25¢No. 449 25 March 1988

"Rambo" Reagan Sends .Inthe ·82nd Airborne

Smash Yankee Imperialismin Central Americal

AP/Wide orldNicaraguan women, arms in hand, march on International Women's Day to honor Sandinlsta hero Nora Astorgaand defend the revolution. '

Defend Nicaragua-Complete, Extend the Revolution!The 3,200 u.s. troops Ronald Rea-

gan dispatched to Honduras March 16were a big step up the escalation ladderin Central America. Inventing the pre-text of a supposed "invasion" by Sandi-nista Nicaragua, this war move was aconvenient means to distract attentionfrom the indictments offour ofthe Iran/Contragate conspirators announcedthat same day and to stampede Con-gress into voting for aid to Reagan'scontra terrorists. The administration'sall-purpose ploy also helps undercut theDemocrats' Arias "peace" plan, and per-haps a whiff of gunpowder would rallyvoters to the Republicans. But mean-while, there are four battalions of theUnited States Army's Rapid ReactionForce (two each from the 7th LightInfantry Division and the 82nd Air-borne) poised along the Nicaraguanborder. They won't intimidate the San-dinistas, but they're available for what-ever provocation the lame ducks in theWhite House dream up: a border skir-mish, "restoring order" in Panama, youname it.

In the streets of America, Reagan'sdispatch of U.S. troops to Honduraswas met with an outburst of demon-strations (see article below). The pro-tests were only a taste of what wouldhappen in this country if large-scaleU.S. military intervention were attempt-ed. And they intersect divisions in theruling class over Nicaragua. For theDemocrats, it was another shootout atCredibility Gap with an administrationthat runs on lies. At the Pentagon,reaction was unanimously negative: onetop official said, "I don't know-of any

military person who thinks [sendingtroops] is a good idea" (WashingtonPost, '17 March). The generals are stillgun-shy over the U.S.' humiliating

defeat in Vietnam, the liberals thinkReagan's cowboy act has flopped 'andwant to clan it up, and the reformist lefttags along with their calls for a "dem-

ocratic" foreign policy. In contrast, weTrotskyists seek to smash Yankee im-perialism, calling on American workers

continued on page 12

shipped out joined pacifist demon-strators; one soldier's pregnant wifecarried a sign reading "Stop the Lies."

The breadth and depth ofthe Ameri-can population's opposition to Rea-gan's bloody mass murderers in CentralAmerica is clear in this instant response.And U.S. troops aren't even involved indirect combat yet-these protests areonly a hint of the explosion that a directU.S. invasion of Nicaragua would'ignite. Many of the protests were or-ganized by pacifist groups like Pledge of ;Resistance, and the familiar tactics of ,"civil disobedience" have been playedout in many cities, with hundredsarrested for blocking traffic, sitting in atmilitary recruiting stations, and so on.

continued on page 13

A wave of protests has swept thecountry against Reagan's sending U.S.troops to Honduras. Within hours,thousands of demonstrators have hit thestreets, demanding "U.S. Troops Out"and "No Contra Aid" everywhere fromWashington, New York and Bostonthrough Cleveland, Minneapolis, Chi-cago and scores of other cities, to theSan Francisco Bay Area, where angryprotests have escalated daily in some ofthe most volatile street demonstrationssince the Vietnam War. The growingBay Area actions have been greeted bymany who recall those '60s protests andtoday have sons or even grandsons theyfear will be swept up in another bloody,losing "Vietnam." At Fort Ord, someanxious wives of the soldiers being

Reagan's War Moves ProvokeCoast-to-Coast Protests

v 00San Francisco, March ,18-Spartacist League at the SF Federal Buildingprotesting U.S. troops to Honduras.

/

Thatcher's Death Squads Hit IRA

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Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) 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: 732-7862 (Editorial), 732-7861(Business). Addresllall correspondence to: Box 1377. GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $5.00/24issues. second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard,Box. 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.

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pendent (8 March) reported: "Accord-ing to a source formerly in a key positionat the Army's HQ Northern Ireland,when the SAS is committed there is nor-mally an understanding that no prison-ers will be taken."

While nothing can be believed fromthe lying accounts of the bourgeoispress, if there is any truth to the storythat the three IRA members were con-sidering an attack on the Royal AnglianRegiment, such an attack-unlike theindefencible, indiscriminate bombing atEnniskillen several months ago-wouldclearly have targetted the armed forcesof British imperialism which have beenoppressing the Irish people. The Britishmilitary installation on Gibraltar is partof a chain of listening posts operated byGCHQ at Cheltenham; the Rock itselfhas been tunnelled to house NATO cen-tres and even a mock-up of Belfast sidestreets to provide training for Britishtroops awaiting transfer to Ulster.

Smash the .RUe!British Troops Out of Ireland!

Two weeks to the day before the6 March assassinations, Aidan McAnes-pie, a 24-year-old election worker forSinn Fein, was shot to death by a Britishsoldier at an army checkpoint inAughnacloy, County Tyrone, North-ern Ireland. McAnespie was on his wayto buy sweets before the start of a localfootball match. On 5 March, the funeralfor IRA veteran Brendan Burns-whowas killed with fellow IRA memberBrendan Moley by the explosion of theirown bomb-turned into another showof British/RUC terror. The RUCcharged the funeral procession withbatons swinging, injuring an elderlyman and three women; the Armymounted a large backup operationincluding two Chinook helicopters toferry soldiers and .police to the grave-side. Mourners for the slain IRAmember conducted the burial servicesurrounded by military personnel andcops in riot gear.

The recent appearance of JohnStalker's book detailing his investiga-tion into RUC shootings in 1982, hisremoval from that investigation andAttorney General Mayhew's announce-ment that· there would be no prose-cutions filled the press just beforeGibraltar. Stalker, at the time the dep-uty chief constable ofGreater Manches-ter, went to Northern Ireland in 1984 toinvestigate the shootings of seven Irish

·Catholic youth. All had been killed(except one, who was seriouslywounded) within a month and in each

continued on page 14

the crowd. The outraged crowd draggedthe two men away and they wereshortly despatched. Now the arrogantBritish rulers who only a week earlierassassinated the three IRAers in Gib-raltar are hypocritically screaming

. bloody murder. Northern Ireland ison the boiling point, with the flamesof anti-Catholic terror and sectarianviolence being stoked by Thatcher'sdeath squads. British troops out ofIreland now!

British intelligence in collaborationwith Spanish police had McCann andSavage under surveillance for months.When, on 6 March, the IRA membersparked a car and began to walk towardthe border, British agents tracked themon foot and shot them to death. ByMonday morning, the' government'sstory-reported as fact in the press-was that the car contained a 500-poundbomb which had been defused by a con-trolled explosion and that the IRAmembers were "believed to be heavilyarmed." However;. Foreign SecretaryGeoffrey Howe later announced thatsame day that the car did not contain abomb at all and that "Those'killed weresubsequently found not to be carryingarms." In other words, it was cold-blooded murder!

The British bourgeoisie did' notbother to conceal its glee over thisbloody crime. Snapping to attention,Labour's foreign affairs spokesmanGeorge Robertson "congratulated thesecurity forces" and went onto howl formore of the same. Indeed this lackey ofimperialism was so eager to endorse theGibraltar massacre that he asked Howeif he could be sure that all those in theconspiracy had been shot! Tile acco-lades to the SAS commandos are fully inkeeping with Labour's pro-imperialistpolicies on Ireland. As Workers Ham-mer (No. 88, May 1987) wrote: "Whatcan you expect from the party which ingovernment sent in the troops in 1969,which enacted the Prevention of Ter-rorism Act and unleashed the SAS kill-ers in the mid- I970s, which obscenelytold [IRA hunger striker] Bobby Sandsto go ahead and die in 1981?"

But, in no small part due to theirprevarication and endlessly shiftingstories, Thatcher & Co. have not quitepulled this off. The press began runningqueasy articles like that in the [London]Guardian (9 March) which read: "Whathappened in Gibraltar on Sunday ...begins to look rather less simple than itdid in the headlines next morning."Through the heavy tissue of govern-ment lies it emerges that the SAS hit wasa planned assassination. As the Inde-

LENIN

25 March 1988

Catholic Belfast were burning, as out-raged youth hurled Molotov cocktails.And three days later, the funeralprocession for one of those killed at theearlier funeral was itself attacked, as acar driven by two gun-wielding plainclothes British soldiers rammed into

APMarch 16-Mourners at Catholic Milltown cemetery duck for cover as crazed Orange terrorist pours gunfire andgrenades into crowd, killing three. .

No. 449

TROTSKY

Class War Against Colonial WarThe U.s. military intervention in Cen-

tral America poses the urgent need forlabor action against Reagan's war moves,In 1924-26, the Frenchgovernment (whichfor a time included the reformist SocialistParty) waged a savage colonial waragainstthe Rif guerrilla forces fighting for theindependence of Morocco. The FrenchCommunist Party sought to aid this na-tional liberation struggle by waging classwar on the home front. Below is a

statement summarizing the revolutionary campaign ofthe Communists, who raisedthe slogan "immediate peace with the Rif."

Along with this slogan, the Party raised that of withdrawal from Morocco,recognition of the Rif, and proposed the following measures: boycott of warmanufacture and transport, preparation of a 24-hour general strike, andfraternization at thefront. The maneuvers of the Painleve government in preparationfor its offensive (the peace offer to Abd el-Krim), the passing of the Socialist Partyinto opposition in order to disorient public opinion, have made necessary muchgreater precision in explaining

Salvadoran Union Leader Kidnal!l!ed by' Death Sguad Regime

Labor Solidarity Frees Humberto Centeno

0$2/10 introductory issues ofWorkers Vanguard(includes Spartacist)

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ians, human rights organizations andothers in Britain, France, Germany,Italy and Australia. .

Across the U.S. there were protests.The Committee in Solidarity with thePeople of El Salvador (CIS PES) calleddemonstrations in New York, Washing-ton and San Francisco. SF mayor ArtAgnos called the Salvadoran consulateon behalf of Centeno. The ASTTELSupport Project of the New York AreaLabor Committee in Support of De-mocracyand Human Rights in El Sal-vador mobilized union officials to sendtelegrams. Together with the Salvado-

"ran Labor Defense Network in the BayArea they are putting together a full-page ad to be published in a San Salva-dor newspaper, signed by severalhundred. American trade unionists,protesting anti-labor repression.

The PDC called unions in Boston,Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Los An-geles, New York, Philadelphia and SanFrancisco. Telephone workers wereamong the first to respond. In SanFrancisco, officials of Communica-tions Workers of America participatedin the protest outside the Salvadoranconsulate and signed a telegram alongwith 17 members of CWA locals in SFand Oakland. CWA union officials inNew York and Cleveland also sentprotests.

Dozens of local union leaders of thepostal workers, auto workers, oil work-ers, municipal workers, machinists andteachers told the PDC they would sendoff protests immediately. Mike Olszan-ski, president of Steelworkers Local1010, fired off a telegram to Duarte "onbehalf of our 11,000 members."

The outpouring ofcondemnation wasinstrumental in obtaining the release ofSalvadoran union leader HumbertoCenteno in a single day. This is a tre-

o mendous victory for a land where thou-sands of trade unionists have beengunned down and "disappeared" by the"forces of order." But the. bestial anti-labor repression continues. In the pastthree months, three ASITEL phoneworkers have been assassinated, as wellas teachers, nurses and other unionmembers.

The UNTS, which brought out 3,000workers Friday to demand" freedomfor Humberto Centeno, is campaign-ing against the "gunpoint elections"called at the behest of the U.S. as partof its counterinsurgency war on theSalvadoran working people. Under theguns of this U.S.-sponsored terrorregime, tens of thousands of workersare courageously striking against thebloody Duarte regime of IMF starva-tion and death squad "democracy." Wepledge them our militant solidarity andsupport.. .

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Marxist Working-Class ""'ekly of the Spartacist League

449"Mike checkl payable/mall to: Spartllcllt Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 101-16

killing theseleaders,as hasbeendone tohundreds of Salvadoran workers lead-ers beforethem-as well as the Archbish-op Romero, listen to the voices of theexploited and oppressed.':

A PDC delegation went to theSalvado-ran consulate in New York with theprotest, which was also delivered to theSan Francisco consulate and Salvado-ran embassy in Washington, and tele-

o graphed to President Duarte and theAmerican Embassy in San Salvador.

The New York delegation includedpresent and former telephone unionistsand a spokesman for the SpartacistLeague. The Partisan Defense Com-mittee is a class-struggle legal defenseorganization in accordance with thepolitical views of the SL. The PDC alsoalerted trade unionists, parliamentar-

and driven off. Troops forced the otherunionists back into the bus, and thenfired their weapons, wounding four.

Upon learning of Centeno's arrest thePartisan Defense Committee mountedan emergency international protestcampaign. The PDC issued a state-ment demanding his immediate re-lease, declaring:

"The utterly legitimate social strugglesby phone workersand other unionsarethe source of social betterment for EISalvador. The attack against the work-ers leaderHumbertoCenteno raisesthelunar vista of gullies full of victims ofthe death squad.... In this land wheremurderhas begottenmurder, insteadof

harles KernaghanHumberto Centeno (center) visits his two sons JaJme and Jose In prison,1987. Below:' Militant workers march In San Salvador demanding freedomfor Centeno, March 11.

WV otosSL and POC join March 11 demonstrations demanding Centeno's freedom atEI Salvador consulates in New York City (left) and San Francisco (right).

When Salvadoran trade-union leaderHumberto Centeno was seized and sav-agely beaten by government troops onMarch 10, it touched off a wave ofinternational labor protests. The Parti-san Defense Committee had alreadyaided in publicizing the plight of Cen-teno's two sons, who had been kid-napped and held in Duarte's dungeons.Upon learning of his arrest, the PDCmobilized immediately, and within afew hours contacted several dozenunionists around the country. We printbelow the PDC statement issued uponCenteno's release.

We have learned from San Salvadorthat at 11:30 a.m. today trade-unionleader Humberto Centeno was releasedby the notorious Treasury Police to theNational Unity of Salvadoran Workers(UNTS). His union brothers are nowprotecting Centeno in the DiagnosticCenter hospital where he remains instable but serious condition as a result ofthe brutal beating he received during hisarrest on Thursday evening, March 10.

In response to the vicious assault onCenteno, Salvadoran workers mobi-lized in militant protest. There was alsoan immediate outcry of protest interna-tionally, expressing the revulsion ofworking people and others who are fedup with the terror regime which haspiled up mountains of corpses of theirclass brothers and sisters in El Salvador.

The Partisan Defense Committeeholds the Salvadoran government ofPresident Jose Napoleon Duarte and hisU.S. government godfathers responsi-ble for this atrocity. We hail the freeingof Centeno as a signal victory for inter-national labor defense, while calling forcontinued vigilance against the deathsquads in and out of uniform.

Humberto Centeno is a leader of theUNTS, theprincipal labor federation ofthe country, and general secretary of theAssociation of TelecommunicationsWorkers of El Salvador (ASTTEL). Heand his family have suffered beyondmeasure from the bloody Duarte tor-ture regime: in November 1985,his twosons Jose and Jaime were kidnapped,tortured and jailed for two years.

In the Thursday attack Centeno wastraveling with an American delegationto the Ministry of Labor where unionrepresentatives were surrounded byseveral hundred government soldiers.The bus was stopped' by Air Forcetroops, Centeno was singled out andrepeatedly kicked and punched, receiv-ing numerous blows to the head andneck, thrown onto the floor of a truck

25 MARCH 1988 3

Gorbachev's Afghan Sellout:Some Russians' Say Nyet

continued on page 11

government has repeatedly changed.State events werepreceded by mullahs'prayers. The flag ceased to be red andincluded a green Islamic fragment. Thecountry's star and sickle disappeared.The party stopped speaking of con-structing a socialist society.... Andmost important-the declaration of apolicy of national reconciliation...."All this taken together permits one tosay:the originalaimsproclaimed by thePDPA have not been achieved.... Ifthis is the case, the presence of Sovietforces in the country loses its meaning.A departure is inevitable and logical."

-s-Literatumaya Gazeta,f7 February

In fact, it was the abandonment of arevolutionary social program which hasweakened the PDPA regime. And atevery step-cutting back on land re-form, toning down the campaign forwomen's rights, restoring Islam as thestate religion-the PDPA's policieswere dictated by the Kremlin, which hasheld the reins of power in Kabul. Moreimportantly, a social revolution in thisprofoundly backward country couldonly be introduced from without,through the agency of the Red Army.That.is why a Soviet withdrawal, what-ever policies the PDPA pursues, is nec-essarily a betrayal of the cause of socialprogress for the Afghan peoples. Theprospect of a "future traditional Islamic,nonaligned Afghanistan" which Pro-khanov holds out means a return to thedark night of medievalism.

In his attempt to prepare the Sovietpopulation for pulling out of Afghani-stan, Gorbachev has called the Afghanwar a "bleeding wound," echoingimperialist propaganda that this was"Russia's Vietnam." For years theAmericans have been hoping that theSoviet Union would get bogged down ina losing war in Afghanistan like the U.S.war in Indochina. The comparison isspurious: America was defeated on thebattlefield by the Vietnamese workersand peasants in a social revolution,whereas the Soviet bureaucracy neverreally tried to, win in Afghanistanbecause it refused to implement a socialrevolution. One bourgeois commenta-tor recently recognized that "The Sovietarmy has never committed..itself fullyin Afghanistan'ttl.ondon Independent,2 March).

Furthermore, the Soviet Unionshares a I,OOO-mile border with Af-ghanistan. A U.S.-backed and fanat-ically anti-Communist regime in Ka-bul poses a direct threat to Sovietsecurity. By contrast, the Vietnam Warwas an ideologically motivated anti-Communist adventure on the other side

. of the globe.

and reservist in Soviet Tadzhikistanexplained, "most of them Were glad togo to help-it's a very backward coun-try and we.are neighbors, after all" (NewYork Times, II April 1980). And today,eight years later, the New York Times(12 February) reports: "Several CentralAsian men who had served in Afghani-stan, when asked their strongest person-al impressions of the war, said withouthesitation that they were shocked byhow poorly the Afghans lived com-pared with their Soviet neighbors." One.of the few Soviet cities to erect amonument to a martyred veteran of

the Afghan war is Dushanbe, in.Tadzhikistan.

In order to bring the Turkic peoplesof Soviet Central Asia into the 20th cen-tury-liberating women from the veil,teaching girls as well as boys to read andwrite, introducing modern medicine-during the 1920s the Red Army had tofight a savage war against Islamicfundamentalists, the Basmachi, similarto the Afghan mujahedin. Today, theGorbachev regime not only, repudiatessocial revolution in Afghanistan butactually blames the civil war there on theleft-nationalist People's DemocraticParty of Afghanistan (PDPA) for seek-ing to modernize their country! Thus,AleksandrProkhanov, an apologist forselling out Afghanistan to the. CIA-backed Islamic fanatics, argues:

"Mistakes in the political line, incor-rect formulas for directives, the spread-ing of socialism in suchan 'un-Afghan,''un-Islamic' form that offended tradi-tion, flowing over into violence andrepression.' ...... the political course of the Kabul

c:o'"'iii~01EE01

C)Q)c:os:en

Soviet forcesIn Afghanistan

display warmateriel,

Includingland mines,

captured fromCIA-backed

Islamic fanatics.

erSpieqet

Moscow club of Afghan war veterans with decorated veteran of World War II.Soviet soldiers are demanding official recognition for their internationalistduty in Afghanistan.

Indeed, there is clearly significantopposition at all levels of Soviet societyto pulling out. The regime has beenpushing withdrawal as a popular de-mand, yet a recent poll in Moscowfound only 53 percent in favor. A sur-vey of Soviet youth-the age group whowould end up going to Afghanistan-found that almost half opposed pullingout until astable, neutral governmentcould be left behind, and fully two out ofthree people were concerned that "theWestern powers want to establish con-trol over Afghanistan in order to use itas a base against the Soviet Union." One

veteran of the Afghan war, AleksandrSimonov, warns:

"Th~ CIA wouldbe a great threat. Andif they deployed missiles there, I thinkthat would be the end of everything...."I don't think they [Soviet troops]should be pulled out, because then thethroat-cutting will really begin. Therewill bea seaof bloodand fights all overthe country between different Afghangroups." ,

-New York Times Magazine,14 February

Likewise, Victor Hirschfeld, a retiredSoviet military commander, predicts, "ifa bloodbath occurs after Soviet troopsare brought home, people will blamehim [Gorbachev]."

Contrary to the Western rnedia andpropagandists, the Soviet interventionin Afghanistan was generally welcomedby the population at large. This wasespecially so in Soviet Central Asia,which well within living memory hadbeen a wretchedly backward, mullah-ridden society like Afghanistan. In theearly days of the war one young student

Faced with a massive imperialist mil-itary buildup and domestic economicstagnation, the response of the Gorba-chev regime has been to introducemarket-oriented reforms at home whileseeking to accommodate the rapaciousimperialist warmongers abroad. TheKremlin's desire to get out of Afghani-stan is in fact the international exten-sion of perestroika, Gorbachev's policyof economic "restructuring" labeled"new thinking." Now the 1979 RedArmy intervention is called a "mistake"of the "old way of thinking under Brezh-nev." To be sure, it was the first timesince World War Ilthat the USSR hascommitted troops outside the borders ofthe Soviet bloc. But this was in responseto the growing aggressiveness of U.S.imperialism, seeking to recover fromits humiliating Vietnam debacle. Inaddition to Washington's arming ofthe Afghan counterrevolutionary muja-hedin, 1979 was the year that NATOvoted to deploy first-strike Pershing 2missiles in Europe, only six minutes fly-ing time from Moscow.

The stodgy Brezhnev was hardly theglobal class warrior he is now made outto be. The conservative bureaucrats inthe Kremlin simply wanted to makesecure an unstable, strategically placedclient state. Though this objectivelyopened up the possibility of a social rev-olution through the Sovietization ofAfghanistan, almost from the outset theKremlin tried to limit the scale of socialreforms in order to conciliate the feudal'opposition. Committed to its national-ist dogma of building "socialism in onecountry," the bureaucracy maintained ashamefaced silence about the Afghanwar. Far from being a measure of thewar's unpopularity at home, as thebourgeois press claimed, this refusal toacknowledge what many Soviet cit-izens rightly saw as their international-ist role in Afghanistan was deeplyresented by the population at large.Popular demands were not for with-drawal, but for official recognition ofthe sacrifice of the sons of the SovietUnion who fell fighting in the interna-tionalist cause.

Now that the Gorbachev regime hasdecided to pull out, it is actually en-couraging war-weariness at home,which certainly exists. A lead article inLiteratumaya Gazeta (17 February)waxes lyrical about how "the soldierswill go back to their mothers." But pull-ing out of Afghanistan will not bringpeace to the Soviet Union's southernborder. Emboldened, the U.S.-backedmujahedin will do everything in theirpower to extend Islamic counterrevolu-tion to Soviet Central Asia, with allkinds of provocations and cross-borderraids.

So there is significant opposition inRussia to surrendering Afghanistan.The above-quoted Literaturnaya Gaze-ta article also hints at high-level divi-sions over the question: "A few of ourcitizens, basing themselves on statism,patriotism, an understanding of theagonies, of all the problems seizing us,'catch out' their own state." Specula-tion abounds that key sections of the topSoviet leadership including former for-eign minister Andrei Gromyko (knownas "Mister Nyet"), KGB head ViktorChebrikov and "hardline officers" in themilitary are opposed to a Soviet with-drawal. Anatoly Dobrynin, a prom-inent spokesman on international rela-tions, while expressing support forwithdrawal; warns that "We are notprepared to withdraw at any cost"(Washington Post, 21 Februarye,

4 WORKERS VANGUARD

Afghanistan: Soviet PulloutWould Mean Bloodbath

.er Nahuel Moreno flaunted the absurdi-ty of trying to combine opposition to theSoviet intervention with any pretense ofTrotskyism. First Moreno's followersdenounced the Soviets' "criminal actionagainst the Afghan people" andrhapso-dized about the "possibility of extend-ing the Iranian revolution within theborders of the USSR" (see"MorenoitesCall for Counterrevolution in USSR,"WV No. 249" 8 February 1980). TheCIA was putting its money on preciselythis "option." But in a 1985resolution,after luridly denouncing Soviet "bar-barism," "massacres," "economic pil-lage" and "genocidal war" against theAfghan people and calling for Sovietwithdrawal, they then call on the RedArmy to carry out a social revolution by"expropriating the landlords and lay-ing the political basis for the emergenceof a workers state in.Afghanistan" (£1Socialista [Nicaragua], May 1985).

For years the Morenoites denouncedSoviet intervention in Afghanistan as a"counterrevolutionary operation in theservice of democratic stability and im-perialism." But now that the Kremlin

- has agreed to withdrawal, they have thechutzpah to denounce Moscow for the"great global agreement betweenimperialism and the counterrevolution-ary soviet bureaucracy ... to prevent rev-olutionary processes in those hot spots"such fS Afghanistan and Nicaragua(Working Class Opposition, November1987). David North's Workers Leaguepushes a similar "damned if you do,damned ifyou don't" line-in the samesentence!-claiming that the "dealbetween Moscow and Washington" topull out of Afghanistan confirms the"counterrevolutionary character" of theSoviets going into Afghanistan! As Sta-lin is reported to have remarked, paperwill take anything-that is written on it.

Most of the pseudo-Trotskyist left,however, has taken refuge in empty"factual" reporting about the prospectof the Soviet withdrawal they longedfor, with a deafening silence about the.mass slaughter which willaccompany it.This is the case for both the American /SWP and the Mandelite USec major-'ity. But some in this anti-Soviet swamphave no compunctions whatever. SeanMatgamna's group, buried deep in theNATO-loyal British Labour Party,

continued on page 11

Soviet intervention was an issue. Andthe Mandelite USec majority con-demned the Soviet intervention, whiledrawing back at calling for withdrawal.

As the imperialiststurned on the heatin the coming months, the Barnesites(fearing they sounded too much like the

. "Sparts"?) decided Soviet interventionwas an issueand condemned it. And theMandelites began squealing for Soviettroops out. A recent recap ofthe USec'spositions on Afghanistan laments that"many people still confuse .callingclearly for withdrawal of the Soviettroops with an attitude of support forthe Mujahideen" (International View-point, 6 April 1987). Why this "con-fusion"? Because in bloody Afghani-stan there is no mythical "third camp":calling for Soviet withdrawal is sup-porting the CIA's mullah-led warriors.

For anyone claiming to fellow theprogram of Leon Trotsky's FourthInternational, unconditional defenseof the Soviet Union against imperialismis ABC. But where the Mandelitessquirmed, the late Argentine adven~ur-

AP

Left Apologists for CIA'sAfghan Warriors

Within Ernest Mandel's "United Sec-retariat of the Fourth International,"one wing (led by Tariq Ali) openlyendorsed the Cold War "containment"line of "Soviet troops out." Jack Barnes'American Socialist Workers Party sup- .ported the Soviet-backed' People'sDemocratic Party of Afghanistan(PDPA) regime but denied that the

Because over Afghanistan there wasno middle ground. When the imperial-ists declared Cold War II, you had tochoose which side you were on. Many ofthe fake-Trotskyists had already enlist-ed as foot soldiers in Carter's anti-Soviet"human rights" crusade. And as theSoviets fought CIA-packed mullahs,

~ these "anti-imperialists" joined theimperialist hue and cry over Afghani-stan. In different ways-some squirm-ing, some cheering-they took theirside: with Islamic reaction and their"own" bourgeoisie.The bottom linewasanti-Sovietism.

Planeta Publishers DerAfghan women march through Kabul (left); Reagan's Afghan cutthroats pose over- downed Soviet pilot. Victory ofIslamic' reactionaries would mean re-enslavement of women, mass slaughter in Kabul.

1979 Soviet Intervention in Afghanistanposed Russian question pointblank.We stood firm while fake-Trotskylsts_sang Washington's tune.

Fake-LeftsCaught in

Cold War ViseThe nuclear nuts in Washington are

gloating over the prospect of achievingat the bargaining table in Geneva whatthey couldn't win in more than eightyears on the battlefields of Afghani-stan: the withdrawal of Soviet troopssent in to combat a bloodthirsty CIA-sponsored feudalist insurgency. In adramatic February 8.announcement onSoviet TV: Mikhail Gorbachev con-firmed his intention to pull the RedArmy out, if an agreement was reachedwith the U.S. and Pakistan at theGeneva talks by March 15. Gorba-chev's deadline has since been buriedunder an avalanche of ever more humil-iating "conditions" and ultimatums bythe Americans and their Pakistani cli-ents, finally forcing the Soviets to post-pone the beginning of the withdrawal.But the Kremlin remains adamantabout pulling out, agreement or no.

From the outset, all wings of theimperialist rulers loved the Afghan war.Here the Democrats were the hard-liners, seeing an opportunity to getRussian soldiers killed on the cheapwithout danger of getting suckedinto "another Vietnam" as in CentralAmerica. From "Socialist" Mitter-rand's France to tory Thatcher'sBritain, the U.S.' imperialist alliesenthusiastically echoed Washington'sdeclaration of Cold War II overAfghanistan, parroted by their lackeyson the left and in the labor bureauc-racy. We Trotskyists, however, loudlyproclaimed, "Hail Red Army inAfghanistan!", pointing, out that theSoviet intervention provided a lifelinefor the Afghan masses out of medievalmisery and into the 20th century. Todaywe warn emphatically of the terribleconsequences which withdrawal willhave on the Afghan peoples .and theSoviet workers state. Red Army-Mopup the mullah-led insurgency! Extend .the socialgains of the October Revolu- 'tion to Afghan peoples!

Now even the most stalwart impe-rialist backers of the mujahedin arepredicting a bloodbath. U.S. offi-cials describe Gulbaddin Hekrnatyar,one of the main fundamentalist chiefsand recipient of $200 million in CIAaid since 1979, as "scary ... vicious ...a fascist." Meanwhile the mullahs'Pakistani godfathers have .been ag-gressively acquiring nuclear weaponscapability, effectively bankrolled by theU.S. as a quid pro quo for providinga staging ground for the Afghancounterrevolutionaries.

In the face of the Cold War frenzyover Afghanistan, the internationalSpartacist tendency took a clear stand:

"There can be no question that for rev-olutionaries our side in this conflict iswith the Red Army. In fact, althoughuncalled for militarily, a natural re-sponse on the part of the world's youngleftists would be an enthusiastic desireto join an international brigade to fightthe reactionary CIA-connected rebels."

-"Hail Red Army!"Spartacist No. 27-28,Winter 1979-80

This was an elementary position for anyleftist, let alone a Trotskyist. But theSpartacist tendency was unique. Why?-

25 MARCH 1988 5

"'. -,'

local USWA leadership wouldn't en-dorse the rally and had its membersworking in the plant on the day of thedemonstration. '

Many of the workers who came to therally expecting sortieclass struggle weresorely disappointed. But they didn'tgo home empty-handed. Workers Van-guard sales teams worked hard to bringour program of workers revolution tothe rank and file of these unions whoknow the bosses are trying to destroytheir organizations. A total of 1,472piecesof Spartacist literature were sold,including 1,265 copies of WV. Com-rades distributed 2,000 "Labor's GottaPlay Hardball to Win!" supplements aswell.

This dull and dreary affair was in sadcontrast to the 5,OOO-strong buildingtrades demonstration in San Franciscoon March 7. Then the bureaucrats werebarely able to prevent angry workersfrom breaking into Moscone Center andrunning a scabherding contractors' con-vention out of town. While the unionhacks crowed that the POSCO rally wasthe largest labor mobilization in Cali-fornia in 40 years, this rally and marchwasa diversion from the necessary class-struggle fights that must be waged todefend union conditions in the BayArea. Instead of this orgy of Dem-ocratic Party vote hustling, poisonousprotectionism and jurisdictional raid-ing, there could and should have been apowerful mobilization of longshore,steel and construction workers to driveout the scab contractor and raise payand working conditions to the, highestunion levels.

The ILWU tops claimed they wereshutting down the West Coast on Sat-urday. But they obscenely exemptedmilitary cargo just when Reagan hadsent over 3,000 U.S. troops to Hondu-ras to bolster his contra butchers. We'veoften said that anti-imperialism abroadmeans class struggle at home. Thered-white-and-blue labor traitors Her-man & Co. have another program: classcollaboration at home and support forimperialism abroad. Dump the bureau-crats, break with the Democrats to builda fighting workers party!.. .

herded them across building tradespicket lines through the usual "two:"gate" arrangement. The constructionworkers are fighting to shut down a scab 'outfit, BE&K Construction from Bir-mingham, Alabama. Accidents havealready claimed the lives of two of thenon-union workers. BE&K, which isalso providing 1,000 scabs at the struckInternational Paper plant in Jay,Maine, pays less than half of unionscale. Using the "no strike" clauseagain as an excuse, the scabherding

The steel workers at the USX-POSCO plant, like their brothers in therest of the steel industry (and theILWU!), have had a concessionary con-tract rammed down their throats.Invoking the "no strike" clause intheir contract, USWA bureaucrats have

WV PhotoTen thousand longshoremen and construction workers came to fight scabconstruction project at steel plant In Pittsburg, California, but union topspush "hate Korea, vote Democrat" polson.

ILWU bureaucrats' perspective wascaptured by their main slogan, "WeShall Return!"-a paraphrase of Gen-eral Douglas MacArthur's well-knownquote, the anti-Japanese battle cry ofU.S. imperialism in World War II.Herman uses disgusting jingoism towhip up longshoremen for his intendedraiding operation against the USWA,but he has no stomach to fight union-busting outfits like Crowley Maritime,where he knifed the tugboat strikers inthe back.

POSCO is a totally non-union opera-tion. The I, 100steel workers in the plantare organized into the United Steel-workers of America (USWA) and, infact, for the past 15years or more steelworkers have performed the dock workat the Pittsburg plant facility. The

PITTSBURG, California, March 19-Nearly 10,000 longshoremen and con-struction workers and their familiesassembled and marched in Pittsburg,California today. The target of theirmarch was supposed to be non-unionconstruction and longshore work beingperformed at the old U.S. Steel Pitts-burg plant currently being 'modernizedby a joint venture of USX Corporationand South Korean Pohang Iron andSteel Company (POSCO). But insteadof a powerful and united labor mobi-lization to defend union work condi-tions in Contra Costa County, thelabor fakers pushed Jesse Jackson,local Democratic Party politicians andanti-Asian "yellow peril" protectionistpoison.

The "main attraction" of the rally,held at a nearby community college,wasDemocratic Party front man Jackson. Itwas billed as a "Rally for America," andcenter stage at the plant site rally was thelabor bureaucracy's protectionist pro-gram. After a hot and tiring march tothe USX-POSCO administration build-ing the drained unionists had to listen toContra Costa state senator Dan Boat-wright rave, "When I went in at Inchonon September 15th,l950 I neverdreamedthat I would be freeing South Korea sothat they could come here and put myconstituents out of work." Next on thepodium was Contra Costa CountyBoard of Supervisors member SunneMcPeak, who declared that the countyhad been "invaded" and called for themarch to "go to the polls."

The final speaker at the plant gaterally was International Longshore-men's and Warehousemen's Union(ILWU) president Jimmy Herman,whose union shut down all West Coastports and mobilized heavily for thisrally, ostensibly because the USX-POSCO dock facilities are non-union.Herman pontificated: " ... the issue isthat when it comes to loading the cargoon ships that come in here, that craneswill hoist to those vessels, and fromthose vessels, it's longshoremen, it'sILWU!"

In fact Herman and the other labortops who organized the rally deliber-ately fostered the deception that USX-

Bay Area .labor Tops Wave Flag for DemocratsRally, Pushes Racist- Prote~tionism

democrats of "Hell on Wheels"and sup-porters of the Communist Party and theMarxist-Leninist Party, refuse to callfor. a strike. They just add "militant"window-dressing to the bureaucracy'sgroveling no-strike program.

, Like junior versions of Sonny Hall,who is one of Jackson's DemocraticParty delegates in New York, they seekto chain labor and blacks to the racist,anti-labor Democratic Party. The refor-mist left brings in Jackson, as in the bit-ter Hormel meatpackers strike, to derailworkers' struggles into voting for theDemocrats. To win, transit workersmust break with the partner parties ofexploitation.The situation in New Yorkcries out for a fighting workers party tolead all the oppressed.

Last year, when another black transitworker, Wajid Abdul-Salaam, waskilled by the cops, the militants, in theCommittee for a Fighting TWU de-manded union action to defend laborand minorities:

"Six years' of increasing race-terror,union-busting and anti-Soviet war driveunder Reagan is enough. Now is thetime for labor and the minority popula-tions to stand as one and strike backagainst the entire rotting, racist capital-ist system."

There must be a mobilization of unionpower, by shutting this city down, tostop the rampage by Koch's cossacksand bust the union-bustersiB

,IiWV Photo

Transit workers .at 1978 contractrally. TWU tops have abandonedthe union's historic position of "Nocontract, no work."

members.are blown away by the racistcops. In January, black bus mechanicAlfred Sanders was gunned down by the-NYPD. But Hall stands by Koch, anddemands more cops. The fake "opposi-tionists" in the TWU, like the social

thority is demanding' wage cuts fornew-hireswith a permanent two-tier payscale, massiveuse of part-timers and a 4percent wage increase over three years,with "bonuses" tied to ridership. Tran-sit workers already face deadly workingconditions, as the bosses rip up senior-ity and job titles in order to harass work-ers and eliminate jobs.

Behind the MTA's outrageous de-mands is the threat to use the no-strikeTaylor Law to jail and fine TWU mem-bers. Local 100 president Sonny Hall,crawling before his buddies in Albanyand City Hall (and paid off with a"labor" seat on the MTA board), pusheda state law which will send the contractto binding arbitration (where transitworkers will get the shaft) if no agree-ment is reached. TWU members mustdemand "No contract, no work!" Shutdown Wall Street and the banks! Kochrevels in humbling the unions-it willtake a solid strike, backed up by the restof city labor, to tear up the Taylor Lawand win!

The TWU is the powerhouse of~ integrated labor in this town, but tran-

sit workers have a "leadership" thatwon't get off its knees even when union

Spartacist LeaguePublic Offices

NYC Transit Workers: Tear Up the Taylor Law!No Contract, No Work!

-MARXIST LlTERATURE-

Bay AreaThurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m.• Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m.1634 Telegraph. 3rd Floor (near 17th Street)Oakland. California Phone: (415) 839-0851

ChicagoTues.: 5:00-9:00 p.m.. Sat.: 11:00a.m.-2:oo p.m.161 W. Harrison St., 10th FloorChicago. Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715

New York CityTues.: 6:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m.41 Warren St. (one block belowChambers St. near Church St.)New York. N.Y. Phone: (212) 267-1025

The NewYork Democratic Party pol-iticians, and the transit bosses whocrack the whip for them, are demand-ing huge givebacks from TransportWorkers Union (TWU) Local 100whenthe contract covering 37,000 subwayand bus workers expires March 31.Governor Cuomo and racist pig MayorKoch think Reaganism is still ridinghigh-their Metropolitan Transit Au-

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

Young SparlacusBlack History' Forum at Howard University

Russian Revolution Showsthe Rood' to Block Liberation

The International Labor Defense (ILD) fought againstinjustice through mass, Integrated class struggle.

the imperialists. Eleven capitalistna-tions, including the United States whichsent its expeditionary force over to Sibe-ria, invaded revolutionary Russia. Butthey were unable to smash that revolu-tion and it continued to provide inspira-tion to the workers and the oppressed.

•Colorblind SocialistsOK, so how was all this reflected in

America? Well, the Marxist movementin the United States was heterogeneous.It was faction-ridden, a lot of pro-grammatic differences. It was almostexclusively white. The Communistmovement was dominated by foreign-language federations, and these foreign-language federations were insensitive onthe black question, if not out-and-outhostile. They didn't speak English andhadn't been in the country for very long,so needless to say, they didn't under-stand much about the situation ofblacks. Also, the early Communists inthis country inherited the native whiteAmerican backwardness of Americansocial democracy and AFL (AmericanFederation of Labor) craft unionism,the backwardness on the race question.Most of the AFL unions had blackexclusionary clauses in them.

One leader of the socialist movementin Milwaukee, this guy named VictorBerger, out and out said, "There canbe no doubt that the Negroes andmulattoes constitute a lower race." Sothat was about the worst that theseAmerican socialists were. The best thatthey got was Eugene Debs, who was aleader of the socialist movement in thefirst several decades of the 20th cen-tury. He was a leader of the rail workersunion and spent a couple of years inprison during and after World War I

. because of his agitation against the warand the draft. He wasthe Socialist Partypresidential candidate several times. Hisposition was that racial oppression inthis country was simplyan expression ofclass oppression. The Socialist Partydoesn't have anything "special to offerthe Negro" in this country; simply blackworkers are oppressed as workers andthat's it. It took the intervention of theCommunist International of Lenin andTrotsky led by the Bolsheviks to poundhome that black oppression in theUnited States was special and neededspecial modes of struggle in order tofight it.

The Communist International wasthe international body where repre-sentatives from the Communist partiesfrom around the world came to discussparticular problems, to decide differentquestions of policy, to resolve differ-ences. The anti-Communists today (andback then as well) slander the Com-munist Party as being "controlled" byMoscow. But the Communist Interna-tional was organized on a democratic-centralist basis. The Communist par-ties here in this country elected their

continued on page 8

sians that inhabit that area. One of thefirst things Lenin and the Bolsheviksdidwas they enunciated the policy of theright of self-determination for nations.That is, people of different nationalitiesare free to determine their own way oflife, free to separate and form theirown state. Lenin recognized nationaloppression and sought to eliminate it.In line with that, the native Russianfascists, the "Black Hundreds, weresmashed, completely smashed, after theRussian Revolution. The Black Hun-;dreds were roughly equivalent to theKKK here in this country.

Lenin and Leon Trotsky and the Bol-sheviks appealed to the workers andoppressed around the world to rise upagainst their masters and expropriatethe exploiters. Their call and theexample of the Russian Revolutionsparked revolutions around the world.There were three revolutions in Ger-many, in 1919, 1921 and 1923. They allwent down to defeat. There were mu-tinies in the French navy, there was arevolution in Bulgaria, there was arevolution in China. There was arevolution in Hungary which actuallyestablished a soviet government forabout four months. before it wassmashed. There were revolutions in Fin-land. You saw the beginnings, theawakenings of the colonial peoplesaround the world. So the bourgeoisietried with might and main to isolate anddestroy the Soviet Union. Right afterthe revolution there were the Russiancontras who were funded and armed by

~Planeta Publishers

May Day 1917: Revolutionary workers march through Petrograd. Centerbanner reads: "Arm the People! Long Live the Intern,tional!" BolshevikRevolution inspired workers and the oppressed around the globe.

the government there. It was not ~ gov-ernment for the wealthy, which is whatwe'vegot here and in the rest of the cap-italist world.

Aside from distributing the land tothe peasants, pulling Russia out of thewar, one of the most important aspectsof the Russian Revolution was theirprogram for self-determination fornational minorities. -Tsarist Russia wasconsidered a' prison house of nations.Russia is 6,000 miles long, 3,000 milesdeep, and it's not just the ethnic Rus-

During Black History Month theSpartacus Youth Clubs sponsoredseveral forums around the countrywhich centered on the tremendousimpact of the 1917 Russian Revolutionon the struggle for black freedom in thiscountry. The political counterrevolu-tion led by Stalin in 1924 in the SovietUnion resulted in the progressive degen-eration of the parties of the CommunistInternational-from "Third Period"sectarianism to the outright classcollaborationism of the Popular Frontperiod. Despite the political zigzagsand departures from Marxism, in thearea. of black work the AmericanCommunist Party's work in the 1930sis rich in lessons for how to wagea revolutionary struggle against racialoppression.

Young Spartacus prints below aspeech made by comrade Brian Man-ning at Howard University on Febru-ary 11 which has been edited andcondensed for publication.

In 1917 there was a revolution inRussia. It was led by the BolshevikParty and this revolution was a beaconfor the world's workers and oppressed.It emerged out of the carnage of WorldWar I which devastated Europe. Mil-lions and millions of young proletari-ans, young workers, died in that war.But the Bolsheviks under the leadershipof Lenin, for the first time in history, leda revolution that destroyed capitalism,destroyed the system of production forprofit. It eliminated the private owner-ship of the means of production. Theycarried out their revolution under theslogans, "For Peace, Bread and Land!"And for the first time, there was a work- .'ersand peasants government in power, agovernment of the majority, a sovietgovernment (the Russian word "soviet"means council). It was these workers',peasants' and soldiers' soviets that ran

25 MARCH 1988 7

about is a black Zionist organization.They accommodate to the racist statusquo and talk about getting back to somekind ef so-called homeland in Africa.It's pretty reactionary in its implica-tions when you think about it. The firstschemes to send American blacks toAfrica were the schemes'by the racists inthe South both before and after the CivilWar to send the "troublesome" Negroesaway-"get rid of 'etn because we don'twant 'em." Prior to the Civil War we'retalking about the free blacks, becausethey were the ones who had a little bitofeducation, they were the-ones who had alittle bit of wherewithal and were themost dangerous.

You look at who else has this pro-gram and it's the KKK. In fact Garveymet with the KKK. Just like Farra-khan, who's another black Zionist,accepted money from the KKK in ~.A.several years ago. All Garveywanted todo was to exploit his own black peoplefor his own profit. That's what all theregaliaand the pomp and circumstancemeant, calling himself an emperor andall his toadies "princes" and "dukes" andall this kind of thing. He had his little"black capitalist" schemes and in fact hesaid, "What America needs is a blackRockefeller, a black Rothschild and ablack Henry Fdrd." We've got enoughRockefellers and Rothschilds andFords. We've got to get rid of all thesecapitalists.

It was largely through the efforts ofClaude McKay, the black poet whowent to Moscow, that the African BloodBrotherhood was recruited to the Com-munist Party. Claude McKay, who hadsome experience with. the Communistmovement in Britain, was actually shut-tling from the Communist Party head-quarters downtown to Harlem to visitCyril Briggs, providing the go-betweenfor the African Blood Brotherhood andthe Communist Party. The AfricanBlood Brotherhood provided the initialand most important black cadre for theCommunist Party. The ABB remainedin existence' for several more years andremained a recruiting ground for theCommunist Party.

Meanwhile in 1922 the CommunistInternational was still twisting the armsof the American comrades who still hadtrouble with the black question, stilldidn't want to deal with it, still didn'twant to take the initiative, still fightingwith their own racist backwardness.Claude McKay, who was in Moscow in1922, writes, "Think not that it was justa revolutionary picnic and love feast inMoscow in the fifth year of Lenin! Oneof the American delegates was a south-erner or of southern extraction. Animportant Bolshevik facetiously sug-gested to him that to untangle the Negroproblem, black and white should inter-marry. 'Good God!' said the American,'if Jesus Christ came down from heavenand said that in the South he would belynched.' The Bolshevik said: 'JesusChrist wouldn't dare, but Leninwould'." McKay addressed the Com-munist International, and although hewasn't an official delegate, he was more'insightful on the situation of blackpeople and the methods needed forstruggle than the official Am.erican del-egates were.

Early CP Work in theBlack Struggle

The 1920s were the period that theAmerican Communist Party consoli-dated its black cadre, turned the partyaround. The Communists weren't al-ways right during this period, but theycertainly had the right impulses. In factthey were dead wrong in some instances,like in 1928 they formulated the theorythat blacks were a nation in this coun-try and therefore had the right to self-determination. Blacks do not consti-tute a separate nation in this country,never have. They constitute a speciallyoppressed race-eolor caste, segregated-at the bottom of society. There's noseparate area of the country for blackpeople; blacks don't speak a separate

..'"... r_...1__ .......Walt W~II........ _- -.......JI_ _

l'UY.T."

KJlOA MAK-Haft

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HEfPbI BAMEPBKE

Blacks and BolsheviksOne important development that did

come out of the red summer of 1919wasthe formation of a groupcalled the Afri-can Blood Brotherhood (ABB). Theywere a secret group consisting of blackWorld War I veterans and trade union-ists and they were committed to armedself-defense of blacks against racistattacks. It was headed up by a guynamed Cyril Briggs up in New York. Hehad been fired from his position' aseditor of the Amsterdam News becausehe came out for the Bolshevik Revolu-tion and against World War I. Hestarted this group and it became anationwide network-pretty secret-infact we still don't know m.uch about it.But we do know that what they were forwas the "immediate protection and ulti-mate liberation of Negroes every-

.where." And it was the leadership cadreof this group of militants that the Com-munist. Party recruited and trainedseveral years later.

The African Blood Brotherhood wasa rallying center for the left oppositionto the Garvey movement. The move-ment of Marcus Garvey at this time wasmassive and growing. The Garveymovement was a product of despair anddefeat. We're not talking about a move-ment or an organization that's fightingto change conditions, that's fighting forjustice or equality. What we're talking

The period after Reconstruction untilWorld War I was a period where youhad tremendous repression, lynchings,and no rights for blacks. It was BookerT. Washington who was the main blackleader presiding over this nadir in theblack struggle. What he preached wasaccommodation to the racist status quo:"study hard, don't make any waves."But the whole situation changed. Therewas increasing urbanization and prole-tarianization as blacks were broughtinto industry in the North. Blacks were.excluded from. the AFL craft unions, SQon many occasions they were brought inas scabs. During World War! there wasa boom, a big economic boom. The sol-diers' who were called up add draftedand pulled out of the factorieshad to bereplaced. When the War ended and thesoldiers returned (and a lot of these guyswere white soldiers who were replaced inthe industries by black workers) theeconomy went into a depression andthings- didn't look so pretty in thiscountry.

The capitalists went on an all-outattack to bust the unions and there was

- massive unemployment. And in a com-bination that goes hand in hand, youhad a series of anti-Communist witch-hunts, "red scares" and anti-black ter-ror. Racial animosities increased andthe culmination of that was the "redsummer" of 1919. What happened dur-ing the red summ.er of 1919 was thatthere was a series of what would havebeen called "race riots, to but were in factattacks by whites on blacks erupting interrible atrocities committed againstblacks. The worst of these were inChicago and East St. Louis and here inWashington, D.C. A period .of defeatand despair for blacks set in. ....

the early 1920s that the Communistyouth organization in Cape Townwanted to bring in a couple of "col-oured" members. And the nationalorganization was just up in arms. Theysaid, "We can't do that." The Com-munist youth organization sent theirrepresentative over to Moscow. It tookhim about a year to get back but he cameback, with the word that the Com-munist Youth International was just fu-rious at what was going on in SouthAfrica and they wanted blacks recruitedin massive numbers into the youthorganization and into the party. Therewas a series of fights in the South Afri-can Communist Party and the net resultwas that a party was formed that did ori-ent toward blacks and by the late 1920s,in some sections of the country, themajority of the party was black. And theCommunists were leading whole sec-tors of the struggle against racist injus-tice in that country.

Black ProletariansThe process was a little slower in the

United States. Let me talk a little bit

Wide World . ' no credit

Claude McKay's Negroes in America published in Soviet Russia in 1922.----

about the state of black America goinginto the 1920s, going into this period of '"

.the Communists' reorientation towardblacks. World War I represented animportant turning point for. the blackpopulation in this country and for thiscountry in general. The black questionwas transformed at this time from pri-marily an agrarian question left unre-solved by the defeat of Reconstruction,to the most important strategic questionof the American socialist revolution.After the Civil War, after Reconstruc-tion, what you had in the South (and themajority ofthe black population lived inthe South) was a landless, rural peas-antry. The black population was de-prived of land, never got the "40 acresand a mule" which was promised byGeneral Sherman on his march to thesea. You were left with a populationwhich was deprived of land and there-fore the basis to struggle for any kind ofpolitical or social rights.

Labor n"f,,,nrl,,rProtest on eve of planned execution of the "Scottsboro Boys," June 1931.CP launched international protest campaign,'saving the lives of these nineyouth from Southern lynch law.

now. But what we're going to do is takeup the question of these racists and howto dealwith them. We're going to takethat up with the District Committeehere in Illinois. And if we don't get sat-isfaction there, we're going to take it tothe Central Committee. And if wedon'tget satisfaction in the Central Commit-tee, we're going to take it to the Com-munist International in Moscow andthat's where we'll get our satisfaction."It gives you a good sense of who theblack comrades felt were their friends inthe American Communist Party in theearly 1920s.

The Bolsheviks also intervened in asimilar fashion in South Africa. Thepeople who were forming the SouthAfrican party were steeped in the tradi-tions of racist British Labourism. Theywere all white. In a majority black coun-try you'd think there would be a fewblack members of the Communistmovement as well. There was a time in

Black HistoryForum...(continued from page 7)representatives to go to the meetings inMoscow where there was discussion andvoting and everything else. And then therepresentatives came back and saidwhat was decided and charted a courseof 'action for the parties here in theUnited States or wherever. So there'snothing inherently wrong with the Com-munist International telling the Ameri-can Communists what to do. In fact theyplayed an exceedingly good role.

They helped break down the factionsand divisions in the early Communist •movement and helped forge a unitedCommunist party, and that was a goodthing. Starting with the Second Con-gress of the Communist International,they hammered home the necessity torecruit blacks and develop the programorienting to the special needs of blacks.It was at this congress in 1920 that JohnReed, one of the founders of the Com-munist movement, gave a speech on theblack question [see Workers Vanguard'No. 348, 17February 1984].Reed gave agood analysis of the situation but he waskind of short on program, on modes ofstruggle against black oppression, But itrepresented a start for the AmericanCommunist movement.

Harry Haywood-he's actually stillalive, but he was one of the early blackmembers of the Communist Party. He-was a World War I vet and had comearound the Communist Party in Chica-go. His brother Otto Hall actuallyjoined before he did, so he goes up to hisbrother and says, "Why don't you speakup for me and tell me how to go aboutjoining." And his. brother says, "Welllook, we've been having problems withthese damn racists here in Chicago andthey're actually members of the party, soI don't want you to join the party right

8 WORKERS VANGUARD

Dixiecrats. They put the brakes on theblack struggle. They supported Roose-velt and his New Deal policies. Theysupported the second imperialist war,WW II, they refused to support the"March on Washington" movementwhich formed under the leadership ofA. Philip Randolph and was againstsegregation in the war industries. Andduring World War II they' actuallydisbanded the Communist Party!

Black Liberation ThroughSocialist Revolution!

When WW II ended, the bourgeoisietried to build its"American century" onthe basis of anti-Sovietism, McCarthy-ite witchhunting and the racist statusquo. And much of the American popu-lation bought it. Not the blacks. Blacksreacted differently because the Ameri-can dream has always been a nightmarefor blacks. This time was no exception.But this time around, at the end ofWW If, the tame reformist CP had nothought of leading audacious fightsagainst racist injustice. There weremassive strikes of the unionized work-ers in this country after WW II butthere was no mass party to link thestruggles of blacks with the struggles ofthe workers. The abandonment of thefield by militant agitators left the fieldopen to the "inch at a time" gradualistslike Martin Luther King.

Now I'll give credit where credit isdue: the civil rights movement broke theback of the McCarthy era, opened thedoors to the much wider social struggleof the 1960s, and the civil rights move-ment did accomplish a fewthings, manyof which have been reversed in these "past few years of reaction. But what thecivil rights movement also did was thatit led blacks into the arms of the Dem-ocrats, the ruling class; You know, youscratch a Democrat, you get a Dixie-crat. That's what Malcolm X said 25years ago and the saying is true today.

The only way black liberation can beaccomplished is through a fighting alli-ance of militant blacks and the workingclass. That's what we in the SpartacistLeague are trying to do-build the kindof party that the Communist Interna-tional and the Bolsheviks were trying tobuild in Lenin and Trotsky's time. Andit's the defense organization, the Parti-san Defense Committee, that is sup-ported by the Spartacist League, that isdefending the black leaders incarceratedin the capitalist prisons around thiscountry, people like Geronimo Prattand Mumia Abu-Jamal. We in the SLhave got a black-centered communistprogram that reflects the lessons taughtby Lenin and Trotsky, and our tasks areto take that program, to challengeracism and anti-communism wherever itraises its ugly head and fight for theinternational socialist revolution that'sso necessary for the liberation of blackpeople, for the liberation of all theworld's workers and oppressed.•

IUPI

Black workers take the lead in fighting bosses' union-bustinQ drive.Teamsters join striking Greyhound drivers on the picket line, Philaaelphia,1983.

without it want is generalized. And withwant the struggle for necessities beginsagain, and that means that all the oldcrap must revive'." So all the old crapwas reviving in the Soviet Union onceagain and that was the basis for the riseto power of the conservative, bureau-cratic faction of Stalin.

This bureaucracy is currently still inplace and it still sits atop the gains of theRussian Revolution. Leon Trotskyfought against the rise of the Stalin fac-tion. Trotsky fought .for internationalsocialist revolution. T~ Stalin factionsaid, "we've got to build socialism in onecountry and to hell with .revolutionselsewhere." He told the Communist par-ties around the world to pursue theirown bourgeoisie instead of pursuingrevolutionary goals in the vain hope ofsoftening imperialism's hostility to theUSSR.> This meant that the AmericanCommunist Party sought a popular-front alliance with their own rulingclass, the "New Deal" Democrats. Theyabandoned blacks for Democrats and

don' revolutionary politics? Well, to getthe answer, we have to go back to theUSSR once again, because the Ameri-can CP degenerated as did the Bolshe-viks and the Communist Internationaland the Russian Revolution.

Marx and Engels and the Bolsheviksnever envisioned building communism,which is based on plenty, which is basedon abundance, ina country that hadn'teven reached the advanced stage of cap-italism yet. So Russia was poor to beginwith and it was devastated by the CivilWar. The Bolshevik Party itself was dec- .imated during the Civil War. But mostof all, the revolutions abroad wereunsuccessful. The capitalists were ableto smash every single one. Russia wasisolated. Leon Trotsky characterized itin his book [The Revolution Betrayed]this way: "Two years before the Com-munist Manifesto, young Marx wrote:'A development of the productive forcesis the absolutely necessary practicalpremise [of Communism], because

Stalinism BetraysBlack Struggle

The integrated class struggle of the1930s did not result in a successfulsocialist revolution and in fact the CPpissed away all their good work andtheir good members, both black andwhite. They betrayed the black strug-gle. What happened was they stopped.pursuing objectively revolutionary inte-grationist goals and pursued their ownbourgeoisie instead. Why did they aban-

surely would have died.Perhaps the most famous case that

the Communists took up at this timewas the Scottsboro Boys-nine-youthswho were framed up for rape. They werefound in a boxcar and on the same trainwere two young white women. Eventhough it became clear that no rape hadever taken place, within two weeks ofthese guys being found in a boxcar theywere sentenced to death, and they weregoing. We're talking kids. We're talkingabout nine years old was the youngestone of these kids who was sentenced todeath. But when the CP got wind of thiscase they quickly brought it to the atten-tion of the world and garnered massivesupport for the young blacks. This wasabsolutely unheard of. The NAACPdidn't want to take the case because theyweren't sure whether or not these guyswere guilty! And here we have the Com-munist Party in the heart of the Southpublicizing this case and fighting forthese guys' lives. Eventually most of

them were, I believe, convicted andspent time in jail. I believe the last of theScottsboro Boys was finally released in1950 after being arrested initially in1932.

The black struggle was consciouslyshifted to the forefront by the Com-

>munist Party. This was unheard of andso the black liberals had to follow theirlead. To give you an example of this-we all know about the presidents ofHoward University-they're not mil-itants; they're not radicals, they're toad-ies, right? In 1933 Mordechai Johnson,the president of Howard University,called the Russian experiment "thebeginning of the emancipation of thehuman race" and declared that Americashould move toward the same politicalends without bloodshed. Meanwhile,Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. stated, "theday will come when being called a Com-munist willbe the highest honor that canbe paid an individual and that day iscoming soon."

Most importantly, what the CP wasdoing was recruiting thousands andthousands of black militants to whatthey regarded as being communism. TheCommunists also played an importantrole in organizing the industrial unions,the CIa, the auto unions, the steelunions. Blacks in their hundreds andthousands were brought into theseunions. These were no hidebound,wimpy unions. We're talking aboutblacks and whites fighting and dying onthe picket lines/oge/her. for theseunions. Itwas the CP that was fosteringthis integrated class struggle, the key toa socialist revolution.

a ional Archives

Black and white jobless WWI veterans marched on Washington in 1932 todemand promised bonuses. Bonus marchers resist eviction from tarpaper'shanties by capital police.

language; there's no separate politicaleconomy of this supposed black nation.Luckily for the Communist Party, theynever made any attempts to implementthis theory. The revolutionary integra-tionist thrust of their work was what wasimportant.

The Depression hit in 1929-1930 and>then as now, blacks were targeted: lasthired, first fired-that kind of thing.And as depressions increase misery onthe part of all, there's a rise in racist ter-ror. This time around, blacks wereresponsive to a call to struggle. One ofthe reasons was that for the first time inover 50 years, since the Radical Repub-licans were in the South, there wasan organization that consciously andaboveboard was fighting for blackrights. The Communists who led thesestruggles linked the struggles of blacksand workers. It shattered the raciststatus quo and shifted the political ter-rain such that it has never gone back towhat it was prior to then.

The Communist Party did things likeorganize unemployed councils. You talkabout the homeless problem today, wellwhat these unemployed councils woulddo is get their members together andwhen one of the brothers or sisterscouldn't make their rent because theydidn't have a job, they weren't gettingwelfare, etc., and the sheriff would comeand throw their belongings out on thestreet-the Communists weren't talk-ing about homeless shelters then-whatthey did was they'd get the unemployedcouncils together, they'd gather up theperson's belongings and bring themright back up into the apartment again.And then sit there and then if the sheriffcame back again they'd throw him out!So that's the audacious kind of activitythat they were doing.

You can contrast what the Com-munist Party looks like today,. tailingafter Jesse Jackson in this presidentialelection, to what they were doing in 1932when they were the first party ever tonominate a black, James W. Ford, asvice president. Here in D.C. the YoungCommunist League was organizing and,for the first time since President Grant'sinaugural ball in 1873,the Young Com-munist League organized an interracialdance. Now talk about audacity, therehadn't been an interracial dance here inD.C. for over 50 years.

But the most important work they didwas defense of victims of racist frame-ups. One of them was Angelo Herndon,who was a young black agitator in theSouth, a Communist agitator. He wasan organizer of the unemployed, he wasarrested in Atlanta for "attempt to inciteinsurrection." You know if you'rearrested in Atlanta in 1930for attempt-ing to incite insurrection and you're ayoung black Communist, your days arenumbered in that jail. What the Com-munists did was they organized adefense for Angelo Herndon that spreadthe length and breadth of this countryand around the world. Let me read yousome of the evidence brought up in histrial to give you some idea of what theCommunists were doing in the South atthis time. This is from Angelo Hern-don's autobiography Let Me Live. Thedocument was a leaflet called "AnAppeal to Southern Young Workers":

, "The Young Communist League,is thechampion not only of the young whiteworkers but especially of the doublyoppressed Negro young workers. TheYoung Communist League fightsagainst the whole System of race dis-crimination and stands for full racial,political, economic and social equalityfor all workers. The Young Com-munist League is a section of the YoungCommunist International, the revolu-tionary leadership of the young work-ers the world over and accepts theguidance of the Communist Party ofAmerica. The Young CommunistLeague fights for: Full political, socialand racial equality for the Negroworkers. Smash the National Guard ...and R.O.T.e."

Angelo Herndon actually spent a cou-ple of years in prison and was released.You know they tortured him in prison.And if it hadn't been for the constantpublicity of the Communist Party he

25 MARCH 1988 9

Librarians to Feds:We Won't Finkl

Warning: Your term paper researchmay be deemed a' "hostile intelli-gence threat" to the U.S. government.Federal Bureau of Investigation gum-shoes are asking librarians, particu-larly in university libraries and thosewith large, unclassified technical hold- .ings, to keep their eyes out forpotential "espionage threats" looselydescribed as book borrowers fromcountries "hostile to the United States,such as the Soviet Union." Gee, .Mr,G-Man, does anyone with an. accentcome under suspicion? Kudos to thelibrarians who told the feds just wherethey can stuff their snooping. AsQuinn Shea of the National Security

Archive stated, "They've got no busi-ness screwing with libraries." TheAmerican Library Association issuedan alert, warning librarians to keep aneye out for FBI agents violating thesupposedly constitutionally protectedright to privacy. The chancellor ofthe City University of New York isdemanding a Congressional investiga-tion into the FBI's cloak-and-daggermachinations.

The shabby pretext for the FBI's"Library Awareness Program'" is thecase of Gennadi Zakharov, a" SovietUnited Nations diplomat who wasaccused in 1986 of "spying" (and latertraded for New York Times agent

Nicholas Daniloff). He supposedlyfound a student "gofer" in a Queens Col-lege library. But the FBI has been peep-ing and poking at librarians for years. In1972 an informer was planted inHarrisburg, Pennsylvania's BucknellLibrary to spy on Philip Berrigan andthe "Harrisburg Seven" Vietnam anti-war activists. Librarian Zoia Horn wentto jail in this case for refusing to testifyagainst the defendants-all of whomwere acquitted. An Oneonta, New Yorklibrarian noticed a threat to PresidentReagan scrawled inside a returnedbook, notified authorities and foundherself in the middle of a federal case.She refused to testify unless subpoenaed

(she was), and the suspected "assassin"(the last hapless book borrower) wasseized and held for days for mentalobservation.

The most likely victims of thisMcCarthy-like effort are foreign stu-dents who have no rights to speak of inthis country and who could face deathat the hands of their "free world"governments if deported. As PatriceMcDermott of the American LibraryAssociation noted, the FBI's program"smacks of the intimidation of the leftduring the '60s. Foreigners are an easytarget, especially with the anti-Libyanand anti-Middle Eastern sentimentprevalent today. It's easy to erode rightsby going after groups to whom society isespecially unsympathetic first" (SUNYBinghamton Pipe Dream, 22 January).Will checking out a book by Lenin oreven researching a basic engineeringpaper now be added to the seeminglyendless list of things a "foreigner" darenot risk doing in this country? Downwith the FBI's library witchhunt

Spartacist~ Forum

Friday, April 8, 7:30 p.m.P.S. 41, Auditorium (West 11th Street, just west of 6th Avenue)

Red Army Withdrawal Would Mean Horrible Bloodbath

Soviets Must Win Afghan War!

For more information: (212) 267'1025

Speaker: Len Meyers,Editorial Board Workers Vanguard

bachev promised, "When the Afghanknot is untied, it will havethe most pro-found impact on other regional con-flicts.... Behind the political settlementin Afghanistan already looms a ques-tion: which conflict will be settled next?And it is certain that more is to follow."So now there is increasing pressure onthe Vietnamese to pull out of Kampu-chea in an attempt at a rapprochementwith the U.Si-allied Peking Stalinists.Now a leading Soviet journal (Litera-turnaya Gazeta, 17 February) pro-claims that "international cooperation"over "national reconciliation" with theCIA's mujahedin in Afghanistan is amodel for "liquidating regional con-flicts," for example by "the revolution-ary government of Nicaragua" in deal-ing with the CIA's contras. And now theSoviets are pressuring the ANC to makea deal with Pretoria that, according tothe Los Angeles Times (5 February),"would give the white minority' aneffective veto within a majority-rulegovernment.". From the strangulation of the Span-

ish Revolution in the 1930s, whichpaved the way to Hitler's OperationBarbarossa, to Gorbachev's acquies-cence to the "Reagan doctrine" of globalcounterrevolution, the Stalinist bu-reaucracy's nationalist perspectiveserves only to endanger the Sovietdegenerated workers state. To restorethe Soviet state and the Red Army totheir revolutionary and internationalistmission requires a proletarian politicalrevolution against the Stalinist usurp-ers of Lenin and Trotsky's BolshevikParty. Today that means the struggle forthe rebirth of the Fourth International,as the continuity of the revolutionaryCommunist International. •

not square with the Kremlin's policiesof detente and 'two-stage' revolution.Reformism abroad, by conciliating theforces of reaction, undermines defenseof the Soviet Union."

-"Reagan, Begin & Hitler,"WV No. 308,25 June 1982

The counterpart of the Stalinist-nationalist dogma of "socialism in onecountry" on the international plane isthe "popular front," class collaborationtying the workers and oppressed to theirexploiters as a bulwark against revolu-tion. Now the counterrevolutionaryrepercussions of' Soviet withdrawalfrom Afghanistan will be felt interna-tionally, from South African blacksfighting apartheid slavery to the Nica-raguan masses pitted against CIAcontra terror.

In his statement giving the timetablefor pulling out of Afghanistan Gor-

NEW YORK CITY

• Extend Social Gains of theOctober Revolution to Afghan Peoplesl

for the French imperialists, invadedSoviet Russia in 1920, Lenin argued fortransforming the Red Army's defensivecampaign into a military offensiveaimed at revolutionary war-and Po-land was a modern, industrializednation-state. While Trotsky opposedwaging a revolutionary war on Polandat this time, he did so on tacticalgrounds, not as a matter of principle.

Return to the Road ofLenin and Trotskyl

From the standpoint of the Sovietbureaucracy, which seeks to defend itsprivileged position atop the collectiv-ized economy through futile attempts atplacating hostile world imperialism,Gorbachev & Co. now, see sendingtroops into Afghanistan as an inadver-tent adventure. But from 'the stand-point of Bolshevik internationalism,defense of the Soviet Union requiredintervention against the imperialist-bankrolled anti-Communist uprising onits border and raised the real possibilityof bringing social revolution to this hid-eously backward country on the bay-onets of the Red Army. To be sure, aLeninist government in the Kremlinwould have announced its revolution-ary mission from the outset rather thanseeking to conciliate the feudalistopposition. As we pointed out someyears ago:

" ... instead of capitulating to the mul-lah reaction, by limiting land reformand literacy campaigns, the Sovietsshould be pouring the money in there ona massive scale: land to the tiller andcheap credit, health programs, etc. Butthat means social revolution, a tremen-dous.leap from feudalist backwardnessto proletarian dictatorship on the backsof the Soviet Red Army. And that does

rule of any central state power. Now'even the U.S. imperialists are worriedthat the various factions of the mujahe-din will slaughter one another (and re-portedly they have already begun to doso). If Soviet Central Asia is taken as amodel, the various peoples of Afghani-stan would enjoy more national rights ina Soviet-bloc satellite than under an"Islamic republic."

In its previous issue, the Leninist(21 January) denounces as an exampleof "big power chauvinism" a statementby Izvestia that the Red Army went intoAfghanistan to wipe out a hostile regimeon its border. From the standpoint ofproletarian internationalism, the RedArmyhas not only the right but the dutyto defend its borders against CIA-backed reactionary insurgencies. WhenPilsudski's Poland, acting as eat's paw

Spiegel (7 March): "Our sacrifices werenot for nothing. We have after allbrought there the achievements of thecivilized world." One of his comradesechoed these sentiments: "The peoplethere could at least live in peace for awhile, had bread, could educate theirchildren. What will be there tomorrowonly Allah knows." Kim Selikhov, aSoviet journalist who has covered theAfghan war, writes:

"I know many internationalist fightingmen who, after completing their time inAfghanistan, ask to go to the front lineagain as volunteers. Those who servehere are primarily children of workersand peasants."

-e-Literaturnaya Gazeta,14 October 1987

"The time has come," Selikhov de-mands, "to erect a monument in Mos-cow to the Soviet internationalists whohave died valiantly in foreign lands atvarious times in our history."

Soviet veterans of the Afghan warjustly view themselves as fighters forrevolutionary internationalism. But theKremlin bureaucrats abuse and betraythese ideals. To truly build a monumentto Soviet internationalism in Moscow, itis,necessary to oust the Stalinist usurp-ers and return to the road of Lenin andTrotsky.•

month fused with the French section ofthe international Spartacist tendency.

In Britain, a group in and around theCommunist Party affiliated j to the so-called "Leninist" wing of the TurkishCommunist Party in exile ran a head-line demanding, "Afghanistan: no sell-out!" (Leninist, 10 February). In recentmonths the Leninist not only hasexpressed its opposition to Gorba-chev's INF missile deal with Reagan,but has come out with a call for a polit-ical revolution against the Sovietbureaucracy, even identifying the deci-sive degeneration of the Soviet Unionand the consolidation of bureaucraticpower with Stalin's pronouncement of"socialism in one country',' in 1924.However, despite these rather excep-tional declarations, the Leninist still car-ries with it much of the political bag-

Anti-draftdemonstration

in 1980-Spartacist League/

Spartacus YouthLeague stood out

in hailing RedArmy against

Islamic reaction in.Afghanistan.

gage of Stalinism. Against Gorbachev'sAfghanistan policy, they argue:

"The Soviet Union has no right to horsetrade the Afghan revolution. It is a liv-ing revolution, not a piece of real estate.The Afghan Revolution was not facil-itated by the presence of the SovietArmy. Tile revolution was the work ofAfghan revolutionaries organised in the -Khalqt wing of the PDP A. A prole-tarian dictatorship was establishedthrough local daring and initiative."

Viewing the Afghan war through thenationalist prism of Stalinism, albeit ofa Third Worldist variety, the Leninist is

. forced to conjure up a dictatorship ofthe proletariat in a country where thereis no proletariat to speak of. And theyordain as a proletarian revolution aputsch by a group of reform-mindedpetty-bourgeois nationalists, primarilyjunior officers in the Afghan army, of.the Khalq wing of the PDPA. In fact,Afghanistan is not even a nation but afeudal-derived state comprising a mo-saic of nationalities, ethnic and tribalgroupings. Much of the rural popula-tion has never lived under the effective

(continued from page 4)

The difference between America's los-ing colonial war in Vietnam and theSoviet Union's progressive interven-tion in Afghanistan is captured well inthe responses of their respective veter-ans. Large numbers of Vietnam vetscame back from that filthy, racist waremotional basket cases, many angeredand indeed radicalized ,by their experi-ence into becoming opponents of U.S.imperialism. Soviet veterans, in con-trast, are demanding official recogni-tion for carrying out their "internaticn-alist duty" and deeply resent anycomparison between their just war andthe imperialist war in Vietnam. By allaccounts, it is the veterans of the Sovietwar in Afghanistan, who saw with theirown eyes what a mullah victory wouldmean, who are in the forefront ofopposition to a Red Army withdrawal.

Afghan war songs, once forbidden,are now being released on records. Thesecretary of a club of Afghan veteranstold the West German magazine Der

denounces the Soviet intervention as a"war of colonial conquest," and evenwhile admitting that "Muslim funda-mentalism is very strong" and dismiss-ing illusions in a "neutralist" coalitiongovernment, Matgamna rants: "Despiteall this, the USSR can be driven out. Itdeserves to be driven out!" (SocialistOrganiser, 14 January). This Stalino-phobe positively welcomes the im-pending bloodbath by the Islamicreactionaries.

Afganos, Kabulisti and Tankies:What Now?

The left-Stalinist milieu has seen asymmetrically opposite development. Adecade ago, most ofthe West EuropeanCPs sharply divided between Moscow-loyal Stalinists and so-called Euro-communists who sought to integratethemselves into mainstream socialdemocracy. When the Red Armycrossed the Afghan border, the "Euros"joined with their own bourgeoisies in'anti-Soviet vituperation. What hadbeen a seething cauldron erupted inopen factional warfare, as thoseStalinists-i-variously labeled "afganos"(in Spain), "kabulisti" (in Italy) and"tankies" (in Britain)-who wanted tomaintain at least some semblance ofopposition to NATO imperialism cameout in support of the Soviet tanks mov-ing into Afghanistan. It was a knee-jerkreaction: educated in the Stalinistschool of classcollaboration, they couldgo no further than pressure groups forthe Moscow bureaucracy aimed at pull-ing their recalcitrant, pro-NATO lead-erships into line.

But now the Kremlin has effectivelydisowned their struggle and denouncedall they stood for as "Trotskyite her-esy." With Gorbachev's renewed"detente" offensive aimed at conciliat-ing U.S. imperialism, many of these left-Stalinists are at a loss. Do they simplyrepudiate the last ten years of struggleagainst the pro-NATO compromiserswho opposed the Soviet intervention inAfghanistan from the outset, or do theylook in the mirror and see there the ogreof "Trotskyite heresy"? Some in this"anti-opportunist" milieu were alreadydriven to develop broader criticisms ofthe Stalinist bureaucracy, particularlywhen the flowering of a mass-basedcounterrevolutionary movement in Po-land exposed the criminal incapacity ofthe Stalinist regime there. In France theTribune Communiste group made aclean break from Stalinism and last

(continued from page 5)

Afghanistan,and the Left•••

Afghanistan'Sellout•••

25 MARCH 1988 11

WORKERS VANGUARD

destroyed the state apparatus of theSomoza tyranny, contrary to Reagan'sassertions they did _not substitute aCommunist regime, but instead soughta middle road on the program of "mixedeconomy, pluralism and nonalign-ment." The petty-bourgeois nationalistregime cannot last much longer in thislimbo. Their conciliation of imperial-ism and domestic capitalist reaction isendangering the survival of the revolu-tion. It is urgently necessary to forge aworking-class vanguard, II Leninist-Trotskyist party to carry out the pro-gram of permanent re