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I'm still wary of being sold out by some people in the national leadership of the union. When Joe Gormley was president, before Scargill took over, he negotiated the present productivity deal behind the backs of the membership. There had been two ballots against it. Now he's been made Lord Gormley for his services.

There are several men on the National Executive Committee who are getting on in age and looking to receive lordships. You have 26 men on the NEC. About ten of them have never even been down the pit.

Horfall: If we don't win this, it's the end of the line, so to speak. We're the strongest union in the country. If we lose, they'll attack the whole union movement. That's their aim, anyway. To break the unions.

Hill: I'm going to stick to the end. • Socialist Action

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on two-party system Out with Boss Party This August marks the l0th anniversary of the death of James P. Cannon, the founder and long-time leader of the Trotskyist movement in the United States. In the September issue, Socialist Action will run a series of articles commemorating Cannon's struggle to establish and defend the revolutionary continuity of the Marxist movement in this country. In this issue we are publishing excerpts from a speech, "The Coming Struggle for Power, " published in America's Road to Socialism (Pathfinder Press, New York, second edition, 1975).

Cannon was born in Rosedale, Kansas, on Feb. 11, 1890, into a working-class Irish family. He joined the Socialist Party in 1908 and the Industrial Workers of the World in 1911. As a leader of the Socialist Party left wing after the Russian Revolution, he joined the Communist Party in September 1919 and was elected to its central committee in 1920.

A key leader of the CP in its first decade, he served on the Presidium of the Communist International and headed the International Labor Defense. Won over to Leon Trotsky's Left Opposition at the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International in 1928, he was expelled from the CP later that year for Trotskyism. Cannon organized the Communist League of America, the first Trotskyist organization in the United States, and served as editor of its newspaper, The Militant.

Cannon was a founder of the Socialist Workers Party in 1938 and participated in the founding conference of the Fourth International the same year, where he was elected to the International Executive Committee. Convicted with 17 other leaders of the SWP and of the Minneapolis Teamsters union in 1941 for opposing the war policy of the United States government, Cannon served 13 months in prison in 1944-45. Cannon was the national secretary of the SWP until 1953. He thereafter was national chairman, and later national chairman emeritus until his death on Aug. 21, 1974.

The following is an excerpt from a talk given by James P. Cannon at an SWP forum in Los Angeles during the winter of 1952.

„ • Democratic Party (continued from page 1: “Polish prisoners win amnesty!”)

But many of Jackson's supporters were not so enthralled with their treatment by the Mondale forces. "1 am thoroughly disappointed, " said the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a Jackson supporter. 'I think we have been song-anddanced. "

Lamond Godwin, Jackson's chief strategist, admits, "There were no tangible gains from this convention as of yet. "

Jackson was soundly defeated in his proposals to (1) cut defense spending, (2) affirm a "no first use" of nuclear weapons policy, and (3) eliminate runoff primaries in Southern states. Jack6 SOCIALIST ACTION will What is this American two-party system, which so many people think is a matter of our will and our genius, i and can endure forever? In reality, it is ni Not a two-party system. There are not re ally two separate class parties, as today y in England. England has a two-party : system, with the Tory Party represent ting the capitalist class, and the Lab our Party based on the trade-union me ›vement. The struggle between the Lab our Party and the Tory Party is at botto ma political expression of the struggle for power in England.

What we have in this country are not two separate class parties, but two 1 factions of the same ruling class— -the Republican faction and the Democr atic faction. This was a very good and c ionvenient system for rich and sta ible American capitalism. From one poin t of view, it flexibly contained the ar itagonisms within the capitalist ranks • It gave a political expression for the c 'onflicts of interests between different 1 facson could only claim a rather dubious victory in the "strengthened" language of the affirmative action plank. But support for quotas, which Jackson proposed as the only means to promote job equality for women and minorities, was rejected. Jackson's agreement with the Mondale forces on this plank reveals that he apparently prefers Democratic bluster to a policy with any real content.

The morning after Jackson's speech, Black delegates booed Mondale and Coretta Scott King, a Mondale supporter, at a meeting to shore up support for the presidential campaign. Jackson chided the delegates for booing but added, "Women got what they want in Geraldine Ferraro; the South got what it wants in Bert Lance. What did you get? You ain't got nothing. "

Jackson knows he came out of the convention empty-handed. So what does he now want in return for his support to the Democratic ticket? Simply this. A commitment from Southern state chairmen to elect at least one Black congressperson per state, funds for a voter-registration drive, and Black influence in the top circles of the Mondale campaign.

Jackson's demands appear rather modest considering the debt he fe els the Democratic Party owes him. «We AUGUST 1984 Politics!

tions and sections of the capitalist class itself. In another respect, the two-party system, expressing the interests of two factions of the ruling class, but pretending to represent all the people, was an excellent safety valve for popular discontent.

When people got fed up with the administration power, they could always find relief for their dissatisfaction. The traditional American slogan always was, "Turn the rascals out." The only alternative, however, was to put another set of rascals in. That never did much good, but it gave the people a little satisfaction without disturbing the bourgeois rule.

It was a good system for them, and many capitalists surreptitiously supported the campaign funds of both parties. That's a well-known fact; it's what they call "insurance." They have one preference and give $10,000 for the campaign fund, and then they have a second preference and give $5,000. So, expect to do more than be heard, " Jackson said. "We expect our interests to be responded to respectfully. After all, we have pulled in the progressive wing of the party that left and went third-party in 1980. "

As for Gary Hart, his lone platform challenge was a "peace plank" urging restraint in the use of U.S. troops abroad. This plank was passed after it appeared that many Mondale delegates were ready to support his proposal.

But what kind of "restraint" do the Democrats urge? Hart's plank calls for the United States to refrain from using military force unless the military objectives are clear, local forces are working to resolve the conflict, and all non-military options have been exhausted.

Does this scenario sound familiar? Perhaps it is because practically every military adventure carried out by the United States in the post-war period has been justified by such a rationale.

The Democratic Party platform What can we expect from a Democratic presidency? 'Look at our platform, " Mondale said in his nomination speech, "there are no defense cuts that weaken our security; no business taxes that weaken our economy; no laundry lists that raid our treasury. " whoever wins is obligated to them.

That's a form of the confidence game known as heads I win, tails you lose, and it has been working wonderfully for a long time. And it could keep on working forever as long as the social relations are stable, and the capitalist class is not challenged on the political field by the workers.

Another advantage of the two-party system was that it gave the appearance of real political democracy. And this, 1 believe, is one of the biggest political fakes ever perpetrated in history. Of course, there have been all kinds of fakes in the world, but this one probably had the most suckers falling for it, and believing in it. That was its great value to the ruling clique.

The people thought they had a free choice every four years as to who was going to be president to represent them. But this was more appearance than reality. The machinery of both parties is tightly controlled by financial interests. The nominations are rigged every time. And the people's choice boiled down to a choice of two candidates selected for them by political machines, which in their turn were nothing but political instruments of the big money.

This political shell game was possible in its purest form only as long as capitalism was strong and secure and ascending in a stable capitalist world, and when there was no labor challenge to the capitalist rule in the country. Those conditions are fading away. The two-party system, in fact, has already been seriously shaken, even though outwardly the last election showed Republican versus Democrat as though nothing had happened in a hundred years. In reality the crisis of the thirties already began to undermine the two-party system.

Labor awakens to politics Labor began to organize by the millions, to awaken to politics, and to participate in an organized manner in the elections. The result of this uprising of the workers, engendered by the crisis, was the Democratic-labor coalition of Roosevelt and Truman. The traditional system remained formally Republican and Democrat, but the great change was that the Democratic Party began to represent a form of coalition of a section of the capitalist class with the organized labor movement.

This Roosevelt-Truman-labor coalition is significant historically not for what it did, although something was done, but for the trend it signified. The significance was not the coalition itself, and not even the social gains which accrued to the workers in the course of the 20 years of the Roosevelt-Truman A Democratic president, according to the platform, would oppose the "automatic militarization" of foreign policy, but not the automatic increase of the defense budget.

A Democratic president would end support for dictators from 'Haiti to the Philippines, " but covert operations could continue if "strictly limited" to cases where "secrecy is essential. "

A Democratic president would strive to "eliminate all nuclear weapons" in the world, but would refuse to declare that a Democrat won't be the first to drop the bomb in a new war. And a Democratic president, rest assured, would "apply military force when vital interests are threatened. "

Mondale has also declared that he would end the illegal war in Nicaragua within the first 100 days of his administration. But a little cynicism goes a long way when this promise is measured against not only the party platform but the actual record of the Carter/Mondale administration in initiating the U.S. war in Central America.

The Democrats assure us that education, unemployment, social programs, a balanced budget, consumer protection, environmental issues, gay rights, labor rights, will all be of top concern to a Democratic president. But concrete pro-regime. The real significance was the fact of labor participation in politics in have to find another road. I don't mean to say that in the course of the crisis the NOT. WAR

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