WfJliKEliS ,,IN'IJ,I,, 25¢No. 358 6 July 19.84

Toledo, Las Vegas, St. Croix, Arizona Mines­Cla~s Battles Flare in Reagan's America

•DIODS

air controllers. Not a peep from theDemocrats: this was bipartisan union­busting. And the Machinists, Teamstersand pilots unions who could have shutdown the airports didn't-i-including thelAM's Winpisinger, who calls himself a"seat-of-the-pants socialist," presurna­blv because all he does is sit on hishands.

As recently as last December, Grey­hound demanded and got a hugeSI3,000-per-worker wage and benefitscut as transport union leaders threw inthe towel after four weeks on strike.The company recruited hundreds ofscabs and ran down strikers fromBoston to Seattle, killing striker RayPhillips in Ohio. A few weeks later therewas another labor martyr on the WestCoast, Greg Goobic, run over by aUnion Oil scab. Meanwhile the cops aregoing at it hot and heavy: more than 700unionists were arrested during the two­month Las Vegas hotel strike. And inthe year-old Arizona copper strikeagainst Phelps Dodge, the Democraticgovernor has twice mobilized theNational Guard, tanks and all, againstthe strikers.

Labor is under the gun legally as well.The Reaganite NLRB and SupremeCourt have issued a string of decisionsallowing companies to set up non-union"runaway shops" at will, harass workerswith impunity for union activity, andthrow contracts out the window simplyby filing for "reorganization" under thebankruptcy laws. Continental Airlinesused this ploy to declare a 50 percentwage cut, provoke a strike and then firethe strikers. Now the company is suing

continued on page 7

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gain after another. Under Carter, inexchange for Congress bailing outChrysler and a seat for himself on theboard of directors, UAW leader Fraserstole $5 billion from auto workers'pockets to put in the coffers of the Big 3.With labor caving in, Reagan wentfurther and outright destroyed thePATCO union, summarily firing 10,000

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Philadelphia Teamsters came out to defend Greyhound workers againstunion-busting last winter. We say: No More Greyhounds or PATCOs!

from the domestic consequences oftoday's "Cold War II." Yet now is thetime that resolute struggle could winsome victories for working people, for achange.

When the economic crisis first hit, thecompanies turned to the labor "states­men" who dutifully agreed to rip uptheir contracts, giving back one union

Break Withthe Democrats­

Build aWorkers Party!

Last year, profits of American busi­nesses soared almost 40 percent, whilewages for unionized workers went uponly 2.6 percent. These were the abso­lute lowest labor settlements on record,for the first time even less than whatnon-unionized workers got. And wheninflation is added in, it amounts to anactual wage cut. This was the balancesheet of the uniop misleaders' policy of"sharing the sacrifices" of the depres­sion: the bosses get the money and theworkers get the shaft. Now, however,there's an upturn and workers are readyto fight. With the greedy corporationsstill pushing for union-busting, a giantcontradiction is created, rather like twolocomotives heading toward each otheron the same track. Even the Wall StreetJournal is worried, saying 1984 will be a"year of reckoning."

The anti-Soviet war drive abroadmeans war against workers and the op­pressed at home. From the M X missileto Cold War politics over the Olympics,Reagan is only implementing whatDemocrats Carter and Mondale initiat­ed. And precisely because it is tied to theDemocratic Party, the present trade­union bureaucracy, forged in theMcCarthyite period, is utterly incapableof defending the workers and their allies

Phelgs Dodge Strikers Stand Off Co~ Assault

It's War in Arizona Mining TownEyewitness

ReportCLIFTON, Arizona, July 1~ln avicious, premeditated and organizedassault, the Arizona "Department ofPublic Safety" (state police) turned thismining town into a war zone, brutallyattacking copper strikers and their

supporters, including women and chil­dren, who were peacefully gatheringafter a labor rally yesterday. Tear gascannisters littered the area and woodenbullets flew as DPS cops pushed thedemonstra tors back from U.S. Highway666; the miners responded by grabbingrocks and shouting angry curses at theforces of "law and order" who wantonlybrutalized the participants at the rally.After the three-hour tear gas barrage.the state police pulled back and the

strikers took over the highway, erectingbarricades of tires, debris and railroadties which burned far into the night.

The June 30 protest marked the one­year anniversary of the bitter copperstrike against the Phelps Dodge Corpo­ration's attempt to ram through a sweep­ing "giveback" contract and bust the13 copper unions at its mines and smelt­ers in Morenci, Ajo and Douglas in Ari­zona and El Paso, Texas. Repeatedly

continued on page 4

UPITwenty strikers arrested in brutalcop attack.

Letter

Oppose Bosses' ControlOver Union Dues!

Iowa City, Iowa15 April 1984

Comrades,

In recent issues of WV you reportedthat the S L-supported caucus in theNew York City transit union has comebut against dues checkoff. In doing thisthey have come out in agreement withright-wing anti-union-the so-calledright-to-work-forces. I belong to aunion which made the transition fromhand collection of dues to checkoffwhile I was a member, albeit many yearsago. Therefore I am aware of the prosand cons of the discussion. The argu­ment about having more stewardcontact has validity, but the point aboutgiving management control of unionfunds does not strike me as valid.Granted on any given month they could,but then hand collection could be used,and the ranks roused to the attack onthem. Once handed over, the funds arethe union's. Hand collection reducesstewards to dues collectors in somecases, and creates alienation. The nextlogical step is to outlaw the union shop.Even if that isn't done, the financial baseof a union, strike fund and all, will beseriously undermined. Dues checkoff isan often fought for aspect of union '.recognition, and in spite of somenegative things, some of which youmentioned, it makes for a more stableunion. I know that Marxists willsometimes find themselves with posi­tions which are similar to the capitalistand petty-bourgeois right (gun control,

for example). When this happens weshould double-check our reasons, andanalyze theirs, but it does happen. WhileI realize that the call for or against adues checkoff is a tactical question­you are certainly not coming out againstworkers organizing-I think that thetransit caucus has made a mistake inadopting this stand. It doesn't justattack the bureaucrats as intended, butwould hurt the whole union andworkers' organizing. It also leaves themopen to believable charges of crawling inbed with the worst anti-union groups,real enemies of the working class. I hopethat they will reconsider this position.Real working-class leaders don't have tobe afraid to admit a mistake, and in thelong run, if handled honestly, they willprobably emerge the better for it.

In solidarity,Loren Schutt

WV replies: We do indeed agree with theviewpoint of the Committee for afighting TWU, namely: "The duescheckoff makes our union leaders lazyand dependent on [New York transitboss] Kiley. Making the bosses ourbankers means entrusting the duesstructure to our enemy and ensuring wewon't have it when we need it most. Wemust immediately institute a system ofelected shop stewards responsible fordues collection!" (from CFTWU leaflet,"Stop Kiley's Union-Busting!", reprint­ed in WV No. 350, 16 March).

Accepting "management control ofunion funds" assumes class peace inwhich the union does not fight manage­ment. It is worth noting that the duescheckoff was "won" by the TransportWorkers Union tops in 1948 in theaftermath of passage of the witchhunt­ing anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act, and aspart of the red purge in New York Citytransit. L. H. Whittemore's biography ofMike Quill, The Man Who Ran theSubways (New York, 1968), lays outstarkly how this measure was proposedby the bosses in order to strengthen theTWU bureaucracy against the militants:

"Mayor O'Dwyer nodded his approvalof this logic and inquired if Quill coulduse a dues checkoff by which the Boardof Transportation would collect duesfrom employees' pay checks. Thiswould be a way of obtaining solid rank­and-file support against the Reds at theconvention later in the year. Mikesimply replied. 'A checkoff wouldn'thurt.'·"O.K .. you've got it: returned O'Dwy­er. and the shortest labor negotiation inhistory was finished."

The dues checkoff is an instrument offinancial blackmail. This was demon­strated in the 1980 NYC transit strikewhen it was taken away from the TWU,thereby financially crippling the unionin the very heat of battle. Of course, theunion could and did organize handcollection, but to do this only in themiddle of a strike was at the very leastdisruptive. The checkoff was laterrestored after six months for thebureaucrats' "cooperation over produc­tivity," i.e., selling out work and safetystandards. Dues collection by electedstewards serves to make the unionleadership financially as well as politi­cally accountable to the membershipand prepares the union for combat.

Dues collection alienates a union

membership when they get nothing fortheir money except an overpaid laborbureaucracy who act as companyagents. This is exacerbated when thebosses collect the dues for the bureau­crats. Of course. we defend the duescheckoff against anti-labor assaults likethe Taylor Law penalties leveled againstthe TWU for the 1980 strike. In theaftermath of the sellout of that strikewhich left the membership payingmassive fines, some TWU membersrefused to pay dues. We oppose such"dues protests" which only furthercripple the union, and insist thatmembers pay their dues while fightingfor a class-struggle leadership that givesthem something for their hard-earnedmoney.

The dues checkoff is a classic exampleof the tendency for trade unions in theabsence of a revolutionary leadership toturn into appendages of the bourgeoisstate, reflecting the sellout labor bu­reaucracy's desire to live in "harmony"with the class enemy. It is of a piece withthe various "labor courts," boards andcapitalist labor legislation generally,which these fakers always count on.And it is particularly true for the duescheckoff in NYC transit where the bossand union treasurer is the state itself.While favoring all legal proceedingsdefending the interests of the workingclass, we oppose all capitalist labor lawsas instruments to subordinate theworkers movement to the capitaliststate. As Leon Trotsky emphasized inhis 1940 notes, 'Trade Unions in theEpoch of Imperialist Decay," theprimary slogan to turn the unions intoinstruments of class struggle is the"complete and unconditional inde­pendence ofthe trade unions in relationto the capitalist state.".

WfJIINEIiS ',N'II,II'

Protest HitsRacist Murder of

Australian Aborigine

LENIN

Forge a Class-StruggleWorkers Party to Win!

Locked into class war with the bourgeoi­sie that is master or wealth and politicalpower. workers need their own' party toconquer state power and expropriate thebourgeoisie. Addressing this need. Ameri­ca's founding Trotskyist leader James P.Cannon wrote regarding the turbulentstruggles or the 1930s:

TROTSKY

Much has been said about the "backwardness" of the American working class as ajustification for a pessimisticoutlook, the postponement of the socialist revolution toa remote future, and withdrawal from the struggle. This is a very superficial view ofthe American workers and their prospects.

It is true that this class, in many respects the most advanced and progressive in theworld, has not yet taken the road of independent political action on a mass scale. Butthis weakness can be swiftly overcorne.. ..

In one leap-in a brief decade-the American workers attained trade unionconsciousness on a higher plane and with mightier organizations than in any otheradvanced country. In the study and analysis of this great transformation, rather thanin vapid ruminations over the "backwardness" of the American workers, one can findthe key to prospective futureQ1:yeJopments. Under the impact of great events andpressing necessities the American workers will advance beyond the limits of tradeunionism and acquire political class consciousness and organization in a similarsweeping movement. .

-James P. Cannon, "Theses on the American Revolution" (1946)

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartaclst League of the U.S.EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Noah Wilner

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Noah Wilner

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Darlene Kamiura

EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule, George Foster. Liz Gordon, James Robertson. Reuben Samuels.Joseph Seymour. Marjorie Stamberg (Closing editor for No. 358: Liz Gordon)Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, skipping an issue in August and a week in December, bythe 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: $5.00/24issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard,Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.

Opinions expressed in signed articles or Jetters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.

No. 358 6 July 1984

SYDNEY, Australia-Over 50 demonstrators protested on June 1against theWestern Australia Supreme Court's outrageous acquittal of five cops whomurdered John Pat, a 17-year-old black Aboriginal youth beaten and kickedto death last September in Roebourne. The protest, initiated by blacks inWollongongand built jointly with the Spartacist League of Australia andNew Zealand, demanded "Avenge the Murder of John Pat!" and "Drop theCharges Against Roebourne Blacks!" An, SLjANZ spokesman stressed theneed to link justice for the embattled and marginalised Aboriginal populationto a fighting labour movement and a party to sweep away the racist rulingclass which opposesAsian immigration and Aboriginal land rights, and calledto "establish a planned economy throughout this whole region where blacks,Asians and white people can live together in security and dignity."

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

Defend the Vietnamese Revolution!

China Spearheads U.S. AggressionAgainst Vietnam

SPARTACIST LEAGUE/ U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORYNational Office Cleveland New YorkBox 1377. GPO Box 91954 Box 444New York. NY 10116 Cleveland. OH 44101 Canal Street Station(212) 732-7860 (216) 621-5138 New York. NY 10013

(212) 267-1025Ann Arbor

Norfolkc/o SYL DetroitP.O. Box 8364 Box 32717 Box 1972. Main P.O.

Ann Arbor. MI 48107 Detroit. MI 48232 Norfolk. VA 23501

(313) 961-1680 OaklandAtlanta P.O. Box 32552Box 4012 Oakland. CA 94604Atlanta. GA 30302 Los Angeles (415) 835-1535

Box 29574Boston Los Feliz Station San FranciscoBox 840. Central Station Los Angeles. CA 90029 Box 5712Cambridge. MA 02139 (213) 384-9716 San Francisco. CA 94101(617) 492-3928 (415) 863-6963

Chicago Madison Washington, D.C.Box 6441. Main P.O. c/o SYL P.O. Box 75073Chicago. IL 60680 Box 2074 Washington. D.C. 20013(312) 663-0719 Madison. WI 53701 (202) 636-3537

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE·OF CANADA

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

Defense of the Vietnamese Revolu­tion against U.S./Chinese aggressionrequires not only military capacity andresoluteness, of which the Vietnameseare past masters, but a political coun­terattack as well. A revolutionaryinternationalist government in Hanoiwould appeal to Chinese workers,.peasants and soldiers, and to the ranksand cadre of the Chinese CommunistParty, to rebel against their rulers'obscene alliance with Reagan and thePentagon. The danger of China'scounterrevolutionary anti-Soviet ag­gression will not end until revolutionaryChinese workers drive the Maoist/Stalinist bureaucracy out of the Forbid­den City, until the long-suppressedlegacy' of Chinese Trotskyism and thefounders of Chinese Marxism is revivedto guide the Chinese working class instruggle for the norms of authenticsocialist internationalism.

Key to turning the Chinese massesagainst the Peking accomplices of U.S.imperialism must be exemplary defenseof the rights of the once large ethnicChinese (Hoa) community within Viet­nam itself. This Chinese community,with a relatively high cultural level andpotentially a valuable human resourcefor economic reconstruction. couldhave become a key transmission belt ofinternationalist values into China itself.Yet in recent years more than a quartermillion Hoa-both the petty capitalistmerchants of Cholon and the skilledartisans of the North-were forced toflee from Vietnam to China. TheLondon Sunday Times (10 June) re­ports that during the recent fightingsome of these ethnic Chinese refugees"were accused in Vietnam of being fifth­columnists."

Viewing the world through national­ist blinders, the Hanoi regime oftenfocuses on China, more than U.S.

continued on page 11

Defend Vietnam ThroughProletarian Internationalism! .

arms, consuming rather than produc­ing. Given the devastation of continualwar, it is a remarkablefeat that last yearVietnam managed to achieve self­sufficiency in food production for thefirst time since the fall of Saigon.

remarkable recovery" (Far EasternEconomic Review, 17 March 1983).

It should also be recognized that theVietnamese people are making greatsacrifices to aid Kampuchea. Vietnam isa nation that has been at war for 40years-against the Japanese, the Frenchand then the Americans. Nor did thewar end for the Vietnamese people withthe fall of Saigon in 1975. Therefollowed a bloody border war with thePol Pot anti-Vietnamese chauvinists,the 1979 Chinese invasion and repeatedattacks by China and Thailand since.Vietnam today is one of the poorestnations on earth, still ravaged by dec­ades of imperialist mass destruction.To defend. Indochina, half a millionyoung Vietnamese must be kept under

Pot's gruesome "Democratic Kampu­chea." The Cambodian people haveclearly welcomed the Vietnamese pres­ence which has brought them food,schools, hospitals, libraries: physicalsurvival and the beginnings of economicand social reconstruction. Even aformer U.S. ambassador to Cambodia,Emory Swank, recognized that "theVietnamese, who occupied a totallydisorganised, almost destitute land,have provided assistance of all sorts....Practically starting from scratch, Cam­bodia has made an astonishing and

Bowie/Time

Heroic Vietnamese soldiers defeated French and American imperialism, nowresist U.S.-orchestrated attacks by China and Thailand.

reconnaissance information about theSoviet Union and Vietnamese forces inKampuchea. It also projected that "afterthe election" Reagan will probably giveChina AWACS spy planes and the U.S.'top-of-the-line fighter plane, the F-16A.

The alliance between Reagan'sAmerica and the Peking Stalinists is aterrible danger not only to the SovietUnion and Vietnam but also to theChinese people themselves, to the socialconquests of the 1949 Chinese Revolu­tion. Defense of the gains of the ChineseRevolution is inseparable from themilitary defense of the Soviet Union,which stands as the principal obstacle toimperialism's global ambitions.

Hail the Rebirth of Kampuchea!

According to the Vietnamese, China'slatest attacks are the heaviest since itsinvasion five years ago. Shortly afterPeking strongman Deng Xiaopingmade his triumphalist tour of the UnitedStates, he vowed to teach Vietnam "abloody lesson" for ousting the genocidalPol Pot gang in neighboring Kampu­chea, who killed an estimated two and ahalf million of their own people. Sixhundred thousand Chinese troops(more than the U.S. or French had inIndochina at the height of their imperi­alist wars) crossed the northern borderof Vietnam in 1979. After a month offierce fighting the Vietnamese drovethem back across the border with 20,000casualties.

Ever since, China along with Thai­land, likewise incited and armed byU.S. imperialism, has maintained con­stant military pressure and carried outfrequent attacks on Vietnam. Thediplomatic pretext for the Washington­orchestrated aggression is "self­-determination" for "poor little Kampu­chea." But Vietnam saved the Khmerpeople from the hell that was Pol

Vietnam but to strengthening overallU.S./China military collaboration. TheU.S. already has a super-secret electron­ic spy post in western China near theSoviet border, replacing listening postslost in Iran after the fall of the shah.Pentagon chief Weinberger's visit toChina last fall was followed by sales toChina of anti-aircraft and anti-tankmissiles, early warning radar and otherweapons systems. Just before Reagan'svisit, A viation Week & Space Technolo­gy reported that Washington andPeking have been exchanging satellite

Thirty years after the historic victoryover French colonialism at Dien BienPhu, almost a decade after the CIA andU.S. ambassador ignominiously fledSaigon, the heroic Vietnamese peopleare still resisting imperialist-directedaggression. China's recent stepped-upartillery shelling and troop incursionsalong the northern border of Vietnam,timed to coincide with Reagan's visit toPeking in April, trace in blood theunholy alliance between U.S. imperial­ism and the Chinese Stalinists againstthe Soviet Union and its allies. "It's away of celebrating Reagan's trip. Theyused to celebrate with firework dis­plays," commented General DamQuang Trung, Vietnamese army com­mander of Military Zone I where theChinese attacks took place.

The Vietnamese report that Chineseartillery shelling has resulted in heavycivilian casualties and destruction ofschools, factories and villages. Spread­ing the conflict along Vietnam's entiredefensive perimeter, in May the Chineseextended mortar and artillery fire acrosstheir border with Laos, Thai armytroops simultaneously crossed thenorthwestern Laotian/Thai border,raising the Thai flag over three villagesand forcing the Laotian population toregister with Thai authorities, a con­scious provocation opening yet anotherfront in this reactionary offensive. Mostominously, this coincided with large­scale joint U.S.-Thai military exercisesin the region (Far Eastern EconomicReview, 7 June).

The battle-hardened Vietnameseremain confident of their capacity torepel the new Chinese attacks. As ofmid-June they had retaken three of thesix positions within Vietnam occupiedrecently by up to 20,000 Chinese troops.But the fighting continues and the threatof a full-scale Chinese invasion stilllooms. China's UN representative re­cently asserted its "right to teachVietnam a second lesson," evokingChinese rhetoric before the 1979 inva­sion. Should China invade in the serviceof U.S. imperialism's global war-driveagainst the Soviet Union and its allies,all people everywhere' must rally toVietnam's defense.

The latest attacks by China andThailand, while ostensibly aimed atgetting Vietnam to abandon Kampu­chea (Cambodia), are part of Reagan'sprovocative war drive against theUSSR, Vietnam's main ally. The mili­tary and economic pressure on Vietnamis designed in part to drive a wedgebetween Hanoi and Moscow. But thisstrategem has not succeeded. Soviet aidto Vietnam, while inadequate, has beenof vital importance, as our comrades ofthe Spartacist League of Australia/NewZealand recently noted: "It is indeedfortunate that Vietnam's powerfulSoviet ally has considerable sea and airpower standing ready at the huge U.S.­built port at Cam Ranh Bay. In themidst of the Chinese shelling Hanoiunderlined this point by publicly an­nouncing Soviet commando manoeu­vres and training on Vietnam's easternseaboard" (Australasian Spartacist,May-June 1984). These maneuvers werereportedly designed to forestall a possi­ble Chinese amphibious invasionlaunched from the island of Hai Nanopposite Vietnam.

Reagan's April trip to Peking wasclosely tied not only to the attacks on

6 JULY 1984 3

WV Photos

Clifton, Arizona, June 30-Thousand-strong march (left) to Highway 666 on one-year anniversary of bitter Phelps Dodge strike. After massive policeassault strikers built barricades.

Make checks payable/man to: Spartaclst Publishing Co•• Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League

where. The workers pulled back downthe road and those up front fled intonearby houses. Strikers were evacuatinggrandmothers from adjacent housesblitzed by the attack. Children werewandering the streets covering their eyesand looking for their parents. A two­year-old child was gassed so badly shemomentarily stopped breathing and hadburn marks on her face. Motherscovered their faces and braved the teargas to get the kids to safety. It was abattlefield-there were rocks, brokenglass, debris strewn all over the high­way. There was vomit on the road. Butafter retreating. people began toregroup.

The cops finally pulled back arounddusk, covering their retreat with a cloudof noxious pepper gas. The outragedminers, having watched their childrenbrutalized, stood off the cops by justtaking it. over and over. essentiallyoutlasting the repeated attacks. Aftereach cop charge, the strikers came back.demarking their front line with crudebarricades across the highway. usingeverything they could find. As dusk fell,five loads of tires were pulled in. And assoon as the barricades were built, theywere lit. In addition to three workers'barricades on 666. the DPS set up apolice blockade further down the roadso that miners from out of town couldn'tget into Clifton. By nightfall the townwas sealed off as tight as a steel drum.Up at the mine. the handful of picketsallowed by a court injunction weredriven off by Phelps Dodge manage­ment, emboldened by the' DPS' nakedterror. Ominously, one picket shack wasburned, and another was bulldozed overthe side of the cliff with companyequipment.

The Morenci miners are caughtbetween a rock and a hard place. In adesperate situation illusions in thesupposed "neutrality" of the bourgeoisstate can grievously harm the strike.Last. August there was the ten-day"cooling off" period decreed by Demo­cratic governor Bruce Babbitt-whichonly served to undercut the masspicketing and allow the governmenttime to call up the National Guard toprotect the scabs. Today, the USWAlocal called a press conference. stronglydenouncing the DPS for attackingstrike supporters without reason orwarning ... while calling on GovernorBabbitt to initiate an investigation. Butthe state is not neutral-it's the armedfist of the bosses: Supposed "friend oflabor" Governor "Scabbitt" gave theminers Highway 666 for two hours andthen launched a vicious DPS attack totake it back. The miners can only rely ontheir strength and that of the rest of theworkers movement through mass mobi­lization of labor power.

The Morenci miners must not standalone. And they face grave dangers as aresult of a de facto split between themilitant rank and file and a unionleadership which has sought to run andhide at every opportunity. At today'spress conference. in the face of violencebaiting from the bourgeois press,Steelworkers officials denied the exis-

handle scab copper! Union supportersmust flood into the area to build anddefend mass picket lines that nobodvcrosses. The Phelps Dodge strikers mustnot standalone!"

The day had started with two separaterallies. The United Steelworkers(USWA), leading union in the strikecoalition, called an "official" rally atCopper Verde Park up a two-mile roadin the Clifton hills. This drew approxi­mately 1,200 to 1,500 participants,including two busloads from Phoenixand Tucson. The "high" point was theappearance of retired USW A presidentI.W. Abel, architect of the steel union'streacherous "no-strike" pledge. A num­ber of local strikers and their familieswent up the hill in the morning for apotluck lunch, then went down to jointhe second event, a march from theClifton Social Club to the People'sClinic on Highway 666.

Earlier the DPS announced that thehighway would be closed for two hoursbetween 3 and 5 p.m. for the march,fearing that otherwise the march to theclinic might attempt to stop the scabswho must pass through Clifton on theirway to the PD mine and smelter up theroad in Morenci. Before the march, thecrowd was addressed by People's Clinichead Dr. Jorge O'Leary who had comeforward as a spokesman for the strikemilitants through the default of theofficial union leadership. Arriving at theclinic, the 1,000 marchers chanted"Union, Union!" and "Scabs Must Go!"After an abbreviated rally, a largeportion returned to the social club whileabout 100 strikers and supportersremained at the clinic pinking area. Thestrikers had put together a band toprovide entertainment and food wasbeing served at a fish barbeque.

Suddenly, the cops who had beenkept out of sight marched down High­way 666 in tight military formation,accompanied by a DPS bus to haularrested strikers away. They announcedthe assembly was "unlawful" and mustdisperse, an announcement few strikersheard since the police were over 100yards away, and could not be heardabove the music. In less than twominutes, without giving the crowdtimeto move, the cops donned gas masks andlaid down a tear gas barrage. The soundof cannisters popping and helicopterswhirring overhead eerily blended in withthe sound of music from the band.Volley after volley of burning, chokinggas moved the strikers back while theDPS moved into the clinic area. A teargas cannister was fired at point-blankrange through the Clifton Liquor Storewindow. Inside, Alice Miller, pregnantand expecting any day, was tending thecash register; she was dragged out of thestore and arrested.

Strikers were clubbed, choke-holdedand dragged away. Twenty were arrest­ed. Police sharpshooters were stationedon a hill overlooking the highway.When the area was cleared. the DPScops burned the strikers' effigy of a scab.The cops' tear gas attacks came in threewaves. There was pandemonium every-

358

CLASS WAR INARIZONA: Statepolice launchthree-hourbarrage of teargas against strike

, supporters.Miners, theirwives andchildrenbrutalized byphalanx of cops.There are noneutrals here!

[J $2/4 issues ofWomen and Revolution

[J $2/10 introductory issues ofWorkers Vanguard(includes Spartacist)

have the right to vote). The I,OOO-pluspredominantly Mexican and Indianstrikers holding out in the middle of theArizona desert have increasingly be­come the focus of attention of class­conscious workers throughout thecountry. As we wrote in our last issue("Class War in Arizona Copper Mines,"WV No. 357, 22 June), "It's up to theworkers movement throughout thecountry to bust the Phelps Dodgeunion-busters. We say: Labor-don't

_____________ Phone (

City State Zip _

Name _

Address _

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PhelpsDodge...(continued from page 1)besieged by the state police, with thetown of Clifton (near the Morencimine) twice occupied by the NationalGuard,. the strikers face mass evictionsand union decertification elections (inwhich the company wants only scabs to

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

NYC Labor Rally Calls for"Victory to Phelps Dodge Strikers!"

Chanting "No more PATCOs! Nomore Greyhounds! Victory to thePhelps Dodge strikers!" more than 50militant trade unionists demonstrated infront of Phelps Dodge Corporation'sPark Avenue headquarters in New YorkCity on June 28 in solidarity with theyear-long walkout by the predominant­ly Chicano and Indian copper workersin Arizona. The demonstrators includedNew York-area unionists from theNational Maritime Union (NMU),Transport' Workers Union (TWU),Communications Workers of America,United Federation of Teachers, Carpen­ters, Plumbers, AFSCME, IBEW,UAW District 65, IATSE and a contin­gent from the International Associationof Machinists on strike against EI AlAirlines since March 15.

Messages of solidarity with the cop­per strikers were read from strikingBritish coal miners, locked-out oil

workers in St. Croix, Virgin Islands,two Australian unions, French autoworkers and the Partisan DefenseCommittee. A greeting to the New Yorkrally from Dr. Jorge O'Leary, a leader ofthe copper strikers, was also read. Dem­onstrators carried signs reading "Victo­ry to the Phelps Dodge workers-Onthe front line for all labor!" "There areno neutrals in the copper fields!" "TheWobblies played hardball! For masspickets! Send the National Guardpacking!" and "Down with Reagan andthe Democrats! For a workers party!"

In calling for the demonstration,NMU member Gene Herson said reallabor solidarity means "a nationwidelabor boycott of all Phelps Dodge

. products: not an ingot should move bytrain or truck!" TWUer Ed Kartsencalled on all NYC labor to come out:"It's a crucial battle for aLI workingpeople.". Soviet News Agency

Covers Solidarity Demo"We Stand Shoulder to Shoulder

with Arizona Miners!"

Statements ofSolidarity

Phelps Dodge Strike Leader

Brothers and sisters, we the strikersagainst Phelps Dodge are one day fromthe anniversary of our struggle. We areisolated in the middle of the desertfighting with one of the biggest compa­nies in our nation. We are delighted andhappy that you brothers and sisters helpus with your demonstration againstPhelps Dodge in New York City. I hopethat the company gets the message thatwe are not isolated anymore, and unionsand the workers throughout our nationwill support us like you are doing rightnow. We appreciate in the name of allthe 13 unions against Phelps Dodgeyour big help. Thank you very much.

Dr. Jorge O'Leary,Spokesman for Phelps Dodgestrikers in Clifton/ Morenci,Organizer of the People's Clink(after being fired by Phelps Dodge.owned Morenci Hospital)

tence of a split. Good. At the same time,however, the unions have refused todefend the 20 militants arrested (just asthey refused to defend those arrested inthe cop riot against the Cinco de Mayodemonstration in May). This is a grossviolation of basic trade-union princi­ples: you don't turn your back onbrothers and sisters under attack. Aninjury to one is an injury to all! All labormust demand: drop the charges againstMorenci strikers!

The PD strikers are essentiallyleaderless. Militants correctly under­stood that the "official" rally was adiversion to keep people away from theroad. But the aim is not to take on theDPS in a main force confrontation withno leadership and an unfavorablerelationship of forces. It's to shut downPhelps Dodge's operations and keep thescabs out of the mines. It will take morethan the efforts of a couple hundredisolated strikers, heroic as they havebeen, to win this strike. It is crucial tomobilize the organized and disciplinedpower of the unions, to bring to bear

6 JULY 1984

British Miners

Striking British miners send greet­ings to the copper miners of' PhelpsDodge, Clifton, Arizona. The attack onthe working class spreads right acrossthe capitalist world and history de­mands that the working class of theworld unite to end, once and for all, therule of the profiteer. Victory to theBritish miners! Victory to the Arizonaminers!

Jack Collins,Secretary of Kent NUM

Australian Miners

The Miners Federation of Australiastands shoulder to shoulder with theirbrothers and sisters involved in thePhelps Dodge dispute. We congratulatethe strikers for their dedication to thecause of the working class and pledgeour moral support to them in theirstruggle.

Yours in unity,Barry Swan,General Secretary of theAustralian Miners andShale Federation

their strength of numbers, which meansa fight extending beyond the narrowwalls of the Clifton canyons.

To get out of the present no-winsituation, the burning necessity of thehour is to call out an industrywidestriketo shut down all Phelps Dodge opera­tions and all copper production. This isnot charity on the part of the USW A.Machinists and the rest of the affectedunions. The other copper bosses arealready demanding their contracts be re­opened so the companies can force moretakeaways down their workers' throats.If the Morenci miners lose, everyoneloses. Transport unions must refuse tohandle all PD goods. Railroad workers,truckers: hot cargo PD copper! And toinsure an on-the-spot leadership thatwill fight, in order to mobilize theenergies of all the strikers, and unite themembers of the various unions affected,including co-ordinating with Ajo,Douglas and EI Paso, the Phelps Dodgemine workers must form elected strikecommittees to hold the leaders responsi­ble to the base.

We print below our translation ofthe account by the Soviet newsagency TASS of the June 28 laborsolidarity picket/rally in NYC.

NEW YORK, June 29 (TASS)­"Put an end to the tyranny of thebosses," "N 0 to anti-labor powerpolitics"-A picket demonstrationwith slogans such as these was held atthe headquarters of the PhelpsDodge mining company. The partici­pants, New York trade-union activ­ists, strongly protested against the[Phelps Dodge] bosses' attempts todeal cruelly with striking coppermine workers in the state of Arizona.

Having already gone on for a year,the labor conflict has greatly sharp- .ened recently. Unwilling to complywith the just demands of the minersto improve working conditions andraise wages, the Phelps Dodgemanagement declared it would firestrikers and replace them withstrikebreakers. As soon as the work­ers started picketing the mine'sentrances, reinforced divisions ofpolice and National Guard weredeployed against them with tanks,armored carriers and other militaryequipment. Seeking to break the willof the strikers, the bosses have startedto evict miners from their company­owned houses.

A speaker from the National

Company officials and the stategovernment would dearly love to see themilitants isolated and label them "unionrenegades" and "outlaws." so that theycan be mowed down in the streets ofClifton. And the union bureaucracy'sinaction feeds right into this set-up. Theunion leaders have left the PhelpsDodge miners out there turning in the'wind, and now many are angry anddesperate. It's not the first time­PATCO and Greyhound strikers wereabandoned. too, though any labormovement worth its salt could have wonthose battles by pulling out their bigbattalions (shut down the airports.national transport strike). The taskfacing the PD strikers, and the taskfacing their supporters in the labormovement throughout this country, isto take this from an isolated and valiantstruggle in the wilds of Arizona coppercountry and turn it into a focal point fora national mobilization of union powerand determination to resist strikebreak­ing and government-backed union­busting ordered by the top levels of

Maritime Union, G. Herson, angrilydenounced these actions of the cor­poration and the government's collu­sion with them. Speaking to thedemonstration here, he stated thatthe policy of making short workof the strikers-an act of grosstyranny-is one more example of thefrontal .attack on American labor. G.Herson called for U.S. trade unionsto declare a boycott of Phelps Dodgeto compel its owners to stop theiroutrages in Arizona.

The company's firing [of strikers]in order to suppress the miners strikestems directly from the anti-laborpolicies of the Reagan administra­tion, declared Transport WorkersUnion activist E. Kartsen in aninterview with the TASS correspon­dent. During the whole postwarperiod, he noted, there has not been agovernment in the U.S.A. that hastaken such a cruel course in itspolicies toward labor. It is enough to'remember the White House's vio­lence against the air traffic control­lers union [PATCO], the ban on thenational railroad workers strike, andthe many other anti-labor acts ofWashington. All these facts dictatethe necessity of ever tighter unity ofthe ranks of working America inorder to give a rebuff to the Reaganadministration, said E. Kartsen.

-M. Knyazkov

corporate America and their servantsfrom:t~ ~hite Hayse to the StateHou~e.Tl1is requires a political mobili­zation against the'fwinparties ofcapital,to break with the Democrats and fightfor a workers party to bring Reagandown through mass strike action.Victory to the Phelps Dodge strikers!.

Spartacist Forum/Film S_howing

Labor's GuttaPlay Hardball to Win!

Film Showing: Leber's Turning Point,a documentary on the historic 1934Minneapolis Teamsters strike

Guest Speaker: Ed Kartsen,former candidate for president,Transport Workers Union Local 100

Friday, July 20, 7:30 p.m.Machinists Hall, 7 E. 15th StreetFor more information: (212) 267-1025

NEW YORK CITY

5

no credit Wayne State Labor Archives

After National Guardsmen (left) killed two strikers and wounded 25, massive explosion of city's labor movement and unemployed leagues forcedwithdrawal of the troops. Toledo Auto-Lite victory set stage for great CIO organizing drives of mid-late 1930s.

Auto-Lite Strikers Fought U.S. Troo~s and Won

The Battle of Toledo, 1934On Monday, May 21 several thou­

sand unionists fought a pitched battleoutside the struck A P Parts plant inToledo, Ohio, routing scabs, cops andgoons. After a siege of 18 hours, thecompany was forced to withdraw thescabs trapped inside under armedguard. This was almost exactly 50 yearsago to the day after another famouslabor battle, in the Toledo Auto-Litestrike of 1934, when workers tenacious­ly fought the National Guard for over aweek and finally won union recognition.Repeatedly during the depths of thedepression auto workers in Detroit,Cleveland and throughout the industrialheartland of. the Middle West hadfought for unionization and lost. But by1934 there were the beginnings of an

economic upturn and workers who hadbeen wracked by the fear of massunemployment took heart.

The success of the Toledo Auto-Litestrike was linked to the use of newtechniques of militant labor struggle, inparticular mass picketing and joiningthe unemployed with the employedworkers. The old-line AFL craft unionleaders had just about killed the strikewith their legalistic submission to thecapitalist state when militants organizedin the Lucas County UnemployedLeague took it over. This group hadbeen formed and led by followers of A.J.Muste, then setting up the AmericanWorkers Party. Although two of theleaders of the Unemployed League werearrested and tried for violating the

injunction forbidding mass picketing,they went straight from the courthouseback to the picket lines which soonbegan growing. Their letter to the judgeproclaiming labor's inalienable right toorganize, strike and picket effectivelyranks as a historic document of theworkers movement.

We print below excerpts from ArtPreis' book Lahar's Giant Step: TwentyYears atthe CIO(New York: Pathfind­er Press, 1972) on the Toledo Auto-Litestrike. This was one of three great laborbattles of 1934-along with the Minne­apolis Teamsters strike, led by theTrotskyists, and the Stalinist-led SanFrancisco dock strike-which paved theway for the foundation of the CIO twoyears hence and the birth of mass

industrial unionism. in the UnitedStates. Significantly, all three strikeswere led by avowed revolutionarysocialists. As James P. Cannon noted inThe History of American Trotskyism:

"The Musteites had led a great strike inToledo. The Trotskyists had distin­guished themselves in Minneapolis.Toledo and Minneapolis had becomelinked as twin symbols of the twohighest points of proletarian militancyand conscious leadership.... It wasobvious, by all the circumstances, that itwas time to give the signal for theunification of these two forces. Wereturned from Minneapolis with thisgoal in view and moved decisively to thefusion of the Trotskyists and the Amer­ican Workers Party, to the launching ofa new party-the American section ofthe Fourth International."

Excerptedfrom Art Preis,Labor's Giant Step:

Twenty Years of the CIO

Worst of all, the wave of strikesfollowing the enactment of N RA inJune 1933 was ending in a series ofdefeats. Where the union leaders them­selves did not rush the workers back onthe job without gains-not even unionrecognition, the strikes were smashed bycourt injunctions and armed violence.Behind the legal restraining orders andthe shotguns, rifles and machine guns ofpolice, deputies and National Guards­men, the scabs and strikebreakers werebeing herded into struck plants almostat will.

It was at this stage, when strike afterstrike was being crushed, that the ToledoElectric Auto-Lite Company struggleblazed forth to illuminate the wholehorizon of the American class struggle.The American workers were to be givenan unforgettable lesson in how toconfront all the agencies of the capitalistgovernment-courts, labor boards andarmed troops-and win.

Toledo, Ohio, an industrial city ofabout 275,000 population in 1934, is aglass and auto parts center. In June1931, four Toledo banks had closedtheir doors. Some of the big localcompanies, including several suppliersto the auto industry, had secretlytransferred their bank accounts to onebig bank. These companies did not get _caught in the crash.

But thousands of workers and small

business men did. They lost their lives'savings. One out of every three personsin Toledo was thrown on relief, standingin lines for food handouts at a centralcommissary. In 1933, the UnemployedLeague: led by followers of A.J. Muste,head of the Conference for ProgressiveLabor Action (later the AmericanWorkers Party), had organized militantmass actions of the unemployed andwon cash relief. The. League made it apolicy to call for unity of the unem­ployed and employed workers; it mobi­lized the unemployed not to scab, but toaid all strikes.

On February 23, 1934, the ToledoAuto-Lite workers, newly organized inAFL Federal Local 18384, went onstrike. This was quickly ended by theAFL leaders with a truce agreement fornegotiations through the RegionalLabor Board of the National LaborBoard, which had been set up under theNRA.

Refusing to be stalled further by thelabor board or to submit to the specialAuto Labor Board, which Roosevelthad set up in March to sidetrackpending auto strikes and which hadupheld company unionism, the Auto­Lite workers went on the picket linesagain on April 13.

The company followed the usual firstgambit in such a contest. It went to afriendly judge and got him to issue all

injunction limiting picketing. The strikehad begun to die on its feet when acommittee of Auto-Lite workers cameto the Unemployed League and askedfor aid ....

By May 23, there were more than10,000 on the picket Jines. Countydeputies with tear gas guns were lined upon the plant roof. A strike picket, MissAlma Hahn, had been struck on thehead by a bolt hurled from a plantwindow and had been taken to thehospital. By the time 100 more copsarrived, the workers were tremendouslyincensed. Police began roughing upindividual pickets pulled from the line.What happened when the cops tried toescort the scabs through the picket lineat the shift-change was described by theAssociated Press.

"Piles of bricks and stones wereassembled at strategic places and awagon load of bricks was trundled to apoint near the factory to provide furtherammunition for the strikers.... Sudden­ly a barrage of tear gas bombs washurled from upper factory windows. Atthe same time, company employeesarmed with iron bars and clubs draggeda fire hose into the street and playedwater on the crowd. The strike sympa­thizers replied with bricks, as theychoked from gas fumes and fell back."

But they retreated only to reformtheir ranks. The police charged andswung their clubs trying to clear a pathfor the scabs. The workers held theirground and fought back. Choked by thetear gas fired from inside the plant, itwas the police who finally gave up thebattle. Then the thousands of picketslaid siege to the plant, determined tomaintain their picket line.

The workers improvised giant sling­shots from inner tubes. They hurled

whole bricks through the plant win­dows. The plant soon was withoutlights. The scabs cowered in the dark.The frightened deputies set up machineguns inside every entranceway. It wasnot until the arrival of 900 NationalGuardsmen, 15 hours later, that thescabs were finally released, looking a"sorry sight," as the press reported it.

Then followed one of the mostamazing battles in U.S. labor history."The Marines had landed" in the formof the National Guard but the situationwas not "well in hand." With their barefists and rocks, the workers fought a six­day pitched battle with the NationalGuard. They fought from rooftops,from behind billboards and camethrough alleys to flank the guardsmen."The men in the mob shouted vileepithets at the troopers," complainedthe Associated Press, "and the womenjeered them with suggestions that they'go home to mama and their paperdolls' ."

But the strikers and their thousandsof sympathizers did more than shamethe young National Guardsmen. Theyeducated them and tried to win themover. Speakers stood on boxes in frontof the troops and explained what thestrike was about and the role the troopswere playing as strikebreakers. WorldWar I veterans put on their medals andspoke to the boys in uniform like"Dutch uncles." The women explainedwhat the strike meant to their families.The press reported that some of theguardsmen just quit and went home.

continued on page JJ

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

From the Wobblies ...

'" to a Workers Party

The single most decisive event of 20thcentury history is the Russian OctoberRevolution of 1917. when for the firsttime the working class took power andthrew out the capitalists whose war forprofits meant wholesale slaughter andmisery for tens of millions. Immediately

continued on page 8

dragging them out of their beds half­naked. herding them onto a cattle trainand dumping them in the New Mexicodesert where they were held for 36 hourswithout food or water before beingbeaten and sent to a federal stockade forthree months without charges.

Back in Butte. the birthplace of theWFM and a hotbed of revolutionaryunion agitation. hired killers kidnappedIWW leader Frank Little. dragged himout of town and lynched him from arailroad trestle. This was followed bymass roundups of Wobblies throughoutthe West and eventually the mass trial of101 IWW leaders in Chicago in 1918. Atone time no less than 1.000 Wobblieswere behind bars and hundreds deport­ed. As in the case of Mooney andBillings. radical labor leaders in SanFrancisco framed up in 1916 for abombing of a "preparedness" rally.patriotic war frenzy was the bosses'ideological weapon against the workers.It is the same today when everyone fromstriking airline pilots to socialists islabeled "terrorist" by a government thatsponsors counterrevolutionary merce­naries from Nicaragua to Afghanistan.all in the service of the capitalist drivetoward nuclear war against the USSR.

The Wohblies were very heroic and.by ordinary standards. not very success­ful. With a pretty small number ofcadres even in their heyday. they wereable to lead substantial forces in somehard-fought union struggles whichhowever were mainly crushed by brutalrepression. They turned their back onthe far larger AFL unions rather thanseeking to revolutionize them fromwithin. But the IWW's understandingthat the state is not a "neutral" agency ofabstract "order" but an arm of thebosses' power was a crucial acquisitionpaving the way for the mass struggleswhich built the industrial unions in thiscountry. The great battles of the 1930swon some real gains for the workingpeople because class-struggle leadersand militant layers were not afraid totake on the state and thus to touch onquestions of power. The success ofmilitant and "illegal" tactics like sit­down strikes showed once again thateven "reform" struggles need resoluterevolutionary leadership; only fear thatan aroused working class will not stop at"reforms" can force significant conces­sions from the capitalist bloodsuckers.In our WV "Hardball" supplement. theSL summed up a lesson from ourrevolutionary proletarian forebears:

"It's better to fight on your feet than dieon your knees. To be sure. many strikeswill be lost. even if they are hard fought.as at Stearns [Kentucky] or the 1937Little Steel strike. But when an impor­tant strike is won. it dramatically altersthe entire situation. as in the Minneapo­lis. Toledo and San Francisco generalstrikes of 1934-all led by reds. whichset the stage for the rise of the CIO­and the 1937 Flint sit-down strike."

erty of production, If anyone is tostarve, .. Iet it be the capitalist class,"

This was the origin of the sit-down striketactic which finally broke the back ofGeneral Motors in the great Flint strikeof 1937.

The high point for the IWW was theLawrence. Massachusetts textile strikeof 1912. where the Wobblies led thefirstrevolt of unskilled. overwhelminglyforeign-horn factory workers. They wonin Lawrence because they unleashedtremendous mass energy through masspicketing 'by 10.000 strikers. a sightnever before seen in New England milltowns. Policy was decided not by ahandful of bureaucrats but in strikeassemblies. Big Bill Haywood got up inLawrence Common to appeal for "hotcargoing" scab goods. as did the frontpage of the Wobblies' IndustrialWorker:

"Boycott Lawrence.... Railroad men:Lose their Cars for them! Telegraphers:Lose their messages for them! Express­men: Lose their packages for them!Boycott Lawrence! Boycott it to thelimit!"

The IWW's militant leadership and thestrikers' determination finally turnedthe bosses' attempted wage cut into awage raise and a labor victory thatreverberated throughout the country.As historian Paul Brissenden wrote."Lawrence was not an ordinary strike. Itwas a social revolution in parvo [inminiature]" (The I. W. W.-A Study inAmerican Syndicalism [1919]).

The Wobblies were revolutionaryunionists. who knew, as the Preamble tothe IWW Constitution proclaimed. that"The working class and the employingclass have nothing in common." that"between these two .classes a strugglemust go on until all the toilers cometogether on the political, as well as onthe industrial field. and take and holdthat which they produce by theirlabor. ..." While socialism had .beenproclaimed as a goal before. here it wasdirectly connected to a struggle forpower. This was brought to a head bythe imperialist First World War. aglobal conflagration to divide up theworld in the interests of profit. In 1916the IWW adopted a resolution on thewar modeled. as Haywood noted in hisautobiography, on Lenin's resolutionscalling for the workers to turn theimperialist war into civil war betweenlabor and capital. And unlike the petty­bourgeois pacifists of the Socialist Partyleft wing, the IWWs did something tobring this about.

In order to ensure class peace on thehome front. Democratic president Wil­son created the War Labor Boardcomposed of government. business andunion representatives with power tosettle all labor disputes. AFL chiefGompers made a no-strike pledge­class collaboration was institutional­ized. To back it up. Congress passed theEspionage Act. directed not so muchagainst German spies as against class­conscious workers. Undaunted. 14.000copper miners in Butte, Montana struckunder IWW leadership in June 1917against war profiteering by the coppertrust. Soon they were followed by24,000 Arizona copper' miners. Thecapitalists soon struck back. In Bisbee.Arizona vigilantes from a local "LoyaltyLeague" rounded up 1,200 strikers.

After 1914Ludlow, Colo­

rado massacre,Rocky Mountain

miners organizedarmed defense

guards.

Fj9bttar~.1~....~·\Bulfd aWork~r$ ~rty'

S~le.aQdtSFAJfTACtSTl15ACUI

Our warm reception in Morenci was akind of coming home. The WV"Hard­ball" article was a restatement anddistillation of some crucial lessons of theclass struggle first learned throughblood, sweat and tears in the labor warsin the Rocky Mountains at the turn ofthe century. Transmitted by the revolu­tionary syndicalists of the IWW (Indus­trial Workers of the World) to the earlyCommunist Party. they were passed onto us hy ex-r Wobbly" and CP leaderJames P. Cannon. the founder of Amer­ican Trotskyism. Many of the fightingtraditions and militant tactics whichwere decisive in founding the ciaduring the 1930s go straight back to thetitanic battles for the eight-hour daywaged by the Western Federation ofMiners (WFM).

During the Colorado strike strugglesof 1903-04. in the mining camps ofLeadville. Telluride and Cripple Creek.scores of men were killed. over 100wounded. thousands arrested and im­prisoned in "bullpens" (military concen­tration camps) and hundreds deportedfrom the state in boxcars on the chargeof being union men. Militia commanderGeneral Sherman Bell summed up hisattitude toward the law in the remark."Habeas corpus. hell! We'll give 'empost morterns!" A decade later at Lud­low. Colorado the scene was repeated as

combined forces of company. cops andcourts for 12 months. strikers welcomedWorkers Vanguard teams with oursupplement. "Labor's Gotta Play Hard­hall to Win" (over 100.000 distributedso far). with its call for some old-timeclass struggle.

:4t c·

WV-PhotoLabor Day, 1981. When Reagansmashed PATCO, we answered:

.Bring Down Reagan Through LaborAction!

women and childrenwere immolated ina National Guard attack. Hut thestrikers, now organized in the UnitedMine Workers and inspired by MotherJones. organized armed pickets todefend themselves from deputized gunthugs and vigilantes. Although theunion was driven out at bayonet point,the miners were quickly learning thelaws of the class struggle, many becom­ing socialists and revolutionaries.

In 1905 the WFM joined in thefound­ing convention of the IWW. MinersFederation president Bill Haywooddeclared the goal to be "the emancipa­tion of the working class from the slavebondage of capitalism." The Wobbliesquickly fell under the control of syndi­calists who blindly denied the need forpolitical struggle. But despite their anti­political blinders, the IWWs knew theywere fighting a revolutionary struggle.At the 1908 convention of the IWW.Lucy Parsons. widow of Haymarketmartyr Albert Parsons. drew the lessonsof the Colorado strikes:

"My conception of the strike of thefuture is not to strike and go out andstarve. but to strike and remain in andtake possession of the necessary prop-

(continued from page 1)

the pilots association under the "anti­racketeering" R ICO conspiracy law.charging the union with "terrorism" andinstigating "dozens of acts of violence."Such judicial frame-ups go hand inhand with the government's new vanti­terrorism" guidelines against the left.This is "McCarthyism with a drawngun." and the gun is pointed at all of us.

Reagan's America is a catastrophe forhlacks. Conditions in the ghettos areIl'orse than in the Great Depression ofthe '30s: 45 percent official unernploy­ment among hlack teenagers. nearly amajority of black men without a job.Infant mortality for hlacks in the U.S. isnow double the rate for whites andsignificantly higher than in Cuba. Andthe percentage of black families livinghelow the federal government's patheticpoverty line is triple that for whitefamilies. Meanwhile. black workers(traditionally "last hired and first fired")have been hardest hit by mass layoffs inbasic industry. .

But with the economic "recovery"giving labor militancy a boost. Americacould be in for a labor explosion. and itcould be coming this fall. "Restore andMore in '84".has become a rallying cryfor numerous auto locals whose con­tracts expire in September. (Negotia­tions "will be difficult because of ourprofitability." said a G M vice presi­dent.) Also coming up is the nationalcoal contract. involving 150,000 UM Wminers who have not forgotten thelessons of their heroic II O-day strike fiveyears ago. But the labor fakers will dotheir hest to head off this upsurge ofunion battles. "N ot picket lines butvoter lines" will be their tune as they tryto "defeat Reaganism" by electingDemocrats in November. Already theAFL-CIO is mobilizing to demonstrateoutside the Democratic convention inSan Francisco for "Fritz" Mondale(whose law firm represents Greyhound).And to avoid embarrassing the Demo­cratic candidate. the bureaucrats willredouble their efforts to sell out laborand black struggle. openly sabotagingand even calling off strikes.

The bureauerats, these fat cats andDemocrats who run America's unions.have become. quite literally. companycops. Perennial AFL-CIO head GeorgeMeany boasted he'd never walked apicket line. Now the labor federation isheaded by Lane Kirkland. a profession­al Cold Warrior (he sat on Rockefeller'sCIA "oversight" commission) who wasnever a union member a day in his lifeuntil he became a bureaucrat. As for"bread-and-butter" unionist JackiePresser. the Teamster chier" whosecombined salaries last year topped$500.000. he turns out to have been anFBI informer for the last decade!Recently it has been revealed thatKirkland and several other labor leadersof the AFL-CIO (which in LatinAmerica is known as the "AFL-CIA")are owners of a tobacco plantation inthe Dominican Republic where wagesare less than $3 a day. Union leaders likethis wouldn't know how to lead amilitant strike struggle if their livesdepended on it.

But labor has been fighting back. andis increasingly taking up the militanttactics which built the industrial unionsin the U.S. The hundreds of arrests inLas Vegas resulted from the masspicketing of the gambling casinos andresort hotels. (The cops also tried to pinseveral bombings on union members.)In Toledo. Ohio a mass demonstrationto support striking UAW members atthe AP auto parts plant erupted on May22. Scabs were penned in with the"Nuckols, Inc." rent-a-thugs whiledem­onstrators battled cops outside andcame within inches of a plant occupa­tion when they tried to ram a car carrierthrough the gate. Both at Toledo and in _Morenci, Arizona, where Phelps Dodgecopper miners have been holding off the

Unions...

6 JULY 1984 7

Black West Indian WorkersProtest Yankee Siavemaster

Hot Cargo Hess Oil!CHRISTIANSTED, si. Croix, U.S.Virgin Islands, June 30-Marching tothe sound of Bob Marley's "Stand Upfor Your Rights," some 300 blackmembers and supporters of UnitedSteelworkers of America (USWA)Local 8526 demonstrated in the streetshere today to protest the continuedracist, union-busting attack of oil baronLeon Hess. The protesters had beenworking brutal, 12-hour shifts and werealready more than $2 per hour behindtheir counterparts in low-wage, anti­union Mississippi. They were locked outof Hess' refinery on April 15 afterrejecting an "offer" which would havegutted the union of its grievanceprocedure and seniority rights.

With a court-ordered $500,000 perday fine against effective mass picket­ing, Hess is running the refinery, theworld's largest, with fatigued inexperi­enced scabs, many of them whites whohave been imported from the mainland.The result is a social and physicaltinderbox which now jeopardizes virtu­ally everyone on the island. But what isthis to Leon Hess? For close to three

Unions...(continued from page 7)

the Soviet government withdrew fromthe imperialist war, appealing to theworkers of all the belligerent countriesto follow their example. When theBolsheviks, led by Lenin and Trotsky,founded the Communist Internationalin 1919, the Industrial Workers of theWorld were specifically invited to join.The next year the Comintern renewedthis offer: •

"We address this letter to you. fellowworkers of the I.W.W.. in recognition ofyour longand heroicservicesin the classwar. ..."We appeal to you. as revolutionists. torallv to the Communist International.born in the dawn of the World SocialRevolution."We call to you to take the place towhich your courage and revolution­ary experience entitles you. in thefront ranks of the proletarian RedArmy lighting under the banner ofCommunism."

-from John Gambs. The Decline(~r the I. W. W. (1932)

Haywood joined the Communist Partyin 1921, and facing 20 years in jail he fledto Moscow where he died some yearslater. The remaining right-wing IWWleaders turned their backs on Commu­nism and disappeared into oblivion asan anti-Soviet sect.

However, thousands of Wobblieswent over to the Communists, amongthem Jim Cannon who became a top CPleader before being expelled. as aTrotskyist in 1928. Cannon later wrote:"In truth, the IWW in its time of glorywas neither a union nor a party in thefull meaning of these terms, but some­thing of both, with some parts missing.It was an uncompleted anticipation of aBolshevik party, lacking its rounded­out theory. and a projection of therevolutionary industrial unions of thefuture. minus the necessary mass mem­bership. It was the IWW" (The FirstTen Years of American Communism[1962]). The IWW was what it was, butit wasn't enough to lead a proletarianrevolution. That requires a fightingworkers party. to prepare and lead theclass war to victory for all the oppressed.

"Every class struggle is a politicalstruggle." wrote Karl Marx in theCommunist Manifesto. It was by using

8

months, he has been trying to do withscabs what Reagan did with Marines inGrenada: make the Caribbean a bastionof naked colonial exploitation. As oneworker commented today, "They aredoing this to us only because we areblack."

One of the speakers at today's rallywas National Maritime Union memberGene Herson, an organizer of a May 7solidarity rally in front of Hess worldheadquarters in New York. (The St.Croix Avis ran a front-page picturestory on this demonstration on May 14.)Herson stated that Hess thinks thatnobody will notice the "racist union­busting going on down here," but "laboris stronger than Hess." He called formass picketing, a labor boycott of Hessproducts and for workers on the islandsas well as on the mainland to "bringHess down," to fight the Democraticand Republican politicians and the restof the bosses' government with aworkers party.

The struggle at Hess can have animpact far beyond St. Croix. Untilrecently, "bonded" black workers, little

their state power, by mobilizing thearmed forces, that the capitalistscrushed strikers from Cripple Creek toPatterson. It is no different today. TheWobbly miners didn't need to be toldthere's a class war going on-they couldsee it before their eyes. They needed toknow how to win that war, and anystrategy that rejects political action isdoomed to failure. Writing to his friendSorge living in America. Marx's greatcollaborator Frederick Engels insistedas early as 1886 that "the first great stepof importance for every country newlyentering into the movement is alwaysthe constitution of the workers as anindependent political party, no matterhow, so long as it is a distinct workers'party." Yet here we are almost a centurylater, and alone among the advancedcapitalist industrial countries, the U.S.still does not have a workers party.evenof a reformist variety. Why?

Historically, the American rulingclass has been able to divide the workersof this country along ethnic lines.Democratic Party "constituency" poli­tics is the shell game that derives fromthose divisions. The bloody system ofblack chattel slavery was ended over acentury ago but the capitalist systemitself remains the obstacle to fulfillingthe Civil War's promise of blackemancipation and equality.

ThC'Achilles' heel of this exploitative,racist system is the labor movement,which embodies the integration of blackworkers into the economy even as theyremain forcibly socially segregated. Thelogic of every serious strike struggleimpels both white and black workers tosubordinate their prejudices and fears tothe felt need for unity against theemployer. Blacks now constitute 31percent of the AFL-CIO membershipand this statistic understates their realeconomic power. Detroit auto, Chicagosteel, New York subways. East and GulfCoast longshore-black workers have astrategic hold in these and other keysections of the economy.

Moreover, black workers areintegrally tied to the ghetto poor whoseliberation is manifestly impossiblewithout the destruction of the capitalistsystem and a radical redistribution of

- social wealth. It is the strategic weight ofblack workers in an integrated labormovement which gives them the poten-

more than indentured servants, werebrought from throughout the WestIndies to work for Hess. Today Hess isbuilding an offshore terminal near St.Lucia. and workers at the St. Croixrefinery come from Trinidad, Antigua,Barbados, Puerto Rico and elsewhere inthe Caribbean. Herson pointed out attoday's rally that while people on' someof the islands "have formally gainedtheir freedom, they haven't receivedfreedom's benefits just as Americanblacks have been deprived of thebenefits due to them from the victory ofthe North in the Civil War." "It's time tofinish the Civil War!" he added torousing cheers.

USW A Local 8526 president LonnieJames told WV that the local hasreceived telegrams of support fromBritain: fraternal greetings from thestriking National Union of Miners(Kent area) and a message from theNational Union of Seamen. The seamenincluded a copy of the cable they sent toHess which denounced the lockout andstated: "your activities owe more tocolonialism than civilised behaviour in

tial leverage to topple the entire rottensystem. With the most to gain fromshattering the status quo, black workersare the most alienated from "Americandream" illusions and most open to thesocialist program to break labor fromthe Democrats and build a revolution­ary workers party. Black workers canspark and lead more backward whiteworkers in battles against the rulers.That is the way forward.

But the labor bureaucrats, who tie theunions to the Democratic Party, standin the way. By enforcing the limitationof workers' struggles to what the bossessay they can handle, the bureaucratsguarantee racial divisiveness as layers ofthe working - people compete for a"share" of the crumbs from the capitalisttable. Multiracial class unity presup­poses a labor-led fight. to defendparticularly the most oppressed layers­minorities, women, immigrants, etc.­from the rapacious, sick system which isthe enemy of all workers.

"Dump the bureaucrats-Break with'the Democrats-Build a workers par­ty!" This is the call of the Trotskyists ofthe Spartacist League. A lot of "ballotbox socialists"-from the ex- and nowopenly anti-Trotskyist Socialist Work­ers Party to the weirdo messengers ofQaddafi in the Workers League-callon the Meanys and Kirklands to form areformist labor party. But followingthe tradition of the then-revolutionarySWP of the 19305, the SL calls for-aworkers party in order to wage classstruggle. not classcollaboration. Yfe arefighting for the political independenceof the working class from the bourgeoisparties and the bourgeois state. Thisincludes using the arena of the capitalistelections, but the focus of the classstruggle lies elsewhere. American work­ing people, blacks, Latins and otheroppressed minorities need a party tomobilize in the streets to stop thefascistlynchers. to fight for lahur boycott ofu.s. arms to Central America, SouthAfrica and other bloody capitalist dic­tatorships. In short, we need a revolu­tionary workers party fighting to ex­propriate the Phelps Dodges andRockefellers, the banks and their politi­cians. through a workers government.

When the SL initiated the Labor/Black Mobilization that stopped theKKK from marching in Washington.

second half of twentieth century."Solidarity messages have also comefrom the embattled copper workers inArizona, a l3-union coalition includingfellow USWA members on strike forone year, and from Chevron oil refineryworkers in El Segundo, California.

The locked-out Hess workers havetheir backs to the wall-it is time to putsolidarity sentiments into action. Thismeans joint strike action with Hessworkers at the USWA-representedrefinery in Purvis, Mississippi andOil, Chemical and Atomic Workers(OCA W) Local 8-397 at the Hessinstallation in New Jersey where thecontract expires on August I. On June12 a delegation of New York-areaunionists supporting the S1. Croix Hessstrike visited the Local 8-397 executiveboard who voted to send a financialdonation to their embattled fellowworkers. But much more is needed.

There are 8,000 Steelworkers mem­bers in the Virgin Islands yet the Inter­national is not even observing elemen­tal trade-union principles: USWAmembers from other locals are workingevery day in the refinery. This must bestopped! One sign at today's rally said"Warning: Scabbing can be dangerousto your health!" The Hess refinery in St.Croix must be shut down with masspickets until the lockout is broken. AllHess refineries must be struck, now!Labor internationally must declare Hessoil too hot to handle and act according­ly. Teamsters, steel, oil and maritimeworkers-Hot cargo Hess! Victory toLocal 8526! •

D.C. on 27 November 1982, we weretaking on the responsibility of a revolu­tionary vanguard party. That anti­fascist victory was organized againstWashington's black Democratic cityadministration and its allies in thereformist left, who all lined up withReagan to permit the Klan's racistprovocation that day. Instead, the5,OOO-strong mobilization of predomi­nantly black working people not onlystopped the Klan's provocation in thenation's capital, but got a real taste ofsocial power as they took the Klan'sroute, proclaiming their victory throughthe streets of this 70 percent black city.

Building a workers party means afight to oust the present labor traitorsand put in a class-struggle leadershipthat fights to win. The anti-communistbureaucrats-who always denouncemilitants as "outsiders"-are themselvesa foreign body in the workers move­ment, who achieved their strangleholdover American labor during the ColdWar "red" purges. Writing at the heightof the McCarthyite repression, Cannonopenly proclaimed: "The stage is beingset for the transformation of the refor­mist unions into revolutionary unions,as they were projected by the IWW halfa century ago." Union leaders that bowto strikebreaking injunctions, allowingscabs to cross picket lines and givingback gains won through years of hardstruggle; job-trusting bureaucrats whopromote racial discrimination, protec­tionism and racist exclusion of foreign­born workers-these misleaders arelosers. Phelps Dodge miners, Toledoauto workers, Las Vegas strikers needtheir unions to build mass picket linesand workers defense guards to stop thescabherders: to seize the factories. sothe bosses starve, not the workers: tohot cargo scab goods and unleash soli­darity strikes against governmentstrikebreaking.

We need a workers movement thatfights-through mass militant industri­al action and through independentpolitical action-on behalf of theworking class and all the oppressed. Theprogram of the Spartacist League is tostruggle within the unions for a new,revolutionary leadership to mobilize theworkers and their allies in united strug­gle against the capitalist system. BustReagan and all the union-bustersl B

WORKERS VANGUARD

Left Hustles for J. J. as...

Jackson Hustlesfor Mondale

ist outfit PUSH organize scab schoolsduring the strike of the heavily blackChicago Teachers Union, a strike set offby hundreds of layoffs ordered by hisally, black Democratic mayor HaroldWashington. Keeping the lid on theexplosive black ghettos, policing thebig city unions-the Democratic BEOsare the declared enemies of blackstruggle.

In the recent period the MarcyiteWorkers World Party has distinguisheditself as the prime organizer of the anti­Reagan popular front. And of all theapologies for Jackson over his ties toMuslim demagogue Farrakhan, themost craven was written by Sam Marcyhimself (Workers World, 17 May).Much of the article is given to provingthat during the 1930s a substantialsection of the American ruling class wassympathetic to Hitler. Very true. Butwhat kind of "defense" of Farrakhan isit to argue that his views, are no morereactionary than those of Henry Ford,Charles Lindbergh or Father Coughlin?And what about Farrakhan's greatestcrime? As Elijah Muhammad's chieflieutenant Louis X, he wanted MalcolmX killed. Today Farrakhan admits thathis repeated death threats againstMalcolm contributed to the climate in

which the assassination was carried out.But about this Sam Marcy says not oneword in eight solid newspaper pages onthe Farrakhan affair.

As the most fervent apologist forJackson and Farrakhan on the left, SamMarcy is now up shit's creek. In his 17May article, Marcy insists again andagain, in the strongest language, thatJacksen.must not break with or.distancehimself from Farrakhan:

,': I "'We say sharply and categorically thatfor Jackson to in any way repudiate ordissassociate himself from Farrakhanwould constitute a capitulation to theforces of racism and blatant politicalreaction."

Well, Sam, we are very much lookingforward to the next Workers World inwhich you will, of course, denounceJesse Jackson for capitulating to theforces of racism and reaction. (Don'thold your breath.)

In another article, Workers World(8 March) declared: "It is not the politi­cal program of the Jackson candidacythat we are concerned with but withthe development of the movementas an independent social and politicalforce. And we support it regardlessof the program which he propounds."Meanwhile, the tiny more-Marcyite-.than-Marcy Revolutionary Commu­nist League-( Internationalist) [RCL-( I)]group in New Haven says they are

continued on page 11

•UPIReformist left press glorifies black front manfor racist Democratic Party. Right: Jacksongladhands Dixiecrat George "SegregationForever" Wallace.

many new voters, conceivably enoughto make the difference between defeatand victory for the Democrats in a tightpresidential election." .

This shrewd organ of British imperial­ism says what the reformists cannotadmit: a man trading in dreams cannotproduce. And they are a bit worried:"Mr Jackson's problem wiIl be toreconcile the pride and admiration hehas aroused among ordinary blackswith the degree of commitment to hiscause he can reasonably expect from the

Democrat chosen to take on MrReagan. Some disappointment amongblacks wiIl be hard to avoid...."

The well-schooled reformists of theCommunist Party say openly that thegoal is to organize a class-collab­orationist "all people's electoral front"which can "defeat Reagan and allthe anti-labor, racist, anti-people Rea­ganites." And the CP youth press, theDynamic (May. 1984) urges tthattthe"young people should bear in mind what,the youth representatives of MondaI6,'!Hart, Jackson, Glenn, Gus Hall and'(Angela Davis" said. "Of all the issuesconfronting the nation's young genera­tion, defeating Reagan and even moreso his policies is the issue." Whilerunning their own token Haii/ Daviscampaign, the CP makes it explicit thatits real program is support to anyDemocrat against Reagan.

This is classic "lesser-evilism." But theDemocrats are no "lesser evil"-they arethe main way in which the working andoppressed masses are bound to theirclass enemy. Jackson is the "BlackElected Official" (BEO) writ large,trying to do on a national level whatblack mayors like Coleman Young didin 1980, when he crushed a strike byblack sanitation workers in order toshow to the Republican convention that"Detroit Loves a Good Party." Last fall,Jackson had his Chicago black capital-

w""",,'sDay",Illy,."

warkenwarlll8 March 1984

Make wayforthe•Jesse Express~!

,~~~~~ .

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I=~l'i_

GlJadaD-28 March 1984

Jackson's success in mobilizingblacks at the poIls for the Democrats in

Caboose on the Jesse Express

now the New York Times (22 June)fullyconfirms what we have said all along:"Today Mr. Jackson made it clear thathe would support the Democratic Partynominee, whether it was Mr. Mondaleor Mr. Hart. He said he considered bothto be 'decent men' and that 'if one ofthem wins, I will support him';"

the big cities of industrial states such asNew York, Pennsylvania and Illinois isthe kind of "success" black people don'tneed. A 23 June New York Times article

'quoted a leading Jackson strategistsaying that "what is important to Jesse issomething nonpolitical and intangiblethat you can't take to the bank." JesseJackson is seIling dreams, and hispersonal PR men on the left admit it intheir own way. The Guardian writes ofJackson's union-busting.v.anti-Semi­tism, black : capitalism, racist pro­tectionism, etc.: "His personal recordleaves much to be desired ... but that'snot what matters." What does? "The callfor a Rainbow Coalition isan ambitiouseffort to pull together the most progres­sive sectors of society." Yet Jackson'sso-called Rainbow Coalition is nothingmore than the old Rooseveltian dealwhich tied women, labor and mihoritiesto the existing power structure throughthe Democratic Party.

Today Jackson's job is to rebuild asector of this big business-sanctionedcoalition and return blacks, who stayedaway from the polls in record numbersin 1980, to the Democratic Party main­stream. And Jackson is doing a goodjob, as the British weekly Economist (7April) notes:

"He has undoubtedly generated a surgeof enthusiasm among blacks which hasalready resulted in the registration of

It's a dog's life for a black person incapitalist America. Four million out ofnine million working-age black men arejobless. About another million havegiven up hope of finding wbrk in thisdemocracy-for-the-rich, and are noteven counted in the statistics. Caught inthe steel vise of Reagan reaction,wherein soup and ketchup are validatedby the government as sufficient fooddiets, blacks know only social misery.Desperate, with nothing to lose,anyalternative seems better than PovertyCity, U.~.A. However, the Jesse Jack­son campaign offers no road to survival,much less liberation for the oppressedmasses in this racist capitalist system.His "freedom train" is designed to derailblack struggle. As we wrote in ourarticle, "Jesse Jackson: Front Man forthe Racist Democrats" (WV No. 344,16December 198"3):

"Jackson is a shill in Walter Mondale'sgame. The way the scenario goes:Mondale gets the presidency, Jacksongets to strut around the Democraticconvention talking in rhyme and soak­ing up the media, and the black massesget more of the same ... shit."

Jackson also made a show ofindependence of the white ruling estab­lishment. In a perverse way this was thebasis for his association with thedespicable and dangerous Black Mus­lim demagogue Louis Farrakhan. Far­rahkan's threats to "annihilate" a blackreporter for revealing Jackson's disgust­ing anti-Semitic remarks, the obscenereference to Hitler as a "great man," andmost lately Farrakhan's calling Judaisma "gutter religion" were all fuel for thewhite racist politicians who demandedJackson repudiate Farrakhan, and thatMondale repudiate Jackson. With theconvention only weeks away, Jacksonhas now been forced to declare thatthese comments are "reprehensible" andthat "I will not permit Minister Farra­khan's words, wittingly or unwittingly,to divide the Democratic Party" (NewYork Times, 29 June).

In contrast to the overwhelmingmajority of the American left, which istailing after Jackson, the SpartacistLeague declared forthrightly that "asrevolutionary integrationists, we areutterly opposed to Louis Farrakhan andeverything this would-be Hitler of blackpeople stands' for" ("The Sinister Farra­khan," WV No. 355, 25 May). ButJackson's recent dramatic repudiationof his former "surrogate" Farrakhan hasnothing to do with political principle, Itwas all right for this poisonous dem­agogue to praise Hitler, but causticremarks about the state of Israel(most of which are true) and he'sdumped! Jackson is simply moving tosecure respectability as Mondale's man.And Mondale responded appreciative­ly: "I commend Reverend Jackson formaking it clear that Mr. Farrakhan hasno part in his campaign." So for J.J., it's"Bye-bye Louis X-Fritz, you're mymain man now."

Nevertheless, various shades of refor­mist leftists are marching to the beat ofJackson, the capitalists' different drum­mer of 1984. "Jackson Movin' On Up"chimed a recent headline -in the with-itrad-lib Guardian. "Make Way for the'Jesse Express'!" was the line of SamMarcy's Workers World. And theCommunist Party paper Daily Worldsummed it up succinctly: "Jesse Jack­son, a Vital Force in the Anti-ReaganFront." Under pressure of the anti­Soviet war drive, the U.S. left hasshifted rapidly to the right in the pastperiod. Now support for the Jacksoncampaign is the reformists' back doorinto the Democratic Party.

Jackson has always made it clearwhere he was at. Back in April hevowed: "I am not going to tear up theDemocratic Party.... To suggest I willbe a problem is to underestimate mycommitment and my intelligence" ( WallStreet Journal, 24 April). Sure, Jacksonis "committed" to the racist status quoand the party of George "M r. Segrega-­tion" Wallace and Ku Klux KlansmanTom Metzger which perpetuates it. And

6 JULY 1984 9

Victim of Racist Protectionism

Avenge the Murder of Vincent Chin!

Smash ~ionist Scabherdingj

Shut Down EI AI Airlines!

After two trials the racist murderersof Vincent Chin, a Chinese Americandraftsman, are still walking the streets ofDetroit. On June 28 one of them,Michael Nitz, was found not guilty andthe other, Ronald Ebens, was convict­ed of "interference with Chin's civilrights" (!), a sentence for which he couldconceivably receive probation. He hasbeen released on his own recognizancepending sentencing in mid-August. Yetthis was a crime so inhuman that afederal prosecutor rightly called it "amodern day lynching" using "a baseballbat instead of a rope." Following theverdict Lily Chin, Vincent's mother,pounded her fists on the table and criedout the decision was "not justice."Blacks, Asians, trade unionists and alldecent people must mobilize to havethese racist murderers put away for life!

On the night of 19June 1982 Ebens.aformer Chrysler foreman, spotted Chinin a Highland Park nightclub whereVincent and his friends were celebratinghis upcoming marriage. Apparentlymistaking Chin for Japanese (or maybehe didn't care), Ebens came over to himand snorted, "It's because of mother­fuckers like you that we're out of work."Ebens and his stepson Nitz then starteda fight and later chased Chin to aMcDonald's on Woodward Avenue.While Nitz held Chin down, Ebenscrushed his skull with a baseball bat.Four days later Chin died in thehospital.

But it is not just a couple of psychoticracists like Ebens and Nitz who are

The strike in New York by some 160members of the International Associa­tion of Machinists (lAM) against EI AlAirlines is well into its fourth month.This is no ordinary contract dispute. EIAl is owned by the Israeli state and theZionist bosses are backed to the hilt bythe U.S. government at every level. Thecops, the courts and even the federalImmigration and Naturalization Ser­vice (INS) are all out to bust MachinistsLodges 1894 and 2656.

Under the provisions of the strike­breaking Railway Labor Act, the lAMground mechanics, cargo handlers,ticket and reservation staff and.cornrnis­sary workers were prevented fromstriking for nearly a year after theircontract expired in April 1983. By thetime a walkout was finally legal, onMarch 15 of this year, EI Al was ready

Spartacist Le'aguelSpartacus Youth League

Public Offices-MARXIST LlTERATURE­

Bay AreaFri.: 5:00-8:00 p.rn., Sat.: 3:00-6:00 p.m.1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street)Oakland, California Phone: (415) 835-1535

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

Trotskyist Leagueof Canada

TorontoSat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m.299 Queen St. W., Suite 502Toronto, Ontario Phone: (416) 593-4138

10

guilty of killing the Chinese Americandraftsman. The auto bosses, UnitedAuto Workers (UA W) bureaucracy andDemocratic politicos like Mondale andJesse Jackson have all whipped up anti­Asian hysteria in campaigning forprotectionism for the American autoindustry. On the windows of the UAWheadquarters in Detroit can be foundsigns such as "H ungry? Eat YourForeign Car," and throughout the citybumper stickers read "U nemploy­ment-Made in Japan." Anti-Asianhysteria is rampant in Detroit whereover a third of the auto workers havelost their jobs in the past five years andwhere Japanese auto imports-almost aquarter of the market-are widelyblamed. But it is not just Detroit. Lastyear from California to Houston therewas a series of racist attacks on AsianAmericans by whites resulting in thedeaths of two teenagers and a ten-year­old.

The grisly Vincent Chin case showsthe murderous logic of nationalistprotectionism as well as the racist natureof American 'justice." In their first trialearly last year Ebens and Nitz plea­bargained the charges against themfrom second-degree murder to man­slaughter. They were then given threeyears' probation and assessed $3,800!The outraged protest by Detroit's smallAsian community forced the federalgovernment to stage a second trial for"conspiracy and interference withChin's civil rights." Also the Chinatrocity and judicial whitewash was

EI AI strikersface reactionary

WashingtonlJerusalem axis.

with 100 overseas scabs, brought intothe U.S. under visas that supposedlymake the performance of non­supervisory work illegal. The unionimmediately protested to the INS thatthis rule was being systematicallyviolated but for six weeks nothing wasdone. Unlike black Haitians, Salva­dorans terrorized by right-wing deathsquads or starving Mexicans, scabs getthe red carpet from Uncle Sam. Espe­cially scabs from Israel, the only countryfor which the U.S. recognizes dualcitizenship. It all adds up to internation­al, state-sponsored strikebreaking.

EI Al is demanding a three-year wagefreeze, compulsory overtime at reducedpremiums, longer probation periods fornew hires, reduced vacations, unrestrict-

- ed use of part-timers and much more ina shopping list of dozens of takeaways.Offers of concessions by union bargain-

'"C::l:et=o0><tlo:i:o

Vincent Chin(left) beaten to

death by racistsa few days

before he was tobe married to

Vikki Wong.

getting unfavorable publicity interna­tionally, especially in Asia. The recenttrial drew reporters from Japan, Singa­pore and the People's Republic ofChina.

Racist atrocities like the murder ofVincent Chin 'are endemic to thisdecaying capitalist system. Whether itbe Haitian refugees, Salvadorans fleeingdeath-squad terror or oppressed Asians,the American ruling class and its laborlieutenants blame the spreading socialmisery on "foreigners." Some black and.Hispanic, as well as white, workers maybelieve that import protectionism willsave their jobs or give them more

ers, such as a two-year wage freeze, wererejected by the airline. lAM unitchairman Gene Hoffman told WV thatEI AI has now stated that "even if wesign the agreement as is, they would takeonly 10 to 20 people back and the restwould be subject to recall as vacanciesoccur through attrition."

The EI Al strike is in serious trouble.Seventy of the original lAM strikers arenow scabbing and the company boasts,"We haven't had one cancellation, onedelay." Labor solidarity has been almostnonexistent. Black skycaps initially re­fused to cross picket lines at J FK butgave in when their Transport WorkersUnion (TWU) Local 1400 leaderswouldn't back them up. This actionunfortunately amounts to more than thecombined "efforts" of the rest of theNew York City labor movement. Team­ster truck drivers deliver freight and

bargaining leverage. Don't buy this lie!Protectionism setting the proletariat ofone country against their class brothersabroad paves the way for inter­imperialist war. The racist poison of"buy American" protectionism will hitblacks and Hispanics just as it killedVincent Chin. The real killers of VincentChin are the enemies of all workers,the profit-hungry capitalists who drainthe lifeblood of workers throughspeedup and forced overtime, and thenthrow them into the streets whenthey no longer need them. And theywill be brought to justice in a workers'America.js

TWU airlines division members arehandling baggage and fuel.

lAM president William Winpisingerhas appealed to Harry Van Arsdale ofthe New York Central Labor Councilfor "complete support and solidarity."Well and good, but where was Wimpywhen the survival of an entire union wasat stake and the urgent task was to shutdown the airports in solidarity with theair traffic controllers strike in 1981? Hewas hiding behind a call for an impotentconsumer boycott and PATCO wasannihilated. The labor fakers whohanded PA TCO over to Reagan threeyears ago can be counted on to betraythe EI Al strikers today.

The EI Al strikers were predomi­nantly pro-Israel, demonstrating theirloyalty to the Zionist state and its airlineby working overtime without compen­sation to load arms into EI AI cargoholds during Israel's wars of annexa­tion. In a leaflet distributed to theoverwhelmingly Jewish passengers onEI AI, the strikers state "our strike is astruggle against the abuse of the verysame values Israel stands for." But thosevalues are exemplified by the massacresof Arabs in Shatila and Sabra, the reignof terror in the West Bank and Gaza andthe super-exploitation of Palestinianlabor. The other side of this virulentracialism is the "Labor'l-Zionist mythdesigned to deny class struggle withinthe Hebrew-speaking population. Thestrikers' leaflet talks of an "Israelitradition of labor fairness." Yet inIsrael, the same border police whoroutinely terrorize Palestinians are usedto bust El Al strikers' heads at Lodairport.: And the Zionist press hastypically denounced the EI AI strikers inthe U.S., the majority of whom areJewish, as anti-Semitic and pro-Pl.O,

Like in any other strike, it will takeold-fashioned class struggle to beat ElAI. But 160 workers can't do it alone,especially against a boss which accurate­ly brags of its "unlimited funds." TheTeamsters and TWU must spearhead alabor boycott of EI AI now. Victory tothe EI AI strikers!.

WORKERS VANGUARD

Vietnam...(continued from page 3)

imperialism, as its main enemy. In a rareinterview, Premier Pham Van Dong in amuted way appeals to Washington toabandon its ties to Peking: "We mustremember that the United States andChina are not completely alike-theymay sleep in the same bed but they havedifferent dreams. One day the UnitedStates will realize that" (Newsweek, 14May). Yes: the U.S. ruling class dreamsof reconquering for capitalist exploita­tion Vietnam and China and the SovietUnion., Moreover, the U.S. ruling class is

determined to avenge itself on Vietnamfor the most humiliating defeat of itsentire history. To incite the Americanpeople, the Reagan gang keeps harpingabout soldiers missing in action sup­posedly still held in Vietnam and Laos.Both countries have repeatedly invitedveterans and the families of MlAs to seefor themselves and have explained theyhave located all the bodies they can inthe dense jungles and mountains. YetReagan cynically continues to manipu­late the agony of American families forhis anti-Communist crusade. Similarly,the U.S. imperialists howl about allegedmistreatment of their former Saigonpuppet officials in the re-educationcamps, but have refused repeated offersby Hanoi to ship them all to the U.S.

Vietnam's leaders have unfortunate­ly sought to politically counter theWashington/ Peking offensive by agitat­ing for an anti-Chinese bloc amongthe various reactionary despots ofSoutheast Asia, with Australia playingthe role of imperialist broker. Inparticular, the Hanoi regime has beenwooing the bloody generals of Indone­sia, who in 1965 annihilated the pro- .Peking PKI (then the largest Commu­nist Party in the world not holding statepower) and also massacred much of theethnic Chinese community. When ear­lier this year General Benny Murdani,commander of Indonesia's armed forc­es, paid a friendly visit to Hanoi, PhamVan Dong expressed his hopes of"continuous growth for the Indonesianarmed forces" (Far Eastern EconomicReview, I March).

Certainly the Vietnamese governmenthas every right and reason to try tobreak out of diplomatic isolation andestablish economic relations with evenreactionary capitalist states. But Ha­noi's search for "peaceful coexistence"and anti-Chinese "unity" with the likes ­of Suharto's Indonesia is diametricallycounterposed to the vitally neededextension of revolutionary strugglethroughout Southeast Asia. Proletarianpolitical revolution to shatter theStalinist bureaucracies is necessary toput these victories fully at the service ofthe world revolution.

The victory of the VietnameseRevolution was the crucial defeat whichended the "American century." It is,above all, fear of "another Vietnam"which today holds back U.S. imperial­ism from invading Central America todrown the revolutionary masses inblood. The workers and oppressedpeoples of the world owe a special debtto the heroism of the Vietnamesepeople. The defense of the revolutionaryvictories in Indochina against vindictiveU.S. imperialism and its accomplicesremains an urgent task .•

Toledo, 1934...(continued from page 6)

Others voiced sympathy with the work­ers. (A year later, when Toledo unionistswent to Defiance, Ohio, to aid thePressed Steel Company strike, theyfound that eight per cent of the strikershad been National Guardsmen servingin uniform in the Auto-Lite strike. Thatwas where they learned the lesson of ­unionism.)

On May 24, the guardsmen fired

6 JULY 1984

point-blank into the Auto-Lite strikersranks, killing two and wounding 25. But6,000 workers returned at dusk to renewthe battle. In the dark, they closed in ongroups of guardsmen in the six-blockmartial law zone. The fury of theonslaught twice drove the troops backinto the plant. At one stage, a group oftroops threw their last tear gas andvomit gas bombs, then quickly pickedup rocks to hurl at the strikers; thestrikers recovered the last gas bombsthrown before they exploded, flingingthem back at the troops.

On Friday, May 31, the troops werespeedily ordered withdrawn from thestrike area when the company agreed tokeep the plant closed. This had not beenthe usual one-way battle with theworkers getting shot down and unableto defend themselves. Scores of guards­men had been sent to the hospitals. Theyhad become demoralized. By June 1,98out of 99 AFL local unions had votedfor a general strike.

A monster rally on the evening ofJune 1 mobilized some 40,000 workersin the Lucas County CourthouseSquare. There, however, the AFLleaders, frightened by this tremendouspopular uprising, were silent about thegeneral strike and instead assured theworkers that Roosevelt would aid them.

By June 4, with the whole communityseething with anger, the companycapitulated and signed a six-monthcontract, including a 5% wage increasewith a 5% minimum above the autoindustry code, naming Local 18384 asthe exclusive bargaining agent in thestruck plants. This was the first contractunder the code that did not include"proportional representation" for com­pany unions. The path was opened fororganization of the entire automobileindustry. With the Auto-Lite victoryunder their belts, the Toledo autoworkers were to organize 19 plantsbefore the year was out and, beforeanother 12 months, were to lead the firstsuccessful strike in a G M plant, the realbeginning of the conquest of GeneralMotors.•

Jackson...(continued from page 9)

prepared to support Jesse Jackson, butonly if his "movement" is big enough: "If50,000 people came out into the streetsin support of Jackson, even once in asingle city, we would attach' ten timesmore significance to that fact than to allthe polls to date." So the RCL-(I) iswaiting for Jackson to become a biggerbetrayer! What classic examples ofrevisionist Eduard Bernstein's famousdictum, "The movement is everything,the final goal nothing."

What Jesse Jackson is all about wasgraphically shown on 14 May 1983,when he came down to Norfolk:Virginia. That day an overwhelminglyblack crowd of 10,000, with a powerfulblack trade-union contingent, wasmarching in the streets to defend theirschool integration busing program.While showing up to grab mediaexposure, Jesse Jackson declared: "I amnot in town marching for desegregation.I am marching for the voter registrationboost." Wherever black people arestruggling, Jesse is trying to head it offand channel them back into the confinesof the racist Democratic Party. Back inthe 1960s, every black radical hadJesse's number, from the Black Pan­thers who called him "Jesse JacknapeJackson" to black radical journalistBarbara Reynolds who wrote: "Whatthey [the ruling class] needed was aBooker T. Washington in bell-bottoms... who could out rap H. Rap Brown,but someone with more orderly oratorywho could lead the militants away fromthe onslaught of property to anotherfront." That's Jesse today.

To turn back the attacks ondemocratic rights of blacks, to beat backthe racist cutbacks (voted for by theDemocratic Congress), to integrate theschools and achieve quality education

for ghetto children, to stop the resurgentKu Klux Klan terrorists in their tracksrequires labor/black mobilization in thestreets, on the picket lines, on the battlelines of class struggle against bothcapitalist parties, Democrats and Re­publicans. As Malcolm X said 20 yearsago, "A vote for a Democrat is a vote fora Dixiecrat." Build a workers party tofight for black liberation throughsocialist revolution-this is the only wayto break the chains of racist capitalistoppression.•

Flag Down...(cont inued from page 12)

Feinstein wants to make San Franciscosafe for the neanderthal Strom Thur­mond types and the current GeorgeWallacites, her Dixiecrat brothers-in­arms who will soon be arriving for theDemocratic National Convention. Nowshe hopes to bury the fact that she didn'tget away with flying the Stars and Barsagain.

The militants who toppled this poledeserve a medal. While rumors circulatethat the Klan might try and march inthis city, Feinstein showed her truestripes by hanging out the welcome mat,running this KKK flag back up theflagpole. It didn't work! Once again ablow has been struck for working andblack people. Once again Civic CenterPlaza has been restored to the side of theheroic Union Army that smashed thebarbaric slavocracy. But once again thecapitalist Democratic Party's actions inthis city have demonstrated that thecentral task of the Civil War, blackliberation, is far from completed. Fin­ish the Civil War! Black LiberationThrough Socialist Revolution! Forwardto a Workers State! The Confederateflag is down and it will stay down!.

Convention...(continued from page 12)

least by the city administration ofDianne Feinstein, the ambitious, union­busting, Confederate-flag-waving Dem­ocratic mayor. Implementing Reagan'santi-vterrorism" campaign at the Con­vention constitutes an open invitation tothe Ku Klux Klan/Nazi racist terroristsand incites cop violence and ultraright­ist assault against protesters and againstthe Convention itself.

On June 25, the SF police departmentannounced preparation' ofa detentioncenter for hundreds, who will bearrested for "minor legal infractions" by"special arrest teams." The cops an­nounced the purchase of hundreds ofdisposable handcuffs, towels and hy­giene kits for 1,000, and 500 army cotsfor detainees. As a "security precau­tion," state delegations will be busedfrom hotels to the Convention site "withpolice escorts and sheriff's deputiesriding 'shotgun' in the buses"; "secretcontingency plans" to deal with pur­ported terrorists have been devised. Infurtherance of the war-crazy Reagan­ites' drive against "state-supported"(meaning Russian-supported) "terror­ism," SF city administrators refused togrant press passes to the Soviet newsagency TASS.

Speaking for ourselves, the SpartacistLeague has no intention of demon­strating at the Convention or evenselling our newspaper there. As SLspokesman AI Nelson told theChronicle:

"For our part, we think the DemocraticParty convention will be a monumentalbore. We have no interest in seeking tolobby or pressure this party of racismand imperialist war. To do so wouldonly serve and strengthen the unfortu­nate illusion that this party has some­thing to offer working people."

Nevertheless we emphatically upholdthe right of those who do wish todemonstrate at the Democratic Conven­tion to exercise that right without beingsubjected to police violence, "terrorism"smears or ultrarightist assault.

On 26 April 1984, the SL generalcounsel sent a letter to the DemocraticNational Committee protesting the falsecharacterizations in the bourgeois presslabeling the Spartacist League as violentand as intending to disrupt the Demo­cratic Convention. The letter describedthese lying accusations as "a renewedgovernmental COINTELPRO-type ef­fort." And a question was posed: "onewonders ifan object of this provocativeand false reportage is the DemocraticNational Convention itself?"

The hysterical and self-serving proph­ecy of violence at the DemocraticConvention is a dangerous weaponagainst all critics of the Reagan adminis­tration, those within the DemocraticParty as well as those outside it.Defining lawful political protest assupport for "terrorism," Reagan de­mands "preventive or preemptive ac­tions against terrorist groups beforethey strike" in the U.S. and abroad.Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohiohas called Reagan's anti-vterrorisrn"laws a "throwback to the McCarthy era"and "clearly unconstitutional." NewFBI guidelines provide for investiga­tion, harassment, infiltration, disrup­tion, prosecution and incarceration ofpolitical opponents on the basis of theirlawful political activity. The SpartacistLeague has filed suit against its inclu­sion under these new guidelines, indefense of the basic constitutional rightsof free expression, association andassembly, as part of our fight againstwhat we have called "McCarthyism witha drawn gun."

This new witchhunt has as its objec­tive the mobilization of opinion behindthe anti-Soviet war drive and therepression and destruction of all per­ceived political opponents. To this endReagan in his April 5 news conferencereiterated his lament that there was noformal declara tion of war over Vietnam,thereby constraining the governmentfrom charging antiwar critics with"lending comfort and aid to theenemy"-i.e., with treason.

A fitting historical model forReagan's exploitation of a "terror scare"to smash political opposition can befound in the 1933 Reichstag (Germanparliament) fire, which was probably setby the Nazis and then was exploited bythem to repress political dissidence andconsolidate the Third Reich.

The Democrats' embracing ofReagan's "terrorism" scare serves tointimidate, neutralize and discredit allopposition to the administration. Themethod of McCarthyism is all toofamiliar. Those anti-communist liberalswho want their witchhunt and civilliberties too should know that thewitchhunt doesn't stop with Marxists orblack and labor activists. Indicative ofthe Cold War climate was Senatewitchhunter John East's smear ofCongressional critics of El Salvador'sRoberto "Blowtorch" D'Aubuisson,terming their references to D'Aubuis­son's well-known connection to thedeath squads "left-wing McCarthyism"and "Big Lie."

The beneficiary of this "fears ofviolence" campaign, which claims theintention of protecting the DemocraticConvention, is going to be the Reaganadministration-not those who claim tooppose Reagan's policies and certainlynot those who defend the democraticrights of the American people. Thiscampaign has already inspired thethreat of right-wing provocation, withJerry Falwell's Moral Majority an­nouncing a "Family Forum" conferenceone week before the Convention and theKKK threatening to march during theConvention. Against the real instigatorsand perpetuators of political disruptionand violence, against the Watergatersand .Cold Warriors, against the witch­hunters and their shock troops march­ing under the terror banners of theswastika and the Confederate slaveryflag, the SL stands ready to defend thedemocratic rights of the DemocraticNational Convention and calls on thelabor movement to do so as well..

11

WfJliNEliS ,,1NfifJllli'

wvagain demonstrated its determination todefend the racist status quo. By the timeour photographer got out to CivicCenter Plaza, work crews had alreadywhisked away the fallen pole and a well­coordinated news media blackout isapparently under way. Where is theConfederate flag now, Mayor Fein­stein? Which Union flag are you goingto haul down to raise the racist Stars andBars again? Why doesn't the Dixielandmayor tell us why she ran this symbol ofblack slavery and racist terror back upagain? What happened to the pro­Union, anti-slavery California Hundredflag she announced would replace thedespicable racist Confederate flag?

continued on page //

Sumter garrison flag. "Jefferson Davis"Feinstein tore that Union flag down andit was shredded. The Spartacist Leaguehas continually asserted its determina­tion to rid this city, with its large unionmovement and minority population, ofthe Confederate flag. We hail themilitant workers who have continuedthis struggle by toppling the flagpole.

The Dixiecrat Democratic Party, ledin this city by Mayor and vice presiden­tial hopeful Dianne Feinstein, has once

..Anti-racist

militants torchedmetal flagpole

on which"Dixie" Dianne

Feinstein raisedConfederate flagfor the third time.

depth of' anger among decent work ingpeople, black and white, in the Bay A reawith Feinstein's racist arrogance. Sheought to think twice before tryinganother double-cross.

Feinstein spokesmen claimed to theChronicle that the Confederateflag wasonlv flying because the CaliforniaHundred/lag was temporarily unavail­able! This is an outrageous lie. It doesn'ttake that long to make aflag, and moreimportantly there was an appropriate[lag available-s-the replica ofthe FortSumter garrison flag, the historic svm­hoI of' Union victory over the Confeder­acr, which \\'e donated to the cit v onHal' 29 when Richard Bradlev placed it

atop theflagpole. BUI Feinstein orderedthe Fort Sumter flag taken down anddestroyed and then ordered the racistStan and Bars flown. Down with theflag of slaverv and racist terror.' Finishthe Civil War.'

Tara ran up another Confederate flag,the Confederate National Flag, and inso doing spit in the face of every decentperson in this city, and especially blackpeople.

It was the Spartacist League thatinitiated the fight to remove this eyesoreand incitement to race-terror from ourcity. Richard Bradley twice scaled theCivic Center flagpole to tear down theConfederate flag and made a third climbto install the historic and heroic Fort

When San Francisco mayor DianneFeinstein ordered theflying ofthe Con­federacv's "Stars and Bars" on the sameCivic Center flagpole where formerlythe Confederate battle flag had flownshe OUXht to have known this provoca­tion would not XO unanswered. In theearly morning hours of' June 29, mili­rants took down not onlv the banner of'slal'ocracr, but the entire pole. Wereprint below the Spartacist Leaguepress release issued that same dar hail­ing these militants and their heroic act.

According to the San FranciscoChronicle (30 June), the mavor haspromised to huve theflagpole up and the"California Hundred" (flag of' thevolunteers who .fCIUKht with the Unionforces) flying bv next week, Good. Of'course this is whut Feinstein promisedto do after lI'e twice tore down theConfederateflag in Mar. BUIthe cuttingdown of' the flagpole is a gauge ofthe

Mayor "Dixie" Dianne Feinstein hasmet her Vicksburg! Her attempt torestore the Confederate flag, the historicsymbol of slavery and KKK racism, wasfoiled by heroic militants who toppledthe entire flagpole and dropped theConfederate Stars and Bars into the dirtwhere it belongs in the early morninghours today. After pledging in April tooutraged Bay Area citizens that shewouldn't fly the vicious flag of racistterror, the slavery-loving matron of

Militants Bring DownConfederate Flag...And the Flagpole

~p-artacists Offer to Defend Democrats' Rights

Are Cops, Reagan PlanningViolence at Democratic Convention?SL Statement

SAN FRANCISCO, July 2-A barrageof recent major newspaper articles, fromthe San Francisco Chronicle to the NewYork Times, is claiming that theupcoming Democratic Party NationalConvention is in danger of beingdisrupted by violence. The articles claimthat unidentified "police sources" andthe Democratic Party National Com- ­mittee are worried about the possibilityof supposed terroristic actions and

provocations against the police, in­tended to disrupt the DemocraticConvention and prevent its nominationof a presidential candidate. Under thecover of this scare-mongering campaignthe cops propose to themselves disruptthe convention, turning it into a milita­rized zone and unleashing their own realviolence against the tame liberals andreformists who are expected to demon­strate in SF in conjunction with theDemocrats' gathering. In response -rheSpartacist League, a Marxist politicalorganization, is today announcing ouroffer ofa security team contribution ofadozen trade unionists and SL support-

ers to defend the democratic rights ofthe Democratic Convention. The SLalso calls on the AFL-CIO, the Team­sters, ILWU and other labor organiza­tions to organize an additional labordefense guard for the Convention. Theprofound political and class differencebetween the Spartacist League and theDemocratic Party in no way belies ourposition that the Democratic Party hasthe right to assemble and nominate itscandidate.

The need for this labor defense squaddocs not arise from the estimated 30liberal and left groups planning toprotest administration policies, over

anything from gay rights to nuclearfreeze to El Salvador to jobs. Equatingthese peaceful demonstrations with"terrorism" is a blatant example ofOrwellian doublespeak which serves theforces of Reagan reaction. Police"concerns" about "violence" are a baldattempt to exonerate themselves inadvance for cop riots, to send a clearmessage of intimidation to the wholepopulace. Labor defense guards arenecessitated by the embracing ofthe Reagan administration's anti­"terrorism" scare, if not by the Demo­cratic National Committee itself. then at

continued on page //

12 6 JULY 1984