WIliNERI '/1""/111' 25~

No. 441 27 November 1987

ea anon~ .

o es

Der Spiegel

Imperial president: cornered and crazed. KO Reagan and the Democratswith 'hard class struggle!

,::::..

For the American ruling class, 1987... has been the year of living dangerously..

They're stuck with a basket case as com­mander in chief who "can't remember"whether or not he armed the ayatollah..As the financial structure of the empireis shaking loose at its foundations this'"what me worry?" president declaresthat all's well with the economy. It trulyis "Bedtime for Bonzo," but RonaldReagan's not in Hollywood any longerand he can't reshoot the scene. Whatkeeps the stock market moneyrnen bit­ing their fingernails is that this bozo stillhas another 14 months left on his leaseat the WhiteHouse-more than enoughtime to get the U.S. into a shoot-out inthe Persian Gulf or to blow away what'sleft of the Dow Jones.

The bourgeoisie has been shudderingall year over the absence of a captain atthe helm of the American state. Butwhen Wall Street crashed through ablack hole, it was the last straw. Ameri­can presidents are at least supposed tolook serious and concerned in the midstof a crisis; the image of Reagan grin­ning idiotically before the televisioncameras as the American bourgeoisielost a quarter of the paper value of itswealth must have flashed through manya financier's nightmare. A Baston Globe(2 November) columnist captured itwhen he wrote: '

"The trouble is that perhaps we couldhave afforded to be governed by a good­natured, doddering old gaffer whentimes were good. But now the stakes aresimply too high and the issues too com-

. plex .... Maybe the only thing we have

to fear is fear itself, but given theReagan White House, we have everyreason to be scared stiff.~

The Reagan presidency WaS effec­tively put on the shelf soon after theIranjContragate scandal blew up last

year. The solution was to be "coalitiongovernment" between the White Houseand Congress, facilitated by the ap­pointment of moderate RepublicanHoward Baker' as chief of staff But theDemocrats have no alternative to

Reaganism, and above all they want tocontrol the damage to the imperial pres­idency. The Contragate "investigation"was such a blatant cover-up of a cover­up that the televised hearings becamea platform for the contra cutthroats.Emboldened, the Reaganauts provokeda showdown with Congress over theSupreme Court-and lost, twice. JudgeBork went down in flames in the Sen­ate, and Reagan's next nominee Gins­burg went up in smoke. The result hasbeen paralysis in Washington on every­thing from the budget deficit to CentralAmerica.

Now comes the Congressional com­mittees' final ho-hum report on IranjContragate, condemning "a cabal of thezealots" who were following "the path todictatorship": "The common ingredi­ents of the Iran and Contra policies weresecrecy, deception and disdain for thelaw.': Even worse, the White House bun­glers. had produced "one of the worstcredibility crises of any administrationin U.S. history." Chief counsel ArthurLiman noted that in a parliamentarysystem, the Reagan regime would havefallen. But talk of impeachment wastaboo from the very beginning. Instead,the Democrats decided to simply ignorethe administration as House speakerJim Wright took over negotiations withNicaragua. Today the Democratic Par­ty is the main prop of the Americanempire.

Contra in chief Reagan vowed that hewould stand by his terrorists to his last

continued on page 10 -

- ,

BU,tcher· of the Belgrano Hits King's Cross

London: Thatcher's SubwaylnlernoLONDON'---King's Cross station is thebusiest rail and underground (subway)junction in this city of eight mil­lion, serving some 250,000 people dai­ly: working people, shoppers, school­children, tourists. Those unfortunateenough to be there at 7:30 on the eveningof Wednesday, November 18 foundthemselves caught in a blazing inferno.At King's Cross, as at most other tubestations, there are no smoke detectors,no automatic sprinkling system, no firealarms, no illuminated exit signs. Andso they died .

. Ceramic tiles exploded off the ceiling,concrete walls cracked, metal tickettingmachines melted. In a matter of min­utes. 30 people were burned alive as asheet of flame and smoke emanatingfrom an antiquated wooden escalatorengulfed the station's huge ticket con­course. Another 50 were hospitalised,several of them still fighting for their

continued on page 8Dabney/ hldependent

London tube station, the day after. Thirty people were trapped and burned alive November 18.

•

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For more information: (312) 663-0719

Sunday, December 64:00-8:00 p.m.1212 South Michigan, Party Room

food, entertainment and bar(Childcare provided)

HOliDAY A"'CAL FDAetA"-U4. 'Pf(I$ON£fU

p~e3~'"'',~ I 1,

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prize tarnished by such recipients asKissinger."

Inside the Zionist fortress itself,increasing numbers are braving staterepression to stand up for Vanunu. Hedid a great service to humanity andthat debt must be repaid. Interna­tional working-class defense must bemobilized to save Vanunu. Donationscan be sent to: Mordechai VanunuLegal Defense Fund, P.O. Box 45005Somerville, MA 02145. '

"The sentimentalization of chil­dren in America is particularly ap­parent at Christmas time .... Thissugar-plum hypocrisy takes placeagainst a background of a massivefailure of decent feeling for chil­dren, as juveniles are legallymurdered."Let's not begin with the statisticsthis time. Let's begin with RonaldWard on death row in Arkansas.He's 16 years old. He's black. Hewas 15when the crime occurred forwhich he was sentenced to death."

To read more of "A Child's Christ-mas on Death Row" get the latest issueof Class-Struggle Defense Notes, justpublished. This issue also features Can­non's "Red Month of November"­honoring the Bolshevik Revolution,Haymarket martyrs and other revolu­tionary traditions-s-and updates on theclass-war prisoners and other cases andcauses in the interests ofthewhole of the .working people. Get your copy now.

We encourage WV readers to con­tinue to support and build the POe. Wenow have over 75 sustaining contribu­tors from around the world, and morethan 375 others who have contributed$5 or more during the past year. Help usreach our goal of 100monthly sustainers

. and 500 contributors by the New Year.Become a sustaining contributor. Senda donation of $5 or more and receive asubscription to Class-Struggle DefenseNotes. For a single copy send $.75to: Partisan Defense Committee, P.O.Box 99, Canal Street Station, NewYork, New York 10013.•

....rti8i1n neien8et::........ittee

Uf;t..~.ij;IIte1CJ'i·)8j8~""i~[.)jj.:IIIUIIBER {, ..eib ...' . NOVEfIIBER 1987

jI CHIW~ CHR'SrHAIDIII1I1ATN It/I.., •• • • • • • • • ••

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With your contributionof $5 or more, receive

a subscription toClass-StruggleDefense· Notes.

For a single copyof issue Number 6,

send $.75 to:Partisan Defense

Committee, P.O. Box 99,Canal Street Station,New York, NY 10013.

For more information: (212) 267-1025

Saturday, December 57:30-11 :30 p.m.Szechuan Empire119 Court Street, Brooklyn

Co-sponsor: New York Labor BlackLeague for Social Defense

'Partisan Defense Committee Benefits

murdered in the savage police bombingof their Osage Avenue home. For hisoutspoken support of MOVE, journal­ist and former Black Panther MumiaAbu-Jamal is on Pennsylvania's deathrow.framed up on charges of killing aPhiladelphia"cop in 1981.

Across the seas, Mordechai Vanunufaces the death penalty. in Israel forexposing the extent ofthe Zionist state'snuclear arsenal. And in Britain, minersRussell Shankland and Dean Hancockhave spent three years of an eight-yearsentence, imprisoned for defending theirpicket lines and union during the 1984­1985 bitter fight against MargaretThatcher's vicious union-busting.

Support for the class-war prisoners isnot an act of charity but the duty ofthose on the outside to those insideprison walls. Come to the HolidayAppeal fund raisers in New York andChicago (see ad below). Send yourchecks to the PDe. Don't forget theclass-war prisoners!

. On December I, Israeli nuclear tech­nician Mordechai Vanunu again stepsinto the dock to stand trial for his life.Vanunu faces the death penalty for hiscourageous exposure of Israel's arsenalof 100-200 nuclear weapons, fixed onArab capitals and the Soviet workersstate, and posing the threat of athermonuclear holocaust.

For his courageous act Vanunu wasrecently named the recipient of the 1987Right Livelihood Award, known as the"alternative Nobel Prize." He was nom­inated for the Nobel Peace Prize by theBritish Bertrand Russell Peace Founda­tion, 40 British Members of Parliamentand nine Australian MPs and senators.The Nobel Commission, which nor­mally gives the award to war criminalslike Irgun terrorist Menachem Beginclaimed the nomination was submitted"too late"-and then gave it to thelater nominee Costa Rican presidentOscar Arias. Noted author Gore Vidalwrote to the international Spartacisttendency, "Yes, I think Vanunu is ahero and so ought not to have a

goose, many of the class-war prisonershave spent more than a decade 'ofChristmases behind bars. Former BlackPanther leader. Geronimo Pratt hasbeen behind.bars for 18years framed upfor a crime he did not and could nothave committed, as part of the FBI'sracist COINTELPRO conspiracy to"neutralize" black activists. FormerNebraska Panther leaders Ed Poindex­ter and David Rice (now known asWopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa),Hugo Pinell, one of the San QuentinSix, and Ruc:hell Magee also remain inprison hellholes for fighting .racistoppression.

Ramona Africa is the sole adult sur­vivor of the 13May 1985bombingofthePhiladelphia MOVE commune-a gov­ernment message to blacks who dare tochallenge America's racist status quo.We send stipends to Africa family mem­bers scattered in' prisons throughoutPennsylvania for defending their homesfrom earlier cop assaults in 1977 and1978-Janet Holloway, ConsuewellaDotson, Janine Phillips, Charles Sims,William Phillips, Delbert Orr, AlbertaWicker, Susan Leon, Michael Davis,Merle Austin, Debbie Sims. They sawtheir babies and most oftheir loved ones

Par(i§au ~fen§e£o......ittee '

CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES

We must not forget the class-warpris­oners-those in prison for standing upto racist capitalist oppression-whosefreedom is in the interest of the whole ofthe working people. As InternationalLabor Defense (ILD) founder and firstsecretary (1925-1928) James P. Cannonexpressed, "The class-conscious workeraccords to the class-war prisoners aplace of singular honor and esteem"(Labor Defender, September 1926).

The ILD sent monthly stipends andalso raised additional funds at Christ­mas for the imprisoned worker­militants and their families. The Parti­san Defense Committee has revivedboth traditions and is now initiating oursecond holiday appeal to raise funds formonthly stipends and holiday gifts forthe 21 class-war prisoners and theirfamilies. Let them know that they arenot forgotten!

The response of the capitalists, Re­publicans and Democrats alike, to the"Crash of '87" is more pain and suffer­ing for America's poor and workingpeople. The cops and courts seek toassure that those who fight the povertyand racism endemic to capitalism are"housed" in prison hellholes or theirgraves. While their jailers glut on roast

!!lw!!f..'!!y~~!!!'L'..~~.~DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Noah Wilner

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jon Lawrence

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

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

Opinions'4)xpressed in signed articles or letters do not fl9!!essarify express the editorial viewpoint.

The Revolutionary Party-«Tribune of the People

In defining the tasks of the RussianSocial-Democratic Labor Party at the turnof the century. V. I. Lenin launched afightagainst the "Economists." who restrictedthe workers' struggle to narrow trade­union issues. His 1902 pamphlet What IsTo Be Done? stressed that "class politicalconsciousness can be brought to the work-'

TROTSKY ers only from without." that is. from the LENINrelations of all classes to the state. Acting

as the memory of the working class and its leader in struggle. the party must be atribune of the people. The Leninist vanguard party. mobilizing the oppressedbehindthe banner ofthe proletariat. was the crucial instrument that enabled the Bolsheviksto lead the Russian 1917 October Revolution.

We have seen that the conduct of the broadest political agitation and, conse­quently, of all-sided political exposures is.ariabsolutely necessary and a paramounttask of our activity, if this activity is to be truly Social-Democratic.

, .. the Social-Democrat's ideal should not be the trade-union secretary, but thetribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny andoppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the pea­p~e it affects; who is able to generalise all these manifestations and produce asinglepicture of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is able to take advantage ofevery event, however small, in order to set forth before all his socialist convictionsand his democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and everyone the world­historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat ....

-y. I. Lenin, What Is To Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement (1902)

Holiday Appeal forClass-War Prisoners

No. 441 27 November 1987 Tickets: $5 advance, $8 at door, $10 contributing

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

***The Partisan Defense Committee has

contributed to the legal defense of theKentucky miners now facing trial.Readers of WVare urged to send con­tributions to: Citizens for Justice, Box 8,Canada, KY 41519.•

jobs of American .miners. Trumkamakes chauvinist appeals that "Apart­heid is a direct threat to American jobs"(United Mine Workers Journal, Febru­ary 1986). What's needed instead isinternational class solidarity, throughcommon strike action against the multi­national giants like Fluor and Shell.

The current contract with the BCOAexpires on January 31 and negotiationswith the coal operators have alreadybegun. If the miners facing trial inKentucky are convicted it willemboldenthe bosses now under union contract to

follow Massey's example of spitting on. the UMWA But the answer to the arro­gant coal bosses comes from the mineworkers' own history. During the heroic'77-78 coal strike, Jimmy Carter'sstrikebreaking Taft-Hartley injunctionwas burned in the coal fields.

In August 1974, a five-day nationalwork stoppage was called to force theDuke Power Company to recognize theUMWA after a 13-month strike inBrookside, Kentucky. (That battle wasimmortalized in the award-winning

. movie, Harlan County, USA.) This kindof united union action would havebrought Massey to its knees three yearsago and there'd be no strikers in jailtoday! But Trumka doesn't want toembarrass his "friends of labor" cap­italist politicians in the DemocraticParty. With Reagan on the ropes, now isthe time for some good hard class strug­gle. Miners throughout the coal fieldsought to take a "holiday" and demand:Free the Kentucky miners! Drop thecharges! Shove a standard union con­tract down AT. Massey's throat!

Gumpert ournalClass war in the coal fields: Striker mans picketbunker in Canada, Kentucky (left). Miners fromthis local now stand trial for solidarity action withA.T. Massey strikers' 15-month str.uggle (above).

after the walkout, the Massey minershave still not been called back to workand the scabs are still in the mine.

This sabotage of the Massey strikewas backed by the Militant (10 January1986), paper of the very non-militantSocialist Workers Party (SWP), whichjoined Trumka in hailing the NLRB rul­ing as an "important step forward forthe union." The SWP (far from uniqueas a would-be water boy for "progres­sive" union tops) covers for Trumka's"selective defeats," just as they werepress agents for Arnold Miller's alli­ance with the U.S. Labor Departmentwhich dragged the miners union into thecapitalist courts. They were still back­ing MilJer even as West Virginia minerswere burning him in effigy and rippingup his sellout deals with the BCOAbosses in the 1977-78 strike.

Trumka coupleshis losing strategy of"selective strikes" and faith in thebosses' courts and labor boards 'withprotectionist poison-pitting U.S. min­ers against their class brothers in othercountries in a desperate scramble forjobs. Under the pretense of fightingapartheid terror in South Africa, Trum­ka is campaigning to boycott Shell Oilbecause of its coal mining operationsthere. But the South Africa connectionis Trumka's cover for calling to halt allcoal imports in order to "protect" the

them reduced as a "gesture of goodfaith." The next day 50 pickets werearrested. Trumka called offthe strike inDecember 1985, putting his faith in aNational Labor Relations Board rulingthat Massey and its affiliates constitutea single employer. Now, three years

Bertram/Lexington Herald-Leader

Massey strikers fought virtually alonefrom the first day of their walkout.Abandoning the union's tradition ofindustrywide shutdowns to enforce anational contract, UMWA presidentRich Trumka called for "selectivestrikes" against operators who refusedto sign the Bituminous Coal Operators'Association (BCOA) agreement. InFebruary 1985, when Massey threat­ened to fire all strikers from its SprouseCreek processing plant in Lobata, WestVirginia, picket lines rapidly grew tomore than 1,000. But Trumka ordered

reportedly, machine guns. Masseydeployed helicopters, armored person­nel carriers and an armored locomotivenicknamed the "Bull Moose Special."This was the same name given to thearmor-plated, machine gun-equipped

. train the coal operators used to trans-

port scabs in the bloody coal field warsin Cabin Creek and Paint Creek, WestVirginia in 1912-13.A few years later thebattleground was nearby Tug Fork val­

'ley, a struggle vividly portrayed in thecurrent movie Matewan. Many Masseystrikers are from the same area and

. not much has changed. As CharlesDixon, who lives less than a mile fromMatewan, told WV:

"It's a constant struggle. They come inand they bring their big pocketbook,buy up a bunch of county officials, startcontrolling the county, bring in theirgun thugs, put up their chain link fence.They set 'em up a little terrorist camp.During the Massey strike there wereprobably 100 or so UMWA members'homes that were shot up, mine included.There were lots and lots of mine work­ers that were seriously injured. It wasnot one-sided."

Facing life imprisonment andmilJion-dollar fines, five members ofthe United Mine Workers of America(UMWA) Local Union 2496 -and oneunion supporter will go on trial in Lon­don, Kentucky beginning November 24.Donnie Thornsbury,' the local pres­ident, his cousin David Thornsbury,vice president Irvin Smith, his brotherDarrell, Paul Smith and Arnold Height­land are facing trumped-up federalcharges of conspiracy to interfere with.interstate commerce. This frame-upstems from the shooting death of a scabcoal truck driver during the bitter 15­month strike against the nation's sixth­largest coal producer, AT. Massey CoalCompany, in 1984-85. The entire labormovement and all defenders of dem­ocratic rights must rally to their defense.An injury to one is an injury to all!

In August, heavily armed FBI agentsand state police launched an early morn­ing raid on the miners' homes, arrestingfive. Paul Smith was picked up lastmonth. The workers are being tried sep­arately and 'are not permitted to consultwith each other in their defense. More­over, U.S. District Judge Eugene Silerhas used the police-state "Bail ReformAct" passed in 1984 to deny bail,outrageously claiming that the men area danger to the community. As CharlesDixon, UMWA District 30 Interna­tional Executive Board member, toldWV: "It looks like the guys are going tohave to prove themselves innocent."

This attack by the bosses' state is the"legal" continuation of the war whichMassey and the government waged onthe UMWA during the strike. A.T.Massey mines in southern West Virginia

.and eastern Kentucky were struck onI October 1984 when the company re­fused to sign the union's national con­tract because it includes crucial "panelrights," giving laid-off miners hiringrights at other mines of the same com­pany. Massey hired scabs. Mass picketsand demonstrations in front of Norfolk& Western coal trains were answeredwith $200,000 in fines and hundreds ofarrests. And Massey, partly owned bythe Fluor Corporation which special­izes' in slave-labor operations in "freeworld" strongholds like South Africaand Chile, brought in an army of gunthugs. These killer contras included"former" Green Berets and veteran mer­cenaries from imperialism's dirty, los­ing wars in Rhodesia, Central Americaand the Near East.

The company spent millions on milesof chain link fences and cement observa­tion posts; it equipped its uniformedguards with attack dogs, M-16s and,

Defend-Kentucky Miners!

EI Salvador:Centeno· Brothers Freed

oppressors of the working class. A justpeace wilJ come to long-suffering EISalvador only when leftist insurgentsand militant workers smash the deathsquads and their capitalist masters onceand for all.•

...Charles Kernag an

Salvadoran union leader Humberto Centeno (center) with sons Jaime (left)and Jose (second from right).

live in fear of the terror squads whoseactivity has increased as the army

'and Duarte regime crumble. Now the"Arias plan" demands that aid to theFDRJFMLN rebels be cut off, and thatthey "negotiate" with the murderous

brothers was directed. The PartisanDefense Committee took up their caseand sent a contribution to their aid. Josenow faces extensive surgical care forshrapnel wounds suffered in a bar­barous attack on Mariona prison bygovernment troops last August.

We are overjoyed to hear that theCentenos and hundreds of imprisonedunionists have been released. Stilllanguishing behind bars, however, arethose alleged to have been involved inthe spectacular 1985 attack on U.S.Marine "advisers" in the Zona Rosasection of San Salvador. Andfor thosewho were liberated, their "freedom" isrelative. All leftists and union militants

Over 400 Salvadoran political pris­oners were released in early Novem­ber as part of the Central American"peace accords." Workers Vanguardhas learned from San Salvador thatJose and Jaime Centeno, sons oftele­phone workers union (ASTTEL) lead­er Humberto Centeno, were amongthose released. The Duarte govern­ment's kidnapping, brutal torture andimprisonment of the Centenos for thelast two years starkly revealed the hid­eous reality behind the "Made inU.S.A.~death squad "democracy." WVdenounced their arrest and defended theheroic ASTTEL workers, against whomthe vicious treatment of the Centeno

27 NOVEMBER 1987 3

Coroacan Meeting Commemorate.s

Leon Trotsky andthe Bolshevik Revolution

UPI

Leon Trotsky, founder of the 'Red Army, reviewing troops·.h' Moscow'sRed Square, 1921.

nomenklatura. Today there are still dif­ferences over if it is a political class or asocial class, or if it isn't a social class.Vozlensky, a Russian historian, defendsthe viewpoint that it is a social class. Ithas the most absolute and total powerwhich any political or social class hashad in the history of humanity. No onecould rival or compete with it in terms ofabsolutism or the control that the Sovietbureaucracy has in Russia.

Little by little, this bureaucracy tookover every space, down to the last cornerof life in the Soviet Union. And in fact, itturned 'what was the dictatorship of theproletariat into the dictatorship over theproletariat. But so much control, somuch paternalism and so much lovesmothers and kills. And the economiesof those countries with statified prop­erty, governed by fossilized and para­lyzed bureaucracies, are falling behindin every field of creativity, of progress,in technology, not to mention theeconomy, in science, in the arts. Ineverything the situation is becomingdangerous-the countries with a stati­fied economy headed by bureaucraciesare falling. totally behind the progress,so dynamic, so revolutionary, beingundergone by the capitalist countries.

Thus the bureaucracy-to its ownregret-has to recognize that its pres­ence introduces so much dead weight inevery sphere in the countries with astatified economy that it endangers itsown survival. And that obliges thebureaucracy to look fora way out, andto pose the question of whether thebureaucracy has the capacity to mod­ernize and renovate itself, to give way, tocreate space .for freedom and dernoc­racy and allow the working and peasantclasses to determine their. own fate; thatfrom being the proprietor and lord thebureaucracy can become a helping part­ner and friendly guide of the workers,and peasants, which can pare down itsgains and privileges, creating a symbiot­ic rather than a parasitic relationship.Sounds like pure utopia, doesn't it?

It would be a way, per'haps, of acquir­ing a historic legitimacy which it doesn'thave, because in reality the bureauc­racy usurped a revolution which wasmade' in the name of the working class

wv Photo

Esteban Volko¥ Bronstein, Trotsky's grandson (left), and Jan Norden (center)at 70th anniversary celebration of Russian Revolution in Trotsky's house,Coyoacan, Mexico. ,

WORKERS VANGUARD

cultural workers, against Stalin and thebureaucracy which he headed, a vora­cious, ambitious bureaucracy whichfought to acquire all the positions ofcommand and administration in thenew state apparatus which was forming.

Stalin can really be considered thefather and the champion of this newSoviet bureaucracy, whose political elitehas been designated with the name of

could lose the war. Ifit didn't lose, it wasin part due to the great vitality and hero­ism of the Russian people, and as well to"General Winter" which has also in­flicted great defeats on the invaders ofRussia.

In any case, without a doubt the termsused by Gorbachev to diminish Trotskysound quite friendly after all thediatribes and all the insults and slan­ders spewed out at the time of Stalin andhis supporters,accusing Trotsky ofbeing an agent of the Mikado andspying OR orders from Hitler, Theyquickly became accustomed to chang­ing it according to the opportunistpolicies and the shifts and orders from

, Stalin, who also changed the networksand the chiefs for whom Trotsky wassupposedly working. So when Stalincarried out the non-aggression pact withHitler, automatically Trotsky 'was as­signed to the espionage service ofEngland, the United States and theFrench Deuxierne Bureau. So it seemsTrotsky was quite changeable in his"terrorist" activities.

We must not forget-that the clashesbetween Leon Trotsky and Stalin andhis followers, his supporters, were notthe result of antipathy or character dif­ferences, but had a very well-foundedpolitical basis: Trotsky and Stalin wereon different sides of the barricade. Trot~sky unconditionally defended the pos­tulates of Marxism and the interests ofthe working class and peasantry, oragri-

On November 7, in honor of the 70thanniversary of the Bolshevik Revolu­tion, an all-day cultural celebration washeld at the Leon Trotsky Museum inCoyoacan, Mexico. The site is the housewhere Trotsky lived and worked duringthe last years of his life before beingstruck down by a Stalinist assassin inAugust 1940. An art exhibition byyoung painters filled the grounds and'various' rooms, there were musicalgroups and a poetry reading in theMuseum garden, and a video of. Trot­sky's daily life was shown in the diningroom.

In the evening there were two round­table discussions, attended by around100 people, covering a spectrum ofviews on the theme of "Leon Trotskyand the Bolshevik Revolution." Thefirst was addressed by Esteban VolkovBronstein, Trotsky's grandson, and byJan Norden of the international Spar­tacist tendency. We print their remarksbelow, translated from the Spanish byWv. The second discussion includedJavier Contreras, Adolfo Gilly andManuel Aguilar Mora of the PRT(Revolutionary Workers Patty), Mexi­can affiliate of the United Secretariat ofthe Fourth International.

A topic of discussion was the petitioncampaign by social democrats and,various ostensible Trotskyists calling onthe Kremlin to "rehabilitate" Trotsky.Yet Trotsky fought, both theoreticallyand in his practical work together withLenin in the leadership of the Sovietstate and at the head of the Red Army,for a socialist society rather differentfrom what exists in the Soviet Uniontoday. Thus, as the Spartacist speakernoted, it's hardly surprising that thebureaucracy should pervert Lenin anddenounce Trotsky, as Gorbachev did inhis 70th anniversary speech.

The November 7 Coyoacan com­memoration was filmed by the His-:panic American Television Network. Inaddition, there has been renewed at­tention to Trotsky. and the TrotskyMuseum in the international press (seefacing page).

Esteban Volkov:After a vast press campaign in

Europe, in France, everywhere, of talkabout. rehabilitating Trotsky. on theoccasion of the 70th aaniversary of theBolshevik Revolution, not only were thecreator of the Red Army and Lenin'sentire Old Guard-s-Bolshevik com­rades all of them-not rehabilitated, butjust so there wouldn't be any doubtsabout Gorbachev's loyalty to the grouphe heads, he still 'had to characterize thefounder of the Red Army as a vacillatingand cheating politician and a petty­bourgeois factionalist.

In contrast" he recognized Leninistattributes in Joseph Stalin, who assas­sinated the entire Bolshevik Old Guard.And Gorbachev also praised Stalin'sabilities as a leader in the Second WorldWar, when it's well known that Stalincould be charged with the crime of hightreason against the Soviet Union, for de­capitating the Red Army shortly beforethe Nazi invasion. He liquidated all theexperienced generals, all the officials ­trained in the art of war, leaving thearmy headless against the Nazi inva­sion, with a real danger that Russia

4

The New York Times~ 16 November 1ge7 Copyright © 1987 by The New York Times Company, Reprinted by permission,

Mexico City Journal In August 1940; Mr. Volkovwas livinghere wlth his grandfather, grand­mother and assorted bodyguards andaides. He has since forgotten Russianbut speaks Spanish, French and Eng­lish.

"He was quite jovial, with a greatsense of humor, but also very disci­plined in his work," Mr. Volkov re­called about his grandfather'S dailyroutine. "He would get up early towrite and to read and to answer cor­respondence, and he always madesure twice a day to feed the chickensand rabbits he kept in a coop in theyard." •

Mr. Volkov, a chemist by profes­sion, said that though "I admire theideas of my grandfather and theIdeas of Marxism," he is "not a mem­ber of any Trotskyist group." But hemaintains contact with his grandfa­ther's followers.

The Followen Are HeartenedSome of those who gathered here

last week for 'the 70th anniversary ofthe Bolshevik Revolution said theyare more optimistic about their politi­cal prospects than at any time in therecent past.

"There Is a significant change inthe climate right now," said Jan Nor­den, editor of the American Trotsky­Ist newspaper "Worker's Vanguard"and a member of the central commit­tee of the Spartacist League of theUnited States. "Events In the SovietUnion and renewed attention world­wide to the role of Trotsky have pro­vided us with a real opening."

Mr. Volkov predicted that thestruggle to restore his grandfather'sreputation "won't be resolved over­night."

He went on, "Gorbachev is undermuch pressure from Ulebureaucracyand retrograde sectors that want to

. maintain the status quo, so he has tobrake the process in order not tocreate too much·discontent.' •

Nevertheless, Mr. Volkov said hehoped the Soviet leadership would ac­knowledge Trotsky's historical roleand rehabilitate him and Stalin'sother victims.

"Trotsky himself does not need tobe rehabilitated, especially by his ex­ecutioners, because the whole worldknows him and what he stood for,"Mr. Volkovsaid. "But other cases ofcollective assassination without rea­son and with no legal base, these needto be brought to light. Until thatchange takes place, the currentSoviet Government cannot discon­nect itself from what Stalin did."

come, they don't sign the guest book."Recently, however, there have been

some signs that even that reluctanceis on its way to becoming a thing ofthe past. Entries in the museumregister on Nov. 5 include the signa­tures of three Russians, including oneViktor Andreyev of Moscow.

'ThIs Legendary Figure'"I guess that itself is one sign of

glasnost," Mr. Volkov said with ashrug. "Many people in the SoVietUnion just do not believe the 60 yearsof lies, fabrications and calumniesthat arc the only thing they haveheard, and want to know the truthabout this legendary figure."

Mr. Volkov, whois 61 years old,wasborn in Yalta on the Black Sea, andjoined his grandfather in Mexico in1939. Wh~ Trotsky was assassinated

Trotsky's doctrine of "permanentrevolution." The study where he waskilled with an mountaineer's ice axhas been preserved. Bullet holes inthe wall from an earlier assassina­tion attempt have also been left un­touched.

several do7.cn visitors tour the mu­seum each day, ranging from curious·American tourists to Latin American,Japanese and Western EuropeanTrotskyists for whom it is a shrine.There are even a few cautious visi­tors from Eastern Europe, whereTrotsky is still a non-person, blankedout of photOgraphs and omitted fromtextbooks.

"Over the years, wehave had someSoviets come here, including an en­tire soccer team a few years ago,"Mr. Volkov said. "But when they

.,-.: "., .

.•..•....••••.••.~.~.~;;.... Times/Larry Rohter

Esteban Volkov Bronstein, grandson of Leon Trotsky, standing'by monument containing his grandfather'sashes in garden of house in MexicoCity where Trotsky wasassassinated in 1940. House is now a museum.

friction went beyond personalitiesand power poIitlCl\ to include ideologi­cal differences. Stalin sought to buildan invincible Communist state ''inone country," while Trotsky arguedfor a "permanent revolution" thatwouldengulf the world.

"He was the first to denounce statebureaucratism and deviations fromLeninism," Mr. Volkov said of hisgrandfather. "He was always one ofthe great theoreticians and repre­sentatives of Marxist thought, but heis especially relevant at this moment,as Gorbachev himself has made clearby attacking bureaucracy and ec0­nomic stagnation."

These days, the house. ar CalleVienna 45where Trotsky worked andlived for the last three years of his lifeis a museum, financed by the Mexi­can Government and adherents of

Grandfather Fed the Rabbits asHe Battled Stalini'~' J';' /.

"I.

By LARRY ROHTERSpe<lsllO The New York Times

MEXICO CITY, Nov. 12 - Leninlies in his tomb on Red Square, andStalin Is interred at the Kremlin Wall.'But the ashes of Leon Trotsky,

.theoretician of the Bolshevik Revolu­tlon and founder of the Red Army, re­main In exile and oblivion in the quietgarden of the small house here wherehe was alisassinated .by a presumedSoviet agent 47years ago. .

Esteban Volkov Bronstein, how­ever, wants to see that changed, andhas been encouraged by recentevents in the Soviet Union. He is thegrandson of Trotsky, whose privatename was Lev Davidovich Bronstein,and guardian of his memory. Mr. Vol­kov, who Is a Mexican citizen,wantsthe Soviet· leadership to restore hisgrandfather to his. rightful place Inhistory and to acknowledge Stalin'sguilt in his death.

"We are observing the process ofglasnost and perestroika in the SovietUnion favorably," Mr. Volkov saidthis week, referring to Moscow'scatch phrases for openness and eco­nomic restructuring. He sat andtalked In a cool, dark study of thehouse where he once lived with hisgrandfather. "But until there Is a re­establishment of the historical truthabout this monstrous process of as­sassination ordered by .Stalin, wemust keep Insisting on this point."

In a major speech earlier thismonth, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, theSoviet leader, condemned Stalin for"enormous and unforgivable crimes"but did not rehabilitate Trotsky,whom he called "an excessively self­assured politician who always vacil­lated and cheated," Mr. Volkovquar­rels with that description, but saysthat even .negarive comments aboutTrotsky stimulate worldwide interestin his maternal grandfather and un­derlinehis importance in the Marx­ist-Leninist pantheon,

Stalin vs. TrotskyThough it was never proved that

Stalin ordered Trotsky's assassina­tion, the two were bitter rivals untilStalin succeeded in expelling Trotskyfrom Russia in 1929and had him latersentenced to death in absentia. Their

Contrary to the New York Times, it has long since been proved thatStalin ordered Trotsky's execution.· The. Mexican muralist DavidAlfaro Siqueiros, author of the failed machine-gun attack on Trotskyin May 1940, has admitted that Stalin "ordered .. ~ the physical elimi­nation of Trotsky." Stalinist leader Valentin Campa revealed that the

Mexican CP leadership even debated the murder, The assassin,Ramon Mercader, was a former member of the Catalan CP, and forhis heinous deed, his mother received from Stalin the Kremlin's high­est decorations. See "How the Stalinists Planned Trotsky's Murder,"WV No. 218, 3 November 1978.

Gorbachev's .talk of lUling "blank spaces" in history· draws internationalpress attention to Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky.

Yet. still today, although they maycondemn Stalin himself for a "cult of thepersonality" and even for crimes, anddespite the fact that for the first time in60 years there is a leadership in theKremlin which didn't participate in thereign of terror under the "great organ­izer of defeats," the spectre of Trotskyhaunts Gorbachev's Russia. Proof ofthis is the speech of Mikhail Gorbachevlast week on the occasion of the 70thanniversary of the October Revolutionin which he "rehabilitates," to a degree,Khrushchev, says some nice thingsabout Bukharin and characterizes Sta­lin's "acts of illegality" as "unpardon­able," but continues to treat Trotsky as adevil. This is no accident. The differ­ences between Bukharin and Stalin werewithin the framework of a bureaucraticregime, fiot soviet democracy, and theyshared the same fundamental programof limiting the revolution to the bound­aries of an isolated Russia. Today. asyesterday, the bureaucracy fears theprogram of permanea.trevolution,because it seeks above all an iUuS9CY"peaceful coexistence" with imperial­ism. And in vituperating against the"export of revolution" it resorts to lies todistort the true content of Leninism.

Gorbachev says that "the party's lead­ing nucleus, headed byJosef Stalin, hadsafeguardedLeninism ...." What Len­inist line is he speaking of? Would it beStalin's policy in March 1917 when heopposed the slogan "Down with thewar!", when he censored Lenin's "Let­ters from Afar" and called to supportthe Provisional Government "to theextent that it fortifies the steps of the

continued on page 9

the gains 'of October, it's necessary toreturn to the rood of Lenin and Trot­sky, fighting to extend the socialist rev­olution to the entire planet.

.We must say it clearly: Leon Trotskywas murdered because of his fidelity tothe principles and program of Lenin­ism, which represented a mortal dangerfor Stalin and the nationalist bureauc­racy which he headed. There was aglaring contradiction between Lenin'sstruggle for world revolution and theStalinist schema of "building socialismin one country"-so this gravedigger ofthe revolution tried to rewrite historywith a mountaineer's ax. Not only did hemurder the Trotskyist Left Opposition­ists by the thousands, but in order tocover his betrayal of the October Revo­lution he had the entire remaining Cen­tral Committee of 1917 shot along withthe general staffof the Red Army.

Trotsky: martyr's return? =n~~~~~~theTHE GUARDIAN

10 November 1!ja7,

do so not only to invoke the historic fig­ure of Trotsky, co-leadertogether-withVladimir lIyich Lenin of the RussianRevolution and the eady CommunistInternational, founder oftbe Red Armywho forged the fJgilting force tbatdefeated the White Guards and theinvading troops of 14 i~1ist coun­tries who sought to,strangle the youngSoviet republic. We do so as weD tounderline the impofflmce todDy·of theLeninist- Trotskyist program.

From November 1917on, the imperi­alists have sought to restore capitalistexploitation in the USSR. And. today,with a war-erazed maniac in the WhiteHouse who jokes of "bombing Russia infive minutes," with an anti-Soviet wardrive whose first target is SandinistaNicaragua, defense of the, Soviet Unionis today more than ever the duty ofeveryclass-conscious worker. And to defend

and peasantry, and for the workingclass. Of course, in the conditions ofbackwardness of a country like Russia,with a not very numerous working classwhich still had a very low level ofschooling, it really wasn't able. to holdon to power. And so they were bilked ofit, fleeced, by this new class, or group,however you want to call it, which is thebureaucracy.

Ultimately, the next chapters of his-·tory, which indisputably will be quitethrilling, are going to show what will bethe outcome of this sometimes tragicnovel which is history-whether thebureaucracy is an excrescence of aplanned system, which due to its ownevolution and the contradictions of theprogress of the country will disap­pear-which is very probable. Historyhas taught us that power is not bestowedor granted but must be conquered. Andit's probable that the Russian workingclass, wbich is no longer inthe stage itwas at the time of the Russian Revo­lUiion---it is a numerous elass, a classDOW with great p(,titiCal conscious­ness-if its rights are oot gtantedby thebureaucracy, it will knowhow to seizethem by force.

Jan Norden:We are meeting on this November 7 to

celebrate the event which after 70 yearsremains the greatest victory of .heworkers of the world, the BolshevikRevolution of 1917. And we' arecelebrating it here, before the grave ofLev Davidovich Trotsky, in the housewhere he carried out, during the lastyears of his life, the great work of con­structing the Fourth International. We

27 NOVEMBER 1987 5

Young SparlacusStudents: Ally with Labor 'to

Smash·Racist AttacksI

Madison, NovelTiber 6: .300 protest racist frat rat attackson black and Jewish students.

Madison, Berkeley Berkeley, October 16:Protesters demand desegregation

of liberal university.

The unprecedented wave of racistattacks that broke out on traditionallyliberal college campuses last springmade headlines in the bourgeois pressand prompted sanctimonious denuncia­tions by university officials. Yet todayminority students across the countrycontinue to be on the receiving end ofraw violence. The University of Califor­nia's Berkeley campus has been rockedby revelations of racist limits on Asianenrollment, and large protest marchesby black students against cowardlyKlan-style attacks-. As the BerkeleySpartacus Youth Club wrote in aleaflet distributed on the campus:

"Racist attacks at Cal must be smashed.A black student chased out of a foot­ball game by white racists. A deadchicken placed at a dorm gym with anote around its neck reading 'Killniggers and Jews.' The letters 'KKK'­symbol of lynch-rope murder-carvedabove a black woman's dorm-roombed. Racist epithets scrawled on blackorganizations' flyers. Two black womenrun out of a housing co-op. 'This kind of .racist terror here at Cal is part of a pat­tern of vicious attacks against black stq­dents on campuses' across the country,on a scale not seen since 'at least the1920's. In Reagan's Amerika, where thecapitalist rulers have been carrying outa class war against the working classand minorities, it has become 'respect-

.... able' to spew racist filth, and embold­ened scum translate their bigotry intothe language of violence."

Meanwhile, at the University of Wis­consin's Madison campus, the Spar­tacus Youth Club has been in theforefront of fighting for the kind ofmass, militant protests necessary to putan end to the attacks by a pack of fratrats on minority students. In a leafletdistributed to a protest in Madison onNovember 6, the SYC wrote:

"Last spring the campus bigots wereerecting racist statues and holding rae­ist parties. On Oct. 29, Alasdair Cripps,Andrew Falci and other members ofthe Phi Gamma Delta 'Fiji' fraternity

6

violently attacked three members of thepredominantly Jewish Zeta Beta Taufraternity. They called out anti-Semiticand racial slurs, threatened with a knife,and sent three ZBTers including oneblack to the hospital. ."This isjust one of a score of attacks onblacks and Jews that have occurredrecently in Madison. On Sept. 28 ablack freshman was brutally beaten byfour white thugs on Park Street. Dur­ing registration week this fall, racistsshouted anti-Semitic epithets andhurled bricks at two members ofNottingham co-op, one who is Jewish.A swastika was painted on a tree atHillel. Langdon Street [Madison'sfraternity row] has become a 'BorhaBoulevard' where blacks are afraid towalk."

This racist crap has got to be stopped!The demonstrations 'of hundreds of stu­dents in Berkeley and Madison exposedthe most recent atrocities and galvan­ized anti-racist forces in public con­demnation of these attacks. But these

protests-narrowly focused on reform­ing {he universities and calling on theadministration to banracist fraternities,establish "racial awareness" trainingcourses for punk bigots, or "ethnicstudies" requirements for all students­will not end racism in this capitalistsociety.

Justlook at what happened with the"Fiji" frat thugs in Madison. Sus­pended for installing a IS-foot statue ofa black man with a bone through hisnose on the front lawn of their frat houseand partying in black face, the frat ratswere obliged to attend special classesaimed at "behavior modification." Theythen celebrated their reinstatement bybashing black and Jewish students! Inan editorial the Daily Cardinal (3 No­vember) dryly noted, "Apparently aracism workshop didn't' quite do thetrick."

Anti-racist students are looking for

Spartacists callfor mobilizingthe power oforganized laborto smashracist attacksat ColumbiaUniversitylast spring.

answers. A local rad-lib paper, the Mad­ison Isthmus, prominently reprinted acall for militant action from the SYC'sleaflet: "Students and labor must mo­bilize in militant action to drive theserace-terrorists off campus now, beforeanyone else gets hurt or killed! Ifone of these-Nazi-inspired punks werenabbed and displayed naked with ayellow stripe down his back it would domore than a thousand 'race relation­ship workshops'."

The root cause of racism is not "badideas" in the skulls of aberrant indi­viduals, but a rotting capitalist systemthat keeps black people subjugated as arace-color caste at the bottom of theeconomy, the "last hired, first fired."America's rulers shift the blame for des­perate poverty and racism onto the vic­tims of capitalist oppression. A recentgrotesque example is a New York StateBoard of Regents study which arguesthat black students have an innately

-different "learning style" than white stu­dents, including a "tendency to approx­imate space, number and time instead ofaiming for complete accuracy" (NewYork Times, 21 November). The aim ofsuch bald bigotry can only be Jim Crowsegregation. When pseudo-scientificracists argue that minorities learn dif­ferently, they mean to teach them sepa­rately, and unequally. An uproar from

. black educators over the implications ofthis report prompted the racist Regentsto modify it-adding slurs against His­panics and Asians as well!

College campuses are more segre­gated than ever, due in part toskyrocketing costs which deny blackworking-class youth access to highereducation. At UW-Madison, black en­.rollment has dropped to 1.6 percent ofthe student population. The SpartacusYouth Clubs call for open admissions

continued on page 8

WORKERS VANGUARD

Cornell Students Protest lOt Fiihrer

Drive Out Zionist loscist.Kohonel

tary confinement and may face thedeath penalty. We say all humanity is inhis debt-Free Mordechai Vanunu!

The SYC's leaflet addressed thequestion of socialist revolution:

"1£ they are to have a future, the Hebrewworkers must be broken from theirZionist rulers and exploiters and wonto the cause of Palestinian' nationaljustice .... As Zionism isa deathtrap forJews so is Palestinian nationalism forthe Arabs. When the PLO ranks wereheroically battling the V.S.-backedIsraeli army in West Beirut, not oneArab ruler lifted a finger to defendthem ...."The Arab/Israeli conflict is the prod­uct of the historic interpenetration oftwo peoples on the same territory. TheZionist state was created by their forci­ble separation through the nationalexpropriation of the Palestinians. Thereis no just democratic solution undercapitalism tQ> the claim of the Hebrew­speaking people and the dispossessedPalestinian people for the right ofself-determination. This can only beachieved through a binational Pales­tine in a socialist federation of the NearEast. The urgent need is for an interna­tional workers party. a Trotskyist party,to lead the way forward to peace andnational justice for all the peoples oftheNear East." •

plans to show up with an atmed goonsquad, and threatened every black per­son who attended Farrakhan's talk.One older black man coolly faced himdown: "Look mister, I liberated Belsenin World War II, so don't call meanti-Semitic."

The Cornell demonstrators againstKahane were a united front amongdifferent viewpoints. The Palestiniannationalist participants were them­selves somewhat heterogeneous. Somevociferously argued, in response to theSYC's leaflet, thatjoint class struggle ofArab and Hebrew-speaking 'workers isimpossible and that "communist revo­lution just doesn't apply to the NearEast," and even, outrageously.said out­right that they opposed the struggle tofree Mordechai Vanunu because ':he'san Israeli Jew." But others signed peti­tions circulated by the SYC demandingthe immediate release of Vanunu, thecourageous nuclear technician whorevealed to the world press the massiveextent of Israel's nuclear arsenal, whichtargets the Soviet Union as well asIsrael's Arab neighbors. Vanunu hasbeen imprisoned for over a year in soli-

appeared all over campus. Yet theCornell Daily Sun and dim civillibertar­ians lecture that students are obligatedto respect this kill-crazy scum's right to"free speech." As the SYC's leafletreplied, 'The issue isself-defense againstfascistic terrorists and organizers forgenocide. Drive Kahane off campus!"

"Liberal" Zionists claiming to beopposed to Kahane refused to demon­strate with Palestinians and leftists.They hung around the' fringes handingout leaflets .encouraging people toprotest black Nation of Islam leaderLouis Farrakhan, who was speaking innearby Syracuse that evening. Farra­khan, a black demagogue who is openlyanti-Semitic, shouldn't be underesti­mated as a threat to Jews and blacks,but neither can he be equated toKahane, a' Zionist state terr-orist withblood on his hands. Jewish studentswho say they oppose Kahane but weretoo fainthearted to demonstrate againsthim should ponder what happened inSyracuse: people who claim to be anti­racists protested Farrakhan alongside afascistic JDL offshoot, the JDO, whoseFuhrer Mordechai Levy announced

Young Spartacus

Cornell University: Spartacus Youth Club played active role In building November 10 protest against JDL FUhrerMeir Kahane, '. .. .

ITHACA-Fifty students held a picketline at Cornell University November 9to protest the Zionist stormtrooperMeir Kahane, an ultrarightist Israelipolitician and the founder of the racistJewish Defense League (JDL). Despitea massive cop presence and threats ofreprisals by the university administra­tion, the Spartacus Youth Club (SYC), .Cornell Radical Union, PalestinianHuman Rights Committee, Interna­tional Socialists Organization and the"Marxist-Leninists of Ithaca". greetedthis architect of genocide with chantslike "Smash fascist Kahane!" and "NotJew against Arab, but class againstclass!"

Kahane, a Brooklyn-born rabbi (whofor years tried to "pass" as "MichaelKing"), in 1968 founded the terroristJDL which. became notorious forattacks on black militants, Arabs andleftists, and bombings of Soviet diplo­matic offices. Kahane emigrated toIsrael in 1971, where he built a gen­ocidal .fascist cult, the Kach party,and was elected to parliament.' Asthe Cornell SYC explained in our8 November leaflet building for thedemonstration:

"Openly campaigning for the expulsionand genocide of Palestinian Arabs fromthe Israeli-occupied West Bank, Golan,Gaza and southern Lebanon as well asthe 600,000 Arabs who are Israeli cit­izens, Kahane's armed thugs, often Jewsfrom the V.S., have terrorized Arabcommunities and schools. The fascistKach party has grown rapidly in a coun­try where sadistic police, troops andfanatical 'settlers' armed to the teeth gettheir Gestapo-like kicks humiliating,beating and killing Arab men, womenand children."

In the U.S., if his targets were differ­ent, his methods were the same: The Vil­lage Voice (24 November) notes that "Afederal grand jury in Brooklyn is cur­rently probing the JDL in connectionwith bombings, homicides, extortionand kidnapping ...." The Voice alsoreports Justice Department complaintsthat the Israeli government is obstruct­ing an investigation into JDL ter­rorism, including the October 1985pipe-bomb murder of Alex Odeh, anofficial. of the American Arab Anti­Discrimination Committee. Kahane andhis ultrarightist party have a programof genocide-and it's an action pro­gram starting right now. After Kahanespoke at Cornell last year, Arab stu­dents received death threats, and leaf­lets calling Arabs "roaches" and "dogs"

.Reefer Madness in the "High" CourtThis election year, instead of a

chicken in every pot the politicians canonly promise a skeleton in every closet.First, we had a summer of sex andplagiarism among the 'DemocraticParty dwarfs-Gary Hart's allegedlyscrewing somebody who was not hiswife and Joseph Biden's swiping ofspeeches forced both out of the pres- .idential nomination sweepstakes.

Now, less than a month after RobertBork's Supreme Court nominationwent up in flames in Congress, Rea­gan and Meese's second nominee,Douglas Ginsburg, went up in smokeover a couple of joints of marijuana.

As right-wingers shrieked in hor-

ror, Reagan swore to support Gins­burg to .the bitter end. AttorneyGeneral Ed Meese, a law-and-orderfreak infamous for his belief 'thatanyone charged with a crime mustbe guilty (now facing the music forhis own business shenanigans) in­quired, "You tell me that no oneappointed to the Supreme Court hasever broken the law?" (Newsweek,16 November). It might have made

«for interesting Congressional testi­, mony, but Nancy "just said no" and

Ginsburg was gone.The Ginsburg revelations sparked

~ an orgy of confessions from among theremaining hopefuls and their hangers-

on. Democratic' presidential candi­dates Albert Gore and Bruce Babbittquickly took the "high road," admit­ting to previous pot use before thepress hounds could dig this tidbit up.Gosh-even would-be First LadyGore has a little weed in her back­ground (if not in her backyard). Onceupon a Jefferson Airplane time, shetoo used to, she admits-but that wasbefore she got religion, or at leastdecided to make a name for herself as aself-appointed censor of rock and rolllyrics, lest they should be suggestive ofillicit substances, especially sex.

Hypocrisy? Sure. Columnist RussellBaker pointed out, "Of the many

amazing things about the latestSupreme Court fiasco, the most amaz­ing is the revelation that there aregrown-up people in the United Stateswho have' never smoked marijuana"(New York Times, II November). Ifthe ruling class and their politicalpimps didn't feel SQ compelled to play"holier than thou," they wouldn't be inso much of a mess. But lying is thebasic coin of bourgeois politics, ahandmaiden of the .program ofexploitation, racism and war. Ameri­ca, after all, is a country where you canbe sent off to die in an imperialist warbefore you're old enough to legallyhave a drink. '

27 NOVEMBER 1987 7

Der Spiegel

Wanted for Murder! "Iron Lady" Thatcher grooved on plunging hundreds ofArgentine sailors aboard the Belgrano to an icy death in 1982 Falklands!Malvinas war. •

.>

London ­·Subw~y...(continued/rom page 1)

lives with scorched lungs and burns overthree-quarters of their bodies, Had theblaze erupted only an hour or two ear­lier, the death toll would have been tenor a hundred times higher.

This was no accident-s-it was wantonmurder through negligence. The gov­ernment 'has deliberately run down theantiquated London underground, slash­ing its subsidies, "privatising" mainte­nance and refusing to implement ele­mentary fire detection and preventionmeasures. And the finger ofguilt pointsstraight to the same war criminal whoordered more than 300 young sailorsaboard the Argentine cruiser GeneralBelgrano killed in cold blood more thanfive years ago: Margaret Thatcher, theRonald Reagan of Britain.

Even Thatcherite tabloids like the

Press Association

Daily Express (20 November) head­lined, "They Knew Tube Was a DeathTrap." That very day, London Region­al Transport (LRT), the governmentagency which runs the underground sys­tem, threatened to discipline King'sCross transport workers for distributingleaflets to passengers warning of firerisks! . Also on Wednesday the LRTannounced it was slashing severalmillion pounds more" in expenditures,including one-third of its escalatorimprovement budget. In 1984, theheavily. trafficked Oxford Circus sta­tion was the scene of a major fire.

AS'a result of Thatcher's vicious cutsin public spending in recent years, plat-

Smash' RacistAttacks••.•(continued/rom page 6)

and no tuition wi* a state-paid livingstipend provided toalllo make educa­tion .a right ra~ tban the bastion'of race and cJasspriW'ege it is today.The university ad~tions.watch­dogs of the capitalist state. should beabolished-For student/facultyfwork­er control of the universities!

At UC Berkeley, more black studentsare entering the university. but quicklyfind the "ivory tower" a dungeon forminorities and tk:e the school in droves.The San Francisco Examiner (I No­vember) reports that the dropout ratefor black students is twice that ofwhitesand statistics show the problem is notacademic standing. Instead, "studentleaders sayan increasing number ofrac­ist acts-both blatant and subtle-inand out of the classroom have created

8

form staffat King's Cross had been axedfrom 16to Wand the cleaning stafffrom14 to 2. One maintenance worker whotold the press that these old escalatorsrequired enormous amounts of grease,making them. an obvious firetrap, waspromptly warned by management tostop talking to the media. A project torip out building materials covered with'"black asbestos," which burns withferocity while giving off lethal fumes,.was discontinued last August when themoney was diverted to "securitise" thestation-s-i.e., to nail impoverished rid­ers who can't pay the exorbitant fares.At the time, contractors were told byasenior LRT official: "It's a gamble, butwe just have to pray there won't bea fireuntil March 1988 when we can startspending on this again" (Daily Express,20 November).

The. sole piece of firefighting appa­ratus on site, a 1928-model manuallyoperated "waterfog" device, was lockedbehind an oak door off the machineryroom beneath the escalator. The sta­tion has no emergency exits nor effective

warning system, so even as passengerswere trying to flee through entranceswhich had turned into chimneys, peo­ple continued to enter the station aspassing trains dropped off passengers.Plans for a new pedestrian tunnel con­necting platforms internally had beenshelved for "cost considerations," so

, passengers trapped below were directedup another escalator to the fiery

':- concourse.But for the heroism of the King's

Cross workers and the firefighters whoarrived on the scene, the disaster wouldhave been even worse. Scores of nursesand other medical personnel reported to

. nearby hospitals on their own volition.

an uncomfortable climate for students."Why is there an upsurge of unbridled

racism' on the campuses? It's a directresult of government policy, a productof. the "Reagan years" (Which beganunder racist Dixiecrat Jinlmy Carter), a.particUlarly vicious periodofattaf:ksonthe union.movemem and unleashing ofoopand Klan terror against miAOri&ies.A generation·that·s·beenforte-fedaBh­Soviet"Rambofl11lnia" is revved up tokill, kill. kill. Bu~ us, imperiatiSm·sinability to overcome the "Vietllamsyu­drome" and drag this country intoa realwar means tbat would-be LieutenantCaneys looking for blood are restrictedto the domestic front.

The working class, under sustainedattack from the bosses and the govern­ment, has a powerful objective interestin smashing these racist attacks. InMadison, the Wisconsin Association ofBlack State Employees has called forimmediate action to attack the "cancer"of "institutional racism that exists in'Wisconsin today." What's needed is for

Among those who died was at least onestation attendant as well as stationofficer Colin Townsley of Soho's "RedWatch" fire brigade, a 23-year veteranfirefighter. After hearing the screams ofpassengers trapped below, Townsleydecided to go down himself despiteordering his crew to get breathingapparatus first. For days Londonershave turned out to lay flowers for thosewho died, and particularly for ColinTownsley.

In her ghoulish tour of the disasterarea, Thatcher cynically praised thefiremen and other rescue workers. Thisis grotesque hypocrisy-Londonersshould probably consider themselvesfortunate that there were any firementhere at all, or hospitals to take the vic­tims to. Some 800 London firefighterjobs are to be cut, while UniversityCollege Hospital, a teaching hospitalwhere most of the emergency patientswere treated, is : slated for closing.Across the board, the Thatcher govern­ment's cutbacks have meant death anddestruction.

On November 13, the British satiricalmagazine Private Eye had sounded thealarm again over conditions in the Lon­don tube, citing the "vulgar policy oftarting up stations ... as a cosmetic exer­cise," and' warning, "the Underground

. system continues to degenerate as it isatrociouslyrmanaged, New. lifts andescalators fail to work, nothing isrepaired, stations get more and moresqualid." In the same issue, a sardonicpiece headlined "Channel Ferry ArrivesDrama" captured the quality ofThatch­er's Britain, crowing that"A cross chan­nel ferry, TheSpirit ofMoneyMaking,today arrived at its destination withoutany major disaster occurring."

students to ally with labor/black powerin united ciass-struggle action to crush.the racist thugs. As the Berkeley SYCleaflet noted in response to the "go italone" aUitudeof Ieaders ofthe At"rQnStudents Association in the recent pro­tests against resurgent racism:

"A speakeI' at the October 16 ASAFllIIysaid the black student's 'only ally i$yowself: ThiS is dead wrong. OutingIhe anti-apartheid protests.,. studentsapplauded wbm hundmfs of lugclybIad longshoremen, in olSCiplined for­mation and dressed in their Dnioltjaek­ets, attended a South Africa rally.Orpoiml at the pOint of produdio~the· working class bas the socitIl· powerto strikeat the hearto{thecapitalistsys­tern which bn:eds racial oppression....Putting the muscle of [the} integrated,organized. working class behind thefight for black freedom is key to the win­ning strategy of revolutionary integro­tionism-the assimilation ofbJacks intoan egalitarian socialist society-asopposed to the despairing program ofnationalist defeatism which shows noroad forward for struggle agaiost racistoppression .... The Spartaeus YouthClubseeks to win anti-racist militants to

This was a reference to the Herald ofFree Enterprise, the channel ferry whichcapsized last March outside Belgium'sZeebrugge harbour, killing some 134crew members and passengers. Theshipowner violated every known safetyregulation, routinely overloading andregularly leaving harbours with loadingdoors open to cut' turnaround times.And like the Titanic, to cut costs the shipwas constructed with no vertical bulk­heads, guaranteeing that it would sinkas soon as it took on water. Yet theThatcher government "inquiry" -scape­goated three crew members, refusing toprosecute the company on criminalcharges. The Free Enterprise's parentcompany, P&O, owns Bovis Ltd., one ofthe non-union contractors hired byLRT to make the underground's escala­tor department more "cost effective"!

The London tube fire and channelferry disaster are only the most recent ina series of deadly non-accidents. A yearago 45 oil riggers were killed when theirhelicopter crashed off the ShetlandIslands in the North Sea, the result ofknown design flaws and lack of main­tenance, as the oil magnates leechbillions in profits out of the blood of theworkforce. Imperialist decay interna­tionally and the decrepit state of Britishcapitalism .are directly reflected in thisseries of disasters as they privatise theprofits, "socialise" the losses and burythe victims of this inhuman system. LikeUnion Carbide at Bhopal, India, theirmain worry now is how big the insur­ance claims will be.

For the Thatcher government now tocall a "public inquiry" around King'sCross is like calling in the arsonist toinvestigate the fire. During the Falk­lands/ Malvinas war, the "Iron Lady"sank the Argentine cruiser GeneralBelgrano in an act of sheer vindictive·cruelty. Although the British war cabi­net knew the Belgrano was outside the"war zone" and heading back to port,hundreds of Argentine sailors were sentto an icy grave anyway. The British peo- .pie are now learning through bitterexperience that their lives as well arecheap in the eyes of Thatcher and herhenchmen.

The .Labour Party will moan aboutThatcher's massive budget cuts, andwag their fingers during question time inParliament. But from waving the UnionJack during the reactionary Falklands/Malvinas war to enacting their ownround of cutbacks, these fakers prop upBritish capitalism. The last Labour gov­ernment called out the troops againststriking firemen and ambulance work­ers. And Labour leader Neil Kinnockworked overtime to sabotage the pow­erful year-long miners strike of 1984-85.It will take workers revolution tq sweepaway the rotting edifice of Britishcapitalism and avenge the manifoldcrimes of mass murderer Thatcher andher whole criminal class.•

the side of the working class, to helpbuild the party necessary to lead asocialist revolution. The racist oppres­sion endemic to this society can beeradicated only by overthrowing thecapitalist syste'lllwhich breeds it. Smashracist attacks! Black liberation throughsocialist revolUtion!" •

Spar1acislleapePubllc·llllces

.-MARXISTUIERAlllR£­

Bay AreaFnurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m.• Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m.1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street)Oakland-. California Ptlone: t41S}839'-0&S1

CIIicqoTues.: S:<JO..'9·:00 p.m., Sat.: 11:00a.m.-2:oo p.m.'161 W. Harrison st. 10th FloorChicago. Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715

New Yofk CityTues.: 6:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m.41 Warren St. (one block belowChambers St. near Church st.)New York, N.Y. Phone: (212) 267-1025

WORKERS VANGUARD~ i','; \ ,; :: ,.t; .. - ) 1 ii ;

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Penguin Books

Trotsky doesn't need "rehabilitation"! American Trotskyists publishedtruth about Moscow Trials frame-up (left). Trotsky testifying in Mexicobefore 1937 Dewey Commission, which definitively exposed Stalin'smonstrous lies.

Trotsky...(continued from page 5)

revolution"? That policy of capitula­tion was rejected by Lenin in his famousApril Theses which reoriented the Bol­shevik Party toward. the seizure ofpower by the proletariat. And it was thispolicy which laid the basis for the uni­fication of Trotsky with Lenin and thegreat revolutionary eventsin which Sta­lin was not present. There is a new bookon this, by Robert Slusser, with theexpressive title: Stalin in October: TheMan Who Missed the Revolution.

Stalin's policy in March, of "critical"support to the bourgeois government,was later turned into the Menshevik­Stalinist "strategy" of "two-stage revo­lution." And in the Spanish Civil Warthis formula served as the justificationfor strangling the revolution. But be­tween Stalin's errors and his counter­revolutionary terror of the late 1930s,the so-called Yezhovshchina, there wasa whole evolution. Beginning with a ter­rible Civil War which devastated thecountry [Russia],' leaving the proletar­iat in ruins, having lost tens of thou­sands of its best fighters. In Europethere was the. defeat of the GermanRevolution of 1923, leaving SovietRussia isolated, deprived of the sup­port of victorious revolutions in theadvanced industrial countries. An anti­revolutionary policy was carried out asStalin, together with the so-calledTriumvirate and supported by abureaucracy in the process of.consoli­dation, usurped power. On 'the eve ofLenin's death, in January of 1924, a vir­tual coup d'etat was carried out in the13th Conference of the CommunistParty, manipulating the selection ofdel­egates so as to condemn Trotsky and theOpposition of the 46 with only threenegative votes. Soon the anti-socialistthesis of "socialism in one country" was

.discovered, something· even Stalin: wouldn't have dreamed of in 1917.

Breaking later with Zinoviev andKarnenev, with whom he sympathizedin October 1917, and then with Bukha­rin in 1928-29, the Stalin faction tookover. But that wasn't enough. In the

",n934 Conference of the CPS (J there was.wide sympathy for Kirov, party chief inLeningrad. Stalin had to eliminateanother rival, this time killing him, in amurder that, as Trotsky stated, theGPUhad to be aware of. They unleashed aterror not only against Trotsky and hisfamily, but also against Stalin's formerfaction partners. By now there wasnothing left of a workers party-it hadbecome simply the governing appara­tus of the bureaucracy: And then in theinfamous Moscow Trials they piled liesupon monstrous lies to justify the exter­mination of all that remained of theparty that had made the Revolution of1917. This was applauded by the imperi­alist press, such as the New York Times,and by numerous social-democraticand popular-frontist intellectuals. Thisbloodbath, among other things.decapi­tated the Red Army, contributing to thecollapse of the Western front in the firstdays after the Hitlerite invasion in 1941.And it led ultimately to the assassina­tion of Leon Trotsky, in this very house,on 20 August 1940.

These days there are people who are.demanding of Gorbachev the rehabil­itation of Trotsky. Emanating fromEngland there is a petition campaignwhich has collected the signatures ofwell-known personalities in.the LabourParty, and is pushed by various ostensi­bly Trotskyist tendencies; In fact, a CgU­

pie of days ago, after Gorbachev's anti­Trotskyist diatribe, they turned in apetition to the embassy of the USSRhere in Mexico. But Trotsky andthe OldBolsheviks don't need to be rehabilitat­ed. Already 50 years ago, the DeweyCommission definitively unmasked theMoscow Trials frame-ups, and eversince Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956nobody believes anymore that Trotsky

27 NOVEMBER 1987

was the agent ofthe Mikado, the Fuhrerand the King of England, nor that Bu­kharin, ZinovievIKamenev and Tukha­chevsky were Nazi spies. So that todaythe Stalinist slanders against Trotskyand the other Bolshevik leaders dis­credit the bureaucracy. And therefore,the Kremlin chiefs are seeking torehabilitate themselves.

Can the assassins rehabilitate theirvictims? Never! Calling on the Kremlinto "rehabilitate" Trotsky-who com­mitted no crime, and therefore doesn'tneed a pardon from his executioners­implies that the Great Purges were thecrazed acts of one lone man and not thework of a bureaucracy sitting atop thefoundations of a proletarian state, al­beit bureaucratically degenerated, andwhich can only keep its power and priv­ileges by means of lies. It also impliesa perspective of self-reform by thisbureaucracy, and abandoning thestruggle for an independent Leninist­Trotskyist leadership, the key element insweeping out the usurpers and return­ing Russia to' the road of October. Sta­lin exterminated the Bolshevik Old

Lenin and Trotsky,the leaders of the

1917 OctoberRevolution.

Guard, and in particular the TrotskyistLeft Opposition, for the same reason hedecapitated the Spanish Revolution­to carry out his program of classcollab­oration with the imperialist bourgeoisiethrough the so-called "Popular Front."And only by means of a tenacious strug­gle for the program of Lenin and Trot­sky can we put in their true place theheroes of the October Revolution.

What is happening in the SovietUnion today is highly contradictory. Onthe one hand, by means of perestroikathey are carrying out market-orientedeconomic reforms, thereby undermin­ing the planned economy which is one ofthe fundamental conquests of the Rev­olution. Internationally they are seek­ing to conciliate imperialism, hoping toobtain an "arms control" pact and moregenerally to achieve a modus vivendiwith imperialism. But at the same time,

~ and in part in order to make theeconomic restructuring digestible, theyhave undertaken a policy of glasnost,so-called openness, in order to give the

appearance, but not the reality, of a trueworkers democracy. This contradic­tory process doesn't represent a slowprocess of self-reform of the bureauc­racy.ibut rather the appearance of cen­trifugal forces and increasingly sharppolarization.. A genuine socialist re­newal in the land of the Bolshevik Rev­olution requires a proletarian politicalrevolution, restoring soviet democracy,reforging the economic plan in theinterests' of the working people, andtaking up again true proletarianinternationalism.

Stalin gave the planned economy abad name. And the market-orientedreforms go against the interests of theworkers. There have already been thefirst work stoppages-s-they don't dareuse the word "strike" yet-in the SovietUnion: truck workers in the Kamaz fac­tory, bus drivers in Chekhov near Mos­cow. There is justified resistance to apolicy which slashes wages and threat­ens to bring back unemployment. Theplanned economy, even in the brutalform it was implemented byStalin at thelast minute, has made it possible for the

USSR to make the gigantic leap from apeasant country to one of the greatindustrial and military powers of theworld in the space of a few decades. Ithas created an economy with jobs forall, with free education and medicalcare, where there may be food short­ages but not hunger, as in Latin Americatoday and even for 20 million Ameri­cans. Economic planning must be freedfrom bureaucratic distortions, to intro­duce centralized planning with sovietdemocracy.

The Soviet archives belong to theSoviet peoples-Open the historybooks! This is another fundamentaldemand of the political revolutionwhich is widely shared in the SovietUnion today. In contrast to what hap­pened in Poland some years ago with therise of Solidarnosc, a "union" for thePope, President Reagan and WallStreet, in the USSR the dominant ten­dency is to look for a return to Lenin. InAugust, there was a meeting in Moscowrepresenting hundreds of leftist circles:

among them a Che Guevara Brigade.Out of this meeting came a Federationof Socialist Clubs. And although its pro­gram is a mixture of elements taken.from the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks,the demand to open the archives, if it iscarried out, would provide the possibil­ity of seeing that in fact the policy notonly of Stalin. but also of his heirs,including Gorbachev himself, is not thatof the Bolsheviks of .Lenin's time. It'snot surprising, therefore, that there arerumors of the burning of large quanti­ties of archives. Instead of calling for"rehabilitation'; of Trotsky, we demandthat his works be published.

And finally, For the unconditionaldefense of the Soviet Union againstimperialism and internal counterrevo­lution! When the lid is lifted after sixdecades of total repression, you findeverything, including openly anti­Semitic and fascist groups, such asPamyat, or Memory, an associationwhich seeks to combine the worstaspects of the religious obscurantism ofthe Russian Orthodox Church togetherwith the excrescences of Stalinism,under the protection ofelements of thebureaucracy, including its highest lev­els. At the same time, the Soviet Unionfaces the relentless, insistent pressure ofimperialism which seeks to "roll back"revolutions from Nicaragua and Af­ghanistan to East Europe and the Soviet

. Union itself. Sacrificing the Nicara­guan Revolution, abandoning Afghan­istan to the mullahs financed and sup­plied by the CIA, on the altar of amythical detente with Yankee imperial­ism would bea blow against the defenseof the Soviet Union itself.

From Kabul, where the Muslim feu­dalists kill teachers for the "crime" ofteaching young girls to read, to Mana­gua, where Reagan's contras kill teach­ers, health workers and agrarian reformspecialists, defense of the USSR meansa militant defense of the conquestsalready made and their internationalextension.

I would like to end with a quote fromLeopold Trepper, a heroic Soviet spyand head of the Red Orchestra whichdid such valuable intelligence workunder the Nazi boot. They warned of theGerman invasion of. June 1941, al­though Stalin ignored it because hebelieved in his pact with Hitler. WhenTrepper was jailed by Stalin after theSecond World War, he wrote in hismemoirs:

"Who protested? The Trotskyites canlay claim to this honor ... they foughtStalinism to the death, and they werethe only ones who did, ...'Today, the Trotskyites have a right toaccuse those who once howled alongwith the wolves. Let them not forget,however, that they had the enormousadvantage over us of having a coherentpolitical system capable of replacingStalinism. They had something to clingto in.the midst oftheir profound distressat seeing the revolution betrayed. Theydid not 'confess,' for they knew thattheir confession would serve neither theparty nor socialism." .

Return to the road of Lenin andTrotsky!.

9

R~agan ... -(continued from page 1)

breath, but facing certain defeat· inCongress the administration withdrewits $270 million contra aid request. A taxincrease would only be enacted overhis "dead body, said Mr. Supply-SideEconomics, yet here he is negotiatingone with the Democrats. And afterpromising to give the liberals another

• "Supreme Court nominee they would. hate just as much, now he's nominat-

. ed "pragmatic conservative" Anthony.Kennedy. This is a dead duck adminis­tration which has been replaced by aDemocratic caretaker government. Butthe remnants of the Reagan gang arestill there, including the living corpse inthe Oval Office. .

The latest rumors are of a Thanks­giving pardon by Reagan of the keymembers of the National SecurityCouncil junta, including North andPoindexter. But what about Ed Meese,currently under investigation by twogrand juries? As the nation's premiergonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompsonwrote, "In a generation of swine, EdMeese from Oakland has somehowemerged as the boss pig" (San FranciscoExaminer, 16November). A pardon fOFthe nation's "top cop"-even Nixonwould've had trouble with that! Squirmas they might, they're in"deep doo-doo"(in the memorable phrase. of GeorgeBush).

With the American public consis­tently and decidedly opposed to anyU.S. military intervention in Central

America (witness the inventory ofunsold Ollie North dolls stacked up inwarehouses), the Democrats decidedthey had better do something to im­plement the Arias "peace" plan beforeReagan hamhandedly provoked a rev­olutionary upsurge throughout theCentral American tinderbox. So whileReagan and Secretary of State GeorgeShultz look on, House DemocraticSpeaker Jim Wright, has been engagedin his own version of shuttle diplomacy.He helped Daniel Ortega craft an 11­point cease-fire proposal, then broughtthe Sandinista leader and the contra car­dinal Obando y Bravo together in thepapal nunciatura to discuss it. OneRepublican Senator complained thatWright's actions, making an end run

around the White House and sidestep­ping the State Department, were "atbest unseemly and at worst unconstitu­tional" (Time, 23 November). But out­side the White House, nobody caredvery much about the constitutionality ofit all., Meanwhile the Democrats are work­ing feverishly to outdo the Reaganiteson the need for austerity in the after­math of the Wall Street crash. The oldNew Deal politics of "guns and butter"has given way to more guns and no but-­ter. But once again they have the Amer­ican population to reckon with. Theanti-Soviet war drive has beenbiparti­san policy from the start, but it has nevercaught on with the electorate, despite allthe Rambo hype. American military

intervention in Nicaragua has been con­sistently opposed by two-thirds of thepopulation, not even one American inten is for a tax increase, and the vastmajority oppose the reactionary "socialagenda" of the immoral minority in andaround the White House.

For six years, the Reagan adminis­tration lorded it over the unions, blacks,women, gays, immigrants, the aged­all the vast majority of the Americanpeople these deeply ingrained racistreactionaries so contemptuously dis­miss as "special interests." As long asthe givebacks flowed and the DowJones rose, the bourgeoisie turned ablind eye to the pervasive corruptionand incompetence of the Reagan gang.Now when they're in trouble, it'shigh time for the multimillion victims ofReagan reaction to turn the tables. Asthe Spartacist League noted in ourrecent conference document, "TowardRevolutionary Conjuncture" (adoptedSeptember 1987):

"The grotesque self-destruction of thisrabidly right-wing regime will doubt­less encourage workers to resist give­back unionism and blacks to resist rac­ist attacks. However, the present periodof a crippled right-wing government isnecessarily transient, while the Dem­ocrats and their labor lieutenants willwork overtime to channel opposition to'Reaganism' into electoralism from nowthrough November 1988. Our perspec­tive is mobilizing the victims of the Rea­gan regime-centrally the organizedworkers movement and the black andHispanic poor-against bourgeois reac­tion at its base while the upper echelonsof the government are in some disarrayand the right is demoralized."

Forge a fighting workers party to bringdown Reagan and the Democratsig r

SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORYNational Office:

Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116(212) 732-7860

WnAICI=A!Cl VANt':IIAAn

sent telegrams of protest. A letter fromthe Partisan Defense Committee con­demned Daley for charging "the vic­tims of this brutal attack with assault"and demanded all charges be dropped.

Seay didn't face Chicago's racistcourts alone because transit workersdemanded their union come to herdefense. Scores of ATV members inLocals 241 and 308 signed-a motion put'forward by militants in the union, call­ing for integrated working-class power

"to stop this racist frame-up. As a resultof this pressure from the ranks, bothlocals posted a call throughout the cityfor members to show up today.

The efforts of black women bus driv­ers were key in bringing out transitworkers for' the trial. Two days beforethe courthouse mobilization, workers'met to build for the defense at the GentlePersuasion, a popular South Side-lounge, Among those present werewomen drivers who led the successfulstruggle to smash the racist frame-up ofbus driver David Johnson in 1985.Kevin QUirk, one of the transit mil­itants who initiated today's union mobi­lization, pointed to the Johnson defenseas the kind of labor/black power that'sneeded to bust the bosses' anti-labor,racist' offensive. Breckenridge alsospoke, recalling that in 1965 it tookmass action to free his wife from a

WV PhotoDefend the Seay familyl From left: Cassandra's sons D'artagnan and David,her mother Callie Bryant, Cassandra and daughter Wendy.

lization, "I think really what did it wasthat there was a multiracial group thereshowing support. I think that had moreimpact than just the people themselves,"

From the San Francisco Bay Area,119 members of Transport WorkersUnion (TWU) Local 250-A at MUNItransit sent state's attorney RichardDaley a telegram protesting the legallynching of Seay. Trade unionists in fiveother Bay Area unions followed suit,including IBEW, ILWU, UAW andCWA members. In New York, one hun­dred TWU Local 100 subway workerssent a protest to Daley, as did ATUmembers and officials in Atlanta andPhiladelphia who were outraged at theattack on their sister and her family.UAW Local 719, at the GM Electro­motive Division plant outside Chicago, .wired a protest, and the president ofAFSCME Local 100, representingCleveland city employees, fired off anangry letter.

From Britain, there Were protestsfrom 35 bus drivers in Sheffield and 42trade unionists in London Transport,demanding the charges be dropped.They noted that "We in Britain are alltoo familiar with police victimisation ofthe minority black, Asian and Irishcommunities," Both the Bay AreaLabor Black League and the New YorkLabor Black League for Social Defense

New YorkBox 444, Canal S1. Sta.New York, NY 10013(212) 267-1025

NorfolkBox,1972, Main PONorfolk, VA 23501

OaklandBox 32552Oakland. 'CA 94604(415) 839-'0851

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

Washington, D.C.Box 75073Washington, D.C. 20013(202) 6~6-3537

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

Support Pours In for Cassandra

Already the Cassandra Seay case hasattracted wide labor support. Tele­grams have poured in from unionsaround the U.S., and even from Britain.As Callie Bryant said of today's mobi-

applause greeted Cassandra Seay whenshe emerged from the courtroom. OneATU member said, -irn be bigger nexttime-let's bring 1,000 people!" In ashort sidewalk rally, Jackie Brecken­ridge told Cassandra's supporters, "Onthe 22nd, we have to be back here, sothat means bring as many people inuniforms as you can, and your friendsand your family!" Supporters collectedmoney to continue the campaign-over$500 was pledged.

The turnout today was a powerfulshow of support. But the masters of theChicago "injustice" system think theycan slip this frame-up through atChristmastime. The Spartacist Leaguecalls on Chicago labor and blacks to .mobilize on December 22 to bury thisracist outrage for good!

DetroitBox 441794Detroit, MI 48244

IthacaBox 6767Ithaca. NY 14850

Los AngelesBox 29574, Los Feliz Sta.Los Angeles. CA 90029(213) 380-8239

MadisonBox 2074Madison, WI 53701(608)251-6431

TROTSKYIST LEAGUEOF CANADA

AtlantaBox 4012Atlanta, GA 30302

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

ChicagoBox 6441, Main POChicago, IL 60680(312) 663-0715

ClevelandBox 91037Cleveland, OH 44101(216) 881-3700

Chicago...(continued from page 12)

Among those present were 16executiveboard members from Cassandra's ownLocal 241, as well as ATV Interna­tional vice president Jackie Brecken­ridge. When Seay and Bryant ap­proached the bench with their attorneyLoraine Ray, the transit unionistsstaged a powerful silent show of soli­darity inside the courtroom, as every­one stood up. Cassandra later told WV,"When I turned around and saw every­body standing there, I couldn't believeit. It was really an exciting moment."One of the cops in the courtroom whocarried out the' attack on Cassandraturned beet red. Callie Bryant re­marked, "They weren't wearing smirksthis time."

Judge Leo Holt ordered a continu­ance in the case to December 22; afterthe prosecutor announced that. not alltheir witnesses (i.e., the cops) werepresent. An enthusiastic round of

LOWER EAST SIDE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SCHOOL203 RIVINGTON STREET

NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10002(212) 420-0505

PRESS RELEAS£We are reporting a violent in­

cident which contradicted thedemocratic principles of estab­lishing justice and promoting thewelfare of American children.

The principal and a 12 year oldstudent of the Lower East SideInternational Community Schoolwere arrested November 6, 1987.

Five police officers and twodetectives from the local 7th Pre­cinct insisted on entering theschool to arrest a minor aged stu­dent who allegedly assaulted and,robbed three male students afterschool hours in the streets on theprevious. day. When the principalrefused their entrance citing hetconstitutional rights and respon­sibility to protect the students inthe school who are minors, shewas' beaten, handcuffed andforcibly removed from the schoolpremises. These officers andplainclothesmen detectives pro-

ceeded to enter the buildmg insearch of the minor aged allegedperpetrator.

Approximately 30, or morepolice officers invaded the build­ing using terrorist tactics withoutrecognizing the teaching staff,went from class to Class, subse­quently arresting a twelve--yearold girl, handcuff'mg her andforcibly removing her from theschool and taking her to the 7thPrecinct jan.

Justice must be administered inthis uncalled violent, traumaticdisruption of this school withminor aged students. Parentsconfidence must be restored thatthe principal of LESICS or anyother school will not be pre­vented from fulfilling the admin­istrator's responsibility to pro­tect the rights and welfare of ourchildren entrusted to the school'scare.

WV PhotoCourageol,.ls LESICS school principal Wallie Simpson was beaten andseized by racist NYPO for defending her students. LESICS issued a pressrelease (left) on November 16 and marched on City Hall the next day toprotest cop terror. ~

NYC School ...(continued from page 12)

the building, she was arrested, hand­cuffed, and dragged by her hair intoa police car and then jailed for 40minutes without any charges beingfiled. A 12-year-old girl, accused offighting and stealing belongings ofboys at a neighboring school, washauled out of her classroom and cart­ed off to jail as classmates looked onin horror.

At a press conference November 16,parents and students denounced thepolice invasion of their school. MaeMcGill, who has three children attend­ing LESICS, said angrily: "we have ourprincipal beaten, teachers threatened,and our children frightened out of theirwits-afraid to go to school for fear that'those men with guns and clubs mightcome back'." Another parent, RonGibbs, stated: "We are deeply angeredand outraged over the physical abuseand psychological rape which was com-

mitted against our principal and ourchildren in this institution. We are sickand tired of this Rambo type of policeactivity .... ·In South Africa you havelegalized Rambo police raids. Enough isenough." PTA head Helene Lumumbaasked, "Who do we complain to? Cer­tainly not the police."

The children were terrified. Eleven­year-old Faraji Boddie described how auniformed cop barged into his sixth­grade classroom' without knocking, asa boy pointed out two girls who werethen taken away without explanation."Everyone in the class was scaredbecause we didn't know why they werethere. if one of us would be calledout next•.or where they were takingthe girls and why." Faraji's brotherFadaiba was chased by four cops.Genard Howard was walking down thehall when three cops came up to him."One of them grabbed me by the collar.A second policeman pulled me awayfrom the first policeman and he threwme up against the wall. He said. 'get outof the way: My back was hurt. I was

scared because I thought they wouldcontinue to hurt me:'

To underscore the police racism, afterthe November 16 press conference,Kenyan long-distance runner IbrahimHussein was surrounded by cops anddetectives who wouldn't let him leavethe school. demanding to know hisitinerary. Hussein recently won the NewYork marathon, the first black ever todo so. and had come to greet the kids atLESICS as part of a citywide tour. Butwhile he has received a hero's welcome'from black New York, ABC-TV refusedto show him crossing the finish line!

At the November 17 City Hall dem­onstration, LESICS principal Simpsoninsisted that parents and children."mustfeel secure and know that at any givenmoment outside forces cannot come inand disrupt the school." Noted blackattorney C. Vernon Mason called forthe firing of all those responsible for thecop riot, all the way up to-Koch's blackpolice commissioner Benjamin Ward,saying: "No more invasiortsvof ourschools. No more Howard Beaches."

Mason, himself a target of cop harass­ment for defending the surviving vic­tims of that racist lynching, has beenretained as legal counsel for the schooland a civil suit is expected to be filedshortly.

In a city where the public schools havebeen turned into segregated prisons,Wallie Simpson stressed to WV thatLESICS has offered children a fullrange of courses including five foreignlanguages from French to Japanese andSwahili, and a culturally diverse curric­ulum. Taking their cue from racist pigmayor Koch, the cops figured theycould ride roughshod over the school,from the principal down to pre­kindergarten tots. But the parents whosend their kids to LESICS care toomuch about their children to take thislying down. Mae McGill vowed that"We, the parents, teachers and con­cerned citizens will not let these acts gounpunished and we will not be brushedaside." Stand with the LESICS stu­dents, their teachers and parents-Keepthe cops out of our schools! •

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League

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gan, against the rulers of this country,against their racist police and courtswhich uphold the whole system of cap­italist oppression." Chicago labor: Fightracist cop terror! All out for CassandraSeay on December 22!

We urge WV readers to contribute tothe defense of the Seay family. Checksshould be made out to: Cassandra Seayand Callie Bryant, c/o Loraine Ray,Attorney at Law, 1120 W. Belmont,Chicago, IL 60657.•

441

Melte checkl payable/mall to: Spartaellt Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 1011.6

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Address _

and ghetto poor into a powerful move­ment against capitalist oppression.

As ATU Local 241 militant KevinQuirk said: "For seven long years nowwe've seen Reagan and the racist rulingclass in this country beating down thejust struggles of working people andminorities in this country much in thesame way that those vicious, racist copskicked and beat Cassandra and hermother last July 21. What we need todayis for labor to fight back against Rea-

. which can lead black and working peo-ple to victory. .

The wave of terror by the nightridersin ·blue against working people andghetto poor has emboldened the Klanand Nazi scum. Even as Local 308 wasvoting on November 10 to mobilize forthe trial; a gang of Nazi trash evokedHitler's Kristallnaeht, shattering storewindows and painting swastikas in aNorth Side Jewish. neighborhood.When labor/black Chicago smashes theracist frame-up against Cassandra. itwill be a victory for all thevictims of copand fascist terror in Chicago.

The Seay case has struck a deepchord. After years of Reagan reaction,the cowboy in the White House is now astumbling loser. serving out his termonly because he is propped up by 'theDemocrats. Transit workers and otherunionists who have had giveback con­tracts and mass layoffs shoved downtheir throats by the union tops and their"friend of labor" Democrats now see achance to win-for Cassandra, herfamily and for all working people.What's necessary to reverse theseattacks is hard-hitting. integrated classstruggle. The heavily black and His­panic ATV locals. along with otherintegrated unions like the teachers, arestrategically placed mass organizationscapable of welding the working class.

Smash Racist Terror inSegregation City

Workers' solidarity with Cassandraand her family is fueled'by deep anger atyears of racist cop and Klan terror inSegregation City USA. Installing blackDemocratic Party mayor Harold Wash­ington has done nothing to stop. thenight riders in white sheets or blueuniforms. Washington was put in toderail struggles by black and workingpeople, to shove the bipartisan auster­ity budget down their throats. Himself atarget of the Klan/Nazi terrorists andhated by the notoriously racist Chicagocops, Washington betrays black Chica­go as part of the racist, anti-labor Dem­ocratic Party. The fight against cop andKlan terror must be part of the fight toforge a class-struggle workers party,

Ku Klux Klan kidnapping. 'In the days before the trial, more than

300 Chicago transit workers boughtcopies of the latest Workers Vanguard,with the back-page article "ChicagoLabor Must Fight Racist Cop Terror!"In some bus barns drivers posted WVonbulletin boards alongside the officialunion call. At the Limits garage oneunion member wrote next to the mast­head: "Try to be there. This could hap­pen to our family. She along with her

. family needs our support."

27 NOVEMBER 1987 11

WfJliliEIiS ""'O'IiD.Chicago Transit Workers Protest Racist Cop Frame-Up

een assan" raCHICAGO, November 24-Seventytransit unionists and their supporterspacked the courtroom and spilled intothe halls of Cook County Circuit Courtthis morning, determined to stop theracist frame-up of black bus driverCassandra Seay, her mother CallieBryant and her two sons. Victims of avicious beating by seven cops whoinvaded their home last July 21, Seayand her family now face trumped-upcharges, including assault on a policeofficer, with possible sentences of upto 15 years in prison.

As Cassandra and her family arrivedat the courthouse, they were greetedby members of Amalgamated TransitUnion (ATU) Locals 241 (bus) and 308(rail), chanting, "Free Cassandra Seay!Drop the Charges Now!" The transitmilitants carried signs reading "OldRope, New Tree-Stop the Frame-Up!""Drop the Charges Against Cassandraand Her Family!" and "How Long DoesIt Take for the Madness to End?" Be­fore entering the courtroom Cassandrathanked her supporters and gave a shortinterview to the press including three TVstations and the Chicago Defender.

The fifth floor courtroom wasjammed with ATU members, most ofthem black, dressed in Chicago transitAuthority uniforms or union jackets.Many waited in the hallway, unable tofind even standing room in the aisles.

continued on page 10

. WV Photo

Cassandra Seay (center) and her mother, Callie Bryant (in hat), surrounded by supporters from Chicago transitunions outside courthouse, November 24.

Princip-al Seized" Children Terrorized, ,

COPS Invade NYC SchoolA lot of New Yorkers are outraged

over a blatant act of police terror againstthe children and principal of the LowerEast Side International CommunitySchool (LESICS) in Manhattan. OnNovember 17,almost 100out of the 160students at LESICS, accompanied byparents and school principal WallieSimpson, marched from the school toCity Hall where they sat on the stepschanting, "We want education, stoppolice invasion!" and "Up with educa­tion, down with-Koch!" We call on NYClabor and minorities to join ,them inprotesting the racist cop riot which lefttheir school in an uproar and the youngstudents traumatized.

On the morning ofFriday, Novem­ber 6, some 30 cops rampaged throughthe small private school, whosepredominantly working-class studentpopulation of pre-kindergarteners toeighth-graders is 90 percent black. Stu­dents were chased and pulled out ofclassrooms without explanation; onestudent was slammed against a wall.When principal Simpson attempted .toconsult the school's attorney before ad­mitting a contingent of armed cops into

continued on page 11

12

The latest victims of NYC cop terror-defenseless minority schoolchildren terrorized in their classrooms. wv Photo

27 NOVEMBER 1987