the New Yorkdemonstration (attendance: 2,000,tops), dubbing in a soundtrack of alarge crowd cheering. In the U.S., itwas left up to individual "PublicBroadcasting System" affiliateswhether or not to broadcast (many, ifnot most, did not). British broadcast­ers termed the anti-Communist ex­travaganza "bizarre"; BBC called it"the NATO show." Even Time maga­zine belched; taking off on the title, LetPoland Be Poland, it headlined:"Better to Let Poland Be?" Mean­while, the Polish government coun­tered with its own show featuring filmclips of U.S. dirty work in Vietnam,Cuba and Iran.

The right-wing anti-Communismwas so blatant it could not bedisguised. The flagship rally was heldin Chicago, in order to draw on thelarge Polish exile community. How­ever, the crowd only half-filled theamphitheater. General AlexanderHaig was there as featured speakeralong with his labor lieutenant, LaneKirkland. Haig delivered a "HateRussia" diatribe. Kirkland quoted

the Russian Revolution and obliged todefend it."

In the early 1920s the pro-SovietCommunist Party was, on balance,stronger within the Polish working classthan the Ptlsudskiite social democrats.Moreover, there was a saying in theComintern: "The German party is thelargest; the Polish party is the best." Ingood part because of its roots in therevolutionary SDKPiL of Luxemburg,the Polish party offered more resistanceto Stalinization than did any other largeComintern party. In December 1923 itscentral committee sent a letter of protestto the Russian party which stated: " ...for our party, nay for the wholeComintern, for the whole revolutionaryworld proletariat the name of ComradeTrotsky is insolubly connected with thevictory of the Soviet Revolution, withthe Red Army, with communism"

from Patrick Henry (wild applause),Emiliano Zapata (applause) and a civilrights song (dead silence). He calledfor calling in the Polish debt, stoppingcredit to the Soviet bloc and embargo­ing grain to the Soviet Union. "It wasthe most right-wing event I've seensince I sneaked into a White CitizensCouncil rally 15 years ago," comment­ed the WV reporter.

It was the same story everywhere."The Day of Protest on Poland GetsTepid Response in U.S." reported theNew York Times. In New York, theultra right-wing character of theprotest (with more than a few down­right fascists present) was quitemarked. There were the Moonies andtheir CARP, the Polish anti-SemiticKPN, the Russian fascist NTS ("Anti­Komunist Alliance"), the AfghanAssociation of Freedom Fighters,USA, and the Democratic SocialistOrganizing Committee, all there tocheer on Gotbaum, Shanker and therest of the AFL-CIO sabre-rattlers.The crowd boomed out the Polishnational hymn, but when it came to"God Bless America," nobody knewthe words. January 30 being theanniversary of Franklin Roosevelt'sbirth, Central Labor Council chiefHarry Van Arsdale asked for amoment of silent prayer for FOR."What about Yalta?" responded the"captive nations" reactionaries.

The attempt to mobilize laborbehind counterrevolutionary Solidar­nose must be opposed by all class­conscious workers. Down with Rea­gan's anti-Soviet sanctions! No to"AFL-CIA unionism"!

(quoted in M.K. Dziewanowski, TheCommunist Party of Poland [1976]).

This is not to idealize the PolishCommunist Party of the 1920s or theregime of the "three Ws" (Warski,Walecki, Wera Kostrzewa). In 1923 thePolish Communist leadership let slip apotentially revolutionary situation. Afew years later they made a far gravererror, this time one of commission.Momentarily overcome by the popularenthusiasm for Pilsudskiite bonapart­ism, Warski threw his party's supportbehind the marshal's coup in May 1926(see "Pilsudski and Counterrevolutionin Poland," WVNo. 293, 20 November1981). Yet the Polish Communists soonrecovered from their "May mistake"and were the only opposition to theconsolidating fascistic dictatorship.

The political authority which thecontinued on page 8

UPIPolish October, 1956: Workers brought liberal Stalinist Wladyslaw Gomulka(speaking) to power.

5 FEBRUARY 1982

Life

Party headquarters burned in Gdansk during 1970 Polish workers revolt.Workers sang the Internationale.

7

Address

For Polish Trotskyism

economy. They have demanded theabolition of central planning in favor ofautonomous "self-managed" enterprisesoperating on the basis of marketcompetition. In Poland's present eco­nomic conditions, this would immedi­ately bankrupt hundreds of enterprisesthrowing hundreds of thousands. if notmillions of workers into the streets. Itwould also enormously facilitate impe­rialist economic penetration. The goalmust be not to return to the anarchy ofthe market but to give the working classdemocratic control over the economywhich can only be realized throughcentral planning by soviet power, withfactory committees to monitor produc­tion and consumer cooperatives tomonitor quality and price of commodi­ties. Polish workers must look toward aSocialist United States of Europe inwhich a united Soviet Germany will bean industrial motor force.

For soviet democracy, not bourgeoisparliamentarism.' For proletarian politi­cal revolution.' Just hours before theimposition of martial law, Solidarnosccalled for a referendum to overthrow theCommunist government and replace itwith a government based on "freeelections." In present Polish conditionssuch elections would· have led to thevictory of a clerical-nationalist party,which would attempt to restore capital­ism, or perhaps have led to an anarchicoutcome. In either case, civil war wouldbe posed pointblank. The Polish work­ing class must fight for the rule of soviets(workers councils) as in the RussianRevolution of 1917. Soviet democracyshould encompass those parties, chosenby the workers and their allies, whichstand for and defend a socialist order.

Defend the USSR against imperial­ism! For the revolutionary unity ofPolish and Soviet workers! Walesa &Co. saw themselves leading the entirePolish nation, supported by Westernimperialism, against "Russian Commu­nism." The "appeal" by the Solidarnosecongress last September to Sovietworkers was a provocative declarationof solidarity with Reagan's "free world."This was readily understood not only bythe Kremlin bureaucrats but also by theSoviet working masses. Western jour­nalists all report that the Soviet man-in­the-street has no sympathy for Solidar­nose and what it stands for.

The revolutionary tradition ofPolish/Russian working-class solidarityrepresented by Rosa Luxemburg iscrucial to the reforging of PolishTrotskyism. A Polish proletarian politi­cal revolution must be extended to theUSS R and the rest of the Soviet bloc orit will be crushed. But Polish workerscannot appeal to their Soviet classbrothers, who lost 20 million peoplefighting the Nazis in World War II(600,000 of them in Poland). unless theyassure them that a workers Poland willdefend the Soviet Union against imperi­alism. The Soviet people know that U. S.imperialism's ambition is "rollback":the transformation of East Europe intohostile imperialist-allied states, extend­ing NATO to the Soviet border as theprelude to capitalist restoration in theUSSR itself. A Polish workers govern­ment must be a military bastion againstNATO!

In his essay on "The Tragedy of thePolish Communist Party," IsaacDeutscher stressed as his main conclu­sion: "If the history of the Polish CP andof Poland at large proves anything at all,it proves how indestructible is the linkbetween the Polish and Russian revolu­tions." Today it is necessary to revive thetradition of Lenin and Luxemburg, ofrevolutionary unity of the Polish andRussian proletariat. Today this must bedirected against the Stalinist bureaucra­cies, in defense of the collectivizedeconomies and proletarian state poweragainst imperialism. That tradition andprogram will be carried forward by aPolish Trotskyist vanguard, section of areborn Fourth International. Now is thetime to lay the roots of a Trotskyistvanguard in Poland.•

separation ofchurch and state! As RosaLuxemburg wrote in 1905: "The clergy,no less than the capitalist class, lives offthe backs of the people, profits from thedegradation, the ignorance and theoppression of the people" ("Socialismand the Churches"). Today the Vaticanserves as a key instrument of Westernimperialism, a central agency for capi­talist counterrevolution. The core lead­ership of Solidarnosc around LechWalesa came out of the church-backed"dissident" circles, and one of thefamous 21 demands in the Gdansk strikewas for broadcasting Catholic massover state media-in effect establishinga state church. Moreover, the Polisharmy is the only one in East Europe tohave Catholic chaplains.

Kuron and other Solidarnosc leadershave called for a tripartite governmentincluding the Catholic hierarchy. Wash­ington, Wall Street and social democra­cy are united in seeking to restore theRoman church to its medieval domi­nance over Polish social life. Andseeking to conciliate Pope Wojtyla, theStalinists may well adopt some of itsreactionary social programs-such asrestricting or eliminating women's rightto abortions. The separation of churchand state is a historic gain of thebourgeois-democratic revolution, yettoday only the Trotskyists fight for it.

For the collectivization of agricul­ture! For decades the Polish economyhas been wracked by the contradictionbetween a backward smallholdingagriculture and a rapidly expandingindustry. Government food subsidieshave been an ever-greater drain on theentire economy. Yet Rural Solidarity'sattempts to eliminate state marketingwould not only go against the immedi­ate economic interests of the workingclass, through vastly higher prices, but itwould also strengthen the danger ofcounterrevolution. An immediate, keytask for a revolutionary workers gov­ernment in Poland would be to promotethe collectivization of agriculture.

For trade unions independent ofbureaucratic control and based ondefense of socialized property! This isan integral part of the Trotskyistprogram to oust the Stalinist bureaucra­cy. And it has nothing in common withthe slogan of "free trade unions," whichhas long been a battle cry of NATOimperialism. At the start of the ColdWar, the fanatically anti-CommunistU.S. labor bureaucracy set up theInternational Confederation of FreeTrade Unions in closest collaborationwith the CIA. Polish workers mustunderstand that narrow, economisttrade unionism is not possible in acollectivized economy. Arty redistribu­tion of income requires wresting controlof economic administration from theStalinist bureaucracy. And Polishworkers must implacably oppose "AFL­CIA unionism," committing their or­ganizations to defend socialized prop­erty and proletarian state power againstimperialism.

Cancel the imperialist debt! To meetPoland's present enormous indebted­ness to the imperialists would meanyears of severe austerity. Yet the Soli­darnose leaders call for Poland to jointhe International Monetary Fund, theWestern bankers cartel. The IMF wouldbleed Polish workers no less savagelythan it does "Third World" workers.Desiring to maintain social peace in itsimportant ally, the Kremlin has, at leastindirectly, shelled out ever larger sumsto pay Poland's debts to Wall Street. Itis not our task as proletarian revolution­ists to advise the Warsaw bureaucratson how to get out of the hole they are in.But a Trotskyist leadership wouldimmediately cancel the imperialist debtand appeal to the workers of WestEurope and the U.S. to combat theinevitable imperialist retaliation.

For international socialist economicplanning! Solidarnose leaders haveexpressed admiration for Westerncapitalism and called for the reprivatiza­tion of a significant sector of the

.__ A ~rl~A'_~tPam!

corruption and venality in the Polishbureaucracy is extreme even comparedto the rest of the East Europeandeformed workers states. This reflectsStalin's destruction of the Polish Com­munist Party, which meant that thegoverning apparatus put in place by theSoviet army after World War II had noconnection with a revolutionary past tolive down. Thus the bureaucracy thathas run Poland ever since was recruitedfrom simple opportunists and careerists.But the deeper origins of the Polishcrisis lie in Stalinism, the attempt by abonapartist bureaucracy to balancebetween imperialism and the workingclass, expressed in the dogma of"socialism in one country."

All the central problems facingPoland flow from the bureaucracy'snarrow nationalist policies and particu­larly its conciliation and strengtheningof the social base for counterrevolution.The ability of the peasantry to hold thecountry ransom lies in the failure tocollectivize agriculture. The clerical­nationalist hold on Solidarnosc isrooted in the regime's attempt to find amodus vivendi with the Catholicchurch, which is rooted in the peasantry.The explosion over price increaseswhich led to the Gdansk strike was theresult of mortgaging the Polish econo­my to the Western bankers, who arenow demanding their payoff. What'sneeded is not more concessions but atruly revolutionary, internationalistpolicy. And that requires the ouster ofthe Stalinist parasites through a prole­tarian political revolution, led by aTrotskyist vanguard.

The Polish workers' answer to theStalin-era regime of police-statecommandism was given in 1956 by thepowerful proletarian revolt that beganin Poznan (and helped spark theworkers revolution in Hungary thatsame October). This forced an attemptto reform the regime through some kindof liberal Stalinism, using more individ­ual incentives and loosening the screwsof the repressive. apparatus. This, too,failed-twice. The Polish proletariatrepudiated Gomulka in the 1970 Balticworkers uprising and ousted Gierekwith the 1980 shipyards strike. This alsomeant the end of illusions in liberalreform, and now pro-Western forces inand around Solidarnosc managed towin the support of the Polish masses.But their triumph would mean acalamity of epochal proportions, turn­ing Gdansk into a Detroit with itsunempl'oyment lines and soup kitchens.

Moreover, counterrevolution on thebanks of the Vistula would not belimited to Poland. It would immediatelypose capitalist reunification of Germanyand a thermonuclear imperialist worldwar. aimed at eradicating the Sovietdegenerated workers state and theremaining conquests of the OctoberRevolution of 1917. Only the Trotsky­ists have a program to root out thesources of counterrevolution, by return­ing to the authentic communism ofLenin and Luxemburg. Key elements ofsuch a program to mobilize the Polishworking class include:

Down with clericalism! For the strict

29BPhoneMake checks payable/mail to'Spartacist PUblishing Co,Box 1377 GPO. New York, NY 10116

One point all observers agree on isthat the immediate origins of the presentPolish crisis are to be found in thecatastrophic economic mismanagementby the Gierek regime over the lastdecade. It's also clear that the level of

City

State __._.__Zip ---------If

(continuedfrom page 7)

Polish Communist Party gainedthrough its heroic struggle against theright-wing dictatorship was soon squan­dered by Stalin's 1929 turn to "ThirdPeriod" adventurism. The party wasprohibited from engaging in unitedaction with the social democrats andpeasant parties against the deepeningwhite terror. In 1931-32 an oppositionto this suicidal course emerged led byIsaac Deutscher. The Polish oppositionwas soon won to Trotskyism, centrallydue to Trotsky's determined struggle fora united defense by the German prole­tariat against the menace of Nazism.While the Deutscher group was expelledfrom the Polish CP in 1932, theAmerican Cold War historian Dziewa­nowski observes, "A pro-Trotsky un­dercurrent continued to rer.-ain a factorof some importance until the party'sdissolution [in 1938], particularlyamong the Jewish membership."

When Hitler came to power inearly 1933, the Trotskyist movementconsidered calling upon the Soviet RedArmy to invade Germany before theNazis could consolidate their regimeand rearm. This would necessarily haveviolated Polish national independence,but this was a minor consideration whenweighed against the historic interests ofthe world proletariat.

The growing white terror of thePilsudskiite "regime of the colonels"forced ever larger numbers of PolishCommunists to take refuge in the SovietUnion. While many foreign Commu­nists were killed in the Great Purges ofthe late '30s, Stalin's war against thePolish party was exceptional, indeedunique. Practically all Polish Commu­nists in Soviet territory were eitherphysic~lly liquidated or sent to conce-n­tration camps. Many Polish Commu­nists were lured back under one oranother pretext. The entire partyleadership-Warski, Walecki, WeraKostrzewa, Unszlicht among others­was killed. In 1938 in an unprecedentedact Stalin dissolved the entire PolishCommunist Party as a "nest ofPilsudskiite-Trotskyites." Deutschersought to explain Stalin's insane hatredfor Polish Communism, his determina­tion to destroy it root and branch:

"Stalin saw the Polish CP as thestronghold of hated Luxemburgism­the Polish 'variety of Trotskvism'­which had defied him as long' ago as1923: the Party in which some leaderswere close to 'Bukharin and others toZinoviev: the Party of incurable here­sies. proud of its traditions and itsheroism.... "

What NextPoland?...

8 WORKERS VANGUARD

At L.A. salvador Demo

CISPES Exclusion BackfiresLOS ANGELES-About 35 thugsfrom CISPES (Committee in Solidari­ty with the People of EI Salvador)launched a premeditated attack on aSpartacist League/Spartacus YouthLeague contingent at the EI Salvadorprotest here January 23. In a fit of anti­communist frenzy over the SL/SYLbanners "Military Victory to the Left­Wing Insurgents" and "Defense of theUSSR and Cuba Begins in EI Salva­dor," the CISPES goons attacked ourcontingent in order to block us fromthe march. But they failed to disperseour contingent, which not only re­mained solid but dealt some well­deserved blows to the thugs. Thecowardly all-male CISPES squadseemed most interested in assaultingour female comrades, but they wereunable to inflict any injuries.

While CIS PES threatened to callthe racist LAPD to enforce ourexclusion, the fake left scrambled toline up behind CIS PES and thepopular front. Workers Power and the"Trend" eagerly joined the goonsquad, while the SWP/YSA coopera­tively stepped aside at the goons'request to give the thugs operatingroom. YWLLers caught in the meleescreamed, "Get the Sparts, not us."

But we enforced our democraticrights despite this thug attack by firmlyimplanting our banner and contingentin a prominent place at the final

WV Photo

Los Angeles, January 23: CISPES goon attack on SL contingent can'tsilence call for victory to Salvadoran leftist insurgents.

rallying point in MacArthur Park. demonstrators from the SL's revolu-Loudly chanting "One, two, three, tionary line. Over 110 items of Sparta-four, leftist rebels win the war!" and cist literature were sold to the crowd of"Five, six, seven, eight, defend the under 1,200. One of the marshals toreSoviet workers state!" our contingent off his yellow armband and came overdrew a sharp political line against the to us, while another CIS PES support-waterboys for the Democratic Party. er protested vigorously to the rallyAnd the linked arms of the CISPES organizers, saying: "I've known the SLgoons were unable to seal off the for years and they are no disrupters

and they do not initiate violence. Thisis disgusting."

In sharp contrast to the SL/SYL'sprincipled stand, the Los Angelesgroup which calls itself the Revolu­tionary Workers Front, followers ofthe Argentine adventurer NahuelMoreno, abstractly polemicizesagainst the reformist "political solu­tion" in EI Salvador but capitulates tothe popular front in practice. At thisand every EI Salvador protest the L.A.Morenoites duck political confronta­tion with the reformists by cowardlydisappearing into the crowd with a fewsalesmen. Only the SL has fought for aprogram and contingent counterposedto class collaboration.

At the rally a Spartacist speakeraddressed a portion of the crowdthrough a bullhorn:

"We're against negotiated settlementsand political solutions. We don't wantto see the hard-earned victories on thebattlefield traded away at the bargain­ing table. Today is the fiftieth anniver­sary of the 1932 La Matanza (theMassacre) and we stand for the onlyprogram that can prevent anotherone-a workers revolution through­out Central America. CIS PES organ­izers brought you here today to propup the [Salvadoran] FDR popularfront and to align with the U.S.Democratic Party. We know that thisstrategy means defeat and WE WILLNOT BE SILENCED'"

Our contingent then chanted "Re­member Bay of Pigs, RememberVietnam-Democratic Party, WeKnow Which Side You're On!" Beforeleaving the park we sang the Interna­tionale. As hundreds of heads turnedto listen there was no doubt who stoodfor workers revolution.

Zip 298

Massacres...(continued from page 1)

huts. Then the army left, the villagersrelieved at being left alive. But early thenext morning the Atlacatl Brigade wasback. They herded the villagers into theplaza in front of the church. The menwere blindfolded, bound and beaten,then taken away in groups of four to beshot. A survivor told the WashingtonPost's Alma Guillermoprieto whathappened next:

"Around noon they began with thewomen. First they picked out the younggirls and took them away to the hills.Then they picked out the old womenand took them to Israel Marquez' houseon the square. We heard the shots there.Then they started with us in groups.When my turn came ... I slipped be­hind a tree and climbed up. I saw thelieutenant then. He was personallymachine-gunning people...."A soldier said 'Lieutenant somebodyhere savs he won't kill children.' 'Who'sthe soilOfabitch who said thatT thelieutenant answered. 'I am going to killhim'."

- Washington Post, 27 January

Similar stories were told in neighbor­ing villages when leftist rebels ledreporters to the scene. In La Joya asurvivor told the New York Times'Raymond Bonner: "We didn't thinkthey would kill children, women and oldpeople, so they remained." Among thedead in La J oya were a 70-year-oldwoman and a three-day-old baby. Asthey left the village soldiers hadscrawled on the wall of one house, "TheAtlacatl Battalion will return to kill therest" (New York Times, 27 January).

With the grim efficiency that hasbecome common in EI Salvador overthe past two and a half years, thevillagers compiled a list of the victims,with names, ages and villages recorded.Of 482 people killed in Mozote, 280were children under 14. According tothe Salvadoran Human Rights Com­mission, the total number of innocentcivilians butchered by the junta army inthis December sweep was 926.

The Salvadoran government claimsthat such massacres are an invention of

5 FEBRUARY 1982

"Soviet disinformation." The U.S. pressoften presents the bloody killing in EISalvador as a three-cornered fightbetween "extremists" of the left andright and the "centrist" junta in themiddle. This time the FMLN, bybringing major U.S. journalists to thescene of the junta's crime, left no alibisfor the army and its U.S. governmentapologists.

The Atlacatl Brigade is a hand-pickedelite unit personally trained by the U.S.Special Forces. And the Green Beretschool of "counterinsurgency" wasVietnam, where U.S. imperialismdevel­oped its tactics of fighting guerrillaswith a war of extermination. TheAtlacatl Brigade has never won a battleagainst the FMLN. Their "victories"have all been of the kind won at Mozote.

The result of the U.S. "counterinsur­gency" strategy in 1981, according tofigures of the Salvadoran archbishop'sLegal Aid office, was the murder of12,750 civilians. An estimated 3,000more were killed in combat and 2,000others in aerial bombing. The number ofSalvadorans driven from their homes bythe army terror was set at 810,000. Sincethe U.S.-backed coup of October 1979one in every 200 Salvadorans has beenkilled, the overwhelming majority vic­tims of the army and semi-official deathsquads.

The "Ministry of Death"

Next door in Guatemala the massmurder is, if possible, even moreorganized. By the end of 1981 some 300people a month were being killed­according to the State Department'sadmittedly low figures. The repressionhas been centralized within an appara­tus in the army command known as the"Ministry of Death." In EI Salvadormost of the victims of the death squadsare dragged off in ones and twos in themiddle of the night, only to reappeardead on the side of a road or dumpedheadless on a deserted lava field. But inGuatemala, the press, which alwaysattributes the killings to "desconocidos"(unknown men), reported at least 20massacres of 50 people or more in 1981.

The U.S. is supposedly barred by

human rights restrictions from supply­ing Guatemala with any military aid. Inreality the government of GeneralRomeo Lucas Garcia has gotten aroundthe restrictions with ease. Reagan lastspring reclassified trucks and jeeps as"non-military" aid. Moreover, Guate­mala paid $10.5 million over the pasttwo years to buy nine U.S.-made Bell"civilian" helicopters. Lucas Garciacan't officially buy his own Hueygunship, but his "executive" model Bell412 was purchased legally-and withtwo U.S. M-60 machine guns mountedin the doors the only difference is thepaint job.

No "Political Solution"

Last summer liberals and fake-leftistshailed the imposition of the "humanrights" certification requirement forU.S. aid to EI Salvador. The Committeein Solidarity with the People of EISalvador (CIS PES) hailed the amend­ment as a "decisive breakthrough" andclaimed that the certification could notbe made "unless radical changes occurin EI Salvador prior to October" (ElSalvador Alert, I June 1981). Since theadministration claims that the junta is a"moderate" force committed to "demo­cratic" elections in March and attributesmost of the deaths to leftist "terrorism,"no one should have been surprised whenReagan gave the Salvadoran govern­ment a passing grade on his humanrights report card. Yet even nowCISPES calls for Congress to "carefullymonitor the certification" and submitnew legislation (El Salvador Alert,January 1982).

This impotent policy is linked to theSalvadoran opposition popular front'sreliance on a "diplomatic offensive" toobtain a "political solution" with thejunta. At a recent conference in Lima,Peru, Guillermo Ungo, the social­democratic/liberal leader of the FrenteDemocnitico Revolucionario (FDR),told reporters, "There has been aprocess of moderation and maturing inour movement.... Negotiation is theonly way to avoid the complete destruc­tion of our country" (Boston Globe, 31January). But such pledges of modera-

tion and pleas for mercy from theimperialists and their puppets will haveno impact in the face of Reagan's ColdWar drive to teach the Soviets a "bloodylesson" in Central America. And whatkind of compromise can there bebetween an army of genocidal butchers,protecting the interests of the handful ofSalvadoran landlord-eapitalists, andthe masses of impoverished Salvadoranworkers and peasants?

Frustrated over Poland in its anti­Soviet war drive, the U.S. is alreadyturning the heat up in the Caribbean."Contingency plans" for a naval block­ade between Cuba and Nicaragua areready; the gusano and somocista exilesare training at Camp Cuba-Nicaraguanear Miami while a counterrevolution­ary invasion force is assembled inHonduras, making murderous borderraids into Sandinista Nicaragua. This isno localized conflict that could beamicably settled if only Uncle Samwould just go away, as the reformistspretend. Today the battle line of theCold War runs through Central Ameri­ca. Military victory to leftist insurgentsin EI Salvador! For workers revolution!Defense of Cuba and the USSR begins'in Central America! •

WORKERS"6(;1/'R1)Marxist Working-Class Biweeklyof the Spartacist League

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Trotsky commented that in theMarxist movement "the collectivesubstitutes for what the individualcannot achieve.... The whole BolshevikParty is a marvelous example of this."Under Lenin's and Trotsky's supervi­sion, Bukharin, Zinoviev and manymore were capable of great achieve­ments. But with this control gone, theywere like a dog without his master. Thecollective was broken. Yet the view ofZinoviev as a bureaucratic hack littledifferent from Stalin is radically false.Stalinism was not a question of person­ality but of the pressures leading to thedegeneration of the revolution, chieflyits international isolation.•

(continuedfrom page 12)thousands of auto workers, for the poorand black population of Detroit andother cities, the "status quo" meansincreasing misery caused by the capital­ist profit-motive economy.

The giveback drive must be repulsedthrough powerful militant action whichchallenges capitalist ownership of thefactories. A two-day sitdown strike inauto plants throughout depressedsouthern Michigan, the center of autoproduction, would throw back thebosses' giveback drive and could sparklabor action to bring dmvn Reagan. Animmediate goal must be to keep workingpeople-laid-off UAW workers, pen­sioners, single mothers with children­off the welfare lines by getting union­level wages in the form of unconditionalunlimited unemployment compensationwith full cost-of-Iiving protection, paidby the federal government. And Rea­gan's anti-Soviet war budget bedamned!

Conditions in Detroit today are amore powerful argument for Bolshe­vism than a thousand pamphlets. Blackunemployment in the city tops 26percent; the key is the fight for jobs forall, through a shorter workweek at noloss in pay. While layoffs and shut­downs threaten the organized existenceof the mainly black proletariat, thegenocidal fascist groups that are in­cre'asingly active in depressed Detroitthreaten the workers' lives. Labor/blackdefense guards are immediately neces­sary to defend workers' picket lines,homes and families.

Reagan is not trashing workingpeople, the poor and the aged simply tobolster the corporate bottom line.Reagan is the leader of a desperateruling class that sees no way out for thecrisis of American capitalism exceptthrough the rollback of the social gainsof the October Revolution in Russia­even if that means blowing up the world.Reagan weeps for Solidarnosc becausethe capitalists saw this CIA companyunion as providing the biggest opportu­nity since the end of World War 11 tomake East Europe "safe" for GM andbring the "prosperity" of Detroit toGdansk.

Givebacks, layoffs and Klan terrorare part of Reagan's massive anti-Sovietarms build-up and war drive. That iswhy the Russian question is crucial.You can't fight the givebacks withoutfighting Reagan and the anti-Soviet wardrive. And you can't fight by replacingReagan with the Democrats, who pavedthe way with their own war drive againstthe Soviet Union and workers andblacks in the U.S. There is no way out

Detroit...

Zinoviev...(continued from page 2)

modernizers such as Turkey'S KemalAtatlirk. But they were the very oppo­site of everything an Islamicjihad("holywar") stands for.

The review of Reds by the SocialistWorkers Party's Harry Ring, whichreader Sanders refers to, comments thatZinoviev "did call for a 'holy war'-a'holy war' against imperialism" (Mili­tant, 1 January). As enthusiastic sup­porters of the bloody Islamic fanaticKhomeini, the SWP obviously seesnothing wrong in this. The MoscowStalinists of the Communist Party alsoprotested that Reds gives a false pictureof Zinoviev, but in a very different way."It is wrong to assume," writes BruceCaraway in the 8 January Daily World,"that the general population has anyidea of what became of Zinoviev. howhe betrayed the Revolution and was puton trial by the Soviet government"!Even today the CPUSA applaudsStalin's murder of the first head of theCommunist International, the bloodypurges of the Bolshevik Old Guard. ofthe leaders of the Red Army and, ofcourse, of Trotsky.

Zinoviev has long been a contro­versial figure among communists.As the chief executive officer ofthe Comintern, he was the Bolshevikleader who worked most closely with theearly American Communist movement.Zinoviev was key in overcoming theunnecessary, programmatically unjusti­fied and destructive split betweenthe Communist Party of Fraina/Ruthenberg and the Communist Work­ers Party of Reed/Gitlow. A few yearslater he played a central role in gettingAmerican Communists to abandon self­isolating "undergroundism" and be­come a public, legal party. At the sametime, he played a crucial role indefeating the Left Opposition; Stalinwas able to accumulate power in largepart by posing as the "nice guy" asagainst the heavy-handed bureaucratZinoviev. James P. Cannon, the foun­der of American Trotskyism, oncesummed up Zinoviev's erratic career,not only his flaws and failings as arevolutionist but also his importantcontributions:

"Zinoviev was not one man. There werefour Zinovievs at least-I would saythere were six Zinovievs. There was theZinoyiev who was the most intimatecollaborator of Lenin in exile during thewar, who did great historic work. Thenthere was the Zinoviev who.... togetherwith Kamenev, lost his nerve on the eyeof the insurrection.... [Then there was]Zinoviev who corrected himself afterthat, who became the chairman of theComintern and Lenin's agent, really. inleading the Comintern."All the great worldwide propagandaagainst Zinovievism and Zinoviev wasset in motion by the group of centristswho were attracted to the Comintern inits first years and recoiled from it in itsfirst years under Lenin: Balabanov andothers of that sort who gave to thewhole organization of Lenin, theorganization of the Comintern, thetwenty-one points. they gave the nameof Zinoviev, making it synonymouswith Leninism. When anybody wavesthe flag of Zinovievism you can do verywell to trace it back to which Zinovievthey mean...."Then there was a fourth Zinoviev, theZinoviev of the troika with Stalin andKamenev after the death of Lenin. Thisis the Zinoviev who began to backslide,and it is correct, as [Albert] Goldmansaid. that the organizational methodsthat began to be introduced into theComintern, in contradistinction to theearlier years, were sort of a bridgetoward Stalinism...."But then there is another Zinoviev, thefifth Zinoviev, who in 1926 broke awayfrom the bloc with Stalin and concludeda bloc with Trotsky.... I didn't becomea Trotskyist until 1928 and that waswhen the bloc of Trotsky and Zinovievhad been broken and the sixth Zinoviev,the capitulator, appeared and wentback to the camp ofStalinism, and I. onthe other hand, supported Trotsky."

-"A Reply to Goldman on ThreePoints," in James P. Cannon,Writings and Speeches,1945-47

_.•~--~=. ~~

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1-

logical Stalinophobic worldview, every­thing from the Cold War to Eurocom­munism is the product of aKremlin/White House plot.

Then came Poland. Naturally,Lambert/ Moreno became enthusiasticsupporters of Solidarnose (along withthe Mandelites, social democrats andother "friends of labor" like PopeWojtyla and Ronald Reagan). A resolu­tion on Poland at the founding confer­ence of the "International Committee"had not a single reference to defense ofthe Soviet bloc degenerated/deformedworkers states against imperialism.("Naturally," for if there's no conflictbetween the capitalists and the Stalinistbureaucrats, then what's to defend ... ?)There was a slight disagreement overwhether the call for a constituentassembly should be the central slogan inPoland. (Moreno: "[Call for] soviets?Then we wouldn't have any morepossibility of dialogue with themasses.") And the Solidarnosc congresslast September, with its call for "freeelections" and "free trade unions"throughout East Europe, was hailed as aclarion call to battle against Stalinisttotalitarianism.

But even virulent anti-Sovietismcouldn't keep them together. Now, inthe wake of the Polish military crack­down in December against a counter­revolutionary power grab by Solidar­nose, both Morenoites and Lambertistsquickly took to the streets along with theimperialist bourgeoisie (and East Eu­ropean ultra-rightist emigres) in protest.Here was a real counterrevolutionaryunholy alliance! And this is the bannerunder which Pierre Lambert's PCI andhis "International Reconstruction Com­mittee" were born. His report at thefounding meeting began with a salute toSolidarnosc, Jacek Kuron and theleaders of the KPN-a gang of anti­CommunisJ, anti-Semitic, ultra­nationalist Pilsudskiites! Once again, asover Portugal, the Lambertists' Stalino­phobia leads them to act as runningdogs of the CIA.

And once again the pseudo­Trotskyist quick-change artist NahuelMoreno is posing as a left oppositionist.As we have shown, this is belied by hisentire record. Only the internationalSpartacist tendency (iSt) has foughtconsistently for the Trotskyist policiesof proletarian opposition to the popularfront and of t;nconditional defense ofthe gains of the October Revolution. Inthe face of widespread illusions the iStuniquely called for no vote to Mitter­rand in 1981 and no vote to Allende in1970, warning that the workers mustrely on their own class power to defeatreaction. And as the fake-lefts dance toCarter/Reagan's Cold War tune, the iStforthrightly proclaimed, "Hail RedArmy in Afghanistan!" and "StopSolidarnosc Counterrevolution!"

Lambert's revolving Organizing/Parity / International/ReconstructionCommittee, Moreno's endless disguises,Mandel's perpetually dis-United Secre­tariat all lead nowhere. These unprinci­pled combinations regularly fall apart atthe first test. The international Sparta­cist tendency, in fighting for the princi­ples and program of Bolshevik­Leninism, seeks to reforge Trotsky'sFourth International. Not opportunistrotten blocs, but a world party ofsocialist revolution! •

I

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• Moreno the Swindler

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Anti-Soviet Rotten Bloc

Moreno/Lambert's main hope forbuilding a relatively stable rotten blocwas in elaborating a program based ondead-end anti-Sovietism. And they wentat it with the passion of a couple of"captive nations" "freedom fighters." Inresponse to Jimmy Carter's Cold Warcrusade over Soviet intervention inAfghanistan, various fake-Trotskyistscalled for the withdrawal of the RedArmy. The "Parity Committee" wenteven further, calling for military supportto the CIA-aided Islamic reactionaries.And in rhapsodizing on Khomeini'smullah rule in Iran, the Morenoitescalled for extending this Islamic coun­terrevolution to the Soviet Union (seeWV No. 249, 8 February 1980)! Tojustify such treachery they resorted tothe Lambertist myth of a "counterrevo­lutionary Holy Alliance based on theworld order established at Yalta andPotsdam." According to this demono-

Son of Peron...(continued from page 5)

to the popular front. The OCI, in turn,accuses the Morenoites of not seeing thedifference between when the "'clash'with the government is 'indirect' and themoment when it is 'direct'." The tradi­tional working-class parties must beunmasked "through the practical move­ment of the proletariat," writes OCIspokesman Forgue, rather thanthrough simple denunciation or repeat­

109 labels." "Miguel Capa" puts itslightly differently, claiming Trotskyheld that at the beginning of the

popular-front government, the mainenemy was the bourgeoisie and not thegovernment, which had the confidenceof the workers and the opposition of thebourgeoisie." Moreno/Capa also arguethat popular fronts are always a "con­sequence of a revoi" tionary or electoralvictory of the masses."

Only "indirectly" criticize the popularfront vs. the "main enemy" is thebourgeoisie, not the government? Atmost the differences between Moreno­ites and Lambertists on this key ques­tion are between those who give "criti­cal" support to M itterrand and thosewho are shamelessly uncritical. TheBolshevik policy was quite the opposite.In his famous "April Theses" Lenin'directly" attacked the classic popularfront in the Russian Revolution:

"N 0 support for the ProvisionalGovernment; the utter falsity of all itspromises should be made clear ....Exposure in place of the impermissible.illusion-breeding 'demand' that thisgovernment, a government of capital­ists, should cea,~e to be an imperialistgovernment ....

-'The Tasks of the Proletariat inthe Present Revolution,"April 1917

As for Trotsky, far from considering theelection of a popular-front governmenta "victory" of the workers, he alwaysdenounced such blocs as a barrier toproletarian revolution. And he certainlydidn't spare the bureaucrats. Followingthe election of the Spanish People'sFront in 1936 he wrote that the first dutyof revolutionaries in Spain was: "Tocondemn and denounce mercilesslybefore the masses the policy of all theleaders participating in the PopularFront" ("The Tasks of the FourthInternational in Spain," April 1936).

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

within the capitalist system. A workersgovernment is needed which rips theproductive wealth of this country out ofthe hands of the capitalist class, withouta dime in compensation.

Today in Detroit and its surroundingsthe alternatives facing the proletariatliterally boil down to socialist revolu­tion or demoralization and despair. Thesituation cries out for revolutionaryleadership, for an integrated vanguardparty such as only the Spartacist Leagueseeks to build, such as Lenin built tolead the Russian Revolution in 1917.

Auto workers must oppose thebosses' protectionist campaign, whichhas .been embraced by virtually everyUAW official. Besides dividing Ameri­can workers from their class brothersabroad. protectionism saves profits. notjobs. The Steelworkers union's no-strikepledge and its "Buy American" propa­ganda haven't stemmed the loss of jobs.Rather. such policies have emboldenedthe steel bosses to throw tens ofthousands of workers on the scrap heapwith impunity. Recently. U.S. Steel,whose industrial base consists of agingplants built at the turn of the century,decided to spend $6 billion, not to builda new steel plant but to buy MarathonOil.

But if the American capitalists haveno program to rebuild basic industry,they sure as hell have a program to beatthe competition: war! The bureaucratswho support the poison of protection­ism are helping to ideologically line upthe working people for inter-imperialistslaughter. Today, international workingclass solidarity is a life and deathquestion.

Crisis of Leadership

UAW president Doug Fraser's nameis now a dirty word throughout hisunion. But auto workers better take acareful look at the gang of opportunistsand bureaucrats who are riding the anti­Fraser bandwagon. Most visible are thebureaucrats in Locals Against Conces­sions (LOC) and the IndependentSkilled Trades Council (ISTC) of long­time house oppositionists Pete Kellyand Al Gardner-. It should come as nosurprise that these fakers have noprogram of militant action against thegiveaways. Where were they during thegreat billion-dollar Chrysler giveaway?And how about the giveaway of over200.000 layoffs, which the LOC andISTC have done nothing to prevent?Furthermore. they 100 percent supportFraser's protectionist call for banning

imports of Japanese parts and compo­nents. "If it's built elsewhere, then sell itelsewhere." says LOC spokesman DanDouglas.

Another Fraser critic is Rick Martin,president of Local 600's heavily blackCoke Oven and Blast Furnace unit.Martin distinguishes himself from theISTC bunch by at least paying lipservice to the need for struggle againstthe companies. In his column in theDecember issue of Local 600's FordFacts, for example, Martin recalled the"nationwide strikes, boycotts and sit­downs" of the '30s. At the December 13Local 600 General Council meeting.

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No givebacks,no layoffs-for asit-down strike!

Martin presented a resolution for a"nationwide work stoppage of all labor"to protest Reagan's enormous militarybudget and to demand "emergencylegislation" restoring cuts in federalassistance programs and preventingforeclosures. evictions. etc. The motionwas approved as a "recommendation"to Fraser.

Despite Martin's pledge to "pursuethis objective" (Ford Facts. 25 January),his resolution is nothing but pie-in-the­sky. The only reason for the largestUAW local in the country to kick thequestion of strike action upstairs to theInternational is to avoid having to carryit out.

Perhaps most utopian is Martin's callon Reagan's government to enact"emergency legislation" and to inter­vene "into big business profit-makingdecisions." Such a demand suggests thatthe government is a "neutral" arbitratorbetween labor and capital. On thecontrary, the state is an instrument toincrease profits at the expense of labor.Electing Democrats changes nothing:the cuts in social services and themilitary build-up began under Jimmy"Ethnic Purity" Carter.

Many Rouge workers won't besurprised if Martin's call for action goesnowhere. Behind his militant rhetoric,

A

they see the man who pushed throughconcessions in his own unit last year!Predictably, however, his token strikecall has been picked up by the UnitedFront Caucus (UFC) at Rouge, anopportunist lash-up including amongothers supporters of the centrist Revolu­tionary Workers League (RWL). anorganization which has made the "right"to cross a picket line a key element of itsprogram. Instead, what's needed is a sit­down that challenges the bosses' pro­perty rights. The UFC talks abstractlyabout sitdowns, but has made it clearthat such actions should only occurwhen they are "authorized by theInternational"-i.e .• never! Now they

call for a one-day UAW-wide proteststrike, an action that would have littleeffect on the layoff-ravaged autocompames.

What the Working Class Needs

At Ford's River Rouge plant in Local600, only the Rouge Militant Caucus(RMC) has a program that breakscleanly from Fraser's pro-companypolicy. The RMC program includesdemands for sit-down strikes to fightlayoffs. labor/black mobilizationagainst Klan/Nazi terror. for laboraction to bring down Reagan, and aworkers government.

In the context of the wretchedreformism of virtually all groups con­tending for leadership of the workingclass, Ford has singled out the RougeMilitant Caucus for victimization.Management ripped down RMC leaf­lets from an area where everyone hasposted for years, and then attempted toframe up and fire Caucus memberCharles DuBois on a charge that he hadthreatened a .foreman. Rouge workersrallied to the defense of DuBois, severalstepping forward as witnesses to refutethe company frame-up, and Ford toldthe union verbally that it was droppingthe main charge. An RMC leaflet ofJanuary 26 asserted:

"Ford targeted Rouge Militant andCharles DuBois to silence our answer totheir layoffs and pay cuts: 'Vote No!Not one layoff! For sitdown strikes todefend our jobs!' Ford not only wants totake our jobs and our money. they wantus to keep our. mouths shut while weshuffle off to the unemployment line!"

The best answer to the reformists,who offer "solutions" to the crises ofcapitalism that always leave the workerswith deteriorating living standards, iswhat Leon Trotsky wrote over 40 years

.ago. His Transitional Program waswritten during the Great Depression ofthe '30s. a period of massive worldwidesocial convulsions and impending impe­rialist war. In it Trotsky asserted thatthe revolutionary vanguard must baseits demands on what the working classneeds. not on what decaying capitalismmakes "possible":

"Property owners and their lawyers willprove the 'unrealizability' of thesedemands. Smaller. especially ruinedcapitalists. in addition will refer to theiraccount ledgers. The workers categori­cally denounce such conclusions andreferences.... The question is one ofguarding the proletariat from decay.demoralization and ruin. The questionis one of life or death of the onlv creativeand progressive class. and by that tokenof the future of mankind ....

n's a Dog's Ufe Being a Stalinist HackDETROIT, January 17-The Com­munist Party (CP) convened a two-dayconference of Daily World "builders"here this weekend. The "live wire"elements present were, for the mostpart. the same veterans who show up atall CP functions. And the politicalmessage was the same tired oldreformism, always seeking a new NewDeal with the Democrats.

It was immediately apparent thatthis conference had nothing to do withproviding revolutionary leadership tothe working class. Outside the hall, theCP allowed a bunch of fascist scumcalled the "SS Action Group" to-millaround. This provocation was nevermentioned during the meeting, norwas anything done to remove theseracist terrorists! That might offend acouple of dubious allies on the DetroitCity Council, it seems.

On the podium it was non-stop"fight Reaganomics" and build a newpeople's front. Part and parcel of this isthe CP's plan for the '82 Congressionalelections: they're going to develop apolitical hit list like the new conserva­tives' and fight to get "progressive"Democrats in office to "defeat Rea-

5 FEBRUARY 1982

ganism." With the understanding, ofcourse, that they must keep uppressure on these "progressives" sothey don't end up selling out. Sort oflike trying to keep a snake fromslithering.

CP general secretary Gus Hall laidout a "people's program" for the"fightback movement" that includedimpeaching Reagan, "a $100 billionslash in the military budget" and "atimetable to restore all cuts in socialprograms." By our count that leaves$121 billion per yearfor the imperialistwar machine-more than enough toannihilate every Soviet city! And whatare the poor supposed to do? Stopeating until the capitalist economic"timetable" makes food stamps avail­able again?

While conference participantsawaited late-arriving buses from NewYork, Hall gave a warm-up talk. In ithe revealed that when Reagan imposedsanctions against the USSR overPoland, some Daily World stafferswanted to duck the issue with aheadline against Reaganomics! Thegeneral secretary sternly called them toorder. But who could deny the logic of

their deviation? After all, you can'tsnuggle up to the imperialist Demo­crats and defend the Soviet Union.

The working-class heros of theweekend were the early morning plantgate distributors. They needed a pat onthe back: it turns out that those freeD Ws are paid for by the readers'groups that give them out! The factorydistributors had an additional gripe:they often run into other groups sellingtheir papers. One notable example wasin New York at a large transit barnwhere the "Trots" were selling. Some­one else mentioned those same "ultra­lefts" turning up consistently at aMidwest steel plant. In fact, scores ofNYC transit workers and Chicagosteel workers buy every issue of theSpartacist League's Workers Van­guard, even in competition with theDaily World freebies. Because theywant a paper that tells it straight.

Being a Daily World "builder" mustbe a dog's life. No wonder they want tohide from the Poland issue when theyhave to write and sell (or even giveaway) headlines like, "POLANDHEEDS UNITY CALL-NationGoes Back to Work." Where the

Trotskyists of the SL openly say,"Stop Solidarnosc Counterrevolu­tion!" the Stalinist apologists get allmealy-mouthed because they can'tadmit that three decades of bureau­cratic abuse and crimes have driven thebulk of the Polish workers into thearms of reaction. And they certainlyhaven't got a program to do anythingabout it beyond the crackdown.

.Or how about the "leadership"provided by the Daily World at home?Like the DW headline in December,"PATCO Couldn't Live on MoralSupport." Kind of late, isn't it?Because empty "moral support" is allthe CP ever offered when it counted­recall Gus Hall's "flying is scabbing"diversion. They were too busy cover­ing for do-nothing bureaucrats like theMachinists' Winpisinger, who stabbedPATCO in the back. Only the Sparta­cist League fought for labor to "ShutDown the Airports!"

While the Daily World pushes itstreacherous "people's front" with theDemocrats, Workers Vanguard pro­vides the class-struggle program for aworkers fight to bring Reagan down.•

11

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contract expires in September. It won'tstop the massive social' devastationthat literally makes survival the issuefor auto workers. For hundreds of

continued on page 10

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LAYOFFS \

Maintaining the existing contractwon't put a single one of GM's 130,000indefinitely laid-off workers back on thejob. It won't stop the company fromgoing after new concessions when the

or a IWO-••

battering ram against G M workers mustbe stopped. Ford UAW members mustdemand that the Ford Council berecalled immediately and all negotia­tions cease!

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DETROIT, January 30-Doug Fraser'splans for Chrysler-style concessions hita snag this week when talks broke offbetween General Motorsand the UnitedAuto Workers (UAW). At the pressconference following today's meeting ofthe union's GM Bargaining Council,UAW president Fraser moaned thatdissidents within the council had under­cut his bargaining position. In fact it wasthe angry ranks who put the heat on theUAW local presidents in the council.

By last week an opposition tocontinuing the talks had mounted toover 40 percent of the delegates. Ademonstration of over 1,000 angry autoworkers at the council's doorsteps hadbeen threatened. Company negotiatorswere convinced that there was no pointin putting together a giveaway packagethat the ranks weren't going to buyanyway.

The UAW hacks promptly an­nounced that giveback negotiationswith Ford Motor Company wouldcontinue. Fraser's hopes to ram throughconcessions here and later use them as a

fight for It-No Givebacks" No Lay.offs!

NYC Phone Militant Mind~ Gianninoto Fired, Arrested

"I Won't Be Ma Bell's Fink!"On Tuesday, February 2, Communi­

cations Workers of America (CW A)militant Mindy Sankel Gianninoto wasfired by AT&T, arrested by New YorkCity police, handcuffed in full view ofher fellow workers and dragged off topolice headquarters. Her "crime" wasrefusing to fink on fellow workers. Thisoutrage is an attack on the entire union!Phone workers in NYC must demand allch"rges be dropped and Mindy bereinstated immediately!

1 uesday's dramatic arrest was a resultof a continuing battle in which thephone company has been trying to forcewe 'kers to act as snitches in the shop.Mi ldy Gianninoto, a technician at theAl1?LT center at 811 10th Avenue inM" '1hattan, has consistently refused to"n:5 mistakes" for the supervisors onher fellow workers' job tickets. LastSertember Mindy was suspended andes(:rted out of the building by the NewYo. k Police Department for refusing torat on h'~r union brothers and sisters.Bu' she "efused to back down unde!"intnida .on.

'Vhen \1 indy Gianninoto came towO;'k or iuesday, management calledhe; in'o e office and tried to browbeathe' into ;;greeing to fink, threatening to"separate her from the payroll." Shereplied, "The union has advised me notto answer because it is in the grievance

procedure." Thereupon managementannounced she was "terminated" for"refusing a work directive." Plantsecurity and the city police were calledin. Mindy told WV, "I went out to thefloor, telling everybody about this. Isaid 'I won't fink on people, this is not aunion job'." When she refused to leave,she was handcuffed with her handsbehind her back and paraded down theaisle past her fellow workers. "Peoplecouldn't believe it. You know, here'sMindy in handcuffs." She was bookedfor criminal trespass.

The phone company is notorious forits regimentation and victimization ofunionists. Last September when MindyGianninoto was suspended, her fellowworkers, including 12 union stewards,came to her defense with a leaflet saying,"Would you feel safer working along­side Mindy or someone who finks and'grieves if?" At that time, 50 of her co­workers escorted her onto the floorwhen management threatened to pre­vent her from coming to work.

CW A members must rally to Mindy'sdefense. Let Ma Bell know it can't run asl~Ye plantation. The union must notpermit victimization of its members forrefusing to do fink work. Mindy Gianni­noto must be reinstated with full backpay and all disciplinary measures re­moved from herfile. Dropthecharges!. Arrested for defending the union.

12 5 FEBRUARY 1982