Wf/lIllllS".'rJ',' 25¢No. 526 ~X-623 10 May 1991

German Spartakists at 8 May 1945 Anniversary

Red Army SmashedNazi Rule

On May 5, our comrades of the SpartakistWorkers Party of Germany (SpAD) and theSpartacist Group of Poland (SGP) held aforum on the subject: "The Red .ArmySmashed the Nazi Regime! For WorkersMobilization Against Fascism, Chauvinismand Anti-Semitism!" The event, in celebra-tion of the Red Army's victory in Germanyon 8 May 1945, was held at the barracksclub of a Soviet Army base south of Berlin.The Trotskyists of the International Com-munist League (Fourth Internationalist) spokethere to 300 Soviet officers and non-coms.After the presentations of Renate Dahlhaus

of the SpAD and a comrade of the SGP,there was a discussion period.

Also attending the event were some Kurd-ish friends and a Vietnamese who fought asa soldier in Saigon against U.S. imperialism,and who together with fellow Vietnameseworkers recently beat back a skinheadattackon their Berlin dormitory. On April 20 (Hit-ler's birthday), the SpAD joined with theVietnamese and coworkers in standing guardat the dormitory in case of another fascistassault. There have also been a series ofNazi attacks on Poles traveling to Germany.

continued on page 4

Yevgeni KhaldeiRaising red flag over the Reichstag marked Soviet Army'sliberation of Berlin from the Nazis.

Yugoslavia S"lintering

A New Balkans Warin the Making?

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslaviawas forged through the victory during World WarII of the Communist partisan movement of JosipBroz Tito over the Nazi German army of occu-pation, the Nazi-backed Croatian Ustashi fascistsand the Serbian royalist Chetniks. But todayYugoslavia is threatened by inter-ethnic slaughteras competing nationalisms tear the country apart inthe obscene scramble to rejoin the capitalist worldmarket. Last week, there was a bloody clash in thetown of Borovo Selo between Serbian militias andCroatian police that left a dozen dead and a scorewounded. As civil strife spread, Croatian presidentFranjo Tudjman thundered, "the war has begun."

Tensions have been at a maximum for weeks asthe richer northern republics of Croatia and Slo-venia-more Westernized, traditionally RomanCatholic regions where anti-Communist national-ists were installed in last year's elections-havebeen arming their own militias, and declaringvirtual independence from the federal government.Opposing them is Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic,head of the remnants of the Communist (nowSocialist) party who has managed to hold sway inthat republic by whipping up Serbian nationalism.In recent weeks the federal army-direct descen-dant of Tito's partisans-has repeatedly intervenedto quell murderous gunbattles in Croatia betweenpolice and rebellious Serbian militias demandingunity with "the mother republic."

Further inflaming the situation is the collapse ofthe grotesque and primitive Stalinist rule inneighboring Albania, which likewise could explodeinto full-scale civil war at any time. Added to thisis the continuing political turmoil in Bulgaria andRomania, and the spread of nationalist conflicts inthe wake of the collapse of Stalinist rule in EastEurope and the escalating crisis in the SovietUnion.

Some right-wing forces in the West are lickingcontinued on page 8

YUGOSLAVIA

WecoYugoslav Army holds governmentbuilding in Slovenian capital ofLjubljana. "Market socialism"heightened antagonisms betweenmore prosperous and poorerrepul;)lics. As capitalist-restorationistforces wave nationalist banners,Yugoslavia Is ripping apart. .

Hispanic CommunityExplodes Over

Racist Cop Shooting

!!!!~!!Y.!'!!~!~f~! ~DIRECTOR OF PARTYPUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jorge Ramirez

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Valdez

EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson,Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg

The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (FourthInternationalist) .

Workers Vanguard (USPS098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December,by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial),(212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domesticsubscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changesto Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint.

have nightmares about the fact that 70percent of the population of their capi-tal. is black.. and .now. another to-pluspercent is Hispanic, many fresh from theguerrilla war zones of Chalatenango. AsSalvadoran youth with bandanas overtheir faces run through the streets, boththey and the government see MountPleasant as the Guazapa Volcano ofWashington, D.C.

Yuppie black Democrat Sharon PrattDixon is the darling of the racist rulingclass. She was brought into office afterthe FBI sting (entrapment) of MayorMarion Barry in their "war on drugs"which is really a war on the black com-munity. Dixon has vowed to be a moreeffective overseer of the D.C. plantationfor Bush and the Dixiecrats in Congress.Since her inauguration last January, shehas been chomping at the bit to closehomeless shelters, layoff municipalworkers, cut welfare programs. She haspublicly called for corporal punishment(beatings) in the schools. There is also astrong anti-Hispanic racist component, asshe calls to "bring discipline" to theLatino community. One of her boosters,black columnist Courtland Milloy, wrotea vile racist diatribe against Hispanicssaying (Washington Post, 7 May), "Theymake me feel like white people musthave felt" about "sharecropping blacks"bringing their ways to the northern cities!

The Ameriean imperialist ruling classwanted to strut its stuff after its murder-ous "victory" in "Desert Storm." But thevideotaped cop beating of a defenselessblack motorist in Los Angeles whichflashed around the world caused an up-roar over racist cop terror at home. Nowthe attempt to impose "discipline" in thestreets of the capital has produced aracially integrated explosion of angeragainst rulers who would ride roughshodover the people who serve their food,wash their dishes, clean their houses andtake care of their children. But the newimmigrants have brought a new mili-tant component to the heavily blackD.C. labor movement, which must takeup their cause. It's time to organizethat anger in a powerful revolutionarystruggle.•

13 May 1985

May 13 marks the sixth anniversary of the police bombing of the~adica~ MOVE c~mmune in West Philadelphia. Eleven black people,including five children, were devoured in the fiery, inferno, and ablack neighborhood turned to ash. Democratic mayor Wilson Goodegave the order, the FBI supplied the C-4 explosives, Philly copsdropped the bomb on the house, then opened up with 10,000 roundsof machine-gun and rifle fire to drive back into the flames thosewho sought to escape. Reagan's top cop Ed Meese cited this stateterrorism as a "good example" for other police to' follow.

The Mother's Day 1985 siege of Osage Avenue began as a cop bull-horn delivered the message: "Attention MOVE. This is America."Racist capitalist America, where mass murder of black people isofficially sanctioned. Today, the criminals who carried out this statemurder are free while Ramona Africa remains behind bars for the"crime" of surviving the massacre, as do more than a dozen othermembers of the Africa family jailed earlier. Free the MOVE pris-oners! The American workers revolution will avenge the MOVEmartyrs!

The Massacre of MOVE

" " Perkins/Washington PostSquad car .burns as cops move against protesters, Washington, D.C., May 6.

throngs on the sidewalks cheered.The next day police vowed that they

were going to keep things quiet .in thearea just two miles north of the WhiteHouse. But the opposite happened. His-panic community leaders angrily left ameeting with city officials early on the6th that was boycotted by black Demo-cratic mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon. In theearly evening, Dixon tried to walkthrough Mount Pleasant but was met witha mixture of boos and cries of "we needjobs." Meanwhile the cops soaked thearea in tear gas. "Dozens of officersin riot gear confronted several hun-dred youths, some with bandanas cov-ering their faces, marching south onMount Pleasant Street" (Washington Post,7 May). The elemental explosion of ragespread to the Adams-Morgan area asyouths-Hispanic, black and white-shutdown 16th Street and kept police at bayfor several hours. Scores were brutallybeaten, hundreds burned by the gas and50 arrested.

At midnight a state of emergency wasdeclared and police prepared for massarrests. The call "cops out" was oneverybody's lips. There is widespreadoutrage at these thugs in blue uniformswho ride herd on the ghettos and barrios.Two weeks ago, police brutally beat ablack man, dragging him out from undera car where he had hidden and merci-lessly clubbing him to the horror ofonlookers. Salvadoran immigrants com-pare the cops here to the jackbootedNational Guard of the U.S.-backed deathsquad regime at home. One man told themayor, "We won't take it anymore. Wecame to this country in search of justice,and still there is nojustice," The Sparta-cist League and Partisan Defense Com-mittee have demanded that all charges bedropped against the arrested protesters.

The curfew was clamped on as officialWashington was as jumpy as PresidentBush's heartbeat (and quaking at theprospect of Dan Quayle III at the helm).The White House has long feared a re-peat of the explosion of black angerwhen the city burned following the assas-sination of Martin Luther King in 1968.The imperialist rulers of this country

10 May 1991

Spartacist League demands: Get the copsout! Full citizenship rights for foreign-born workers!

D.C. police had been harassing peoplecelebrating the Mexican holiday of Cincode Mayo in the mostly Hispanic neigh-borhood of Mount Pleasant. Cops regu-larly go after, the Central American andMexican immigrants, demanding to seetheir papers. A policewoman arrested aSalvadoran, Daniel Gomez,30, for the"crime" of drinking beer in public,andthen shot him in the chest at pointblankrange. The cops claim Gomez brandisheda knife, but numerous eyewitnesses sawno knife and said that Gomez washandcuffed at the time. He lay therebleeding for over half an hour beforean ambulance arrived, and is still incritical condition two days later. Aswelling crowd of hundreds of outragedresidents surged into the streets, heavingbottles and bricks at motorcycle cops andsquad cars, driving out the police as

No. 526

Washington, D.C.In response to the wanton police shoot-

ing of a Hispanic man on May 5, severalWashington neighborhoods have explod-ed in outrage.' Phalanxes of heavilyarmed police fired tear gas at protestersas helicopters swooped overhead andmore cops with attack dogs waited on thesidelines. Operation "Desert Storm'" hascome home with a vengeance to thenation's capital, as gas-masked attacksquads storm areas heavily populatedwith refugees from Central America,many of them Salvadorans. But the in-vading army of police was met bycrowds of over 1,000 and over a dozencop cars and vans were torched on twonights running by crowds chanting "que-remos justicia" (we want justice). In theface of this brutal police invasion, the

For Revolutionary Unity ofthe Balkan Peoples

In the period leading up to World War I,Leon Trotsky explained how the Balkan peo-ples were being murderously set against eachother by the contending imperialist powersand local monarchies . He called for a revolu-tionary struggle to forge a Balkan federalrepublic. It took a social revolution in Yugo-slavia, albeit one deformed by Stalinism, to

TROTSKY achieve a limited south Slavic federation. LENINToday, as Western bankers and reactionary

nationalists are driving Yugoslavia toward civil war, the working class must raise as itsbanner: For a socialist federation of the Balkans in a United Soviet States of Europe.

The frontiers between the dwarf states of the Balkan Peninsula were drawn not inaccordance with national conditions or national demands, but as a result of wars,diplo.matic intrigues, and dynastic interests. The Great Powers-in the first place,RUSSian and Austria-have always had a direct interest in setting the Balkan peoplesand states against each other and then, when they have weakened one another,subjecting them to their economic and political influence. The petty dynasties rulingin these "broken pieces" of the Balkan Peninsula have served and continue to serveas levers for European diplomatic intrigues. And this entire mechanism, founded onviolence and perfidy, constitutes a huge burden weighing upon the Balkan peoples,holding back their economic and cultural development. ...

The only way out of the national and state chaos and the bloody confusion of Balkanlife is a union of all the peoples of the peninsula in a,single economic and politicalentity, on the basis of national autonomy of the constituent parts. Only within theframework of a single Balkan state can the Serbs of Macedonia, the [Turkish-ruled]sanjak, Serbia, and Montenegro be united in a single national-cultural community,enjoying at the same time the advantagesof a Balkan common market. Only the unitedBalkan peoples can give a real rebuff to the shameless pretensions of tsarism andEuropean imperialism. .

State unity of the Balkan Peninsula can be achieved in two ways: eitherfrom above,by expanding one Balkan state, whichever proves strongest, at the expense of the weak-er ones-this is the road of wars of extermination and oppression of weak nations, aroad that consolidates monarchism and militarism; or from below, through the peoplesthemselves coming together-this is the road of revolution, the road that means over-throwing the Balkan dynasties and unfurling the banner of a Balkan federal republic.

-Leon Trotsky, "The Balkan Question and Social Democracy" (August 1910)

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

. Spartacist league/u.s., Section of thInternational Comm . t l e

. . UnlS eague (Fourt" Internationalist)RatIfied In final form.by the Central Committee, 6 October1990

MarxistBu!~9-Basic Documents of the

Spartacist League

s'

Organizational RUlesand GUidelines

Published by lhe SPilrlacist league/U,S., BOll 1J77 GPO, New York, NY 10116

'-.,..

Prometheus Research Series

L- P~O"!THEUS RESEARCH LIBRARY

We are pleased to announce the publi-cation of the Organizational Rules andGuidelines of the Spartacist LeaguelU.S.as a supplement to Marxist Bulletin No.9, the Basic Documents of the SpartacistLeague. The Marxist Bulletin series con-tains the historical and theoretical materi-al that we deemed most important in theunfolding of the international Spartacisttendency, now the International Commu-nist League. The Marxist Bulletins reveal,through our practical political work anddevelopment, that there is nothing exoticor esoteric in the SL as a Trotskyist organ-ization. We simply refused to succumb tothe numerous programmatic departuresthat ultimately led the balance of thepost-World War II Trotskyist movement todestruction as an agency of international-ist and revolutionary politics within theworking class. We print below the intro-duction to the SL Organizational Rulesand Guidelines.

The Organizational Rules and Guide-lines of the Spartacist LeaguelU.S., sec-tion of the International CommunistLeague (Fourth Internationalist), ... wereaccepted in draft form by the EighthNational Conference of the SLIU.S. on20 September 1987. Additions and edi-torial changes were ratified by theCentral Committee on 6 October 1990.Minor corrections and changes weremade through 17 March 1991 under thesupervision of the Political Bureau.

These Organizational Rules and Guide-lines are revised from the "ProvisionalOrganizational Rules and Guidelines"adopted at the Second National Confer-ence of the SLIU.S. on 31 August 1969and extended at the Fifth National Con-ference on 25 June 1977 (see MarxistBulletin No.9, Part II).

Prior to the Second National Confer-ence, the Spartacist League did not haveits own written organizational guidelines.From our inception as an indepeadentorganization following the expulsion ofour predecessor, the Revolutionary Ten-dency (RT), from the Socialist Workers

Party (SWP) in December 1963 andcontinuing through the Founding Confer-ence of the Spartacist League in Septem-ber 1966, we simply stated that wewere guided by the best standard practiceand historical precedents, qualified to theextent of their particular relevance, ofthe Communist (Leninist) and Trotskyistmovements.

Following the adoption of our provi-sional rules, various points of unclarityarose, as did the need for certain ampli-fications. Those which have come tolight are addressed in these new Organi-zational Rules and Guidelines. Such rulesalways reflect the living reality of anorganization with new demands and newproblems. Therefore, given the flux ofthe revolutionary Marxist movement, onecan hardly believe that the statutes print-ed here can be the last word.

The Organizational Rules and Guide-lines of the SLIU.S. are in accordancewith the thrust of the 21 Conditions ofAdherence adopted at the Second Con-gress of the Communist International andstand on the foundation of the "Guide-lines on the Organizational Structure ofCommunist Parties, on the Methods andContent of Their Work," adopted atthe Third Congress of the CommunistInternational.

In "The Declaration of Principles ofthe Spartacist League," adopted at ourFounding Conference (see Marxist Bulle-tin No.9, Part I), we spell out the guid-ing criteria of our organizational practice:

"Theorganizational principle ofthe Spar-tacist League is democratic centralism, abalancebetween internal democracy andfunctional discipline. Asacombatorgani-zation, the revolutionary vanguard mustbe capableof unified anddecisiveactionat all times in the class struggle. Allmembers must be mobilized to carry outthe decisions of the majority; authoritymustbe centralized in its selectedleader-shipwhichinterprets tacticallytheorgan-ization's program. Internal democracypermits the collective determination ofthe party's line in accord with the needsfelt by the party's ranks who are closestto the class as a whole. The right to

Letter

factional democracy is absolutely vital toa livingmovement. Theveryexistence ofthis right helps to channel differencesinto less absorbing meansof resolution."

One of the striking features of the SLfrom its inception has been the explicitrecognition of the right of factional divi-sion within the organization. The under-lying principle is that intraparty struggleis both necessary and permitted amongmembers, subject to reasonable regula-tion. However, one can struggle insidethe organization or outside of it, but notboth; those who wish to propagandizetheir differences or mobilize outside theorganization cannot be members at thesame time.

Much of our practice in this regardcomes by way of the negative exampleof the SWP in the years that the RT, asa minority within that party, sought tocombat the degeneration of the once-revolutionary SWP into centrism (andrapidly thereafter into reformism). Inabiding by the formal organizationalrules of the party, the RT impelled therevisionist Majority to bring the SWPrules into line with its rightward-movingpolitical practices. Thus the RT wasexpelled under the following syllogism:(1) factions are permitted in the SWP;(2) factionalists are disloyal people;(3) disloyal people are expelled. (TheSWP's 1965 resolution, "The Organiza-

No.1Complete and accurate Ef1gljshtranslation of 1921 CI Resolution'from final German text. Includes,for the first time in English, thereports on and discussion of theResolution.at the Third Congress,With introduction by PrometheusResearch Library staff.

94 pag.s

US $6£3.50A $8.50Cdn$8.50(Incfudes postage)

tional Character of the Socialist WorkersParty," authorized in the same motion asthe RT's expulsion and written as anexplicit justification for it, provided thebasis for the subsequent elimination ofall factions-see "The SWP: A StrangledParty," Spartacist [English edition] No.38-39, Summer 1986.)

In the course of the fight to exerciseour factional rights as members of theSWP, comrades in the RT wrote "For theRight of Organized Tendencies to ExistWithin the Party" as a rebuttal to anSWP Political Committee motion seekingto victimize the Minority. The document,printed in Marxist Bulletin No.4, Part I,is a historical example of the mecha-nisms with which a loyal tendency triedto coalesce and struggle within an osten-sibly revolutionary organization. Addi-tional material on the exclusion of theRT supporters from the SWP in 1963is contained in Marxist Bulletin No.4,"Expulsion from the Socialist WorkersParty," Parts I and II.

18 March 1991

To obtain a copy of MB No.9 ($3)and the just published Supplement ($1)containing the Organizational Rules,make checks payable/mail to: SpartacistPublishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, NewYork, NY 10116, USA.

l'>~I{()'~~I

Guidelines on theOrganizational Structureof Communist Parties

on the MethOds and conientof Their Work

T - Resolution ot thehlrd Congress of the Communist Internationa,

1~ JUIY-1921

InCIUdr::::;;~:~:~_ the Fi,na' German T8.1ISCOSSlOn 'rom the Congress

With IntrodUChon and Not.

MLP and Stalinist "Mistakes"

United State.Spartaclst Publishing Co.Box 1377 GPONew York, NY 10116

Detroit, MichiganApril 19, 1991

Dear WV,When last April 12 I read your write-

up on the MLP, it quickly brought tomind a lecture I had gone to (here inDetroit) about a decade back. By an RCPspeaker.

The lecture, on the Spanish CivilWar, was all about Stalin's "mistakes"of the mid-1930s, how he held backon full aid for the Loyalists, how heencouraged and supported a pop-front("progressive" bourgeois) regime, and soforth.

The lecture was actually amusing, whatwith the guy belaboring the obvious.More than once I felt like shouting thingslike "Really?" "Honest?" "Ya don't say!"

"How long did it take ya to find thatout!"

Of course he never got back to1924, when the Stalinist "mistakes" firstemerged. And of course he never broughtup Trotsky.

Yeah, like a 90-minute lecture on 2plus 2 are 4! And though it was RCPrather than MLP, it was the same differ-ence, same blind spot toward the root ofthe Stalinist "mistakes." (Likewise amus-ing is the Maoist habit of calling Khrush-chev's swing to the right as back tocapitalism, while Stalin's swings as nomore than "mistakes.")

S. Colman,author of "Had Trotsky NotLost Power; a One-Act InAlternative History"

----------- Also Available: ------...._...----

No.2: Documents on the "Proletarian Military Policy"This includes rare materials from the Trotskyist movement in the U.S, andEurope during World War II, as well as an analytical introduction by theInternational Executive Committee of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist).

101 pages US $9 £ 5 A $11.50 Cdn $11.50 (includes postage)

No.3: In Memoriam, Richard S. FraserA memorial to comrade Richard S, Fraser (1913-1988), who pioneered theTrotskyist understanding of the black question in the United States, Thebulletin contains material reflecting the entire span of Fraser's political life,including his seminal 1953 lectures, "The Negro Struggle and the ProletarianRevolution, "

108 pages US $7 £ 4.25 A $7.50 Cdn $8.50 (includes postage)

-------- Order from/make checks payable to: --------Britain Au.tralla CanadaSpartacist Publications Spartacist ANZ Publishing Co. Spartacist Canada Pub. Assoc.POBox 1041 GPO Box 3413 Box6B6l,StationA'London NW5 3EU Sydney 2001 Toronto, Ontario M5W 1X6

10 MAY 1991 3

Trotsky up to 1924. The SpAD, as theGerman section of the International Com-munist League (Fourth Internationalist),fights here to mobilize workers againstthe Fourth Reich, against its racism andanti-Semitism.

For a red Germany of workers councilswhich has unconditionally committeditself to the defense of the Soviet Unionagainst imperialism and internal counter-revolution! For the revolutionary unity ofthe German, Polish and Soviet workingclass! For workers mobilizations againstchauvinism, Pamyat and anti-Semitism!For' a government like that. of Lenin-Sverdlov based on workers democracy!What we need in the Soviet Union is aparty in the spirit of Lenin and Trotskywhich fights for a truly socialist Unionof Soviet Republics! Forward to theFourth International!

A comrade of theSpartakusowska Grupa Polski

I came here from Poland. Two daysago we visited Soviet officers in alittle town. They will move back tothe Soviet Union soon. Now they arecalled "occupiers." Later their emptyflats will be shown on TV to intensifyanti-Sovietism. All this is happeningwhile Solidarnosc governs.

In the fall of 1981 the ICL, formerlythe international Spartacist tendency,

. correctly called to "Stop SolidarnoscCounterrevolution!" At that time themajority of the Polish working classsupported the reactionary nationalisticand clerical movement, heading in thedirection of restoring capitalism. It wasthe biggest crime of the Stalinistbureaucracy that the Polish proletariat,historically committed to the struggle forsocialism, after some tens of years ofbureaucratic rule were lined up behindthe slogans of American imperialism'sCold War against the USSR. During thetime of its rule, the bureaucracy killedpolitical activity of the proletariat andpushed it into the arms of clerical reac-tion and the imperialists.

We Spartacists honor the 600,000soldiers of the Red Army who died liber-ating Poland from the Nazis. Polish Trot-skyists seek to reclaim the best traditionsof the Polish workers movement, forgedin the struggle against national chau-vinism. This is exemplified by RosaLuxemburg, a Polish Jewish communistand leader of the revolutionary Germanproletariat.

Today in the Soviet Union the Kremlinbureaucracy is dissolving and polarizing.As was written in Workers Vanguard,"On one side are the pampered childrenof Stalin's apparatchiks who want to livelike American or German yuppies. These'free marketeers' want to sell off thefactories, mines and oil fields-s-built bythe sweat and blood of the workers-toWall Street and the Frankfurt banks, andpocket the proceeds. They call them-selves democrats.

"On the other side are conservativeStalinist apparatchiks, military men andKGB operatives who want to return tothe days when they gave the orders andeveryone kowtowed, when no one ques-tioned their right to a dacha, ZIL limou-sine and the other privileges of the rulingcaste (the nomenklatura). They now ap-peal to Great Russian nationalism andeven vile anti-Semitic demagogy. Theycall themselves 'patriots'."

What is missing in the present ideo-logical division is the Soviet workingclass. While the October Revolution hasbeen eclipsed in the political conscious-ness of the masses, working people takefor granted the tangible gains of Octo-ber: the right to a job, cheap food, sub-sidized housing, free medical care andschools for their children. And thesegains are under attack by all wings of thebureaucracy.

It is possible that both wings will unite'in the struggle against the workers. Bothare enemies and oppressors of the work-ing class in the interests of world cap-italism. The working class must takepolitical power into its,own hands andreconstruct society in its own interests.•

many, as they are doing today in theSoviet Union. This is also true of theso-called "patriots," although they differover the question of timing.

If today we call for workers mobiliza-tion against fascism, chauvinism andanti-Semitism, it is because that was themodel of the 1917 October Revolutionwhich put an end to tsarist pogromsagainst the Jews, expropriated the capi-talists and installed a government ofworkers, soldiers and peasants soviets.

We support the vision of Trotsky'sRed Army. Marshals Tukhachevsky,Bliicher and their comrades fought for astrong Soviet state as a bastion of inter-national proletarian revolution. Theirgoal was not to make SovietRussia intoyet another world power that would fordecades push for peaceful coexistencewith the imperialist powers. Stalin triedto exterminate the internationalist tradi-tions of the Red Army by murderingTukhachevsky, Bliicher, Gamarnik (thebrilliant Jewish political high commissar)and the other Red Commanders from theCivil War, just as he murdered the sur-viving leaders of the Bolshevik Revolu-tion. With these blood sacrifices to"peace" with imperialism, Stalin crimi-nally sabotaged the defense of the SovietUnion and greatly facilitated Hitler'sinvasion. And then there.are the Stalinistlies about May 8th and the victory of the"Anti-Hitler Coalition," although every-body here knows that it was the RedArmy and not the imperialist· powersfrom the USA to Britain.

In the same breath in which he for-mally dissolved the Communist Inter-national, Stalin took away the proudname "Red Army," because this namestood for international communism.Today the Soviet Army is not the armyof Lenin and Trotsky, and there areappeals to Great Russian chauvinismwhich lead to undermining the multi-national character of the Soviet Army.There are ethnic blood feuds among thesoldiers and between soldiers and offi-cers, and this plays a large role in thegrowth of pogromist "national" militias.

Natfooalism is the weapon of theenemy. The USSR must become inter-nationalist, otherwise it may cease toexist. The existence of the Soviet Unionis at stake. Soldiers and officers of themilitary who want to defend the SovietUnion on a socialist basis must take asa model the communist internationalistsof Trotsky's Red Army, not the Stalinistcriminals who seized all power for them-selves and murdered the earlier revolu-tionary generation.

Comrades, as proletarian international-ists we know that the bourgeoisie ofAuschwitz must be stopped, as must theimperialists from Washington to Tokyo.To do that we need a communist Inter-national like the one led by Lenin and

achieve prosperity for the masses isworkers political revolution. The capital-ist "market economy" brings with it soupkitchens in Poland and unemploymentlines in Germany.

The Stalinist bureaucracy, with Gorba-chev and Yeltsin in the lead, prepared thepath for capitalist restoration in Ger-

tuting the nationalist dogma of "socialismin one country," Ten years later, this ledto capitulation by the Stalin/Thalmann-led KPD to the German fascists. Thiswas followed by Stalin's popular-frontpolicy, in which the proletarian strugglefor power was abandoned in favor of dip-lomatic alliances with the imperialists.

throw the Stalinist bureaucracy in theDDR and against the capitalist unifica-tion of Germany. This battle was lost,but the decisive battleground will be inthe Soviet Union. Today we are trying tomobilize workers in eastern and westernGermany to fight against the catastrophicconsequences of capitalist restoration.And there have in fact been workers'demonstrations in Leipzig and nowstrikes in the west. We hope that an echoof these struggles will be heard in theUSSR. Today friends tell us that Sovietworkers are more interested in bread thanin talk of political revolution. But theonly way to ensure enough bread and to

Spartakista May 1990-Spartaklst comradeslay wreath at Soviet·war memorial InTreptow Park, East Berlin-. Ribbonsays: "Honor Red Army whichsmashed Nazi regime."

SpartakistLeipzig, April a-Workers protest massive unemployment stemming fromcapitalist unification.Spartakist banner reads, "Sweep Away the TrusteeshipAgency/Kohl Regimel Factories to the Workersl"

For us, drawing the lessons of the cap-italist reunification of Germany meansnot allowing capitalist restoration in theSoviet Union. You can see daily, just aswe do, what the so-called "gains" of themarket economy are. Recently fascistattacks on Soviet citizens have becomemore frequent, an officer in Rathenowand a young soldier in Wittstock werebrutally murdered. Soviet citizens havetold us about Nazi graffiti on yourhouses and the destruction of your cars.

Today in Germany five million areunemployed, abortions are outlawed,'Children's nurseries and hospital clinicsare being closed. The nationalist frenzyover "Germany, One Fatherland" turnsinto racist terror against workers fromPoland, Mozambique and Vietnam. Romaand Sinti [gypsies] are driven away andSoviet Jews are supposed to be shuntedoff to Israel.

We of the Spartakist Workers Partyfought for political revolution to over-

Renate Dahlhaus for theSpartakist Workers Partyof Germany

Dear comrades and friends,We greet you comrades who for years

and years stood at your posts againstNATO imperialism. May 8, 1945 was adecisive day for humanity. The RedArmy smashed the Nazi regime and thusended hell on earth for millions ofpeople. This was a truly proletarian inter-nationalist act. Without the struggles ofyour fathers, mothers and grandparentswe would' not be here today. When theRed Army withdrew from the Sovietmemorial at the Brandenburg Gate inWest Berlin, an experienced comradefrom our American section thought per-haps we should say to you: "Red Army,Aufwiedersehen [until we meet again], wemay need you back soon."

Our party is proud of having initiatedthe Treptow demonstration of 3 January1990. It was the largest anti-fascistdem-onstration against the desecration of theSoviet memorial, at which over 250,000people honored the Red Army. It mustnot be that 20 million Soviet citizensdied in vain fighting Nazi barbarism. Butcomrades, for nearly two years now thatis precisely what is being called intoquestion.

We saluted the Red Army in Afghani-stan and after the Red Army withdrew,we said it would have been better to havefought imperialism in Afghanistan thanto be fighting it today in the SovietUnion. The withdrawal of Soviet troopsfrom Afghanistan at the beginning of1989 tremendously encouraged Westernimperialism and prepared the subsequentcollapse of Soviet power in East Europe,which led to the founding of a powerfulFourth Reich which dominates Europe.

Ultimately, "peaceful coexistence"means support for the imperialist war inthe Gulf. Yet it was Soviet pilots who onFebruary 8th said "nyet" and thus pre-vented German Roland missiles frombeing sent to southeastern Turkey. Theircourageous action was a concrete step indefense of the Soviet Union as well asIraq against imperialism and thus aninspiration for the international workingclass. The imperialist victory over Iraqmeans genocide of the Kurds andstrengthening the imperialist bourgeoi-sies, who are attempting to underminethe Soviet Union economically. The fightagainst a new imperialist world order,whether it be in the guise of American,German or Japanese imperialism, is onthe agenda today. So we have tremen-dous tasks facing us and perhaps not verymuch time.

We Trotskyists call ourselves the partyof the Russian Revolution, because wewant to defend and 'extend the gains ofthe 1917 October Revolution. The fate ofthe German working class has alwaysbeen linked to the Soviet Union. Fromthe very beginning of the October Revo-lution, Lenin and Trotsky fought tospread the revolution and to get aid fromthe German Revolution.

Stalinism is a product of the unre-solved tasks of the international workersrevolution, beginning with the GermanRevolution in 1923. This enabled the Sta-linists to conquer the Soviet Union ~bydestroying workers democracy and insti-

Red Army...(continued from page 1)

On May Day in Berlin, the Spartakistsdistributed a letter calling upon theGerman trade unions and mass organiza-tions of the working class, together withother anti-fascists, to mobilize in united-front actions to stop the Nazi scum.

At the conclusion of the event, severalSoviet officers joined with Polish, Ger-man, American, Kurdish and Vietnamesecomrades in laying a wreath in honor ofthe Red Army men and women who gavetheir lives in crushing the scourge ofNazism. We print below a translation ofthe speech by the SpAD and excerptsfrom the Polish comrade's presentationto the Soviet Army men.

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

Furor Over Gorbachev's Tokyo Visit

Oppose Japan's Designs onSoviet Kurillslands!

By Spartacist Group Japan

AFPJapanese prime minister. Kaifu (right) tells Gorbachev:give us Kurll Islands (boxed area In map shows Islandsdemanded by Japan). Imperialists want to bottle upSoviet fleet In Vladivostok and Sea of Okhotsk.

WVMap

public opinion to blame Gorbachev if adeal wasn't cut. But for communists theKurils have nothing to do with the na-tional question, historical "claims," orinterpretation of the fine print in imperi-alist documents. The Kurils are part ofthe USSR's Pacific defense and while'Gorbachev & Co. are willing to under-mine this to curry favor with imperial-ism, the proletariat's interests are quitethe opposite.

The "Interim Preliminary Agreementfor Common Work in Japan," betweenthe international Spartacist tendency (nowthe International Communist League) andthe Rekken group (now the SpartacistGroup Japan), signed on 26 October1986, says:

"The main enemy is at home! In Japan itis therefore the elementary duty of revo-lutionaries to oppose Japanese imperial-ism's revanchist and chauvinist claimsto the four so-called Northem Islands,now part of the USSR. For the right ofunrestricted passage of all Soviet ships .through the Tsushima, Soya and TsugaruStraits and all other passages connectingthe Sea of Japan to the Pacific!"

-see Spartacist No. 41-42(Winter 1987-88)

Japanese Imperialismand the KurUs

The Kurils are a subarctic archipelago,consisting of more than 30 islands strungin a 1,200-kilometer arc between theKamchatka Peninsula in Siberia andHokkaido, the northernmost island ofJapan. The mid-17th century broughtexplorers from Russia, Japan and WestEurope, but permanent colonies, althoughattempted, were never successful. Thehistory of the Russo-Japanese Kurilboundary, which for nearly two centu-ries was a relatively unexplored andvague frontier, had nothing to' do with

continued on page 11

ects for Siberia and the Soviet Far East.The Japanese reply was always: yes, weare interested in these proposals-butgive us the islands first!

Gorbachev engaged in a series ofmarathon negotiation sessions with theKaifu government to trade "interpreta-tions" of who really has "rights" to theKurils. Prior to Gorbachev's arrival thebourgeois press launched a media blitzrewriting history to suit Japanese imperi-alism's revanchist claims and preparing

USSR

Manchuria

,.-

time Japan set out toexpand its territory.Even China, which for years supportedJapan's territorial claims to pursue itsborder dispute with the USSR, backedoff to a more neutral stance when therewas a likelihood of a deal.

In the wake of the U.S. destruction ofIraq in the Persian GIJlf Wai-;'the Sovietmilitary has taken a harder line againstfurther concessions to world imperial-ism, especially the.ceding of strategicallyimportant Soviet territory. Nonetheless,Gorbachev "certainly tried to appeaseJapanese imperialism while he was intown. He offered phased troop withdraw-als from the Kurils and reductions inSoviet Far East forces. Itt a speech be-fore the Keidanren, Gorbachev offeredan economic free trade zone in the portcity Nakhodka, promised to make theruble convertible into hard currency andproposed a "Soviet-Japan developmentbank" to help finance a plethora of proj-

Okura Kengo

southern Kurils today, and probably thecapitalist reunification of Korea tomor-row, as its price for extended economicaid to the USSR.

Japan's revanchist drive to take backthe Kurils has the rest of Asia prettyworried; they remember well the last

•

but now I have changed my mind be-cause Japan can take advantage of itseconomic strength and use it as a leverto pry some concessions from the SovietUnion on the issue" (Japan Times, 19December 1988).

The Japanese bourgeoisie has been try-ing to get the southern Kurils back sincethe end of World War II. Tokyo has re-fused to sign a peace treaty with theUSSR formally ending the war preciselybecause of this territorial "dispute." Andthe demand "Return the Northern Territo-ries" is a main battle cry of the Japanesefascists, The Japanese bourgeoisie hasbeen miffed that while Gorbachev's "newthinking" has led to the withdrawal fromAfghanistan, the capitalist reunificationof Germany, dismantling of the WarsawPact, they haven't reaped any benefits inAsia yet. Japanese imperialism wantssimilar concessions and troop withdraw-als in the Far East and is demanding the

been consciously used, as a Liberal Dem-ocratic (LOP-the ruling party) memberof the Diet (parliament), Yukio Hato-yama, said after returning from Moscowin October 1988: "I was considering theproblem [Kurils] as something separatefrom the bilateral economic issue at first,

Kondakov/Moscow News

Soviet border guard on Kunashiri in the Kurils (above).Ultrarightist demonstrators in Tokyo (right) demand thatJapanese imperialism take back the Kurils and southernSakhalin.

The following is condensed and adaptedfrom Spartacist offprint No.9, publishedby our comrades of the Spartacist GroupJapan.TOKYO, April 20-Soviet presidentGorbachev, hat in hand, spent four daysin Japan trying to pry loose about ¥3trillion (over US$20 billion) in economicaid for the disintegrating Soviet econ-omy. But he left empty-handed. TheJapanese bourgeoisie, sensing politicalinstability in Moscow and a slowingdown of perestroika, hardlined it on theKuril Islands dispute, closed their pocket-books and decided to wait and see. Atthe beginning of April, Gaisha Hiraiwa,chairman of the powerful Keidanrenbusiness association, told the press, "Par-ticularly after the '500-day plan' foreconomic reform was dropped last Octo-ber, I had the feeling that economicassistance by Japan to the Soviet Unionwould become difficult." So prime minis-ter Kaifu had his marching orders andtied, as a precondition to all economic aidand a peace treaty, recognition of Japa-nese sovereignty over all four of thesouthern Kurils (generally referred to inJapan as the "Northern Territories").

Japanese bankers, like their Westerncounterparts, are worried about the re-duced pace of capitalist restoration in theUSSR on the one hand, and the realcatastrophic existing economic conditionson the other. Japanese capital is certainlyinterested in the development of naturalresources in Siberia, especially oil, butthey're uncertain over the profitability ofsuch ventures right now. The Keidanrenis insisting upon a free-market system,decentralized economic decision-makingand ownership of natural resources, andthe ruble becoming an internationallytraded currency with the USSR joiningthe IMP. A Japanese trading housespokesman summarized this problemwhen he said, "There is no businesswhere there is no money." EconomicallyJapan holds all the cards.

The Kurils are hardly central toJa-pan's economy and many business inter-ests would not want this' remote realestate to stand in the way of profit. Butthe Japanese government, representingthe interests of the bourgeoisie as awhole, seeks title to the southern Kurilsto reverse some of its losses in the Pacif-ic War (World War II) and reassert itsimperialist appetites. The fact that theyhold the upper hand economically has

10 MAY 1991 5

Young Sparlacus./

An Exchange with Jailed Black Panther

On Integrated Educationand Black Liberation

out being attacked as being backwardor "reverse racists," and other suchmadness. When caucasians who are pro-gressive can successfully treat cauca-sian institutions, then it might makesome sense for Africans to speak ofintegration.

America has done terrible damage toAfrican people. We would be foolish todepend on others to repair that damage.

Mondo

Young Spartacus replies: Mondo arguesthat black survival necessitates a with-drawal from "caucasian culture" and

continued on page 8

The Vanguard article I'm speaking of isbut one of many in which it has beensuggested that African people are unqual-ified to make our own decisions, whenthose decisions are not in agreement withthe Spartacist League's "correct line."Caucasians who claim to be progressivemust learn to expunge arrogance fromthemselves, to expQnge from themselvesdogmatism. I'm going to cut this short tomention a couple of other things. By theway, if you wish to print the above, youare welcome to ....

Spartacists foughtfor labor/black

defense of busingand its extension

to the suburbs.While racist mobs

attacked blacksin the streets,

liberals in city halland Congress

killed schoolintegration.

"manhood"; thousands of teenage girlsgetting plastic surgery to get "ideal"bodies and faces and men getting breastand calf implants in order to look moremuscular; a whole bunch of folks suffer-ing from sexual identity crises; parentsneglecting their children while they hus-tle for economic status; corporations poi-soning our foods for profits; audiencesthat applaud all kinds of dumb entertain-ment because they are directed to byapplause signs; etc.

I am not saying that there is onlysickness in caucasian society or thatcaucasians have cornered the market onsickness. I am saying that African folkshave a right to want to remove ourselvesfrom a culture that is killing us andthat we ought to be able to do so with-

others so that we can bring our peopleback to an African consciousness. Thatis our business. We have a right to wantto protect our people from further debili-tating effects of a majority society'ssickness.

Look at what's going on around us-Bush threatening thousands of lives,not only because of U.S. corporate in-terests, but because of his threatened

racist at worst and ethnocentric at best.African people are a minority in this

country, a subjugated minority. Whatintegration has typically meant for us isa losing of ourselves in the predominantcaucasian culture. When one is a memberof the majority group, the group whosemembers hold power, it is quite an easything for him or her to speak favorablyof integration, unless that person is ablatant and extreme racist, he or she hasnothing to lose. African folks have some-thing to lose however, and many of ushave lost it in these various integrationschemes-namely, a sense of the Africanself.

Essentially, American culture is cauca-sian culture. This is meaningful becausethere are things about caucasian culturethat are dangerous for caucasian peopleand much more dangerous for Africanpeople. Caucasian culture is marked bya philosophy of expedience, material-ism, individualism, competitiveness, bothan obsession with and fear of sex, andracism.

Traditional African societies were/arecommunal, spiritualistic, and were nei-ther afraid of nor obsessed with sex.European colonialism in Africa alteredseriously the characteristics of our socie-ties and European enslavement of Afri-can people in America altered our waysand ways of looking at things. When youadd to that the impacts upon Africanpeople of the commercial media, schools,churches, etc., you wind up with a wholebunch of African-people who are Africanphysiologically but European or Euro-American psychologically and intellectu-ally. Let me give an example-ColinPowell, He appears to be an African, buthe sees things through the eyes of thecaucasian power structure. He is quitewilling to subvert the interest of his ownpeople for sake of the furtherance of theaims of his bosses.

Since the Vanguard article speaks ofintegration, let me take us back to Brownv. Board of Education. You may recallthat, at the trial, an experiment was con-ducted in which African children werepresented with brown dolls and whitedolls and asked to pick dolls they associ-ated with certain favorable traits and topick dolls they associated with certainunfavorable traits. The results were clear-the African children associated, thewhite dolls with the favorable traits andthe brown dolls with the unfavorable.The results were replicated in two sepa-rate studies just a few years ago-onehere in the States and the other in theCaribbean, I believe.

The major institutions of this society'have either the designed or latent func-tion of programming people to believe inthe supremacy of caucasians. Integrationis not going to change this. Some Africanpeople-myself included-believe thatwe ought to be establishing our owninstitutions and wresting control over

***7 January 1991

I just got through reading "for Quali-ty, Integrated Education for All" in thelatest Workers Vanguard. The articleattacks/is critical of the idea of Africanfolks having schools for African peopleand schools that teach African males andAfrican females separately. Without go-ing to specific words and phrases in thearticle, I will say that the tone of thearticle is one which smacks of arrogance,

at WeinsteinJailed Black Panther WopashitweMondo Eyen we Langa (David Rice).

For nearly 20 years WopashitweMondo Eyen we Langa (David Rice) hasbeen in jail, the victim of a frame-upunder the notorious FBI COINTELPROconspiracy against the Black PantherParty and its supporters. Mondo was aleader of the Omaha, Nebraska Com-mittee to Combat Fascism and of theOmaha Panthers. Despite five volumes ofCOINTELPRO papers documenting thegovernment's vendetta against this free-dom fighter and a letter of regret fromthe "witness" on whose perjured testi-mony Mondo was falsely convicted ofkilling a cop, a recent petition for habeascorpus was denied. Despite this latestsetback, Mondo remains unbroken andunwilling to cut a deal for anythingless than a declaration of innocenceon the charges which have robbed himof nearly half his life. We demand free-dom for Mondo and his co-defendant EdPoindexter-now!

Behind bars, Mondo, an award-winning writer, is a frequent contributorto the Lincoln Journal and MilwaukeeCourier newspapers. The Partisan De-fense Committee received a letter fromMondo in response to our Young Spar-tacus article "For Quality, IntegratedEducation for All!" (WV No. 517, 4January). Excerpts from Mondo's letterand our reply are printed below.

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

Brotherhood" targeted gays, leftists andliberal professors with death threats, theadministration collaborated with Millerin a McCarthyite "investigation" ofgays and leftists who Miller claimedwere harassing'him. The administra-tion's dirty work included a 2 a.m. raidon the offices of the campus news-paper led by Assistant Dean An-drewTurkington during which staffers wereinterrogated about being "gay or com-munists." Last week, the same DeanTurkington unilaterally canceled an"open" forum scheduled to discuss therecent attacks because newspaper re-porters were to be present!

Providing safe haven for bush-leagueNazis is small potatoes for a universitythat counts among its crimes the devel-opment of the A-bombs that obliteratedHiroshima and Nagasaki, and headquar-tered the "Chicago Boys" Arnold Har-berger and Milton Friedman who brain-trusted the starvation economic policiesof Chilean dictator Pinochet.

Speaking at a May Day rally on cam-pus, a Spartacus Youth Club memberexplained:

"It's crucial that you not hold any illu-sions in the administration or the cops.Their job is to run this university as atraining ground for the leaders of thisdecaying capitalist system, that just

continued on page 10

would-be murderers, but the campusworkers, city labor and the surroundingblack community.

In 1987 when campus brownshirtRussell Miller and his "Great White

the administration, cops and FBI to takeaction against the fascists. The alliesthe students need are not the admin-istration, cops and G-men, who haveproven they will shield these masked

~;iwl \Young Spartacus

May 3-U of C students rally to demand an end'to anti-gay attacks.

Defend Gays Against Fascis,t AttackslUniversity of Chicago

Gay students at the University ofChicago are being terrorized by anominous gang of fascists called the"Brotherhood of the Iron Fist."• In February, Andrew Ross, presidentof the Gay and Lesbian Alliance(GALA), and several other studentsbegan receiving death threats by mail.Posters appeared on campus threatening"Death to Fags and Fag-Lovers."• On March 17, graduate student ChrisBauer was attacked in a campus build-ing by two self-proclaimed members ofthe "Brotherhood" wearing ski masksand screaming anti-gay epithets. Bauer,who walks with a cane, was knocked tothe ground and kicked in the head, legsand kidneys. The attackers then bran-dished a syringe and threatened to in-ject air into his bloodstream and killhim.• On April 15, Ross, Bauer and anotherstudent received death threat letters thatwere no idle threat. The letters werelaced with the lethal neurotoxin acryli-mide which can be absorbed throughthe skin.

These cowardly fascist scum want tokill gays and they had better be stoppednow! Hundreds of students have ralliedon campus to protest the anti-gayattacks. But the liberal organizers of theprotests are wasting time by calling on

April 27-Students from Lehman College in the Bronx forced out of occupiedbuilding by the cops.

CUNY...(continued from page 12)

CUNY students turned out in support ofthe unionists and for common actionagainst Cuomo's killer cuts. But for thebureaucrats who control the unions, talkof "solidarity" with the student strikerswas a cruel hoax.

CUNY chancellor Ann Reynolds wasbrought in to get rid of open admissions.If the cuts go through, tens of thousandsof predominantly minority, poor andworking-class students will lose theirchance at a college education. When CityCollege students-with their backs to thewall and the cops breathing down theirnecks-asked Local 1199 president Den-nis Rivera for help, this reputed "mili-tant" offered nothing and instead toldthem to give up their building occu-pations to "educate the community"!Rivera, a vice chairman of the stateDemocratic Party, said in an interview(New York Newsday, 6 May): "I have notlost faith that we can get the governor tocome back to traditional Democraticvalues"! And on May.L, when campusworkers at Hunter College were orderedto show up in street clothes and take thedoors off the occupied East Building,union leaders went along with this gro-tesque Operation Storm!

Also to blame are the self-isolatingtactics of student government juniorbureaucrats, who appointed themselves"delegates" elected at secret meetings,and deliberately narrowed support, ex-cluding both "outside agitators" andinterested students from joining the take-overs. This left the building occupiersalone on the campuses, so that when theywere ejected from Hunter all they coulddo was throw stale bagels at the adminis-tration's cameramen (for which CUNYcharged them with assault). At an April26 Barnard College forum, New YorkSpartacus Youth Club member andCCNY student Leticia Candia describedwhat followed:

"In a predawn raid this morning, 200riot-equipped cops stormed into BronxCommunity College and arrested 19 stu-dents. At BMCC students are separatedfrom their communities, isolated inyuppie lower Manhattan. There the dirtywork was done by several hundred nurs-ing students (we called them the 'candy-stripers from hell ') who smashed theglass and took back the building. Chan-

cellor Ann Reynolds was at the scene ofthe crime, crowing about how it madeher proud to be a woman. It made mesick. These are serious setbacks to ourfight."

Now kangaroo courts have been set up,and student protesters face expulsions,suspensions or the possibility of "proba-tion" for the rest of their college careers.

The Spartacus Youth Club demands: Noreprisals! Drop all charges against CUNYstudent protesters!

Cuomo's vicious budget cuts target notonly students, but all working people.Mayor David ("They'll take it from me")Dinkins has just announced 27,000planned layoffs of city workers, as wellas closings of clinics, schools, libraries,swimming pools and even the zoos! Theangry director of the Staten Island Zoothreatened "to loose his homeless snakes,crocodiles and parakeets on City Hall,"warning that "We'll have to put out stockup for sale or on the steps of City Hall,and a rattlesnake wouldn't look veryappropriate there" (Newsday, 30 April).The only city employees who won't becut, of course, are the racist police, whoroutinely murder black and Hispanicyouth.

Faced with the anger of the unionranks, New York's labor leaders-Rivera, Stanley Hill of AFSCME District37, Teamsters head Barry Feinstein, and

~ Sandra Feldman of the UFT-called ademonstration for April 30 (explicitly notMay Day, the international workers holi-

day). Some tens of thousands of blackand Hispanic workers marched from theBattery to the World Trade Center, fill-ing the streets of the financial districtprotesting Cuomo and the cuts. Yet fourdays later, Hill, Feldman and Feinstein(sporting a "Desert Storm" cap) weremunching on chicken tarragon and aspar-

agus with Dinkins at Gracie Mansion,plotting how to shove cutbacks downworkers' throats.

April 30 was the day the TransportWorkers Union Local 100 contract ex-pired. This powerhouse of city laborshould have said "No Contract-NoWork" and shut down all subway and bustraffic in NYC. If the unions had evenheld their demonstration during workinghours, the Big Apple would have beenshut down tight. But that wasn't theintention of Dinkins' and Cuomo's loyal"labor lieutenants." They just wanted theranks to blow off some steam.

They made no secret of it: the speakersplatform at the rally had a sign reading,"Unions, Bankers, Politicians, Students,Brokers, Seniors, Corporations, Parents ...Let's work together to save New York!"But we're not "all in this together"-we're on one side of the barricades in theclass struggle, the bankers and corpora-tions are on the other! The whole thingwas a big slap in the face to the coura-geous CUNY students, hundreds ofwhom showed up only to be stuck atthe end of the march. When several

angry students burned a flag on a pileof anti-Cuomo posters, they were jumpedby nightstick-wielding cops, and twowere arrested. These students face fel-ony charges of "assaulting an officer."The SYC demands all the charges bedropped!

Throughout the CUNY protests, theSpartacus Youth Clubs fought to link thestudents with class-struggle militants inthe unions. Transit workers fought intheir union meeting for strike actionagainst the TA's new cutback contract,putting up a motion concluding, "weresolve to strike to defend our jobs,safety and livelihoods and we recognizethat our struggle is part of the struggle ofall of NYC labor and the CUNY stu-

. dents." The response of the TWU bu-reaucracy was to immediately rule themotion out of order-and to boot out acontingent of CUNY students, who hadcome in hope of labor support, from theunion hall!

To prove their loyalty to Dinkins,Cuomo and Wall Street, the misleadersof labor who hide behind the no-strikeTaylor Law again seek to lead the work-ers like sheep to the slaughter. StanleyHill intones, "We must all share thepain." To hell with that-we're for in-flicting pain on Wall Street, throughcanceling the debt and expropriating thebanks! yve need a workers party to allythe militant students and oppressed mi-norities with the working class in strug-gle to sweep away this decrepit capitalistsystem which is today throwing studentsout of school and workers out of theirjobs .•

Spartacist LeaguePublic Offices

- MARXIST LITERATURE-

Bay AreaThurs.: 5:30-8:00p.rn., Sat.: 1:00-5:00p.rn.1634Telegraph,3rd Floor(near 17thStreet)Oakland,Calltomia Phone: (415) 839-0851

ChicagoTues.: 5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11 :00a.rn-z.oo p.rn.161,W. Harrison St., 10th FloorChicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715

New York CityTues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00p.m.41 Warren St. (one blockbelow

Chambers St. near ChurchSt.)New York, NY Phone: (212)267-1025

10 MAY 1991 7

Balkans...(continued from page 1)

their chops at the prospect of regainingfull control of the Balkans. "Yugoslavia:Breaking Up Is Good to Do," proclaimsa column in the Wall Street Journal(8 March). The U.S. News & World Re-port (l April) notes that "the renewedturmoil in the Balkans could even serveas a pilot for demolition of the SovietUnion, where the crisis of the republicsresembles Yugoslavia's on a granderscale." But others are worried. "TheBalkans, Once Again the Powder Keg ofEurope," headlined the Italian daily LaRepubblica (4 May).

The violent breakup of Yugoslaviacould ignite a new Balkan war and evendraw in the major powers. For example,both Bulgaria and Greece have territorial

claims on Macedonia. Croatia's anti-Communist leader Tudjman has openlyappealed to Bush and British prime min-ister John Major to support his secessionbid against the Yugoslav federal army.U.S. imperialism, puffed up by its vic-tory in the Persian Gulf War and believ-ing the Soviet Union is now prostrate,could move to extend the "new worldorder" to the Balkans. Every Europeanschoolchild knows it was a wild act ofterrorism by a Serbian nationalist inBosnia in 1914 which triggered the massslaughter of the First World War.

Titoist Yugoslavia Unravels

Yugoslavia in its original form wasthe direct outcome of that war. Itwas established in 1918 as part of theWilsonian imperialist reconstruction ofEurope. Headed by a Serbian king,

Yugoslavia was quickly consumed bythe conflict between the Roman Cath-olic Croats, who had been part of theHabsburg Empire, and the Eastern Ortho-dox Serbians, who had earlier brokenfrom the Ottoman Empire. Croatian na-tionalists formed the Ustasha, whichran a puppet government for the Nazisin World War II, murdering hundredsof thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma(gypsies).

The Communist partisans under Tito(whose father was a Croat and mother aSlovene) were able to mobilize the work-ers and. peasants of Yugoslavia againstboth the Nazi German forces and home-grown genocidal nationalists of all sides.After the war, capitalism was thus over-thrown in Yugoslavia through an indige-nous social revolution, unlike the rest ofEast Europe where the bourgeois orderwas smashed by the Soviet Red Army as

it drove back the Nazi German Wehr-macht. This gave the Tito regime theenormous popular authority to break withStalin in 1948 and proclaim its ownindependent "Yugoslav road to social-ism." Nonetheless Yugoslavia, like theEast European "People's Democracies,"was from the outset a workers statedeformed by Stalinist bureaucratic rule.And herein lay the seeds of its presentdisintegration:

Within the nationalist framework ofStalinism, the Tito regime went about asfar as it could to establish a genuinelymultinational federation. But nationaldivisions could not be overcome onthe basis of building "socialism" inone relatively backward Balkan country.In fact, the economic decentralizationand "market socialism" which Tito madehis trademark enormously intensifiedthe inequalities between republics and

alists. European colonialism destroyedthe traditional African communities, butAfrican peoples were not then integratedinto Western culture. The colonial re-gimes utilized tribal chiefs as overseersin exploiting their own people.

This is especially clear in SouthAfrica. The bantustan system was anattempt at the enforced retribalization ofSouth African blacks. Those seeking toimplement "Afrocentric" education arethe Buthelezis, the black front men forracist rule. Whereas the overwhelmingdemand of blacks fighting for freedomfrom apartheid slavery has been for fullaccess to the best, most comprehensiveeducation possible.

It is not clear just what Mondo con-siders to be "caucasian culture." Themusician Wynton Marsalis has madeenormous contributions to world culture,drawing not only on the black jazz tradi-tion but a rigorous study and mastery ofclassical music. Marsalis could notachieve the greatness that he has ifhis education was self-limiting "Afro-centrism." The natural sciences are alsopart of the universal culture of mankind.It was the Nazis who dismissed Ein-stein's theory of relativity and quantummechanics as a Jewish invention andpromoted their own "theory" of "Aryanphysics." As the term algebra indicates,much of the math taught in Americanschools was developed by the Arabs.And during the European Middle Ages,it was Arab scholars who preserved theheritage of classical Greek philosophy.

Not only General Colin Powell but thewhole panoply of black politicians whoserve as mayors and police chiefs of thiscountry's major cities (and whose elec-tion to office is presented by blacknationalists as a step toward "blackempowerment") are betrayers of theblack masses. Mondo presents Powell assome kind of victim of the "caucasian"educational process. No!-he and hiskind are conscious servants of thebourgeois power; they have signed on asoverseers on the capitalist plantation.

As Richard Fraser emphasized in a1953 lecture on "The Negro Struggle andthe Proletarian Revolution": "The con-cept of race has now been overthrown inbiological science. But race as the key-stone of exploitation remains. Race is asocial relation and has only a socialreality." There's no necessary correlationbetween ethnicity and human behavior.People are not fundamentally differentfrom one another because of their skincolor, hair texture, or other physicalvariations. Race has significance in the

, U.S. because it is the basis for injustice,a means to order the relations betweenpeople based on the needs of a capitalisteconomy. There is no separate road toblack freedom in this country. What'srequired is building an integrated partyto finish the Civil War by smashing thecapitalist mode of production. Then dis-crimination, segregation, and racist copterror will go the way of the slaveauction block-relics for a museum ofthe history of a particularly barbaroussociety.•

will be possibleonly with the expropria-tion of the bourgeoisie and the establish-ment of working-class rule.

The real purpose of segregating youngblack males-already stigmatized as the"problem element" in society-has noth-ing to do with education, but repression.If compulsory segregation used to bethe means by which a Jim Crow societydeprived blacks of attaining any eco-nomic or social power, it is now increas-.ingly the means for social control. Blacksociologist Kenneth Clark hit the nailon the head in denouncing schools forblack males as "prep schools for cor-rectional institutions" (New York Times,10 January).

There is a basic reality that Mondodoes not want to face: blacks in Americaare not Africans, but black Americans.But Mondo also argues an idealizedconception of race and culture and tradi-tional African .societies. The whole his-tory of humankind has been a bloodysaga of the domination of one groupby another, and Africa is no exception.Some pretty gruesome practices-includ-ing war, slavery, sexual mutilation ofyoung girls (clitorectomies)-were pres-ent in African societies even beforethe continent was raped by white coloni-

to wreck the entire public educationsystem.

This attack cries out for a massivefight back on behalf of all working-classyouth! Instead, what we're getting frommiddle-class black elected officials andblack nationalists is an accommodationto the rollback of black rights dressed upas proposals for "Afrocentric" schoolsexclusively for black males. This notonly lets the racist white ruling class offthe hook, it's a proposal to ghettoize theteaching of some of the most importanthistory that all fighters for social justicemust learn. White schoolchildren as wellas black schoolchildren need to learnabout Denmark Vesey, Frederick Doug-lass, John Brown, and Karl Marx. Butwe're Marxists, not idealists, and under-stand that education is a class question.True quality education for the masses

was felt, and joined the fights to organizethe CIO in the '30s. In New York Citytoday, CUNY students (overwhelminglyblack and Hispanic) are fighting a racisteconomic purge of minority youth fromthe university. They know that separatenecessarily means inferior and unequalin a racist society.

The American ruling class no longerneeds or wants educated black 'youth-they're considered an "expendable" sur-plus population. The White House isnow scheming to liquidate public edu-cation into the "free market." Richwhite people already send their childrento well-financed private schools or sub-urban "public" country clubs' that theblack population has no access to,while the poor clock time in urban hold-ing pens where little education can takeplace because there's no money forteachers, books or equipment-and littlein the way of jobs promising a futurefor minority youth as a motivation forstudy. Now Bush wants to make it offi-cial: let public funds "follow the stu-dents" to private schools-i-which willduplicate on a national scale the "whiteflight" to racist "academies" in the Southfollowing the Supreme Court's 1954desegregation decision. This is a program

The separatism that Mondo espousesdoes echo today among a layer of alien-ated black youth who rightly hate thisracist society and bitterly resent thebetrayals of black.freedom struggles byleaders preaching accommodation to thestatus quo. The danger in this is that it'snot a program for struggle but a utopianand reactionary withdrawal from the fightat the very moment the ruling class iscarrying out genocide against the blackghetto!

Historically, the ideas of black sep-aratism have found an echo in periodsof defeat when united struggle seemedimpossible. Marcus Garvey's "Back toAfrica" movement peaked in the 1920swhen the Klan had millions of membersnationwide. But black workers sweptaside this reactionary escapism as soonas the possibility for successful struggle

EbonyStruggle for freedom requires smashing racist segregation. Civil rightsactivists in 1960s demonstrate against Jim Crow education.

rediscovering "traditional African values"through nationalist separatism. Fightingthe internalized race-hatred which poi-sons the minds of black youth intobelieving that they and not society are toblame is an essential part of-combattingoppression. But our aim is not merely tochange perceptions of race and class butto change reality. The fight for freedomis not ultimately a psychological strugglebut a political one.

The root cause of the desperate con-ditions of black America-entrenchedpoverty, homelessness, unemployment,poor schools, racist cop terror-is thecapitalist economic system which keepsblacks isolated at the bottom as a race-color caste, the better to keep the multi-ethnic working class from uniting againstthe exploiters. America is one nationwith a rigid color line-with white ontop of black. The educational systemand bourgeois "culture" necessarily per-petuate this racist status quo, but themechanism of white domination andblack oppression in the U.S. is not forcedassimilation but segregation.

There is no separate black nation inthe U.S.; no separate economy, language,or land. Since the promise of equalitywas betrayed in the defeat of RadicalReconstruction, black people have suf-fered Jim Crow discrimination in allspheres of life and have been manipulat-ed as a reserve army of labor for thecapitalist class-the last hired and firstfired. At the same time, blacks wereintegrated into strategic sectors of theeconomy. As the most militant sector ofthose who produce the wealth in thissociety, black workers have tremendouspotential social power and can lead theghetto masses and even backward, racistwhite workers in struggle against theowners. But with the decay of Ameri-can capitalism, blacks are increasinglypushed out of industry and other areas ofpotential power. And the call for separateblack education, no matter what themotivation, necessarily feeds into theracists' campaign to' drive blacks evenfurther back into a powerless and precar-ious existence.

The defeat of busing for school inte-gration, the enforced ghettoization ofblacks in poverty, the military andprisons, fuel a nationalist mood today.Against black nationalists and the "UncleTom" black Democrats, we fight to builda multiracial communist vanguard partyto lead all the working people and op-pressed. Racial oppression is so deeplybuilt into the American class structurethat only the destruction of existing classrelations and the change in class rule-the passing of power into the hands ofthe working class-will strike at theheart of racism and bring about equalitythrough revolutionary integration into asocialist society.

(continued from page 6)

IntegratedEducation...

8 WORKERS VANGUARD

Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League

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For a Socialist Federationof the Balkans!

The only force. still holding Yugo-slavia together is the federal army,whose officer corps is 70 percent Ser-bian. As a last-ditch defense, early thisyear army generals formed the Commu-nist League-s-Movement for Yugoslavia,dubbed the "generals' party." A docu-ment issued by the army's Central Politi-cal Commissariat vowed:

"Neither in Yugoslavia is socialism fin-ished and brought to its knees. Thoughpaying a high price, it has managed toovercome the first strike of the anti-communist hysteria wave. A real possi-bility has been kept to preserve the coun-try as a federal and socialist society."

- London Guardian, 2 February

At the present time, proletarian inter-nationalists would give military supportto the Yugoslav federal army against thecounterrevolutionary Croatian regime.But the Stalinist military cadre cannotpreserve Yugoslavia, especially since thearmy command is susceptible to Serbiannationalism represented by the vile dema-gogue Milosevic. At most the army canhold off the forces of intercommunalistslaughter for a while and buy time forthe emergence of a proletarian pole,which alone can stop the headlong drivetoward a new Balkan war.

That the potential for common classstruggle exists was demonstrated a fewweeks ago when 700,000 Serbian textile,metal and leather workers staged a one-day protest strike against the austerityprogram ordered by Western bankers.They were joined by 10,000 coal minersin Bosnia. This was the biggest laborprotest since World War II. What isdesperately needed in Yugoslavia is agenuine communist party which canchannel the workers' economic resistanceagainst the forces of murderous national-ism and their imperialist godfathers inthe struggle for a socialist federation ofthe Balkans.

But socialism cannot be built inisolation in the relatively backwardBalkan lands. Indeed, the powerful andunrelenting pressure of the world capital-ist market is a prime cause for the pres-ent disintegration of Yugoslavia and alsothe nationalist fissuring of the SovietUnion. Clearly the fate of Yugoslaviais tied to that of the Soviet Union, aswell as to class struggle in WesternEurope. As Trotsky wrote in a discussionwith his Greek supporters in the early1930s: "A revolutionary perspective isimpossible without a federation of theBalkan states, which obviously will notstop here, but rather will extend intothe federation of the United Soviet Statesof Europe.".

Ustashi are still a living memory. A 50-year-old schoolteacher in Petrinja recallsthat as a child, "I watched my houseburn down, and I'd like to save my sonfrom enduring the same thing" (SanFrancisco Chronicle, 12 April). It wasfrom such Serbian villages in Croatia thatTito recruited many fighters for theCommunist partisans. And now that anti-Communist Croat nationalists are back inpower in Zagreb, the Serbian communi-ties are in open rebellion.

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While Draskovic seeks to resurrect theSerbian royalist Chetniks, the new lead-ers in Croatia hark back to the Ustashifascists. Croatian president Franjo Tudj-man is a former general and universityprofessor who in hiswritings apologizedfor the Ustashi government, describingit as "the expression ofthe historicalaspirations of the Croatian nation for itsindependent state." Under Tudjman, anewly formed "special security unit" issporting the resurrected Ustashi red-and-white checkered crest on their caps. Oneof his first acts after being elected lastyear was to rename the Square for theVictims of Fascism in the capital ofZagreb...now it's the Square of the Croa-tian Giants.

All this has naturally alarmed theSerbian communities in Croatia-c-ISpercent of the republic 's population-s-forwhom the genocidal atrocities of the

Showdown in Croatia

,three months late at state-owned compa-nies, and when they do arrive the checksare only a fraction of what's owed theworkers. A young machine operator in aBelgrade engine plant exclaimed: "Beforethe elections 'everything was fine. We gotour money. After that they forgot aboutus" (London Guardian, 22 March).

The economic desperation has"boostedthe right-wing opposition to Milosevic,led by Vue Draskovic's Serbian RenewalParty. Draskovic identifies himself withthe royalist Chetniks, suppressed byTiro's partisans, and is demanding areferendum on restoring the monarchy!In mid-March Draskovic's boys stagedviolent protests in central Belgrade towhich Milosevic responded with a mix-ture of repression and concessions. It isby no means unthinkable that Milosevicand Draskovic can come to terms on aprOgram of Greater Serbian nationalism.

vincial, and as Communism has declinedthat cast of mind has grown morepowerful, promoting an angry Serbiannationalism."

-New Yorker, 18 March

Beginning in the early 1980s, Albani-ans-'--who constitute the third largestnational group in Yugoslavia-e-demandedthat Kosovo be granted full republicanstatus equivalent to Serbia or Croatia.Albanian agitation was met with massiverepression, and in 1989 Milosevic elimi-nated what little remained of the region'sautonomy in his drive to create a GreaterSerbia. The present crisis of Stalinist rulenext door in Albania can only inflamethe Kosovo question. In the more fluid

situation, the question of unification ofthe Albanian people is directly posed.As proletarian internationalists, we havecalled for the right of self-determinationfor the Albanian people within the frame-work of a socialist federation of theBalkans.

Unlike the nationalist leaders in Croa-tia and Slovenia, Milosevic has not de-clared his intention to restore capitalismimmediately. For this reason, he is brand-ed as "still a Communist" in the Westernpress. But this former head of the Yugo-slav state bank has long proclaimed thathe favors the transition to a "marketeconomy," and for the past few years hehas served as the agent of Wall Streetand Frankfurt financiers in imposing aharsh austerity on Serbia's workingpeople.

In order to win the elections lastDecember, Milosevic adopted a more"populist" economic posture and pumpedmillions of dinars into faltering stateenterprises. But since then the money hasrun out. Paychecks are arriving two to

Horvat/Picture GroupSteel workers strike in Montenegro in 1988. United working class undergenuine communist leadership can stop Intercommunalist slaughter andbreakup of Yugoslavia.

$"" ie, ,ilFederal Committee for Information, Belgrade

Victims of Nazi-backed Croatian Ustashi fascists during World War II.

"Slobo" and the Rise ofSerbian Nationalism

Today, the pro-Western Croat andSlovene nationalists are in the vanguardof the forces seeking to break up Yugo-slavia. But the current disintegration wasset into motion by the rise of Serbiannationalism with the ascendancy of Slo-bodan Milosevic (known as "Slobo" tohis followers). The Milosevic regime inSerbia is usually depicted and denouncedin the Western bourgeois media as thelast Stalinist holdout in East Europe. YetMilosevic in his own way decisivelybroke with and attacked the Titoistsystem.

Tito sought to overcome traditional

national loyalties and enmities by pro-moting a higher pan-Yugoslav nation-alism. He attempted to cut back thepredominance of the Serbian republicby granting autonomy to the Albanian-populated region of Kosovo and alsoto Vojvodina with its large Hungarianpopulation. By contrast, Milosevic roseto power by exploiti~ and fomentinganti-Albanian Serbian chauvinism. Hehas openly allied himself with the Ser-bian Orthodox church while downgradingTito's memory.

The roots of the enmity between Serbsand Albanians go back to the conquestof the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks inthe 15th century. The Albanians con-verted to Islam and acted as Ottomanloyalists against the Serbs, who preservedtheir own national church as focus ofresistance to Turkish domination. AnAlbanian historian in Kosovo told anAmerican journalist:

"The Serbian Orthodox Church boasts ofSerbia's role in stopping the advance of'the dark culture,' by which it means ~Islam. Its outlook is narrow and pro-

regions. Per capita income in Slovenia istentimes that of Albanian-populated Ko-sovo! In addition to "market socialism,"Yugoslavia pioneered mortgaging its col-lectivized economy to Western bankers,who are now squeezing the country drywith a savage austerity program. Inthemonth of February alone 7,000 state-owned enterprises were forced to declarebankruptcy.

While seeking to overcome nationalantagonisms within Yugoslavia, the Titoregime adopted a nationalist stance to-ward its Balkan neighbors. Tito and hiscolleagues were committed to preservingthe state borders established by the 1918Versailles Treaty of the victorious im-perialist powers. Thus the Belgrade Sta-linists quarreled with Bulgaria overMacedonia and did not recognize theright of self-determination for Yugo-slavia's Albanians. Nonetheless, for threeand a half decades the Tito regime, basedon the organization and authority of thepartisan victory, held together Yugoslaviaas a multinational state based on col-lectivized property. But with the pass-ing of the partisan generation, signaledby Titos death in 1980, all of theold nationalist crap has returned with avengeance.

10 MAY 1991 9

TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA

SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY

simply shuffle the bureaucracies that doleout the misery. Public health programs,already a cruel joke in the ghettos aswell as among the rural poor, will befurther decimated, and more and morepeople will die, on the street and in publichospital corridors.

Yet so far there's virtually no resis-tance-the unions are whimpering help-lessly and filing lawsuits. They're tied tothe bosses' Democratic Party and politi-cally disarmed. Having bought the Rea-ganite anti-Communist lies about thewonders of "free enterprise" (with thehelp of that leading Cold Warrior, 'AlbertShanker), the teachers unions and theintelligentsia in general have no answerwhen Bush calls for the wonders of the"free market" to be applied to publiceducation. Public education has sup-posedly been "discredited"-essentiallysabotaged via a starvation of fundingcombined with the lumpenization of theworking class and its children; particu-larly blacks.

A labor movement that fights strikesto win rather than engaging in uselessconsumer boycotts and lobbying cam-paigns could make short shrift of Wil-son's killer cuts-and win hundreds ofthousands of unorganized workers, in-cluding many undocumented immigrantworkers, to its ranks. A small taste of thepower of the working class was in the1989 Los Angeles teachers strike, when23,000 teachers drew in thousands ofstudents and community sympathizersangry at the school board's attacks. Highschool students staged "jumpouts" to getout of the locked buildings and join thepicket lines.

To really mobilize it's necessary toclear out the craven, corrupt bureaucraticmisleaders who exist to channel the angerof the working people into votes for theDemocrats. The urgent need all over rac-ist, capitalist America is for a workersparty-black, Hispanic, Asian and white-and a victorious socialist revolution.

It is tempting to simply revive theslogans of the 1848 Communist Manifes-to, as the issues have suddenly comealive (another demand was "a heavyprogressive or graduated income tax,"now undermined by numerous so-called"reforms"). But that was written beforeMarx and Engels had completed theirunderstanding of the bourgeois state."Tax the rich" schemes are a cruel hoax,for in the end it all comes out of theworkers' hides. After the Paris Communewas drowned in blood in 1871, Marxistsrealized that it was necessary to smashthe old state apparatus and establish therule of the workers in order to makeprogress. That remains true today.•

Chicago...(continued from page 7)

murdered Joo,OOO Iraqis and stamps outanyone who opposes the way things arerun. The cops you call on are the sameones who harass black students and blackyouth in Hyde Park."

The real role of the cops, to defend thecapitalist order and terrorize black peo-ple, was brought home graphically to themillions who saw the videotaped LAPDbeating of Rodney King. As for the FBI,these are the criminals who murderedBlack Panthers like Chicago's FredHampton under the deadly COINTEL-PRO program. And if there was onegroup of people J. Edgar Hoover loathedas much as communists and blacks, itwas homosexuals.

The fascists think gays are a "softtarget" whom nobody will defend. Theyneed to be taught otherwise in a "school"of hard knocks. On 27 June 1982 theSpartacist League initiated a labor/blackmobilization that brought out some 3,000unionists, blacks, leftists, Holocaust sur-vivors, gays and students to stop thegenocidal Nazis from staging an attackon the annual Gay Pride march in Chica-go's Lincoln Park. It's those hard-coreforces that must be mobilized againtoday to drive the fascist "Brotherhood"off campus and into Lake Michiganl js

Fight or StarveThe wrangling in Sacramentoprovoked

by the budget crisis is a predictable bour-geois response. On April 3, Jesse Jacksonled a rally of teachers, parents and stu-dents at the state capitol, pushing tax-the-rich schemes and pleading for "somemercy in leadership," while hinting of hisown presidential.aspirations for 1992. InMarch Jackson addressed teachers andparents in the Richmond school district,blaming Republicans for the. mess andcalling to "change the priorities." Whatcynical hype! The priorities of capitalismare, in order: profit, profit, and profit.S&Ls get bailed out, not schools.

In 1978, Democratic California gover-nor Jerry Brown hopped on the petty-bourgeois "tax-revolt" bandwagon, asProp 13 (the Jarvis-Gann amendment) cutlocal property taxes, shifting the burdenof funding schools away from local gov-ernments onto the state. Prop 13 rode inon a wave of racist reaction against "biggovernment" including funding for socialprograms. Despite providing some taxrelief for older homeowners, the realgains fell to holders of big property-big-time landlords and capitalists.

In the current crisis, both Democratsand Republicans are hatching schemesthat call for transferring some statehealth and welfare programs to localgovernments and raising local taxes topay for them. That will provide neitherjobs nor increased social programs but

state population. Hispanics now make upabout 25 percent, blacks over 7 percent,and Asians almost 10 percent-and thoseproportions are even higher amongschool-age children. The Asian popula-tion alone has increased 127 percent overthe last ten years. Of more than 200,000students entering the public schools eachyear, about 20 percent speak little or noEnglish. The proposed cuts will meanvirtually wiping out bilingual education.So hundreds of thousands of immigrantchildren will receive virtually no instruc-tion they can comprehend. Wilson openlyscapegoats immigrants for the state'sfinancial plight, declaring that California"has more than its share" of refugeesfrom Mexico, Central America and Asia.Of these, ho