CONCLUSION -- Drive the U.S. Out of Asia!
Build Internationalism!
Fight for Workers' Power
Karl Marx, the great founder of the communist movement, wrote 125 years ago that until then
philosophers had only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. (Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach).
That's just as true today as it was then. As a revolutionary communist organization, the Progressive Labor Party is not interested in studying Vietnam -- or anything else -- just for the sake of knowledge. What's happening in Vietnam is a burning question for working people all over the world, and therefore for reds. We have to understand mistakes that are being made in order to warn ourselves and other militant and revolutionary workers and their allies against repeating those mistakes. And we must learn from Vietnam the lessons of People's War, learn how best to smash all the bosses.
What kind of anti-war movement should be built? As we've said, some are willing to accept any sort of movement to bring about any kind of peace: "just given peace a chance." These people supported the NLF/DRV leaders' and liberal imperialists' call for "peace" talks. But, as we said five years ago when "stop the bombing and negotiate" was first pushed as a slogan by "official" anti-war leaders, this is the wrong way to oppose the Vietnam war. Vietnam is a class war, not a tragic blunder. U.S. imperialism launched this attack on Vietnamese working people because it wants to control all of southeast Asia in order to make more money. Either the imperialists and their local stooges run things, or working people do. How can oppressed and oppressors share power? What does it mean to say Vietnamese working people and U.S. imperialists should "get together and work out a solution that's OK for both sides?" It means recognizing what the imperialists have claimed all along -- that, somehow, U.S. rulers have the right to decide the future of the Vietnamese.
As we have seen, the U.S. went into Vietnam for the same reason that a bank takes back your car, for the same reason that a thief steals your furniture. The reason has nothing to do with justice. The thief wanted something and figured he had the power to take it.
Which means the U.S. has as much right to "talk turkey" about Vietnam as a robber in another person's house. Get that robber out of the house now.
A section of the anti-war movement -- the Moratorium and Mobilization Committees, which ran last year's big moratorium and demonstrations, and which are themselves controlled by Trotskyite-revisionist "dove" political coalition -- actively backs negotiations. To the extent that some honest people follow these guys, this has weakened the movement. Other decent anti-war forces have been demoralized by this stand of their "leaders." Nevertheless, a real anti-imperialist movement is being built against the war. The PLP as well as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and other forces are helping build this movement.
Consider for a moment the logic of the right-wing "peace movement" leaders' stand. The negotiations these guys support are reversing the People's War. In the short term, that means imperialism can consolidate Vietnam as a bastion for expanding the war throughout southeast Asia on terms favorable to imperialism -- with Vietnam as a stable rear. Imagine the future of an anti-war movement led by the "hurrah for negotiations" crowd. Every time the U.S. rulers attacked a new area -- bombed, sent troops in, or produced some prefabricated "democratic leaders" to ask for imperialist help -- this "anti-war movement" could beg for "peace" talks. Perhaps the leaders of such a movement could someday get good jobs in the U.S. empire. They'd deserve some reward.
Despite the "official" (which really means: government recognized) "peace leaders," despite these misleaders there is only one just settlement. The U.S. must get out of southeast Asia, 100 percent, no strings, right now.
But at this point, demanding immediate withdrawal is not enough. An anti-imperialist movement must say something about the all-too-real fact: negotiations are going on. We in PL (and many others) see these talks as a serious betrayal by NLF/DRV leaders. We've discussed this at length previously. We know that some honest anti-imperialists disagree with or are unsure about this view. But whether you think the negotiations are a sellout by NLF/DRV leaders, or think they're making a mistake, or whatever one might say -- the fact remains: negotiations are taking place and the U.S. has no right to negotiate! So whatever one says about the Vietnamese leaders, an anti-imperialist movement must say: "There is nothing to negotiate. U.S. get out NOW!" If the movement is silent about this glaring fact it will end up supporting the imperialists' right to "talk turkey" about somebody else's turkey.
"DOVE" POLITICIANS ARE BIRDS OF PREY
There are only two forces in this country -- indeed in the world -- with real power. One is then working class. The other is the big business class.
Any movement, including the anti-war movement, has to rely on one of these forces.
The right-wing "official peace movement" leaders urge us to back "dove" politicians. Does that mean allying with workers or imperialists?
Let's take a look at two "doves" -- Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern.
Consider McCarthy. He boasted that his presidential campaign was aimed at "getting the kids off the streets" and back within the system. As we saw earlier, he made clear he was against "deserting" Vietnam to workers' and peasants' rule. He supported and voted for:
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution;
Every extension of the draft;
The Student Loyalty Oath Bill in 1959;
The oil depletion allowances;
Backed Truman's Korean War actions all the way;
He opposed and voted against:
Withholding federal aid from segregated schools;
Minimum wage coverage for one million low-wage workers.
Not that voting the other way around would show he was good -- the point is this "dove" politician has an openly anti-worker history, going way back. He was never against imperialism. He never questioned that the U.S. should maintain and expand political and economic control around the world. He merely thought that sellouts could be relied on somewhat more and naked force somewhat less. Thus he said: "The U.S. must have a policy in the Mideast based on America's interest . . ." (Quoted from "McCarthy for President" literature).
Or consider the current favorite among "dove" politicians -- Senator McGovern. He is an active racist who believes in using both the carrot and the stick to keep black and other working people down. Wielding the stick, he voted for the "Long Amendments" to the so-called "Civil Rights Act of 1968. " These amendments are "riot" control laws, carrying up to 5 years and $ 10,000 fine for various acts aimed at inciting rebellion. Such laws have classically been used to railroad left-wing organizers. At the same time, the public-relations purpose is to convince white workers that black rebellions are created by a few crazy outside agitators stirring up otherwise content black people.
On his more "carroty" or "dovish" domestic side, McGovern backed a "nice guy" bill for "recruiting, training and paying neighborhood youths to assist the police in community relations." Such measures are justified by liberals as a way of "improving police." But the real aim is to trap working class kids into covering for police actions against the working class, thus giving the rulers' sate more of a popular "cover." This is like so-called pacification programs the U.S. uses in Vietnam.
The same could be said for Fulbright -- whose record for racist positions is notorious. All these liberal "dove" senators are racist, anti-worker pro-imperialists. They want to do what the U.S. rulers need done in Vietnam in a less obvious way.
Allying with these "dove" politicians means supporting the smiling face imperialism presents to anti-war forces. But whether its smiling "McGovernment" or frowning "Gagnews" -- it means joining forces with imperialism.
The alternative is to ally with workers. That means linking the struggles of all working people in this country against the ruling class to the fight of Southeast Asian working people to drive the U.S. out, fighting all attempts by the rulers to turn workers against one another at home and abroad, building a vast united movement of workers of all countries and
their allies to first drive imperialism out of one position after another and then, in the end, smash it completely.
But more on this when we discuss PL's program. Before we get to that, let's take a look at the invasion of Cambodia and the position of Prince Sihanouk.
U.S. OUT OF ASIA!
We've been referring to the need to drive the U.S. out of Vietnam throughout this pamphlet. But at present the question is really broader, for the U.S. has expanded the war. For a long time fighting's been going on in Laos and Thailand. And now the U.S. has made a big play for Cambodia. This further demonstrates the predatory character of U.S. imperialism. U.S. rulers need to swallow everything, to have all working people under their thumb. We would like make four points about Cambodia:
The U.S. has no right to an inch of Cambodian land, no right to exploit a single Cambodian worker or peasant. U.S. rulers have no right to negotiate anything -- they must get out of Cambodia now! Since the imperialists aren't about to change into friends of the people, this means: working people of the world must drive the U.S. rulers out of Cambodia!
The invasion of Cambodia showed how low NLF/DRV leaders have sunk. By launching a vast counter-offensive, uniting movements in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and southern Vietnam, the NLF/DRV leaders could have turned the U.S. attack around, and completely isolated the U.S. rulers. Instead, only minor token battles took place. The Vietnamese leaders are so tied to negotiations they are unwilling to rock the boat even in the face of extreme imperialist escalation.
The fact that Nixon decided to invade Cambodia at all shows how poorly he's doing. He is even more a mess than LBJ, who set the previous record. He's got noting to offer the people except more problems. "Nixon's administration has proved more inept than others because the contradictions of imperialism are greater than ever. Nixon and company vacillate between more and less repression, tight and loose money, between trying to win the war militarily and resolving the 'peace' talks in a deal. His administration is trying to hold imperialism together with a few piano strings." (PL Magazine, September, 1970, p. 5)
In the context of the DRV/NLF leaders' absolute failure to use the opportunity provided by the invasion to rally millions of working people around the world to launch and support the fight to drive the U.S. out of the entire area -- in the context of the sellouts' business-as-usual approach, Sihanouk has emerged as a "revolutionary force." Sihanouk, a Cambodian prince, was Cambodia's dictator until the U.S. had him thrown out. A long-term wheeler-dealer -- with definite ties to the CIA -- Sihanouk has maintained power and made himself rich by using his position as ruler of Cambodia to play imperialist and anti-imperialist forces off against each other. For years, this international playboy has been hunting down and trying to slaughter anti-imperialist fighters. He is a criminal plain and simple.
In early 1970, Sihanouk wrote an article for a liberal Paris paper, which made his politics pretty clear. In that article, he:
Opposed communism and workers' rule;
Offered a plan for U.S. and Japanese imperialism to secure a foothold in Southeast Asia.;
Made right-wing attacks on the People's Republic of China.
On his way back from Moscow last spring (he'd been "talking Turkey" with Soviet rulers) Sihanouk figured out that the U.S. was planning a coup to throw him out. His response? Until the coup actually took place, Sihanouk argued that no coup was needed -- he'd moved as far right as was necessary! As soon as he'd been dethroned this "principled democrat" discovered he was an anti-imperialist. He called for driving U.S. imperialism out of the area. But that's not where Sihanouk's interests lie. He made this clear in the article mentioned earlier:
If the Americans failed to find the new solution presently sought by President Nixon and consequently withdrew completely from Southeast Asia (all of which appears doubtful), the system of checks and balances that has worked up until now would no longer be viable and we would probably have to opt for China, becoming her unwilling satellite. (Prince Sihanouk, "Ideas That Change the World," Preuves, Second Quarter, 1970: translated in PL Magazine, Sept, 1970: 29)
In other words, Sihanouk's present posture is just another maneuver. He's playing games with the people. Like all bourgeois nationalists, Sihanouk needs the people as a wedge. To get the best deal from imperialism, he needs to wield the people, like a stick, in his own bourgeois interests. He ought to be tried for murder, not praised as a great revolutionary. Cambodian workers and peasants need this Murderer-Prince the way U.S. workers need more bosses.
A lot of pressure is being exerted to get Cambodian anti-imperialists to accept this anti-Communist's leadership. There is evidence that at least some sections of the movement there are resisting that pressure. The only solution in Cambodia and everywhere else, is to drive imperialism out and build workers' and peasants' rule.
Now let us examine the Progressive Labor Party's program, on a broader basis.
The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement . . . . In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time . . . . The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! (Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Communist Manifesto).
FIGHT FOR WORKING CLASS DEMANDS!
Here, in brief, is PL's approach to fighting against oppression on a day-to-day basis:
FIRST, THE LABOR MOVEMENT. We see workers -- especially in basic industry, transportation and communications -- as key. Workers' conditions are deteriorating all the time. (See articles in PL Magazine, Sept, 1970). One aspect of this is that the U.S. ruling class has taken control of the unions, whose leaders constantly act to crush workers' struggles. Workers recognize this in many cases, and thus an increasingly popular tactic used by workers is the wildcat strike. Our approach is to build rank-and-file groups, uniting communists and non-communist, militant workers. These committees have to fight the union leaders in order to fight the boss -- since the two work together. Thus in the present auto strike our aim is to help workers build rank-and-file committees wherever possible. If this develops widely enough, it could lead to the rank and file auto workers taking over the strike -- the only way for the workers to win anything, since the United Auto Workers misleaders are doing their best to sell the strike out. In general these committees should fight around any and all legitimate workers' grievances -- speed up, low pay, compulsory overtime, etc.. A key part of the job of such committees is to fight for working class unity. This means winning whites to support the demands of black workers for preferential hiring and upgrading and against the harassment's and the terrible conditions that black workers are subjected to. It means winning workers to support black rebellions -- which are led by workers and which in every case have been around working class demands. We help build unity between workers in the same industry who are members of different unions. We urge all workers to support strikers. Thus right now, fall 1970, we're actively supporting the Workers' Solidarity Committees which have been organized to back GM strikers. We try to build mutual support between employed and unemployed workers -- for instance, around fighting layoffs, boosting unemployment insurance and demanding jobs. Similarly, we urge mutual support between organized and unorganized workers. We call on all workers to support working class fights in the communities, fights around schools, housing, jobs, racism and police attacks.
A crucial aspect of working class unity is winning all workers to support welfare clients. A lot of dirt is pushed by the politicians and press about welfare clients. The official story is that they're fat parasites who sponge off workers. A million stories about "welfare Cadillacs" are spread. The rulers hope angry workers will blame welfare clients for increasing inflation and falling real wages.
The truth is the opposite of the ruling class line. Welfare clients are often workers who get crippled by industrial accidents or who cannot find work. Or else, they're working class women with children. Their husbands have left them, as a result of the pressures capitalism puts on all workers, especially the poorest. Far from being rich chiselers, these people get far less than the official poverty level. The so-called flat grants that are being used by the rulers in more and more cities makes things much worse. Clients get even less now than before. Some are close to starvation. ALL workers should support the fight to end this legal murder.
The bosses create the need for welfare. They keep a large part of the working class unemployed, especially black workers. This gives the rulers a poor of reserve labor. It helps them keep all workers' wages down. THESE RICH RULERS ARE THE REAL PARASITES.
It is true that welfare comes mainly from workers' taxes. That's because all tax money comes mainly from workers. The rulers see to that. But it is not true that most tax money goes to pay welfare costs. Only a tiny percent of federal taxes (which is of course the vast majority of all tax money) goes to welfare and related programs. The figure is less than 3%. Almost all the rest goes to paying for imperialist wars, subsidizing U.S. businessmen, propping up pro-U.S. regimes, the military exploration of space, and similar anti-working class uses. Unemployed working people deserve far more than the pittance they get on welfare. Even the rotten welfare system was only granted by the rulers because they feared revolution. Workers had to fight hard to get even these crumbs.
The rulers, including smiling "dove" politicians like Massachusetts Gov. Sargent, make constant racist attacks on welfare clients. They want to divert workers from their real enemy: U.S. big businessmen.
We help organize clients to fight back. We work with many other people to expose the vicious slanders spread against unemployed working people.
SECOND, THE HIGH SCHOOLS. In the schools, we try to build unity between students, parents, and honest teachers to fight against rotten conditions, to get cops out of the schools, to fire racist teachers and principals—like James Daly, of Boston English High School. We also oppose "community control" and other schemes that grant sham "control" to provide rulers with a cover for their real power. We want workers to have state power. Until then, why kid ourselves and others? We might as well call things by their real names. The imperialists have power; working people have to fight until that power is smashed. Until then, let the rules keep their committees.
As part of PL’s high school work, we’ve organized a special group, the CHALLENGE CORPS. Made up of black and white working class high school students, the CHALLENGE CORPS sells Challenge-Desafio and helps build militant high school struggles, especially against racism.
THIRD, THE ARMY. Some people think of the army as just an imperialist outfit. This view is only half right. It’s true that the U.S. Army is used against working people here (for instance, to break the great 1970 postal strike) and around the world (not just in Vietnam, but all over). The army brass works for the same big bankers that run everything else. Black and white working people are forced into this army to provide cannon fodder for the billionaires.
But that’s only one part of the story. Because the guys who are drafted are the same ones giving the rulers such a hard time in high schools and factories around the country. Many have been active in black rebellions. It’s their relatives who got scabbed on by the army during the postal strike. It is their class—the working class—that the army exists to oppose. The reason for all the intimidation in the army is the brass knows no working class GI is going to serve the U.S. rulers unless he’s forced.
And even with force, the rulers’ plan is working less and less. Thus most GIs oppose the imperialist war in Southeast Asia and the war against workers at home.
GI’s fight back many ways.
Some GI fights are spontaneous and individual. Thus the army admits that 500 GIs go Absent Without Leave (AWOL) daily. Last year 57,000 deserted. 23,000 are still at large. Recently this rate has nearly doubled. The army now admits about 300,000 go AWOL yearly.
AWOL and desertion rates are higher for GIs who get orders for Vietnam. Of 9,000 GIs who are supposed to report to Oakland Army Base every month to be shipped to Nam, 400 never show up. Thousands more go AWOL, and another 1500 apply for some kind of congressional action or discharge (figs. From NY Times). In Vietnam. GIs desert at the rate of 300 a month (NY Post). There is a whole section of Cholon, Saigon’s sister city, where AWOLs and deserters live, protected by the Vietnamese.
Army brass is having a pretty rough time getting workers to report for induction. In Oakland, Cal., a largely clack working class area. Half of the guys ordered to report never showed up. Of those who did, 11% refused to go.
AWOLs and desertions don’t really stop the brass from using their armies as they please. What they lose through desertions they make up on the next draft call. WHAT REALLY HURTS ARE REBELLIONS INSIDE THE ARMY. Every military stockade in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Okinawa, Korea, Vietnam and Germany has had at least one major rebellion. The Ford Ord stockade averages one rebellion every three months. Rebels burned down Vietnam’s LBJ (Long Binh Jail) and Da Nang Brig and shot their main officers. The population of the stockades rose from 5,000 in 1966 to nearly 20,000 in 1969.
Mutinies by front-line troops have multiplied tremendously. Most of the successful mutinies are never reported because the troops shoot the officers who normally report them. It’s gotten so bad the brass have set up ballistics labs to see whether officers and NCOs are being shot by "VC" or GIs. In the 1st Air Cav., seven 1st Sgts. in a row were eliminated. Combat GIs have also conducted raids on officers’ clubs.
Recently there were mutinies over the invasion of Cambodia. The GIs said: "We don’t even belong in Vietnam; why should we go to Cambodia?" It’s also reported that a hundred GIs in the 1st Air Cav. are refusing to go into the field.
The most militant stateside rebellion took place at Fort Hood. Black GIs held mass demonstrations on post refusing any "riot duty" against their working class brothers in Chicago.
A friend of ours who just returned from Pleiku (he was ordered out of Vietnam because the brass was scared of PL) reports that shortly after he arrived, the Commanding Officer call together all the troops. He told them, first, that he knew many of them wanted to kill him. But, he warned. He had a sawed-off shotgun with him at all times, so he’d take as many of the soldiers with him as he could. Secondly, he said, the officers were taking up a collection for a swimming pool for the troops. Awhile later, someone threw a fragmentation bomb in the C.O.s window. The C.O., who was not in bed at the time and so got away with his skin (for the time being) ordered three known militants arrested. The next night, the officers’ latrine blew up, with four officers inside.
Once, our friend reports, while he was walking across the base, someone started shooting at him. He ran over right away, shouting for the soldier to stop, it was only a fellow GI. "Oh," said the man, "I’m terribly sorry. I thought you were the officer of the guard!"
In other words there’s a real fighting war going on inside the U.S. army, a war between the brass and the working class GIs. PLP members, like the fellow at Pleiku, go into the army. We oppose attempts to escape the draft on a personal basis. In our estimate, the army is an excellent place to serve the workers by building anti-ruling class struggle and support for those the army attacks—like Vietnamese working people. Thus we also go, willingly, to Vietnam—to try, in practice, to build international working class unity.
There has been an excellent response to this fighting line. Over 1,000 GIs at Fort Dix in New Jersey buy Challenge every issue. (It’s the best read paper on the fort.) The army has already discharged 3 PLP members—Peter Bilazarian, Heath Paley, and Ralph Spiga—because of the tremendous support our ideas are receiving. The army recently court-martialed Paley and Bilazarian and a friend of PL, Bill Hayes, on charges of assaulting an MP and disrespect for an officer. These charges stemmed from struggle during an earlier court-martial of PL’er Bilazarian for distributing PL literature at the base. As pictures, including one in an earlier section, show, there was a good deal of militancy inside and outside the court-martial room. During the trial, which lasted seven days, 35 to 40 GIs came as "character witnesses’—with a clear knowledge that they were fighting to defend communists and communist ideas. The court-martial was turned around, into a political attack on the imperialist army.
As you can see from the front page of EM-16, one of the GI papers PL members help put out, a key part of the struggle is to link black and white GIs to fight racism. Racism is very sharp. Not only are black GIs given the most dangerous work, but, also, black GIs are attacked and insulted especially sharply by the brass in order to build and play on white GI’s racism. (For more on fighting racism in the army see: any issue of Challenge; Sept., 1970 PL magazine, Mack Smith’s article, "Smash the Bosses’ Armed Forces," or the PL army program, which has the same title. Write for these publications!)
PL fights hard for an internationalist outlook. This has two aspects, two sides. On the one hand, it means winning U.S. GIs to fighting the brass and backing rebels they’re sent to attack. On the other hand, it has to be understood: when GIs do in fact carry out the ruler’s orders and attack working people—whether they be teamsters in Cleveland or Vietnamese fighters—working people have the absolute right to fight back. We support working people who resist the U.S. imperialist army 100%—while at the same time working to win GIs to SMASH THE BOSSES’ ARMED FORCES!
Given the tremendous militancy and revolutionary potential, it is a tragedy that Vietnamese leaders do not try to win U.S. soldiers in Vietnam to an internationalist working class line. This was done in the early 60’s with the ARVN troops, with great results. But nationalism and the negotiations-mania prevents revisionist leaders from carrying out this task—this absolute duty!
FOURTH, IN THE UNIVERSITIES. In the universities we try to ally with other students, campus workers and faculty members to build a pro-working class movement. This means helping build Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and other anti-imperialist, anti-racist organizations, which should hopefully include black and white. These organizations fight around questions of racism (especially around the oppression of black campus workers), against imperialism on campus (fights to abolish Reserve Officer Training Programs), and build strike support (thus during the General Motors strike, SDS has closed down a number of dealerships.) In other words, we help to develop a worker-student-faculty alliance.
FIFTH, IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES. There is currently a tremendous upsurge in the 2-year colleges. As opposed to the 4-year schools, nearly all the students in these colleges and working class kids who will get working class jobs after they graduate. The rulers claim that these schools will enable working class kids to "make it." This is nonsense, as the Nov. 1 Challenge discusses (p. 17) In fact, 50% of the students never graduate. Most of the ones who do graduate either can’t get jobs they were "trained" for, because they are becoming obsolete, or get jobs—and end up earning what they could have earned without going to community college. While in school, students are often "trained" by doing unpaid work. Allying community college students with workers is really building a worker-worker alliance. One important aspect of our work at these schools is to expose the myth that they help working class kids. In fact these schools are a way of sucking them into some more mis-education, the better to shaft them later on. As at high schools and universities, we help build pro-worker fights against the administrations of those schools.
SIXTH, IN GENERAL, WE FIGHT FOR INTERNATIONALISM. We make this a separate point because it is absolutely critical. International working class unity is the essence of communist politics. (We mentioned earlier that we oppose nationalism. One of the bad aspects of nationalism is that it justifies unity with bourgeois elements—since they’re "our own people." But this is not the worst thing. The worst aspect of nationalism is that it leads to opposing workers of other nationalities.) Some of the things we’re doing to promote internationalism are:
Developing close fraternal relations with the Canadian Party of Labor and the Puerto Rican Socialist League, the two revolutionary communist parties in those two countries. This involves, for example, mutual strike support work. Thus PL and CPL issued a joint flier backing U.S.-Canadian auto strikers. Together with CPL and the League. PL sponsored a march of 2500 working people and students through 4 miles of New York City, in support of International Solidarity, and against the Canadian Government which is using anti-worker terrorists to justify a general crackdown on working people and real communists. This march got a terrific response from many thousands of workers. The next day we had an all-day get together of 2000 people, including Speeches, revolutionary communist entertainment, and food. This march and this meeting were a great inspiration to all who attended. They showed that, while our movement is not large yet, it is growing fast and developing close ties among the people.
Supporting strikes and rebellions all over the world.
COMMUNIST WORK STYLE AND IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE
As we discussed in an earlier section, our aim in day-to-day struggles is to rely entirely on working people and not liberal rulers and at the same time always to keep the goal of workers’ power in the forefront.
While doing this, we work to defeat the ideological influences of the ruling class among the people. That means fighting racism and nationalism, male chauvinism, pacifism and terrorism. We spoke about nationalism earlier. As for racism, it is one of the most vicious ways the rulers try to split working people. It aims both to justify the specially sharp oppression of blacks ("of course they get it the worst—they’re animals") and at the same time isolate the most militant—the black workers—from white workers. Male chauvinism, which justifies the rotten conditions foisted on women workers because "they’re not breadwinners and anyway they don’t do a man’s day’s work" also involves oppression of women by men in their off-the-job lives. There is no reason why women should "stay out of politics" because "it’s a man’s task" despite overwhelming evidence that women often provide the best revolutionary leadership.
What about pacifism and terrorism? Why do we link them, one might ask. Aren’t they opposites?
Two sides of the same coin, really. Pacifism is usually considered mainly a question of refusing to use force, or fight back if attacked. That’s one aspect of pacifism. But to understand pacifism better, we must consider it as a political approach. As such, it means adopting a stand of moral outrage. The classic pacifist tactic is to inflict damage on oneself—e.g., to commit civil disobedience, and then accept sharp punishment—in the hope that this will shock the conscience of those in power. Politically speaking, this means adopting a posture of complete strategic passivity. The only ones who can fight and defeat imperialism are workers and their allies. By simply appealing to the rulers’ "moral sense" the pacifist is leaving it up to the rulers to decide exactly what will be done and when. This, and not mainly the refusal to hit someone, is the main characteristic of pacifism.
Terrorism is very much like pacifism. In fact, it could well be described as hysterical pacifism. The pacifist tells the rulers: "Change things or I’ll scream at the top of my lungs, break windows and blow up buildings, thus killing lots of workers." Like the pacifist, the terrorist does not believe in mass revolutionary struggle, but in the self-sacrificing action of a few elite individuals. Indeed, with the terrorist, the pacifist’s disregard for most people (except the elite pacifists and the rulers) has become hatred for most people—for working people. Because terrorists have no concept of mass struggle, they do not try to build a base. Hence they attract the most unstable, often crazy, types—the more twisted elitists are, the more open they are to penetration by police agents. (Thus EVERY terrorist group that has been arrested in the U.S. has had a cop as its leader. Time magazine recently reported that a cop had been traveling around upper New York State calling himself "Tommy the SDS regional traveler" and trying to get frustrated radicals to form terrorist groups.) The main aspect of pacifism—that it is passive in the face of the rulers—is far more pronounced among terrorists. For terrorists don’t just leave political action up to the rulers. They do more—they serve to turn working people and others against radicals and increase the government’s maneuverability.
Two terrorist groups which are in the news a lot these days are the Weathermen and the Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ). The Weathermen—formed out of a small group which walked out of SDS during the summer of 1969—are at present a tiny group composed mainly of police. Their hatred of the people is so intense that these cop/lunatics hailed the much-played-up Tate murders because of the degree to which the senseless violence was involved.
The FLQ is one of the most selfish nationalist groups. Despite left-wing pretensions, these terrorists have nothing but complete contempt for working people. The have done nothing to help Quebec’s working class—the hardest hit in Canada. Indeed, the only people who have died in their terrorist actions, besides a government official, are a truck driver and a postman. (The postman died when he opened a booby-trapped mail box!) The FLQ is only interested in getting a few of their members out of jail. Its long-term goal is to get the imperialists to let them manage some industry. They want a bigger share of the booty.
As we said, the alternative to pacifism, terrorism, or any other odd-ball forms of ruling politics—the alternative to all capitalist politics—is to build a working class revolutionary movement. Such a movement, engaging in mass struggle, will seep all these anti-working class forces into the garbage can. That’s where they belong.
Another aspect of ideological struggle is defeating bourgeois influences in the area of culture. We can’t go into this in real depth here. Suffice it to say that, in our estimate, the rulers are taking a planned, very serious political approach to culture—more than ever before. Ruling class apologists among writers, directors, etc., are under tight corporate control. Anti-worker, racist, and in general reactionary ideas are pushed in the sweetest-tasting form. Whereas films once pictured black people as inferior, step-n-fetch-it types, now black people are pictured as slick, tough, smart, male-chauvinist cops or elitist black nationalists, in the hopes of poisoning black militants. Similarly, students are depicted as elitist, escape-crazy dope fiend-terrorists—the aim is to turn off working people, and build these rotten attitudes among the very large number of anti-capitalist students. At the same time, workers are pictured (as in the movies "Joe" and "Easy Rider") as racist student-haters who go out and kill a few hippies. The tremendous militancy of workers—black and white too—is "forgotten" in these fairy-tale nightmares. The aim is to get workers to think of students and blacks as their enemies, while convincing students and blacks that white workers are in Nixon’s hip pocket. For students and blacks—fake radical escapist and hip-mod-cop culture. For white working people—appeals to "traditional virtues" like racism and radical-hippy-freaks. For both: lies, attempts to divide. Much more has to be done to expose this poison.
BUILD THE PLP!
One of the most significant events this past year has been the tremendous growth of PL as a force among working people. Our paper now reaches 100,000 every 3 weeks. Most are working people. Many, many workers now sell Challenge-Desafio, work with us in all sorts of struggles, study Marxism-Leninism. More and more are joining PL. This is a development of historic significance. It changes the whole ball game.
For as more workers are won to PL the influence of communist ideas will reach out to every nook and cranny.
And this is happening. We could see it happening at International Solidarity Day, the last week in October, 1970. How long has it been since 2500 people—including a huge number of workers—marched through New York shouting communist slogans, carrying communist signs? We are building a serious party, whose members are stable people, whose whole lives are more and more dedicated to serving workers. We are building a working class party.
ALL POWER TO THE WORKING CLASS!
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!
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