WfJ/iIlE/iS ",1N(J(J,1" 25¢No. 218 "';...;lJjo:,,~. X'!l21

-".J~""." 3 November 1978

This One's Not Going Down

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ex peeted to he he/oil' the rate ofinflation.

The "price guidelines" are even moreof a joke. While thousands of businesseswill rush forward to do their patrioticduty to hold wage and fringe benefitincreases to the 7 percent limit, the

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fraud. Workers who accept the 7 percentlimit will supposedly be able to get a taxrebate later if inflation exceeds that rate.But this re4uires approval from aCongress that has spat in the face oflahor time and again: and it alsoreportedly contains an as yet undeter­mined "reasonable" limit. which is

arler's

the hone and slashing hard-won gainssuch as cost-of-living protection. Withinflation already spiraling to doublefigurcs. Carter is demanding that theunions swallow further substantialcut hacks in real income.

The "wage insurance" gimmickinserted to woo labor's support isa total

imi sl.Iimm\ Carter's recently announced

"\o!untan" Phase II \\age-price guide­lines arc a hroadside attack on the:\merican working people. While thel' .S. economy goes to hell and the dp!laris falling through the floor. the parties ofhig husines~ \\ant to make the \\orkingpeople pa\ thl' costs of the capitalisteeOl1l1mlC crl.Sls.

Lahnr must thrn\\ thesl' wetgecontrols right hack in Carter's lace.hreetking t!lwugh the "guidelines" torestore petst !OSSl'S and achiC\e fullprotection etgainst the ravages of infla­tion. What is more. with contractsCl1\enng se\era\ million \\orkerscoming up in the next year: with e\enthe consel'\ative ~1eanv win~' 0r thehurl.·aueracy rankling at the anti-bhorpolicies of the Carter administration:\\ ith the militant example of the 1977-7'1',coal strikc to spur them on and no recentmajor defeats to demoralize them. U.S.workers have an excellent opportunityahead to do just that.

Mas4ucrading as a program to "fightinflation," the heart of Carter's plan is a7 percent annual limit on pay andhenefit hikes. It is an open invitation tothe hosses to hard-line it in upcomingcontract negotiations with major indus­trial unions. cutting wage increases to

While Castro's Guest

Trotsky's Assassin Dies in HavanaLate last month Ram6n Mercaderdel

'R io, the ma n who on 20 August 1940murdered Leon Trotsky, died of bonecancer in Havana. Cuba. Thus endedthe l'de of a despicahle being who wouldha\e heen happily ignored by historyhad he not 3'1', years ago struck .. thecrowning hlow in the greatest politicalcrime of this century: Stalin's systematicassassination of the entire remaining

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Bolshevik g.eneral staff which made theRussian Re\olution of 1917.

Mercader's counterrevolutionaryblow with a mountai.neer's ice-ax struckdown the man who together with Leninled the Octoher Revolution: the founderor the heroic Red Army, which pre­vailed in a terrible Civil War againsttsarist armies and the exptditionaryforces of 1'1', imperialist countries: theMarxist leader who carried forward theflame or BolshC\ism in the darkest daysor fascist barbarism and Stalinistbetrayal. We neither forgive nor forgetMereader's 'inramous crime. and wehitterly regret that like his master.Stalin-Cain. this \ile assassin died in hedinstead of facing the revolutionaryjustice of a \lctnriol!S proletariat.

I here \\as Ill) official announcell1'~nt

of Mercader's death. a fitting end for thec\nical instrument that carried outStalin's monstrous order. then to he putout into the cold hy his patrons.Although his name was kno\'.!1 through­out the world. after 20 years imprison­ment in Me,ican jails, Mercader spentthe last IX years in ohscurity in dachas inPrague. Moscow and finally FidelCastro's 1I;l\ana. Wh,,'! In tsarist Russia

Ramon Mercader.

the \arodniki and Social Revolution­,tries used to trumpet their terroriste,ploits far and wide as a revolutionaryhlow against the autocracy.

But Stalin's terror was in blatantcontradiction to the Communist aimshis n:gimc professed-so it had to he

excused with frame-up trials and Big l.iepropaganda. or else hidden and denied.Ram6n Mercader's single notahle act inlife was so odious that he could not showhis face even in the countries dominatedby the Kremlin. whose parasitic rulershe had served. H is very presence was aliving reminder that Stalinism did notvanish with the death of J.V. Stalin, theCireat Organizer of Defeats and Butcherof the Peoples.

Ram6n Mereader was the epitome ofthe mindless, utterly corrupt and cynicalhit-man of Stalin's secret police. whoseinitials-GPU (later NK VD)-becamethe hated symbol of counterrC\oiution­a ry hurea ucrat ic terror. From the day ofhis arrest until his release in 1960 herepeatedly denied his true political­criminal affiliations. maintaining thepatentlv false story that he was "Jac4uesMornaI'd" (alias Frank Jacson). adiSillusioned Belgian folll)\\er of Trot­sky. l'nder this guise he had hefriendedan American Trotskyist. Svl\la Agelotl,and used her to worm his wav into theTrotsky residence in Coyoac;'tn. just'outside Mexico City. At the time of theassassination hc carried on his person a

colli iI/lied 01/ I'age 8

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Homosexual Teachers Targeted in California

Vote Down the Briggs Initiative!

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Spartacist League/SYL contingent in Los Angeles march against the Briggsamendment in July.

I camstl'r" l A\\' and California Feder­ation nf lahor. /\I-L-CIO. all issuedI"L's<llutions condemning the measure.nonl' of thcse unions has heen willing totakc its paper resolutions into the streetsh\ initiating or supporting mass demon­strations to stnp thc \\ itch hunt.

I hl' responsl' of numerous ga\lihnatlon groups to the current \\a\e ofantl-homosl'xual referenda has been toIntL'nsil\ thL'ir participation in Demo­natic Part\ electoral politics. trying to,tifkn till' Ilherais' hack hones h\ gettlllgnlllrl' '"clout" at the h;I1lot hox, But nenif Prop (, i, dcfe;ltcd on "O\cmher 7, thetilk of I"l:action IS stili running strongand thl' liher;t1 Dcmocrah ma\ ah;lndontheir ,L'a\ "eonstitucnn "just as the:hal e alr(a,1\ turned their hacks onhuslng.

\lorl'o\L'r. a, \larxish \\le poini outth:!t tl1<-' pcrsecution of !1nmosexuals isclosel\ hound up \\ith capitalism'slkkn,e of the nuclear familv as aprofoundh consen atiling social force.(It is no accident that Anita Bryantpeddles hcr bigotry under the slogan of"S;I\ c Our Childrcn. ") Thc oppression ofhomoscxuals will not he eliminateduntil the' famih is replaced by highcrforms of social organization in asocialist society. I-ull democratic rightsfor homosexuals will he won neither inthc \oting hooths nor in the conclaves ofthe Democratic Party. hut in theworkers soviets.

I-ull democratic rights forhomosexuals! Down with the deathpenalty! California lahor must mobilileto smash the Briggs initiatives!.

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Anita Bryant was not merely an out­hurst of haekwater fundamentalism.

The lahor movement and all thoseconcer'ned with the defense of democrat­ic rights must mobilize to smash thereactionary Briggs initiatives and simi­lar efforts to victimize and terrorileminorities and "deviants." Yet while theCalifornia Federation of Teachers,

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primarilv hecause of the opposition ofhourgeois politicians. many of whomarl' more anti-Briggs than anti­Proposition 6. Even Ronald Reagan hascomc out against it. Nevertheless, thesupport \\hich Proposition 6 has heenahle to elicit in liheral California shouldmakc it ahundantly clear that the anti­honlOscxual campaign initiated hy

On "O\emher 7 the latest dlort ofreactionan higots to terrori/e homo­sexuals comes hefore California \oters.Proposition 6. sponsored hy right-wings!<ltc senator .Iohn V. Briggs. is apartieularh \icious piece of legislationwhich would empower local schoolhoards to fire teachers. schoo! aides.counselor's and administrators for '"ad­\ocating:. soliciting. imposing. cncour­;lging: or promoting ... pri\atc or puhlicihln1l1S(xual acti\it\ directed at or likeh. .to coml' to th( attention of. schoolL'llIldrl'n ;lI1d or other employl'(s.'"

Prop (, is part of Briggs' schl'm( torilk th( \\;l\l' of ant i-homosex ua IrL';IL,tinn Irnm nhs(urit\ tn th( g<l\l'!"­nnr's manSion. In th( afterm;lth of'llcl'(sslul anti-11l1mnsl.'.xual l"i:lcrl'nda inDade' Count\. \\'ichlta, St. Paul andhll!l'IlL'. ()re!.!on. the issue ofd(mnl'!"aticI'igllh lor hl;mos(xuals ha, he(n losingg:l"llllnd to the same right-\\ing o!l(nSl\(\\ hich has stalled the Equal RightsAmendm(nt. has \irtually put a haltto husing: to achie\e racial integ:ratlonin th( schnob. and e\en justifies themurderous fire-homhing of ahortionclinics in the name of the '"right to life.'"

Almost unnoticed in the furor raisedh\ Briggs' Proposition 6 is Briggs'(q ua lIy at rocious Propos it ion 7. whichmandates capital punishment for aninl'!"eascd numher of crimes. Briggscomplains that he is having trouhleraising money for the initiati\e hccauseit is considered sure to win.

But Prop 6 is not assured of \ictory.Where initially polls found the measuresupported hya 2 to I majority. they no\\indicate that it may he defeated.

"War is Peace"Wage Limits ...(COI1! ;/llied/i'om /Iage /)

single standard for price hikes that hadhe(n wide" discussed in Administrationcircles 5,75 percent was dropped atthe final moment. This was replacedwith the much looser request thathusinesses keep their price increases .5percent helow their 1976-77 average.gi\ing plenty of f1exihility to firms whojacked their prices up steeply during thatperiod. The upper limit is supposed tohe 9.5 percent annually. and there arcexceptions e\en to that.

Little more than five years ago the1\ixon administration imposed manda­tory gO\ernment wage controls on theAm(rican working class. Pay hoostswere held to 5.5 percent a year. The pro­capitalist trade-union officials ac­quiesced to this vicious program. sat on'ixon's Pa\ Board and urged theworking class to put the DemocratieP;lrty in pO\\er. Meanwhile inflationsurged to rates of 9 percent. andcorporate profits shot up at an annualrate 01'40 percent. In 1976. claiming thatthe Democrats wcr(' "friends of lahor."the hureaucrats worked mightily for andhailed the election llf Carter. claimingthat he would create johs and halt therunaway flight of prices. rents andprofit. In return workers are no\\saddled with "voluntary" wage limits.

The working masses have continuedto he ravaged hy hoth unemploymentand inflation. With the johless rate stillwell mer 6 percent and douhle ortriple that for hlacks and Latinsinflation has spiraled to over 10 percent.The I.ahor Department's ConsumerPrice Index for Urhan Areas. rose at an11.4 percent rate in the second quarterof the year. with food costs climhinge\Tn faster in the same period. up astaggering 20.4 percent. Workers arcsimply li\ing more poorly. while theunemployed and those on fixed incomesharely li\e at all. That Carter is nowresorting: to the same schemes as Nixon

and Ford only demonstrates starkly thefundamcntal identity of the programcxpounded by all the political spokes­men for declllling American imperial­Ism. Democrats and Repuhlicansalike make the working masses pay!

Thc Carter gmernment has attackedcoal miners. rail and postal workers\\ith \icious strikehreaking measures.And \irtually everyone of laborofficialdom's "must'" legislative bids hashecn shot down, from common situspicketing to lahor law reform. Unionpresidents and lohhyists hegged formore spending on johs and got "sorry.too intbtionary" for an answer, whilethe Pcnt;\gon's budget rose to a recordS 126 hill ion. Carter chopped 100,000federally funded CFTAjohs, then thre\\lahor the sop of a toothless Humphrey­HawkillS hill which will not provideonc nc\\ joh and which even the A Fl.­C/O\('\\'S callcd "more symhol thansuhstance."

In the hcc of Ca rter's naked austerityprogram, howe\er. the lahor fakers areyet attempting to shore up their rottenalliance with the Democratic Party. Ofthe officials of major unions whosecontracts expire next year. Fitzsimmonsof thc Teamsters conditionally endorsedthe program. while vaguely suggestingsome "adjustment" in the wage cap.Ruhher Workers president Pete Bom­marito said he "could live with" thepresident's guidelines if prices stabi­li/ed. United Auto Workers presidentDoug Fraser commented: "The UAW ishopctul that the plan can be adminis­tered in an equitahle manner thatachie\es the goal of reducing inflation."And AFL-CIO head George Meanyreiterated his earlier "alternative":1I1l111£!a/o/T wage-price controls (so thatthc hcat is taken off the hureaucracy)!

But American workers are fed up.197H was considered a relatively lighthargaining year. Yet it saw thedramaticI J()-day coal miners strike, the longwrangle mCl" the postal negotiations, a

When the Washington press corpsheard the statement ofSccretary ofStateVance congratulating Anwar Sadat andMenachem Begin as the joint recipientsof the 197H Nobel Peace Prize. they justlaughed. It was the ohviously appropri­ate response to what Soviet foreignminister Andrei Gromyko accuratelytermed a "certain sort ofjoke." Indeed. itwas the most ironically laughable deci­sion since the:\ ohel Committee awardedthe prile to "peacemaker" HenryKissinger in 197.\ after he advised theChristmas 1971 homhing raid on Hanoi.

What more appropriate winners ofthis prize estahlisheCl hy munitionsprofiteer Alfred Nobel-than an Israeliterrorist kno\\ n as the "But,_i-.:r of DeirYasin.'" and an Egyptian militarist who is\iewed as the "hero" of the Octoher 1973war') Nor could the Nobel Committee

four-day tic-up of the nation's railroadsand <I rash of puhlic employee andteachers' strikes this fall. Most signifi­cantly. in everyone of the majornationwide contracts the Carter govern­ment was forced to resort to openstrikehreaking measures. Clearly duhi­ous of the lahor hureaucracy's ahility todiscipline its memhership. Carter's"\oluntary" guidelines are a thinly\ciled threat that if the trade union topsdo not whip the ranks hack in line. thenhe will resort to mandatory wagecontrols.

l"hc decisi\e test of Carter's program\\ill not he long in coming, as powerfulsections of the organized working classcome face to face with the hosses earlvnext \ear. Some 70.000 oil and chemi<;-alworkers wi II he first, when their agree­ments expire in January. Then come theTea msters. whose master freight agree..

forgct to praise the guiding spirit ofCamp David. Jimmy Carter. But event hc world's most dangerous imperialist isreportedly hopping mad at Begin whosedecision to expand the Zionist settle­ments in the West Bank exposes the hoaxof Camp David.

So t here is much cruelty in thisjokeforthe Palestinians. and for the Arah andHehrew workers who arc thrO\vn intodead Iy hattIe agai nst their class brothershy these nationalist warmongers. Thephony "peace" of Camp David is meantto hI.' huilt overthehodiesofPalestiniansas surely as the Munich "peace" was huilton the hodies of the Czechs. In fact. onewonders how the Nohel Committeeoverlooked those other historic "peace­makers" in 193~ Hitler andCham herla in for their role in estahlish­ing a "framework for a lasting peace."

ment covering nearly 500.000 driversexpires in March. In quick successionfollow contracts covering the ruhherworkers. 400.000 construction workers.the Clothing Workers, electrical unions.meat packers and in Septemher nearlya million Rig 3 auto and agriculturalimplement workers.

Carter's pay guidelines and threat ofwage controls must he dealt a smashinghhm on the picket lines. Teamsters,auto workers. ruhher workers and othertradc unionists must prcpare now forstrike action, The hcroic mincrs demon­strated that the hosscs and their govcrn­mcnt can he defied hy militant lahorsolidarity. Dump the pro-eapitalisttradc union hureaucracy! Smash Car­tn's pay guidelines! End all support tothe Demonats and Repuhlicans For a\\orkers party. hased on the unions. toli)!ht tor a workers government..

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

Mullah Lovers Go Berserk at SYL Forums

Anti-shah demonstrators in Washington, D.C.

As the anti-shah protests which haverocked Iran for the past year and a halfcontinue. the entire left has been put tothe test. What attitude do Marxists taketoward a protest movement under theleadership of reactionary religiousfundamentalists? Without exception­so far. at least-our opponents haveopted for the holy men of Islam.claiming that the Muslim mullahs are"progressive" and even "revolutionary."Some of them, moreover, have beendrivcn to a state of absolute frenzy byour slogan "Down with the shah­Down with the mullahs!" and togetherwith Muslim Iranian students haveembarked on a campaign of disruptingforums of the Spartacus Youth League(SYL).

From the outset the SpartacistLeague (SL) has uniquely insisted thatthe followers of Ayatollah Khomeini donot constitute a progressive or demo­cratic opposition to the shah. Instead ofcalling on the three-million-strongIranian proletariat to mesh its demandswith those of anti-Western Muslimpuritanism. we have stood for theabsolute political independence of theworking class, fighting under its ownbanners for socialist revolution. Soduring last month's series of SYLforums in the Midwest and on the EastCoast. at every meeting Maoist andMuslim Iranian groups were foundlocked together in a clearly orchestratedcampaign of disruption and slander todefend the "honor" of the mullahs.

Ironically our analysis of the religiousopposition to the shah was vividlyconfirmed during the forums by theMuslim student activists who attended.At a meeting held at Harvard, forexample. one Muslim student noticedthe speaker. Spartacist editor CharlesO'Brien, pour himself a drink. prompt­ing the student to leap to his feet.howling, "How dare you insult us bydrinking whiskey in front of us!" At theend of the meeting another Iranianstudent came forward to explain thatthe vcil (symbol of the segregation ofwomen from public life) was simply amatter of "fashion" much like the maxi­skirt here!

At an October 12 talk given byO'Brien at the University of Illinois,Chicago Circle campus, Muslim student

spea kers repeated 11' contrad icted thepicture of "revolutionary mullahs"served up by various Maoist spokes­men. When a representative of theRevolutionary Community Party­aligned wing of the Iranian StudentAssociation (lSA) attacked the speakerfor stating that followers of Khomeini inTabriz had raised the slogan, "Death or

the veiL" a spokesman for the Muslimstudent association on campus rose todefend the veil. acknowledging matter­of-factly that of course Khomeini andhis followers raised the slogan, "Deathor heiah" ("modesty," i.e., the veil).

When another Maoist speaker triedto denounce us for suggesting thatKhomeini would suppress communistsin Iran were his followers to topple theshah. a Muslim student rose to remindthe audience that Khomeini has repeat­edly stated that he was irreconcilablyopposed to communism and would notcollaborate with Marxists even againstthe Peacock Throne. To further ingra-

tiate themselves with the Muslim stu­dents, the wretched "Marxist-Leninists"appeared at the SYL forum the follow­ing evening bearing a huge icon ofKhomeini and chanting, "Long live therevolutionary mullahs!"

If the Muslims and Maoists divergedover their depiction of Khomeini's role,t hey were as one in trying to silence any

cntlclsm of their beloved leader. Fo­rums in Chicago (Roosevelt University),at the University of Wisconsin, Michi­gan and Michigan State were alldisrupted by a bawling Maoist/Muslimbloc which did not stop at calling thecops on the SYL. This provided apretext for the cops to intervene againstthe Iranians themselves, potentiallyputting these student militants in dangerof being deported back to the shah'sdungeons!

Unable to answer our revolutionaryopposition to both the butcher shah andthe mullahs, the mullah lovers resortedto the techniques of political cowards

everywhere: threats and disruption,cop-baiting and cops. In standardStalinist style they slanderously accusedus of being SAVAK and CIA agents,justas in the 19JO's Trotsky was accused ofbeing in the pay of (successively) Britishimperialism. the French intelligenceservice, the Mikado, Hitler, Wall Streetand then Hitler again. But it was Stalinwho signed the Hitler-Stalin pact, andit is his political offspring who todayarc praislOg t he reactionary Muslimleaders.

This is no academic matter. TheIslamic student militants and theirMaoist brethren tie the working class toa political program which, if implement­cd. could well lead to a bloodlettingcomparable to the 1965 slaughter byMuslim fundamentalists and armyofficers (backed by the CIA) of half amillion Indonesian leftists. Tailing thepopularity of the mullah-led movementnot oniy means abandoning anystruggie for socialism in Iran: it alsomeans forsaking the most elementarydemocratic demands. A movementwhich holds that women who shun the\cil should be stoned, overturns Coca­Cola trucks and denounces Westernmovies as "pornography" will not lookkindly on anyone who prefers Mao'sRed Book to the Koran of Muhammad.

As the Iranian proletariat enters intoaction against the hated U.S.-backedmonarchy the question of revolutionaryleadership is posed sharply. The SL/SYL stand for the Trotskyist programof permanent revolution, combiningrevolutionary democratic demands(smashing the shah's autocracy and hisSAVA K secret police, a sovereignsecular constituent assembly, land to thetiller, the right of self-determination foroppressed nationalities. equality forwomen) with transitional demands suchas exp·ropriation of the capitahstsandarming the workers to achieve a workersand peasants government. Above allwhat is needed is an authentic Trotskyistvanguard party in Iran to lead themasses to victory over the jet-settingdespot now in power and the apostles ofthe seventh century seeking to oust him.Not the SAVAK's white terror nor thereactionary rule of Islam, but workersrevolution to smash the shah! •

I-.-,1.

§~artacist Candidate Denounces Grand Jury Whitewash

Arthur Miller Was Strangled by the Cops!

WfJliNEliSVANtil/AliI)

of the cycle of ethnic violence. Not blackagainst .lew. hut class against class! Wecall upon the NYC labor movement totake the lead in a struggle of the workersand all the oppressed of this city in aunited fight against cop terror. .lail thepolice murderers of Arthur Miller! Noguns for cops! •

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

PRODUCTION MANAGER Darlene Kamiura

CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Beech

EDITORIAL BOARD Jon Brule. CharlesBurroughs, George Foster. Liz Gordon.James Robertson, Joseph Seymour

Published biweekly. skipping an issue inAugust and a week in December. by theSpartaclst Publishing Co" 260 WestBroadway, New York. NY 10013 Telephone966-6841 (EditOrial). 9~5-5065 (Business).Address all correspondence to: Box 1377,GPO. New York. NY 10001. DomesticsubSCriptions: $3.00/24 issues. Second-classpostage paid at New York. NY.

OplfJlons expressed in signed articles orletters do not necess8nly express theedrtonal Viewpoint

The followin~ statement was issuedb) Marjorie Stamber~,Spartacist Partycandir' lte for New York State Assemblyin the 64th district, following the releaseon October 25 of a Brooklyn grand juryreport c1earin~ the police of any respon­sibility for the death of black communi­ty leader Arthur Miller in CrownHei~hts:

The grand jury report on the murderor Arthur MilicI' is a whitewash. pureand simple. Fifteen cops beat andstrangled the Crown Heights leader infront or dOlens of witnesses last June,and now District Attorney Gold and hisgrand jury ha\e the gall to tell us that itwas just "a tragic. unforeseeable acci­dent \\ hich occurred during a lawfularrest." So how did Miller die'! Nodoubt we are to helieve that he "slipped"on the billy club while being choked todcath.

Thc report is an outrage-e\erylabor. lett and black community organi­lation should .join in a united protestagainst this racist atrocity. No oneshould be surprised by the gnlOd jury'sfindings. The D.A. and the grand jury\\ho l'l1\ered up for the killer cops wereonl\ doing thL;ir joh-just as Arthurrv1iller's murderers were doing theirs.Thl'\just used "recommcnded proce­durl'." statl'd thl' grandjury report-and

3 NOVEMBER 1978

no doubt they did. Black people in everyghetto in this city can testify to the cops'and courts' "recommended procedures"ror racist oppression.

Arthur Miller was hardly the first\ictim of kgal murder in Brooklyn. andso long as capitalism's hired guns blazein the ghetto, he won't be the last. OnlyII months ago an all-white Brooklynjury put Robert Torsney, the copmurderer of IS-year-old Randy Evans,on the streets a free man, using thephony excuse that Torsney was "tem­porarily insane" when he gunned downthe black youth pointblank for noreason on Thanksgiving Day 1976.

The grand jury's whitewash in theMiller case was so blatant that in orderto head off anticipated protest from thchlack community. Mayor Koch issued astatement calling on the federal govern­ment to intervene (while simultaneouslyapprO\ing of Gold's "investigation" andreport). So now the .lustiee Departmenthas dccided to step in to determinewhcther or not the cops violated ArthurMiller's ci\il rights by strangling him todeath' The NAACP and some commu­nilv spokesmen have hailed this federalintci"\ention into the case. But no oneshould ha\e al1\ confidence whate\erthat thl' same .lustiee Department \\hichsl't up the policL'/ FBI assassination of

Black Panther leaders Fred Hamptonand Mark Clark. and paid informerslike Gary Rowe to provoke Ku KluxKlan terror against the civil rightsmovement, is going to bring the killersof Arthur Miller to justice.

The answer to police violence in theblack community will not be found byrunning to the more powerful racists inWashington, D.C. The .lustice Depart­ment "investigation" is likely to be afurther co\er-up for the Brooklyn cops.Yet it is not only the capitalist statcwhich has actcd to protect the police.hut hlack communitv misleaders as well.Claim ing to act in the interests of CrownHeights blacks. aspiring DemocraticPart\ ward heelers like Rev. HerbertDaughtry have cynically played uponracial tcnsions inflamed by the brutalbeating of black youth Victor Rhodeshy a Hassidie .lewish vigilante squadand have attempted to take the heat offthe cops and put it on the Hassidiccommunity as a whole. On .luly 16Daughtry led an anti-Semitic provoca­tion in the form ofa march on a Hassidics\nagogue, and today his Black UnitedI'ront continues to exploit the issue ofpolicl' brutality in the interests of its ownbrand of Democratic Party pork-barrdpo lit ics.

The Spartacist Party calls for the endNo. 218 3 November 1978

3

Spartacist Candidate Debates CP, SWP on Crown Heights-

Class Struggle or Race War?

SL's Stamberg: "There's nothing in any kind of communist program that calls formarching on a synagogue,"

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reatlirm the hasie ABCs of Marxism.And also the ABCs of trade unionism ifvou \Iill. We stand on a program of'picket lines mean don't cross.' And it'ssomethin!! the miners understand hutit's something vou guys don'\."We stand for other hasic principles ofMarxism. such things as the govern­ment is not neutral .... Not for vouguys with your affirmative action andhringing the government into theunions and calling on the army to eomeinto Boston to 'protect' the blackchildren, We call for other things thehasic independence of the workersparties from the bourgeoisie."That's what we stand for. What docsIhe CP sland for" Eyervhodv klW\\SIhl'ir sl'erl'l support to th'e [)ei110crals.their popular fronls since Ihe period ofthe Ihirties. The SWP giyes lip seniee.\es. hut their "ahor party' is gOll1g toformed by the \iillers and Sadlowskisand Ihl' gil\s that arc integrally tied withthose Democrats ...

··We stand lor ,tnother hasic principle of\1arxism-l.eninism and Ihat's wh\\I e'rl' a!!ainst Carter's anti-S()\ iet Illi·man ri!!cht-. crusade. which is not iust aql1esti(~n of hypocrisy. hut ... the illoraland militarv rearmament of l'.S.impcria Iism. "So \Ie sa v ',hc 17I(f i/l C/lCIIlI'

1.1 ill hOll/c''·In closing I ha\e one question to askthe SWI'. a final ljuestion: if Cuha is,uch a Ill'a It h\ re\ olutiona 1'\ \\ orkcrsstate. ho\\ conic the assassin ofTrotskv.Ramlll1 !\lcrcader. died there toda\ 'alrl'e man and in his hed"" .

And the politics of the SpartacistI.eague continued to dominate thediscussion period. Certainly it was notheca use of eq ua I access to the floor.Stamherg was given an occasionalminute while the speakers from thepodium responded at length to virtuallyC\'ery intenention from the floor. Andthough the SL unlike the CP andSWP had brought dOlens of support­LTS to the meeting. only three SLmemhers and a trade-union supporterwere called on. In addition to theircandidates' extensive interventions, theCP and SWP each got two speakersfrom the floor.

\ie\crtheless a striking counterposi­tion emerged between the St's revolu­tionary Trotskyism and the reformismof the CP and SWP. The latter differedmainly in style: Shaffner. the standardStalinist cynic seeking to portray revo­lutionaries as unwilling to fight forreforms. calmly slid the sharp questionslllldLT a mound of "unity and struggle"rhetoric: M iliner completely lost hiscool under pressure, sometimes sound­ing more like a black nationalistdcmagog.ue howling about the "priyi-

thing in their program that was anti­Semitic read that in the Jfiliram.That's what you did."No\\ it ought to he pretty easy inCnl\\ n Heil'hts for a communist to heahle to find'the class line. You can't findit. though, and it indicates something.You know, Trotsb' said that the crisisof humanit\· is the'crisis of revolution­ary leadership. And, comrades andfriends, we'w seen a little hit of thatcrisis on the platform tonight ...."We're running in this election to

'"We call here for a mohili/ation of theworking class in New York City to leadhehind it all the oppressed in a politicalfight against the Democrats. against thecapitalists. And that hasn't happenedhere hecause of the hureaucrats andtheir [tics] to the Democrats. And alsoheeause of vou reformists who want toprop up the hureaueraey. And heeause\\e haven't had that, we haw something\en different in New York Citv and itloo},s like Crown Height~s lastsummer ....'",v hat do communists do in thatsituation in Crown Heights'! When youha\e a situation that the Jewish popula­lion is pitted against the blacks') When\ou ha\e a situation where the hlacksiook at the Hassidic .Jews as the KKKand the Hassidic .Iews sec the hlaeks asIhe Black Hundreds mohili/ing for apogrom. What do communists do 10unlock that situation'! It's simple nolhlaeks against .Jews hut class againslclass. And we said 'no' to ethnic\igilantism. We ,laid thefe's nothing inaliI' kind or cO/)//)/lIIlist I'rogfll/)/ lhalmIl.l /01' /)/arching on a ,ITnllgogUl'. Butthat's \\hat you [SWP and CP]did andthat's what Hlli supported. And you\\cre out there hehind those DemocratICParty politicians ... oh no. there's no-

WV PhotoCP's Shaffner: "We have to break ourcrystal balls."

-',..

resohe all of the problems of the steelworkers" but becausc of his posture oftrade-union "democracy."

:\eedless to say. Milincr, whilescolding the CP for "miseducating" the\\orkers about the role of the capitalistparties. had nothing to say aboutSadlowski's support to the Democrats.Reproaching the CP in passing for beinginsufficientlv black nationalist in itspropaganda against the Bakke decision.he went on to uncritically laud the so­called "mass movement" of the "blackcommur1ity" in Crown Heights. whichapparently exemplifies the SWP's ideaof "independent political action." Itmakes no difference to the SWP thatthis "mmement" is an extraparliamen­tan mohili;ation for black Democrats\\ ho. seeking a bigger slice of politicalpatronage. are trying to turn the angerof o[1pressed blacks against the Hassidic.lews of Crown Heights in a dangerousfratricidal confrontation.

Finally Stamberg took the floor andthe lun really began:

.. You gUls might he running for!!O\l'rnor hut we're runnin!! this cam­raign the \\,1\ the Bolshe\ik~ ran. that isas a platform to raise our reYolutionar~

program to the masses. And heeause ofthat. there's a \\a\ that we're runningnot onl\ for !!O\ernor hut for mayor andlor eOligres~man and for e\er'y post.heea usc \OU sec. rou're running .forgO\'('I"nor hUI ,,'e're I'llllning fill' sralef!0\\·l'r.'"So let's talk ahout \our campaign andours .... I.ook atlhis the CP runs on aprogram that says 'People BeforeProfits.' and the SWP has a programIh,lt sa\s 'Human :\eeds Before Profits'!And Ifiey hoth have their what we call'se\\er s(Kialist' penny-ante municipalIe!!islati\e schemes. like this one forta\es. ri!!ht'! So the CP has this what'sit called')~People's Tax Program and ilsa\s that e\cn family that makes underS2"S.OOO oughi to he exempt from taxes.And the SWP has its Tax the Richprograln and that means that peopleunder $)0.000 shouldn't he taxed. All\\e ha\e to say is. you know George\\lallace once said ahout the Democratsand Repuhlicans that there's not adime's worth of difference. Well. no­hOth ca n "1\ that a hout you guysheeause there's SS.OOO worth of dif­ference [ laughter].

The hasie similarity in these twothings comes down oj' course to this'People Before Profits.' 'H uman NeedsBefore Profits.' It's the old soeial­democratic formulation of 'we wanthutter hefore guns.' we think thatcapitalism can reshift its priorities. Andthat's our dilTerenee with vou we don'tthink that thev can he shifted, We thinkthat the capiralist srstem puts nothinghe/im' its I'm/its. And that's why we callfor the fight for socialist revolution ....

WV Photo

SWP's Miliner: "We'll help breakthose picket lines again!"

ohjectin: anti-monopoly forces to com­pel a change of government policy."After some ritual genuflections to "theworld strength of the socialist coun­tries." he moved on to detail the CP's"people's program": such items asreducing the "swollen military budget."raising the minimum wage to S3.501houl, "outlawing racism" and dismant­ling the Emergency Financial ControlBoard "set up to'thwart the democraticprocess and the elected representativesof the people."

The SWP\ Ken Miliner gently ifrepetiti\c1y chided the CP for its openelectoral support to "progressive" Dem­ocrats like Ron Dellums or JohnConyers, In deference to the leftistcrowd at the M Ee. he even attacked theunion burcaucracy for "class colla bora­tionism" (of course, the SWP electionbrochure eschews such language, merelyhinting ohliquely at the need for a"re\itali/ed" trade-union movement).As usual. though, "democratic" out­bureaucrats were exempted, as Milinerexplained that the SWP supported EdSadlowski of the Steelworkers "notbecausc he had the best program to

Octoher 19 \\as "candidates night" atthe \LII\ist Fducation Collecti\l'( \1 FC) in :\ C\\ York. Spokesmen lor theCommunist Party (CP) and SOCialistWorkers Party (SWp) had heen Ill\itedto addrl'ss the M FC\ CIT\\ of homelessIeltists tonplain \\\1\ all "progressi\es"slwuld cast a protest \ote tor thl' CP andSWI' reformists. It \\assupposcd toheadull e\ening. But the prcsence ofSpart,lcist Part\ state assemhl} candi­da1l' \lariorie Stamherg and her sup­porters shattered thl' non-aggressionpact and turned the Illeetlng into a realpolitical dehate het\\l'en reformists andrn olutionists.

On ihl' podium \\ere .lay Shatlner.Org,lni/atlllnal Secretar\ of the YoungWorkers I iheration l.eague. represent­ing .1,11\ is Tvner. CP candidate forgo\erl1or of :\e\\ York: and KenMiliner. SWP candidate for Congress.representing Diane I-<.:el<.:\. the SWp\gu herI1<l torial ca nd id ate. rhe "non­sectarian" MEC had at first refused toa 110\\ the Spartacist ea ndidate toma ke apresentation. hiding hehind the ahsurdrationale that the CP and SWP wererunning for a more important office!But after some wrangling. the MECagreed to give Stamherg extendedspeaking time from thc floor tenminutes to the CP\ and SWP\ twenty.with no right of reply to comments andquestions.

The "official" presentations werelack luster. CP spokesman Shaffner reada standard CP pitch ahout rallying "all

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

kt!l'd" whitc I\orkcrs than an ostcnsihkIrohh ist.

Sadlowski's Running Dogs

On tradc-union policy, thc CP andSW P spokcsmcn displayed thei I' hasicat!l"l'cmcnt. Throughout the dehate. theSWP spcaker made a big deal out of hisparty's rdusal to support the Democrat­ic Party at thc polls, even raising the callfor a "Iahor party hased on the unions."But in thc unions, there is no realdifTcrcncc hctween the CP and theSWP.

The SWP's backhanded support tothe Dcmocrats was illuminated bv aspcaker from a i\ational MaritimeUnion oppositional caucus which issupporting Stamberg. Criticizing CPtrade unionists for their open support tocapitalist politicians, he explained thatthe "slicker" SWP refuses to demandthat the unions break from the Demo­crats and hack socialist candidates (eventheir own candidates), which wouldembarrass the pro-Democratic unionhacks the SWP tails.

The Cp's Shaffner replied with theusual stagist arguments against pre­sumably dogmatic l.eninists. "I think wehale to break our crystal balls," he toldthe audience:

"There is no ITlolutionar\ situationtodal. I'll say that. And 'I think weshllliid all he frank in recogniling that.So hlJ\\ arc we going to affect the lives ofpeople todav'? .. I'm not emharrassed tosay that I will support [Detroit Demo­eral] John Conyers for reelec­tion ... Until we haw trade unionists inthere. workers in there, I'd rather hall'John Conyers in there than representa­tiles of GM and Ford.

.. 1\ hen it comes down to voting forMcBride or Sadlowski. I'll put my votedOI\ n for Sadlowski. And if \ou're notl,wing to do that. you're s'upportingMcHride and you're supporting the steelcompanics."

The SW P's M iliner hastened tosolidari/e with the CP:

"I don't think it's accurate to say that ifvou're not doing that. you're sup'portingthe steel companies. in terms ofMcHride. Hut I agree \\'ill7 1171' generala""/'(Iaeh [general uproar in the audi-

encl'l· In the trade-union mOlemcnt youactualh lust han' to look foropportunl­tic> to alhance the struggles for­ward ... "

A Spartaeist speaker underlined therdormists' kinship:

"7111' fll! lire ol/:'d ,<';adIO\l'Sk i cun he seenill Amold .Hillerand what happened tohim. And that is that ifvou don't hreakwith elasscollahorationlsm. ifvou don'threak with thc Dcmocratic' Partvwhich Ed Sadlowski has not done: hehacked Jimmy Cartcr and just backed[Steelworker hureauerat Jim] Halan­olrs wife in an cleetion as DemocraticPartl candidatc 111 Chicago thcnvou'rc going to end up like ArnoldMiller. hetraying the intercsts of theI\orkers. Whcn thc NCII Yorkteachcrs I\ere pressed to thc wall hy anunholv alliance of Rcpuhlican Partylegislators who had lincd up disillu­sioned hlacks .... That's right. thcv gotlined up hy I.indsay, hv McGeorgeHunlh. hI the Ford Foundation.hehind 'co'mmunit, control' and wereaimed ,wainst the'teachcrs unions in""CII Yo;k Citl. So who was trans­ferred out hI t'he local hoard in OceanHi11-Hrowns'lillc" Thc UFT stalwarts,chapter chairmen and shop stc­wards. And at that timc hath theCommunist Party and Socialist Work­l'rS Party dcstrov'cd for a whole dccadcthc pos<ihilitv of a rcal fighting·alliancebetween tcachers and the hlack andoppressed communities. hy strikehrcak­ing and scahhing on that strikc."

Whenever the race question wasraised, the SWP spokesman outdid theCPer in putting forth unreconstructedblack nationalism. Though the CP andSWP pursued identical strikebreakingpolicies in the 196X teachers' strike, theCPspeaker sensibly shied away fromany mention of it. But not the SWP:

"The 190~ tcachcrs' strikc hv the UFTwas a raci.st strikc against the dcmandsof ,the hlack community to control[dJ'(J\\ ned out hy applausc'and tumult inthe audience). The Socialisl WorkersPart\" hellWd organi::e leacher.1 /() crossIhose I'iekellines and go hack into thoseschools' For us it is not an abstractquestion of e\en time some section ofthe lIorkin1!-class social democracygoes out o~ strike. we support th,ltmo\ement. If it's directed ,wainstanother section of the working etilss, asthc '61\ stl'ikc was. then lit: will Opr)()st:that. We hroke those picket lines' And it

thn L'arried out another strike a1!ainstthe'hlack and Puerto Rican commlll1itv.\11"11 hel{, hreak l!Jose {'iekel lilies agai/I.We support the right of the hlackcOl11l11unitv to control its eommunit\.We SUpp;lI't the right or the hlackcommunity to get racist teachers out oftheir schools, And \'es. it's no accidentthat the first teachers to go at thosedamn schools were the shop stewardsand the higher-ups in the LJ FT bureauc­rac\,. those most allied with the reae­tiOlian politics of Shankerism .. ,."

The aspiring sellout artists of theSWP have a lot to learn. The CP knowsfrom long experience that today's"smart" opportunism is tomorrow'sskeleton in the closet. Case in point: theI96X teachers' strike. Case in point:Arnold Miller, who as an out­hureaucrat running on hypocriticalpromises of "democracy" was thedarling of all the reformists and cen­trists. They beat the drums for Millerand applauded when. in concert withliheral Democrats, he put the Mine­workers in receivership to the LaborDepartment.

Th'? CP and SWP are united inpushing pro-Democratic Party "lesserelil" politics in the union movement.But their "lesser evils" are in noprogrammatic sense "!esser." We have adifferent program. We would be delight­ed to find a trade-union leader whostands. e\Cn in a contradictory or partialway. for a real break from pro-capitalistbusiness unionism on even one key issueof the class struggle. As the revolution­ary Trotskyists of the 1930's blockedwith clements of the union bureaucracywilling to break from narrow craftunionism in favor of industrial organi­lation, so today we would be happy toconsider critical support (with criti­cism!) to a union leader whose wordsabollt a "labor party" are not between­elections hot air or backhanded supportto the Rcpublicans. But Sadlowski?Sadlowski, who has pledged to abide bythe no-strike "Experimental i\egotiat­ing Agreement" in steel. who activelysupports the Democrats, who seeks tousc the capitalist courts against theunions'.' :'\io thanks! In the words of

Fugene Debs: it's hetter to vote for whatyou want and not get it than to vote forwhat vou don't want and get it. InMiller. the CP and SWP have got theleadership they deservc. But the work­ing class deserves better.

Race War ys. Class War

The SW p's and CP's efforts toprovide a "left" cover for black Demo­crats in last summer's bitter race-hateconfrontation in the Crown Heightssection of Brooklyn emerged as the keyquestion polarizing the debate. CPspokesma n Shaffner sought to evade thequestion as long as he could, retreatingto appeals for less vehemence in adiscussion "among leftists" (and all thistime we thought we were still "counter­re\olutionarv Trotskyites"!). Thoughhc could not conceal his party's capitu­lation to black "community" dema­gogues, he was artful enough to separatethe CP from the black-nationalist Jew­baiting which the Dailr "Vorld hascarefulh cOlCfed up in its CrownHeights coverage..

But not the SWP. While Shaffnergrudgingly admitted that "demonstrat­ing in front of a synagogue is not whatthc Communist Party would do,"lamenting "we didn't think it correctthat the demonstration end up in frontof a synagogue," the SWP's Milinercould find nothing to criticize exceptsome "formulations that we don'ttotall) agrec with" and could offer nocounterproposals save the SWP\ linefor all seasons, "We think they shouldhuild bigger demonstrations." Thedebate rcvealed that the SpartacistI.eat!ue\ account of the Crown Heightselents I\as factually correct and thatboth the CP and SWP had covered upthe aspiring black Democrats' campaignto make Jews the scapegoats forcapitalism's war on the ghetto masses.

We will let the protagonists speak forthemselves:

.\liIiner (S' WP): ..... \ want tll take upthis question ofami'-Sernitism in Crown

cOlllillucd Oil pai{c II

Marjorie Stamberg on NYC Radio-'-----

"Consistent Feminism Leads to...Strikebreaking"

WV PhotoNew York City, 4:00 a.m.: 10 phone lines of radio station WBAI are jammed.

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....~

I

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Oil iilcsdal, ()cwhcr ]4, MarioricSliIlllhcrg, Ihe ,Sj){Jrtaci.11 Parll' camli­dale!iir Yell' Vork .llale assclllhlr1l101I illIhe fJ41h A. f) .. 11'([.1 i11lCI'l'iell'('(1 alldlalked II'ilh lislellers for approxilllalcly111'0 hOllrs Oil Ihc 'Rollnd'l4idlligluradio ShOll hroadc(JS1 hI HBA I. Inre.l/iOIlS£' 10 a queslioll on Ihe S,'arlaci.11al/illlde 100I'([rd fClllin is III , fi'OIII alislcller Il'ho idc11I ificd hilllsell a.1 aSllPP0rlcr of Ihe Socialisl WorkenParll, SliIlllherg allsll'cred:

We belie\e that the sex line is not thefundamental division in society-theclass line is. We have forged our\\ork inthe women's movement hy fightingagainst the strategy of feminism and tolink the fight against the oppression ofwomen to the workers movement. Letme give you some examples of this. Yousec I spent many years in the women'smOlement myself and I consideredmyself a feminist for many years, andpart of my being won to a Trotskyistprogram had to do with my expericncestrying to organize working-class womento a feminist strategy....

My experiences are similar to those ofa number of people of my generationwho went through various kinds ofstruggles in the New Left and thewomen's movement. I joined SDS in1%5 and was active in the New Lcftuntil approximately 1969. At that pointI mOl cd to Oakland, California whcre Ihl'g,tn to Ilork with a group of womenthere that was interested in doingIlorkin1:!-class organizing. We looked atthe 1\ omen's movement and found thatit was prettv petty-bourgeois ... and we

3 NOVEMBER 1978

said. wcll. what's wrong with thewomen's movement is that it has amiddle-class program. and if you wantto change that what you ought to do isgo out and get yourself some workingwomen to join it.

At that time we had a kind of Maoiststrategy that "the correct politics flowsthrough the blood of true proletarians."So we went into the phone company toorgani/e the operators. which is wheremost :"lew Left feminist types went whenthey wanted to tryout their strategies inthe working class. We also at that timehad a rosition similar to that of theSocialist Workers Party, which saysthat consistent fcminism leads to social­ism. We d-id not havc that formulation.hut we had a similar one: "If youor!!ani/e women around their oppres-

sion they'll come to a full understandingof the social struggle." It's been aroundthat strategy that the SWP has cynicallyorganized in the women's area.

So we went into the phone arena.And in the telephone workers union. theCWA, in Oakland there existed, at thesame time as our feminist group. acaucus called the Militant ActionCaucus which was politically supportedhy the Spartacist League. For aboutthrce years we fought out our feministstrategy and our nationalist strategy ... ,We fought these political questions outwith the Militant Action Caucus and wereally came to no decision for quite awhile until the class struggle hcated upin 1971. Then there were a series ofstrikes against the phone company andwe were aole to test our strategy out in

action against the revolutionary strate­gy of the Spartacist League and theclass-struggle politics of the MilitantAction Caucus.

So here's a couple of things thathappened. The key thing that won me inthat struggle away from feminism wasthat shortlv before the CWA strike in thesummer of 1971 the IBEW, which wascomposed mainly of male workers in therhone company. went out on strike andI\e were faced with a strange phenome­non. We saw that many of the womenthat my friends and I had recruited towomen's consciousness-raising groupsin fact crossed the picket line of the maleworkers, of the IBEW, using all thefeminist arguments that we had recruit­ed them to. They said, "Well, there's notvery many women in the IBEW, andtherefore it's all right to cross the picketlines." And they said, "Well, we reallyarc the most oppressed, so it's all right ifwe cross the picket lines."

This really shocked us because we hadbeen organizing women on a feministstrategy around their own oppressionand it did not lead them to understandthe need to forge real links with the restof the class, but it led them to becomesfrikehl'eakers. So that situation, com­bined with a few other experiences atthat time. forced us to break empiricallyI'rom our feminist politics in order tohold onto the class line. And it wasthrough that strike that we graduallywere won over to the class-struggleperspective or the MAC and theTrotskyist program of thc Spartacistleague.•

5

HOW THESTALINISTSPLANNEDTROTSKY'SMURDER

We Do Not Forgive or Forget!

Stalin Did It!Trotsky de­nounces lV/ay 25machine gun at­lack on him. Aweek afier theallelllpt he IITote:.. The interroga­tion ... of Siquei­ros, would helpI'erl' IIwch to shedlight on el'elT­

Ihing concerningIhe allclIlel on 1IIl'

lifi.' .... And \I'hocould hu\'(' gi\'enIhelll Ihe order:)O/H'ioush, thelIIaster otIhe ""rellllin:Joseph Stalin."

emphasi/ed to him that no one shouldhear anything ahout this whole husi­ness. that it was strictly confidential.

l.ahorde decided nevertheless toeonsider the matter with the two of us.We were all in complete agreement thatthis was an extremely serious andstrictly secret matter. We examined itvery calmly and carefully. After therigorous analysis which the questiondeserved. we concluded, as we hadalready done on several occasions, that

Trotsky came directly from Moscow, and reveals thatthe Communist Party leadership even sat arounddehaling the assassination. H is account of how he andl.ahorde were summarily removed as PCM leaders is agraphic demonstration of the cynical modus operandiof the Stalini7.ed Comintern. And it verifies in everyrespect Trotsky's brilliant analysis of the "Labordeaffair":

"Toda\' it is absolutel\' self-e\'ident that the overturn inthe [Mexican] Communist Party was intimatelyconnected with the order for the attempt [on Trotsky'slite] issued in Moscow. What happened most probablyis that the CiPLJ encountered some opposition amongthe kaders of the Communist Party who had becomeaccustomed to a peaceful existence and might havefl'ared \cry unpleasant political and rolice conse­ljllences from the attempt. Perhars this is the source oftheehar!,!e of'Trotskyism' against them. Whoe\ erobjectsto an attempt against Trotsky is. obviously. a­Irotskvist."

. "The Comintern and the CiPlJ." 17 August 1940

The question of the Dies Committee (H lJ AC) plays\lhat at first glance seems a disproportionate role inC;lmpa's account. Part of the standard Stalinist slan­der lexicon is the charge t hat the leader oft he Fourth In­ternational re\ealed his tics to reaction hy agreeing to

Third International. The latter hadannounced the decision to eliminateTrotsky. and requested his personalcooperation as secretary-general of theParty. as well as a squad adequate toensure this elimination. Comrade La­horde replied that this invol\ed anextremely delicate question, that theCommunist Party considered Trotskyto he a defeated political figure. and thathe needed several days to resolve this.The envoy of the Third International

(appointed .h~ \\hom'!)was not the party con­gress or e\en the Cc. huta hand-picked committee/l1ecl illg ill sc('/'el scssioll.What was this crime too sensitive to tell even the partymemhership'! "low. 39 years later. Campa has decidedthat the "opportune moment" has arrived to tellall, .. or almost all.

We should hegin by noting the signal merit ofCampa's disclosures. Once and for all it does away withthe Stalinist slander that Trotsky was killed by "one ofhis own." The 25 May 1940 machine-gun assault onTrotsky's residence in the Mexico City suburb ofCoyoacan was originally portrayed by the GPU­controlled press as an "aUlogo/pC" ("self-assault").e\en though it was soon established that the famousStalinist painter David A. Siqueiros led the gunmen.Then the PCM tried to float the ludicrous claim thatSiqueiros was actually a former Trotskyist, eventhough he was quoted as a party luminary in theCommunist press up until a few weeks before theattack. And when. three months later. Mercadercarried out Stalin's grisly order he tried to pass himselfofl as a disillusioned follower of the Fourth Interna­tional. The Campa memoirs (together with theSiqueiros inter\iew. cited in the aho\e text) demolishthis lie.

Campa confirms that the orders to "eliminate"

In the course of the campaign againstlrotsky. a meeting called hy theCommunist Party took place at theArena Mexico on Friday. 26 September193X. Speakers included Carlos Rivera.a Colomhianleader: Margarita Nelken.a Communist deputy from RepuhlicanSpain: Jacques Gresa. a French Com­munist deputy: and Hernan Lahorde.secretary-general of the Mexican Com­munist Partv.

At this meeting where theinternational situation was analy7ed (wewere on the e\e of the Second WorldWar). Trotsky was politically un­masked. cxposed hy his reactionarye,\eesses \\hich played into the hands ofHitler and Mussolini against the Sovietl ' n ion.

Around that time. Comrade I.ahordesent tor R;lfael Carrillo and me. hothmel11hers of the Secretariat of theCentral COl11mittee. to discuss \\ith usan l·\trel11l'ly delicate confidential Ljues­tion. It concerned a matter \I hich hadhel'n l'ommunicated to him hy al',ll11ralk \\ 110 introduced himself as anaCLTedlkd delegate of the Communist

A Ruinous Directive

amply cooperated with all the DiesCommittee's activity against the LSSR.against the Mexican Communist Partyand most especially against ComradeHern;ll1 I.ahorde.

WV Commentary

Who is Valentin Campa? In 1939 he was a memberof the secretariat of the central committee of theMexican Communist Party (PCM). then led hyHern;1I1 l.ahorde. Both Campa and l.aborde were\iolcnt Trotsky-haiters. hut in December of that yearthe two were expelled from their leadership positions(and suhsequentlv from the party itself) as "Trotsky­ites." Yet-strange circumstance-the specifics of theirsin \lelT ne\er puhlicly spelled out. The PCM hody\\ h ich heard the report of the specia I purge commission

Ram6n Mercader sought to take his secrets to thegrave. But not all his accomplices were so tight-lippedand over the years a mass of evidence has accumulatedshowing how the Kremlin plotted the murder of LeonTrotsky. Much of this tl;l~; come f rom the statements ofdefecting Stalinist intelligulCe agents and second-handsources-which in no way reduces their value as proof.for the accounts arc remarkahly consistent. But nowwe have the testimony of a leading public politicalfigure. Valentin Campa's /He/lloirs oj' a MexicanCO/llIllUllisl. detailing the assassination conspiracy.Workers j'anguartl now presents this revealingdocument for the first time to the English-languagepuhlic.

lI'c rC/lrilll hC/II\I' (/ c!la/ller ./i·1I1/1 I!lcfCCCIII/i· /llIhlis!lcd Illel/1l1irs oj,HeximllCIIlI//lllllliSI Partr leader I 'a/ell I ill Clil/1­fla, Mi testimonio: mel110rias de uncOl11unista me,icano (\lexiclI, /WJ8j.Ilie lram/alioll is hI' Workers Vanguard/1'011/ I!le /-i'ellc!l ,'erliOIl flllh/is/lI'd 111

I 'llumanitl' oj':6 alld':7 .I111r /<)78,

b) Valentin Campa

We intensified the struggle againstrrotsky. which immediatei~

pl;lced the Communist Party in op­position to President C;lrdenas.: TheCT\l (Confederation of MexicanWorkers). led 11\ l.ol11hardo Toledano.~

struggled \igorously against TrotsKY.\litlwut )loing to the point of hreaking\\ Ith President C;lrdenas. Things heingas thl'\ \\ere. \\e unceasi ngly denouneedIrotsb\ hetra\als, It was onl\ later.. .that \\e reali/ed the harassment directedagainst him. \\ hich dune him Indespnation to reprehensihle excesses,At the end of 1936 the Dies Committec\las created in the House of Representa­ti\ cs in Washington. It was named I'llI'the congressl11an who ehaired it. \I Iwpn\\l'd to he the MeCarthy of thatflniod--a \ieious anti-Coml11unist \llwrropagated the \lorst ealul11niL's agail1sttill' Communists and the SO\ iet l nion,Along \\ ith the \\ell-kno\l n a\ iatLlI'Charles l.indhergh and numerous othl'r-\merican reaetionaries. he ortlani/edan intense rropaganda campaign In1;1\ or of linited States participatilln inWorld War II on the side of Hitler.\lussolini and the Japanese Empire;lg;linst the Soviet llnion. ThisDil's Committee organi/ed a \lholeseries of puhlic hearings and imited(rotsk\ and Diego Ri\era to appearhdore the House of Representat i\ es InWashington.

A leader of Trotsky's Fourth Interna­tional. Diego Ri\era; rarticipated inthis arch-reactionary. anti-Communistcampaign of the Dies Committee.clearly playing into the fascists' handsand oh\iously sening the interests ofimperialism. Trotsky was also personal­ly imited to appear hcfore the DiesCOl11mittee. hut. heing more intelligent.rdused to do so. 01'1 the other hand. helent his cooperation through his state­ments. \\Titings and other means. Theneo-Trotskyites denied that Trotsk~

had collahorated with the Dies Commit­tee. hut there is the testimony of Trotskyhimself to confirm it: he stated that hehad accepted the imitation "in order tohelp the workers understand the reac­tionar\ historical role of Stalinism andto turn them ;I\\ay from it" (Cllfdella.1 I'

/a i:::qllicrda II/cxicalla. Me,ico: .I uanPahlos Editorial). Trotsb's e,plana­tion is e\cn more far-fetched gi\ en thatthl' lascist character of the Dies COI11­mittel' \\as quite \\ell known,

In his ca pacity as ;1 leader oj thef'ourth Intcrnational. Diego Ri\era

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

7

theoretician, his experience in the Holshevik move­ment had taught him that the question of leadershipwas central. And ever since Hitler's accession to power(fundamentally due to the Stalinist and social­democratic leaders' refusal to unite in struggle againstthe fascist menace), he understood instinctively that anew European war was being prepared and the SovietUnion was its principal target. He knew also that warwould bring about revolutionary conditions, and thiswould threaten his bonapartist position which wasbased on accommodating imperialism (and hencedrowning revolution, as in Spain). Trotsky wrotefollowing the Siqueiros raid on his house:

"The Moscow trials of 1936-37 were staged in order toobtain my deportation from Norway, i.e., actually tohand me over into the hands of the GPU. But this didnot succeed. I am informed that Stalin has several timesadmilted that my exile abroad was a 'major mistake.' Noothcr way remained of rectifying the mistake exceptthrough a terrorist act ...... ... In the capacity of a former revolutionist Stalinremembers that the Third International was incompara­bly weaker at the beginning of the last war than theFourth International is today. The course of the warmay provide a mighty impulsion to the development ofthe Fourth International, also within the USSR itself.That is wi1\" S(;llin could not have failed to issue orders10 his agents-to finish me as quickly as possible.""The accidental failure of the [Siqueiros] assault. socarcfullv and so ably prepared. is a serious blow to

continued (1/1 page 8

Thus we come to the ExtraordinanCongress at which we were expelled. Imade an appearance and denied thecharges against me. Laborde did notcome. hecause to him it was obviously afarce. H~ was already convinced thatStalin had participated fully in theproblem of eliminating Trotsky and inusing the Communist Internationalagainst us for the position we had taken.He had always held a high opinion ofStalin. hut at this point he rectified it, asthe matter was extremely serious.Angered by the maneuvers, he reachedthe point of saying "Stalin es un cohron"(Stalin is a cuckold).

We set out to examine the situationwe had been put into. After ourexpulsion. we were chased after by theinternational [press) agencies, especiallythe Americans. They wanted a state­ment from us on Trotsky, since he hadwritten an article saying that ourexpulsion was in connection withStalin's intentions to eliminate him.Trotsky wrote: "What has happened,most likely, is that the GPU hasencountered a certain oppositionamong the leaders of the CommunistParty ... and whoever opposes an at­tempt on Trotsky's life is obviously aTrotskyite" ("The Communists and theC[mknas Regime." quoted by Lyle C.Hrown. in the Unil'ersitl' oj" Mexi(oRel·ie)).!\ May 1971).

Certain comrades have wondered if.in this phase of intensifying crisis in the1'C\l. it would not have been preferableto go to the heart of the problem in order

(olllilll/ed lin flage X

"Stalin is a Cuckold"

I.eninism" with regard to an unrelatedsubject: but the comrade who trans­cribed it added "Stalinism." When Iprotested. she replied that everyonesaid "Marxism-I.eninism-Stalinism.""heryone. perhaps. but not me." I toldher. and I crossed out "Stalinism." Thecrossed-out original was to be presentedas proor that I was a Trotskyite.

Impressed. he said, by mycontribution on the turn of the C{lrde­nas gmernment, Codovilla had apri\ate cOIl\Cfsation with me. Speakingor the crisis of the Mexican CommunistParty. he gave me to understand. in nouncertain terms. that I was slated tobl'Col11e secretary-general in place orI.ahorde. I refused: I told him that heal~d others knew of my ditlerences ofopinion with Laborde. which were of asceondary and tactical nature, and that Iwould not lend myself to these under­handed manell\crs; that I was thinkingor rl'lurning to my job as a railwayman;t ha t t ha t was my position consistent\\ilh the rules of re\olution<try honest~

to \\ hich I adhered. Cod ovilla becameangn. and from then on he adopted theformula: "the sectarian opportunistsl.aborde and Campa."

- Trotsky

"He seeks to strike not at theideas ofhis.opponent, but at hisskull. ..

document on the economic, politicaland social processes of the last year ofthe C{lrdenas government. I preparedthis material. In this connection, how­e\er, an incident occurred: in completegood faith. I had always held that thecategory of Marxism-Leninism oughtnot to be extended to Stalin, but it wasalready customary internationally tosreal\ of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism.I refused to do this. while at the sametime e.xpressing my admiration forStalin and for the value of his work,adding that I opposed elevating him tothe le\el of Marx and Lenin because int he last ana Ivsis he was still aliYl' and thisestim'ltion ~ould onl\' be made with adcliniti\e balance-sheet of the work ofthose who \\ere dead. I thus wrote mvreport using the expression "Marxism-

~.

Stalin the Assassin

aeho. [)[llllaso C[lrdenas, the president'sbrother. and the eX-"callistas" who wentmCt" to "cardenismo": Abclardo Ro­driguCl. Aaron Saenl and others. Thisbourgeoisie predominated within the!!o\ernl11ent. and decided on thc courseor supporting Manuel Avila Camachofor the presidency or the Repuhlic.\\here<ts the normal process in Mexicowould h,l\e made General Mujica thedemoeratic candidate. alheit with theserious hand.icap of having supportedlrotsh\ right to asylum in Mexico.

Codm ilia hecame interested in I11V

expose and asl\ed me to draw up a

the CPUSA leaders appeared voluntarily before theDies Committee (they were not subpoenaed), tender­ing over 350 pages of testimony. Diego Rivera,incidentally, had left the Fourth International by thetime he testified before the committee.

What Campa fundamentally leaves out is why Stalin. wanted-in fac\, urgently required-Trotsky's

murder. While Campa and his type (Eurocommunists,Krushchevites) portray the plot as' the work of amadman, and a certain genre of pseudo-Trotskyists(the followers of Gerry Healy) "explain" it in termsmore appropriate to a paranoid police detective,Trotsky all along offered a trenchant political analysisof what moved the Stalinist regime to such criminalacts. When Stalin exiled Trotsky from the USSR in1929. he thought that without an apparatus Lenin'sformer comrade-in-arms would simply disappear intoobscurity. However, wrote Trotsky in a January 1932letter to the Politburo of the CPSU (accusing theKremlin of complicity in attempts on his life)."Contrary to expectatibns it turned out that ideas havea power of their own .... It is Stalin's conception thatthe mistake needs rectification." And he adds, in apostscript at the time of the first Moscow Trial: "To besure. not by any ideological measures: Stalin conductsa struggle on a totally different plane. He seeks to slrike/101 al Ihe ideas of his 0PIW/lell!. hili al his skull"(original emphasis).

fhough Stalin was the very opposite of a

Se\er,t! wee ks later, some rathersuspicious comings and goings oc­curred. Vittorio Codovilla,' an Argen­tine. <trri\ed in Mexico: then Martine/,<t VenCluelan. and other comrades sentbv the Third InterilationaL supposedlyto cooper<tte with the Mexican Commu­nist Part\ which was in a criticalsitu<ttion. Wh<tt followed was the directintenention of these delegates in all thebusiness of the PCM. They beg<tn toplace I.<tborde and me in the defendant'shox; according to them. we had beenlollo\\ing a sectarian and opportunistline. This opportunism took the form ofthe poliC\ of "unity at any price"; it I\"{iS

in laet opportunist. but they pretendedthev had known nothing about it andthat they did not know that it had beenimposed on us in June 1937 by theCommunist International. despite ourresenations. This was even moregrotesljue since although our orientationhad been deeided in Mexico at thesuggestion of and under the discipline ofthe InternationaL and on Browder'sdirect intervention, wewerenowaccusedof being opportunists for having carriedit out! It was thus that a highly dishonestactivity based on intrigues was thencarried out against Laborde and myselfin particular. Laborde was suspendedfrom his post as secretary-general; I wassuspended from the Political Bureau. Aso-called committee to purge the Partyleadership was set up under the direc­tion of Andres Garcia Salgado, whosome years later became a pro­government trade unionist.

In this atmosphere, I continued tryingto attend meetings of the leadership. Iedited reports and explained withsupporting statistics and argumentshow General C.irdenas had made a turnto the right in 1939. I quoted the Bureauof Agricultural Smallholdings, whichpermitted the curbing of the landredistribution. The statistics confirmedthe sharp decrease in land redistributionproceedings in 1939 and 1940. C{udenashad signed the unconstitutional decreerorhidding hank employees from union­i/in!!; this clearly tended to restrain massstruggle in the country and was aimedparticularly at preventing workers'st rikes.

I demonstrated with supporting factsand figures that a bureacratic neo­bourgeoisie was being created within theC[lrdenas government. with far greaterresources than those available to thebureaucratic bourgeoisie of the support­ers or Calles.!' This bureaucratic bour­geoisie included M{lximino Avila Cam-

Without reflecting at length. he statedc<ttcgoriealh th<tt he agreed with us; hedecided we were right. asked us immedi­<ttely not to sec the delegate again andtold us he would go to Moscow andexplain things.

The Intrigue is Orchestrated

Trotsky had been politically defeated,th<tt his influence was practically niLand th<tt moreover we had already madethis point sufficiently throughout theworld. On the other hand, his elimina­tion would result in great harm to theMexican Communist Party, to theI"(\olution<try movement in Mexico andin the Smiet Union, and to the interna­tional Communist movement as a\\hole. We thus concluded that to-propose the elimination of Trotsky wasa grave error. Once this viewpoint wasagreed upon, l.aborde informed thedelegate 01 the Third Internationalabout it. The latter threatened him,telling him he would pay the conse­quences for his attitude, and that abreach of discipline with respect to theThird International carried a high price.l.<tborde told him that we were actingaccording to our principles. and that weconsidered the idea of eliminatinglrotskv to be inadmissible.

In the face of the threats againstl<th()rde on the part of this delegate ofthel hiI'd Intern<ttion<tL we consideredthl' pwhlem in the Secretariat. <tnddecided to go to :\e\\ York to discuss\\ ith hlrl Hr()\\der~. a member of theI xl'Cuti\c' Committee of the IhirdInlL'rn<ttlon<t1. At the first opportunity\\e kit hv car for '\ew York. All three oflis SP()\.-l' \\ ith Br(l\\dcr. l<tying out to111111 the \\ hole problem in detail.

3 NOVEMBER 1978

test it, hclore this \\itchhuntingcommittee, and Campauses this to justify his continued hostility tolrotskyism. What he doesn't say is that this canard wasthe propaganda theme used by the G PU to prepare theclimate for Trotsky's assassination: Campa wants towash his hands of the blood while still supporting the"justification" for the crime, hoping thereby to excusehis own complicity.

Hut why the Dies Committee? Because up until thattime, and notably in the Moscow Trials, Trotsky wasconsistently portrayed by the Kremlin as being anagent of the Third Reich. However, with preparationsfor the Hitler-Stalin pact underway already since mid­19.1X ("What I.ies Behind Stalin Bid for Agreementwith Hitler'!" was the title of an article by Trotsky inMarch 1939). this fabrication fell apart and had to be

,replaced with a new invention. The Dies Committeestory was offered as'''proof' that Trotsky had switchedmCf to Wall Street.

And an invention it certainly was. Trotsky agreed tothe committee's request for testimony on the history ofStalinism in response to charges against him hyA IIIcrican C Pleaders lI'ho appeared hej"ore it. ("Yourn<tme has been mentioned frequently by such witnessesas Browder and Foster," said the committee telegram,offering Trotskv the "opportunity to answer theircharges"). Moreover, Trotsky never did testify beforethe committee. which withdlew its request. possiblybecause of his insistence on open sessions. In contrast.

Caridad Mercader

quoted h.\"Dlrique Castro Delgado

/(j June /959

24- ...

....,~

.. Yes, .fc)r the assassin or Trot­skI" is m.\" son, Ramc"m , Il'hom Iin the name or the sacredillferests or the Revolution andor socialism, drove to thiscrime: and I am ... a thing toinspire horror. ..

Trotsky'sAssassin ...(COil! illlledji-o/ll page I)t\red "conlession" in the tyrical GPUstyle. claiming to hc a rnemher of theFourth International (which he nL:\cr\\as) who had heeome enraged heeauseTrotsky surrosedly treated the workingclass like "a dirty sock." With this crude

fahrication the assasSin's Kremlinhosses sought to divert the hlame fromStalin onto the \ietim himsclf.

TrotskY' had already warned alter the\1av 25 assault on his housc led h\

" "

()a\id Siqueiros that a new attemrt onhis lile would soon come and the",Issassins may usc 'Trotskyist' lahel"(title of a statement to the Mexicanrress). But although Mereader's claimto he the son of a Belgian dirlomatimmediatcl\ lell arart (no MornaI'd wase\er el1lrlmed hy the foreign ministry.the address he gave for his father's house\Ias a storL' in thl' center of Brussels. themilitary school he claimed to have<tttended did not exist. the Helgian

FOOTNOTES

situation in the context of the SecondWorld War then taking rlaee. To defendoursch cs \\ould h,l\e causcd gra\cinjurv to thc intcrnational Communist111m cl11cnt and to the Mexican Commu­nist Party in rarticular.

lahorde and I spoke of the need to letthe truth he known. New generations ofCommunists and other revolutionariesnced to know it in order to understandthesl' e.\ rerienees a nd act ina moreconsistent and cllective manner in thestruggles of our country.

S incc I left rrison in 1970. I haveinsisted along with the leadershir of theCommunist Party on the need to clearlv. "

la\ out thesc historical truths. Wc ha\ehel'n In agreemcnt on this. whileconsidcring that it was necessary to<mait an orrortune moment to do it.

lahorde is dead and I am carrying out1m duty in recounting this drama .con\inced that I am thus contrihuting tothc stceling and steadfastness of COI11­

l11unists in 111\ homeland and in othercountrics.

'(jeneral Li/aro C,irden'as was president of\le\ieo het\\een 1934and 1940. A hourgeoisnationalist. he carried out a suhstantialagrarian rcform and nationalized railroadsand oil. In \ie\\ of the general's popularityamong the masses. the Communist Part\'sinitial poliC\ \\as "unity at any cost" with the)!o\crnment. HO\\ever. due to the PC\1'stotal suhmission to the Kremlin. C,irdenas')!ranting of asvlum to Trotsk\ in 1937 madethis "unity" henceforth rather less than total.'Vicente Lomhardo Toledano \\as a promi­nent fellow-tra\eling union leader. whose"indcpendcnt" lahor federation and "Popu­lar Socialist Party" wcrc tolerated hy the)!()\ernment as an escape \al\e to let offdisconlL'nt. They also served as a linkhl'!lleen the tiny. isolated PCM and a sectorof thc wOI'kin)! class. Toledano had close ticsto MoscO\\ and was \indcnt in his calls forthe c.\pulsion of Trotsb from Mcxico.'The tamous Mexican muralist Die)!oRi\era \\as instrumentalin ohtainingasylumtor Trotsb from the C,irdenas re)!ime. He\Ias acti\c in the Fourth International untilearl\ 1939 \\ hen Ill' hro"e \\ ilh the Trotskyistmo\ emenl atter a series of personal disputes.'He later rejoined the PCM."Browder. then head of the CPUSA. rodeherd on the CPs of the Carihhean basin forthe Kremlin. "0 maior shitt in PCM polic~

was decided without consultation with "e\\Yor". and when Browder \\as dumped in194.:lon char)!es of "liquidation ism" it led toleadership shakeups in the l.atin Americansatellite parties.'Codl1\ ilia. long-time head of the ArgentineCPo pla\ed a sinislL'r role in the Spanish Ci\ilWar as \\atchdo)! mer and actual operation­al leadcr of the Spanish CPo Althoughollil'iall\' onh Comintern delegatc. togetherII itll the (jPl' he engineered the kidnappingand assassination of Andres "in and theblood\ suppression of the Barcelona Ma\Da\s of 19-"17."I'lutarco Elias Calles was president of\k\ll'O from 19::'4 to 19::'~ and remained thes!ron)!ll1an hehind thc succeeding threepuppet presidents.

The Demands of Autonomyand Independence

Our Party recogni/es the rrecious aidit has recei\ed from the CommunistInternational and the important role

ha\ing failed. a third alternative \\as rutinto action. On the evening of20 August1940. Ramllll M-ercader. who wentunder the rseudol1\m of Jacques Mor­naI'd. assassinated Trotsky.

As I.ahordc and I had anticirated.and as we had told Hrowder in NewYork, the elimination of Trotsky un­leashed a large-scale camraign againstthc Mexican Communist Party. theintl'rna tiona I Commu nist movementand the Smiet Union.

Siqueiros Arrested

\\hich the So\iet Union rlays in fightingthe tendenn of Yankee imrerialism tounleash a Ihird World War which\\ould he eatastrorhie for all of humani­t\. \'en conscious of all of this.i\:1c\iean Communists-faced with theImhroglio caused hy the interference offoreign comrades. ahove all in thecourse of a rrocess crowned hy theerroneous rolicy of "unity at any rrice"<lnd then hy the elimination ofI rotsh-forccfully maintain. along\\ith their internationalism. an insis­tence on the autonomy and inderend­l'nee of their Party.

Comrades oj other countrIes.un<l\\are of these serious facts. d'o notunderstand our unehangeahle rosition\\ ith resrl'Ct to the inderendenee andautolwm\ of rarties within the frame­\\ork of rroletarian internationalism.

For decades Lahorde and I firmlvrl'sistcd thl' lies and slanders hurlcd at ush\ reorle like Rafael Carrillo andothers. We could not delend oursel\es\\ itlwut ereating a very tcnse rolttical

Campa'sMemoirs...(COl1fiIlUedfi'OIll page 7)to avert this crisis. In 1940 we didn'te\(:n envisage this possihility. Thegeneral tendency within the internation­al Communist movement was that ofunconditional ohedience to the ThirdInternational led hy the CPSU. Toreveal disagreements meant exclusionfrom the Communist mo\cment andconsequently heing turned into hogey­men ["satani/ation"].

To huild a mmement against,Irhitran dogmatism, we would havehad to hegin hy explaining the truthahout the asphyxiating pressure of therolin of "unitv at any price" [withCml~nas] and 'th2"hrut"al interference

.demanding that we eliminate Trotsky:1;lhorde and I refused to do this. sincethe Second World Wa I' had lust hrokenout (August 19~9).

lahorde and I decided then not to fallinto the errors comn1itted hy Trntsky\\hen he found himself harassed hvStalin. The Trotsky affair would he usedintern,1 tiona 11\ aga inst the Soviet Unionand the Me.\ican Communist Party.Our situation was very difficult. hut wehad to remam discreet. We \\ererarticularly indignant to sec RafaelCarrillo act as a perfect scoundrelto\\ards us. covering us with slandcr.\\hen he knew the whole truth of thematter. Some time later. moremer. thissame Rafael Carrillo hoasted of heing arenegade from Communism.

:\ot \ct expelled from the PCM.lahorde and I were informed that();l\id :'\.Ifaro Siqueiros was in therrocess of organi/ing a squad ofcomrades to storm Trotskv's house andthat it \\as heing done very slorpily. The()ominican \\eekly Allora later puh­lished an inteniew with Siqueiros titled:"Siqueiros Recounts the Attack AgainstTrotskv." He states: "Stalin \\as worriedthat Trotsh. during his exile in Mexico.could hecome the center of anotherchauvinist mmement which wouldattel11rt to rerlace him in Smicl rower.Iherefore he ordered a high functionaryof the :\KV(). leonid Eitington. toorgani/e the rhysieal elimination ofrrotsky. and granted him unlimitedresources to carn this out. Hut theleader of the Mexican CommunistParty. lahorde. oprosed this act of\iolence and in fact refused to assist \\lthit. Finallv lahorde and his eollahora­tors \\el:e e.\relled and the Partyremained under our control" (C(/rdel1a.1I" la i::qllierda nwyical1a).

In a \cry offhand manner Siqueirosrelates the facts concerning \\hat \\as apolitical erisis for our Party and for theinternational Communist mo\cment.

Jhe attemrt of Siqueiros and hisgrour to take Trotsky's house hy storm

WV Commentary ...(colltillued/wlII !Iage 7)

Stalin. The Gl'l' must rehahilitate itself with Stalin.Stalin Illust demonstrate his power. ;\ repetition of theattempt is ine\itahle."

"Stalin Seel-.s My Death." XJune 1940Thc "jackal of the Kremlin" was not alone in

rreceiying the danger represented hy the tiny forces ofthe Fourth International. The French ambassador toGermany, M. Coulondre, had a dramatic interviewwith Hitler in August 19~9, just before the break ofdiplomatic relations hetween the two countries. inwhich hc remarked: "If I really think that we will hevictorious. I also have t hcfearthat at the end of the warthere will he only one real victor: Mr. Trotsky." Butwhile the imperialist "democracies" feared Trotsky andrefused to grant him asylum. Stalin had a special needto "liquidate" any potential revolutionary leadership.Trotsky wrote three days hefore his death:

" ... there has de\e1oped on the foundation of theOctoher Re\olution a new pri\i1eged caste .... Thiscaste finds itself in a profoundly contradictory position.In \\ ords it comes forward in the name of communism:in dced .. it fights for its O\\n unlimited power andcolossa I materia I pri\ileges. Surrou nded hy the mist rustand hatred of th.: deceived masses. the nc\\ aristocracycannol alford the tiniest hreach in its s\stern.... ""Stalin's ahsolutism docs not rest on "the traditional,Iuthorit\ of 'di\'ine gracc: nor on 'sacred' and

'im iolable' pri\ ate propert\. but on the idea ofeOll1munist equalit\. rhis depri\es the oli)!archy of apossibili.t\ otiustihin)! its dictatorship \Iith any "ind otrational and pcrsuasi\e arguments .... The ruling casteIS cOll1pelled systematically to lie. to paint itself up. dona mask. and ascrihe to critics and opponents moti\esdiametriCitih oppositc to those impelling them ...."

"The Com intern and the GPU"

Writing three veal's earlier about the Moscow Trialor'the Old Bolsh~\iks, Max Shachtman. then a leaderof the American Trotskyist movement. vividly ex­rlained the political meaning of Stalin's terror:

"The dramatic indictment of Zino\ie\, Kamenev andthe others. their ruthless execution. the indictment ofTrotsky-that is. the assault upon those figures thats\'mholi/e the dread words 'World Revolution' to theii1tnnational hourgeoisie. is Stalin's way of taking thehlood-oath to the latter that the international proletari­an re\olution. so long as the Kremlin is concerned. hasIon)! hecn interred. That is just it: Stalin has dug thegnl\l: of the Third International. its founders. itstraditions. and literally filled it with corpses. In theirplace. he erected an institution which resembles th.: deadonl' only in name. In fact. it is a horder police patrol ofthe So\iet burcaucracy and thc police guardian of la\\and order throughout the hourgeois world."

Behind Ihe J/osn}\I' hia!: 111e Greales! /-i'allle­(j) ill 1Ii.IIO}T ( 193h)

* * * * *:"\aturally. Campa portrays himself as innocent-

\\asn't he chucked out of the PCM for orrosing theassassination'.' Of course. they all were. ,iust likeKhrushchev was too husy huildingthe Moseowsuhwayto notice the Moscow Trials and the shootings of tensof thousands of long-time party militants and leaders!But Camra doesn't have the luxury of using thestandard argument: I didn't know. Campa knew.\'urthermore he systematical1y helped prepare theterrain with the Mexican Stalinists' foam-necked anti­Trotsky rropaganda war. Even after he was expelledfor "Trotskyism" he remained silent-to prove hissenile loyalty to the Kremlin-when his revelationscould have hlown apart the whole conspiracy. In fact.hc e\\:n knew in advance of the Siq ueiros raid, and saidnothing. And he kept his mouth shut for another ~9

years alterward. This mall is an accomplice to lIIurder,and he should he thankful for hourgeois legality, for ifthe proletariat held sway he would certainly he calledto account for his crime.

Why is he talking at all? Campa's memoirs werecarefully considered as a political act and puhlishedwith the agreement of the PCM leadership. Now theMexican Communist Party is part of the currentloosely known as Eurocommunism, and in recent yearshas heen going out of its way to prove to thehourgeoisie its democratic credentials. Given its ownhistory. this requires a certain settling of accounts over

colll iI/lied Oil page I()

8 WOR~ERS VANGUARD

1Il~ III(RCAOIR OE.L lIlIlO eVIl -JA\,I..(,:> ~.J"

It'~ EN [SPA". 'OT(y"RAF I.. TO""A;'.l ~. 19.0 l" Mil'

~A"O" N[RCAO£R flQ,SAPQRT[ CC~. f,- QA -JAQ 'f" "0"1"""

Trotsky's Grave.. Whate\,er may he the circum­stances of my death I shall die\\'ith unshaken faith in thecommunist future, ..

rendered to the Kremlin masters weighsheal ier than the memory and morals ofhiston. This is one of th... littk acts ofcO\\<lI'-dic... whieh histon do...s notlorgi\...... .

With a demonstrative slap on the hand.these pseudo-Trotskyists think theyhan' at IClst ahsolved themselves ofrL'sponsihilit\ for "the present Cuhankadership:' It is not the first time the~

h,I\C had to make such shamefacedapolo.eics: \\e recall in particular Cas­tro's support lor the Russian ifllasioll ofC/L'cllO"lo\aki,1. But Mandcl& Co.arL'at least consistent. For those \\horemained silent at the arrest of theCuo,1I11 rotsbists in 19o.~--in someL',I"es e\L'n apologi/ing for ''Che'' and"l-idel"--1\1ercader\ death in HavanaL'an onl\' he allOthcr hlemish. perhaps amere pimple. on the healthy faee of are\ olution<ll\ regime \\ hich simpl:,"'ack" t he forms of workersdemocrac\'."

Hm\C\er. tor those who genuinel~

"L'ek to continue the re\olutionanstruggle of Leon Trotsky. it is not aqucstion of "forms" or "little acts ofL'll\\ardicc." \Ve do not counsel Castro<lnd BrL'/lllle\ hm\ to polish up their"honor." Thne is no honor amongStalinists. as the whole saga of Ralll(ln\1ncader graphicallv demonstrates."or do \\e calion the [urocommunistsuf today -Stalin's gangsters of\estnd,l\-to "rehabilitate" Trotsky aspart of their eITorts to prme their"democratic" credentials to the imperi­alist hourgeoisie. The assassination ofl.eon Trotsky will he al'el1Red andrevolutionary communist morals re­stored in the only way possihle: throughsocial revolution in the capitalist coun­tries and workers political revolution toroot out the Stalinist bureaucracies oft he degenerated /deformed workersstates. estahlishing throughout theglohc class democracy of soviet rule.

Trotsky's dying words were those ofintransigent comhat: "I am close todeath from the hlow of a politicalassassin. Please say to our friends-\ amsure of the victory of the FourthInternational! Go forward!" This is ourtask today as we struggle toward anInternational Trotskyist League and therehirth of the Fourth International..

Assassin's LieExposedre/;: FinRerprillt.l andphotos e.ltahli.lhJlomard- Mercader\I rill' idemit I'. Be/OI\'.·COII/i'OIl/cd I\'ith'holsk\" \ lIIurdcrer(sealed, righl), SI'II'i(/Agc!oll (/e/i)\cr"(J/lled .. n01l'1 !ie,tmilOr.' 7d/llle lruthel'(,11 ifrou 1)(/1' I\'ilhl'( ) lI/' !i!<,.'"

the government of Fidel Castro,Here was a man who had become the

symhol of Stalinist perfidy, a reminderthat Stalinism was/is far more than a"cult of the personality." far more eventhan a series of crimes to he swept underthe rug with a single secret speech byKhrushchev. No one would have battedan eyelash if he had died in Moscow orin Prague where the Kremlin's tankshold sway. But in Cuha'? This must be ashock to a generation of young would­he Trotskyists who have been educatedin the helief that Castro is an "uncon­scious Marxist." that Che Guevara wasa closet Trotskyist and Cuba was indeed"the first free territory of America."

The anti-Trotskyist revisionists whohave heen singing hosannas to theCuhan Stalinist hureaucracy for the last17 yea rs-t he self-styled United Secre­tariat of the Fourth International, \cd byErnest Mandel and Joseph Hansen­\\ill have some difficulty dealing withthis unpleasant fact. Their Frenchcomrades have already taken the bitoet\\'een the teeth, so to speak. in anarticle entitled "Mercader was useless"(Rouge. 21-22 October). Useless'? Theassassination of Trotsky was a tremen­dous hlo\\' to the fledgling FourthInternational. It was part of a mammothcampaign to everywhere behead theTrotskyist movement. Before Trotsky,Stalin's gangsters had murdered LeonSedov. his son and head of the FrsInternational Secretariat; as well as hissecretaries Erwin Wolf (in Spain) andRudolf Klement (in Paris). After theinfamous night of 20 August 1940 theG PU terror machine rolled on, joiningthe Gestapo in shooting down scores ofTrotskyist leaders across Europe. Theyvery nearly accomplished their coun­terrevolutionary aim and did in factsucceed in decimating the FourthInternational so severely that theTrotskyists did not stand at the head ofthe masses when revolutionary situa­tions broke out in Europe upon thecollapse of the Third Reich.

But perhaps this is just an infelicitousheadline'? No, the Rouge article hegins:

"It is not to the honor of the presentCunan leadership. headed by FidelCastro who was an intransigent revolu­tionar\". to have .tllowed Ramon Mer­cader 'to finish his sorrv existence onCunan soil: to h'I\'e decided that. in thepolitical nalance sheee a small service

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* * * * *Ral1l('lIl Mercader. assassin of Trot­

sky. when he was released from jail inMexico City in May 1960 declared tothe press: '" killed a man for ideologicalmot in's. , .. it was a just act in its time.~

In Octoher 197X Ramon Mercader,assassin of Trotsky, unrepentant to theend. died in bed in Havana, a guest of

The Mexican Communist Party andvarious of its bedfellows also on the G PUpayroll constantly proclaimed that themasses of the working people ferventlydesired Trotsky's expulsion from the~ountry. However. the funeral proces­sion through the streets of Mexico Cityon August 22 demonstrated the empti­ness of this lie. Huge crowds swelled theprocession route-100.000 in all­gathering to pay their last respects to thegreat revolutionary, slain by the hand ofStalin. The PCM's refusal to acknow­ledge its own direct participation in theassassination until today, almost fourdecades later( sec accompanying article).demonstrates that the "Kill Trotskv"campaign was a hateful deed, universallydespised. which they had to hide insteadof crow ahout.

Once again in death Trotskydisproved the cynical Stalinist accusa­tions that he was an agent of Wall Street.Alive he was hounded from country tocountry. finally unable to obtain asylumexcept in the Repuhlic of Mexico, Butwhen American Trotskyists made plansfor a second funeral procession in NewYork City. Ihe U. S. ROIwnmenl barredel'C/1 Ihe corpse of Trolsky fromelllerillR the counlrr. The SocialistWorkers Party newspaper, SocialistAppcal (31 August 1940) wrote: "Thespectacle of the streets of New Yorkfilled with mourners for the man whosymholized world revoluti'On was onewhich the capitalist class would permitunder no circumstances."

at full tilt with the sole aim of wiping outany vestige of revolutionary oppositionto the usurpers in the Kremlin, any­where on the globe. The Moscow Trialsliquidated the Bolshevik Old Guard andpassed the death sentence on Trotskv.Ram6n Mercader. a despicable wormwith less than the morals of a Mafiatriggerman. was the executioner.

* * * * *

amhassador to Mexico swore he couldnot possihly he Iklgian). and he quickly"forgot" his original prepared "confes­sion." Moscow's agents hrazenly contin­ued their Big lie campaign, Thus U.S.Communist Party chid Earl Browder\\Tote in the ....;Ulltllll" Worker (X Septem­hn !lJ'+O) that TrotskY had heen killed"at the hands of one of his ownintimate,,": \\hen Me\iean rHe"ldentC;lrlknas hlamed the a""ault on \10s­CO\\. BI"ll\Hkr termed thi" ,~ "cheapI rotsh ite SI'llllkr.··

1>C"pitl' \10rnard-!\1ereadcr\ "e,tledlip", the l11urder of Trotsh \\,1" notforgotten and o\er the \ear" a "nle" 01rl'\elatlon" Irom e\ery quartn han.'confirmed hi" true identit\'. I-ir"t todiscO\L'I it \\,1" .Julian Gurkin. a lormL'rkader olthe Spani"h POI M (a centri\lpart\ \\ rongl\ laheled Trotskyi\l hv theSt,tlini"t and hourgeois press ,dike). \\ 110lullo\\lng the ass,lssination \\orkedc!o"el\ \\ ith the Me\ican senet policeCOIOllL'l in charge of the il1\estigation.IL'andro S;1I1che/ Sala/ar. as \\ell asconducting his o\\n inquirIes. <iorkink,lrnnj from Catalan Communist rctu­.eees that the murden:r \\a" the son ofCaridad Mncldcr. who \\as a Stalinist\\ol11en\ leader and leading CiPL a.eentin Barcelona III the Ci\il War. He \\asahle to confirl11 this 1)\ dctcctin.e a scaron \10rnard-1\1ercader\ forearm. re­cei\L'd in fighting on the Aragon front(S;lnche/ Sala/ar and Ciorkin. ,Hufllerill Hexim [ 1950]).

The identification of "Jacques Mor­naI'd" as Ram6n Mercader was furthersuhstantiated hy a court-appointedpsychiatrist. Alfonso Quiro/, who hadheen frustrated in his attempts to elicitclues-or the slightest signs ofremorse-from the prisoner. In 1950Quirol traveled to Spain where hesought fingerprints from the politicalpolice files to match those of Trotsky'sassassin, An idcntical set was soonfound-those of Jaime Ram6n Mercad­er del Rio. dating from a 1935 arrest. Apolice photo of RanHln from that timecompared with a 1940 Mexican prisonphoto further estahlished his identity.and a comparison with a photo ofCaridad Mercader as a young womanshows an extremely close resemblancehetween mother and son.

Further proofs and the direct link tothe GPU, were provided hy formerSpanish Communists. One of them.Enrique Castro Delgado. a top com­mander of the famed GPU-controlledFilth Regiment of the Spanish Repuhli­can army. was a close friend of CaridadMercader during the World War IIyears in Moscow. After Castro Delgadohad fallen into disgrace Caridad contin­ued to confide in him. and in oneemotional visit told him the story of howshe and her Imer. \.eonid Eitingon(known in Spain as General Kotov), hadplanned Ram(')Jl's murderous mission.When hcr son was taken by the Mexicanpolice from thc Trotsky residence. sheand Eitingon were waiting in parkedcars only a hlock away. ready to helphim escape had he hecn able to carry outthe crime undetected. For this heinousexploit Caridad had received fromStalin the Order of Lenin and for herson a Hero of the Soviet Union medal.the two highest awards hestowed hy theKremlin. which she showed to Castro(J ulia n Gork in. 1'-"ssa,lsinal tic hot.lk\'(19701).

Though hard-hittcn Stalinists to thisday maintain thc fiction that Trotskywas killed hy one of his disciples. amountain of evidence shows in somedetail just how the assassination wasorgani/ed: ordered hy Stalin, executedhy the GPU with its special apparatus ofprofessional murderers (for the mostpart trained in the Spanish Civil War),facilitated hy the Spanish and MexicanCommunist parties, in the witchhuntfren/y sparked hy the Moscow Trialsand whipped up hy the Kremlin­subsidized press which throughout theworld echoed a single bloodthirsty cry,"Death to Trotsky!" For years thcStalinist terror apparatus was running

3 NOVEMBER 1978 9

Labor Liberals Whine at Detroit Gabfest

WfJltliEltS"N(;/J/lli1)

DETROIT~Ever since United AutoWorkel's (LJ AW) president Doug Fraserwalked off the presidential Labor­Management advisory group last sum­mer denouncing the "one-sided classwar" of Amcrican capital against labor.the reformist left has been slobberingmer his every word. Fraser's criticism ofJimmv Carter. his often quoted antic­ipation of labor's "collision course withthe Democratic party" and his call for aresurrection of the FDR liberal/laborjblack coalition of the 19l0's set many af<lke-left tail to wagging. The Commu­nist Party (CP) ballYhooed a "new day"for "Iahor independence": the SocialistWorkers Party (SWP) reprinted Fra­ser's "class war" speech in its entirety inthe .Hililalll and urged Fraser to takethe "realistic" step of breaking with theDemocrats to form a lahor party.

When Fraser's much hcraldedliher<lljlabor summit meeting cOl1\cnedin Detroit's Coho Arena on October 17.howner. these reformist dreamers got acold bath. Cinashing their teeth. thefaithful hewailed the rightward plungeof the Carter administration and theDemocratic-controlled Congress. Butwhile none of the dclcgates had an~

solutions for the ever more evidenth<ln]..ruptc~ of American liheralism,they had no desire to leave the altar ofthe' Democratic Party. Thev adjournedthe conference without having agreedon perspectives. plans or program,agreeing to confer again on theirconfusion at the Democrats' midtermcOl1\ention in December.

Representatives of over a hundred

WVCommentary...(COllI illuedji'o!l1 page 8)

the Trotsky assassination. It is notewor­thy. for instance. that Campa's com­plaint is not that such an assassinationwas an ahomination (in fact. he andl.aborde calmly and carefully analyzedthe proposal and concluded ... it wasunnecessary): rather he criticiles thedamage caused by "the interference offoreign comrades" and promises that thePCM will maintain its "autonomy andindependence." It is not to the interna­tional workers movement that Campa isappealing here but to the Mexicanhourgeoisie. which is naturally mistrust­ful of a party which simply does thebidding of the Kremlin.

This self-serving partial confession isnot an isolated phenomenon but part ofthe broader Eurocommunist phenomen­on. It is significant. for example, that thenewspaper of the French CommunistParty. 1.'Hulllanili;. prominently pub-

unions. ci\il rights groups. women'sorgani/ations, emironmentalist c1uhs<lnd Democratic Party reform groupsshowed up. Though only three unionpresidents hesides Fraser stuck theirnecks out to attend (the Rubber Work­crs' Pete Bommarito. Cesar Chavel andPlumhers chief Martin Ward). most ofthe liberal lumin<lries were there: Ben­jamin Hooks of the NAACP. EleanorSme<ll from NOW. Americ<lns forDemocratic Action honcho JosephRauh. Bella Ah/ug and her hat. and1'.1ieh<lel H<lrrington of the DemocraticSoei<llist Organi/ing Committee. a co­thinker of Fraser and erstwhile anti­pmert\ ad\ isor of .I FK. Congressmanand rad-lih darling Ron Dellums gavethe morning keynote address. appealingInr 'I fight to stop the rise of the "ne\\right": 1H1\\. he could not say.

One spe<lker after <lnother whined<lhout the slaughter of e\ery piece ofliher<ll legislation that came before theiust-<ldiourned 95th Congress. thespre<lding right-wing tax IT\olt and theah<lndonment h\ Carter of the Demo­er<ltie P<lrt\'s 1976 platform. But unableto agree on a unilying strategy on how toeke out e\en the most meager reformsIrom the e<lpitalist system. the delegatestook toie<llously pleading their specialinterests and jockeying for position.Naderites stressed tax reform whilep<lcilists said cutting the military budget\\as thc m<lin priority. Farm workers,women and Chicano speakers eachwondcred if the "new coalition" was1'('([1/1 committed to solving their op­pression. while Russell Means lecturedthe delegates for 15 minutes on the

lished this chapter of Campa's mem­oirs. And it comes after the publicationof Eurocollllllun;slII and Ihe Stale bySantiago Carrillo. in which the leader ofthe Spanish CP says Trotsky representeda tendency within the workers movementand it was wrong to treat him simply as aHitler agent. What are Trotskyists tomake of such statements')

Frnest Mandel. perhaps the bestknown figure claiming to represent thetraditions of Trotskyism today. treatsthem as the "positive aspect" of what hesees as t he "contradictions" ofEurocom­munism and crows that Carrillo's book"represents a formidable historic vindi­cation of Trotsky and Trotskyism"(/llfiremr. 12 May (977). And in a publicmeeting in London against Healy'sslanders over the murder of Trotsky.Mandel called on the Eurocommuniststo "immediately. openly and publiclyrehahilitate all the victims of Stalin. allthe victims of the Moscow trials." and tocall on the Spanish Communist Party toexpel Trotsky's assassin.

This seemingly innocent appeal iswrong in e\ery way. In the first place

pnma(y of the American Indianst ruggle.

By the end of the day. the only thingthe delegates could agree on was toempower Fraser to set up committees tofigure out what they had been unable toarri\e at: what to do next. The only(oncrete motion passed beseechedCarter to \eto the pro-rich tax bill. an<ldmonition the president promptlysnuhbed. signing the hill.

There arc those on the left so beguiledhv their own illusions that they denyrealitv when their nose is rubhed in it.rhus. e\en after Fraser's display oftbhhy liheralism. the CP's Dailr World(26 Octo her) ha iled the conference as an"extraordinary trade union initiative.""a hold lead" and a "clear-cut effort tochange the nation's political direction."

Unlike the timid reformists in the CP.S W P a nd assorted socia I democraticgroups. who pin their hopes on somesection of the labor hureaucracy. revo­lutionar\ Marxists kno\\ that thestruggle for a workers party must bew<lged aga ills I the pro-capitalist lahorfakers. The concern of the labor liberals.exemplified hy Doug Fraser. is simplyto redirect the growing discontent of theunion ranks hack into the dead end ofthe liheral wing of the DemocraticP<lrty. Proof needed? Fraser told a pressconference just before the Detroitmeeting what he has said many timeshe fore: "We're not in favor of a laborparty. We don't think it's feasible. Wedon't think it's a viable idea ... it justsimply cannot work." And that, despitethe reformists' wishful thinking. isthat. •

pressunng Moscow to "rehabilitate"Trotsky et al implies a perspective ofhureaucratic self-reform. GenuineTrotskyists know there can be novengeance per se for the assassination ofthe founder of the Fourth International.Trotsky's historic vindication dependscentrally upon a Leninist workers partyleading a political revolution to over­throw the Stalinist bureaucracies in theKremlin and the deformed workersstates ,ind replacing them by authenticsoviet democracy of the working people.Secondly. it fails to recognize thatreformists~whetherEurocommunist orunregenerate Stalinist~callnot restoreTrotsky to his rightful place in revolu­tionary history. Unlike Zinoviev orBukharin. Trotsky represented a revolu­tionary program and mortal threat bothto the Stalinist regimes and the bourgeoi­sie. That is why Moscow to this dayrefuses to rehabilitate him. and that iswhy when Carrillo or Campa feel obligedto distance themselves from Stalin'sassassination of Trotsky they neverthe­less continue to justify their own violentopposition to him 40 years ago. Thehistorian Pierre BroUt~. a leader of theFrench OCI. nicely captured the qualityof the Eurocommunists"'rehabilitation"of Trotsky in a review of the Campamemoirs published in In!<Jrlllalio!1SQUITihes (9-2l and 2l-l0 August 1978):"And so all the half-lies become half­truths."

But abO\e all. we do not appeal to theStalinists and Eurocommunists because\I'C do 1101 call on Ihe assassins torehahililatc their I'ie/ims. And everyone

of them is up to his elhows in the bloodof\aliant militants cut down hy Stalin'scountenT\olutionary terror. Campa's

. resronsihility has heen mentioned.Carrillo was an active member of thepolitical hureau of the Spanish CP whichordered the detention of Andres Nin(later assassinated in an N KV D prison inSpain). Even the author of the introduc­tion to Campa's memoirs in L'Human­if£;, Georges Fournial, was one of theCiPLJ agents. trained in the Spanish Civ­il War, who were sent to Mexico to par­ticipate in the assassination of Trotsky.

Healy Rehabilitates StalinistSlander

On t he other hand there are the likes ofHealy. who in the flamboyant style of theI.ondon gutter press publishes "expose"after "expose" accusing Joseph Hansenand George Novack. leaders togetherwith Mandel of the United Secretariat. ofheing "accomplices of the GPU" in themurder of Trotsky. Their latest despic­ahle installment in this utterly discredit­ed slander campaign has Hansen nolonger merely complicit in "covering up"alleged GPLJ infiltration in the Trotskyhousehold. hut being a former"collabor­a tor" of Ramon 1'.1 ercader ("Is Trotsky'sAssassin Really Dead')" [!!] Bullelin. 24October). (Interestingly, there \\'as aG PU cell in the S W Pin 1941, the Sobel­Soh len group; how come Hansen missedhraintrusting them") This vile characterassassination not only shows that Healy& Co. will stop at nothing in their vileGPl -haiting, hut it aids the real assas­sins in IT\i\ing the long-dead slanderthat "his own people" killed Trotsky.

A year ago, when Santiago Carrillovisited the United States in the hopes ofgaining the blessing of the StateDepartment~forwhich he was willing,even eager. to cross a picket line ofstrik ing Yale LJ niversity workers~

rVorkers ValtKllarc! confronted this classtraitor at a press conference at HarvardUniversity. Challenging Carrillo for hisresponsihlity in the murders of Nin andTrotsky (Mercader was a member of theCatalan Communist Party, the PSUC),WV demanded to know if Carrillocontinued to deny his complicity. Heresponded:

"Ram()n Mereader was a member of theCommunist Party in Catalonia until19:1h.lnl9:1hhedisappearedandhasnotret urned si ncc to the party r<lnks. I f. as isknown. he participatcd in and was theprotagonist of the assassination ofTrotsky. thc Communist Party hears norcsponsihilit\ for this. ."I would like' to remind YOU that inI.ondon. I belieye it is. th-ere exists acommittee which accuses the FourthIntcrnational [shout by WVjournalist:"That's a lie!"] Well. you can believe\\ hat YOU want. hut there's a committeethat ~aYs Trotsky's bodyguards werea~ents of the KGB .... The CommunistP:lrty of Spain is not responsible."

* * * * *On 28 August 1940 some 1.500 people

attended a Trotsky memorial meeting inNew York where they heard James P.Cannon say farewell to their comrade,teacher and martyr:

"We do not deny the grief that constrictsall our hearts. But ours is not the grief ofprostration. the griefthatsapsthewill.ltis tempered by rage and hatred anddetermination. We shall transmute itinto fighting energy to carryon the OldMan's li~ht. l.etussay farewell to him ina manner worthy o( his disciples. likegood soldiers of Trotsky's army. :"otcrouching in weakness and despair. butstanding upright with dry eyes andclenched fists. With the song ofstruggleand \'ictory on our lips. With the song ofconfidence in Trotsky's Fourth Interna­tional. the Internatioilal Party that shallbl' thc human racc'" -

218

Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth League Public Offices

-MARXIST LITERATURE-

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League24 issues-$3; Introductory offer (6 issues): $1. International rates:24 issues-$12 airmail/$3 seamail.

-includes Spartac;st

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Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, N.Y. 10001

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Bay AreaFriday 3:00-6:00p.m.Saturday: 3:00-6:00p.m.1634 Telegraph3rd Floor(near 17th Street)Oakland. CaliforniaPhone (415) 835-1535

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WORKERS VANGUARD

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA

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VancouverBox 26, Station AVancouver. B,C(604) 733-8848

ChicagoBox 6441, Main P.O.Chicago, Illinois 60680(312) 427-0003ClevelandBox 6765Clevetand, OhiO 44101(216) 621-5138DetroitBox 663A General P,ODetroit. Michigan 48232(313) 868-9095HoustonBox 26474Houston, Texas 77207

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los AngelesBox 26282, Edendale StationLos Angeles, California 90026(213) 662-1564New YorkBox 444 Canal Street StationNew York, New York 10013(212) 925-2426San DiegoPO Box 2034Chula Vista, California 92012San FranciscoBox 5712San Francisco. Callforn,a 94101(415) 863-6963

ti,ms (lfinlluencc as the pro-Democraticbuslncss unionists' lacke\s in the labornH1\cment to co\erlng lor anti­ulmmunist bourgeois liberals in organi­lations like the :\i\ACP and :\OW.

So 1\ hen at the debate a former Sl.ernOl'I in the MEC orbit explained he\\(luld support Stamberg because shemade no bones about the impossibilityof achie\ ing "practical solutions" undercapitalism. thc CP spokesman adeptlytalked out of both sides of his mouth:

"\\'c'lllllalhe lou'll lotC lor us. BccauseI \loukt' sa, that the prohlem ofunclllrlOlment is not going to hc solvedunder caritalislll. Wcll I said it, I hore\ou'll consider lotinL' lor our candidalL'[lau)!hlL'r]." '

But the SWP speaker could onl\quibble:

"\\hdt I ,did lIa, rut !or\lard rrdctlcalrl'l)r,,,,rI, lor 'let ion, Ihdt's \I hat I,aid.'\ot plactil'al SOIUtl(llh. I nCler saidthdl I ,aid rlactil'dl rrorosals tlndction, Ihat rcork could organi/cthl'lllwlll'" "

I n our last issue the report on thesuccessful conclusion of the 1978Workers VanKuard sub drive con­tained an arithmetical error in thefigures for New York. Rather than106 percent, the New York local'sfinal total was 140 percent of theirquota; this changes the overall totalfrom 135 percent to 141 percentnationally.

CorrectionsIn WV No. 216 (6 October), tile

article entitled "Activists vs. StodgyCold Warriors in SPUSA" statesthat the California Peace andFreedom Party fused with theSPUSA. We have been informed.both by the SP and the Peace andFreedom Party, that this is incor­rect. However, there are reportedly asignificant number of dual mem­bers. I n the same article, we wrotethat the SWP and SP had endorsedeach other's electoral campaigns inMilwaukee this year. However,while the SWP has endorsed the SPcampaign, the reverse is not the case.

'"

ff thc SWP can best-build enough"inderendent" reformist marches andleft-COl er enough ut1ion hacks to ac­quirc some real base to sell out, it too\1 ill learn the \\isdom of breaking strikes\\ ithout bo,lsting about scabbing. ofp;\\ing lir-seniee to unitl while di\id­ing the \Iorking people. of tailing blackDemocratic hustlers without striking upthe band for race war. The CP has madethese cynical tricks its stock-in-trade forfifty years. and the SWP has amrlyshown its appetite to learn to do thesame,

But the working class will learnnothing from these people. Only theproletarian. revolutionary, internation­alist program of Trotskyism offers theway forward for the working class andput an end to exploitation and oppres­sion once and for all..

TorontoBox 7198, Station AToronto, Ontario(416) 366-4107

Ann Arborc/o SYL. Room 4102Michigan UnionUniversity of MichiganAnn Arbor. Michigan 48109(313) 663-9012BerkeleyIOak/andBox 23372Oakland. California 94623(415) 835-1535BostonBox 188M, I.T. StationCambridge, Mass, 02139(617) 492-3928

Slillllhel'g (SI): ",., Jill' CI' CIII/\ /01' 1/

Iiolilill/r IWIII I\'i!h l!Ie hUllrg{'oi.li{'a/lh{'hallol hO,I' I/lld !!I{' .1; WI' for il UII l!IeI!reell uIHUI!OIl, :\011 let's clear up thcrl'cord-here on federal troops hceau,e inIS, histor\ the on II time that thcI \ccler eomc 'in to hl,iek communities isal!er thc hlack eommunitv has organ­i/cd, .. , And thdt'S thcclassiccxampleolBirminuhalll.

Ih~rc arc somc mOlemcnts thdt wcdo not partieiratc in .... So we do notIllarch on s\n,li!Ol!ues c\en ifthc massesarc Illarchillg l;n thCIll,

Idl(lt II ho edn't scc hClond his nO'l'lIould l'Olllpdrc kderal [r(lors in littkRoc~ prolL'c:tlng hlad ehildrcn. <)1\liS\iS\lrri rrotcc:ting hlack childrcn. totroor' in Victnam."

fhe CP and SWP reformists attackthe Sf lor an "abstract class concep­tion." But thnc is nothing "abstract"about it. Concretelv. the CP and SWP,lrC an uh.I!(fc/e to the de\elopment ofrCloluti(lnarv consciousness among themaSSl'S. leninists are the on!v effecti\efightns lor reforms. for they build the(lnl\ sort of "mo\ement" that canactuall\ 1\In them mobili/ing theoppressl'd under the leadership of the\Iorking class and its vanguard. Fight­Ing lor reforms does not impedereI' olutionary struggle. but rc!c)rmi,I/II

does. For reformism pits the sections ofthe oppressed against each other incompetition for partial or elen retro­grade interests. And reformism teachesthe masses to rely on their classenemies to "protect" blacks and "de­mocratize" the unions ---spreading illu­sions in the "neutrality" of the capitaliststate and the "progressive" capacity ofthe liberal bourgeoisie. This falseconsciousness hampers every struggle ofthe working masses, from reformstruggles to the fight to protect andextend the workers' conquests the onlyway possible socialist revolution.

These sellout artists are constantlypropou!1ding old recipes for defeat as"new," "flexible," "practical" "strate­gies." At the debate. the CP spokesmanexemplified this method:

"Our elcction platform is geared to NellYork in 197~ .. ,. Some of IOU mal'think when an election rl,itform i~sdc\ elopcd for a left alternative, asocialist alternative. a revolutionarvaltcrnative. that it's going to be a catch-­ali of C\'CrY slogan that has applied toone part of the world or another atv,nious times since 1917 and before .....lust hecause something wasn't tried inthe Soviet Union doesn't mean that ourgraprling with the rroblem to build amcaningful people's coalition unitedagainst monopoly capital ... ."

Of course. that "something" was indeedtried in the Soviet Union in 1917 bythe Mensheviks! The CP's formula of a"meaningful people's coalition" ofsubordination to the "progressive"bourgeoisie was precisely the Menshe­vik recipe for class betrayal.

Of course neither the CP nor the S WPwill admit to Menshevism, Revisionismmeans claiming to be Leninist whilefighting tooth and nail against theLeninist strategy of class against class.The CP has plenty of experience in thispractice and plenty of experience atthe "strategies" that the SWP has onlylately discovered, from seeking posi-

Reformism vs, Revolution

SI.('/': "Ihc rrohlem herc is that thcsl'tllO candiddtes nc\er present am thingdilfL'l'l'nt than thc ethnic pork-harrcllingrolitics o! thc DClllocratic Partl."\Vc stdnd alTusl'd tonii!ht o! notrarticirating In a struggle. \\'hat'" ,eoingon III Crownllcights iscthnlccommunallIarlarc. lie IJle(/(1 guilt! Wc don'tlIant to hc a part of that ',tru,egk"Sometime, thc masses mOIl' and tlll'1III 01 l' in thc \1 roni!direction, And II ha{s~l'l thcn is leadc~ship. And Cl!fI}fI}lI!wlhloodlerrillg is Iwi hall a sle/J !ollardela,ls Ilrliggle. It's in fact eOll/llelpo\edtothat And when we look at that mOlc­mcnl, ICS, \Icjudge it hI its program. IICjudge it hI its goals. And what we find inCrown Hei1!hts was that the\ were notmarching a~gainstpolice hnitality. Be­cause if IOU will read the text of thatleaflet for that demonstration and if vouwould hale opened your cars at -thesynagoguc. you would hale seen thatwhat they were fighting for was not thecops out of the community but an end toHassidic control of the cops. That's whatthey're talking ahout ,'.lew rower.' It'sa hig myth in this country that the .Jewsarc thc ones that run it. from Koch ondown to the cops. And that's whatDaughtry stood for. that's what thatmohilization was ahout out there. Sowhat's hrewing out there is race war. notclass \\.'11' ....

"That could have heen a situation thatwent against the cops. that was amohilization against the cops, againstthe city government. against thecarital­ist rolitieian,. So why did Daughtrl linkthe murder of Miller and Rhodes'lBecause he had a message the Jews arethe enemv. And wh, did he do it')Because 'he was competing for thero\erty program and the spots on thecommunity boards .... So he led thehlacks against the Jews instead ofagainst capitalism that crea!cd that,ehetto. And it was you guys thatmarched in tandem, right with him .. ,.";-";ow I think it's real interesting that allof a sudden when we have a situation ofan ethnic tinderhox. on the verge of racewar. all ofa sudden you're champions forself-defense, I want to know where youguys \I ere in Boston where it was racistterror syuads in the streets against thehlaeks. You were howling in the pages ofyour newspaper for the federal1!Olernmcnt the racist federal!!Olernment to come in and 'protect'the hlack people [cheers, hoots, ap­plausel i-here is a message there- -I'djust like to complete my sentence. It'sJhat both of you arc saying that thisgO\l'rnment is the friend of black reo pieand that the lahor movement is racistand will never defend black people. Andit's the same thing from affirmativeaction to the teachers strikes. You'resaying ,that the racist government andthe corporations arc the friends ofhlacks. We're saying no. There has to bea fight to throw out the racist laborhureaucracv and make the workersmOlement:lI1ake the lI'orkillK class !likeUI' !he/ightfiJr Mack riKh!s.":Wililler: " ... I know it's hard for you tounderstand. but we do not .c1assify amQlement on the basis of the leadership,or elen necessarily by itself the programof that movement .... Yes it's true that alot of black people in Crown Heightsmade ,I link between the murder ofArthur M iller and the beating of VictorRhodes ... , We think it's a very under­standahle thing that when black peoplelink racist violence against one hlackrerson with racist violence againstanother black person. We say theyshould hc linked ...."And YOU criticize us for our Bostonpositi<)n ... and you eounterpose to thata rhony conception of hlack and tradc­union defense hecause vou know that atthis time that means 11;1 defense .... Wethought when federal troops went intoMississipri, we thought that was good.Wc thought when federal troops wentinto I.ittle Rock wcsuprorted that. Youwould have oprosed that. And only an

kddinL' hUI dll IOlil crltlcl,ms dl'l' anl'\Cll"'l~ to {/h\!(/~·Il /rulil \{rugg/e. YUlj

'did thdt thl' <11111 !OI'Cl' \OU nl'l'd i, till'lIor~lng l'la", B'ut \I hl'I'l vou'rc "II in)!thdt I mcan. III L'cneral II hat \Lrr.\ist"'>Llld dl"lL'rl'C lI'ith tha!" hut II hcnI OU'rl' "llil~L' th,ll, \ <>LI'I'C salinl! it In till'~:ontl'\1 ;)1 ;uhord'inatlnL' t'hl' 'national,tnlggk, that arl' takin~ rlacl' in thisl'ountrl to thl' ah,tract cia",conccrtlonSha//ller: "I II ould agrl'c thc qucstion isnot onc 01 hlac~s I'. JC\IS, In orderto lorL'c thc unitlolhlacksand Jl'\lsthcInlllll'~ll'l'oll,hc Ilassidiccollllllunityand01 Zionislll in L'cneral hds to hl' cUI'hcd,I hat doc,n't 'mcan th,lt onc is lor ahl,IC~ I s, Jewish stru"i!k. I II ould also,\L'rcc II ith thc sister t';at if therc is amr~~n' \ s, racc' strtl1!1!k and anlonc II h;)adlocatl', slll'h :i' struggk 01' a ,eo-it­~t1onl' ro,turc, .. thcy'rc alse) a(h ocatlng!!cnocidc I \I ould a Iso Ii~c to as ~ rL'llp kto hc Clllhllkr,ltc oJ rconle, "

S/.er: "I'm a mcmher of thc SpartacistI.ca,eue and I want to spcak a little onCrolln Hcil!llts, I was therc and I saw\I hat happc'ned, You arl' lying and youarc Iling [rointing to Miliner ,Ind,Inother SWPer) to sa~ I wasn't therehl'Causc I sa\l [inaudihle). Besides theanti-Scmitic rcmar~s that went on thereI also saw the rrcsence of hlack cops.And IlOnc of IOU from the SWP raisedthc demand "gct thc cops out of theCOIllIllUnitl' at that time.,"()~al, Aild as far as it not hcing anattack against .Jews. Daughtry explicit­h said hc wantcd to call for counter­\'igilante force against the Hassidicpatrols, He said. 'when the people oftill' hlac~ long coats meet with our men,kt thelll scc what will happen.' Okay.And that is not an attack against Jews,that is not pitting hlac~s against .Jews'?You oj thc SWP or thc CommunistPartl don't undcrstand what willhappl'n in a fight likc that, 1(.1 guinglu he 1/ genucidal dc/I'a! ."y ou c,dkd lor fedcral tnH1r' to Bostonto rrotcct hlack reopk at that time andthcn todal you get ur and say, we all~n()\1 that thl' cors arc the enemies of,­thc \lorking class ... You don't undcr­stand thc dilfercnee hetween hlad\igilantism and hlack defense ...."Daughtry \las calling for black \'lg­ilantes a1!ainst the Hassidic vigilantes.Hc lias e:t1ling for a race war of hlacksagainst Jcws. And wc of the Spartacistlcaguc hall' a different alternatiye. WedOll'! Ilil Macks againsl .fell·s hut elassI/gaills! class and that's why Marjorie'srunning this campaign. to fight for that.Wc Ilant a socialist fight. We do notsupport thc Democratic Party asDaughtn did and as the SocialistWorkers Partl did at that time hyailling with hilll. ."And you. Ken Miliner. and [anotherhlack SWl'er surplies his name] weresigning a paper signing up for theratrols and don't say you didn't becauseI saw \ou .. ,. You wanted to look likeIOU 11;lnt to support the hlack commu­nitl so this is what vou do. You do notIla'nt to lead .... In ,i racewarhlacksare,eoin)! to lose and with thc support ofIOU reople, lou'rc no heir to the hlackcommunitv,"Ifilill('/" " .. When Daughtry used!ormulat ions that we don't totally agreeII ith, that docsn't change the naturc ofthe 1ll0lCmcnt that is taking place inCrown Hei)!hts. Yes, you wcre at thatmeeting. You neler went to amceting heforc that and you newr wcntto a meeting alter that [shouts of "liar"Irom till' audicnce] .... You talk ahout

\t ilill<'I" I hc yucstion oj CrownIkiL'hh, Wl' scc it ,\', a mOlcmcnt 01hlal~~ rl'Ork to dcknd thcmschcs,Wl' "II cpr' out otthc hlad; communi­tl \\C' "II Illlkrcndcnt organi/ation o!'l'll-dl'kml' In thc hlac~ communitl 10organi/c itwll and to lkknd itsl'II.'"

Ilil/II''I'' ,,:\<l\ljU\l a tactual thingahout thl' dl'moll,tration in Cnl\\nIkighh, It \lalkd at onL' rolicc' ,tatipnand l'lllkd at ano(hl'r rl)licc station.I hat', iu,t thl' jad oj thc Situation[Srart~lcl't hcc~kr' ":\nd II hat lI~i' Inhl'tl\l'l'n""I, I hl'\ had tllO ralh 'ltl"I hl' 111"t ralh ,itc lIa, on la,t':rnPal~lIal nl'ar'thl' lla"sidlc \\naL'OL'UC,Sl·l·. tila'( lIa, a tacticalllll,takc [~r~oarIn thl' audIL'Ill'l'] ,\\e don't judgc a11]()ll'llll'lll '11,0 hI Its kadcr,hir. \Vl'iudL'L' a Ill<l\Clllcnt 01 thc masws hIII h~~t thl'l arl' trling to accomrlish, '" I hc Srartal'ist Icaguc has not comcto one' Illl'clinL' oj the Black I nitcdf-ront and ,old'thcir 1lL'II'rapcr" .. WcSrO~l' agaln,t thc rcmarks that lIercIlladc hI a numher ojthc kaders. But \lCdon't ip therc and try to straight-onta~c on anI reformist kadership in anyIII OIl'IllCnt that we run into. Wc thin~

it's a y ucst ion of figuring out tal'ticalhhml to arproach thosc struggles., "Sha!lIlC'l': ".,. The yucstion of CrownHl'ights, I thin~ lie should tackle theyucstion seriously. That there is nodil'ision hetween the hlac~ and Jewishcomlllunitl in Crown Heights. At thesame timc, the yuestion of demonstrat­in,e in front of a synagogue is not whatthe COlllmunist Partl would do. Butthat doc,n't mcan we would attack a1ll00cmcnt of thc pcorlc .... "

((,ol/Iil/lled tWill !i{/,l!,e 5)

IlclL'ilh, I ilat Chal'L'l' allic, IOU II Itil thc11]();t Il'~ll'tlonall l'I'l'lllCllh I'n :\l'lI Yor~('Itl, II 1.1 11,,1 ll'l/(' 1/,1 II/(' '\1)al'/a(;,11l<'iigll<' ,la;lIrl Ihal Ih<'re \\'1/.1 a Illilr,ha!.;<IIl1\1 al Il/iI!.;"gl/(' /hal I"uk elaC(' ;11(ruIIII I/<,ighll Igcneral urroar].Slwl/lI(,/, (I'): "1 hc yucstion is notdlrl'l'kd to IllC, it's an intcrnal dchatchl'tlll'l'n lllO rcork that arc arguingalll1111g,t thclllsl'hcs and not tr~ing to~lIkl·t thl' 11Cl'd, ojllor~ing rcork."

Debate ...

3 NOVEMBER 1978 11

•

WfJltNEltS ""fil/'ltl)

Mounties Raid Union Offices, Leaders Arrested

Trudeau Tramples CanadianPostal Strike

CUPW pickets outside Toronto post office.

rc)R.O:'\TO~-For nine days this month.:n.ooo strik ing mem hers of the Ca nadianlJ nion of Postal Workers (ClJ PW) keptCanada's postal system shut down fromcoast to coast in the most dramatic lahorshowdown with the capitalist gO\ern­ment since the Quehec general strike of1972.

The comhati\l? postal workers main­tained militant picket lines in defiance ofstrikehreaklng hack-to-work legislationrushed through Parliament and threatsof hean fines. jail sentences and massfirings. On Octoher 25 Canadian Moun­ties staged gestapo-like raids on Cl' P\\offices. seiling files. records and unionminutes: the courts issued arrest war­rants for a score of Cli PW leaders. andstrikers were sened with dismissalnotices as Postmaster Gilles lamon­tagne threatened to reopen the postoffices with scahs. It was at this roin!.when outraged support for the postalworkers was swcering the Canadianlahor mo\emen!. that left-talkingCl'PW rresident Jean-Claude Parrotcalled off the strike.

The following day Parrot was arrestedand ordered hy the Ontario SupremeCourt to recant hisearlierdefianeeofthegovcrnment's hack-to-work law. Parrotcomplied. declaring the union's strike"imalid." But even that was not enoughfor the vengeful ad ministration of PrimeMinister Elliot Trudeau. whieh is pro­ceeding with criminal charges againstParrot. four other members of theCli PW national executive board. lower­ra nk ing union officials and rank-and-filemilitants. including 31 memhers of theVancouver local.

The postal strike hit a raw nerve of theCanadian hourgeoisie. Trudeau's \i­CIOUS strike-hreaking measures. de­signed to insure continua nee of the mail.are remi niscent of similar shows offorceundertaken hy capitalist gmernmentsthreatened hy cripplingofcrucialcentersof commerce. transrort andcommunicatioll---such 3S the Britishminers strikes of 1926 and 1974 or theAmerican rail strIke led hy Eugene Debsin IX94. Thus. from its inception. thesuccess of the ClJ PW strike necessitatedits heing spread to other decisive sectionsof the workforce. most importantly

12

\\orkers in the transport and communi­cations sectors. The firing notices andCanadian Mountie raids clearly placed ageneral strike on the agenda. The failureof the entire trade-union hureaucracy toimplement these crucial measures ofs(llidarit\ insured thc defeat of thisimrortant hattie.

The furious assault on the CUPWstrike is the srearhcad of the LiberalParty's stepped-ur attack on all ofCanadian lahor. A gro\\ing wa\\.' ofstrikes has S\\ept Canada as worknsh,l\ e attemrted to recO\ er thc losses theysuffercd under three years of Trudeau'swagl' controls. which e.'\pired last sum­mer. The gmernment is pushing Parlia­ment to rass Hill c-n. which wouldrcimposc wage controls on federalworkers. and the usc of mert strike­breaking measures is on the rise. Briefstrikes hy Toronto transit workers and\larine Engineers (which tied ur shir­pingon theCireat Lakeslwereended withemergency Icgislation. and 13.000 On­tario hospital workers face the possibili­ty ofcourt orders forhidding even a strikeyote.

But the postal workers. the mostmilitant and hest organized of Canada'spuhlic workers. were the big target. Lastmonth postal management avoided thepossibility of ajoint strike byCU PW andthe other major postal union. the LetterCarriers Union of Canada (LCUC).Knuckling under to the mere threat ofno-strike legislation. LCUC leaderscalled olltheir rotating strikes after onlyfour days and signed a contract wellwithin the rroposed Bill C-2X wagelim its.

The Cli PW ranks had heen kept\\ orking without a contract for 16months bv the Parrot leadership. Duringthat time mechani/ation. sreedur.ha rassment and the growing use of non­union Iahor rrmoked wildcats at rostalcenters across Canada. Parrot finallycalled the national strike under therressure of "premature" walkouts in hishome hase. Montreal. and other cities.

The postal ,,'orkers' courageous standagainst the government's strikehreakingmeasures evoked widespread sympathyin the rest of Canadian lahor. Solidaritystatements poured in from unions andIahor federations. Canada's largest

spartacistCandidateDebatesCP,SWPon CrownHeights...4

~

union. the 231.000-member CanadianUnion of Puhlic Employees (CUPE).offered financial assistance and the use ofits offices. Even the national director ofthe traditionally conservative PublicSenice Alliance of Canada (PSAC)called for backing up CUPW with ageneral strike if necessary.

The majority of LCUC membersrespected the picket lines. and thestrategic Toronto LCUC local rassed amotion calling on the Ontario Federa­tion of Labor and Canadian LaborCongress (CI.C). which wm. maintaininga discreet silenn:. lor solidaritv strikeaction with CUPW. Militants in UnitedAuto Workers (UAWl Local 303 atCiM's plant in Scarborough circulated aretition calling for contingents of massrickets to strengthen the CLJ PW linesand demanding that the CLC call ageneral strike if the gO\ernment fined.fired or jailed ClJ PW strikers. Thesemotions were passed at a Local executi\emeeting on Octoher 24. In Sudbury I{)Ostriking International :"'ickel miners lefttheir own picket lines to heir beef upCll PW·s.

The rolicc raids and arrest warrantsfor Cli PW leaders further dectrified thisbroad-b,lsed labor suprort. Even themost cOllser\ative piecards could seetheir ow n necks on thechopring block inthl' not-too-d istant fut ure. 'Tm gd t ing alittk scared'" said C'[: PE nationalpresident (jrace Hartman. sreaking formany uninn leaders. "\ can almost hcarthe thunder nfjackhllots,"

Wnrd that the strike had been endl'drr(1\oked an uproar in CL PW localsacross the country. In Toronto a massmectiiig of the Cll PW local erupted in a

Spartacist Canada

thunderous roar of outrage and disgustwhen local president Arnold Gouldannounced Parrot's hack-to-work or­der. Denied even the right to vote onwhether to end their strike; angry postalworkers stormed out of the meetingscreaming "sell-out" and "our :"'ationalFxecuti\e knifed us in the back,"

Parrot's initial defiance of Trudeau'sstrikehreaking measures distinguishedhim from other trade-union leaders whoquickly folded up their strikes underrressure from the gO\ernment. andinitially he was enormously popular onel' P\V's mass picket lines. In the end.h(1\\e\er. the militant business unionistParrot rrmcd just as incapahle as therest of the lahar hureaucracy of provid­ing a strategy to undercut CLJPW'sisolation and to defeat thc government'sassault.

A winning strategy for the postal stri kewas uniquely chamrioned by the Trot­skyist League of Canada (TLC). syrnpa­thi/ing section of the internationalSrartacist tendency. The TIC aggress­i\ely intervened in the posta Icrisis. mass­distributing t\\O leaflets on the picketlines. at mass meetings and at keyindustrial work locations. The firststressed the necessity of hringing theother public-sector unions out on strikewith Cl' PW in order to hury Bill C-2X.On the day the i\1'ounties kicked III thedoors of CT PW uninn halls. the TLCimmcdiatel~ issucd a second flyer.l"tllinl! lor a gcneral strike againstg(1\Cr~1I11cnt uni7H1-husting. It w,;s thiskind of militant solidarity that couldha\ c rlT\ ented thl' serious defeat inflict­ed on thc milit,lllt but misled rostal\\orkers.•

3 NOVEMBER 1978