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14 January 1977

Sunday Observer (London)

encouraged by organizations like theUTP. It flows rather from the enormousassistance that even a tiny minority ofwhites, with their privileged access toculture and technology, could potential­ly lend to a revolutionary movementspearheaded by the black workers inalliance with their Indian and "col­oured" class brothers. Moreover. eventhe slightest instance of genuine interra­cial solidarity flies in the face of everytenet of the apartheid system.

If massively implemented, the call fora week of industrial action could be animportant opportunity for militantworkers to demonstrate solidarity withtheir victimized class brothers in SouthAfrica and to marshal the strength of theinternational proletariat to force Pre­toria to lift the bannings and free allvictims of the reign of apartheid terror.However, the ICFTU-initiated cam­paign clearly exhibits the deforminginfluence of labor reformism. Thus thecall is narrowly focused on 24 banned orarrested union activists and fails even todemand release of all victims of theVorster regime's police-state measures.It also includes a call for a consumerboycott, a liberal gesture which in theunlikely event that it were successful inputting pressure on the South African

continued on page 10

ties, and seven are connected with theWages and Economic Commissionestablished by the National Union ofSouth African Students in Cape Town.

The African labor movement is stilltiny. comprising 24 unions with about60,000 members and, while not formallyillegal, it has no recognized organiza­tional rights. Yet the combativitydemonstrated in the extensive 1973-74strike wave (when the bosses extendedde facto recognition by negotiating withthe unregistered unions) and the proteststrikes organized in the non-whitetownships this summer make the apar­theid butchers fear the potential role oforganized black workers as a rallyingpoint for mass struggles against whitesupremacy. Pretoria fears that conces­sions to the handful of existing blackunions will open the floodgates to amighty surge of social struggles hy thefive-million-strong black proletariat.

By the same token, the government isparticularly concerned to abort anycooperation among blacks and whiteson the trade-union front. indeed tocrush any incipient white support toblack struggles for democratic rights.The regime's anxiety does not flow fromany direct threat posed by the tepidliberalism of a few anti-racist intellectu­als or the staid trade-union economism

•.0100S

tional labor organizations "to take thestrongest possible measures ... to ensurethat the bannings--which are tragicallyjeopardizing the efforts made so far bythe African workers to organise them­selves-he lifted forthwith." The boardconcretized its call by initiating aninternational trade-union protest cam­paign during the week of January 17,urging "large-scale rallies," educationalactivities and "industrial action," in­cluding "the grounding of South Afri­can aircraft and ships, as well as aboycott on the unloading and loading ofgoods destined for or coming fromSouth Africa."

Most of those banned in Novemberare white. Some are associated withgroups like the Urban Training Project(UTP) of Johannesburg, the Durhan­based Institute for Industrial Education(lIE) or the Western Province Workers'Advice Bureau of Cape Town, whichengage in research and education andassist black workers in forming unions.Others are organizers for unregisteredAfrican trade unions or officials of theTrade Union Advisory and Coordinat­ing Council, which functions as afederation of black unions in the state ofNatal. Some. like UTP chairman LoetDouwes-Dekker and liE researcherCharles Simkins, teach in the universi-

A review of Martin Nicolaus' Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR

How Maoists "Restore Capitalism"in the Soviet Union . . . . . . 6

No. 140

Anti-apartheid youth march to demand that minister of justice Kruger release militants.

SOUTH AFRICAN REVOLUTION:

Implement International Labor Boycott January IIIThe white supremacist South African

government has responded to the waveof black and "coloured" (mixed race)uprisings that has swept the countrysince June with a few token concessionsand massive ruthless repression. Ac­cording to the government's statistics(undoubtedly only a lying fraction of thereal total), at least 400 non-whitcs havebeen massacred by the police.

The independent Institute of RaceRelations estimates that in additionover 400 have been detained withoutcharge, of whom at most about aquarter have heen released in recentweeks. Nearly 4,200 have been arrestedon such charges as riotous assembly,incitement and public violence. Whilemost of them rot in jail awaiting trial,over 600 have been convicted andsentenced to the barbaric corporalpunishment of "heavy caning."

Among these victims of apartheidrepression are a number of activistsassociated with the nascent black labormovement. In November two dozen ofthese activists were served with banningorders; another half dozen were arrest­ed. Banning orders are an elasticrepressive measure, prohibiting specificactivities (in this case. union organizing)and often including the virtual "civildeath" of years under house arrest. Themove followed an announcement bylabor minister Marais Viljoen that thegovernment will not extend legal recog­nition to black unions, a question whichhad heen under official re-examinationin recent months.

In response tJ these attacks on theblack labor m"vement. the executiveboard of the International Confedera­lion of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU),meeting in Brussels on Novemher 25.issued a call for national and interna-

WfJRIlERS "'N'(J

An Exchang~

Crime ,Punishment and the Dictatorshipof the Proletariat

Fonner members of the Russian bourgeoisie at .compulsory labor, 1918.

14 July 1976

Editor, Workers Vanguard

Comrades:

The question of the Marxist attitudetowards punishment raised in WV[No.117], 9 July 1976, can stand a lot ofthought. I do not claim to be a master ofthe subject and am interested here inimproving my grasp of it through anexchange of views.

The history of meting out "justice" inall hitherto existing societies is un­doubtedlya tale of unrelieved horror. Itdoes not follow from that that repressivemeasures are neverjust; indeed they aresometimes progressive from the stand­point of anyone who recognizes thedifference between the hammerblowwhich breaks a link in the chain of aslave and the blow that reforges thatlink. What does follow from the historyof official violence is that it is hard to tellwhich forms of repression are morehumane and which less. Thus I doubtthat "The deterrence argument upheldby the utilitarians in the period ofindustrial capital represented an ad­vance." You say it broke with "thebarbarous practices of torturing andmaiming criminals." I do not know whois worse off, the convicted pickpocket inKhadaffi's Libya who gets his right handamputated in accordance with theprovisions of the Holy Koran, or, say,George Jackson, convicted of takingabout twenty dollars from a servicestation and given a l-to-JO year "condi­tional sentence" under the penal code of"enlightened" California. I do nQt knowthat there is any practice more "barbar­ous" than locking up a human being in asteel and concrete cage for decades orfor life. That is a· practice neverconceived of by authentic barbarians,many of whom imagined exile from thetribe to be the supreme penalty, moreterrible than death even. Deterrencealso goes by another name: preventivedetention. How is that an advance over"getting even" with offenders? In onecase the state locks you up for what youhave (presumably) done. In the othercase it locks you up for what it suspectsyou are going to do. Whatever it mayhave been in the days of JeremyBentham, preventive detention in ourepoch has become a method of holdingon to power equally favored by unstablebourgeois regimes and by the Stalinistbureaucracies.

WIRKERS',6fiO,RI)Marxist Working-Class Weeklyof the Spartacist League ofthe U.S.

EDITOR: Jan Norden

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Karen Allen

CIRCULATION MANAGER: Anne Kelley

EDITORIAL BOARD: Charles Burroughs,George Foster, Liz Gordon, Chris Knox, JamesRobertson. Joseph Seymour

Published weekly, except bi-weekly in Augustand December, by the Spartacist PUblishingCo., 260 West Broadway, New York, N.Y.10013. Telephone: 966-6841 (Editorial),925-5665 (Business). Address all correspond­ence to: Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, N.Y.10001. Domestic sUbscriptions: $5.00 per year.Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y.

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

2

I strongly agree with you that "Social­ists do not proceed from the standpointof punishing the offender." I would addthat socialists can no longer believe thatputting anybody in prison is going to dohim or her any good. If Marx stillthought in 1875 that productive laborengaged in by prisoners was "correc­tive," he was wrong. A century lateranybody can see that "houses ofcorrection," so-called, are not what theywere cracked up to be. I hope you willnot tell me that corrective labor won'twork under capitalism but will after therevolution. The revolutionary party

should inscribe on its banners not thereform of prisoners through forcedlabor or the improvement of prisonconditions but the abolition of institu­tions of punishment. In the struggle forsocialism let us seek ways to realize theremarkable vision of Marx that "Underhuman conditions punishment willreally be nothing but the sentencepassed by the culprit on himself." (In asociety whose principle is human soli­darity, not the exploitation of labor andviolence, it will be the responsibility ofother human beings to commute thatsentence.) I would like to know moreabout the Bolshevik attitude towardspunishment. E. H. Carr's paraphrase ofthe 1919 party program, which youquote, contradicts the principle of nopunishment, to which you subscribe.According to Carr the program calls for"a fundamental alteration in the charac­ter of punishment, ... applying publiccensure as a means of punishment," andalso "compulsory labour with retentionof freedom." If this paraphrase is to betrusted, the 1919 program proposes tochange the "character" of punishmentbut not do away with it in principle. Bythe way, how will we ever get from"applying public censure as a means ofpunishment" to the condition envi­sioned by Marx in your quotation fromThe Ho~l' Family where a culprit "willsee in other men his natural saviors fromthe punishment which he has imposedon himself"?

I get a different impression ofBolshevik penal theory than the oneCarr gives from a reading of Solzhenit­syn's Gulag Archipelago. Quotationsfrom Soviet documents in that bookconvey that the Bolsheviks flatly repudi­ated the concept that punishment is the

purpose of imprisonment. They heldthat defense of the revolution byisolating its opponents, quite a few ofwhom were armed and mobilized forseveral years after 1917, was the onlyjustification for depriving anyone ofliberty. They claimed no right ofretribution nor did they argue thatincarceration was beneficial to theimprisoned. But then the growingbureaucracy in the 1920s reintroducedthe old formulas justifying prisons asplaces of punishment and correctivelabor. (Solzhenitsyn tries to destroy thegood name of the Bolsheviks in Gulag

but his quotations sometimes undercutthe attempt.)

The question of punishment mustalso be considered in the light of theMarxist theory of the state, Accordingto that theory, before it was subject tobrutal, nullifying, completely unaccept­able amendment by Stalin and Mao, thegrowth of socialist society is to bemeasured by the fading away of classes,the attenuation of the class struggle, andthe withering away of the apparatus ofrepression. According to the Stalin­Mao revision, as classes begin todisappear, the class struggle heats upand the survival of the revolutionaryregime requires more and more repres­sion of the bourgeoisie and capitalistroaders. In reality that revision is adefense of the power of the bureaucrats.They shore up their authority byresorting to old ideas about punishmentand correction (and to newer ideas likeusing psychiatric "therapy" againstpolitical opponents). They thus widenthe gulf separating them from thosewhose mission it is to struggle towards asociety in which violence, .whetherphysical or mental, will have no furtherrole in the relations between humanbeings.

Fraternally,David Herreshoff

WV Replies: David Herreshoff's letterdoes not present a clear counterpositionto our views on crime and punishment,which is why we have taken a long timeto ponder it. Neither Herreshoff norMarx nor the Bolsheviks nor theSpartacist League advocates forcedlabor, prisons or punishment. Alongwith a number of correct assertions.however, the letter offers some doubts,

reservations and leading questionswhich taken together suggest an ap­proach more closely associated withahistorical humanism or libertarianismthan with the traditions of revolutionaryMarxism.

Herreshoff is quite right when he saysthat socialists must renounce the con­cept of punishment, and also that somerepressive measures are necessary andjust in the cause of liberating mankind.In these assertions he is in agreementwith our article"Abolish the Death Pen­alty" in WV No. 117. But in the formof rhetorical questions he raises differ­ences with our position that abolition ofphysical mutilation in official punish­ment represents social progress, and healso expresses uncertainties concerningthe Bolsheviks' penal policies. In boththese concerns Herreshoff abstracts thequestions from the actual process ofhistory.

Marxists should not find it so "hardto tell which forms of repression aremore humane and which less." Com­munists need not be ambiguous aboutthe abolition of the practices of drawingand quartering, disemboweling, pullingon the rack, breaking on the wheel andcrushing on the "Scavenger's Daughter"out of fear that something equally cruelwill take their place. Eliminating themost barbaric practices of officialphysical mutilation can be supported aspart of the progress associated with thebourgeois revolution.

From the standpoint of subjectivepsychology and ahistorical relativism,one might also find it difficult to decidewhich is worse: the rigors of earlyindustrial society or those of feudalism.But this viewpoint is alien to the Marxistwho ultimately views human progress inthe first instance as an advance in thedevelopment of productive forces.

Marxists do not proceed from thesubjective desires (real or supposed) ofindividual victims, which are necessarilyconditioned by existing social normsand ideology. We are against the rackeven if some woebegotten sinner thinkshe deserves it. In this regard it isilluminating to consider the contempor­ary case of Gary Gilmore. The fact thatGilmore has expressed a desire to beshot before a firing squad in Utah has nobearing whatsoever on the Marxistopposition to the death penalty (see"Stop the Legal Murder of GaryGilmore," WV No. 136, 3 December1976). That Gary Gilmore and someliberal ideologues have argued that it isless cruel to die immediately than "rot inprison" is for a Marxist no reason tolook longingly to the savage andterminal punishment of the deathpenalty.

Similarly, an individual may subjec­tively prefer to have his body mutilatedin Libya than spend time behind bars inCalifornia, but that is no answer to thesocial question of punishment, whichmust be posed in its historical/ materialcontext. In the first place, one never getsthe choice: you cannot choose to bepilloried for a few weeks in ElizabethanLondon rather than spend years in amiserable U.S. prison. And it should notbe forgotten that the society that cuts offthe hands of its victim condemns him tolifelong misery as a helpless beggar andoutcast.

It makes a significant differencehistorically that the bourgeoisie in its

continued on pax£' II

WORKERS VANGUARD

I

Green/Sygma

Saudi oil minister Sheik Yamani (center) at recent OPEC conference inQatar.

David RubingerlTime

Israeli troops patrol Nablus in the West Bank after recent Arabdemonstrations.

f

Pax Americana in the Near East?

Time

into making vicious physical attacksupon Hebron's Arab inhabitants, know­ing that Qiryat Arba would be defendedfrom Arab retaliation by the Israelioccupation army. These attacks pro­voked rioting and desecration of Mus­lim and Jewish religious articles at acommon site of worship (called theTomb of Patriarchs) this past fall.Hebron was placed under militarycurfew and the Israeli army arrested 74Arabs.

Gush Emunim was denounced for itsprovocative behavior even by conserva­tive Israeli journals like Haaretz and theEnglish-language Jerusalem Post. Fur­ther, Haaretz suggested that Israelmight eVl!'lV)'have to get out of theoccupied territories. The Israeli armywas criticized for not containing GushEmunim, and this criticism of themilitary occupation necessarily impli­cated Defense Minister Shimon Peres,

continued on page 4

3

PLO head Arafat

"illegal" by the Rabin government, ithas continued to flourish since itsfoundation one year ago. Its populationhas increased from 120 to 200. $700,000has been invested there (partly bygovernment agencies) and the settle­ment has two industrial plants produc­ing goods for the defense industry andfor export. Rabin MS not cracked downon Kadum in order not to break with theNRP.

In addition the NRP! Mapai coalitionhas been strained by the provocativeantics of the Gush Emunim settlementnear Hebron, Qiryat Arba. Hebron is arelatively large West Bank Arab citywith a population of 60,000. The leadero,f the Qiryat Afb.a s~ttl,em~nt, ~he n<:>to­nOllS ultra-reactIonary' RabbI MO\~ne .Levinger, has led' his flock of fanatics

But while the NRP embarrasses self­styled "left-wing" Zionists in thegovernment coalition and sometimesirritates the major Zionist party. the so­called "Labor" (Mapai) Party, nonethe­less the alliance grows out of mutualneed through which Mapai is able toretain the reactionary clericalist charac­ter of the Zionist state without having totake direct responsibility for it.

Nowhere is this symbiotic relation offake squabbles masking mutual depen­dence clearer than in the tiff between the"iRP and the Mapai over the policytoward Jewish settlements in the Arabterritories occupied by Israel during the1967 war. There are now 23 suchsettlements built in the West Bank, 17on the Golan Heights and 16 in the GazaStrip. Most of the settlements have beenlaunched by the ultra-right-wing. rabid­ly chauvinist and fanatically orthodoxGush Emunim movement.

All these settlements except "CampKadum" near Nablus have been ap­proved by the Israeli governmentbecause they define the "security fron­tiers" that the Rabin governmentultimately wishes to retain in any futuresettlement. Camp Kadum, however, isin an area heavily populated by Palesti­nian A'tabs which the Mapai wants toleave unsettled as a negotiating chip forsome future treaty with Jordan and theother Arab states. The NRP supportsthe demand of Gush Emunim to annexall of the West Bank as part of "EretzYisrael" (their "Holy Land") with thecorollary of the forcible displacement ofthe West Bank's 650,000 PalestinianArabs.

While Kadum has been declared

reducing his majority (67 seats in the120-member Knesset) to a minority of57. Rather than face the humiliation offalling on a no-confidence motion putforwud by the main right-wing opposi­tion bloc, the Likud. the Rabin govern­ment resigned the following day.

Although less fanatical and moresecular than the United Torah Front.the NRP is built upon orthodoxreligious obscurantism. Thus in 1951 itbrought down the Ben Gurion govern­ment by leaving the governing coalitionclaiming that Yemenite Jewish childrenwere not receiving the necessary reli­gious education. The party also leftgoverning coalitions in 1958, 1970 and1974 over that perennialquesti()n of"Who is a Jew?"-a questionmut"inostimportance in this clericalist, raciststate, which was built by denying thePalestinian people their homeland andby claiming it instead as a homeland ofworld Jewry.

Religious Obscurantists Fight for"Eretz Yisrael"

David Rubinger/Time

Israeli prime minister Rabin

the incident they put forward a no­confidence motion condemning theRabin government for desecrating thesabbath. Irrespective of their religiousconvictions, many splinter groups votedfor the no-confidence motion. Mostembarrassing, nine of the ten NationalReligious Party members of the Knessetabstained. The NRP was in the Rabingovernment, occupying the ministries ofinterior. welfare and religious affairs.

On December 19 Rabin expelled theNRP from the government coalition,

the U. S.' most advanced fighter jet. Forsome unexplained reason the ceremonywas delayed. According to PrimeMinister Rabin, it concluded 17 minutesbefore sundown, or the beginning ofsabbath. According to the ultra­orthodox United Torah Front theceremony continued past sundown,thereby desecrating the sabbath and,perhaps even more of an affront,preventing the religious Jewish partici­pants in the ceremony from drivinghome,

The United Torah Front was formedby the fusion of Agudat Israel andAgudat Israel Workers before theformation of the Israeli state in 1948. Itopposed Zionist political independencebecause, according to strict orthodoxinterpretation, political independencerequired the redemption of the Jewishpeople through the coming of theMessiah. But messiah or no, the UnitedTorah Front entered Israel's first gov­ernment only to leave it again in 1951over the conscription of women intomilitary service.

The United Torah Front has fivemembers in the Israeli parliament, orKnesset, and on the Tuesday following

Rabin Government FallsThe maneuvering surrounding the fall

of the Israeli government of PrimeMinister Yitzhak Rabin graphicallydisplays the reactionary clericalist char­acter of the Zionist state. To begin with,Israel does not have the oil wealth or theindustrial base to sustain a large militaryapparatus and therefore must get itsweapons gratis from the Pentagon orpay for them with dollars contributed bythe world Zionist movement. So inDccember Defense Minister ShimonPeres made his annual pilgrimage formilitary alms to Washington. D.C.

There was the usual haggling withoutwhich, apparcntly, no deal can be closedbetween the merchants of death andtheir srr.al!-power clients. In the fiscalyear ending 30 September 1976 Israelreceived $2.3 billion in aid and request­ed the same amount for 1977. But sincethe U.S. presidential elections (withtheir demagogic appeals to the Jewishvote by bellicose statements of supportfor Israel) are now over, the StateDepartment and the President's Officeof Management and Budget pared thisrequest to $1.5 billion of which $800million would be for military credits.

While this haggling was going on aspecial welcoming ceremony including3,000 spectators was held near Tel Avivon Friday, Deceldher 10, to receive thefirst three of 25 promised F-15 Eagles.

14 JANUARY 1977

The fall of the Rabin government inIsrael last month; the split in OPEC atits mid-December meetings in Qatar;the suppression of the civil war inLebanon by 30,000 Syrian troops; andthe PLO's capitulation to the proposalfor a West Bank! Gaza Strip Palestinian"mini-state" are all part of a plea to theincoming Carter administration toimpose a Pax Americana solution onthe interminable Near East "crisis."

Defying for years UN resolutions towithdraw from the occupied territories,the Israeli ruling class has committeditself not to give up at the negotiatingtable what it can keep on the battlefield.The American bourgeoisie would cer­tainly like Israel to make such conces­sions as would placate the surroundingArab states and defuse the brink-of-warsituation. However, the Americanruling class is not about to apply theonly form of pressure that would forceIsrael to do its bidding-a severecutback in aid sufficient to cripple theZionists militarily. To do so wouldcause a major political crisis in Israel,upset the balance of power in theregion-which currently places the U.S.in a pivotal position-and therebythreaten a new Near East war with thedanger of a direct Soviet-Americanconfrontation.

•

Date:Time:Place:

Near East ...(continued from paRe 3)

Rabin's arch-rival within the "Labor"Party.

The religious riots in Hebron are onlypart of a continuing Arab protestagainst the brutal Israeli military occu­pation. Most recently protests centeredon the extension of an Israeli 8 percentvalue added tax to the West Bank, taxeswhich in large part go to buying ad­vanced military hardware (like the F-15Eagles, which cost $24 million apiece)used against the Palestinians. Theseprotests culminated in a 15 DecemberWest Bank general strike which spilledover into the Gaza Strip.

No doubt Rabin wants to distancehimself without actually breaking fromthe openly annexationist demands ofthe NRP and the Gush Emunim in orderto appease the U.S. which has beenopenly critical of Israeli policies in theoccupied territories. On II Novemberthe U.S. voted with the other 14 UNSecurity Council members for a state­ment expressing "grave anxiety andconeern over the present serious situa­tion in the occupied territories as a resultof continued Israeli occupation." Thereal issue behind the temporary fallingout between Rabin and the party oforthodox rabbis is the policy toward theoccupied territories, that is, partialversus complete annexation of the WestBank.

The Price of Sheik Yamani'sPrice Restraint

The U.S.' principal ally among theArab states of the Near East. SaudiArabia, is also pressuring Washingtonand in its own way competing with theZionists for the good graces of Ameri­can public opinion. Hence the "split" inthe oil producers' cartel (OPEC) at theQatar meetings, where the Saudis raisedtheir price only 5 percent while other,supposedly greedier, producers uppedtheirs by 10 percent.

In an interview before the OPECsummit, Saudi oil minister Sheik Yama­ni emphasized his tender concern for theeconomic health of the advanced capi­talist world:

"We need a strong economy in the \\lestto achieve our industrial and develop­ment targets inside Saudi Arabia. Andwe do not want a recession in the Westthat will definitely weaken the presentpolitical systems. especially in certainareas in Europe...."

-Business Week.29 November 1976

After the OPEC conference, Yamaniurged the U.S. to show its "apprecia­tion" for the Saudis' price restraint.

Actually, whether crude oil prices areraised by 5 or 10 percent or not at all willhave a negligible effect on the worldeconomy. The significant change in oilprices was the four-fold increase follow­ing the 1973 Arab-Israel war. And theimperialist bourgeoisie is by no meansreconciled to paying for Arab oil atmany times its cost of production. Toquote Robert Hormats, economist forthe U.S. National Security Council:

"The question is how to survive thedisaster that has already been inflictedupon us...."Ultimately we either have to roll backthe price of oil or get OPEC to financethe [balance of payments] deficitsdirectly or through international insti­tutions on giveaway terms."

--Business Week,20 December 1976

One of these days the smiles of thePersian Gulf sheiks and shahs when theytalk about oil prices may be rudelywiped off their faces.

Even as a modest economicconcession, the Saudi action is a hoax.OPEC is by no means the only effectivemonopoly operating in the world oilbusiness. Jhe principal financial benefi­ciary from the price split will beAramco. a consortium of Exxon,MobiL Texaco and Standard Oil ofCalifornia. Aramco has a near monopo­ly (about 90 percent) over the purchaseof Saudi crude petroleum. It can now

4

buy this oil at roughly 5 percent less thanthe price of oil in other markets.

Aramco. of course. will not pass thissaving on to final consumcrs. but willshave the 10 percent price increaseenough to expand its markets at theexpense of firms lacking access to Saudioil. After all the maneuvers there willagain be one selling price to finalconsumers, probably about 8 percenthigher than previously. Some U.S. oilmajors will quietly increase their profits,while the Saudis will have their publicitycoup as a supposed benefactor of theAmerican consumer.

The Saudis have made it clear thattheir oil price "restraint" is also abargaining counter for the U.S. topressure its ally Israel into makingconcessions to the Arab states. As theSaudi ambassador to Washington putit: "The one point which should be madejust as strongly as the economic aspect isthe positive need for all parties to get onnow with achieving a just and durablesettlement in the Middle East" (NewYork Times. 18 December).

PLO Settles for Mini-State

While the Zionists were squabblingover how much of the occupied territo­ries to annex. the Palestinian LiberationOrganization (PLO) was debatingwhether to propose the establishment ofa Palestinian state let in the West Bankand Gaza Strip. Previously the PLO hadcalled for a "democratic secular Pales­tine" which implied the destruction ofZionist Israel as well as the incorpora­tion of the West Bank and the GazaStrip, that is. recreating the post-WorldWar I British mandate of Palestine.

This debate is a direct result of thebloody military defeat of the Palestini­ans in Lebanon by the right-wingMaronite militias in alliance with 30,000Syrian troops. Since April 1975 Palesti­nian commando groups in Lebanonhave suffered 3,000 fatalities and lostabout a fifth of their leadership, while20,000 Palestinian civilians were mur­dered. Saudi Arabia, which throughdoling out its oil wealth to Syria, Egyptand the PLO wields enormous influenceover their policies, forced a reconcilia­tion of sorts between Syria and Egypt onthe one hand, and Syria and the PLO onthe other.

The massive Syrian invasion ofLebanon has now been turned into anArab League "peacekeeping force" witha fake Lebanese command. The 19­month Lebanese civil war which result­ed in over 60,000 fatalities was finallysuppressed, but only by ringing theMaronite communities and Palestinianrefugee camps with Syrian troops. Just acouple of months earlier PLO leaderYassir Arafat wasdenouncingSyriaasatraitor to the Palestinian cause while theSyrian government was openly callingfor Arafat's ouster. To demonstratetheir "reconciliation" Arafat caIled thefirst meeting of the PLO's CentralCouncil since June 1974' for mid­December in Damascus where it woulddebate the future of the badly mauledPalestinian movement. The three-daymeeting ended with a carefuIly wordeddeclaration which made no mention ofthe demand for a "democratic secular

FORUM-

Toward the Rebirthof the FourthInternationalSpeaker: James Robertson

Central Committee,Spartacist League/U.S.Sat., 29 January 19777:30 p.m.Barnard CollegeLehman Auditorium,Altschul Hall

Donation: $1Sponsored by Columbia SpartacusYouth LeagueFor more information call 925-5665

NEW YORK

Palestine" or the need to destroy Israelor even Zionism, merely calling for an"independent Palestinian state" withoutdefining its boundaries.

Syrian president Assad has beentemporarily reconciled to Arafat'scontinuing leadership of the PLO. andDecember 14 issues of government­controlled Syrian newspapers promi­nently displayed photographs of theSyrian and Palestinian leaders sittingnext to each other, flanked by theirrespective lieutenants. It should beremembered, however, that Assad cameto power in 1971 by opposing Syria'ssupport to the Palestinians in Jordanduring the Black September massacre ofthe commandos and refugee camps.Since then he has formed a "unitedpolitical leadership" with the feudalistHashemite dynasty in Amman.

Although the 1974 conference ofArab rulers in Rabat proclaimed thePLO "sole legitimate re~resentative"ofthe Palestinian people, since one millionPalestinians live in Jordan, the Hashem­ite King Hussein is not about to give upsovereignty over half his "subjects."During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War,Hussein's grandfather Abdullah an­nexed the Palestinian West Bank andheld it until it was in turn militarilyoccupied by Israel in the 1967 war.Likewise Egypt annexed the Gaza Stripafter the 1948 war and lost it to Israel in1967.

In Lebanon, which has a Palestinianpopulation of 400,000 and where thePalestinian commandos numberedmore than 20,000 (being larger, betterarmed and certainly better motivatedthan the Lebanese Army), the Palestini­ans constituted a state within a state.After suppressing the Lebanese civil warSyria is not about to agree to thePalestinians' having a state with anymore "independence" than tney current­ly have in the refugee camps in Lebanonringed with Syrian troops. Syria wantsto see the West Bank reannexed byJordan under the guise of a federa tion inwhich the Palestinians would retainnominal authority.

Egyptian-Syrian "Unity"

At the PLO meeting in Damascuspro-Syrian and pro-Jordanian forceswithin the umbrella group attempted toget the Central Council to enlarge thePalestinian National Assembly (a kindof Palestinian parliament to which thePLO is nominally subordinate) in orderto pack it with supporters of theDamascus and Amman regimes anddilute support for Arafat.

Another fake reconciliation going onbetween Syria and Egypt culminated inthe announcement on December 21 thatthey too were forming a "united politicalleadership." Although Egypt and Syriaboth fought together against Israel inthe October 1973 war, they have beenbitter enemies, at least verbally, sinceEgypt concluded the "separate" SinaiAgreement with Israel in the fall of 1975.Under the pressure of Saudi Arabia,

continued on page 10

,London Spar/aeis/ Group Forum

USec/OCRFII"NecessaryInitiative" Maneuvers

Down withUnprincipledCombinationism!For RevolutionaryRegroupment!Speakers:

RAI:\ER BAIERTrotskyist Faction. recently expelledfrom German Spartacusbund

DAVID STRACHA:\London Spartacist Group

Saturday, January 22at 7:00 p.m.

Roebuck Pub108A Tottenham Court Road, WI

LONDON

After 30 Years ofOfficial Protection

MillionaireDutch NaziWar CriminalSnared

A dramatic escape last November bythe Dutch Nazi and multimillionaire art

dealer Pieter Menten only hours beforedetectives closed in on his 20-roommansion to arrest him touched off apolitical uproar in the Netherlands. OnDecember 6 Menten was finally cap­tured in Switzerland and has now beenextradited to Holland to face war crimescharges. This is the culmination of aseries of events beginning last springwith Menten's exposure as a formerGerman SS sergeant in Poland respon­sible for the murder of hundreds of Jews.

Scion of a family of wealthy exportersof Dutch products to Eastern Europe,Menten first went to Poland in 1923 torun the family business. Shortly thereaf­ter he lost a protracted court caseagainst a wealthy Polish Jew, IsakPistiner, an event which apparentlyencouraged the development of hisrabid anti-semitism. By the time of theGerman invasion of Poland Menten hadbecome a sergeant-major of the SS andheaded up an execution squad in theLemburg area where he ordered andsupervised the mass execution of hun­dreds of local men, women and children.

Now more than 35 years since thecrimes took place, survivors recall howMenten ordered victims to dig their owngraves, then sat by and laughed as theywere forced to walk across planks laidacross the graves while his assistantsgunned them down. The survivors alsoattest that in a sadistic vendetta in 1941,Menten personally ordered and super­vised the execution of numerous familymembers, friends and neighbors of hisold business rival Pistiner.

Shortly before the German defeatMenten returned to Holland and wasarrested. With influential figures in theDutch government intervening in hisbehalf, Menten got off with an incredi­ble eight months' imprisonment oncharges of serving in a foreign army andstealing the art collection of a Polishprofessor! Since then the old Nazibutcher, whose personal fortune byconservative estimates now stands at$115 million, has risen to become aconsiderable power in Dutch politics.

According to his former butler,Menten inadvertently triggered his ownexposure when in a bout of anti­Communist paranoia, in fearing aRussian invasion of Western Europe, hebegan to sell off his investments. Duringone of these selling sprees the auctionhouse ran a full-page ad in De Te/egraaf,Holland's most widely-circulated news­paper, for a sale of part of Menten's artcollection. De Te/egraajmade its way toIsrael where it was read by an editor ofthe Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz, Cha­vi\" Kanaan, a nephew of Isak Pistinerwhose parents had been killed in thevendetta! After a 32-year search forMenten's whereabouts. Kanaan pub­lished an expose of Menten's wartimeactivities. In turn the Haaret:: article waspicked up by Hans Knoop. editor-in­chief of the Dutch weekly newsmaga­zine. Accent. who broke the story inHolland.

The Accent story sparked a wave ofoutrage in the \'ether!ands where still

WORKERS VANGUARD

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hailed as providing a class-strugglealternative to the Abel regime by suchostensibly revolutionary organizationsas the Communist Party, SocialistWorkers Party and the RevolutionaryCommunist Party. Behind militant­sounding jargon and the "Oilcan Eddie"image so coveted by the fake lefts lies amainstream union bureaucrat on themake, with a consistent record ofreliance on the state and bourgeoisliberals to get him there.

.Sadlowski's 1974 election as directorof USWA District 31 (Southworks) inChicago was based on a court suitagainst the cmrupt 3 I-year unionmachine leader Joe Germano and aLabor Department-run re-election. LastNovember, Sadlowski again went tocourt to seek that the court oversee theunion's distribution of Sadlowski/McBride campaign literature and thecoverage of the campaign in Steel Labor(the union magazine). In the currentlitigation Sadlowski has tried to use thecourts to force a public disclosure of allcampaign sources~i.e., subjecting thefinances of the labor movement to thescrutiny of the state.

However, the treacherous borderedon the ludicrous when Sadlowskifollowed up his adamant denials con­cerning Stop and Shop funds with apress conference last Sunday where herevealed a list of his big contributorsincluding Democrat Howard Samuels(a vice-president of Mobil Corp.), SarahPillsbury, Arnold Hiatt (president oftheStride-Rite Corporation, a Boston shoemanufacturer) and other bourgeoisfigures. Furthermore, actual conduct ofthe Sadlowski campaign is in the handsof Edgar James and Robert Hauptman.This pair also stagemanaged the 1972election of that other great union"reformer" Arnold Miller of the UnitedMine Workers. Nor is it surprising thatsuch anti-communist liberals as JosephRauh (who a decade ago was activelyred-baiting the civil rights movement)and John Kenneth Galbraith play largeroles in drumming up support for theSadlowski slate, demonstrating theclose connection between reliance onthe courts and political links to liberalDemocrats.

Sadlowski's advocacy of state regula­tions of such key matters as unioncampaign funds, disposal of unionmoney and the editorial policy of theunion press should serve as a clearwarning that his victory would in nosense represent a break with the class­collaborationist business unionism ofthe Abels, Meanys and Woodcocks.

Their capitulation to the left-talkingSadlowski demonstrates the inability ofthe fake-lefts to have assimilated any ofthe lessons of the Miller campaign. Thequalitatively greater strategic impor­tance of the USWA with respect to theUMW only heightens the crucial needfor resolute opposition to Sadlowskiand the need to build class-strugglecaucuses to overthrow these laborlieutenants of capital. •

Hank deLespinasse

McBride and Sadlowski at September USWA convention In Las Vegas.

Speaker:PAUL COLLINSSpartacist League CentralCommittee

Friday, January 21at 7:30 p.m.

5615 S. Woodlawn AvenueCHICAGOFor more information call:

(312) 427-0003

Neither McBride NorSadlowski-For a Class­Struggle Opposition in

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Sadlowski SUes McBride

Keep Bosses' Courts Outof the Steelworkers!

As the campaign for president of theUnited Steelworkers of America(USWA) enters its final month, bothcandidates have turned to the big gunsin their respective arsenals of class­collaborationist unionism: the bour­geois courts. Amid a flurry of suits andcountersuits, I. W. Abel's handpickedsuccessor, Lloyd McBride, and steel"rebel" bureaucrat Ed Sadlowski haveamply demonstrated that on the centralquestion of safeguarding the indepen­dence of the labor movement from thecapitalist state there is not a dime'sworth of difference between them.

The present spate of legal maneuversbegan when McBride took Sadlowski tocourt for allegedly violating theUSWA's constitutional clause againstreceiving campaign funds from employ­ers or corporations. McBride chargedthat Sadlowski had received funds fromBernard Soloman, a vice-president ofStop and Shop, a New England chainstore which had been convicted of unfairlabor practices in an NLRB case lastyear. On January 4 Sadlowski forces,stung by the indictment of his preten­sions to militant "rank and file" union­ism, filed a countersuit charging thatMcBride was illegally using union fundsfor the campaign and seeking $5 millionin damages for libel.

This appeal to the capitalist state toarbitrate internal union struggles re­presents not only a fundamental betray­al on the part of Sadlowski andMcBride, but demonstrates once againthe lack of a class alternative in thiselection and the need for intransigentrevolutionary opposition to both can­didacies. In the case of McBride, thissimply continues the policies of hismentor Abel. In 1971 USWA presidentAbel along with AFL-CIO chieftainGeorge Meany sat on Nixon's wage andprice control board. Even in parting,Abel engaged the Labor Department to"supervise" the union elections bysending in a department task forceincluding 50 "compliance officers,"possibly including the actual tallying ofthe votes.

But Sadlowski is not just anothercandidate for union office. He has been

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Stern informed him that theNazi murderer was hiding in a Swisshotel, Knoop, a photographer and ateam of Dutch police flew there andfinally apprehended Menten on Decem­ber 6. According to De Telegraaf (8December), as he was being led away bypolice Menten saw Knoop in the hotellobby and snarled "Vuile rotjodd,communist!" ("Dirty rotten Jew, Com­munist!"). Shortly after, he took anoverdose of sleeping pills and wasrushed to a hospital to have his stomachpumped. It is Knoop's opinion thatMenten felt the chances of an escapewere better from a hospital than a jail.

Swiss law does not permit theextradition of war criminals, but aloophole was found and Menten wasreturned to the Netherlands on thecondition that he not be extradited to a

. third country. Menten has yet to beofficially charged with any crime and,since Menten's crimes were not commit­ted in the Netherlands but in a part ofPoland that is now in the Soviet Union,there is a real danger that the Dutchauthorities mav dismiss the case as beingoutside their j~risdictionand let him offafter a sham trial when the clamor diesdown and the elections are over.

Moreover the Soviet Union, whichcollaborated in the Dutch investigationof Menten's past, has yet to demand hisextradition from the Netherlands. Allopponents of Nazi barbarism mustdemand that this fascist butcher beextradited to the Soviet Union where hecould be tried bv the survivors andrelatives of those he watched, laughingin his armchair, as they were machine­gunned to death.

As demonstrated by the tip-off whichfacilitated Menten's escape last Novem­ber. there can be no confidence placed ineither the ~ill or the capacity of theDutch government to bring Menten tojustice. Moreover, that this butcher wasallowed to live in peace for over threedecades and re-establish himself as arespected capitalist and a politicalpower is further proof that bourgeoisdemocracy cannot protect societyagainst such Nazi filth. The fascists arekept in reserve should they be neededwhen bourgeois-democratic methodsare no longer capable of constrainingthe working class. Class-consciousworkers demand that Menten be jailedfor his crimes against the people, but it isonly the victory of the internationalproletariat sweeping away bourgeoisrule which can wipe out the fascist scumonce and for all .•

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Guus de Jong

Journalist Hans Knoop (left) confronts Menten in Zurich as Dutch and Swisspolice look on.

today the population is strongly anti­Nazi (as well as chauvinistically anti­German). Although during World WarII the Nazis regarded the Dutch as beingof German stock and therefore a futurepart of the Third Reich, they were neverable to build much support in theNetherlands. Moreover, the February1941 announcement by Nazi occupationforces that 400 Dutch Jews had beendeported to German concentrationcamps provoked a massive strike wave.In the munitions industry alone 18,300workers stayed out and most majorindustry, shipyards, utilities and trans­portation were paralyzed by strikes.However, the SS broke the strike afterthree days with threats of death penal­ties and a ban on all meetings. From thispoint on Menten's murderous col­leagues in Holland stepped up the full­scale deportation of Dutch Jews toGerman concentration camps. By theend of the war three out of four Jewswho had inhabited Holland at thebeginning of the Nazi occupation weredead (Lucien Steinberg, La revolte desjustes: Les juifs contre Hitler).

When Menten's past was firstexposed, Holland's Labor Party­dominated government coalitionclaimed there was no reason to reopenthe case. But the public outcry, used as aparliamentary maneuver by oppositionparties, forced Justice Minister van Agtto investigate the magazine's charges.Following their verification, the Am­sterdam attorney general scheduledMenten's arrest for the morning ofNovember 15.

When police arrived at his home.Menten and his wife were gone, havingescaped a few hours earlier. Incredibly.no police had been ordered to watchMenten's movements nor was hispassport impounded. The escape. clear­ly due to a tip-off from within the police,provoked a parliamentary crisis, embar­rassing the government and damagingthe reputation of van Agt who isexpected to lead the Catholic People'sParty in next year's general elections.

When, in response to the storm ofcriticism, the Dutch authorities issuedan international arrest warrant forMenten, Accent editor Hans Knooptracked him down through contactswith other journalists. When a corre­spondent of the German magazine

5

How Maoists"RestoreCapitalism". in theSoviet Union

_ i _!iii liZ-

Part 2 OF 2by Joseph Seymour

NY Public Library

Assembly line at Togliatti auto works

Are Profits in Command inBrezhnev'sRussia?Editor's Note: In the first installment,the myth of a workers paradise inStalin's Russia was refuted. In addition,the notion presented by Maoist econo­mist Martin Nicolaus (recently expelledfrom the October League) that factorymanagers in the USSR were the core ofa new capitalist class was debunked andthe similarity of Khrushchev's regionaldecentralization with Chinese economicorganization demonstrated.

The Kosygin reforms "restoredcapitalism" in the USSR, proclaimsMartin Nicolaus, and he may well be theonly person in the world who thinks so.(Unfortunately for his career as aMaoist, the official Peking line is thatcapitalism was restored under Khrush­chev.) However. many commentatorsdid regard the 1965 Soviet reforms

Review of Restoration ofCapitalism in the USSRby Martin Nicolaus

associated with the economist E.G.Liberman as capitalistic because of theiremphasis on enterprise "profitability."Time magazine ran Liberman's pictureon its front cover with a story entitled"Borrowing from the Capitalists," andten years later the U.S. Maoist Revolu­tionarv Union (now RevolutionaryCom~unist Party) declared that theKosygin reforms "made the profitmotive the major guiding force in theSoviet economy ..." (Red Papers No.7).

As Liberman points out in defendinghimself against charges of anti-Marxistrevisionism, ever since 1921 Sovietenterprises have been expected to make"profits," or at least avoid losses. This is .true. However, the overriding goal oftraditional Soviet planning was to over­fulfill the output target at the expense ofall other considerations, including otherplan indices. The purpose of the 1965reforms was to eliminate the waste ofresources caused by pervasive andmany-sided managerial parasitism.

Since both monetary income andpromotion to a higher position de­pended on over-fulfilling the outputplan, managers usually understatedenterprise productive capacity so as tobe assigned an easy target. Moreover, a

6

savvy plant executive would not over­fulfill the plan by too much, since thenhe would be given a much higher outputgoal for the following year. In hisfamous 1962 article, "Plan, Profits,Bonuses," Liberman addresses thisproblem:

"How can the enterprises be entrustedwith the job of working out plans whenat present all their draft targets areusually much lower than their actualcapacities')"This can be done if the enterprises havea maximum interest, both material andmoraL in making full use of theirreserves...."

--reproduced in Myron E.Sharpe. ed .. Planning. Profitand Incentives in the USSR.Vol. 1(1966)

Of course. the planning authorities·always knew that enterprise managerssystematically understated capacity,a"nd attempted to correct for this. Plantexecutives and Gosplan (plan organiza­tion) authorities played a cat-and­mouse game with one another, and theresulting output targets bore only arough relation to actual productioncapacity.

Since managers were rewarded foroutput regardless of the usability of ordemand for their products, there was atendency to sacrifice quality and assort­ment of goods in order to maximizeoutput. Targets are set in physical units(e.g., silverware in kilograms, cloth insquare meters) so that managers choseitems maximizing this index even if theproducts had little use value. In afamous cartoon from the Russianhumor magazine Krokodil, the annualoutput of the nail factory (measured byweight) is shown as one mammoth nail.Another example is the notoriousfragility of plate glass in the USSR:since plan targets are set in squaremeters, managers maximize output byproducing over-thin glass. In his Sep­tember 1965 speech introducing the newsystem, Kosygin bluntly stated theproblem:

"Experience indicates that the index ofvolume of gross output does notstimulate' the enterprise to producegoods which are really needed by thenational economy and the public. and inmanv cases the index tends to limit anvimpiovement in the assortment ofgoods and their quality. :"ot infrequent­ly our enterprises produce low-qualitygoods which. the consumer does not

want and which therefore. remainunsold."

--"On Improving IndustrialManagement. .. ," in Sharpe,op. cit.

Another problem with the traditionalsystem was that output was measured bytotal (gross) value, not that added by theenterprise. So managers naturallytended to use the most expensive inputswhich thereby maximized the value of"their" output. And since managers hadlittle incentive to minimize cost, hoard­ing labor and building up huge invento­ries of supplies was the rule. In particu­lar, there was no material incentive to

E. G. Liberman

economize on plant and equipment,because investment was financed by anon-repayable budget grant. Since itwas "free," managers consistently over­stated their need for new equipment.

It is clear that what we have describedis nothing but hureaucratic parasitismat the enterprise level. A plant managerwho understates actual enterprise ca­pacity in order to receive an easy plan.or one who produces low-quality goodsso as to more easily meet output goals.knows he is behaving in an anti-socialmanner. Some managers may be per­sonally honest but believe they will bevictimized in income and career ad­vancement if they don't over-fulfill theoutput plan. Moreover, all spokesmenfor the Soviet bureaucracy regard thekind of managerial dishonesty depict­ed above as inherent in the system.

Libermanism is a fruitless effort toovercome managerial parasitism

through more sophisticated plan in­dices. But no planning techniques,however sophisticated, can preventdishonest managers from subverting theplanners' intent and squandering re­sources. As we shall see, the 1965reforms perpetuated some of the oldproblems while generating new forms ofmanagerial dishonesty and waste ofresources.

The elimination of bureaucraticparasitism at the base of the economy aswell as at the top is impossible withoutthoroughgoing ~ovietdemocracy, whichin turn requires revolutionary action bythe working class to topple the Stalinistbureaucracy. Two requirements, inparticular, are necessary to ensureconscientious management: selection ofmanagers with demonstrated socialistconsciousness and workers control ofproduction.

Following the Bolshevik Revolutionand during the 1920's, Soviet economicmanagement had to rely on bourgeoisexperts drawing high salaries. Lenin'sBolsheviks regarded this as a necessaryevil. only partly offset by workerscontrol. A revolutionary workers gov­ernment coming to power in theadvanced capitalist countries throughsocial revolution or in the USSR andEast Europe through political revolu­tion would not face the same situationtoday. Managers would receive straightsalaries commensurate with the wagesof skilled workers, and a central task ofthe factory committees would be ensur­ing against managerial wastage ofresources. Under the close scrutiny ofthe workers in the enterprise, incorrigi­bly incompetent, abusive or dishonestmanagers would simply be removed.

Objective Pressures forEconomic Reform

Managerial parasitism and the conse­quent squandering of resources at theenterprise level have long characterizedStalinist bureaucratic planning. Whythen did pressure for reform build up inthe early 1960's, culminating in theaction of the incoming Brezhncv. Ko­sygin regime?

During . the last years 01 theKhrushchev period a number of obiec­tive factors caused the bureaucracy tobecome more concerned about micro­economic inefficiency. A rising standardof living in the late 19S1)'S made

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consumers more selective and unwillingto purchase shoddy or otherwise unde­sirable merchandise. Also, in Stalin'sday a manager who played too fast andloose with the plan and his superiorscould get into very hot water indeed.Thus the post-1956 relaxation of totali­tarian state terror may have allowedgreater managerial dishonesty andviolation of planning instructions.

However, the basic motives for the1965 reforms reflected profoundchanges in the Soviet economy. Thelater Khrushchev years (1958-64) saw amarked fall in economic growth, parti­cularly in productivity increase per unitof new investment. In part this worsenedeconomic performance reflected

Alexei Kosygin

Khrushchev's regional decentralization,undertaken purely to strengthen hispower base within the party apparatus.More importantly, the USSR wasbeginning to experience a labor short­age which put an end to the traditionalStalinist pattern of rapidindustrialization.

Stalin-era economic developmentwas extensive, with almost all invest­ment expended on new factories draw­ing upon seemingly unlimited laborsupplies from the countryside. Around1960, however, the most far-sightedelements in the bureaucracy realizedthat continued economic growth mustbecome intensive, concentrating onmodernizing existing productive unitsand raising their labor productivity.Under these circumstances, traditionalmanagerial parasitism and conserva­tism had become a serious obstacle tofurther economic growth.

Libermanism was not the answer tosupposedly inherent inefficiencies incentralized planning, as some bourgeoiscommentators claimed; and it certainlywas not capitalist restoration. Rather itwas a weak. contradictory attempt atself-reform of certain tvpes of bureau­cratic parasitism which had become

14 JANUARY 1977

increasingly harmful to the interests ofthe Soviet Stalinist regime.

The 1965 Kosygin reforms had fourmajor elements. First, Khrushchev'sregionalism was done away with and theeconomy was recentralil.ed. Also, thekey indices for measuring enterpriseperformance and managerial successwere changed, the method of financingand determining investment at theenterprise level was altered, and theformula for setting wholesale prices waschanged.

A significant effect of the 1965measures which is often overlooked wasthe re-establishment of the traditionalministerial system. In one importantrespect the post-1965 economic struc­ture was more centralized than it hadbeen under Stalin, when industrialministries tended toward autarky and"empire-building." To avoid wastefulduplication of intermediate products,the Kosygin reforms established a StateCommittee on Material-Technical Sup­ply (Gossnab) as the centralized organfor allocating these goods.

It is typical of the dishonesty runningthrough Nicolaus' book that he doesn'teven mention the existence of Gossnab,although the Kosygin reforms arecentral to his thesis. The reason for thissilence is not hard to discern: the veryexistence of Gossnab refutes his conten­tion that after 1965 there was a marketfor producer goods created by enter­prise competition. In the late 1960's thisadministrative organ allocated 16,000intermediate products, and by 1971 itaccounted for two-thirds of all inter­enterprise transactions (cited in SovietStudies, July 1972). But according toNicolaus the 1965 reforms ended cen­tralized control over the enterprises,which thereafter operated on the basisof unrestrained profit maximization:

"Its essence ... consists in giving thecentral planners the task of keeping theeconomy as a whole in balance whileeach particular unit of the economyruns riot in pursuit of its maximumprofit."

This is a blatant falsification.

"Profit" in the Soviet Economy?Since the early 1930's, Soviet enter­

prises have had a "profit" plan as well asan output plan and other indices. Basingherself on this, more than 30 years agothe anarcho-syndicalist Raya Duna­yevskaya contended that since Sovietenterprises made "profits," the economywas capitalist (see her "A New Revisionof Marxian Economics," AmericanEconomic Review, September 1944).However, in actuality enterprise "prof­it" amounts to a tax levied at the point ofproduction, part of which is thengranted to the enterprises subject tostrict guidelines and instructions for itsallocation.

From being a secondary and oftenneglected target under Stalin andKhrushchev. the profit plan was madethe key index governing managerialbonuses in the Kosygin reforms. (Toeliminate unusable merchandise, enter-

prises were credited only for outputactually sold.) However, there is still anoutput plan, measured in physical units,which must be fulfilled. A manager whodoes not fulfill the output plan will notreceive a bonus (regardless of profit),and he may also be administrativelydisciplined as a state functionary!

The standard Soviet work on currenteconomic policy is Soviet EconomicReform: Progress and Problems (1972),which describes the relation of enter­prise production to the planning author­ities as follows:

"... guiding themselves by the prices setfrom above, production costs and thepossibilities for the sale of the finishedoutput, enterprises independently de­cide on the concrete, detailed assort­ment of output. But to reduce theprobability of mistakes which separateenterprises might make, they are givenadministrativelv, as an initial basis, anassignment as regards the nomenclature[product-mix] of major output." [ouremphasis]

This official description is confirmed bya leading British bourgeois expert on theSoviet economy:

"Managerial bonuses have simplyredirected effort from output toprofit- but only when output hasexceeded the plan targets; below thatlevel, profit counts for little." [ouremphasis]

-Peter Wiles. "Recent Data onSoviet Income Distribution."Survey. Summer 1975

In contrast to capitalist firms, Sovietenterprises do not seek to maximize

Leonid Brezhnev

profit levels or the rate of return oninvested capital. Managers are sup­posed to over-fulfill the output planwhile maximizing the difference ofrealized profit over planned profit. As aresult, the "reformed" system perpetu­ates a central weakness of the old systemin a different form: instead of understat­ing their production capacity to get aneasy plan, managers now understatetheir ability to generate profit. So higherauthorities still must intervene to offsetthe dishonesty of the managers.

E.G. Liberman, who of all peopleshould know the effect of the 1965measures, expresses disappointment inthe Kosygin reforms:

"Basic shortcomings are also manifest­ed in the striving of ministries to impose

higher sales volume on the enterprises.This is an expression of uncertaintythat, independently. the enterprises willsufficiently utilize their productioncapacities and disclose reserves ...."The question of what the 'product-mixof most important items' is must beclarified. At present, its definition ischiefly left to the ministries. But theministries tend to expand rather thanrestrict this product-mix, and thisexpresses a tendency to retain the oldmethods--to provide a greater degreeof regulation...."

-E. G. Liberman, EconomicMethods and the E;rfectivenessof Production (197\)

Since Liberman's.book was written, thetendency has been to restrict enterpriseautonomy even more.

The continuity of the post-1965system with traditional Soviet planningis strongly emphasized by Alec Nove,one of the foremost bourgeois experts inthis field. Under a sub-head entitled"The reform that never was," Novewrites:

"The power to allocate resources and totake production decisions remains withthe central authorities, and is shapedbetween the revived industrial minis­tries, Gosplan and Gossnab, under thegeneral supervision of the higher partyorgans.... current doctrine regards anincrease in profits due to a change in theproduct mix or in inputs as somehowillegitimate.... Yet this means that boththe product mix and the inputs of theenterprise are laid down in a planinitiated or approved at the ministerialor glavk [sub-ministerial] level. Itlogically follows that the supply plansmade In one or another of the centralbodies coverthe major part of industrialoutput, and that both its productionand its delivery to designated customersmust form part of obligatory plan­orders from above. This is the essence ofthe old system. It survives today." [ouremphasis]

--"Economic Reforms in theUSSR and Hungary, a Study inContrasts," in Alec Nove andD. M. Nuti, eds., SocialistEconomics (1972)

Are the Means of ProductionCommodities in the USSR?

According to Nicolaus, the 1965measures transformed the means ofproduction into marketablecommodities:

'The 1965 measures, in sum, wiped outthe legal and financial barriers thathad kept the emerging market in themeans of production undergroundduring the Krushchev years. Theexchange of the means of production ascommodities... became respectable,universal and amply supplied withliquidity."

Another gross falsification! Onemight accuse Nicolaus of consciousdeceit, except this would assume heactually knows something about theSoviet economy. Far from the means ofproduction having become commodi­ties, as we shall show all inputs pur­chased by the enterprises must beapproved in the supply plan; "decentral­ized investment" by enterprises is asmall share of total expenditure on plantand equipment; and enterprise funds

continued on page 8

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Requiem for a ClassCollaborator

Are Profits inCommand inBrezhnev'sRussia?(continued/rom paRe 7)

cannot be expended outside the inher­ently narrow basis of the technicalproduction unit.

Just as output targets are set fromabove, so supplies are allocated througha detailed annual plan. Unlike theirYugoslav, Hungarian and Chinesecounterparts, Soviet enterprises cannotacquire supplies through a more or lessfree market. Almost all major inputs areallocated directly by Gossnab orthrough long-term contracts betweenthe producing and consuming enter­prises negotiated through Gossnab.Supplies neither go to the highest biddernor are they distributed on a first-come,first-served basis. An enterprise which iswilling to pay three times the officialprice for, say, a truck might not be ableto purchase one, while a far lessprofitable firm will be allocated avehicle according to the plan.

SAN FRANCISCO-Archie Brown,prominent Communist Party (CP)trade-union supporter and Bay Arealongshoreman for about 40 years,retired last month. Given a few minutesat the December meeting of Internation­al Longshoremen's and Warehouse­men's Union (ILWU) Local 10, Brownrambled on about younger workerspicking up the banner and similarplatitudes. He carefully steered clear ofany comment on the present abysmalstate of the union except for remarkingvaguely, "we're in a lot of trouble."

A long-time militant in this hard-hitindustry should have no difficultypicking out issues of burning interest tothe ILWU membership. Conditions forlongshoremen have deteriorated badlyover the last decade and a half: availablejobs have been slashed by more than 50percent through disastrous "mechaniza­tion and modernization" (M&M) con­tracts: lower seniority "B" men are beingdriven out of the union: gang sizes and"guaranteed pay" are being cut: theunion hiring hall has been weakened bythe introduction of "steady men," andthe very existence of the ILWU isthreatened by rumored merger dealswith the Teamsters.

However. in order to address theseissues, a fighter for class-struggle union­ism would have to come up againstILWU president Harry Bridges. ThisArchie Brown was unwilling to do, soinstead he stuck to nostalgic referencesto the "good old days." Appropriatelyenough. Bridges was the first person tospeak after Brown, and he had nothingbut praise for his loyal Stalinistbootlicker.

For years the Communist Party hasbeen the chief propagator of the myththat Harry Bridges is a militant defenderof. the working class. As the ILWUpresident and S. F. port commissionerhas become increasingly overt in tossingoverboard vital union gains in ex­change for favors from DemocraticParty politicians like former San Fran­cisco mayor Joe Alioto, even the CP hasbecome embarrassed by Bridges' ac­tions. But never have the Stalinists

8

As a British expert on tht! Sovieteconomy put it:

"The material inputs which enterprisesneed for production are not simplypurchased from producers as theywould be in a free market, but areallocated to consumer enterprises by thestate supply organs. In effect this is arationing system for producer goods."-- Michael Ellman. P/anninR

Proh/ems in {he [iSS R ( 197.\)

To drive this point home, Ellman citesan incident reported in the Soviet pressin 1969. The deputy director of a statefarm purchased wood (a centrallyallocated item) from a quarry which hadchopped down some trees in the courseof its operations. As a result, themanagements of both the state farm andthe quarry were prosecuted and convict­ed for an economic crime!

In debunking Nicolaus' fraudulentcontention that relations between So­viet enterprises are governed by themarket. we are not endorsing traditionalStalinist bureaucratic planning meth­ods. The detailed rationing of intermed­iate goods a year in advance possessesneither the virtues of socialist principlenor of economic rationality. The supplyplan, involving hundreds of thousandsof transactions, is always and necessari­Iv inconsistent. resulting in untold;hortages and bottlenecks. Sovietmanagers regularly resort to hoarding,blackmarketeering and corruption to

gotten up the nerve to openly oppose theconniving, class-collaborationist long­shore chief.

Archie Brown became a well-knownWest Coast political activist at an earlyage, running for California state treas­urer on the CP ticket in 1934. In 1942 heran for U.S. Congress from San Fran­cisco. At that time the CommunistParty-along with Bridges-was vigor­ously supporting FOR and the Ameri-

Archie Brown

can bourgeoisie in the imperialist WorldWar II. Brown vociferously supportedBridges' wartime no-strike pledge. InLocal 10, the 16 September 1942"Longshoremen's Bulletin" (edited by aStalinist hack) warned that if dockworkers didn't accept speed-up, "itwouldn't be long until we'd be eatingsauerkraut with chopsticks ... "(quotedin "West Coast Longshoremen and the'Bridges Plan'," Fourth International,December 1942).

After the war the CP/ Bridges bloccontinued and Brown argued for ex­tending the no-strike pledge. The ILWUpresident had appetites to integratehimself into the increasingly anti­Communist American labor bureaucra­cy, but this was made impossible by therepugnance''toward red-baiting felt byrank-and-file longshoremen as well asthe bourgeoisie's hostility toward him.(Australian-born Bridges was the in­tended victim of several deportation

continued on page 10

procure their "planned" supplies. Ra­tional socialist planning should involvea centralized wholesale market whereenterprises can purchase inputs at will.This would provide the necessaryflexibility for the production processwhile avoiding the inefficiencies anddangers of atomized competition be­tween enterprises.

From the standpoint of the enter­prise. the most significant changecaused by the 1965 reforms was in thefinancing of investment. Under thetraditional system all new plant andequipment was financed by a non­repayable grant from the governmentbudget. After the reforms such invest­ment was largely financed throughretained enterprise profit. In 1967wholesale prices were revised upward inorder to increase enterprise profits. Andwhile in 1966 enterprises retained 26percent of their profits. by 1969 this hadrisen to 40 percent (Soviet EconomicReform .. .).

Nicolaus naturally points to thesignificant increase in retained enter­prise profits as key proof of "capitalistrestoration":

"Thev [enterprise directors] became noton Iv "dictators of the production pro­cess... but also managers of importantsums of money. who have the eagle eyeof investors to succeed."

Any Soviet enterprise manager wouldfind this statement utter nonsense.

According to Nicolaus' own figures.in 1969-70 only about 25 percent ofenterprise investment was

.decentralized-i.e.. was outside theannual plan. Decentralized investmentmeans that managers do not requireapproval from higher bodies to spendenterprise funds. However, as we haveseen. producer goods are not availablein a market. but are rationed by thecentral supply agency. Thus an enter­prise still requires approval from theGossnab to actually implement "decen­tralized investment."

So the 1965 measures produced acontradiction: demand was partiallydecentralized while the allocation ofproducer goods remained centralized.The result of this contradiction isgrowing balances in the bank accountsof Soviet enterprises, since they cannotalwavs use "their" "profits" to purchaseactu~1 means of production.

Nicolaus is aware of this fact butattributes it to the lack of profitableinvestment opportunities:

"... some enterprises cannot profitablyplace all 'their' funds. but accumulatewhat is called a 'free profit remainder:'in which case thev 'are entitled to offerloans to Gosbank ... for a certaininterest fixed by the government'."

Any capitalist firm in the U.S .. WestEurope or Japan which had excessliquidity would certainly not keep itsmoney-capital in a bank. drawingminimal interest. It would branch out.build new factories. buyout other firms,purchase stocks and bonds. lend directlyat the highest available interest andgenerally seek to maximize the return onits capital. Why don't the purported"capitalists" in the Soviet Union act inthis way? Because they can't-becausethe means of production are not privateproperty, commodities to be purchasedin the market. Therefore, enterprisefunds are not money-capital. whichMarx termed "the universal means ofpurchase." To put it another way,because the Soviet Union is notcapitalist.

Growing Unemployment inBrezhnev's Russia?

Along with his absurd claim thatmanagers in Stalin's time "lacked thewhip hand" over the workers. Nicolaus'contention that unemployment has beenrestored in the USSR since 1965 is themost obvious and incredible of hisendless falsifications. He writes:

"the unemployed are made to paymaterially for the official hypocrisy. Aneven more bitter aspect of their situa­tion is that all the lavoffs undertaken bvthe enterprise directors for economicreasons are strictly against Soviet law.

as embodied in the Constitution of1936. the Stalin Constitution:'

Before dealing with unemployment inpresent-day Russia. we have once moreto debunk the myth of Stalin's "workersparadise." As we have seen, during the1930's there were widespread obligatorydismissals for breaches of work disci­pline. and mass disguised unemploy­ment existed on the collective farms.Despite the "right to work" in the Stalinconstititution, a Soviet employee neverhad a legal risht to his job.

Because the planning system encour­aged managers to hoard labor, andbecause economic (as distinct fromdisciplinary) dismissals were generallyregarded as anti-socialist, layoffs wereand continue to be rare. But as to legalmanagerial rights, the 1970 Principles ofLabor Legislation perpetuate Stalin'sprecedent. Managers are obliged to seekcomparable employment for those theyintend to layoff. But if the trade unionagrees that management has made ahonest. though fruitless, effort in thisregard, any Soviet worker can bedismissed with two weeks severancepay.

Anyone with the slightest knowledgeof Soviet society today knows that thereis an acute labor shortage, which greatlyworries the bureaucracy. In 1960, 78percent of the working-age populationwas employed; by 1965 this proportionhad jumped to 87 percent, and by 1970 ithad increased to 91 percent (Y. Kosta­kov, translated in Problems ofEconom­ics, November 1974). By way of compar­ison, in the United States only 61.8percent (1975 figures) of the non­institutional population, age 16 andover, is employed (Month~F LaborReview, November 1976).

The problems which the extremelyhigh level of labor force participation inthe USSR poses for the bureaucracyhave been clearly stated by the Sovietmanpower expert E. Manevich:

"The economic consequences of themanpower shortage are very great: in anumber of cases there arise seriousdifficulties in supplying personnel tonewly activated enterprises~ it is difficultto secure the uninterrupted operation ofenterprises in two shifts ... ; manpowerturnover rises~ the existence of a largenumber of vacancies hinders the collec­tives in their struggle to strengthenlabor discipline and is one of the reasonsfor maintaining clearly superfluousworkers and employees. which in turnaggravates the general manpower short­age in the nation."

"Ways of Improving theUtilization of Manpower:'translated in Proh/ems o(Economics. June 1974

Nicolaus can nonetheless find inSoviet economic literature references topeople who are not employed and arelooking for work. As Manevich pointsout. labor shortage encourages highlabor turnover. Since strikes and otherforms of collective class struggle aresuppressed by state terror, Sovietworkers seek to improve their circum­stances through individual initiative.Increasingly. workers take advantage ofthe tight labor market and change jobsfrequently. In a formal, statistical sensethis means more unemployed at anygiven time.

We are obliged to explain to Dr.Nicolaus that there is a differencebetween being the victim of a masslayoff and quitting one's job in order tofind a better one. If the academiceconomist doesn't understand thisdifference. every worker in the worlddoes. Furthermore. the difference be­tween genuine labor turnover andunemployment can be measured statisti­cally. The average period between jobscommonly given in Soviet literature isabout three weeks. At present in theU.S., the average duration of unemploy­ment is about 15.5 weeks (MonthlrLabor Review. ;\jovember 1976).

Under capitalism. mas~ unemploy­ment is not primarily caused hv techno­logical progress. by machines replacingmen. Rather. the appearance of massesof jobless workers results from acontraction of prod uctionreces~ions.depressions. std!!nation. fvell a charla-

WOG': rep C', V I\NGUARD

tan like Nicolaus who invents growingunemployment in Brezhnev's Russiacannot invent cyclical contractions inthe Soviet economy. Since 1956 (as wellas before then), industrial production inthe USS R has increased every singleyear, though at greatly uneven rates.

Thus the Maoists and other believersin "Soviet capitalism" present us with acapitalism free of cyclical fluctuations~a condition quite contrary to Marx'sunderstanding of the capitalist system.The notion that the Soviet Union iscapitalist necessarily leads to a revisionof the Marxist analysis of actualcapitalist societies. And, in fact, theMaoists, anarcho-syndicalists andsocial-democratic "Third Campers"tend to believe that present-day "state­monopoly capitalism" in the West can,in general, suppress sharp economiccontractions and cyclical crises.

Until recently, the "Russia is capital­ist" crowd would argue that Sovieteconomic performance over the pastdecade or so was no better than some"traditional" capitalist countries likeJapan or France. In 1974 this impres­sionistic argument blew up in theirfaces. Between mid-1974 and mid-1975,industrial production in the advancedcapitalist world dropped 19.5 percent.The 1974-75 depression hit every majorcapitalist country with drops in produc­tion ranging from 13.5 percent in Britainto 33 percent in Japan (OECD, Eco­nomic Outlook, December 1975 andJuly 1976). But in 1974-75 industrialproduction in the USSR actuallyincreased by 18 percent (United Na­tions, Statistical Yearbook 1975).

A serious and honest Marxist con­fronting these empirical facts couldreach only one of two conclusions:either the USSR is not capitalist, or it isa new form of capitalism which hasovercome cyclical contractions (whichMarx considered necessary for thecapitalist mode of production).

The latter, revisionist conclusiondirectly negates the fundamental Lenin­ist position that this is the epoch ofcapitalist reaction and decay. TheMarxist revolutionary program is notbased on moral repugnance againstsocial oppression, class exploitation andinequality; it is based on the objectivecondition that capitalism arrests thedevelopment of productive forces andmust be superseded by a superioreconomic system. Thus if there existstoday a capitalist system which insuresthe rapid and steady growth of produc­tive forces, this calls into question thenecessity and progressive character ofproletarian revolution and working­class rule.

What Would CapitalistRestoration Look Like?

Nicolaus' empirical description of theSoviet economy is a mass offabricationsfrom beginning to end. However, the"capitalistic" features which he falselyattributes to "social-imperialist" Rus­sia~enterprises determining outputon the basis of profit maximization, amarket for producer goods, widespreadlayoffs~doexist to some extent in otherbureaucratically ruled workers states,notably Yugoslavia, Hungary andChina.r ,

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Despite "radical" Maoist ideology theChinese economy is characterized bysignificantly greater market orientationand enterprise autonomy than prevailsin the Soviet Union. (We have alreadypointed out the substantial regionaldecentralization of the Chinese econo­my, another source for inegalitarian­ism.) The liberal American economistLloyd G. Reynolds, who visited Chinain 1973, observed:

"In deciding what varieties of, say,watches or carpets to produce, thefactory relies on the judgment of thesales organization that distributes itsproduct. 'Market guidance' in this senseseems more prominent in Chineseplanning than in traditional Sovietplanning."

-"China's Economv: A View fromthe Grass Roots,;' Chinese Eco­nomic Studies, Spring 1975

Reynolds' -observation about themarket orientation of Chinese enter­prises is confirmed by a report in theU.S.-China Business Review (May­June 1976) concerning a factory produc­ing firecrackers for export:

"Workers in the factorv receive anaverage monthly wage ~of 72 yuan,which is a high income for a rural area.Their salaries are at least partially theresult of the method used to setfirecracker prices. In general. variouscommodities receive prices eitherthrough a unilateral assignment orthrough negotiations between the For­eign Trade Bureau and a particularenterprise. . .. Firecrackers are pricedusing the negotiation process. Becausetheir price has been rising in theinternational market, the chance fornegotiation within China has led tohigher prices there too. and a resultanthigher income for the firecrackerfactory employees." [our emphasis]

In Brezhnev's Russia one will not findanything so irrationally capitalistic andinegalitarian as the wages of a particulargroup of workers being influenced bytheir product's price fluctuations in theworld market.

In any case, whether a Soviet,Hungarian or Chinese manager ordersmore cups produced because it is moreprofitable or if he can purchase a newkiln on his own initiative has no bearingon whether the economy is capitalist.Such practices merely indicate thedegree of centralization within a collec­tivized economy.

What distinguishes the capitalistmode of production is that the means ofproduction are commodities, a pheno­menon having its highest expression inthe stock market. While there is a limitedmarket in producer goods in various ofthe degenerated/ deformed workersstates, in none of them are the basicunits of production~theenterprises~

commodities. Even in Yugoslavia be­tween 1965 and I971 (the period ofmaximum enterprise autonomy andmarket relations) enterprises themselvescould not be bought and sold. Invest­ment by one Yugoslav enterprise inanother was treated like a loan that hadto be fully repaid over time.

The non-commodity character ofSoviet and East European enterprises isnot a mere juridical principle whichcould be changed overnight but integralto collectivized property. Enterprises,however autonomous their operations,are not owned by their managers but aresub-units of a single collective. Com­modities can only be exchanged be­tween different, independent owners.That is why Marx wrote, "Capital existsand can only exist as many capitals"(Grundrisse, Notebook IV).

The prerogatives and very existenceof enterprises in the deformed workersstates are decided by governmentalauthorities. In 1973 the Brezhnev! Ko­sygin regime downgraded the enterprise(usually corresponding to the technicalproduction unit) and replaced it with theassociation (obyedineniye) as the basicunit of management and accountability.In 1971 the Tito regime in Yugoslaviasharply curtailed enterprise autonomyand reversed the trend toward greatermarket orientation. This "conservative"turn refuted those impressionistic left­ists like Paul Sweezy who saw inYugoslavia a gradual, organic and

peaceful return to capitalism.But to assert that neither in the Soviet

Union nor in any of the bureaucraticallydeformed workers states that haveemerged since World War II hascapitalism been restored is not to arguethat such a development is impossible.The bureaucracy's attempts to concili­atc imperialism emholdcn capitalist­restorationist forces at home andabroad, and despite tremendous indus­trial development over several decades,the Soviet and East European econo­mies are still far behind the mostadvanced capitalist societies.

Capitalist restoration in the Sino­Soviet states is possible through anessentially internal process and not onlythrough imperialist reconquest fromwithout. However, capitalist restorationcannot occur either through gradualevolution or a mere reshuffling ofpersonnel at the top; it requires a violentcounterrevolution.

.Objective conditions encouraging thegrowth of bourgeois-restorationist for­ces were most closely approximated inYugoslavia during 1965-71. These in­cluded the proliferation of property­owning petty capitalists (well-to-dofarmers, owners of small workshopsexploiting wage labor, middlpmenusurers operating with money-capital);the growing activity of foreign capital inthe economic life of the country; theelimination of the state monopoly offoreign trade, allowing the world mar­ket to have maximum impact on theeconomy; the atrophy of centralizedplanning with enterprise relations large­ly governed by market forces; and theseparation of managers from the statebureaucracy. Moreover, this economic"liberalization" was closely linked to anupsurge in Croatian nationalism, ex­pressed not only in student protests andstrivings for greater autonomy amongparty leaders but also in stepped-upactivity by fascistic Ustashi groups.

Under such objective conditions, adomestic capitalist-restorationist move­ment could well emerge. But this wouldnot be a conspiracy striving for a palacecoup in the manner of the Maoist fictionof a "Khrushchev restoration." It wouldbe a visible, aggressive movementchallenging the regime and polarizingsociety. Such a movement would re­quire an ideology and organizationcapable of enlisting masses of adherents,such as the Catholic Church in Poland.

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The emergence of powerful capitalist­restorationist forces would produce a"conservative" reflex among Stalinistofficials anxious to preserve their socialposition, and also give birth to a directlycounterrevolutionary wing of the bu­reaucracy (what Trotsky called the"Butenko faction"). However, theworkers would instinctively move todefend their interests from the growingthreat of reaction. Capitalist restorationcould triumph only through a civil warin which the class-conscious elements ofthe proletariat were annihilated in thecourse of their bitter struggle to defendcollectivized property as the economicbasis for the transition to socialism.

Defend the Gains of OctoberThrough Political Revolution!

The Mao-Stalinists go from hailingthe supposed establishment of socialismin the USSR with the 1936 constitutionto discovering a peaceful counterrevolu­tion secretly carried out by Stalin'sheirs. Not only did such a momentousevent go unnoticed at the time, butPeking has never published an analysisof how or why this occurred andMaoists in the West cannot even agreeon the timing. Moreover, if capitalismcan be restored by a palace coup, thenpresumably socialism can be reinstitut­ed in the same manner; thereuponanother Khrushchev could appear onthe scene, and so on indefinitely,producing a cycle that has more to dowith the Buddhist "wheel of life" thanwith Marxism.

As against this idealist/ conspiratorialview of history, Trotsky provided amaterial"ist analysis of the degenerationof the Russian revolution under Stalin­ism. 'The October revolution has beenbetrayed by the ruling stratum," hewrote in 1936, "but not yet overthrown."He briefly summarized the nature oftheregime in an analysis that remains validtoday:

"The Soviet Union is a contradictorysociety halfway between capitalism andsocialism, in which: (a) the productiveforces are still far from adequate to givethe state property a socialist character;(b) the tendency toward primitiveaccumulation created by want breaksout through innumerable pores of theplanned economy; (c) norms of distri­bution preserving a bourgeois characterlie at the basis of a new differentiation ofsociety; (d) the economic growth, whileslowly bettering the situation of thetoilers, promotes a swift formation ofprivileged strata; (e) exploiting thesocial antagonisms, a bureaucracy hasconverted itself into an uncontrolledcaste alien to socialism; (f) the socialrevolution, betrayed by the ruling party,still exists in property relations and inthe consciousness of the toiling masses;(g) a further development of theaccumulating contradictions can as welllead to socialism as back to capitalism;(h) on the road to capitalism thecounterrevolution would have to breakthe resistance of the workers; (i) on theroad to socialism the workers wouldhave to overthrow the bureaucracy. Inthe last analysis, the question will bedecided by a struggle of living socialforces, both on the national and theworld arena."- The Revolution Betrayed

Not only is the Maoist illusion of arestoration of capitalism in the USSRwrong and profoundly anti-Marxist,but it serves to justify an increasinglyopen counterrevolutionary alliance ofthe Peking bureaucracy with U.S.imperialism against the Soviet Union.In contrast, as the Russian Left Opposi­tionists were taken from arctic concen­tration camps to be shot in 1938-39 theyagain vowed their unconditional de­fense of the Soviet Union againstimperialist attack. Their struggle wasnot one of bureaucratic intriguing in theinterests of one clique against another,but rather to defend and extend theworld-historic gains of the OctoberRevolution by ousting the parasiticusurpers. It is because the Trotskyistsknow how to defend past conquests ofthe workers that the Russian LeftOpposition will arise again from theashes, while there never has been andnever will be a significant Maoistopposition in the USSR.•

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10

Near East ...

(continued from page J)

economy would actually harm the causeof the oppressed non-white workers.

While calling for "the strongestmeasures" and specifying a labor boy­cott ("hot cargoing" or "blacking") ofSouth African goods, the ICFTUexecutive board has given no indicationthat it will really mobilize its affiliates orwage a political struggle for implemen­tation of the call. In fact. in a letterannouncing the campaign (Circular No.56,30 November 1976), ICFTU generalsecretary Otto Kersten specificallyreferred to "token industrial action."

Instead of a tokenistic boycott. theworld's trade unions should applyindustrial action against those multi­national corporations operating inSouth Africa to force them to recognizethe black unions. The unions of BritishLeyland, which has plants in SouthAfrica, have raised such a demand.though the corporati(;m has resisted todate.

ICFTU's half-heartedness is hardlysurprising for pro-capitalist reformistswho are well aware that militantindustrial action is political dynamite.The use of class-struggle tactics to aidembattled workers in other countriessets a dangerous precedent for the tame,social-patriotic union leaderships. Bu­reaucrats of the ilk of Britain's LenMurray and Jack Jones, who participat­ed in the ICFTU meeting in November,will hardly lead serious actions todefend South African workers whilethey are busily betraying their ownmembers with a "social contract"desIgned to bailout the sinking Britishbourgeoisie.

WORKERS VANGUARD

Spanish civil war. In the same breath hepraised the Chilean resistance andremarked, "The Spanish working classis once again fighting for democracy."But "Archie" was only pulling hispunches. The real meaning of thisapology for popular-frontism came outat a December 1970 "Northern Califor­nia Rank and File Action Conference"where he boasted of murdering Trotsky­ists during the Spanish civil war, the actof a vile class traitor.

Nor have the politics of this veteranclass collaborator changed one iota overthe years. At a June 1975 Bay Areatrade-union conference on Chile. Brownunsuccessfully tried to mobilize a goonsquad to stifle opposition to the disas­trous policies of the Allende popularfront, which had left Chilean workersdefenseless before the bloody Pinochetcoup. Among those who successfullybeat back Brown's attempt to excludeclass-struggle politics at that conferencewere Local 10 executive board membersGow and Keylor. In their newsletter to

decade of industrial expansion in whichtheir strategic weight in the economyincreased markedly.

A really major blow to the economy(a catastrophic drop in the gold pricealong with imposition of oil sanctions,for example) leading to extreme socialand economic dislocation could actuallylead to the Zionist solution of "separatedevelopment" of which the right-wingAfrikaners dream. The compacting ofthe oppressor white caste into a nation­ally 'distinct group (a desperate nuclear­armed white laager defending an autar­kic economy) is precluded only so longas the economy depends on black labor.

Fortunately, such a disastrous"achievement" is not within the capacityof the "left" labor reformists and "ThirdWorld" nationalists who advocate it.Instead, they are limited to token laborboycotts. which usually do not employenough effective force to win evenlimited goals like .the lifting of thebanning orders on trade unionists, or toimpotent and often ludicrous consumerboycotts. First prize in this latter regardmust go to the U.S. Communist Partywhich rages against the evils of eatingSouth African sardines.

The absolute absurdity of such aboycott is indicated by the SouthAfrican exports itemized in the 6January Daily World's list of "racistunpalatables." After canned fish, lob­ster tails and wines. it notes: "SouthAfrica also exports diamonds, gold. sealskins and uranium to the U.S., but suchitems are generally not open to directaccess by the average consumer." Thusthe success of a boycott campaigndirected at petty-bourgeois intellectualsand youth depends on moral sensibil­ities of society matrons, power compan­ies. the Atomic Energy Commission. theAmerican Dental Association andabove all the U.S. Treasury.

But there is action which class­conscious militants can take to aid theirvictimized comrades in South Africa.Beyond implementing the call for aweek-long labor boycott of SouthAfrican cargo and transport. a "black­ing" of all military production andmilitary cargo for South Africa wouldbe a powerful expression of laborsolidarity and a concrete blow againstthe repressive machine of the apartheidregime. In addition, industrial actionagainst multi-national corporationsoperating in South Africa to force themto recognize the black unions is a keytactic furt heri ng the growth of proletari­an organization in the apartheid state.Such class-struggle measures, however,will not be undertaken by the socialdemocrats. Stalinists and businessunionists of the ICFTU. WFTU, WCLor AFL-CIO. It requires the forging ofarevolutionary opposition in t he unionscapable of mobilizing the internationalproletariat around its historic classinterests.•

But "what if" an unusual conjunctureof events (probably associated withinter-imperialist conflicts) somehowgave rise to the refElfmists' goal ofeffective imperialist economic "sanc­tions against South Africa? What then'!Only in the imagination of muddle­headed moralists and cynical opportun­ists does crippling the economy of anentrenched reactionary regime lead toits overthrow by the aroused masses.Quite the contrary, a forced contractionof foreign trade, resulting in greaterunemployment. could actually weakenthe capacity of the workers to struggle.The significant wage gains won bySouth African black workers throughthe strikes of 1973 and 1974 followed a

who had been wit~hhunted out of hisgovernment job because he was amember of the then-Trotskyist SocialistWorkers Party (SWP). At a Local 10meeting in July of that year Brownsuffered a tremendous drubbing when amotion defending Kutcher passed by avote of 2,800 to 12, despite a concertedeffort by Stalinists present to malignand slander Trotskyists as "agents of thebosses."

Thankful for being granted a safehaven from the cold war red purgessweeping the labor movement, theCommunist Party became the mostabject apologist for the Bridges bu­reaucracy. Not only did they fail toattack the ILWU tops for sacrificingunion gains, but the Stalinists voted forjob-cutting automation contracts.

Unwilling to antagonize Bridges witha program for saving the ILWU throughmilitant class struggle, Brown spentmuch of his time at the Decembermeeting reminiscing about his role in theAbraham Lincoln Brigade during the

genuinely effective labor action requiresstruggle against both the do-nothingAFL-CIO dinosaurs and the slicker butno less opportunist social-democraticbureaucrats in Europe. A demand thatthey lead strike actions to win fullcitizenship rights for all foreign workerswould quickly expose the chauvinistunderpinnings of the ICFTU bureau­crats' internationalist posturings.

The ICFTU campaign raises theunsupportable and dangerous proposalof an open-ended and total economicboycott of South Africa. The WorldConfederation of Labor. based onCatholic-originated unions like theFrench CFDT. declared: "This shouldnot be a symbolic action for one weekonly but a sustained effort which willaffect the economic and strategic inter­ests of South Africa-boycott on SouthAfrican produce, cessation of armsdeliveries and investments" (quoted inDai~' World, 6 January).

The Stalinist-dominated World Fed­eration of Trade Unions, which issupporting the January 17 protests, alsochampions the position of a totalboycott, a long-standing panaceaamong liberal pacifists, social demo­crats and Stalinists alike. Such a policyis rife with contradictions and illusions.It is most often merely an emptyexpression of moral condemnation byreformist misleaders who would neverrisk their bureaucratic sinecures in theconfrontations with the bourgeois stateto which any serious industrial actionwould inevitably lead.

The reformists fall back on appeals tothe imperialists to isolate weaker bour­geois regimes judged to be qualitativelymore reactionary. But this is nothingbut the crassest liberalism. drawing afundamental line between "democratic"capitalism and dictatorship. During thepost-war period. the U.S. government(operating within the confines of bour­geois democracy) has played an infinite­ly more reactionary role than third-ratedespotisms like South Africa. Iran orSpain. Nor are the major capitalistpowers about to sacrifice profitabletrade and investments to the dictates of"conscience."

... .

Such protest campaigns are intendedas inexpensive gestures which serveprimarily to bolster the "leftist" creden­tials of their social-democratic initia­tors. Feelipg little compulsion to projecta left face, the American AFL-C10refused to lend even paper support. In atypical display of naked anti­communism, reactionary AFL-C10head George Meany rejected the ICFTUcall for labor protest, accusing it ofhaving a "double standard" and makingan indirect but transparent call forboycott of the Soviet Union (A FL-C10News. 18 December).

To turn such a protest into a

For a Socialist Federation of theNear East

nian liberation, in collaboration withZionism). Further. by accepting themini-state "solution" the PLO willimplicitly accept the sovereignty ofIsrael's pre-1967 borders.

The PLO and Arab rulers know fullwell that the West Bank and GazaStrip-poor land that occupies a mere18 percent of the old British mandate ofPalestine-can neither provide the basisfor a modern state nor the haven for 3.5million Palestinians. But the Arab rulershave no intention of permitting thePalestinian people to have genuinepolitical independence of any sort. Afterall, from 1948 to 1967 the West Bankand Gaza Strip were under the controlof Jordan and Egypt respectively andthe Palestinians had hardly more rightsthen under their Arab oppressors thanthey do today under their Israeli rulers.

We demand that Israel get out of theArab territories. But the Palestinianpeople cannot realize their nationalliberation only in the West Bank andGaza Strip. The fate of Palestinianliberation is intimately intertwined withthe revolutionary overthrow of thereactionary regimes in Amman. Damas­cus and Beirut. as the Jordanian BlackSeptember and the Lebanese civil warhave so graphically demonstrated. TheIsraeli state and Zionism must bedestroyed, but through an alliance of theoppressed Arab masses and the Israeliproletariat. which in November shookthe Rabin government with the mostmilitant strike wave in Israel's history.

Subjected to a 37.5 percent inflationrate. the highest taxes in the world and arapidly falling standard of living. theIsraeli proletariat can be broken from itsgarrison mentality by an Arab-Hebrewrevolutionary workers party whichwhile firmly fighting for the Palestinianright to complete self-determinationdoes not deny the right to self­determination of the Hebrew people.Such a party must necessarily becommitted to the perspective of interna­tional proletarian revolution embodiedin a reborn Fourth International..

ClassCollaborator(continuedfrom page 8)

attempts.) The ILWU was expelledfrom the CIa but refused to implementa red purge. .

The 26 November 1961 People'sWorld (West Coast CP weekly) praisedBrown for his participation in a courtsuit fought on his behalf by the ILWUwhich successfully challenged the con­stitutionality of the section of theLandrum-Griffin Act prohibiting com­munists from being elected unionleaders. This was an important victory.but no one should be deceived thatArchie Brown defends workers democ­racy for anyone but himself and hisreformist cronies.

In 1949, at the same time that CPleaders were being hounded to jail underthe Smith Act, the Stalinists refused todefend James Kutcher. a legless veteran

...'South Africa

(continued from page 4)

which subsidizes the economies of bothcountries, verbal animosity has beenreplaced with verbal pledges of "unity."

Of course Egypt and Syria along withLibya are already part of a "Federationof Arab Republics" formed in 1971.However, Libyan-Egyptian verbal ani­mosity has almost been transcended byan actual declaration of war. mostrecently over a Libyan-backed coupattempt against the Egyptian-backedSudanese government. The defunct"federation" still has a federal cabinetand parliament and even a phonyceremonial capital at Heliopolis. asuburb of Cairo.

The new Egyptian-Syrian "unity" ismore reminiscent of this fake­"federation" than their last unity move,the ill-fated United Arab Republic.which lasted from 1958 to 1961. Whileevery Arab ruler. whether Arabian sheikor bonapartist colonel. pays lip serviceto pan-Arab unity, they all jealouslydefend their borders. the product ofimperialist balkanization. and seck"unity" only through territorial aggran­dizement against their neighbors.

The real motivation behind thecurrent Egyptian-Syrian "united politi­cal leadership" is the desire to avoidanother "Sinai"-that is. to prevent aseparate deal with U.S. imperialism. Soinstead they are proposing a commondeal with U.S. imperialism in which aWest Bank Gaza Strip Palestinian.mini-state would be jointly supervisedby Jordan and Egypt-i.e.. a return tothe pre-1967 situation. Up to now boththe U.S. and \:;rael have refused to havethe PLO at the Geneva Conferencebecause Arafat refuses to recognizeIsrael. Clearly what Syria and Egypthave united on, together with Jordanand Lebanon. is the subordination ofthe "sole legitimate representative of thePalestinian people" to a joint Arabdelegation of the so-called "confronta­tion states" (the Arab states whichborder Israel and whose main confron­tation has historically been with Palesti-

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14 JANUARY 1977

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11

Gotha Program to productive labor wasdirected against the Lasalleans, whoseprogram was to enforce idleness inprisons in order to avoid economiccompetition with non-institutionalizedlabor. Against that position Marxargued that prisoners must not bedeprived of productive labor.

The revolutionary Bolsheviks' earlypenal policies were summarized inBukharin and Preobrazhensky's TheA BC of Communism (1920). Theyexplained that "a large number ofprofessional criminals, trained to be­come such in the old order, survive togive work for the proletarian courts. Butthese courts are entirely free from thespirit of revenge." So long as prisonershad to be isolated, the incarceratedindividuals were offered "full opportu­nities for moral regeneration" ratherthan being forced to remain there"without any occupation, [in] enforcedparasitism, the penal method so fre­quently employed under the tsaristregime." Therefore the Bolshevikssought a "complete transformation ofthe customary penal methods," includ­ing the introduction of some which"have been recommended by the bestbourgeois criminologists. But in bour­geois society they remain a dream."

The important point with regard tothe Bolsheviks' prisons is that they weremeant as temporary measures to beabolished as the society advancedtoward socialism. It is this understand­ing of the dictatorship of the proletariatas a transitional period that is missing inHerreshoffs static comparisions of"houses of correction" under the bour­geoisie with the prisons in revolutionaryRussia. The A BC ofCommunism statesclearly that the "courts will graduallychange in character. As the State diesout, they will tend to become simplyorgans for the expression of publicopinion. They will assume the characterof courts of arbitration. Their decisionswill no longer be enforced by physicalmeans and will have a purely moralsignificance."

Unlike the state apparatus in capital­ist society whi.9JLcan only more or lesseffectively organize for class oppression,it is the special character of the stateapparatus of the dictatorship of theproletariat that it can wither away. Butthis transition to socialism demands amaterial abundance possible only withthe spread of the revolution to theadvanced capitalist countries. Stalinismis the result of prolonged nationalisolation. The answer is not an alterna­tive penal policy but political revolutionin the degenerated! deformed workersstates and social revolution in theadvanced capitalist countries.

Herreshoff's questions and com­parisons could imply a political continu­ity between Leninism and Stalinismwhich is held by liberals, anarchists,tsarists like Solzhenitsyn and, of course,by the Stalinists. Certainly there wereprisoners under Lenin and prisonsunder Stalin. But the prisons in theSoviet Union of Lenin and Trotsky werefilled with active counterrevolutionariesand cannot be equated politically withStalin's concentration camps filledlargely with innocent people as well asold Bolsheviks, left-wing intellectualsand class-conscious workers. Bolshevikprisons in 1917-23 required an all-sidedpolitical counterrevolution to becomethe new Stalinist economic category ofmulti-millioned forced labor basedupon mass terror and bureaucraticintimidation.

No workers state under conditions ofnational isolation and economic back­wardness can move forward tosocialism-i.e., abolish prisons. Toanswer Herreshoff's "by the way" (howcan we get from the dictatorship of theproletariat to a society without pris­ons?): Only by internationalizing therevolution, opening the way for social­ism on a world scale, which can and willabolish all the repressive instruments ofclass society and usher in that societywhich Marx said was worthy of thename human.•

(continued from page 2)ascendancy renounces the maiming ofprisoners in favor of a penal reformwhieh claims as its primary purpose theprotection of society rather than theinfliction of pain upon the offender. Thebourgeois revolutionaries sought tointroduce a "rational" society in whichthe penalty was "equal" to the crime.Tha t is also the sense of the U. S.Constitution's proscription of "crueland unusual punishment." But thebourgeois state can no more protect thegeneral population against crime than itcan fulfill the promises of "liberty,equality and fraternity." In the period ofcapitalist decay the bourgeoisie's "lawand order" is in fact the mass organiza­tion of crime through social disorderand cop terrorism. The recrudescence ofthe rack and screw in bourgeois societyin their modern electronic forms, as wellas the reinstitution of the death penaltyfrom Argentina to the U.S., is bloodyconfirmation of capitalism's irreversibledecay.

As Herreshoff implies, U.S. prisonstoday are a form of torture, particularlyfor the blacks and other minorities whomake up such a large percentage of theprison population. While we demand animmediate halt to such barbaric prac­tices as the death penalty, solitaryconfinement, virtually unpaid meniallabor, preventive detention and allforms of torture, we understand thatcapitalism in its death agony maintainsits prisons as an instrument of reaction­ary social coercion beyond any signifi­cant reform. In the very first issue of WV(October 1971), in an article on theAttica massacre, we demanded: "Smashthe Prisons!"

The socialist revolution not onlysmashes capitalist prisons but also laysthe material basis to rid society of all itsprisons. But, as in the question ofabolition of official mutilation, thequestion of prisons after the proletarianrevolution cannot be abstractly posed asa matter of comparative felt pain. Therevolutionary Bolsheviks intended theirprisons to isolate counterrevolutiona­ries and criminals for the protection ofsociety rather than for the punishmentof the individual offender. But everyoneunderstood that such isolation waspunishing from the subjective point ofview of the prisoner, and the Bolsheviksat times even used the word "punish."

The question of penal policy is reallythe question of the dictatorship of theproletariat. The proletariat cannot wageruthless war against the bourgeoisie oneday and wake up the next morning tothe dawn of idyllic socialism-the firststage of classless society. The newlyfledged workers state must not onlyrepress outright counterrevolutionariesin a civil war, but also deal with crime ina society which (although it has abol­ished capitalist exploitation) still con­tains members corrupted and driven tocrime by continuing economic scarcityand remnants of bourgeois and lumpenclass violence.

Neither forced labor nor prisons arethe norm for a healthy workers state.The reason that prisoners in revolution­ary Russia were placed in a regime offorced labor is that in a society sufferingeconomic collapse universal compulso­ry labor was the necessary rule. But evenunder these conditions of extremehardship the Bolsheviks insisted thatprison working conditions were coveredby the general labor code providingtrade-uni'on rates, food rations andother conditions applying to the non­prison workforce (Margaret Dewar,Labor Policy in the U. S. S. R.).

Instituting prison labor was not a re­medial program for individual rehabil­itation. The Bolsheviks and Marx werenot starry-eyed about eliminating crimethrough individual rehabilitation. Itshould be made clear, moreover, thatMarx's reference in the Critique of the

Crime,Punishment ...

"The Agony of Japanese Americans inU.S. Concentration Camps," WV No.139, 7 January 1977); her defensecommittee received contributions frommore than 1,000 individuals and organi­zations including the Partisan DefenseCommittee.

Patty Hearst was convicted for heradmitted role in a holdup by the killer­cult "Symbionese Liberation Army,"but she agreed to aid the government infingering those who harbored herduring her flight. Today the wealthyheiress sits in a posh penthouse suitesipping cocktails with her reactionarymulti-millionaire newspaper magnatefather. Meanwhile, Wendy Yoshimura,daughter of a Japanese Americangardener from Fresno, refused to be agovernment informer. She IS beingrailroaded to prison.

The Yoshimura case is a primeexample of how the government usesconspiracy charges to stage a show trialin the absence of any evidence. For thestate's pro~ecutors, the conspiracy rap isa legal dream come true, but for theinnocent victims it is a nightmare of jailsentences. Here, truly, is bourgeoisjustice American style:

• First Brandt, Rubenstein and Bortinare tried, convicted and jailed for"conspiring" to blow up an ROTCbuilding that never blew up, for "plot­ting" to explode a naval architecturebuilding whose architecture remainedintact and for "planning" the kidnap­ping of mass murderer Robert McNam­ara who never was kidnapped.

• Then the state went after Yoshimuraas an accessory to these "crimes" thatwere never committed.• But since they had no evidence to

connect Yoshimura to these phantomcrimes, they began to hound her abouther years as a fugitive after the non­existent blow-ups and kidnappings. Byasking her these questions the govern­ment is able to send her to jail on chargesof contempt.

There is a conspiracy here, but theconspirators are capitalism's cops,prosecutors, judges and legislators intheir vengeful drive to frame antiwarprotesters. Other victims of this rigged"justice" are two Pennsylvania men, Jay

.Weiner and ·Phillip Shinnick, who havebeen jailed since November for refusingto testify before a federal grand jurywitchhunt "'investigating" those whoaided Patty Hearst during her flight.Under a law whose spirit finds itscounterpart in the Middle Ages, thesemen must remain in jail on contemptcharges until they decide to becomeinformers or until the grand jury isdischarged.

As we previously stated, the state'sreal purpose in prosecuting Yoshimurais to strike a vicious blow at all thosewho have struggled against U.S. imperi­alism's war on the Indochinese workersand peasants. For this reason andbecause this case is a symbol of the deepand incurable rottenness of capitalistjustice and the rule of the Americanbourgeoisie, the workers movementmust demand the immediate and uncon­ditional freeing of Wendy Yoshimura!.

•••Yoshimura

WfJ/iliE/iSV,,,,,,/l1)

the membership they explained thedanger represented by the Stalinists'popular-front politics:

"The Chilean workers parties attemptedmajor reforms,wlthout seeing the needfor completely abolishing the old stateand its key institutions, the army andthe police. They failed to independentlyorganize the working class-eitherpolitically or militarily. Both Allendeand Corvalan, head of the Chilean CPconsistently told the Chilean workingclass to have faith in the liberalcapitalists and their allies, the 'demo­cratic' military. When the coup came,the workers were unprepared."

-"Longshore Militant," 25 June1975

Brown, a past master at writingmeaningless resolutions, once authoreda Local 10 motion calling for boycott ofChilean cargo. But when Gow andKeylor together with other ILWUmembers pushed to implement thisresolution-and successfully stoppedChilean cargo on the San Franciscodocks during a two-day internationalprotest in September 1974-Brown wasnowhere to be seen. He didn't want toupset Bridges and the shippingcompanies,

Popular-frontist to the end, Brownalso continued to support the top ILWUmisleaders. At the December Local 10meeting Bridges advocated jurisdiction­al war with other waterfront unions overthe shrinking job pool. Predictably,when a supporter of "Longshore Mili­tant" later tried to present a motioncondemning any raiding, one ofBrown's sidekicks dissolved the meetingwith a quorum call. Such underhandedtricks may put the Stalinists in the goodgraces of labor fakers like Bridges, butin the end the working class will provemore powerful than all the slimymaneuvers and strong-arm methods ofthe bureaucracy, •

(continued from page 12)

cornerstones of bourgeois "justice."Asked why she fled after the arrest ofBrandt, Rubenstein and Bortin, Yoshi­mura replied:

"I began to think of the government'sracistaUitude t()ward Asian people, my'concentration camp experiences [shewas born in a Japanese internmentcamp in Inyo County in 19431 whathappened to my parents [they were sentto the camp shortly after World War IIbeganj, the same kind of racist attitudecontinued with the Vietnam War."

That Wendy Yoshimura's fears ofracist victimization were fully justifiedwas demonstrated when she had themisfortune of being arrested togetherwith Patty Hearst in September 1975.Soon after her arrest, "Patty" washolding hands with her parents in jail;Yoshimura, however, was shipped off tothe Santa Rita detention center whereher parents could only talk to herthrough wire barriers. When "Patty"was released on bail, "daddy" paid thetab from his pocket money, but the bailfor Yoshimura was raised by JapaneseAmericans who also remember thehorror of the "relocation centers" (see

Victimized Because She Won't Turn Informer

WfJRIlERI ,,INII/,IRIJ

Anne Dowie/SF Bay Guardian

14 JANUARY 1977

arrest in September of 1975.Yoshimura's lawyer, James Larsen,

correctly objected that the questionswere irrelevant and inflammatory.When he repeated his client's statementthat she couldn't answer these questionsout of a moral obligation not to betraythose who had helped her, Judge Pulichsnapped back that he didn't recognize"moral obligations."

The judge then slapped Yoshimurawith five ;;ounts of contempt of court,each worth up to six months in jail. Healso refused a motion for a mistrial byLarsen. And in case any juror failed toget tnc message, this tribune of bour­geois "justice" instructed the jury that"the defendant's refusal to answerquestions can be considered by you onthe issue of the credibility of hertestimony" (San Francisco Examiner, 6January). The next morning, afterYoshimura again refused to turn in­former on the witness stand. JudgePulich ordered that all her testimony bestruck from the record ("as if it hadn'tbeen said").

But Mr. Assistant District AttorneyHorner is not satisfied. He is insistingthat the testimony of Yoshimura'sfather, Frank Yoshimura. also be struckfrom the record, presumahly hecause ofhis daughter's refusal to be a stoolpigeon! When one of the incredulousspectators exclaimed. "What')" as Horn­er put forward this motion. he wasordered removed from the courtroom.

From start to finish the capitalistgovernment's vindictive harassment andpersecution of Wendy Yoshimura hasbeen a case study in the racism. classbias and anti-communism which arc the

COfl! it/licd ot/ page i I

Wendy Yoshimura

that if she did so she would have toanswer questions about her associates.But Yoshimura's courageous refusal toplead the Fifth exposes the govern­ment's cynical maneuver: if the informa­tion the prosecution is seeking wouldnot be self-incriminating, then it isirrelevant to the case.

From the very beginning of the trial ithas been clear that the prosecution'scase against Yoshimura is based, in thewords of her defense attorney, onnothing but "innuendos and disconnect­ed facts." Unable to come up with asingle piece of hard evidence thatYoshimura had committed any crime,the prosecutor, Jeffrey Horner, hasinstead tried to weave a lurid conspiracytheory portraying the defendant as amember of a sinister gang planning an"all-out war against society."

Horner (who at one point in the trialproceedings attempted to show the jurya technicolor film of the effects of anAK-47 rifle on a can of {omato juice!)pulled his latest shabby maneuver bydemanding Yoshimura tell the jury theanswers to the following questions:

"Who called her at 5 a.m. on the daYthree men were arrested by Berkelevpolice as they enter('d ;{ Berkelc\'garage-bomb factory she had rented')"Where did she go when she Oed the BayArea')"What mode oftravel did she use')"Did she go back east""Did she apply for a driver's license inNew Jersev under the assumed name ofJoan Shimada""

-San Francisco Examiner. 6January 1977

Clearly these questions are nothing buta fishing expedition to gain informationfor a further government witchhuntagainst anyone who aided Yoshimurabetween the time of her flight and her

her companions, she announced in aprepared statement that "It is impossi­~Ie to explain my life after 1972 withoutsuggesting or providing informationabout the people and friends who havehelped me during these years.... I ammorally obligated to bring them noharm in any way possible."

The prosecution, well aware that ithas a flimsy case against Yoshimura oncharges of possession of explosives anda machine gun, directed all its cross­examination at the period after the 1972arrests. These questions had nothing todo with the matter under prosecution inthis trial but allowed the state to triggercontempt of court charges and demandthat her testimony on the weaponsallegations be removed.

Judge Pulich willingly cooperated inthis crude ploy to railroad Yoshimura tojail. He "graciously" asked the defen­dant whether she wished to claim privi­lege under the Fifth Amendment(against self-incrimination), knowing

PDC STATEMENT:

Free Wendy Yoshimura!

-- .__._-------'----------------

Partisan Defense CommitteeBox 633, Canal Street Station,New York, N.Y. 10013

12

The government's vindictive attemptto break Wendy Yoshi­mura on the witness stand is a modern inquisition. Thequestions as to the details of her life during the years that shewas hounded by a wanton FBI manhunt are neither intended tobring to light facts "relevant" to the prosecution's frame-up, noreven as a test of her credibility. Rather, they seek to turnYoshimura's trial into an exercise in McCarthyite entrapmentand coerced testimony. The judge's action declaring her incontempt of court for refusing to answer such outrageousquestions proves that this trial has been rigged in advance.

The Partisan Defense Committee hails Yoshimura's princi­pled and courageous stand in refusing to turn informer for thestate's witchhunt. This innocent woman, born in a racist U.S.concer~ration camp, propelled into action against Americanimperii \ism's war against the workers and peasants of South­ec.3t A ,.i, and now being persecuted in this vengeful show trial,has become a symbol of resistance for the entire working classat'j ali those who struggle for democratic rights.

We demand that the judicial persecution stop immediately.Drop l,H~ charges against Wendy Yoshimura!

OAKLAND--In a shocking display ofcourtroom vengeance, the trial ofWendy Yoshimura took a dramatic turnlast week as the trial judge cited thedefendant five times for contempt ofcourt, then ordered that all her testi­mony be stricken from the record just asher defense attorney was resting thecase. This outrage is the state's answer toYoshimura's courageous and principledrefusal to fink on people who had aidedher after she went into hiding in 1972following the arrest of three com­panions-Willie Brandt. Paul Ruben­stein and Michael Bortin--who wereaccused of attempting to blow up anROTC building at the Berkeley campusof the University of California.

Alameda County superior judgeMartin Pulich's high-handed actionswere part and parceI" of a deliberategovernment attempt to rig the trialagainst Yoshimura. Although the de­fendant told of her activities andassociations before the 1972 arrest of

Stop Court VendettaAgainstWendy Yoshimural