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The issue was, of course, the mantle ofMaoism. The Avakian supporters solid-.arize with the "Gang of Four" and, ofcourse, Mao (the Gang of Five?) whilethe forces around Jarvis opt for thepresent Peking regime and (need weadd) Mao. The spectacle recalls the 1969SDS split in form, where both sideswaved the Little Red Book and furious-

continued on page 2

In its factional explosion the RCPludicrously aped its mentors, the Chi­nese Maoists: the split was the finalexplosion of a prolonged clique warmarked by secret positions held foryears. Its characteristics were the exilingof oppositionists to the sticks; leader­ships reshuffled by bureaucratic fiat;whole branches put on probation~with

scarcely a word to the bewildered partyranks.

One Divides Into Two

practices of this organization, manyRCP members are ignorant of whatreally is happening in their own party.They ought to get the story straight andpolitical~no Mao-talk, no phony­baloney, no moralizing nonsense. Andthey'll only get it here.

invocation of bureaucratic privilege.Unity of the warring leaders against themembership is as organic to the RCP asit is to the Chinese Communist Party orany other Stalinist formation. At allcosts, those on top must prevent acritical discussion of political questions.For the RCP, the immediate question isChina. And any serious examination ofthat question raises the dangerousspectre of the "Russian question": thenature of the USSR and Stalinism vs.Trotskyism. The RCP tops must avoidthis issue like the plague. But burningquestions sometimes burn out ofcontrol.

The chasm separating the RCP fromLeninist norms of democratic central­ism is evident in the fact that many of theRCP ranks will learn of the mostwrenching internal struggle in thehistory of their own organization in thepages of Workers Vanguard. But moreimportantly, this is also the only waythey will learn the political meaning ofthe split. For when the "discussion" doesat last trickle down to the ranks, it willbe drained of political content, obscuredby a tradition of Stalinist lies, packedwith self-serving bureaucratic cover-up.

The RCP split is a dramatic shift in thepolitical landscape of the U.S. left. Butgiven the ultra-bureaucratic, Stalinist

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Avakian at "Throw the Bum Out" rally. TheBum-Nlxon-wa8a Mao favorite.

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East Coast but also key chunks of itsMidwest industrial concentration andthe entire youth operation outside theWest Coast. Consequent demoralizationwill certainly produce additional resig­nations. The RCP has been split andwrecked by bureaucratic cynicism andpolitical incapacity.

News of the split has traveled inshock waves through the ranks of theorganization. And no wonder they'reshocked. Their party has been blastedapart and they have only the fuzziestidea what it's all about. As a matter ofconscious policy, both wings of theleadership have worked to keep theranks in the dark, with hints and rumorstheir only clue to the crisis shaking theorganization.

Even when the Jarvis faction, after along underground existence, surfacedwithin the leadership following the mid­December Central Committee plenum,the membership was shut out from thedesperate struggle at the top. There werethe frantic whispers about secret meet­ings and hidden positions: "Bob's forthe Gang"; "Mickey's backing Hua."But the severity of the crisis was not forthe ranks' tender ears.

The purpose of this conspiracy ofsilence was more than the simple

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WV ExclusiveTHE INSIDE STORY

Four" had it out with backers of thecurrent HuaJTeng regime in Peking.

This is the largest and deepest split inNew Left Maoism since SDS fractured in1969. But unlike that split, from whichemerged a "pro-working-class" wing aswell as a hardened petty-bourgeoisnationalist current, the RCP has dividedalong well established clique lines withno political left wing. Followers of RCPChairman Bob Avakian in California arecertainly no less reformist than thefaction grouped around Mickey Jarvis inNew York.

As we go to press it appears that theRCP will lose more than a third ofits 600­700 members~not only the bulk of the

What was once the largest Maoistorganization in the u.s. is ripping apartat the seams over the China question.Long-simmering clique warfare in theRevolutionary Communist Party(RCP~formerlyRevolutionary Union)exploded last weekend in Cincinnati asclub-wielding supporters ofthe"Gang of

The Call

Klonsky and Hua toast. "If the CCP elected a chimpanzee as chairman,Klonsky would send him a telegram of support."

lI-.....

Gang of Four Purge Rip.s Ap'art Maoists

Hsinhua

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Marxist Working-Class Weeklyof the Spartacist League of the U.S.

W'lillEltS'ANII/ARI

"Rectification"

Avakian put down the youth revolt onlyby putting the fear of Mao into the dualmembers about what would happen tothem if they did not fight for the center'sline at the mid-November youth confer­ence. This tactic was to eventuallybackfire on Avakian. His heavy-handedapproach to the youth members markeda watershed in Jarvis' decision to surfacethe faction and was to cause Avakian tolose much of the RCYB in the split.

China. But by the time they arrivedAvakian had decided to wage his fight ina more exclusive body, and the centerordered the CCers to spend the weekenddiscussing the "Worker" newspapers.With the organization paying the planefares, the disgruntled cadres left Chica­go muttering "No Taxation, NoRepresenta tion."

With their departure the real leader­ship of both sides got down to business.Avakian began by introducing hisfactional document, "Revisionists AreRevisionists and Must Not Be Support­ed, Revolutionaries Are Revolutiona­ries and Must Be Supported," hot offthe press. Though prior to this theinternal discussion on China had onlytaken place in whispers among an elitefew, the document was rammed downthe body's throat. The vote was notreassuring for Avakian. Only by ignor­ing the sizable "silent minority" whosimply abstained could he claim a two­to-one victory in the vote. (The Jarvisfaction of course counts the abstentionsdifferently and arrives at an almost evensplit.)

In any case Avakian got what he hadcome for. At long last there was a

Following the youth name-ehangeconfrontation, the Central Committeeand other leading members were calledto Chicago in mid-December for ameeting, ostensibly to set guidelines foropening a discussion within the RCP on

rade Jarvis who at one pomt told theChair he had no right to speak on thisquestion because he hadn't investigated(in fact, the Chair had done someinvestigation). and who. while uphold­ing the line in some ways also 'floated'ideas to these comrades that encour­aged them in their wrong thinking andtheir tendency to oppose the Partypolitically and organizationally."

-Ibid.

Mao and Lin Plao applaud Red Guard parade In 1966.

factionalizing was reaching epidemicproportions. A hot issue was thequestion of changing the name of theyouth organization. Things had gone sofar that while Avakian was pushing for a"communist" youth group, Jarvis wasactively lining up the non-party youthagainst the center in favor of a "mass"organization. The real issue was powerpolitics: the Jarvis clique's challenge tothe Avakian Ieader-eult, as a documentby "the Chairman" makes clear:

"... in many ways the Party as a wholehas been effectively split for a year ormore. This has come out aroundvarious issues. including the questionsinvolved in forming a young communistleague. This went so far that somecomrades took a factional attitudetoward the Party as a whole and ahostile attitude toward the Chair. Thiswas objectively encouraged by Com-

Hsinhua

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Photograph of Mao memorial published in Peking press before (above) andafter (beloW) campaign against "Gang of Four" began In 1976.

Maoist School of Falsification

that while the arrest of the Gang of Fourby Hua "looked like a bad thing," itrequired "further investigation." Thisenabled the center to publish its one andonly statement on the Chinese events,the 15 October 1976 Revolution articlewhich while, in Avakian's words,"upholding socialist China had a clear'till' in the direction of the line of theFour." But with the rehabilitation ofTeng Hsiao-ping and the 11th PartyCongress Jarvis became increasinglyrestive over the "tilt" and a "compro­mise even-handed" stance had to betaken.

With their only public statementrendered moot by Teng's rehabilitationand Avakian and Jarvis unable to reacha further "compromise," the RCPersspent the next year and a half crawlingpink-faced through their public work. InNovember of that year they managed toget themselves in the ridiculous situa­tion of holding a "Conference on theInternational Situation" where theywere baited on all sides for having noline on China.

For a while they could fake it.Avakian was happy to say nothingwhich could make things worse for himin China. Jarvis, in his inimitable cliquestyle, was sticking to the compromisewhenever Avakian's agents were inearshot, while whispering his dissatis­factions on his own turf. This had theeffect of landing some of the more naiveJarvisites in periodic hot water as theyoccasionally tried to raise criticismsthrough regular RCP "channels" only toget smashed by the Bob/ Mickey com booAvakian describes this period in adocument:

"It often happened that when things 'gotout of hand' and the Party centerstepped in to struggle with these linesand forces that Comrade Jarvis wouldthen take part, even vigorously takepart, in the struggle along with thecenter. But the effect of this was usuallyto produce in those forces he hadunleashed a feeling that he had 'punkedout' to the center and had, in fact, 'setthem up'."

-"Central Committee Report."(Volume 3. Number 1)

As the months went by, eventscontinued to press down relentlessly onthe RCP. Externally Peking was forcingthe issue by granting its "franchise" toKlonsky. Internally the subterranean

RCP Ducks the China Question

The story properly begins with thedeath of Chairman Mao, which foundthe RCP leaders preoccupied above allwith keeping the reverberations of theshake-up in the Chinese regime fromaffecting their own organization. Unlikethe RCP's more left-wing predecessor,Progressive Labor (PL), which tried inan infantile way to cope with the Mao!Nixon alliance and, spinning off into therealm of "left" anti-Leninism, activelydug its own political grave, the RCPtops simply stuck their heads in thesand.

In thefall of 1976 Avakian and Jarvis,playing for time, reached the agreement

(continued from page 1)

Iy quoted Mao at one another. But insubstance, the connection is that oftragedy and farce. The deepeningradicalization of the Vietnam warperiod propelled many thousands ofimpressionistic petty-bourgeois youthtoward New Left "anti-imperialism,"but in the absence of a forceful Trotsky­ist alternative to discredited CommunistParty (CP) reformism, they overwhelm­ingly embraced Stalinism in its "ThirdWorld"/ Maoist variant. Ten years later,the once-idealistic student youth whopassed from collectives to "party­building" have become the demoralizedpawns of maneuverers like RCPersAvakian and Jarvis, and Mike Klonsky,head of the "official" pro-Maoist organi­zation, the Communist Party (Marxist­Leninist) [CP(ML}].

The present RCP factional line-upreflects the RCP's origins in the NewLeft. A series of scattered Revolution­ary Union collectives was amalgamatedin 1975 primarily through the patch­work merger of Avakian's Bay Areastronghold with the East Coast opera­tion built by Jarvis out of the crumblingremains of SDS's R YM II faction.Avakian's RU was New Left Maoistpure and simple. The clot headed byJarvis--a red-diaper baby who left theCP in 1969 with a pro-China line-hasalways tended toward a more classicStalinist coloration based on sycophan­cy toward the "one country" in which"socialism" was presumably being built.Hence the Jarvis clique is terrified of"isolation" from the Peking regime,while the Avakian wing is more respon­sive to the old "anti-imperialist" milieuwhose admiration for China was badlyshaken by Peking's role in Angola andembrace of NATO against the Soviet"superpower."

While Mao was alive his authoritativebonapartist role between the wings ofthe Chinese bureaucracy sufficed tohold the RCP together. But with hisdeath, it soon split apart. Demonstratingthat the organization never transcendedits initial federalism, both sides aretaking out roughly what they put in, withAvakian's stronghold remaining the BayArea and Jarvis' New York.

In his documents Jarvis defined hisfaction as the right opposition toAvakian's "left idealist" tendencywhich, in "giving the Gang a home," wasleading the party into "degeneration andisolation." For his part, Avakian haddeclared war on the "bourgeois head­quarters" headed up by Jarvis, the"second center" in the RCP which hadbeen "intriguing, conspiring and work­ing for a split" for "years." The period ofactual debate-of course restricted tothe RCP elite-was brief and quicklyresolved itself into tense confrontationscomplete with bodyguards, and worse.

Whereas in China the working peoplelearn of their leaders' magical transfor­mations from proletarian heroes to"capitalist roaders" through wall post­ers pasted up after the fact, the RCPranks have been kept entirely in thedark, expected to follow along when thetime comes on the basis of whoever firstrecruited them.

RCP...

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

••**•**

there is no way we can carry out our duties asa Party or overcome demoralization that willinevitably set in as it becomes more and moreclear what road China is taking. Further weshould find the ways to do broader educationon the crucial questions related to develop­ments in China without commenting directlyon the situation there-for example articlesabout the process and lessons of capitalistrestoration in the Soviet Union, articles aboutthe gains and lessons of the Cultural Revolu­tion in China, etc.

Should we continue to work in U.S.-China[Peoples Friendship Association]? Yes, weshould, but we must recognize the obviousfact that it will be an extremely difficult task tocarry out. In particular it will be extremelydifficult to balance building friendship forChina as a socialist country, which is stillcorrect at this time, with not contributing tobUilding up the current rulers in opposition tothe Four (not to go along with the Associa­tion's doing the latter will be impossible ofcourse, and we should not put up struggle totry to prevent it from doing this, though weshould try to keep it from being the mainthing the Association does, and as much aspossible we ourselves should not contributeto it-as I said this will be extremely difficult).Careful guidance must be given to comradesdoing this work ....

Excerpts from Avakian's"Central CommitteeReport," pages 9·10 [emphases added]:

Public Stand on ChinaIt is also important to grasp that, having

taken this line internally, our purpose andtask is not to undertake an anti-Chinacrusade.... This means we will write articlesin our press on such questions as stUdyingthe restoration of capitalism in the USSR andon the gains of the working class undersocialism-focusing on gains of the CulturalReVOlution, which now (though we won't gointo this) are under attack. These articles willstress political line, without being openattacks on the Chinese leadership.

In talking to people outside the Party, wemust draw distinctions. We can speak aboutour whole line on this only to people who arevery close to the Party and who can betrusted to grasp not only the line, but thereasons we are not expounding it publicly(this should be explained to them) .... Toothers we work with, we should explain weuphold China as socialist, answer theirquestions by saying that many of the gains ofthe working class are under attack now... andthen go on to explain even if restoration wereto occur, this would not mean you cannotwin, but only that the historic mission of theworking class... can only be accomplishedthrough twists and turns, temporary rever­sals, and hard struggle, but that it wilfinevitably be achieved ....

The RCYB [youth organization], becauseof its nature, should not have a line on thisquestion (though, obviously, Party memberswithin it have a line). Only those closest to theParty within the RCYB should be told our fullposition, as outlined above. Within the RCYBgenerally, our line on China should be thesame as our broad public position. Articlesfrom our Party's press which touch onrelevant line questions tan be used for RCYBeducationals on the victories of and the classstruggle under socialism, but in these discus­sions all-around conclusions about Chinashould not be drawn. ...

RCP's "Secret" Position on ChinaExcerpts from "Revisionists Are Revisionistsand Must Not Be Supported, RevolutionariesAre Revolutionaries and Must Be Support­ed," pages 75·76 [emphases added], by theChairman [Bob Avakian], adopted by theCentral Committee:

IV. What Do We Do Based on a CorrectUnderstanding of What Has Happened?

I have put forward in blunt terms what Ibelieve to be the undeniable truth aboutevents in China. A revisionist coup has takenplace, a serious blow has been delivered tothe proletariat and its revolutionary leaders.The capitalist-roaders are not only still on thecapitalist road, they have now usurpedsupreme power and are taking China downthe capitalist road ....

The situation presents us and genuineMarxists everywhere with many difficult andcomplicated questions.... Should we comeout now and publicly support the Four anddenounce the current rulers? No.... Shouldwe continue to put forward China as asocialist country? Yes, for now we should,because it is still an objective fact. But weshould, in discussing China, put stress onMao's line, the Cultural Revolution and thefact that in socialist society classes exist,class struggle is acute and the danger ofcapitalist restoration is ever-present andgreat.... We should avoid as much aspossible giving any support to the currentrulers of China and certainly continue not tocongratulate them on any posts any of themassume, and most definitely not on any oftheir victories over the proletariat-Le., thesmashing of the "gang of four."

As far as our public position on China weshould take the following approach. With the"general public"-that is people not close tous, inclUding opportunists-we should saythat there are obviously reasons for concernabout what is happening in China... but weshould put this in the context that China is asocialist country and that the class struggleunder socialism always goes on and at timesbecomes very acute. In short, we shoulduphold China as a socialist country whilepointing to problems and areas of struggleand say that we are closely following andcontinuing to study events in China. On TengHsiao-ping, since our last public statementson him (correctly) labelled him a counter­revolutionary, but since he has since beenrestored to very high office, we should justsay (to the "general public") that his return tooffice has to be viewed in the overall contextof what is happening in China and that we aretaking up the question of his return to officein that light and in the same spirit as we arefollowing and studying events in China ingeneral, as summarized just above. Com­rades should keep in mind that what they sayto workers and others whom we cannot counton as being completely reliable have to be putin the category of statements to the "generalpublic," since they may very well become that(for example a worker may have contact withboth us and the OL-CPML, and may notunderstand why he should not discuss withthem what we tell him about our position onChina).

At the same time, as stressed before, wemust educate not only our own members butreliable advanced workers and others closeto us (those who will understand why theyshould keep what we say to them aboutChina confidential) about what is actuallygoing on in China and give them the basis forgrasping the real lessons of this. Otherwise

RCP: Bureaucratic Nightmare

After some debate in Chicago, it wasdecided that China was a "tactical"question; thus, upon return to thebranches. there would be no more saidabout Lhma. fhafs right--Avakiandirected that there be no discussion ofevents in China: not in meetings, incorridors. in cars or closets. As for theregional leaders and branch chairmenwho were simply to vanish after theChicago meeting. not a word ofexplana­tion was to be given. These regulationsled one baffled cadre to ask, "If China isnot a principled question for an organi­zation which claims to be Maoist, whatis?" In the RCP, as in China, the only"principled" question would appear tobe the survival of one'sown bureaucraticclique.

The Chicago meeting was thebeginning of the end. The Jarvis peopleheaded to New York for the holidays,en route to their reassignments, andbegan furiously scribbling documents.Sliding over his vote for the "rectifica­tion," Jarvis wrote:

"In looking over the rectificationbulletin one can say that the lack oftheoretical and political line is astound­ing. One-half of the standing committeeis removed, one-half of the politicalcommittee removed. almost one-half ofthe voting Central Committee membersremoved. suppressed or surrounded.and not a word of explanation...."

The spectacular fracturing of theRCP over China is more than poetic

continued on page 4 '\"", J

A SUSptCIOUS Avakian showed up in~ew York to ensure that the line votedin Chicago would be taken down to themembership; the task of the cadres wassimply to "absorb" it, under the Stalinistdictum, "unity of will. unity of action."According to Avakian only the majoritydocument was to be discussed. onlysections at a time. only through regularRCP "channels" (with leading cadresrequired to present the center's line inlower bodies) and only twice:

"This report on China as well as on therevisionist line and headquarters ofcourse represents the line of our Party.Leadership of all units has the task ofleading their units in study and struggleto grasp and apply this line. If there areany disagreements. they should beraised for struggle only in the highestbody one belongs to."For six weeks. beginning the first of thevear. the discussion should center on theline on China in the accompanyingreport. One or at most two initialdiscussions of the part of the reportdealing", ith rectification should be heldduring the period."

.. "Central Committee Report."(Volume 3. ,,"umher 1)

Mcam\hile the hyperactivism of theRCP exemplified by campaigns suchas the "People's Bicentennial," KentState and :\UWO. designed to keep themembers too busy to think-would bestepped up:

"\1ass work becomes our main empha­sis. unlike in the period of forming thePart\'.··

. 11'/(/.

majority line and he could move againstthe Jarvis "headquarters." His "rectifi­cation" campaign, patterned after theChinese CP's "ideological criticism andself-criticism" campaigns used to justifyrevolving-door purges, called for "or­ganizational steps" against the opposi­tion. In typical fashion Jarvis and hissupporters voted for the "rectification,"which included throwing themselves offthe Central Committee and exilingthemselves from the major party cen­ters. In a classic Stalinist statement,Avakian reported:

"The Central Committee has madearrangements for [Jarvis] to undertakework to make contributions to theParty, has assigned him some leadingresponsibility in the Party and whilestruggling with him has expressed everyhope that he'll change in the course ofwork and study."

--Ibid.

Even in the RCP, Politics Will Out

27 JANUARY 1978 3

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China's Alliance withU.S. Imperialism

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Avakian hails as "prophetic" Mao'sstatement that:

"The right in power could utilize mywords to become mighty for a while.But then the left will be able to utilizeothers of my words and organize itselfto overthrow the right."

The dilemma for Maoists in not beingable to communicate with the dead isevident in Avakian's document, whosethesis that the "Gang of Four" repre­sents the continuity of orthodox Mao­ism is now the official, thQugh secret,line of the Rep. Not that the "GreatHelmsman's" last words matter, exceptto sycophants like Avakian or Jarvis.Thus Avakian can only guess:

"In fact there were, as subsequent eventshave made abundantly clear, powerfulforces in the Chinese leadership whostrongly opposed the campaign againstTeng and the right deviationist wind....But exactly because Mao threw hisweight behind this campaign, theseforces had to beat a temporary andpartial retreat and go along withknocking down Teng. But they certainlywere not about to allow one ofthe Fourto become acting head of the CentralCommittee and the country in effect.Therefore they backed Hua, someonewho, as an analysis of his line and rolehas shown, was politically in their campbut was not such an easy target with longyears of brazen revisionism to attack,like Teng."U nder these conditions, with thebalance of forces being what they were,Mao had to go along with Hua'sappointments....~Mao knew that the deeper this struggleagainst the right deviationist wind wentand the more thoroughly it was carriedout, the harder the blows at the rightistsand the more favorable the conditionsfor the left.... And we have seen what

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Trying to back the right horse hasnever been easy in the Stalinist move­ment, where heads have to roll to excusethe defeats and betrayals which are thebureaucracy's stock-in-trade. But it isharder under the ghost of Mao than itever was under the Stalin monolith. In amasterpiece of unintentional humor,

Chiang Ching with Chou.

The Rep's Private Line

praising him for 'upholding the red flagagainst all enemies within and without;which in today's context of Chou beingpraised in China for fighting the Four isa back-door way of taking a position onthis struggle. While we have notofficially repudiated that CC statement,neither have we been repeating it, anymore than we have been repeating theRevolution article of October 15,1976..." (our emphasis)

-Ibid.

And they are going to preserve a discreetsilence about China in public and evenin their own youth organization (see boxaccompanying this article), except whendealing with "those who will understand'why they should keep what we say tothem about China confidential"! Inother words, Avakian knows that foradmitted Maoist Stalinists, the RCP'sline on China is actually shameful;rather than fighting for it, they mustkeep it secret. The staggering cynicismof these exhortations to secrecy ismatched only by the stupidity of puttingthem down in black and white. PerhapsMao backed by the armed forces couldpull it off. Avakian can't-as ourreaders can read for themselves.

51.00a Spartacist pamphlet

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the no-win policy of public silence onthe question of the present Chineseregime.

Thus the line of Avakian'sdocuments-now the officially adoptedline of the RCP-is that "a revisionistcoup has taken place" in China. "Thecapitalist-roaders are not only still onthe capitalist road, they have usurpedsupreme power and are taking Chinadown the capitalist road." And what isthe RCP going to do about it? Well, theyare going to publish articles about"capitalist restoration" in the USSR,they are going to commemorate the"Great Proletarian Cultural Revolu­tion" whenever possible, they will seekto avoid "contributing to building upthe current rulers in opposition to theFour" in the U.S.-China PeoplesFriendship Association. They will try toavoid incidents like that of the appoint­ment calendar produced by RCPers inPhiladelphia, described by Avakian:

'This calendar is a factional calendar,particularly because of how it handledthe Chou En-lai question when it waswell known to some that this was a verycontroversial question which wouldsoon be summed up. It has two picturesof Chou-one of the type reserved onlyfor the "Big 5"-Marx, Engels, Lenin,Stalin and Mao. It printed the CentralCommittee statement on his death,

Chou En-Ial with Teng Hsiao-ping.

(continued from page 3)

justice. It is a demonstration that even inthe RCP-where absorption in idiotadventurism and stultifying workerism,as well as pervasive cynicism towardpolitical questions, work against thedrawing of political lines-politicalconfrontation, though suppressed anddistorted, cannot be indefinitely stavedoff.

Certainly this redivision of the organ­ization along old clique lines recallsprevious splits in which disputes werepapered over until the divergent group­ings (e.g., the clot around guerrillai'stBruce Franklin, which formed Vencere­mos, or the Steve Hamilton groupingwhich was to become the Bay AreaCommunist Union) finally departed togo their own ways, without causingundue static in the rest of the organiza­tion. But while Avakian's and Jarvis'efforts to shift the blame for variousdomestic disasters onto their cliquerivals played no small part in the split,the China question-long shoved out ofsight by mutual consent-finally pro­voked the unstoppable escalation of thediscussion and made a deep and bittersplit inescapable.

The Avakjan. and Jarvis wings of theRCP have come up with two mutuallyexclusive attempts to escape the prob­lem. Of course, the lengthy internaldocuments hastily produced by the twosides on the China question never posethis problem directly, but it is the basisfor the morbidity of the RCP: Klonskyhas the China franchise. And thatsimple fact makes a Peking-loyal Mao­ist RCP unviable-and not just theRCP, but all the formations outside theCP(ML) who continue to back theruling bureaucracy of the Chinese state.To openly break from the Chinese fortheir only real "crime" in the eyes of aU.S. Maoist-not the suppression of ther:" ......~__ .... _ p._\"....~T ... Q\., IlV"\. \h~ ~)'s\en'"\atic

betrayal of international revolutionarystruggles, but the selection of the wrongAmerican epigone for the "franchise"­means that one is no closer to the seat ofpower anywhere in the world than is amiserable "Trotskyite." But to refuse tobreak deprives the RCP of any reasonfor independent existence outsideKlonsky's CP(ML). Neither wing of theRCP can escape this dilemma, for bothaccept the Stalinist framework of abureaucratic caste where policy andprivilege are determined by reshufflingsat the top, whose American "comrades"are selected not for their capacity to leadthe U.S. working class to state powerbut for their slavish services as publicityagents for whomever is currently top dogin Peking.

Perhaps a less gutless Avakian mighthave seen in the purge of the "Gang ofFour" a means for carving out a nichefor himself by frontally challenging thelegitimacy of the Hua regime's claim tothe mantle of Maoism. This would havemeant an eventual split with those in hisorganization for whom apologetics forChina mean more than cultist devotionto Avakian. It would have meantrenunciation of the vicarious participa­tion in the perquisites of power in Chinawhich consoles American Maoists fortheir irrelevance to the Americanworking people.

Worst of all it would have brought theRCP up against the spectre of Trotsky­ism, for Stalinism without a country isunstable in the extreme, as ProgressiveLabor found out. Warding off thatspectre, Progressive Labor embarkedon the path of political slow death. Thecollapse of PL's impressionistic centrismand its reformist spiral into oblivion isthe unacknowledged deterrent for leftistimpulses in the RCP. But the PLhorrible example is probably superflu­ous for Avakian, whose own New Leftparochialism would itself be sufficientto preclude any attempt at globalStalinist revisionism in the style of theold Progressive Labor. So he opts for

Rep...

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

Red Guards display Mao's "Little Red Book" at Peking demonstration duringthe Cultural Revolution.

happened to that struggle after Maodied-those who were actively leadingit, the Four, were almost immediatelysmashed and the target of the strugglewas shifted from the right to them, the(genuine) left."

~-"Revisionists AreRevisionists ..."

Essentially the Jarvis document,"Uphold the 11th Party Constitution,"simply denies Avakian's assertionsabout Mao's attitudes toward "theFour" and toward Chou En-lai andasserts the opposite. Avakian claimsChiang Ching was carrying out Mao'sline against Chou, Teng, Hua, etc.;Jarvis insists Mao and Chou wereunited against "the Four":

"But even more underhanded is theattempt to imply that Mao and the gangwere in fundamental unity. On the verypoints mentioned, it was with the gangthat Mao had very sharp differences.On the necessity of stability and unityand pushing the national economyforward, it was the gang who in factstood in the way of these correct thrustsby metaphysically opposing them to'revolution' and 'class struggle'."

-"Uphold the 11th PartyConstitution"

Where Avakian says that Mao support­ed the "Criticize Lin Piao and ConfuciusCampaign" as a means of attackingChou, Jarvis says Mao prevented theGang from using that campaign toattack Chou:

"Once more rewriting history is used tosay that the Lin Piao ConfuciusCampaign was led by Mao and aimed atChou. The truth is quite otherwise. Thegang distorted the Lin Piao Confuciuscampaign to try and aim It at Chou andtheir veteran cadres and at themasses.... The gang may have wantedto aim at Chou, but what they did [was]aim at Maoand theCCP. Maotold themto stop it, to stop weakening thecampaign."

-Ibid.

One of the most striking aspects ofJarvis' and Avakian's documents is thatboth sides are utterly in the dark aboutwhat really goes on in the ForbiddenCity. Lacking any substantial communi­cation with CCP leaders they arereduced to reading the tea leaves ofPeking Review to find out who's on topor what Mao really meant. To makesense of it all they have to resort tobourgeois sources. Thus Avakian relieson a compilation of translations by theU.S. government while Jarvis takes aparticularly damning quote fromChiang Ching from a CIA-connectedTaiwanese propaganda mouthpiece.What else can they do-their ownoracles are silent.

These polemics are rather reminiscentof the Japanese film Rashomon, inwhich several witnesses gave flatlyconflicting accounts of a rape andmurder. In the movie a medium contactsthe murdered man's spirit (who presentsyet another version). Since the RCPersposture at being Marxists (i.e., material­ists), they cannot claim to communewith Mao's ghost. Even if they could,that ghost would oblige them only withmore of the forked-tongue epigrams ofabonapartist balancing between thecompeting interests of bureaucraticcliques and the empty moralizing about"revolution" designed to cover thesystematic betrayal of the Chinese andinternational proletariats.

"Cultural Revolution"Mystification

If the "Gang of Four" was so bad, whydid Mao tolerate them-if not activelysupport them-in positions of power?This is the main theme of Avakian'sdocument, to which he returns againand again.

It is indeed an awkward question forPeking's present rulers. The Hua regimehas been compelled to supply a series ofnot very convincing answers. For onething, they claim that the Gang's crimesescalated sharply in the last months ofMao's life. Second, Mao was, as allMaoists know, the very soul of com­radely tolerance, and was patientlyseeking to get the Gang to change its evilways. And third, Hua supporterscontend that if Mao had not been ill orhad lived longer he would have taken

27 JANUARY 1978

action against the Chiang Ching clique.In one sense Avakian is right. The

Chiang group were Mao's people, aclique whose positions of power de­pended solely on his personal sponsor­ship and protection. Thus they could beaxed when the Chairman's corpse wasscarcely cold. However, Avakian'scontention that Mao was engaged in amajor struggle with Chou En-lai, Hua,Yeh Chien-ying is no less fantastic thanthe counter-claim that he would havepurged the "Four" had he been healthy.As representatives of the ChineseStalinist bureaucracy, Hua and Tengare also Mao's legitimate heirs.

Hua/Teng can legitimately argue thatthe purge of the "Gang of Four" is thelogical culmination of a trend thatbegan in late 1967 when Mao decided tosuppress the Red Guards. Since late1967 the most prominent victims of theMao regime have been the originalleaders of the Cultural Revolution(Wang Li, Chen Po-ta, Lin Piao), whilemost "capitalist roaders" purged in1966-67 have been reinstated.

As a result of his sponsorship of thedisastrous "Great Leap Forward"(1958-61) Mao lost much of his authori­ty among the CCP old guard. In 1965, inalliance with Lin Piao, he moved torestore his former dominance. This wasthe origin of the Cultural Revolution.But the veteran party cadre proved tohave considerable powers of resistance,including the ability to mobilize groupsof workers against the student-youthRed Guards. So in the end Mao had toretreat and come to terms with so-called"capitalist roaders" like Teng. Mao'spersonal authority remained sufficientto-through the mediation of Chou En­lai-work out a rapprochement with theold guard.

September 1967 was a decisive turn­ing point in the Cultural Revolution,when Mao moved sharply against theRed Guards and their supporters in theregime. Because of massive popular

resistance to the "radical" Maoist RedGuards, particularly among the work­ing class (e.g., the Shanghai generalstrike in January 1967), Mao had to callin the People's Liberation Army(PLA) in early 1967 to "support therevolutionary rebels." The conservativePLA officer corps, of the same flesh asthe civilian party and governmentbureaucracy, naturally neutralized rath­er than supported these "rebels." Frus­trated by the nature of the PLA'sintervention, some Red Guard groupscame out for extending the CulturalRevolution into the army, mobilizingthe soldiers against the officers.

The army is the core of bureaucraticrule in China. As a representative of thebureaucracy, Mao was committed tomaintaining the army as an effectiverepressive apparatus against the poten­tially rebellious Chinese workers andpeasants (e.g., the army was brought in

to break the nationwide railway strike inJanuary 1967). Mao declared in nouncertain terms that the PLA was off­limits to this so-called "revolution":

"The army's prestige must be resolutelysafeguarded and there can be no doubtabout that. ... The chief danger of themoment is that some people want tobeat down the PLA! ... There must beno chaos in the army."

-Survey of the China MainlandPress, 5 November 1967

With the liquidation of the RedGuards came the purge of those Cultur­al Revolution leaders most closelyassociated with them. In September1967 Wang Li and two associates werepurged from the Group in Charge of theCultural Revolution as "ultra-leftists"who encouraged attacks on the army. In1971 a far more important CulturalRevolution figure, Chen Po-ta, head ofthe Group in Charge and ChiangChing's closest associate, was alsopurged as an "ultra-leftist." Soonthereafter came the purge of MarshalLin Piao, Mao's officially designatedsuccessor. Mao, who had no intentionof becoming overly dependent upon anyindividual, clique or power bloc withinthe bureaucracy he headed, moved todestroy Lin's influence and in so doingcreated a situation in which Teng andthe other purged "capitalist roaders"were restored to power.

Avakian himself is forced to admitthat Mao restored Teng in order tocounter the influence of Lin's followersin the PLA. He accepts this as ajustifiable tactical maneuver:

"... after Lin Piao died and his closestco-conspirators alive were arrested, hisfollowers and the problems his campcreated were far from cleared up,especially but not exclusively in the .armed forces. It should be rememberedthat the PLA played a huge role duringthe Cultural Revolution up to thatpoint-army people were everywhere,in every major institution, in city andcountryside-playing a leadinil role,and this Mao had only begun to seriously

.",-.'.,

curo when the Lin Piao affairhappened...."While both [Mao and Chou] agreedthat the immediate task was to clean upon the remaining problems left by the'Lin Piao affair and that a certain amountof 'uniting all who can be united' againstLin's forces and line was necessary, theydisagreed over how much this should goon and how far to take it. ..."Prominent in all this is the question ofTeng Hsiao Ping. I believe that Maoand Chou agreed that it was necessaryto bring back Teng at that time-hisreturn began in 1972, very shortly afterLin Piao crashed. . . . Mao, I amconvinced, did not trust Teng andrecognized that upon returning to officeTeng was likely to resume his old ways.Mao agreed to his rehabilitation for thereason that Teng would be a powerful­and at that time necessary-force incleaning up the remnants of the LinPiao forces, especially in the PLA whereTeng has long and many close ties withkey commanders."

--"Revisionists AreRevisionists ..."

So according to Avakian, instead ofmobilizing the masses against Lin Piao'snefarious followers, Mao formed a blocwith the leading "rightist revisionist" inChina and restored him to power. Thusin his own way Avakian acknowledgesthat Mao was an opportunist bonapart­ist whose options were defined by theexigencies of bureaucratic rule.

The "Great Proletarian CulturalRevolution" was not a revolution, andhad even less to do with the proletariatthan it had with "culture" (see "MaoismRun Amok," Spartacist No.8,November-December 1966). It was amassive bureaucratic conflict which,provoked by the spectacular failure ofthe "Great Leap Forward," was extremein form and ferocity. The dominant Maoforces mobilized student youth, backedup and restrained by the army, on thebasis of radical-sounding demagogy.When the deluded youth threatened toget out of hand, Mao smashed them withthe army.

For all wings of the RCP, the onlyquestion is which part of the Maoistbureaucracy to support. Even in hisindictment of the incumbent Chineseregime, Avakian dares not flirt with theonly revolutionary alternative to theMaoist bureaucracy: political revolu­tion by the Chinese proletariat to oustall wings of the bureaucracy andestablish democratic control of industri­al and governmental policy throughproletarian soviets. For the gulfbetweenbureaucratic purge politics and therevolutionary action of the workingmasses under the leadership of theauthentic proletarian vanguard party is!he gulf between Stalinism and Trotsky­Ism.

In a most revealing remark, Avakiansays: "A genuine revolution now canonly come from the 'bottom,' andfrankly I don't expect to see such arevolution in the near future." So hemust hide in his closet ofsecret criticismof Hua/Teng while the real revolutiona­ries, the Trotskyists, not cowed by themagnitude of their task, struggle tobuild the international party of proletar­ian revolution over the political corpsesof the Avakians, J arvi~es and Klonskys.

Hua's FriendsA more seasoned Stalinist than

Avakian, Jarvis has less difficulty thanAvakian in accepting the gyrationswhich characterize a "flexible" Stalinistpolicy. If Avakian has on his side the'evident empirical fact that Mao was thebacker of the Gang of Four, Jarvis cancounter that Mao (we might add,supported by the Chiang Ching clique)liquidated the Cultural Revolution.Jarvis correctly recognizes that theCultural Revolution was an exceptionalepisode incompatible with the normalmode of Stalinist bureaucratic rule:" ...as an outburst of intense rebellion,the GPCR could not continue indefin­itely without turning into its opposite­anarchy and attacks on the masses."Poor Avakian is "stuck on the CulturalRevolution":

"The Cultural Revolution with its masscharacter and rebellion against reac­tionary authority made Marxism ac­ceptable to large numbers of pettybourgeois revolutionaries. But thesesame forces summed up the CulturalRevolution without regard to condi­tion, time and place, and many withinour Party, as well as in China, haveraised the forms and methods of theCultural Revolution as an idealist 'best'method of carrying on the classstruggle. In any and all circumstances.They have in a word, gotten stuck."

-"Uphold the 11th PartyConstitution"

The key concern of the Jarvis wing ofthe RCP, however, is not to be found inhis reply to Avakian's China document,but rather in his accompanying opus,which appeals to the ranks on the basisof organizational atrocities and domest­ic disasters (to be discussed in moredetail in our next article). In the firstpage of this hodge-podge document heattacks Avakian's appeals to take "thehigh road" as "the road of rationalizingfurther isolation from our fellow work­ers than conditions demand." Counter-

continued on page 8

5

LCR Dissident Denounces Class Collaboration

French Pabloists in the Camp of thePopular Front

took in 1935-36: Pivert explicitly foughtfor a "fighting popular front."

"FURism" '

The LCR, the OCT and the CCAformed this electoral bloc in the tradi­tion of the Portuguese FUR, Democraz­ia Proletaria in Italy and the SpanishFUT. Far from offering a means toexpress some kind of "mistrust," thisbloc subordinates any programmaticconsideration to the hopes that if it canget enough people together, it can wheeland deal with some future popular frontgovernment. Flattering itself with theillusion of national influence, andclaiming that a vote for the bloc wouldrepresent a warning to Marchais andMitterand, ,the bloc promises that itsopposition to the Popular Front will bea loyal opposition: "defeat the right onthe second round" actually means bringthe Popular Front to power.

What is the Program of this Bloc?

This miniature "common program ofthe far left" contains a characterizationof a Union of the Left governmentwhich at least is correct: "Such a gov­ernment ... would be nothing but abourgeois government" (Joint Platform,point 2). For years the LCR leadershiphas refused to say that the Union of theLeft is a bourgeois formation; it hasused the formulation "global reformistalternative"; and it still refuses to say it isa popular front. Five years of urging avote for the Popular Front have sodulled the political sensibiliti~s of LCRmilitants that the LCR leadership'sexplicit declaration that a Left govern­ment will in fact be bourgeois nowmerely aids it to better pressure thisbourgeois government. As to its so­called principled opposition to votingfor the bourgeois candidates of theUnion of the Left, it is enough to recallthat in the [spring 1977] municipal

The core of my opposition to theLCR's electoral policy can be com­pressed to the following: to call for avote for the Communist and Socialistparties-which are today still tied to theLeft Radicals and which have still notrepudiated their commitment to theCommon Program-is to vote for thecandidates of a Popular Front, i.e., abourgeois formation. All the "critical"remarks and suggestions made in Rougefor "improving" the Union of the Leftdo not in the least change the fact thatwhat the LCR leadership is doing bycalling for this vote is using what littlesocial influence it has to insure thevictory of the Popular Front. And that,comrades, is purely and simply abetrayal. Today's call for such a votejustifies the prediction that tomorrow, ifthe Union of the Left wins the elections,the attitude of the LCR leadership willnot be one of revolutionary oppositionto this capitalist government, but one ofpressure, in one form or another, on thePopular Front. This was the ChileanMIR's attitude toward Allende's Popu­lar Unity: and we know what came ofthat. This was also the attitude whichMarceau Pivert's Revolutionary Left

"The question of questions at present isthe People's Front. The left centristsseek to present this question as a tacticalor even as a technical maneuver, so as tobe able to peddle their wares in theshadow of the People's Front. In reality,the People's Front is the main questionof proletarian class strategy for thisepoch. It also offers the best criterionfor the difference between Bolshevismand Menshevism."

-Leon Trotsky, "The DutchSection and the International,"(July, 1936), Writings, 1935-36,p.370

Der'Spiilgel

Union of the Left leaders Marchais, center, and Mitterrand, center left, leadmarch in Paris last year.

For a TrotskyistOpposition to the

Popular Front!

LE BOLCHEVIKOrgane de fa Ligue Trotskyste deFrancesection sympathisante de la tendancespartaciste internationale

2,00 F.I$.50Pour toute commande:Le BolchElVik, B.P. 421 0975424 Paris CEDEX 09, France

the reformist parties of the Union of theLeft rejected the Common Programwhich serves as the framework for thePopular Front? No! The Popular Frontstill exists.

I have been a member of the LCR(and its predecessors) since February1969; I belonged, in succession, to the"Against the Stream" tendency (1973­74), to Tendency 4 (first Congress oftheLCR, 1974), to Tendency C and then tothe unified Tendency A (second Con­gress of the LCR, 1976). I havesubmitted two documents to the LCRPolitical Bureau. My first document("The Situation in the InternationalAfter the Dissolution of the Leninist­Trotskyist Faction: What Perspectivesfor a Trotskyist Opposition?") pointedout that oppositionists in the LCR,including those within the LTF who hadjoined with the reformist AmericanSWP have been incapable of presentinga Trotskyist opposition to centrists likeMandel, Krivine and Yvetot. Today, theUSec claims to be the Fourth Interna­tional; in fact, it was their Pabloismwhich destroyed the Fourth Interna­tional. Pabloism is the revisionist theorywhich consists of hunting for a substi­tute for the working class led by theTrotskyist Party to make the revolution.The substitutes have been many andvaried: capitulating to the PopularFront is only the most recent.

Comrade Puech told me that lastweekend's Central Committee meetingwould fix a date for the publication ofmy documents. But it didn't discuss thisquestion: and it was not just due to theCentral Committee's well-known in­competence that this point wasn't put onthe agenda. The LCR leadership wantsabove all not to be bothered by adiscussion over the difference betweenan opportunist policy of pressuring thepopular front and revolutionary opposi­tion to it. I am distributing thisdocument tonight in order to maximizethe possibility for all members of theLCR to understand where the leader­ship is taking them.

Comrades: remember the slogan youshouted in demonstrations after theSeptember 1973 massacre: "France willnot become Chile!" The incorrigibleleaderships of the LCR and the USec aregoing to apply the very policy whichallowed the Chilean reformists to openthe door to the massacre, which allowedthe Portuguese reformists to smash theforward motion of the Portugueseproletariat.-Comrades! Demand that this meetingbe transformed into a ;eal politicaldebate on the burning question facingthe working-class movement: the ques­tion of the Popular Front!-Demand that debates be immediatelyorganized in the cells!- Demand an immediat~ break with theLCR-OCT-CCA electoral bloc, whosefunction is to bring the Popular Front topower.'10 January 1978

Comrades, this evening's meeting isbeing held under the slogan "Defeat theright!" This slogan totally abandonsany revolutionary opposition to thePopular Front, as the LCR has so oftendone in the past and as the UnitedSecretariat, did in Chile, Portugal andSpain. The only effect of the LCR'selectoral bloc with the OCT and theCCA is to mobilize elements which aresubjectively to the left of the reformistsaround support to the Union of the Left.

Rouge has made a great to-do overthe Communist Party's announcement("definitively" for the moment) that itwould not make any agreement con­cerning withdrawal prior to the secondround. Does that mean that the Unionof the Left is now but a memory? Doesthat mean that Marchais has given uphis goal of administering the capitaliststate in alliance with a bourgeois party,be it Radical or Gaullist? Has either of

We reprint below an open letter andleaflet distributed in Paris last week to anational meeting of the 'tar-left" elec­toral bloc made up of the fake­Trotskyist Ugue Communiste Revqlu­tionnaire (LCR-de facto leader of theUnited Secretariat [USec] "main­stream"), the Maoist OrganisationCommuniste des Travailleurs (OCT)and the Comites Communistes pour[,Autogestion (CCA-CommunistCommitteesfor Self-Management). TheCCA is composed of followers ofMichel Pablo who split from the left­social-democratic Parti Socialiste Uni­fie (PSU) last year to regroup withelements breaking to the right from theLCR. In the election meeting this leafletwas widely discussed andeagerlypassedfrom hand to hand.

The fact that a long-time member ofthe LCR is reduced to publicly distribut­ing his document in opposition to theLCR's electoral bloc is itself a signifi­cant statement concerning the internallife of the USee.

In the French electoral svstem thereare two rounds of voting. if no candi­date wins an absolute majority on thefirst round, there is a second round,generally between the two candidateswith the largest vote totals on the firstround. The question of which candi­dates withdraw on the second round istherefore very important. The SocialistParty (PS) has proposed the automaticwithdrawal of the Union of the Leftcandidates with fewer votes, while theCommunist Party (PC) has ostenta­tiously refused to commit itself(thoughit will undoubtedly follow this guidelinein practice). This jockeyingfor positionhas been reflected in the debates amongthe centrists, with the OCI making thecentral issue ofits electoralpropagandathe campaign for automatic withdrawal("desistement"). This is only the mostgrotesque example ofthe capitulation ofthe French 'tar-left" to the popularfrontism of the reformist workersparties under the guise of "unity" forunity's sake. While aping the Union ofthe Left through their own "revolution­ary'" electoral blocs, the centrists give"critical" support to popular frontismby calling for votes to the Union of theLeft or its working-class components.

Open Letter to theLCR

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

AC Transit Strikers Reject Sellout

Shut Down BARTlelections the LCR also called for a votefor Union of the Left slates includingbourgeois candidates, except when theslate· was headed by one of them.

Alain Krivine, intervening in thename of the LCR's Political Burei:J'J inthe debate o'er nationalizaL';.ls, wasconcerned only about the extcr. ofnationalizations, whereas the quest: m,above all, is to know who shouldnationalize (a workers government) andhow (without compensation). He pro­posed establishing "a minimum thresh­old of nationalizations that will changethe logic of the capitalist system" (LeMonde, 29 September 1977). Even thisreformist conception of nationaliza­tions is nowhere to be found in the LCR­OCT-CCA program, which raises thequestion of nationalizing businessesonly "when the private owners turn outto be incapable of providing the workerswith jobs" (Platform, point 4-1).

It is impossible not to point out alsothe following little sentence on theRt:ssian question from the manifesto ofthis bloc between pseudo-Trotskyists,Maoists, and advocates of "self­management": "In countries like theUSSR or Eastern Europe, the existingregimes have nnthieg to do withsocialism" (Platform, point 5). In orderto be able to make this bloc with theOCT and the CCA, the LCR leadership"disappeared" the class characterizationof the USSR and thus also the Trotsky­ist demand of unconditional militarydefense of the deformed and degenerat­ed workers states. And this is perfectlylogical: tailing after the ecologists, theLCR calls on "all the workers states tounilaterally destroy their nuclear arse­nals" (Soldat- Travailleur No.7, Sept.­Oct. J977). This position will please thereformist American SWP which, in itscampaign to present itself as Americansocial democracy, has abandoned defacto its position of defense of the USSRin order to echo Jimmy Carter's "humanrights" crusade.

The creation of this bloc was accom­panied by a violent polemic againstLutte Ouvriere [LO] which has refusedto renew the agreement made for themunicipal elections. In fact, what LOshould be criticized for is havingaccepted this deal in 1977 and alsobecause its currently projected cam­paign, addressed to the least politicallyconscious workers, does not projectfighting on the Transitional Programand for a workers government, but isbased, rather, on rank-and-file econo­mism. No doubt LO will also vote forthe candidates of the Union of the LeftPopular Front on the second round.

What Unity? In the Name ofWhat? Against Whom?

After the falling-out in Septemberamong the Radicals, Socialists andCommunists, Rouge demanded that thebureaucrats unite "in order not to betraythe workers' trust" since "at present theworkers are worried by the division,feeling powerless" (Rouge, 24 Septem­ber 1977). This appeal for "unity" wasalso concretized by the proposal to holdassemblies "where all the unions and allthe workers' parties explain their posi­tions. After a democratic debate, theworkers will vote [on the discussion],and the PCF and the PS should committhemselves to taking their opinion intoaccount" (Rouge, 26 September 1977).Under the pretext of "unity" and"workers democracy," the LCR leader­ship is no longer pushing merely a"fighting popular front," but a demo­cratic popular front, and actual pro­posals to become part of it! As Trotskyexplained regarding Marceau Pivert'sRevolutionary Left:

"This grouping is characterized by acomplete lack of understanding of thelaws that govern the movement of therevolutionary masses. No matter howmuch the centrists babble about the'masses' they always orient themselvesto the reformist apparatus.... At a timewhen it is a life-and-death question forthe masses to smash the opposition ofthe united social-patriotic apparatuses,the left centrists consider the 'unity' ofthese apparatuses as the absolute 'good'

27 JANUARY 1978

which stands above the interests ofrevolutionary struggle.... The condi­tion for the victory of the proletariat isthe liquidation of the present leader­ship. The slogan of 'unity' becomesunder these conditions not only astupidity but a crime."

-"The Peoples' Front andAction Committees," 26November 1935

The LCR and the OCI raise theslogan "for a PCI PS government." Butthis is at best a parliamentarist bastardi­zation of the Transitional Program; inno case do they put forward this demandin a manner that counterposes to thePopular Front a revolutionary workersgovernment based on working-classorgans of dual power (such as strikecommittees in a general strike situa­tion). The OCI's latest act ofparliamen­tary cretinism-after having assertedthat a left electoral majority wouldsweep the Fifth Republic away, afterhaving refused to run its own candidatesand then having launched a hystericalcampaign for [automatic] with­drawal-is Stephane Just's statement:" ... and even a PS electoral victorywould, despite itself, immediately callinto question the institutions andfunctioning of the Fifth Republic" (LaVerite, No. 579).

In these elections, the call for a PC!PS government has nothing to do with a"class against class" policy. In theframework of the present relationship offorces, with the working class' preva­lent illusions and without a definitivebreak by the reformists with the PopularFront, this call cannot be anything but apromise not to hinder the electoral

.victory of the bourgeois Popular Front.While it is possible to envisage, undercertain conditions, critical support to aworkers party which campaigns inde­pendently of a bourgeois party, it istotally out of the question to currentlyapply this in France. As a minimumprecondition for thtir possible electoralsupport the workers must insist that thePCF and PS break with their bourgeoiselectoral partners and with the Com­mon Program which serves as theframework for this class­collaborationist alliance.

For a Trotskyist Opposition tothe Popular Frontl

Comrades, in order to present aTrotskyist opposition to the PopularFront, one must begin by demanding animmediate break from the LCR-OCT­CCA electoral bloc. In these elections,real revolutionaries must present, inproportion to their forces, candidates oftheir own party, unconstrained by anypropaganda blocs, "broad vanguards"and other centrist baubles, which serveonly to mask their rejection ofa head-onconfrontation with the Popular Front/Union of the Left, governments it laGon9alves, or the Moncloa pact.

In addition to immediate economicdemands, a Trotskyist candidate wouldtake up the essential elements of theTransitional Program, including the callfor a workers government based onworkers councils to expropriate thecapitalist class.

The LCR-OCT-CCA manifesto'sdemand for "purging the adminstrationand dismantling the military hierarchy"shows how far this program is frombeing revolutionary. This is purelyreformist! Moreover, while the strugglefor the democratic rights of soldiers isaltogether legitimate, revolutionariesare for the destruction of the bourgeoisarmy. A Trotskyist program wouldinclude a call for the formation ofworkers militias, as an outgrowth ofpicket lines to protect militants (such asPierre Maitre), workers organizationsand their offices, to confront tomor­row's fascist bands-to constitute "theproletarian vanguard for seizing powerwhen the hour strikes." Another impor­tant demand should be to exclude thepolice from the trade-union movement,since the Popular Front, in the name ofthe pact concluded with the bourgeoisie,will use them to break strikes. Blum's

continued on page 8

OAKLAND-Members of the Amal­gamated Transit Union (ATU) East BayLocal 192 delivered a sharp rebuke totheir union leadership January 15 whenthey voted to continue their two-monthstrike against AC Transit, heavilyrejecting the tentative pact endorsed byLocal president John Wesley.

The "no" vote of 697 to 397 came afterWesley barely managed to get an eight­to-seven approval for the pact from theunion's negotiating committee. Thestrikers were particularly angered byWesley's sending ATU maintenanceworkers across union picket lines toprepare the transit buses even before themembership vote on the new proposal!

When a woman driver attending theunion meeting protested this scabbingorder, Wesley responded, "We've got toget those buses rolling.... Tell what's­her-name she can leave if she doesn't likeit!"

Throughout the negotiations ACmanagement has treated the union withutter contempt. The "new" offer wasvirtually the same package offeredseven months ago, with only a minorredistribution of money. As bait the ACbosses offered a slight improvement inpensions and a paltry $145 per workerprovided the union returned to workwithin 14 days.

In return, however, drivers would geta worsened sick-benefit plan, no wage.increase and no retroactive payment ofcost-of-living increases lost since thecontract expired. On top of this,management attempted to create a layerof second-class union members byinstituting a wage cut for new hires,while lengthening the probation periodso it would take three years for a newhire to qualify for full pay.

Predictably, AC Transit is pleadingpoverty, claiming a "projected deficit"of $4.5 million in transit funds. Since thestrike began it has been raking in anestimated $650,000 a week from taxrevenues, without having to payout asingle penny in wages, benefits oroperating costs. Management strategyhas obviously been to wait it out-i.e.,stall-and then use some of theseaccumulated revenues to provide a sopto entice back cash-starved strikers.

AC Transit normally carries about115,000 passengers every day. Part ofthe vacuum during the strike has beenfilled by BART, the cross-Bay rapidtransit system. Although BART is alsoorganized by the ATU, both the ATULocal 1555 misleaders of the BARToperators' union and the AlamedaCounty Central Labor Council (CLC)have made no move to halt service. Thiscontrasts sharply with CLC leaderRichard Groulx's action several monthsago when he created massive traffic jamsby unexpectedly shutting down BARTin order to honor the picket lines oftransit cops who had struck. Groulxfeels more solidarity with the armedagents of the bourgeoisie-professionalstrikebreakers-than with transitworkers.

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BART must be shut down by masspicketing of Local 192 members! Local1555 ranks must go out in solidaritywith their brothers and sisters in Local1921

When the Berkeley school boardrecently appropriated money to useelementary school bus drivers to trans­port junior and senior high schoolstudents, who would normally use ACTransit buses, Groulx announced thesetting up of a so-called "informationalpicket line." Nothing has been done toprevent members of the Berkeley Feder­ation of Teachers from crossing it. TheATU must mobilize pickets to stop thescabbing in Berkeley and demand thatthese picket lines be respected!

Instead of pursuing such policies,however, the Wesley leadership of Local192 has followed policies that can onlydemoralize the membership. From thevery beginning of negotiations last June,militants demanded that contract pro­posals be put toa vote ofthe membershipat a mass meeting and that negotiationsbe open to permit the rank and file toremain accurately informed. Wesleyand his lieutenants beat back everyattempt to establish any kind of demo­cratic control by the ranks, includingrefusing to publish contract proposalsfor the membership to read.

The current AC Transit strike is onlythe most recent of a series of long strikebattles fought by the Local 192 member­ship. Four years ago the union went outfor 66 days; other strikes in recent yearslasted 76 days, 31 days and 18 days.Unable to win real victories because ofits class-eollaborationist policies, theLocal 192 leadership "prepared" for thispresent battle by attempting to convincethe ranks that strikes weren't necessary.Wesley campaigned for office on pre­cisely this anti-strike view. In a flyerpassed out last February, he stated: "Wedon't advocate going on strike for wefeel, with your cooperation, our con­tract can be settled long before thatdate."

Wesley and his gang counseled thatthe union could win its demands bywheedling concessions out of Demo­cratic Party politicians. This strategyhas blown apart in the current strike, asthe Bay Area bourgeoisie, whose pos­ture has become increasingly hard-linein the wake of the San Francisco citycraft workers and Alameda Countyworkers' strikes in 1976, has once againbared its teeth toward the labor move­ment. The bosses have shown that theyare in no mood to be sweet-talked intoconcessions.

Recently Tom Bates, a local Demo­cratic Party assemblyman and reputed"friend oflabor," introduced a bill to cutoff all state tax revenues to AC Transitfor the period of the strike. While Batesfeigned neutrality, claiming that "bothsides are stonewalling" (San FranciscoChronicle, 6 January), his maneuverwas clearly designed to enable ACTransit to plead poverty and force theunion to accept a rotten settlement.

If the Local 192 strikers are to win,they must reject the class­collaborationist policies of the Wesleyleadership. Democratically electedstrike committees must be established,and mass picket lines set up to haltscabbing in Berkeley. BART must beshut down by mass picketing. The unionmust mobilize the sympathies of poorand working people by demanding freepublic transit, a position which Local192 has long held but never taken actionon. AC Transit drivers do not needmisleaders who preach reliance on thebourgeois state; they need instead aclass-struggle leadership to mobilize theunion against the bosses and theirstrikebreaking government. •

7

being in the main apolitical, focusing onthe meager results of past opportunismsin the V.S. and the dangers of "isola­tion" from the Chinese regime, Avaki­an's support to the defeated side inChina tends to give him the appearanceof having vestiges of "principle." Thus,insofar as the ranks are not choosing onthe basis of personality, Avakian willtend to get the people who favor a morecritical posture.

Of course, this will not be many. TheRCP has been built around cultistloyalty to the megalomaniac who walksaround like the reincarnation of Mao,refers to himself as "the Chair" andaccuses the minority of trying to "get tohim" through his wife, whom he actuallyhonored with the post of "head ofculture." Ms. Avakian is nicknamed"Chiang Ching" by her enemies; so highdoes emotion run on this question thatAvakian's loss of much of the member­ship in his own Chicago national centeris alleged to be due largely to personalanimosities toward his wife.

An unstable, New Left, demagogictendency, the Avakian faction is capabkof both extreme adventurism andslavish capitulation to the worst back­wardness ofthe working class. The post­split RCP will likely be simply apersonality cult, crassly opportunist,violently sectarian and programmatical­ly extremely unstable. It could goanywhere-from trying to seize Solidari­ty House to blocking with the Ku KluxKlan (as it did in hailing the anti-busing

FrenchPabloists...(continued from page 7)government had the friends of MarceauPivert beaten up and assassinated by the"democratic" police at Clichy in 1937.Trotskyists must absolutely and inse­parably include in their program-andin particular put forward in theunions-a call for the immediate andunconditional break of the mass [work­ers] organizations with the V nion of theLeft.

If they had the electoral strengthTrotskyists would maintain their candi­dates on the second round as the onlyindependent representatives of theirclass.

Trotskyists do all they can to preventthe workers from repeating the disas­trous experience of popular-front gov­ernments: France 1934-36, Spain 1936­37. France 1944-47, Chile 1970-73,Portugal. In contrast, centrists of allstripes are ready to relive the experience.

Such is the framework and theprogram on which the LCR is gettingready to "pressure" the Popular Frontgovernment which might issue from the1978 elections: its only content isbetrayal of the proletariat's interests.

Comrades, will you accept beingaccomplices?

Comrades, have you already forgot­ten the last desperate act of the Chileancordones industriales, calling on themajority leaderships of their class, inSeptember 1973, to "Break with thebourgeoisie!"? It is not for pedagogicalreasons that the LCR and the OCI haverefused to put forward this demand,preferring instead the slogan "PCjPSgovernment," and the OCI simply "PCjPS parliamentary majority." It is toplace themselves on the terrain of theVnion of the Left-because, accordingto them, this is a "necessary stage" onthe road to socialism.-For a Trotskyist opposition to thePopular Front!-For a workers government to expro­priate the bourgeoisie!- Workers organizations. break withthe Union of the Left and with theCommon Program!-No vote for any ofthe Popular Frontcandidates!-Against the LCR-OCT-CCA bloc!

Cranac'h, 7 January 1978

Whither the Rep?Now that the split has smashed to

smithereens any utopian dream Avaki­an had of keeping the RCP's Chinaposition in the closet, his choices arelimited to the "high road" to PL-styleoblivion or the "low road" to "socialistAlbania." And while Enver Hoxha mayclaim to be the guiding light to thepeoples of the Adriatic, he is surely thekiss of sectlet death for the RCP.Avakian remains essentially an unrec­onstructed New Leftist whose formativepolitical experience was vicariousidentification with the Red Guards ofthe Cultural Revolution. With theJarvis faction's criticisms of his line~

With the isolation of the world's firstproletarian state power and the relent~

less pressure of imperialism upon theVSSR, a Stalinist bureaucratic casteemerged within the Soviet Union. Theconsolidation of that caste wrestedpolitical power from the Russian prole­tariat and transformed the CommunistInternational from a revolutionaryworld party into an instrument ofpressure on the "democratic" bourgeoi­sies for "peaceful coexistence." Theideology of that caste was "socialism inone country"-the ideology of Stalin/Khrushchev and Mao, whose differ­ences over which was the "one country"made the Sino-Soviet split inevitable.

To be sure, the existence of anationalist bureaucracy-with its disor­ganization of the economy, its demorali­zation of the proletariat, its foreignpolicy sellouts that work against theextension of the revolution (which alonecan protect and extend the dictatorshipof the proletariat which still exists in thedeformed workers states)-creates pow­erful forces toward capitalist restora­tion. But the fundamental class trans­formation from workers state tocapitalist state cannot occurpeacefully-through a factionalstruggle, a palace coup or any reshuf­fling of personnel at the top-any morethan capitalist property relations can bedestroyed through such changes in thecomposition of the bourgeois state;those who postulate a peaceful, gradualreturn to capitalism in the deformedworkers states are merely, to quote LeonTrotsky, "unrolling the film of reform­ism in reverse."

A precondition for capitalistcounterrevolution is the growth of aneconomically-based capitalist class,through the disintegration and disem­bowelling of the col1ectivized plannedeconomy. A capitalist restorationistmovement would be visible and aggres­sive, challenging the regime, polarizingsociety. In the face of such a movementthe Stalinist bureaucracy-a brittleprivileged layer--would split, witha conservative wing seeking to pre­serve their parasitic social positionand another wing going over directly tothe camp of counterrevolution. But theworkers would move to defend theirinterests from the growing restorationistdanger. Capitalism could triumph onlythrough a civil war in which the class­conscious proletarian elements weredefeated in the course of their struggle todefend collectivized property as theeconomic basis for the transition tosocialism.

Neither Avakian nor Jarvis canchallenge the anti-Leninist doctrine of

"\ "socialism in one country" which, inresponse to the narrow needs of aprivileged, nationalistic stratum, setsitself against the urgent needs of theworking people of China and the wholeworld. These needs include the defenseof all the deformed workers states,including China and the Soviet V nion,against rapacious imperialism. Avaki­an's and Jarvis' commitment to theStalinist bureaucratic framework inChina allies them not only with theStalinist traitors who undermine thedefense of their own deformed workersstate and sell out the working masses ofthe world from Chile to Iran, but also'with V. S. imperialism in its ultimate aimof bloody reconquest of the VSSR.

(604) 291-8993

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-"Revisionists AreRevisionists...."

What this indicates is that Avakian­the New Leftist whose historic line hasbeen the so-called "Vnited FrontAgainst Imperialism"-can view withequanimity the Maoists' campaignagainst the VSSR so long as he can hangloose from a "united front" between theRCP and V.S. imperialism's "hawks."

Avakian and Jarvis also share theMaoist idealism which is a necessaryunderpinning of the concept of"capital­ist roaders." JarVis is appalled by theheresy of Avakian's characterization ofthe Chinese constitution as "fascist," buthas no quarrel with the notion that theclass character of a state resides in theideas of its leaders, as summed up inMao's dictum, "the rise to power ofrevisionism means the rise to power ofthe bourgeoisie."

The notion that under "socialism"classes are defined by the thoughts ofindividuals poses certain difficulties.Avakian explains:

"In capitalist society if someoneoccupies a certain material position­for example President of a corpora­tion, or head of the finance departmentof the state-it is easy to identify such aperson as part of the bourgeoisie. But insocialist society the matter turns notonly and not even mainly on socialposition but on line-that is, the head ofa ministry or manager of a big plant iscertainly not part of the bourgeoisie bymere virtue of occupying such aposition. but becomes part of thebourgeoisie only if and when heimplements a revisionist line and morethan that persists in taking the capitalistroad."

This idealist gobbledygook, accordingto which class struggle is held tointensify under socialism (the achieve­ment of which is moreover divorcedfrom economic advancement, materialplenty and the "withering away of thestate"), is central to Maoist ideology.The concept of "capitalist roaders" isnot merely the justification for bureau­cratic in-fighting in China; it providesthe means for evading a class analysis ofthe Soviet Union. For a real attempt toapply scientific Marxism-objectiveclass criteria-to the "Russian ques­tion" would make an examination ofTrotskyism mandatory for any seriousrevolutionist. But not even the com­bined efforts of Avakian/Jarvis and thereformist ex-"Trotskyist" SocialistWorkers Party can innoculate theranks against Trotskyism, The Maoistmovement is being shaken apart by itsinability to address the fundamentalquestions which confront its cadres atevery turn.

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"Two-Line Struggle"?The magnitude and ferocity of the

RCP split is testimony to the preexistinginstability of the organization morethan to the seriousness of the differ­ences. For indeed the Avakian andJarvis wings of the RCP have a lot incommon. They share not merely theresponsibility for the theoretical inept­ness, anti-democratic corruption, econ­omist practice and gangsterism of theRCP, but also a common anti-Marxistanalysis and anti-revolutionaryprogram.

It is notable that both Avakian andJarvis understand that China's foreignpolicy-defined first and foremost bythe alliance with V.S. imperialismagainst the VSSR-is Pandora's box.Had they undertaken a consciousconspiracy to divert attention awayfrom the atrocities which have shakenthe American Maoist movement (Pek­ing's support to V.S./South Africa inAngola, its courting of the bloodyPinochet dictatorship in Chile, China'sscandalous backing of the Shah of Iran,and its repeated calls for a strongNATO), the silence could scarcely bemore complete. About the only thingthat seems to upset Avakian, who holdsno brief for the Hua regime, is that Chinahas "reversed the verdict on Yugoslavia"by establishing diplomatic relations withTito. Of course, this discretion is indeedthe better part of valor for the RCP,which like any other Maoist sect wouldhave an uncomfortable time determiningwhere to locate a "degeneration" ofChinese foreIgn policy. From Sukarno'sdecimation of the Indonesian CP toBandaranaike's massacre of Ceyloneseyouth rebels, the Maoists never allowedbloody repression to dampen theirenthusiasm for "anti-imperialist" dicta­tors so long as they maintained friendlystate relations with China.

Avakian does attempt to distancehimself a little from the "Soviet socialimperialism" line:

"It is correct, as our Party has consis­tently pointed out, for the Chinese totarget the Soviets as the main danger tothem and to make use of certaincontradictions on that basis; but theredoes seem to have been a tendency onthe part of the Four and Mao (as well asthe line of the latest major articles fromChina) to take this as far as sayingthe Soviets are the most dangerous

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Rep...(continued from page 5)posing a more classic Stalinist pitch toAvakian's New Leftist "leftism," hisurgings combine the craving for a more"mass" line at home with a pitch toremain in the Maoist mainstream:

"While it will certainly take a differentform for the RCP, the ideological andpolitical line of the Gang now beingembraced ('Give the Gang a home', as itis being said) cannot help but lead topolitical degeneration and isolationfrom the working class. For the Gang itmeant becoming the target of the hatredof the Chinese working class andpeasants and the hatred of millions ofgenuine communists of the CCP. Forour Party it will certainly cause lessemotion from the U.S. working class butin some ways it can be more tragic­stripping the U.S. working class of itsCommunist Party."

8 WORKERS VANGUARD

Free All Political Prisoners?

No Amnesty for Nazi Hess!

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protected and even hailed as noble anti~communist fighters. For those who areconcerned about Hess's solitary con­finement, we can suggest a rather longlist of Nazi criminals who should joinhim in Spandau, including a largenumber in the U.S.-like Valerian Trifaof the Rumanian Iron Guard, today arespected bishop in Detroit; AndrijaArtukovic of the Croatian Ustashi;Boleslavs Maikovskis; Tscherim Soob­zokov, and Vilis Hazners. In Europethere is Helmut Kappler, who recentlymade a spectacular escape from anItalian prison and now enjoys WestGerman state protection.

Bourgeois preoccupauon with Hess isno accident. The fascists have alwaysbeen the shock troops of bourgeoisreaction, a reserve force to be broughtout and let loose against the workingclass when the bourgeoisie itself is incrisis. Hess's release would be anemboldening propaganda victory forthose fascist terrorist groups which aretoday again raising their heads and a vileinsult to the working class, Jews and themillions who perished in the Naziholocaust.•

Eyewitness Report

UMWA FIGHTS FOR ITS LIFESpeaker: Mark Lance

Workers Vanguard correspondentin West Virginia andStearns, Kentucky

Thursday, February 2 7:30 p.m.

1914 Lounge, Thwing HallCase Western Reserve University

Sponsored by Spartacus Youth League

Rudolf Hess with Hitler.

Behind this "fanatic deed" was a fanaticdetermination that Operation Barba­rossa against the Soviet Union succeedat any cost.

"We remember everything about thepast," Soviet authorities said in refusingto release Hess last May. The Mos­cow publication Literaturnaya Gazetaasked: "Is it necessary to be merciful toone of those who wanted to drownhumanity in blood and establish in itsplace the I,OOO-year Reich of thefascists?" It would indeed be a vile insultto those survivors of the Nazi terror torelease Hess, one of the principalarchitects of the Nazi Reich.

Hess embodies the perfect refutationof the classless liberal slogan "Free allpolitical prisoners!" A devoted disciple_of Hitler since 1921 who once led astudent Storm Trooper brigade, Hessremains to this day a heroic martyr inthe eyes of contemporary Nazi organi­zations, commemorated in their "Ru­dolf Hess bookstores" (such as the onewhich recently opened in San Francis­co), "Rudolf Hess awards," etc. Some ofhis outstanding accomplishments In­clude plotting and commanding thepurge of Ernst Roehm and GregorStrasser in 1934; attempting an assassi­nation plot against Von Papen, ambas­sador to Vienna, in order to set the stagefor a Nazi coup; the imposition ofcensorship in German schools; the 1935Ntirnberg Laws, which took awaycivil rights and legalized the racialpersecution of Jews; and a special role asoverseer of the German courts, empow­ered to take "merciless action" againstthose whom the Nazis felt had gotten offtoo lightly. The usual result of Hess'sintervention was the sentencing of hisvictims to concentration camps ordeath. This is the "poor old man" forwhom mercy is asked!

Of course the bourgeoisie have apoint-it is something of a historicalanomaly that Hess is still in jail when somany of his fellow fascists are todayleading comfortable lives in the West,

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Rudolf Hess's golden wedding anni­versary last month provided an occasionfor those who have sought to make thevicious old Nazi in Spandau Prison aprominent tragic figure. While formerlythe clamor for Hess's release was prettywell restricted to "humanitarians" of thefar-right (and officials of the WestGerman government), the advent ofCarter's anti-Soviet "human rights"campaign has brought respectability tothe "free Hess" claque. Liberals' as wellas Nazis' hearts now bleed for theimprisoned fascist, and recently U.S.secretary of state Cyrus Vance pledgedto work to get Hess freed. Hess, Hitler'sdeputy and officially second-in­command after Goring in the NaziReich, was condemned to life imprison­ment at the 1946 Nuremburg Trials.Today at 83, he remains the onlyprisoner in the Spandau Prison inBerlin. ~

For some time now the Westernbourgeoisie has sought to use Hess'sincarceration as a symbol of Sovietinhumanity, since the only reason Hessis not today a free man is that theRussians~who together with Brit­ish, French and American authoritiesadminister Spandau-have consistentlyrefused to let this unregenerate Nazileader go. The other three powers havemade repeated pleas on "humanitarian"grounds to let him off.

This Christmas the usual crop of"heartrending" stories about "poor oldHess" appeared in the press, along withpitiful tales of how his wife (herself aformer Nazi) was allowed to see himonly for a half hour on their fiftiethwedding anniversary. Both the NewYork Times and Manchester GuardianWeekly published editorial statementson his plight, on how he's sufferedenough, the cruelty of the Russians, howhis suffering reflects on all "civilized"people who allow it to continue and soon.

There were also the usual maudlinaccounts of Hess's stomach pains, hisgrieving relatives trying to see him andhis attempted suicides. (Hess must bethe most spectacularly unsuccessfulman ever to attempt suicide in prison,since he's apparently been trying to doaway with himself since the 1940's-incontrast to left-wing prisoners, mostnotably those of the Red Army Faction,who are regularly reported to be founddead in their cells.)

The English and American bourgeoi­sies are particularlv fond of Hessbecause of his spectacular 1941 flight toScotland to singlehandedly make peacewith Britain. In Winston Churchill'swords: "Whatever may be the. moralguilt of a German who stood near toHitler, Hess had, in my view, atoned forthis by his completely devoted andfanatic deed of lunatic benevolence."

mobilizations in Boston and Louisvilleas "fightback").

In background, training and appetiteJarvis has always stood politically closerto Klonsky than to Avakian. Lessinclined toward flashy cultism~though

not above it~he seems to tend moretoward blocs with the bureaucracy andpenny-ante shop-floor organizing thantoward Avakian's pan-union gimmicks.His group probably contains a consider­able spread on China, running from gutlevel anti-Avakianism to fawning Pek­ing sycophancy to those who supportthe purge of the "Gang" but haveremaining criticisms of Chinese foreignpolicy along the lines of the Guardian.This faction will either find a niche in theCP(ML) or become an irrelevant anti­Klonsky sect of Peking-loyal Maoism.

The CP(ML) is already hot on thescent, with an appeal for a "Marxist­Leninist unity committee" ("The Roadto Communist Unity," The Call, 26December 1977). 'fhe RCP's foam­flecked reply, "Repudiate the Call forMenshevik Unity," in the January 1978issue of Revolution, contained a fewaesopian slaps at the Jarvisites:

"Those who would like to embrace onlyone aspect of the CP(ML)'s revisionismwill find that it comes in a package-ifyou take one bite you will be forced toswallow and choke on all of it.'The CL(ML)'s proposed 'unity confer­ence; if it comes up at all, will be like thefounding of a new conglomerate-eachcomes in with a certain amount ofcapital and in return receives anappropriate number of shares in thenew enterprise. This is the basic themethat Klonsky hopes will appeal to otheropportunist 'leaders': no one is sofamous that we can't all share thepie......

Needless to say, Revolution containednothing else that could possibly beinterpreted as a reflection of its split.

The Jarvis grouping's intentionstoward the CP(ML) are not at all clear.His characterization of the Klonskygroup as "careerists" who claim "there isno class struggle in China" would notseem devastating enough to preclude aneventual deal. Some of the ambiguity ofthe situation revolves around specula­tions that a venerable old man of theJarvis clique may be the means forbrokering a rapprochement betweenJarvis and the Chinese which wouldprobably entail some kind of perspec­tive toward the CP(ML). On the otherhand, even the damaged ex-RCP cadresmight have difficulty swallowing ordersfrom the man of whom RCP honchoClark Kissinger once said: "if the CCPelected a chimpanzee as chairman, MikeKlonsky would send it a telegram ofsupport." While backing Hua, Jarvishas remained agnostic on the return ofTeng, perhaps to preserve a reason toavoid becoming a Klonskyite.

Is there a chance that some segment ofthe Rep, shaken in their smug anti­Trotskyist prejudices by the manifestbankruptcy of their clique-leaders, canbe salvaged for the revolutionary cause?Certainly there is a chance, but theprognosis is not good. The much­abused cadres of the RCP have gonevery far down the road to cynicaldestruction of any subjectively revolu­tionary fibre. It is a genuine tragedy thatvirtually an entire radical generation of"anti-imperialist" youth have had theirconsciousness systematically attackedby Maoist shysters, their revolutionaryoptimism eroded by taking the pronun­ciamentos of the "Great Helmsman" forLeninism, their energy consumed bytrying to run an organization on therationalizations of a petty-bourgeoiscaste committed to the building of"socialism in one country." But if in itsgrotesque death agony the RCP hasserved to shake up even a few of itssupporters enough to impel themtoward an examination ofTrotskyism~the revolutionary Marx­ism of our time~thenthe RCP will haveperformed one useful service in the yearsof frantic opportunism which precededits demise.

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27 JANUARY 1978 9

Leftists demonstrate in Chile capital January 3 for first "me Iince 1973coup.

from the fascists through General Leighto the DC should not be surprising.Both Patria y Libertad and the Chris­tian Democrats have received fabuloussums from the U.S, in the past, and Frei(together with other DC leaders) startedhis political career in the fascisticFalange. During the Allende period theDC's ties to the gremios provided themeeting ground between these enthu­siasts of the"Alliance for Progress," theCIA and open fascists,

The Left and the PlnochetPlebiscite

Likewise the parties of the UP and theMIR came out against the plebiscite atvarious levels, According to pressreports the Communist Party, the MIRand the Radical Party called for a "no"vote, while the Socialist Party called fora boycott of the plebiscite. A jointstatement of the UP (signed by thePCCh, the Radicals, MAPU [UnitedPopular Action Movement-a"Marxist-Leninist" split-off from theDC]. the IC [Christian Left-a laterChristian Democratic split from theDC] and independents) denounced the"vote" as "a simple masquerade of thepurest Hitler-Franco variety." How­ever, the UP; like Frei, made clear thatits orientation was toward the opposi­tion against Pinochefs maneuver withinthe junta. "The armed forces," it said,"cannot continue lending their supportto this demented policy, which hasbrought about such a dangerous situa­tion ... choosing the path of provokingthe international community" (quotedin Mundo Obrero [Madrid], 5-11January 1978).

The Communist Party called forabstention or a "no" vote. In aninterview, PCCh general secretary LuisCorvahin stated that "the majority ofour compatriots intend not to vote or tovote 'no.' The people will discover andapply other forms of protest which itconsiders appropriate and possible"(Excelsior [Mexico], 4 January). BUl theStalinists' main concern is to pursueFrei and other influential sectors of thebourgeoisie in order to seal a Chilean"historic compromise," Pinochet can­not. said Corval<in, stop "the process ofgetting together of the anti-fascist andnon-fascisl democratic forces" (ouremphasis), What he means is theformation of an alliance with the verymotor forces behind the 1973 coup!

. There is no doubt that the plebiscitewas unilaterally called by Pinochet andrepresents his last card in this game tostrengthen his position and overcomehis current crisis. The "consultation" isnothing but a monstrous fraud and theChilean working class and other ex­ploited sectors can only repudiate thismasquerade. whose result. ofcourse. wasknown beforehand. Where possible,revolutionaries would seek to expressthis repudiation in boycotting the phonyplebiscite. But the government an-

Abril Press

Wide World

Christian Democratic youth clash with police in Santiago while leafletting for"no" Yote in plebiscite.

assuming the post.The Christian Democrats came out

against the referendum because it wasnot "clear and legitimate, nor doesit represent the sovereign will of thepeople," Frei declared that the referen­dum was not clear because the electoratewas forced to reply to two questions: if itsupports the president, and if it reaf­firms the government's legitimacy. Headded that "there could be people whoanswer the first question in the affirma­tive and the second negatively," And:"One must not confuse the country withthe government, and much less with asingle person." Thus Frei suggested thata mere rewording of the question couldhave made the plebiscite legitimate.

More generally, just as did thebishops, he emphasized that he was notchallenging the junta itself. Rather, theChristian Democrats' passage intoactive opposition over the issue of theplebiscite was most likely an integralpart of the opposition to Pinochefsmaneuver by a section of the junta. Andit was certainly not unrelated to theoccasional notes of displeasure emanat­ing from the State Department. Thepicture of an emerging alliance running

Christian ideology. They asked that it besuspended "for the prestige of the juntaand the Armed Forces." In this way theywished to show that their concerns werein no way intended to question themilitary regime.

The controller general, HectorHumeres, who has held this post for 11years-under Frei, Allende and Pino­chet, rejected the plebiscite decree,saying it lacked sufficient legal grounds.Of course, this act caused Humeres'immediate removal, with labor ministerSergio Fernandez, who naturally had noobjection to the plebiscite decree,

tears coming from one of the principalauthors of the present situation in Chileand the main counterrevolutionaryforce on a world scale; and at the sametime rejecting the jingoism of the"consul" Augusto Pinochet.

In this framework of "defendingChile," the ballot paper for the "yes"vote bears the colors of the national flagand the following text:

"Against the international aggressionunleashed against the government ofour fatherland, I support PresidentPinochet in his defense of the dignity ofChile and reaffirm the legitimacy of thegovernment of the republic to conduct

in a sovereign manner the process ofinstitutionalizing the country."

The muzzled Chilean press, entirely pro­government to one degree or another,was flooded with propaganda for a"yes" vote. The threat of violenceagainst opponents of the regime wasbarely disguised. To prevent a massiveboycott voting was made obligatory. Atthe time of casting a ballot eachindividual's identity card would bepunched and marked with a specialstamp; those who failed to presentthemselves at the polls (where "suspect­ed subversives" could be easily arrested)had one week to explain why to theauthorities or else their papers wouldbecome void.

Pinochet undertook the plebiscitewithout even consulting the othermembers of the junta, who reacted bydisagreeing with his initiative. Theirprincipal objection was that Pinochetwould use this device to further removethe other members of the quadrumvi­rate from the actual exercise of power.In a letter addressed to Pinochet, Leighexpressed himself in the followingterms:

"We reject referenda of a plebiscitarycharacter, typical of personal govern­ments .... It is for this reason that powerdoes not reside in anyone of us, but inthe government of the junta.... Yourexcellency has organized a referendumdespite the opposition of two membersof the junta...."

The other junta member referred to isMerino. In his own message to Pino­chet, the admiral expresses himself inharsh terms. less "elegantly" than Leigh,even stating:

"The instructions given to provincialauthorities, that the" consider voidedand blank ballots as votes in favor, willcause the election results to loseall moral value in the eyes of publicopinion nationally andinternationally."

On the other hand the church.represented by the permanent commit­tee of the Chilean Bishops Confer­ence, asked Pmochet to postpone orsuspend the plebiscite until conditionswere more favorable. Although thisattitude was widely interpreted asopposition to the "consultation." theyargued that they wanted to contribute tothe unity of all Chileans, declaring the"vote" positive and in accordance with

The Tragic Pinochet Farce

The motion approved by the UnitedNations, condemning Chile for itscontinuous violation of human rights,reportedly "angered" President Pino­chet. The latter decided to respond withhis plebiscite, subsequently rebaptized"national consultation." in which everycitizen was called upon to declare "if hebacks the president of the republic," or ifinstead he supports the UN's preten­sions "to impose upon us from theoutside our future destiny."

As Trotskyist militants we do notplace an ounce of confidence in theinternational organization of thebourgeoisies-in which the representa­tives of the ruling bureaucracies of thedegenerated and deformed workersstates also participate. Moreover, thisU?'\' resolution is part of Jimmy Carter'santi-communist campaign of defense of"human rights." The principal target ofthis campaign is the Soviet Union andits satellites, and its aim is to "morally"rearm Yankee imperialism, weakenedafter its humiliating defeat in Indochina.In this context we reject the crocodile

it differs from a traditional LatinAmerican caudillo (from Rosas toSomoza or Stroessner) in that theofficer corps of the armed forces-thevery essence of the state-directlyassumed governmental power in theface of increasingly sharp class conflicts.

Moreover, the junta's economicmodel is sharply different from thecorporatist regimes of fascist Italy andGermany. The "shock treatment" ofNobel Prize winner Milton Friedman,based on a program of "free market"liberalism (free trade and export stimu­lation, devaluations "mini" and other­wise), has been unable to overcomerunaway inflation and despite optimis­tic government figures the foreign debtis reaching mammoth proportions. It allcomes down to unloading the burden ofthe budget deficits on the backs of theworking class and petty bourgeoisie.

While benehtmg a few monopoliesand of course the "multinationals," thispolicy has led to a serious decline inindustrial production and large num­bers of bankruptcies. Thus the policy ofthe "hard-line" sectors of the junta-i.e.,Pinochet-is being challenged by im­portant sectors of the bourgeoisie andby small businessmen and propertyowners. Ironically these are many of thesame forces who actively worked for the1973 coup through their "destabiliza­tion" (employers' work stoppages bytruck owners, shop owners, profession­als, etc.). The DC proposes to lead thismovement and with his document,"This Is My Reply," Eduardo Frei madehis public debut on the field of opposi­tion. Even the criminal ultra-rightistorganization Patria y Libertad (Father­land and Freedom) is now opposing thejunta.

The different pressures resulting fromthe current situation are reflected withinthe junta, and we see Pinochet balancingon a trapeze that is already ratherfrayed. Both General Leigh and Admi­ral Merino of the Navy have come outagainst the plebiscite. The motives arenot the same: Merino has always acteddirectly on the orders of the Pentagonand the CIA, while the air forcecommandant has been the spokesmanfor a corporatist policy, calling for morerepresentation for the gremios (businessand professional associations) in searchof mass support, thereby appearing asthe representative of tne fascists ofPablo Rodriguez (leader of Pat ria yLibertad). Pinochet opposes such achange of course, and it is in thisframework that he called his "nationalconsultation" as a desperate attempt atself-defense.

(continued from page 12)

PinochetPlebiscite ...

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

nounced that whoever did not partici­pate in the referendum would therebyvoid his identity card. A general sloganof boycott could bring serious conse­quences, involving isolation from work­places and legally could also lead toprison and/or deportation. Where it isnot possible to boycott the plebiscite,the proletariat and all the exploitedshould express their rejection of thePinochet farce by casting a blank ballot.In no case can we vote "no" since thiswould endorse the electoral procedure.

It is basically the political andorganizational situation of the workingclass which at present makes it impossi­ble to advance more resolutely inmobilizing against the junta. And it isdue to the betrayals of the workers'leaders who seek an alliance with thebourgeoisie that the proletariat todayfinds itself politically disorganized.

Frei and His Stalinist Cohort

The policies of the reformist massparties, the PCCh and the PS, followingthe lines of the Menshevik-Stalinistconcept of revolution by stages, pose the"anti-fascist struggle" as the objectivefor this period. To accomplish thisobjective their plan is to broaden classcollaboration through an alliance withthe Christian Democracy. Thus in thecase of the plebiscite they chimed in withthe same slogans as the DC. Thesetraitors to the working class stealthilywatch the development of the classstruggle and the workers movementfrom behind the priests' cassocks. In thesame way they chased after the demon­strations against the plebiscite organ­ized by the falangist Christian Demo­cratic youth of Frei.

On October 12 the DC issued its firstformal declaration of opposition toPinochet, entitled "Patria Para Todos"(Fatherland for All). This statementcalls for a gradual transfer of power to acivilian government, the first step being

Carlos Altamirano

the lifting of the state of siege. Whilerejecting any "illegal conspiracy"against the regime, it says a constitu­tional assembly should be called withina year to reform the 1925 constitution.Following this a new government wouldbe elected to succeed the junta. In otherwords, the military dictatorship wouldbe recognized as legitimate and it wouldcontinue to rule throughout this period!The "constitutional assembly" proposedby Frei would have no more power thanthe tsarist Dumas; when the autocraticregime which holds the reins of powerdigs in its heels, this sand-box assemblycould either acquiesce or be dissolved.

In response to the ChristianDemocrats' "Patria Para Todos" decla­ration, Corvahin, speaking in Paris inDecember, proposed the following:"... a democratic government, widelyrepresentative, on the basis of anunderstanding, an alliance between theUP and the DC, and with the participa­tion of democratic sectors of the ArmedForces." This is the same treacherousline which these gentlemen imposedduring the Allende government, onlythen it was the "constitutionalist"officers who received their praise;

27 JANUARY 1978

among them one of the most prominentwas ... Augusto Pinochet.

The UP is seeking an alliance withFrei and the Christian Democrats justasthey did in the last months before thecoup. But the MIR, which still wants toplay at "ultra-leftism," is also a vital partof this anti-working-class chorus. In aMIR bulletin of September 1977 weread: "The interior secretariat of theMIR ... renews its call to the parties ofthe UP and democratic sectors of thePDC to make the greatest effort so that1977 can be the year of the definitiveconsolidation of the unity of the peopleand of the resistance." The ChileanCastroists think they can fool theproletariat with references to the "dem­ocratic sectors" of the DC. But didn'tthese "democrats" participate, directlyor indirectly, in the preparation of themilitary coup? If one didn't alreadyknow the politics of these appendages ofStalinism one could think that they hadbeen hoodwinked. Not at all! Comradesof the MIR, one does not fight thebourgeoisie with a bourgeois program,and it is just such a minimum programwhich you signed with the UP in August1977. Falling into line with the ChristianDemocrats' call for a glorified Duma,this joint platform even dropped therevolutionary democratic demand for aconstituent assembly.

The proletariat must not allow itselfto be dragged down by popular front­ism. Democratic and trade-union rightswill not be voluntarily granted by thebourgeoisie, but must be wrenched fromthem by the workers mobilized togetherwith all the exploited. We demandfreedom for all prisoners held under therightist repression, legalization of theworkers' political and trade-unionorganizations, as well as amnesty andthe right to return to Chile for all thoseforced into exile by the junta's repres­sion. Counterposed to reformist adapta­tions to the bourgeoisie's program, asTrotskyists we raise the demand for aconstituent assembly with full powers,directly and secretly elected by universalsuffrage. A genuine constituent assem­bly by definition could only be con­voked under conditions of full demo­cratic liberties, permitting theparticipation of all the parties of theworking class. Thus it requires as aprecondition the revolutionary over­throw of the junta, something which theDC and the reformists, despite theirlengthy list of democratic demands, failto mention.Not Dy Democratic DemandsAlone ...

The proletariat does not turn its backon other social sectors that want tostruggle alongside it. However, ourespousal of revolutionary democraticdemands is set in the framework of aprogram of transitional demands incor­porating the needs and aspirations ofthe peasantry and other exploitedsectors of the petty bourgeoisie andleading to the historic objectives of theproletariat: destruction of the bourgeoisstate through the taking of power by theworkers and the establishment of thedictatorship of the proletariat.

We fight for the power of soviets, orworkers and peasants councils. Thistype of class organization wasrepresented in embryo in· Chile by thecordones industriales (industrial belts)which arose after November 1972. Butthe cordones appeared at a time ofmounting workers struggles (and de­spite the treacherous misleaders). Con­ditions prevailing in Chile today arevery different from what existed in early1973; we presently face the full fury of acounterrevolutionary regime, underwhich even the most minimal democrat­ic liberties have been abolished. Underone of the harshest reactionary dictator­ships history has known, the politicalreorganization of the working classmust take place against the bourgeoisiewhich is supported by the reformistbureaucracies.

A dramatic proof that the struggleagainst the junta cannot be limited todemocratic demands was provided by

the 12-day strike by the El Tenientecopper miners in November. Thiswalkout involving hundreds of workerstook place against the efforts of thepuppet "union" leaders imposed by thejunta. While granting demands forpayment of productivity bonuses duethe workers, Pinochet subsequentlyexiled several of the Christian Demo­cratic miners union leaders to the farnorth of the country. Today the reform­ists and centrists hail the latest ElTeniente strike as a symbol of "theresistance." Yet the Stalinists and socialdemocrats raise no demands forworking-class struggle, such as the fightfor a sliding scale of wages and hours toprotect against inflation and open jobsfor the unemployed.

When the El Teniente workers struckduring the UP regime (April-May 1973)in defense of their sliding scale of wages(cost-of-living escalator), the Trotsky­ists of the international Spartacisttendency were among the very few

2; II

Former president Eduardo Frei

working-class organizations which de­fended the miners' just struggle toprotect this union gain, won from theformer U.S. bosses through hard fights,against the popular front's anti­working-class austerity and speed-upprogram (see "Defend Chilean Miners'Strike," WV No. 23,22 June 1973). Arevolutionary leadership of the unionswould have extended the strike, de­manding a workers government andexpropriation of all industry. Thiswould quickly scuttle the reactionaries'attempts to use the strike for their ownpurposes. In contrast, Allende de­nounced the strikers as a "privilegedsector" while the Stalinists called themout-and-out "fascists" and told theirmilitants to break the strike. Thus onlythe Trotskyists can stand before the ElTeniente miners today and tell them toplace no confidence in their ChristianDemocratic misleaders; the parties ofthe UP and the MIR would simply bedismissed as scabs.

For Leninists democratic demandsare a subordinate part of the workers'class program. As Trotsky wrote of therole of democratic demands in fascist­ruled countries: "But the formulas ofdemocracy (freedom of press, the rightto unionize, etc.) mean for us onlyincidental or episodic slogans in theindependent movement of the proletari­at and not a democratic noose fastenedto the neck of the proletariat by thebourgeoisie's agents (Spain!)" (Transi­tional Program). In countries with abourgeois-democratic tradition and apolitically advanced working class, suchas Chile, the demand for a constituentassembly is not a fundamental part ofthe proletarian program. Thus follow­ing the junta takeover, the iSt did notraise this slogan. We raise it tactically atpresent against the bourgeoisie's efforts,aided by their agents in the workersmovement, to make a pact with sectorsof the military. Our purpose is to exposethe bourgeoisie's fear of revolutionarydemocracy.

While calling for a constituent assem­bly, Marxists must point out that thebourgeoisie fears this revolutionarydemocratic demand, preferring dealswith the "democratic" generals; and thateven if it were convened, the exploiterswould seek to frustrate even the mostfundamental democratic measures untiltheir class dictatorship is finally broken(witness the fate of the timid Portuguese

agrarian reform, for instance). There­fore we simultaneously call on theproletariat to struggle for the totaleradication of the latifundia throughagrarian revolution, expropriating theestates and handing over the land topoor peasants and agricultural workers;for the expropFiation of industry andfinance; for workers control of produc­tion; for a soviet workers government.Build a Chilean RevolutionaryTrotskyist Partyl

The working masses cannot spon­taneously achieve these things; it isessential first of all to break from theclass-collaborationist bureaucracieswho are reponsible for the defeat, withthose who delivered the proletariat,bound hand and foot, to the butchers ofthe junta. In the struggle to construct anauthentic Trotskyist leadership a majorobstacle is the centrist conglomeration,those half-way "critics" of popularfrontism who are afraid to make a sharpbreak with the reformist traitors. Thuswhile the MIR continually tailed theUP, the Liga Comunista de Chile(LCCh-a group created out of thin airby the United Secretariat of ErnestMandel) crawled after the MIR. TheLCCh refuses to characterize the Uni­dad Popular as a popular front (labelingit reformist), and follows the line of theirFrench comrades, the LCR, who willcall for votes to candidates of the Unionof the Left in the March elections. TheMandelites' periodic adventurist ex­cesses, such as calling for a "revolution­ary general strike" in the period after thecoup, only serve to cover their politicalcapitulation.

On the other hand, the pseudo­Trotskyists of the former POMR, nowcalled the "Contact Committee ofChilean Trotskyist Militants" (part ofthe Organizing Committee for theReconstruction of the Fourth Interna­tional of Pierre Lambert) label the UP apopular front ... yet declare that the1970 vote for Allende was a "classagainst class vote." They are right in onesense: it was a vote for the bourgeoisieagainst the working class! The ChileanLambertists currently center their pro­gram on democratic demands, especial­ly the constituent assembly, rather thanembedding them in a transitionalprogram for workers power. Andfollowing the dictates of their Frenchmentors, they would have the politicalreorganization of the Chilean workersmovement pass through the PS, which istheir concept of "constructing the partyin the class." Thus they defend theparty/swamp which has been one of themain forces for class collaboration inChile for the last 40 years!

As Chilean Leninists our struggle isbased on the application of Trotsky'stheory of permanent revolution, theunderstanding that only the proletariatunder a revolutionary leadership canaccomplish the fundamental democratictasks-beginning with the revolution­ary overthrow of the murderous Pino­chet junta-and achieve socialismthrough an uninterrupted process ofstruggle against capitalism. The revolu­tionary vanguard of the working classwill be constructed by wrenching themasses from the reformists, not bycapitulating to them as do the centrists.The demand "Break with thebourgeoisie!"-raised in a contradicto­ry manner by the cordones industrialesin the last few weeks before the coup-isa call to break the working class fromthe death-grip of the social-traitors andembrace the program of permanentrevolution.-No To Pinochet's Electoral Farce!-For a Constituent Assembly-Smash

the Junta Through WorkersRevolution!

- Build a Chilean Revolutionary Trot­skyist Party! Toward the Rebirth ofthe Fourth International!

Organization TrotskistaRevolucionaria de Chile,sympathizing section of theinternational Spartacist tendency

January 1978

11

WfJliNEIiS ,,1NfilJl1li'Reformists Chase After "Democratic" Junta Generals

Condemn PinochetPlebiscite' by the Organizacion Trotskista Revolucionaria de Chile

Pinochet reviews troops before the vote.

chains to tie the Chilean workers to theclass enemy. This time the alliance is toinclude not only the Radicals anddissident Christian Democrats but theDC itself, including ex-president Freiwho played a key role in fomenting the1973 coup; and "democratic sectors" ofthe officer corps, meaning any of theblood-soaked generals and admiralswho are willing to ditch the sinkingPinochet and agree to a limited "Iiberali-

frontist line crystallized in the so-called"Chilean road to socialism," whichproved incapable of holding back theworking class, together with the inca­pacity of the bourgeois parties to solvethe deepening crisis.

The military junta which took powerthrough spilling the workers' blood anddestroying democratic and trade-unionliberties has the task of pulling thebourgeoisie's chestnuts out of the fire.The Stalinists and social democratsfalsely label it "fascist" in order toexcuse their "anti-fascist" fronts withsectors of the bourgeoisie. But althoughthe II September coup was applaudedby the imperialists and the domesticbourgeoisie, along with importantsegments of the petty bourgeoisie, themilitary government has never enjoyeda broad base of active social support, incontrast to the fascist movements whichtook power in Italy and Germany basedon the mass mobilization of enragedpetty bourgeois. Similarly the label"gorila [militarist] government"­supposedly more "popular" and "easierto understand"-is simply an attempt toavoid the problem of giving a scientificcharacterization of the present regime.

For Marxists the Pinochet junta is abonapartist regime, in which a narrowgroup or even a single individualattempts to set itself above the normaltugging and pulling of competing classforces, expressed through the mechan­isms of bourgeois democracy, to act assupreme arbiter and protector of capi­talist class interests. In the present case,

continued on page 10

Junta Rule Frays

The military junta which governsChile today, made up of representativesof the three branches of the armed forcesalong with the national police, assumedpower through blood and fire as a resultof the class-collaborationist policies ofthe traditional working-class leader­ships, concretized in Salvador Allende'spopular front, the Unidad Popular(UP). The armed forces coup was theresult of the bankruptcy of the popular-

zation" of the regime, roughly analo­gous to the Caetano continuation of theSalazarist dictatorship in Portugal.

It is our duty as revolutionaries of theworking class to warn the tragicallysuffering laboring masses of Chile andthe entire world proletariat of the threatposed by the reformists' plans. Talk of a"peaceful transition to democracy" is adeceitful lie! Do not forget where the"peaceful road to socialism" led to: IISeptember 1973 and the massacre ofthousands of unarmed leaderless work­ers. The bourgeoisie will not make apresent of the democratic liberties sofervently desired by the Chilean masses,for it fears above all the revolutionarypotential of an aroused working class.That is why it overwhelmingly backedthe 1973 coup and will call forth anothercounterrevolutionary slaughter if neces­sary to prevent the masses from "goingtoo far" in the course of overthrowingthe murderous junta. The watchword ofLeninist revolutionaries is and must

wv Photo remain: Smash the bloody juntathrough workers revolution!Luis Corvalin

The January 4 plebiscite orchestratedby General Pinochet, brutish Caesar ofthe military junta which for the past fouryears has ravaged the working people ofChile, is a clear indication of thedeepening isolation of the bonapartistregime and particularly of its strong­man. The rigged results were universallydiscounted, even by the U.S. StateDepartment, given the obvious impossi­bility of anything even pretending to bean expression of the popular will underpresent conditions in Chile. Rather thanmasking the dictatorship with a veil ofdemocratic approval, the stacked "vote"only succeeded in recalling other unsa­vory plebiscitary regimes (from Napole­on III, who had his 1851 coup "ap­proved" and himself declared emperor,to similar "consultations" ratifying actsof force by the Nazis).

Most importantly the hopelessattempt to "legitimize" the pinochetistadictatorship unleashed the first openanti-junta demonstrations since thebloody 1973 coup drove all oppositionunderground. Just in recent months thefirst limited expressions of mass discon­tent saw the light of day, braving theever present threat of deadly repression.In November copper miners at the hugeEI Teniente mine went on strike,obtaining payment of bonuses due tothem. A week later 100 relatives of"disappeared" detainees gathered out­side the foreign ministry. In response tothe announcement of the plebiscite, forfour straight days supporters of theChristian Democratic Party (DC) leaf­letted for a "no" vote, producing somearrests and small confrontations withthe police. And on January 3 anestimated 500 leftists marched throughdowntown Santiago and demonstratedin front of La Moneda [the burned-outformer presidential palace].

The farcical "national consultation"of the tyrant Pinochet constituted asetback for his ambitions of personalgrandeur and discredited the junta as awhole. The exercise laid bare thebankruptcy of a regime which hasembarked on a deliberate program ofdeindustrialization, perhaps the onlycountry in the world where a govern­ment has produced large-scale starva­tion among the' poor as a consciouspolicy; of a dictatorship which openlyimitated the Nazi Reich, concentrationcamps and all, in its policies of extermi­nating left-wing opponents. This failurefor the government will hearten oppo­nents of the junta, and revolutionariesmust make use of this to work for thepolitical reawakening and rearmamentof the Chilean proletariat.

However, far from awakening thispowerful giant, the only social forcewhich can put an end to militarydictatorships, the reformist Communist(PCCh) and Socialist (PS) parties areworking at a frenzied pace to forge new

':i­I

12 27 JANUARY 1978