WORKERS ,,1N(JIJl1ftlJ 25¢No. 330

.~~.:~ X_-52320 May 1983

\1

cutting the link to Honduras andsouthern Central America at the border.And while the sizable FM LN "areas ofcontrol" are expanding, the governmentarmy is crumbling as a result of masssurrenders to the guerrillas:

• March 27-Capture of 114 sol-diers in a rebel attack on San EstebanCatarina, 29 miles from the capital.

• April 17-Capture of 71 soldiersand their commander. overrunning anarmy post near Chichontepec volcano(La Paz province).

• April 18-Capture of 80 govern-ment soldiers on the San Vicentevolcano.

In addition, in what was described asone of the biggest FM LN victories of thewar. on March 31 guerrillas ambushedand destroyed two companies of thecrack U.S.-trained Ramon Bellosobattalion in the northeastern Morazanprovince. And in mid-April the govern-ment made its 14th attempt to dislodgerebels from Guazapa volcano just

continued on page 4

while the workers and peasants defyblood and fire in a struggle to ridthemselves of a rapacious oligarchy andits kill-crazed death squads. Ungo andthe rest of the phantom bourgeoispoliticians in the FOR ply tb? cocktailcircuits hoping to rally liberal supportand thus stave off social revolution. TheS L says: No negotiated sellout! Militaryvictory to leftist insurgents! Take SanSalvador!

Reagan's Butchers On the Run

After the "Heroic January 1983"F\1U\ offensive. which resulted in therebel occupation of the town of Berlinand attacks inside the capital itself. theguerrillas have kept up the pressure.pre\enting the army from taking backthe initiative oreven regainingequilibri-urn. The rebels responded to Reagan'sthreats by occupying the key bordertown of Santa Rosa de Lima in easternLa Union province on April 29. Theyalso destroyed five bridges along thePan American highway, including

.. .~ No Negotiatecl Sellout! .ill

successful the guerrillas are against thearmy, the more insistent their leadersare in offering to sell out what has beenwon on the battlefield in exchange forsome :cabinet seats and promises ofreform (the so-called "political solu-tion")" This pattern has again beendramaticaliy confirmed. A week afterReagan's war on Communism in Cen-tral America speech to Congress, FORleader Guillermo Ungo came to Wash-ington to hold a press conference inwhich he announced: "The UnitedStates has the right to stop the spread ofcommunism. That's true. We agree onthat" (Ballimore Sun. 3 May). Indeed.

DID

UAW: From Sitdowns tothe Chrysler Board Room

Doug .Fraser"~.· .•;~.·; ...Company CCJP ••~~, , .

. . "-''--:,- - --~:::-:\:.~;T,'!;:\:/-c.t~· .;- ;_._.:·-~;~:~~/~/i}{

Reagan's Butchers Shakioo

6~'"

MAY 17-A leftist guerrilla in centralEI Salvador recently declared, "We aremoving the war along as fast as possiblenow, so the people don't have to sufferso much. We are coming to the finalstage. We now have the capacity tolaunch a definite insurrection" (Wash-ington Post, I May). In recent weeks theinsurgent forces of the FarabundoMarti National Liberation Front(FMLN) have kept the U.S.-backedarmy reeling. The much-touted "new"military strategy (nothing but Vietnam-era counterinsurgency) has gotten no-where as each army sweep is met byfierce resistance and devastating coun-terattacks by the rebels. The FMLN-_iorces have IT,,,intained and acceleratedthe military momentum which theyseized last October, striking targets atwill across the country. Six months ago,the opposition Democratic Revolution-ary Front (FOR) declared that therebels were entering "a more offensiveand defining phase of the revolutionarywar" with the "creation ofconditions forthe general insurrection of the masses"(FDR/FMLN, Boletin £1 SalvadorLibre, October 1982). This has certainlybeen accomplished. What now?

In the United States, all sectors of theruling class are worried about the "firein America's front yard," vividly recall-ing the Vietnam debacle. Reagan wantsto escalate, the liberals want to nego-tiate. Now various reformists are joiningwith the Democrats to call an "emergen-cy" demonstration (on July 2!) for "NoVietnam War in Central America." TheSpartacist League (SL) says: Vietnamwas a victory-Two. three, manydefeats for U.S. imperialism! And thebourgeoisie has good reason to beworried. With Central America alreadyaflame, there is now rumbling in theSouthern Cone of South America. Onethousand arrested for demonstratingagainst the Pinochet dictatorship inChile, general strikes against the gener-als in Argentina, workers confront the1M F austerity policies of the popularfront in Bolivia. And to the northMexico is in deep crisis. Now is the timeto strike for victory on the battlefield inEl Salvador. A leftist military victorycould open the door to workers revolu-tion that could spread throughout thecontinent.

Yet as we have noted before, the more

La Migra's Racist Roundups in Chicago

Immigration cops raid factories in Chica~o, April 1982.

20 May 1983No. 330

WfJRKERSVANGUARDMarxist Working-Class Biweekly ofthe Spartacist League of the U,S,

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Noah Wilner

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Linda Jarreau

EDITORIAL BOARD: Charles BurroughS,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Mary JoMcAllister, James Robertson, ReubenSamuels, Joseph Seymour. Marjorie Stamberg

Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) publishedbiweekly. skipping an issue in August anda week in December, by the SpartacistPublishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York,NY 10007. Telephone: 732-7862 (Editorial),732-7861 (Business). Address all corres-pondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY10116. Domestic subscriptions: $5.00/24issues. Second-class postage paid at NewYork. NY.

Opinions expressed in signed articles orletters do not necessarily express the editorialviewpoint.

the "community" petty merchants-who fatten themselves off the blood andsweat of poor immigrants-do without"illegal aliens"? (CP fellow traveler RayRomero remarked: "Employers look atthings in terms of profits, what happenswhen you eliminate the undocumentedworkers and reduce the margin?") At the1982 May Day march, the SpartacistLeague (SL) contingent had the onlysigns demanding "Full CitizenshipRights for Foreign Born Workers andTheir Families! Stop the Deportations!""Asylum for Refugees of SalvadoranJunta Terror!" and "Military Victory toLeftist Insurgents in EI Salvador!" Forthis we were jumped by a goon squad ofthese nationalists and Stalinists seekingto keep out opposition to their popularfront with the Democrats.

These popular frontists, whose callfor a "negotiated solution" in CentralAmerica would lead to new massacres ofSalvadoran leftists. and who in Mexicohave for decades sought to tame allopposition to the ruling PRI. now seekto tie Hispanics in Chicago to theDemocrats' "reform" mayor. Yet thissame Democratic Party and the sameliberals are some of the biggestpushers of anti-immigrant legislation.The Stalinists along with the class-collaborationist labor tops call forprotectionist legislation against runa-way shops (run away to Juarez, forexample) and support protectionistdemonstrations against buying foreign-made steel (such as from Monterrey). Incontrast to this reformist racist poison,the Spartacist League calls for interna-tional class struggle. The SL points out

. that everyone in this country came fromsomewhere else (except the Indians andlook how they were slaughtered). Wesay that anyone who is here has a rightto stay with full citizenship rights.

More than a century ago Karl Marxpointed out that capitalism maintainsan "industrial reserve army" of theunemployed to hold down wages. In theimperialist epoch this reservoir of cheaplabor has been transferred in part to thecountryside of the "Third World" whichsupplies millions of workers to theadvanced capitalist economies, only tobe expelled during the inevitable depres-sions: Turkish and Yugoslav workers inWest Germany, Africans in France andan estimated six million Mexicans in theUnited States. Under capitalism thebackward regions of Latin America,Africa and Asia will never be trans-formed into modern industrial coun-tries, The possibility of eradicatinghunger from the face of the earth can berealized only through the collectiviza-tion of the means of production and aninternational planned economy. Undersocialism, in a classless society, nationalborders will disappear and no one willcall you "illegal alien.".

Carter/Chicago Tribune

for the garment sweatshops of theNortheast and the foundries in Chicago.Now with the financial and economiccrisis in Mexico, in addition to thenormal attraction of making a better lifefor themselves, hundreds of thousandsmore are being driven across the borderlooking for any kind of work.

Moreover, many Mexicans andCentral Americans meet death in theirattempt to make it to the "land of thefree." There are accounts of "wetbacks"murdered by Ku Klux Klan' mobswaiting for them to· cross the RioGrande, of bodies of teenage boys foundfloating in the river in Juarez, shot byborder policemen. From the KKK"border patrols" to their failed marchagainst "illegal aliens" in Washingtonlast November 27 (which was stoppedby the 5,000-strong Labor/Black Mobi-lization initiated by the SpartacistLeague), this is the fascistic fringe of theanti-Soviet war drive supported by bothcapitalist parties. Democrats and Re-publicans also join hands in pushing theracist Simpson-Mazzo Ii bill, along withsellout labor bureaucrats whose answerto unemployment is the chauvinistpoison of protectionism and anti-immigration legislation.

In Chicago, leaders of the Mexicancommunity have traditionally tied theworking people to the ethnic patronagesystem of the Democratic Machine. Inthe recent mayoral elections, marked bya racist hysteria campaign, the Mexicandistrict of Pilsen went heavily for MayorJane Byrne in the primary, then, facedwith the choice of black DemocratWashington or racist Republican Ep-ton, many opted for Washington. Sincethe Hispanic vote became a decisivefactor, the Latino wheeler-dealers arenow declaring that Washington's victo-ry "marks the beginning of a new era forHispanics," as Chicano reformist leaderRudy Lozano said (Chicago Sun- Times,15 April). But a token deputy mayor anda "commission on Hispanic affairs" willnot do much for Latin Americans in thiscity-all they will get from Washington& Co, is a big dose of the austerity thathe's already begun to announce.

Last year's May Day march in Pilsencame at the height of /a migra's"Operation Jobs" dragnet. Yet whileCasa Aztlan, a group of nationalists andfellow-travelers around the reformistCommunist Party (CP), were chanting"Raza si. Migra no," they refused to callfor full citizenship rights for our foreignclass brothers! After all, what would all

Stalinists/nationalistsattack SLcontingentprotestingINS roundupin Chicago'sMexicanPilsondistrict, MayDay 1982.

~<"U:;yoo

among the earliest pushers of Simpson-Mazzoli, are now complaining that the"penalties" against employers for hiring"illegals" have been watered down.Meanwhile the Reagan administrationhas taken up the issue as part of itscampaign to "secure our borders,"-supposedly against a "Communistthreat" from the south.

To generate support for Simpson-Mazzoli, they're screaming about howthe foreign workers are allegedly steal-ing Americanjobs, spinning horror talesabout "illegals" swelling the welfarerolls, packing the schools. This is a packof lies: undocumented workers livingunder the threat of deportation are notabout to voluntarily undergo welfareinvestigation. As for schools, foreignworkers pay taxes like everybody else-withheld from their paychecks. Theundocumented workers come here inthe first plaee because the Americancapitalists want low-wage labor forbackbreaking stoop-labor jobs in thefields of California and the "Sunbelt,"

and addresses on file, and could bedeported at any moment.

The Reagan-backed Simpson-Mazzoli bill now pending in Congress, iffully enforced, would lead to a SouthAfrican-style internal passport system,strengthening the police powers of theINS and expanding the Labor Depart-ment's role as a labor contractor. Underthe vaguely worded "amnesty provi-sions" of the Senate bill, applicants mustshow'tlrey entered the country before1977 and that they won't become"public charges"-impossible to provein depression-ravaged USA. Job-trusting union misleaders, who were

racist anti-Communist nature of theseterror raids was clear: some 50 Polishimmigrants picked up in the sweep weregranted special refugee status by theState Department because of "martiallaw" conditions in Poland. No such luckfor Salvadorans or Haitians, of course.

The vast majority of the estimated500,000 undocumented workers in theChicago area are Mexicans. In Febru-ary, many of them became particularlyvulnerable as more than 100,000 pre-dominantly Mexican immigrants, whoheld "Silva letters" giving them tempo-rary immunity from deportation, hadtheir status canceled by the INS. Theywere those affected by a federal courtruling in the case of Mexican immigrantRefugio Silva which held that thegovernment had illegally awarded thou-sands of immigrant visas to anti-Communist Cuban refugees at theexpense of other Western Hemisphereapplicants. Now the "Silva letter"people are in a dangerous situation,since they have already put their names

CHICAGO-With the push on to passthe Simpson-Mazzoli immigration "re-form" bill, they're trying to whip up achauvinist frenzy against foreign work-ers, During the month of March alone,some 1,000 "illegal aliens" were roundedup here by the racist squads of theImmigration and Naturalization Serv-ice (INS), known by its victims as famigra, The crackdown is part of anationwide pattern-the Border Patrolannounced it picked up an unprecedent-ed 107,997 people along the Mexicanborder in March, more than any monthin history and an increase of 43 percentover last year (Chicago Tribune, 24April).

And while fa migra spread its dragnet,the Tribune spewed out a racist propa-ganda barrage in a six-part seriesentitled "The Illegals." The press ac-counts did bring to light the desperateconditions faced by Chicago's countlessthousands of undocumented workers:from their perilous entry into thiscountry, creeping through holes in thechain link fences of the "TortillaCurtain," hiding in the brush from theBorder Patrol \",ho stalk their quarrywith an arsenal ranging from helicoptersto infrared nightscopes. At the mercy ofthe "coyotes" (smugglers), they payhundreds of dollars to be packed intovans and car trunks, arriving in Chicagoto wash dishes, sew garments or work ingrimy metal shops.

The latest sweep was called "Opera-tion Repeater," a follow-up on lastyear's "Operation Jobs," Reagan'svicious attempt to make foreign workersscapegoats for skyrocketing U.S. unem-ployment. In last year's ten-city sweep,Chicago was a particular focus of theINS: 1,295 out of a total of 5,000 arrestsnationwide took place·here. We report-ed how INS local chief H.A. Palmerraided factories and warehouses, sweptthrough the barrios separating familiesand slamming terrified people intoholding pens at O'Hare Airport. The

2 WORKERS VANGUARD

UAW: From Sitdowns to the Chrysler Board Room

Doug Fraser: Company CopDETROIT-United Auto Workers(UAW) president Doug Fraser is retir-ing and to crown his "achievements" hehas declared that the attempt by GeneralMotors/Toyota to smash seniority andreopen the Fremont, California GMplant without a union contract is not astrikable issue! Four years earlier,Chrysler's announcement of the closingof the historic Dodge Main plantsignaled an assault by the Big Three onseveral decades of industrial unionismin auto. Since 1979, with the activecollaboration of Solidarity House, autoworkers have lost $5 billion in wagesand benefits, the industrywide contracthas been smashed, and close to half amillion auto workers have been perma-nently unemployed. From Dodge Mainto Fremont, Fraser has hacked away atthe achievements of the UAW to thepoint where the future of this onceproud union is at stake.

Indeed 1979 will go down in UA Whistory as an infamous year. That wasthe year Doug Fraser purchased a seaton the Chrysler board of directors at theprice of hundreds of thousands of autoworkers' jobs. As Chrysler workersrepeatedly said during the wildcatsagainst the company and the UAWtraitors last fall, the UAW was being ledby a "double agent." The Fraser gangrepresented the company board ofdirectors in the union. Having retired asUAW chief, Fraser plans to stay on as aChrysler boss for at least another year.

The UA W is one of the main unions inthis country which has been led by socialdemocrats. One can compare Fraser'sjoining the Chrysler board with theGerman Social Democrats' voting forwar credits on August 4, 1914. At thatpoint the Social Democrats became notjust sellouts but direct agents of theKaiser who sent their workers to killtheir brother workers in the imperialistslaughter of World War 1. In the sameway, Fraser (and his leadership clique)has been a loyal member of the Chrysler

board of directors, directly destroyingthe most basic gains of the union andslaughtering the livelihoods and lives ofthe workers.

The UA W's complete prostrationbefore the auto companies is a directresult of the social-democratic WalterReuther tradition which Fraser contin-ued. Reuther and his henchmen throt-tled the class-struggle tactics whichenabled the LJ A W to organize the openshop bastions of the Midwest. He usedred-baiting and anti-communist purges.support for the imperialists' SecondWorld W"r and slavish subordinationto the Democratic Party to weld theLA W to the gO\ernment. Reuther'sgoal. dra\\ n from the program of thereformist Second IntcrnatlCna!..',d'. 'Cintegrate the hbor n1O\emcnt in!U thecapitalist state. \\ iping out ani' 'cmnant

20 MAY 1983

Q.

«

Fraser breakswildcat atChrysler's

Lynch Roadplant In

Detroit, 1973.

of union independence. In a polemicagainst such reformist misleaders in the1930s, Leon Trotsky wrote:

"The trade unions of our time can eitherserve as secondary instruments ofimperialist capitalism for the subordi-nation and disciplining of workers andfor obstructing the revolution. or, onthe contrary, the trade unions canbecome the instruments of the revolu-tionary movement of the proletariat."

-"Trade Unions in the Epoch ofImperialist Decay"

Now Reuther's disciple Fraser hascarried the tradition to its treacherousconclusion: a labor/capitalist "partner-ship" to dismantle fundamental gains inorder to prop up the U.S. profit system.

With Fraser on the board and theUAW in a straitjacket, Dodge Main andother historic centers of union militancygoing back to the 1930s sit-down strikeswere liquidated without a fight. Amembership imbued with decades ofunion consciousness was thrown to thewinds: most pathetic and symbolic ofFraser's defeatism was the whimper of

Fraser sworn inas Detroitpolicecommissioner,1974.

the Dodge Main local bureaucrats at the1980 convention, displaying a bannerwhich read, "With a Book Full ofMemories and a Heavy Heart, DodgeLocal 3 Says Good-bye to the UAW."

Over and over again Fraser rammedgiveback contracts down the throats ofthe UAW ranks. working in tandemwith company threats to close plants.and all in the name of"saving jobs." Theonly job "saved" was Fraser's seat on theChrysler Board: two-thirds of Chryslerworkers and almost half a million UAWmembers in all have been written off bythe Big Three and Solidarity House.

In 1979 the Spartacist League (SL)and our supporters in auto agitated forsit-down strikes against layoffs. whilethe fake-left trailed after Fraser. cailingfor "nationalIzation" (a disguised formpi subsldv w the bosses) to "savejobs."

and denounced the SL's "utopian" class-struggle tactics. Well, the balance sheetis in on the surrender strategy of Fraser& Co.: the total Chrysler/Ford/GMprofit for thejirst quarter of 1983 was $1billion-stolen out of the pockets ofthousands of UAW members. Todayevery single Chrysler plant is on over-time, with the one-third of the work-force left working under substandardcontract to give Chrysler its largestquarterly profit in history!

Fraser: Once a Cop,Always a Cop

Fraser trained long and hard for hisunion-busting. After starting in the oldDeSoto plant in the 1930s he becamepresident of Local 277 in 1943 as part ofthe Reuther wing of the UA W bureauc-racy. He was appointed to the Interna-tional staff in 1947, as Reuther's purgeof the Communist Party in the service ofthe Cold War entered high gear. After25 years as assistant to Reuther and anInternational Executive Board member,and finally as head of the UA W'sChrysler Department, Fraser becameinfamous as an open strikebreaker. Ashead of the UAW's Chrysler Depart-ment. he helped the company beat backthe black rebellion of 1968-69, embod-ied by the League of RevolutionaryBlack Workers. In 1973 he gainednational infamy by leading 1,000 bu-reaucrats wielding baseball bats inbreaking a wildcat strike at Chrysler'sMack Avenue Stamping plant. Whenmilitants at the Jefferson Avenue plantsuccessfully occupied an electrical cageand drove out a racist foreman. Frasercame out against the company's promiseof amnesty: "If you surrender to thistype of blackmail, there is no end to it."

Fraser had become a cop for thecompanies. And in 1974 he literallybecame one of Detroit's five top cops,accepting newly elected mayor ColemanYoung's appointment to the new policecommission, which was responsible foroverall control of the police department.Fraser served on the "reform" policecommission. helping Young and theDemocratic Party machine in Detroitreestablish the authority of Detroitpolice in the face of the widespreadhatred of the cops among the city's blackpopulation. And the killer cops of theinfamous STR ESS unit. who gunneddown black workers and youth at will inthe early 1970s, were set loose.

Fraser has been the fireman for theDetroit bosse'. denouncing busing for:ntcgrallof] because it "is a losing issue['oj1ticall\" (f)efroi/ Free PrcS\', 30\O\ember 1975) and \\.hlpping up a

protectionist frenzy, blaming Japaneseworkers for the massive job losses he hasrammed through. This has resulted inracist terror and even murder of Asian-American workers (see "Jail the Killersof Vincent Chin!" on page 12).

Now, with most auto workers inDetroit unable to get any job, Fraser haslined up /hree in addition to his unionpension. As an outside director forChrysler, he'll be entitled to $15,000 ayear with another $12,000 in special fees(for committee and board meetings),plus two cars a year. (And this year'sChrysler proxy report doesn't containFraser's pious 1982 declaration that heplans on donating his Judas money toscholarship funds.) There's another$12,000 or so for a part-time LaborStudies professorship at Wayne StateUniversity. and he'll also be the HelenDeRoy Visiting Professor in Honors atthe University of Michigan, teaching"the organization of work in the comingdecades" (or, "how to wreck a union infour years or less").

The UAW isn't even saying how muchdues money auto workers will have togive this traitor for a pension. Like hispredecessor Leonard Woodcock (whobecame Jimmy Carter's ambassador toChina), the real payoff might come fromWashington from his friends in theDemocratic Party, At one of the seriesof "thank you Doug" benefits organizedfor this traitor. former vice presidentMondale "hinted he has plans to putFraser in high office if elected presidentin 1984" (De/roit Free Press. 4February).

As Doug Fraser leaves the UAW eventhe strike fund is being raked to pay thesalaries of the International and localhenchmen who aided him in ripping upthe gains of more than 40 years ofindustrial unionism. The social-democratic, bureaucratic machine thathas translated UAW into "U Ain'tWorking" smoothly passes the top jobto Owen Bieber. while auto workersfrom Fremont to Detroit face crucialclass battles to defend their livelihoods.The housebroken "oppositionists" whoconstantly appeal to the "Reuthertradition" will never be able to fight thestranglehold of Solidarity House. InFebruary. 57 out 0(58 local presidentsand shop chairmen at Chrysler appealedto Fraser to stay on the board! It willtake a class-struggle leadership to winthe coming battles. Sitdowns. not soup-lines' Break from the Democrats. builda workers party to fight for a workersgovernment' Oust the traitorous UA Wbureaucracy! •

3

Spoltoc;st Compo;gnDrows Well ;n Block Ooklond

FMLN

Salvadoran guerrillas turn over captured soldiers to Red Cross. Governmenttroops are surrendering en masse.

•

EI salvador...(cant inued from page 1)

outside San Salvador, a major opera-tion involving 3,000 troops and air forcebombing, but without success.

Recently the Salvadoran govern-ment, prodded by the Reaganadministration, has launched a rural"pacification" campaign, combininglarge-scale military operations withstepped-up economic aid. The plan callsfor setting up fortified "strategic ham-lets" in the lowlands provinces, astrategy reminiscent of the CORDS(Civil Operations and RevolutionaryDevelopment) program in Vietnam.Coupled with Operation Phoenix, acampaign of assassination of suspectedViet Cong sympathizers, CORDS wasan attempt to isolate the guerrillas fromthe general populace. So far it has beenno more successful in El Salvador.When FMLN troops attacked SanMiguel, the country's third-largest city,2,000 government security force troopswere ordered to stay in their barracksrather than risk defeat by the rebels,who sabotaged machinery intended forthat province's pacification program.

The country is literally falling apart.The gross national product is down by25 percent since 1979. According to theU.S. embassy, damages to the infra-structure have passed a billion dollars,while another billion have been sent outby local capitalists hedging against aguerrilla victory. In the middle of thewar, after a second military rebellionagainst General Garcia (this time by theair force), the ineffectual defense minis-ter was removed and the entire topcommand reshuffled. The phony con-stituent assembly is split down themiddle between right-center and ultra-rightist forces. Ex-junta president JoseNapoleon Duarte, a Christian Demo-crat, is calling for "dialogue" with therebels while fascistic assembly president

OAKLAND-For WVreaders famil-iar with the reformist, ultra-electoralistSocialist Workers Party (SWP), theaccompanying map should be interest-ing and satisfying. It shows (in black)the areas in which Spartacist candidateMartha Phillips outpolled SWPer JanGangel in the recent Oakland CityCouncil elections. While the SWP re-ceived 1,906 votes to our 1,548, over600 of their votes (more than they beatus by citywide) came from the predom-inantly white, petty-bourgeois Rock-ridge area of north Oakland and pre-cincts bordering Berkeley with large

4

Roberto D'Aubuisson is calling for awar to the death-200,000 dead to bespecific. And now the death squads arerunning full blast again, massacringpeasants on land reform settlements,assassinating the chairman of theSalvadoran Human Rights Commis-sion, Marianela Garcia.

The FDR/FMLN leaders claim thatif "our people achieve victory by the

armed road" it will be with "greatersocial costs" than if there is a "negotiat-ed solution" with the Yankee imperial-ists and their Salvadoran flunkies(Venceremos, March 1983). On thecontrary, the guerrilla coalition and itspopular-front allies are now holdingback the armed struggle, giving thegovernment forces a chance to recuper-ate, in order to have something left tonegotiate. In the long run this will costfar more lives than an all-out drive towin the war, as the example of Vietnamshows, where it took 20 years and onemillion dead after the "negotiated

student and aging New Leftist popula-tions. In contrast, in overwhelminglyblack and working-class East Oak-land, we outpolled the SWP nearlythree to one. Similarly in the 90percent black areas of West Oaklandwe solidly beat the SWP.

The latest Militant's only mention oftheir campaign is a report of JanGangel's "ground-breaking" sale atthe power plant where she works,which netted five (!) Militants sold. Inthe last two weeks of the Spartacistcampaign alone, 499 Workers Van-guards were sold and nearly 15,000 of

solution" of 1954 before the heroicworkers and peasants finally drove outthe imperialists and their puppets.

The conditions for leftist militaryvictory in El Salvador are ripe. But thisvictory clearly poses the need for anurban insurrection of the working class.The proletariat must place itself at thehead of the insurgent masses if thesmashing of the old regime is to open the

road to socialist revolution. And thisrequires above all the building ofrevolutionary Trotskyist parties in ElSalvador and throughout CentralAmerica, sections of a reforged FourthInternational.

Two, Three, Many Defeats forU.S. Imperialism

As Reagan seeks to escalate militaryintervention in Central America, asection of the U.S. ruling class fears thata "new Vietnam" is in the making.Appealing to the "lesson of the painfulpast," liberal Democratic Congressman

our election brochures were distrib-uted by comrades and supportersof our campaign. Many of those whoworked on the campaign also joinedthe newly formed Labor I BlackLeague for Social Defense. OurBolshevik campaign centered on mili-tant labor and black struggle clearlystruck a chord in the black andworking-class districts of Oakland.And just as clearly the tepid pale-pinkreformism of the SWP found itsresponse among petty-bourgeois liber-als. For us, the Phillips campaign wasa solid success.

Black areas in map of Oaklandshow where SL's Martha Phillips(above) outpolled SWP.

Dodd warned that the U.S. is "onceagain on the losing side." Even Reaganmust pay homage to the "Vietnamsyndrome." In his April 27 speech toCongress, he declared: "Let me say tothose who invoke the memory ofVietnam: There is no thought of sendingAmerican combat troops to CentralAmerica." But in 1964, we recall,Lyndon Johnson ran as the "peacecandidate" against Barry Goldwater,declaring: "We seek no wider war."Under Democrats Kennedy and John-son, and Republican Nixon, Vietnambecame the longest, dirtiest, and onlylosing war in the history of Americanimperialism. From Central America tosouthern Africa, the oppressed masseswere inspired by the Vietnamese victory,while in the U.S. fear of "anotherVietnam" was a major barrier to newimperialist military adventures.

The American bourgeoisie has triedto overcome the "Vietnam syndrome,"beginning with Jimmy Carter's anti-Soviet "human rights" campaign. Rea-gan came to power vowing to "draw theline against Communism" in CentralAmerica, hoping for a victory on thecheap, in the U.S.' "front yard," to fuelthe war drive against the USSR. Butthese imperialist dreams are shatteringon the determined resistance of theCentral American masses. SandinistaNicaragua is grinding up the counter-revolutionary mercenary invaders. Sal-vadoran leftists are making mincemeatof the 9-to-5 U.S.-backed army. TheDemocratic "doves" believe that imperi-alist interests would be better served bynegotiations with the pro-capitalistleaders of the Salvadoran popular frontand a modus vivendi with the Sandinis-tas. But they, like Ungo, agree withReagan on his strategic goals. ("We willoppose the establishment of Marxiststates in Central America," said Dodd.)While boasting of slashing Reagan'srequest for military aid to his Salvador-an butchers, the Democratic-controlledHouse of Representatives votes almostunanimously to triple arms aid over theauthorized 1982 levels.

A negotiated sellout of theSalvadoran civil war would be a defeatfor the workers and peasants of CentralAmerica, and a signal for a massive newbloodbath. If the U.S. succeeds incrushing leftist insurgency in the isth-mus, its next target will be Cuba and theimperialists will be enormously embold-ened in their program of reconqueringthe Soviet Union for capitalism. It is inthe urgent interests of the world work-ing class for the USSR to send guns tothe Salvadoran leftists and MIGs toNicaragua. Reagan's claim that this isalready happening is, unfortunately, alie. The shameful appeasement of U.S.imperialism by the Kremlin overCentral America constitutes a gravedanger to the Soviet Union itself. Andthe treacherous reformists who call for"no more Vietnams" are spitting on theblood of the Vietnamese people in orderto make a bloc with the Democrats. Wesay: Vietnam was a victory! Smash U.S.imperialism in Central America! Forworkers revolution!.

Sparfacisf League Forum

Smash Racist Terrorfrom Greensboro to Gravesend

Finish The Civil War!SNCC, "Black Power,"and the Democrats-A Marxist Analysis of

the Civil Rights MovementSpeaker

Marjorie SlambergSL Central Committee

Special Guest Speaker:Ed KartsenNYC Transit Worker

Saturday, June 4, 7:30 p.m.310 W 43rd St (District 1199)"A" train to 42nd St

JL' mom m~~; ';~~~'''25WORKERS VANGUARD

Workers Fight Austerity

Italy: Battle Over the Scala Mobile

InterstampaItalian metal workers fight for sliding scale of wages.

From the Defeat at FIAT to theBosses' General Offensive

When the politics of "national unity"were at their height, [PCl head] EnricoBerlinguer proclaimed that "austerity isan opportunity to renew and transformItaly." With this criminal attack onworkers' gains, the PCI showed it wasready to pay whatever price wasnecessary to encourage the DC to allowit a share of the ministerial portfoliosand government posts. In 1979, at the

continued on page 10

the "internment" plants at FIAT anddozens of other factories where mili-tants were kept isolated from otherworkers as the prelude to getting fired;the splitting of the labor movement andthe founding of "free" trade unions, etc.,etc.

In the latter part of the '60s theworking class recovered and turned thetables. In 1968-69, it seriously under-mined the bureaucratic apparatuses'grip on the working class, formingelected, recallable factory councils inplace of the corrupt and ossifiedcommissioni interne. At the same timethe workers' struggle rallied sectors ofmore backward workers to its side andwon over petty-bourgeois students whoin previous years were dominated by theliberal and fascist right wing.

In 1969 the prerevolutionary situa-tion did not produce a revolutionarymovement because the reformist leaderssucceeded in derailing the immensepotential for struggle in an exhaustingand sterile "fight for reforms" inhousing, education, health as well asprogressive measures in the South. Theresults are plain to see: the governmentis imposing a charge (the so-called"ticket") on drugs and medical services,the educational system continues to lackschools and teachers (and those who doteach are badly underpaid), the housingcrisis is chronic. And as far as the Southis concerned, after two earthquakes anda cholera epidemic, the masses in theSouth rem~in. under the heel ..Qf themafia (Sicily), camorra (Naples) and'ndrangheta (Calabria), gangs who ruleunhindered thanks to their connectionswith the local and government powers-that-be.

But the 1968-69 struggle was alsoderailed by the illusion assiduouslyfostered by the PCI that everythingdepended on the Christian Democrats'refusal to allow the "party of theworking class" into the government.While the PCI upped its votes in everyelection from 1968 to 1976, attaining asignificant 34 percent of the total vote,the main bourgeois party, the ChristianDemocracy (DC), lost votes, droppingto a low of 38 percent. This led to theformation of various "left governments"in the principal Italian cities andwidened the so-called "red belt" to a fullsix regions.

Nevertheless the DC did not allow thePCl into the central administration,instead merely accepting its parliamen-tary support from outside, with the so-called "national unity" governmentsunder Andreotti. From 1976 to 1979 thePCI was used to put across the anti-working-class policy of "sacrifices" and"austerity," and to launch an anti-communist/"anti-terrorist" witchhuntthat led thousands of left-wing militantsinto "democratic" jails (and torture).With the sharpening of the new ColdWar stirred up by Washington, thebourgeoisie realized that the PCI haddone its job and once again dismissed its"Communist" servants.

Social Democracy and Stalinism:A History of Betrayal

In 1948, in 1960, in I969-every timethe Italian proletariat has showed itswillingness to carry the fight against thecapitalists through to the end, theStalinist and social-democratic leadershave proven in action to be in the serviceof the Agnellis, the Pirellis, the Costas[leading Italian industrialists], of theChristian Democrats, the Vatican andNATO. These betrayals have a history.Even at the time of the "glorious" anti-fascist Resistance and in the immediatepostwar period, the reformists demon-strated by their deeds their usefulness toItalian imperialism. In 1945-47 the PCIand PSI aided the bourgeoisie indisarming the partisans, evicting thepeasants from occupied lands in theSouth and persuading the workers towork harder with promises of pie in thesky, doing what no bourgeois partycould have accomplished.

Proletarian revolution was aborted,thus providing the basis for the subse-quent so-called "economic miracle," aphase of expanding production and abroadening internal market (the infa-mous "consumer society" which accord-ing to some two-bit "Marxists" shouldhave "bourgeoisified" the workers)based on intensified exploitation of aworkforce made powerless by theirleaders' betrayals. This cleared the wayfor the anti-Communist witchhunts ofthe sharpest period of the Cold War-

"more" means declaring a permanentstrike, with the petty bourgeoisiegrowing increasingly desperate. Pro-longing this impossible situation willonly generate a sizable fascist move-ment, with the capitalists asserting animperative need to break out of thebourgeois-democratic restraints in or-der to stabilize profits. This situationtoday poses urgently the need to forgean authentic Bolshevik party to fight fora revolutionary workers governmentbased on workers councils (soviets). Allthe attempts to bring the Ethocl'immu-nist traitors of the Italian CommunistParty (PCI) into the bourgeois govern-ment, whether advertised as a "historiccompromise," the "democratic alterna-tive" or a "left government" will onlyserve to prop up the faltering capitalistsystem. What Leon Trotsky wrote in the1930s is still true today: '''People'sFronts' on the one hand-fascism on theother; these an~ the last political re-sources of imperialism in the struggleagainst the proletarian revolution."

January 18:During one- .day generalstrike militantswear gags toprotestbureaucrats'order forsilence.

»""tJ

position) labor leaders it was decreedthat this would be a "silent" demonstra-tion with no rally at the end. Unionmilitants ironically mocked this bureau-cratic measure by wearing a gag overtheir mouths.

The union leaders, truly the "laborlieutenants of the bourgeoisie," rushedto sell out the workers by signing arotten agreement on January 22. Hence-forth the scala mobile would only cover80 percent of inflation. This betrayal isall the more excruciating in that theforces mobilized by the workers wereable to defeat the bosses and thegovernment, thereby opening the roadto a proletarian counteroffensive. Inseveral large plants the sellout wasrejected, while in other plants a highpercentage of votes went against theagreement.

In Italy the forging of a revolutionaryTrotskyist leadership is a burningnecessity. A strong, organized, combat-ive proletariat has been on battle footingalmost continuously for the last 15years. Today the only way the capitalistscan pull themselves out of the economiccrisis is through wholesale dismantlingof the gains of the workers movementwon in the "autunno caldo" (hotautumn) of 1969. To counter theeconomic chaos and destruction pro-duced by capitalism in its death agonyrequires a planned economy based oncollectivized property. Yet the workersmovement remains imprisoned in asyndicalist version of militant refor-mism, held back from a struggle forstate power by bureaucratic misleadersin "communist" and "socialist" colors.

Constantly demanding simply

tj,Ji,'/)"i;'JR'epbHJfOffi',' ..• ~.'·.1th~ Lega Trotskistad'ltalJa

Since the following article was writ-ten, a one-day general strike of Italianindustry was calledfor April 21 to backunion demands in key contract negotia-tions. However, fearing vvorkers' mili-tancy the labor bureaucrats on April 20rushed through an agreement coveringmetal workers in state-owned compa-nies, thereby undermining the nationalstrike. Meanwhile, the continuing par-liamentary instability of Italian politicswas signalled by thefall last month oftheFanfani government, the 43rd cabinetsince the end of World War //. Generalelections have been called for June 19,highlighted by the Eurocommunists'califor a "democratic alternative." thatis, to refurbish the bourgeois regimewith an anti-working-class, anti-Sovietpopular front.

MILANO-During the month of Janu-ary, the Italian working class mobilizedto defeat the Confindustria [employers'federation] over the scala mobile ["slid-ing scale," a cost-of-living adjustment]and the government's economic decrees.Facing a deadly inflation rate that hasraised the prices of staple items almost500 percent over the last 12 years, thegovernment led by the old ChristianDemocratic warhorse and aspiringbonapartist Amintore Fanfani is tryingto push the whole burden of capitalistirrationality onto the workers' backs.

The workers' rage exploded inmilitant demonstrations from one endof the country to the other, from theindustrial triangle of Milano-Torino-Genova in the north to Bologna, Rome,Naples and Palermo. In Genova inparticular on January 13 a general strikeoccurred when the FLM [Federation ofMetal Workers, strongest union in thecountry] and other unions called sector-al strikes against the explicit wishes ofthe CGIL/CISL/UIL trade-union fed-erations not to have a general strike.Over 100,000 workers took to the streetsin one of the largest demonstrationsseen in the postwar period.

On January 18 there was a virtualnationwide general strike, involving 8million workers. In Milano, more than300,000 workers from all over the regionof Lombardy filed by for several hoursin the largest union demonstration everheld in this city. Elsewhere in thecountrv estimates indicate no less thanhalf a- million workers carne out indozens of demonstrations. But in orderto avoid incidents between the Socialist(pro-government) and Communist (op-

20 MAY 1983 5

For Workers' Soviets to Smash the Gangster MilitaryJ

Bolivian LaborShakes Popular Front

After seven months of popular-frontgovernment, a social explosion isbuilding in Bolivia. The powerfulCentral Obrera Boliviana (COB-Bolivian Workers Federation), domi-nated by the highly combative andhistorically class-conscious tin miners,has entered into open conflict with thecoalition government of PresidentHernan Siles Zuazo. On April 19 themine workers union, backed by theCOB, seized the offices of the BolivianMining Corporation (COMIBOL-thegovernment-owned tin trust) in thenation's capital, La Paz. Already inMarch the government of Siles' UnidadDemocnltica Popular (U 0 P) was facinga strike wave. Now the peasant unionsoffered to supply the mining centerswith food, bank and government work-ers unions offered to help administerCOMIBOL (whose white collar workersopposed the takeover), engineering andmedical students formed brigades tocome to the aid of the miners.

The dramatic union actionsoon had asnowball effect as workers of the stateoil company struck demanding theresignation of top management. Mean-while, peasant unions blocked the roadsleading to three cities, cutting off thecapital. in support of the miners anddemanding higher prices for theirproduce; and peasants of the Cocha-bamba region seized government-owned lands. Siles responded by de-nouncing the miners as "anarchists" and"ultras," warning that their occupationis "illegal" and threatening to restoreorder by force. On May Day, 60,000workers-a huge number in this pre-dominantly peasant country-marchedin La Paz in support of the COB'sdemand for "majority workers co-management" of the mines nationalizedafter the 1952 "National Revolution." Aweek later police attacked hundreds ofgovernment employees demonstratingin the capital for the right to unionize.As we go to press, WV has learned thatthe miners of the key Huanuni camphave declared themselves against anyparticipation by the capitalist state inthe management of COMIBOL.

Bolivia is in the throes of a pre-revolutionary situation rapidly ap-proaching the flash point. While theuniformed gangsters are plotting as

always in "golpilandia" (coup-land),and the UDP is doing its bestto keep theworking people "united" with theirexploiters, what is remarkable aboutthis crisis is the depth of the miners'distrust of the "democratic" regimefrom the moment it was installed inoffice. Siles' not-very-popular popularfront today finds itself confronted with arebellion by the very workers movement

Armed tinminers opposemilitary coup,August 1971.

it was supposed to be taming. Theextremely unstable situation could leadto a revolutionary situation of dualpower with the overthrow of thebourgeois Siles government by workers'mobilizations; to an even more right-wing "democratic" regime; or to anothercoup by the constantly conspiringofficer caste. The urgent need is for agenuinely Trotskyist vanguard party toraise an action program of transitionaldemands mobilizing the Bolivian prole-tariat for the conquest of power beforethe popular front leads to a newbloodbath for the toilers. Only aworkers and peasants government

based on soviet power can put an end tothe cycle of coups and popular fronts.

And for once Bolivia is not alone.Throughout the Southern Cone ofSouth America the dictatqrs are totter-ing. The Argentine generals, discreditedby the failure of their Falklands!Malvinas adventure and haunted by the"disappeared" victims of their dirty warat home, are on the brink of collapse.

Chile's Pinochet has brought on theworst depression in the country's histo-ry, lining up not only the workers butmost of the petty bourgeoisie and thebourgeoisie against him as even pro-

_government unions go into action. TheUruguayan military has been repudiat-ed in its own rigged elections; in Brazil apowerful industrial proletariat is gain-ing political consciousness. And to thenorth, Central America is aflame withrevolt against decades of bloody rule bya rapacious oligarchy and its deathsquads, while Mexico with its many-millioned working class is near bank-ruptcy. Never have the possibilities

for revolutionary upheaval throughoutLatin America been so favorable, andthe dangers of betrayal by the national-ist and reformist popular frontists sogreat. What is lacking is the key elementof all, a reborn Fourth Internationalforged on the program of permanentrevolution that could lead the workingmasses to victory throughout the conti-nent and take the battle to the imperial-

ist heartland itself. This is the task whichthe international Spartacist tendency(iSt), and it alone, proclaims on itsbanner.

From the "Coca9Q!p-e"to the Popular Front

Siles, the 190th president in the 158years since Bolivia won its independencefrom Spain, took office last Octoberafter 18 years of virtually uninterruptedmilitary rule. Siles' UDP coalition wona plurality in the 1980 elections, as it hadtwice before, in 1977 and 1978, only tobe prevented from taking office by the

Bolivia:Even the Government

Is Underground

shot to hell. It's hard not to see thepossibility of a highly explosive con-frontation looming on the horizon.

"Furthermore, this is the firstcountry I have been in where thegovernment is underground, literally.After I had been there two days andhad not been able to ... even find thegovernment newspapers, I. .. tried toget the number in the phone book orfrom the operators for the governmentparties. There is none. The govern-ment parties do not have a phonenumber. Then I found a newspaperstand which hidden away had anumber of newspapers of the govern-ment coalition. I saw them by chanceand bought the lot. None of them hadan address at which they could becontacted. At which point I began towonder if they knew something Ididn't."

class and middle class .... The regimegives the impression of a ratherunstable walk on needles.

"The popular front is extremelyunstable. The army, while faction-ridden and somewhat burnt out fromthe experience, is still intact. Themajor sources of financial capital, theU.S., Argentina, Brazil and Peru, arehardly in a situation to go in shooting.The working class is in a state ofcockiness that is left over from thestrikes that brought down the govern-ment. The population is far from beinga spectator, they are actually involved,as seen in the people huddled on thestreet corners to read the latestnewspaper reports on the MIR-MNRIgovernmental crisis. the painted wallswith slogans which only appeared afterSeptember. The campuses, I am told,are highly politicized. And inflation is

working class] is not controlled by anyof the parties in the popular front. TheCOB ... has in fact adopted an attitudeof critical expectancy, i.e., maybe ifyou deliver on some of the things wewant we won't make trouble for you.

"So the popular front ... faces aneconomic situation that they cannotsolve short of mass pauperization,unemployment and brutal attacks onthe standard of living of the working

*****"Since the fall of the military regime

last year, the governing coalition ...has been trying to deal with the mess inwhich the Bolivian economy was left.This has proven to be intractable whileat the same time the working class hasnot given it a blank check. In fact [the

We print helow an eyewitness reporton the situation in Bolivia early thisyear.

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

Klaus Barbie and the Bolivian Navy

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In 1970 the Spartacist tendency wroteof the election of Allende's UP in Chile:

"It is the most elementary duty forrevolutionarv Marxists to irreconcila-bly oppose the Popular Front in theelection and to place absolutely noconfidence in it in power. Any 'criticalsupport' to the Allende coalition is classtreason, paving the way for a bloodydefeat for the Chilean working peoplewhen domestic reaction, abetted byinternational imperialism, is ready." -

-"Chilean Popular Front,"Spartacist No. 19 (November-December 1970)

This warning, which was tragicallyborne out bX the bloody Santiago coupof II September 1973, is no Ie~s true ofthe Bolivian UDP today. Trotskyistswarn the masses against any confidencein this bourgeois government; we seek tobreak the powerful workers organiza-tions from the popular front andmobilize them in struggle for soviets,democratic organs of revolutionarystruggle not only against the militarymafia but against the capitalist systemof misery and oppression; for sovietswhich can be the basis of a workers andpeasants government, a dictatorship ofthe proletariat supported by the poorpeasantry, which for the first time willbring real democracy to the masses ofthe exploited in Bolivia.

In fact this is an especially dirtycontinued on page 8

against Siles' measures and for a"minimum living wage" with full cost-of-living adjustment. The COB bu-reaucracy, with the Stalinists in the lead,desperately sought to put the lid on,agreeing to impose a 100-day "socialtruce" from Novemberto February withSiles.

Popular Front MeansWorkers Blood

and his jackbooted friends and Bolivi-an gorita patrons.

The issue of a Bolivian corridor tothe sea did not die with Barrientos. Adecade later. the Banzer dictatorshiptried to whip up patriotic fervor andproposed an exchange of territorybetween Chile and Bolivia. The re-sponse of Guillermo Lora's POR wasthe most disgusting nationalism, ac-cusing Banzer of violating "the territo-rial integrity of Bolivia." "The greatnational task of the access to the seapasses into the h,mds of the proletari-at." proclaimed Masas (30 September1977) in stentorian tones. It added,incredibly, "The sea is transformedinto a revolutionary and anti-bourgeois slogan," and, in short,"Struggling for the sea is to struggleagainst goritaism and imperialism"!!The "ship for Bolivia" swindle hasbecome legendary in Bolivia-without, unfortunately, inoculatingthe Bolivian left against chauvinistagitation for "the sea."

Sygma

Klaus Barbie (above) got his citi-zenship papers from popUlar

\ ~"e~---- Le Figaro' front head SUes.

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TROTSKYIST LEAGUE Of CANADA

SPARTACIST LEAGUE LOCAL DIRECTORY

National Office Cleveland New YorkBox 1377, GPO Box 91954 Box 444New York, NY 10116 Cleveland, OH 44101 Canal Street Station(212) 732-7860 (216) 621-5138 New York, NY 10013

(212) 267-1025Ann Arbor Detroitc/o SYL Box 32717P.O. Box 8364 Detroit, MI 48232 NorfolkAnn Arbor, MI 48107 (313) 961-1680 P.O. Box 1972(313) 662-2339 Main P.O.

Houston Norfolk, VA 23501Berkeley/Oakland Box 26474 (804) 543-4300P.O. Box 32552 Houston, TX 77207Oakland, CA 94604(415) 835-1535 Los Angeles San Francisco

Box 29574 Box 5712Boston Los Feliz Station San Francisco, CA 94101Box 840. Central Station Los Angeles. CA 90029 (415) 863-6963Cambridge. MA 02139 (213) 663-1216(617) 492-3928

MadisonChicago c/o SYL Washington, D.C.Box 6441. Main po. Box 2074 P.O. Box 75073Chicago. IL 60680 Madison, WI 53701 Washington, D.C 20013(312) 427-0003 (608) 251-3398 (202) 636-3537

Bolivia ...(continued from page 7)

popular front. Hernan Siles Zuazo isone of the two historic leaders of thebourgeois Movimiento NacionalistaRevolucionario (MNR), which came topower in the popular uprising of April1952. Siles-at that time the leader ofthe right wing of the MNR-was vicepresident from 1952 to 1956 andpresident from 1956 to 1960. Silesrebuilt, with Yankee advisers anddollars, the bourgeois army all butdestroyed in 1952-an army which hassince carried out some of the bloodiestmassacres in all Latin America. Then-president Siles was also the principalauthor of the infamous Huanuni massa-cre of January 1960, when at least 12miners were machine-gunned to deathand 32 wounded when they protestedthe MNR's attempt to take over theirunion.

Last October Siles had offered theCOB "co-management" of stateenterprises-in other words, laborrepresentatives on managing boards-also inviting the union federation to jointhe cabinet. Perennial COB leader JuanLechin Oquendo replied that he wouldonly agree to enter the government if ithad a majority of labor ministers and an"anti-imperialist" program. Silespromptly refused, whereupon Lechinadopted a posture of critical tolerationtoward the government. Later, insupporting the miners' seizure of theCOMIBOL offices, Lechin reiteratedthat he was only seeking "majorityworkers co-management." But throughtheir militant takeover the miners havealready imposed full workers manage-ment, under a union administrativecouncil that has expanded productionand swept out the inflated parasiticsupervisory apparatus. Class-consciousmilitants must demand: no giving backof the COM IBOL to the capitalist state!

The Communist Party, meanwhile, iscarrying out an open strikebreakingpolicy. Anxious to demonstrate itsreliability and "fitness to govern" to thebourgeoisie and imperialism by a hard-line stand against labor "excesses," thePCB has launched a battle against theMiners Federation of the COB over theoccupations. They have only succeededin further discrediting themselves, bothwith the bourgeoisie and the workers.On April 25 the Communist ministers ofmines and labor, the ones directlyaffected by the takeover, were called onthe carpet by the rightist-dominatedCongress. And the same day PCBdelegates in an expanded nationalcouncil meeting of the miners unionwere unanimously condemned forsupporting the government proposal of"parity co-management" of COMI-BOL. Militant Bolivian workers re-

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

8

member that the PCB, while todaylauding the fall of the military dictator-ship as "a result of the people'sstruggle," actually opposed calling theunlimited general strike that toppled thejunta.

Every class-conscious Bolivian work-er must understand that the crux of thecurrent conflict is state power. If theconfrontation drags on, the militaryguard dogs of capitalism will certainlyintervene again, either against the UDPor at Sites' invitation. But there aretremendous opportunities for revolu-tionary action in this situation. Al-though Siles & Co. have tried to get theunions to agree to draconian "sacrifices"with the classic popular-front argumentthat this is the "government of theworkers," from Day I of the UDPregime the workers have been skeptical.According to one observer, "the miners,who remain the social vanguard of thecountry, freely remark that 'they don'trecognize themselves in the presentgovernment'" ("Front populaire sur!'Altiplano," Le Monde, 2 February).Particularly in Bolivia, where genera-tions of miners have identified Trotsky-ism as the most radical expression ofworking-class struggle, there is a crucialopening today to lead the proletariat inaction guided by a transitional programfor socialist revolution.

While Lechin speaks of 51 percentworkers co-management of COM IBOLin cooperation with the capitalist state,Trotskyists must fight for a tQoth-and-nail defense of the workers manage-ment which has been established by theminers' bold action, and for seizure ofthe privately owned mines. The combat-ive miners cannot win by just holdingout, turning Siglo XX, Catavi andHuanuni into revolutionary citadels.The struggle must spread throughoutthe country. In the urban industrialsectors it is necessary to impose workerscontrol of production,' through theformation ofjactory committees. Theseconquests must be defended by theformation of armed workers militiaseverywhere. And the masses must bemobilized in revolutionary strugglethrough the formation of soviets, not areplay of the "People's Assembly" of1971, set up by Lechin et al. as asounding'board for nationalist generalJuan Jose Torres, but genuine organs ofworkers power.

For an Authentic Trotskyist Partyin Bolivia

These class-struggle policies, thepolicies of Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1917,are decidedly not the program beingcarried out by those who falsely pro-claim themselves Trotskyists in Boliviatoday. The Partido Obrero Revo-lucionario-Combate (POR-C, BoliviansectioJl of Ernest Mandel's United

VancouverBox 26, Station AVancouver, B.C, V6C 2L8(604) 681-2422

Secretariat [USec]) are busily tailingLechin and Siles. These former arch-guerrillaists, creatures of the USecleaders who in years long past dreamedof their "own" guerrilla war in Bolivia,now call for "a majority for the workersin the comanagement boards," de-nouncing as "ultraleftist notions" thedemand for workers control (Interna-tional Viewpoint, 18 April)! The Man-delites call for "mass pressure on theUDP government," stating that the"strategic objective" of the POR-C"does not involve all-out opposition tothe government, but a strategy ofpressuring it and exposing the capitula-tionist leadership" (International View-point. I November 1982). Calling theUDP government "part of the demo-cratic process that we are determined todeepen" through "a broader policy ofalliances" with "authentically democrat-ic sectors" (International Vie l,1, point , 21March), these anti-Trotskyists wouldalign themselves against the minersoccupying COMIBOL who are clashinghead-on with the bourgeois starvationgovernment of mass murdererSiles!

While the betrayals of the Mandelitesare noteworthy mainly for exposing theUSee's ever-dwindling Trotskyist pre-tensions. it is Guillermo Lora's POR(also referred to as POR-Alasas, afterthe name of its paper) that has themantle of ostensible Trotskyism inBolivia. Like the POUM in the SpanishCivil War of 1936-39, Lora's POR is thekey obstacle to the construction of aLeninist vanguard. This classicallycentrist outfit, which has periodicallybeen influential among the militant tinminers, wrecked a promising opportuni-ty for proletarian revolution in 1952 bysubordinating the working class to thebourgeois MNR, through the instru-ment of movimentista union bureaucratLechin. Again in 1970-71, through thesame instrument and using the samedevice of "critical support" to bourgeoisnationalism, Lora capitutatedbeforeleft-bonapartist General Torres-andBolivian workers were defenseless,militarily and politically, against thebrutal repression by right-bonapartistGeneral Banzer (see "Centrist Debaclein Bolivia," WVNo. 3. December 1971).Lora's lame "excuse" is a self-indictment: "There wasacommon view,which we Marxists shared. that theruling military group would hand outarms ......

After Banzer's victorious coup, thePOR-Masas formed a so-called Anti-Imperialist Revolutionary Front (FRA)to support General Torres. The FRAincluded the "Revolutionary ArmedForces" of bourgeois nationalist offi-cers, the Stalinists and assorted petty-bourgeois forces, plus Lechin of course,on a program of"fighting unity ofall therevolutionary democratic and progres-sive forces ... for a popular and nationalgovernment" (Masas No. 403, Novem-ber 1971). Lora hardly bothers todisguise his call for a popular front withthe "progressive" officers, writing in hisbook on the 1971 events: "At a certainpoint the nationalists with epauletsbecome allies of the working class andnot its sworn enemies" (Bolivia: de laAsamblea Popular al golpejascista). Incontrast, Leon Trotsky wrote on theSpanish POUM's illusions of purgingthe army: "The officers' corps, in whichis concentrated the centuries-old tradi-tion of enslaving the people, must bedissolved, broken, crushed in its entire-ty, root and branch" ("The Lesson ofSpain," 30 July 1936).

Today. Lora's POR affects a left-sounding posture toward the UDPregime. no doubt reflecting Lechin'shostility toward his old MNR rivalSiles, .llmas proclaims from its mast-head: "Proletarian revolution and dicta-torship (workers and peasants govern-ment)." Two days before Siles tookoffice, it listed under the front-pageheadline "Tasks of the Moment":"Preserve class and union independencefrom the UDP government," and "The

working class cannot join the bourgeoisgovernment of Siles." However, Lora'salternative is his own (so far onlyfictitious) popular front, the FRA:"Against bourgeois unity counterposethe unity of the oppressed nation underthe leadership of the proletariat (FRA)"(Masas, 8 October 1982). The referenceto proletarian leadership serves aboutthe same function as Lechin's talk of ananti-imperialist program. With Silesbarely tolerating the wretchedly refor-mist PCB, there are no current popular-front openings for centrists like theTrotskyoid POR. But should there be aslight shift to the left, should some"progressive" bourgeois politician or"patriotic" officer be willing to sign anempty statement recognizing the "he-gemony of the proletariat," Lora iswilling to play ball.

Even Lora's references to preserving"class independence" and refusing tojoin the bourgeois government havemore to do with Menshevism than withBolshevism. Behind the posture ofpassive "independence" lies the policy ofliberal tailism. In the Russian Revolu-tion of 1905 the Mensheviks adopted aresolution on tactics warning against"losing its identity in bourgeois democ-racy," and rather than "seizing orsharing power in a provisional govern-ment" (as Lenin's Bolsheviks advocat-ed) the Social Democrats should "re-main a party of the extremerevolutionary opposition" (The Men-sheviks in the Russian Revolution).What this meant concretely was to letthe bourgeois liberals, the Cadets,govern in peace. In the same spirit, theneo-Menshevik POR said not one wordabout struggle against the UDP regimeor for a workers and peasants govern-ment in the crucial moments when Siles& Co. were being installed with theconsent of the butchers in uniform.

Lora's POR bombastically proclaims"proletarian revolution and dictator-ship" and even discusses "What Will theInsurrection Be," but what is strikingabout Masas' propaganda is the com-plete absence of any transitional de-mands leading to the struggle for power.The only concrete demands raised bythe POR as "tasks of the moment" at atime when the miners were on strikeagainst the military regime were thoseraised by the Lechinista bureaucrats ofthe COBjFSTMB: "minimum livingwage with a sliding scale," "withdrawalof the army troops from the mines,""unemployment insurance," etc. Whatabout workers management of COMI-BOL, workers control of industry,workers militias, and above all soviets?Nothing. As for Lechin's class-collaborationist scheme of "majorityworkers co-management," back in 1971Lora praised "the struggle to impose co-participation" as "the real channel ofmobilization towards power" (Bolivia:de la Asamblea Popular al golpejascista).

Only proletarian revolution will putan end to the cycle ofcoups and popularfronts in Bolivia. This is also the onlyway the miners' current struggle to wrestcontrol from a parasitic capitalist statebureaucracy can obtain victory. Such arevolution, if it is to survive and openthe way to a socialist future for theimpoverished workers and peasants ofBolivia. must be extended far beyondthe borders of this landlocked Andeancountry. But at bottom, Lora & Co. arenationalists. not very different fromtheir more unscrupulous counterpart tothe south, Argentine adventurer NahuelMoreno. Twice already the POR'ssupport for bourgeois nationalism hashelped wreck potential workers revolu-tions. Moreover. Lora's "international"is almost exclusively South Americanand the POR's maximum slogan is foraSocialist United States of Latin Ameri-ca. In contrast, the Trotskyists of the iStseek to forge an authentic Leninistvanguard party to lead the working classin struggle for socialist revolution from

WORKERS VANGUARD

Jail Killers ofVincent Chin ...(continuedfrom page 12)

with three years probation and a $3,800fine for "manslaughter." Vincent Chin'sbrutal death wasn't manslaughter-itwas cold-blooded racist murder. Chinwas set up to be killed by the poisonousracist campaign of anti-Japanese pro-tectionism. The auto bosses. the Demo-crats and especially their flunkies in theUnited Auto Workers (UAW) leader-ship are scapegoating foreign workersfor the massive layoffs. As the clubowner described the scene:

"We got 16 percent unemployment intown. There's lots of hard feelings. Inmy opinion. these people come in. theysee a man. supposedly Japanese. Theylook at this guy and see Japan~'thereason all my buddies are out of work'."

Ebens swung the bat, and it was thetraitorous UAW bureaucrats in Solidar-ity House who told him where to aim it!Fraser & Co.-the blood is on yourhands!

Judge Kaufman's "sentence" of Ebensand Nitz is an invitation to more racistmurder. Kaufman accepted a pleabargaining agreement with the WayneCounty prosecutor's office and set thekillers back on the street because they"weren't the kind of people you send tojail." Not under racist American "jus-tice"! Kaufman, who is trying to paradehis liberal credentials and complain of"vilification" to counter the outrage athis decision, thinks that a white Chryslerforeman is not "the kind" to be sent upto Jackson. Trade unionists in Detroitremember who Kaufman does thinkshould go to jail-he imprisoned strik-ing suburban Garden City teachers in1974.

Over 500 people demonstrated inDetroit's Kennedy Square on May 9,organized by the American Citizens forJustice (ACJ) to demand that Kauf-man's sentence be overturned and theracist killers Ebens and Nitz be jailed.ACJ spokesman Kim Yee told thecrowd that Ebens was consumed withrace-hatred for all Asians, blaming themfor the ills of the American autoindustry. "They just wanted to get anAsian, any Asian." The rally and march,largely Asian, drew some black workerswho were outraged at the judge andprosecutor's deal to let the killers gofree. The racist hysteria whipped up byprotectionism and hatred of "foreign-ers" is part of the crisis of American

imperialism which sees its way outthrough a nuclear war drive against theSoviet Union. It is aimed squarely atblacks and Latins as well.

While labor/black Detroit has beengutted by plant closings and multi-billion-dollar givebacks to the autobosses, for nine years the pro-companyUAW bureaucrats have pounded awaywith their racist poison: "Love U.S. autobosses, hate Japanese workers," theysay. They plaster the union halls with"Buy American" banners, and theirCadillacs and Continentals with bump-er stickers that read "Datsun, Toyota ...Pearl Harbor." The sign on the guardshack at Solidarity House reads

oo.cQ.

>~

Protectionistpoison: Sign on

Solidarity House,smashing a

Toyota. UAWtops incite anti-Asian violence.

"300,000 laid-off UAW members don'tlike your import. Please park it inTokyo." Last year in Milwaukee UAWmembers slashed and stomped on aJapanese flag, and there have beenobscene publicity stunts where autodealers in Detroit take sledgehammersto Japanese cars. The UAW tops'favorite Democrat, Walter Mondale,practically called for war on Japan:

"We've been running up the white flag.when we should be running up theAmerican flag! ... if you try to sell anAmerican car in Japan. you better havethe United States Army with you whenthey land on the docks!"

After weeks of silence SolidarityHouse finally issued its first statement-UAW Director of Fair EmploymentPractices Joe Davis denied there was ananti-Asian backlash! The union officialsdid not even support the call for a civilrights investigation. The social-democratic labor traitors have whippedup the "yellow peril" racism andwarmongering to defend their "own"bourgeoisie and escape the wrath of thehundreds of thousands of auto workersthrown on the scrapheap of capitalistdepression. And when it goes from

sledgehammers smashing cars to base-ball bats murdering an Asian brother,the Fraser gang says its hands are clean!

The demonstration was dominated bythe popular front which lords it over thedesperate masses of Detroit: speakersfrom the city council, Mayor ColemanYoung's office, the big business cabal ofNew Detroit, Inc., Robert Blackwell,mayor of Highland Park, and theNAACP. The Democratic Party politi-cians gave lip service to the ACTsdemand "Justice for Vincent Chin" inorder to make sure the outrage at thisracist murder stays in "the channels ofthe law" (Detroit city council resolu-tion). But it is the same capitalist

politicians, largely inhabiting the Mon-dale wing of the Democratic Party, whohave been the most rabid anti-Japaneseprotectionists. Justice will not comethrough reliance on the capitalist courts,or faith in the "investigation" the FBIhas launched into violation of Chin's"civil rights." The courts and cops areinstruments of capitalist class rule, andexist to defend the bosses who whip upthis protectionist poison.

Black and white auto workers inDetroit must demand that the racistkillers Ebens and Nitz be jailed! Sendthem to Jackson prison and throwawaythe key! Ebens, however. a foreman for17 years at Dodge Truck in Warren, sayshe will file suit to get his job back(Chrysler fired him for committing afelony). If this racist killer tries to crawlback into Truck or any other plant. ortries to pick up his pension, autoworkers must organize to run him out!Chrysler workers remember back in1973 when two militants, protected by200 other workers. shut down theelectrical power at Jefferson Assemblyand ran out a notoriously racist fore-man. And in 1979 class-struggle mili-tants at Ford's River Rouge plant drove

out two foremen who dared to put onKKK hoods in the Dearborn AssemblyPlant. There are a lot of workers inUAW Local 140 who have a score tosettle with Ebens, who is known atTruck for firing black workers.

Vincent Chin's father immigrated toAmerica when Vincent was six yearsold, and worked his whole life inlaundries and restaurants. Chin workedtwo jobs and was the sole support of hiswidowed mother. He was murderedfour days before his wedding. Hisfiancee cried out in anguish, "Theyruined my life, my future. How can youcommit murder and get away withnothing? It's not fair. All I can do is

scream to myself, for him and for me."Vengeance for Vincent Chin will notcome at the hands of the capitalistpoliticians and their labor lackeys. whowhipped up the racist protectionismthat murdered him.

Unfortunately, many workers, whiteand black. buy the chauvinist poisonthat imports rather than the profitsystem cause unemployment. The work-ing class must be broken from protec-tionism and won to a program ofintransigent proletarian class struggleand internationalism! It's the KKK andNazis who feed off the "Buy American"poison. as when they tried to march inWashington, D.C. last November 27against so-called amnesty provisions forundocumented foreign workers. It wasin defense of all the oppressed that theSpartacist League mobilized 5,000workers and blacks to stop the KKK inthe streets of Washington, D.C. It's thatpower in Detroit which must be organ-ized to break the stranglehold of thelabor bureaucrats and to fight on behalfof all the oppressed!

Full citizenship rights for foreign-born workers! Jail the racist killersEbens and Nitz!.

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groups fighting for the program ofpermanent revolution against the popu-lar front. nationalism and the cynicismand corruption which accompany them.Under the acute social and economicconditions of Latin America, an authen-tic proletarian socialist movement couldmature very rapidly. FroP.1 the roof ofthe Andes to the tropical jungles ofCentral America. the road to liberationis the struggle to reforge Leon Trotsky'sFourth International as the world partyof socialist revolution.•

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and politicalization of a very isolated.concentrated proletariat, the harshrealities of the class struggle workagainst the pseudo-socialist swindlers.Throughout the continent the "leftist"intelligentsia partakes deeply of thevalues that extend throughout the upperreaches of Latin American societies.Sharp revolutionary struggles interna-tionally will be necessary to build masscommunist parties in Latin America.We must now create revolutionaryinternationalist Trotskyist propaganda

for a programmatic split is to say,"Cabron. I screw your wife. And yousteal party funds." And of course theyblame everything onyanqui CIA agents,to amnesty their own rulers.

Lenin's Bolsheviks were able to buildan internationalist communist party intsarist Russia. Behind them lay acentury of profound alienation of theentire intelligentsia from the socialvalues and morals of the tsarist autocra-cy and the landed aristocracy. (Leninadmired Chernyshevsky and took thetitle of his novel. What Is To BeDone?) Under the conditions of Russia'stumultuous political history. out of allthis-the intelligentsia's pervasive ascet-icism and rejection of Great Russianchauvinism (Russia was itselfan imperi-alist oppressor power). together with thepolitical struggle of the Marxists againstthe populists O\er the proletariat vs. thepeasantry as the driving revolutionaryforce. and the struggle within theproletariat over reform vs. revolution-the Bolsheviks were able to crystallize asa mass party. linking a small fraction ofthis purified intelligentsia with a great.raw. yearning. militant working classhalf a generation away from serfdom.

These subjective preconditions do notobtain in a mass way anywhere in LatinAmerica today. although in the Andeanaltiplano. because of the unionization

the Southern Cone to the heart of NorthAmerica.

The struggle to forge genuinelybolshevist parties in Latin America is anarduous task, requiring a clear politicalbreak from nationalism and from thesocial values of a nationalist left thatimitates its own rulers, embracing thevalues that have led to every mass-murdering bourgeois caudillo. NahuelMoreno, the Argentine pseudo-Trotskyist political bandit, is an arche-typical Latin American "revolution-ary." This would-be /ider maximo hailsas a kindred spirit every blood-drenchedThird World strongman from GeneralPeron to the Iranian feudalist Khomei-ni. Lora. who wants to be the labor wingof a Latin American Kuomintang.curiously mistranslates Trotsky assaying the proletariat must be thecaudillo (German: Fuhrer) of theoppressed nation. Both Lora andMoreno naturally defend the "nationalsovereignty" of their respective mini-fatherlands against neighboring Chile.(Bolivar failed to unify the ex-Spanishcolonies on a bourgeois basis. as theimperialists. especially the British. setregional leaders against each other. Butthe international proletariat will suc-ceed where Bolivar failed.) For theimitative macho pigs of the petty-bourgeois nationalist "left." what goes

20 MAY 1983 9

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A -... Pamphlet 25<

No to the Popular Front!

For decades the PCI has betrayed theworking class' interests, both historicand immediate, seeking to conciliate thebourgeoisie. In the '70s Botteghe Oscure[PCI headquarters in Rome] came tothe conclusion that short of a stamp ofapproval from the Vatican and the

in the PDUP / II Manifesto there is alsothe Democrazia Proletaria, which hasmade itself the standard-bearer for a"government of the left parties"-thePCI's "democratic alternative" with alittle rouge makeup to entice combativeworkers. As for the pseudo-Trotskyistgroups, whose highest aspiration is to berecognized by the reformists as usefuladvisers, they have nothing valid tooffer to class-conscious militants-whohave no use for people who go aroundrepeating from dawn to dusk "PCI-PSIUnity!" "PCI-PSI Government!" "Uni-ty Against the DC!" etc.

From the Lega Comunista Rivolu-zionaria (LCR), Italian section ofErnest Mandel's United Secretariatwhich fraudulently claims to be the"Fourth International"; to the reformistLega Socialista Rivoluzionaria (LSR),which has now abandoned its mentor,the Argentine adventurer Nahuel More-no; to the smaller Lega Operaia Rivolu-zionaria (LOR, formerly GBL), linkedto the scab "interna-tional" of AlanThornett, that is seeking fusion with theLCR, the various formulas these peopleconcoct at each turn only wind upcalling on the reformists to do some-thing. They have nothing in commonwith the revolutionary program andstruggle of Trotsky's FourthInternational.

The LCR, which offers itself up as adoormat for the "trade-union left wing"and as a tail for the DemocraziaProletaria, is now banking everythingon the "left alternative," calling for a"government of workers parties" (Ban-diera Rossa, 27 February). Thesepseudo-Trotskyists refuse to call for areal workers government. Yet therevolutionary dictatorship of the prole-tariat will not emerge from someelectoral combination or any bourgeoisparliament. The workers governmentslogan can be concretized in momentslike the Hot Autumn of 1969, whenembryonic forms of dual power ap-peared in the factories. At that time itwould have been possible for revolu-_tionaries to call for a PCI/PSljPSIUP/trade-union government based on thefactory councils and responsible tothem, to carry out the expropriation ofthe bourgeoisie.

This call would have shown clearlyhow the workers government sloganmeans breaking with parliamentarismand governing on the basis of organs ofsoviet power. In a situation of sharp-ened class conflict, such a slogan can bea fundamental tactical instrument bywhich Trotskyists aim to split thebourgeois workers parties along classlines-the proletarian ranks that wantsocialist revolution on the one side, thepro-capitalist tops on the other. Butraising the slogan of a "PCI-PSIgovernment" or a vague "left-wingalternative" under conditions of thenormal functioning of a bourgeoisparliamentary regime simply meanscapitulating to illusions in the Stalinistsand social democrats. And at a timewhen the reformists themselves areprojecting a "left-wing" government,this slogan by the LCR and its buddies,if it were to be realized, would simply bea waiting room for the popular front.

Counterposing itself to these oppor-tunistic maneuvers and conciliationist,reformist lines, the Lega Trotskistad'italia (LTd'I), sympathizing section ofthe international Spartacist tendency,seeks to construct an authentic Bolshe-vik vanguard, a Leninist-Trotskyistcommunist party, to lead the workers'struggles forward to the taking ofpower, "arming the proletariat to win,to expropriate and disarm the bourgeoi-sie." The task for Trotskyists is to winover the most advanced workersthrough intransigent political struggleagainst the pel's class-collaborationistpolitics. including refusmg electoralsupport to the reformists engaged in thisbetrayal.

Enough of popular-front collabora-tion! For a Trotskyist party to fight for aworkers government! •

White House, the PCI's entry into thegovernment was unthinkable. Its for-mula for betrayal was then dubbed "thehistoric compromise." Now, with the16th PCI National Congress, the Euro-communists have come out with a newversion of a class-collaborationist capi-talist government, the so-called "demo-cratic alternative." This is the latestattempt to revive the authority ofcorroded bourgeois-democratic institu-tions with the "clean hands" of thepopular front.

In a lead article by Berlinguer, /'Unita(26 January) commented on the selloutaccord of the 22nd, clearly revealingwhat is at stake for the PCI:

"As far as we are concerned, the fightswe will be engaged in and the initiativeswe will take will be aimed at solvingthe question of changing the politicalframework. of finally giving the countrythe orientation, the revitalizing andinnovative leadership necessary for itnot to go to pieces."

This proposal addressed by the PCI tothe Socialists (PSI) and the "enlight-ened" sectors of the bourgeoisie isdirectly counterposed to the workers'needs, and can only help the capitalistsbuy some time until they have thestrength to deal the workers a severedefeat.

The Italian bourgeoisie has consid-ered many times since 1945 the possibili-ty of putting in the saddle a "strong"government capable of imposing thewill of finance capital upon the workers.In the 1960s and '70s there were severalreported coup plots with the activeparticipation of generals, ministers andpresidents of the republic. The so-called"strategy of tension" by fascist terroristsconnected to the secret services led to anumber of killings. The last and bloodi-est was the August 1980 massacre at theBologna railway station when 84 peoplewere killed by a fascist bomb. Andcertainly a lot still remains in the darkregarding the aims of the MasonicLodge P2 headed by Licio Gelli, amongwhose almost 1,000 members are manyof the most prominent 1~>politi7"cians, high military officers in activeservice and personalities of the industri-al and financial world. The PSI ofBetino Craxi (dubbed by many PCImembers "Benito" in an obvious refer-ence to Mussolini) has indicated itsavailability to undertake steps in thedirection of bonapartism, on the condi-tion of being its main beneficiary.

However there is a big problem for awould-be Italian de Gaulle: the organ-ized proletariat, which has not beencrushed since World War II and whichover the last 15 years has waged manymilitant struggles. From June-July of1960-when hundreds of thousands ofworkers and left-wing militants foughtagainst the police of the short-lived DC;neo-fascist coalition led by Tambroni,leaving a dozen comrades on theground-to the powerful show ofworking-class strength in January 1983,it's been made clear to the bosses thatthey won't have an easy time imposing abonaparte. So in the meantime they relyon the reformists and their popular-front projects to do their dirty work forthem.

A current example of a popular-frontgovernment of reformist workers par-ties (allied with token bourgeois person-alities as guarantors of capitalist stabili-ty) is that of Mitterrand's France.Mitterrand's Union ofthe Left offers theworkers austerity, repression, anti-Soviet war hysteria-and includes theFrench Communist Party that the"Cossuttiani" [Kremlin-loyal elementsin the PCI] take for a model. TheEurocommunists' new collaborationistproposal has already helped them cutthe ground from under their left critics.At the recent PCI Congress. the"Cossuttiani" were effectively isolated.the inevitable result of their inability tooffer any real alternative program andperspectives.

Build a Leninist-Trotskyist Party!To the left of the Eurocommunist

PCI. aside from its reformist hangers-on

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government of the day, opening theroad to the overthrow of the rottingcapitalist system. With unemploymentrunning above the two million mark, orten percent of the entire workforce, it'sclear that the fight against attacks on thescala mobile had to put the full strengthof the working class-employed andunemployed-onto the battlefield, witha program capable of mobilizing all thelayers of the proletariat and the exploit-ed to launch a counteroffensive. TheJanuary 22 sellout agreement was a coldshower for the workers' mobilizations,but did not change the main conclusion:the situation in Italy is serious anddemands drastic solutions.

The struggle didn't come to an end onJanuary 22. In the first place, Confin-dustria did not succeed in beating theworking class, in spite of all the effortsof its labor lieutenants. Also, contractstruggles involving several millionworkers are still going on (metalworkers, construction workers, schoolworkers and teachers, state and localgovernment employees, etc.), strikesand demonstrations continue unabated.Contrary to the defeatism of the NewLeft and the fake-Trotskyists, who arealready holding funeral services for theworkers movement, the final whistle inthis round of the class struggle has notyet been blown. A national contractstrike by one of the affected sectorscould spark a movement to restore thefull scala mobile. With the bourgeoisieattempting to throw the working classback 30 years, this would require amobilization of the labor movement in ageneral strike for a sliding scale of wagesand hours, to bring down the Fanfanigovernment and its Cold War austerityplans.

A general strike of this kind wouldbegin with a mainly defensive character,but action on such a scale wouldinevitably pose the question: who's incharge here, the bosses or the workers?A working-class victory-a real possi-bility, given the divisions in the Italianbourgeoisie-would open up a wide-ranging political and social crisis,directly posing the question of statepower. Obviously, the reformists wouldtry their best to send the strikers backhome, probably calling for new parlia-mentary elections. But the workers,encouraged by their success, could takethe offensive, creating workers councilsall over the country, imposing workerscontrol in the plants and extending dualpower throughout society, winning totheir side in the heat of struggle theunemployed, students, peasants, house-wives and all the exploited and op-pressed. This is the only perspective theItalian proletariat has for fighting andwinning, and it is in the course of thisstruggle that it will forge the cadre andthe party capable of leading the socialistrevolution.

25¢$1.00

naly ...(continued from page 5)time when scores of combative workersfrom FIAT were fired as a prelude to the1980 attack, the PCI's Giorgio Amendo-la expressed the depths of PCI hostilitytoward the working class:

" ... demands have grown out of control... wages (of