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basis of a principled anti-intervention policy. Far from any diversion, the referendum was the most significant antiwar activity in New England this year.

A broad anti-intervention movement cannot be based on a socialist program. Such an approach ignores the thousands who are increasingly disenchanted with the U.S. government, but who are not yet ready to seek its replacement. A revolutionary party should combine the struggle for socialism with active support for an antiwar movement, and build This is precisely where the SWP excelled throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In election campaigns SWP candidates supported the mass movements at every opportunity, using their access to the media to promote conferences, teach-ins, demonstrations, and, yes, referendums. Although The Militant neglects to say so, abstention from antiwar referendums is a new practice for the SWP and a sorry departure from its record of militant opposition to imperialist The SWP's history provides the most telling reply to its present course of abstention. The party's approach to referendums has been guided by the Transitional Program, a document written by Leon Trotsky and adopted by the SWP in 1938.

One section of the Transitional Program includes support for a referendum prior to the declaration of war. Trotsky explains that revolutionaries should promote "every, even if insufficient demand, if it can draw the masses to a certain extent into active In the past the SWP never missed a chance to put these ideas into practice. One of the first referendums of the Vietnam war was held in San Francisco in 1967. Fred Halstead, in Out Now-A Partici...Union Carbide charges at least 168 tons of other chemicals considered equally as dangerous as MIC, including phosgene, which was M.I.T's Center for Policy Alternatives, used as a nerve gas in World War I. Is it concludes that "The environmental any wonder that Kanawha County, safety regulations in American-owned where the Union Carbide plant resides plants abroad may be no worse than along with 11 other chemical plants, has those now taken within the United a cancer rate 21 percent higher than the States because of the outrageous disregard for health and safety concerns by The "smell of jobs, as some residents have described the ever-present stench in the air from the plant, For the residents of Institute, W.Va., undoubtedly is beginning to reek more there is special cause for alarm. In a of death after the catastrophe in India. report to the state pollution control Dr. Irving Selikoff, director of the offices in West Virginia in 1981, Union Environmental Sciences Laboratory at Carbide admitted that the company rou- the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, tinely vents MIC into the atmosphere at told the New York Times how the chemtheir Institute plant, a fact they had pre- ical industry allows plants to deteriorate rather than maintain technology that may be replaced in a few years. "The Cassa WHERE TO FIND US: yo Boston Socialist Action P.O. Box 1046 GMF Boston, MA 02205 Buffalo Socialist Action P.O. Box 275 Buffalo, N.Y. 14207 Chicago Socialist Action Box 80 B, 2520 N. Lincoln Chicago, IL 60614 (312) 772-7096 Cincinnati Socialist Action P.O. Box 3033 Cincinnati, OH 45201 (513) 242-9043 the two simultaneously. politics." (continued from page 16: “Profits spell death in India disaster”) Cause for alarm at Institute annually disCleveland Socialist Action P.O. Box 6151 Cleveland, OH 44101 1 (216) 429-2167 Houston Socialist Action Box 551, 4800 Calhoun Houston, TX 77004 (713) 643-2030 Los Angeles Socialist Act Box 217, 18653 Ventura Blvd Los Angeles, CA 91356 (213) 250-4608

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South Africa is placed in the "Free World" because of the huge profits that the multinational corporations get through exploitation of low-paid Black labor there. The zero profits from Cuba, however, and the endangered profits from Nicaragua, open those The apartheid system was in place in South Africa long before Reagan was elected to office. For years, both Democratic and Republican Party administrations have gotten along amicably with South Africa's policies toward its Black subjects. It has only been in recent decades (because of massive protests and world opinion) that the U.S. ruling class developed less inhumane practices Can we expect a government that has ruled over Black workers in this country and around the world to somehow pressure the South African government to end its policies? Only the victims can end their oppression. Black Americans-and groups like the National Black Independent Political Party—can play a vital role in raising awareness in this country about apartheid and the ecoThe initiators of the current actions against apartheid should begin a second phase of mobilizing masses of people in opposition to apartheid and the related oppression of Blacks in the United States. We cannot hold back in favor of Black leaders who prefer to put pressure on the Democratic Party. Now is the time to organize teach-ins, rallies, and democratic planning conferences that can build mass demonstrations against apartheid involving thouThe Reagan administration's policy of "constructive engagement" toward the apartheid government-which was exposed by the courageous and principled stand of Bishop Desmond Tutu-can be contrasted with its bloody efforts to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua.

countries to attack. toward its own Black population. nomic system that fosters it. sands of people.

"Free world"

By KWAME M.A. SOMBURU National Black Independent Political Party symbol Dear editor, Since 1 first purchased a copy of your newspaper last winter, I have increasingly appreciated the value of Socialist Action, despite all the limitations that the monthly publication schedule must impose.

Especially the contributions by Ralph Schoenman, Stephanie Coontz, and the reprinting of internal documents are a breeze of spring air compared to the stale ossification of The Militant and the agonizing attempts of The Guardian to grope with the question of whether or not it is correct to criticize the Soviet Union.

Hopefully your announcement of a theoretical journal will become a reality before the winter is over.

A reader, Minneapolis Howard Packer Dear editor, Howard Packer, a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party, died Dec. 12. He was 68 years old.

A lifelong resident of Chicago, Howard devoted 46 years of revolutionary activity to the Chicago branch of the SWP. Even in the darkest days of reaction, when socialists in Chicago were reduced to a handful, Howard stood steadfast, imbued with revolutionary optimism.

In the last year of his life, Howard became disturbed by Asher Harer, San Francisco SWP dishonesty Dear editor, (I'd like you to reprint this letter, which was also sent to The Militant.)

Several months before his death on Nov. 16, 1984, Larry Stewart was refused entrance to a public campaign rally of the Socialist Workers Party. This disgraceful incident provides some contrast to the belated tribute to Stewart that was written by Barry Sheppard in the Dec. 14 Militant!

But Sheppard's article contains a glaring inaccuracy. Sheppard writes, "In early 1983 Stewart left the SWP as part of a split over organizational and political differences."

In fact, Stewart was unjustly, undemocratically, and unwillingly expelled from the SWP as part of a purge of members who refused to repudiate other party members in California.

The author of this article should know since he was one of the people who brought Our literary heritage the distortion of Trotskyism espoused by the SWP leadership. He wrote a polemic in the 1984 SWP pre-convention discussion bulletin defending Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution, answering the Barnes leadership, which has dropped this basic tenet of revolutionary socialism.

Howard's death leaves a serious gap in the ranks of veteran American Trotskyists. charges against Stewart-and then tossed him out without a trial.

What Sheppard omits is Stewart's last, and perhaps most important, struggle: His work to defend the revolutionary program of the SWP against the present course of Sheppard and the SWP leadership.

Roland Sheppard, San Francisco Turkish friend Dear editor, I am writing to you as a friend sharing the same ideas and goals in another part of the world. Yes, I am writing from Turkey.

Last year 1 was in the United States as an exchange student, and at that time it was a good relief to learn about your presence. In a country where capitalism has shaped all human relations, where people are afraid of words more than nukes, and where there is a president with the most conservative ideas, it was good to know that there were some people who were trying to make changes.

I walked in as many revolutionary marches as I could, and I read every issue of your newspaper while I was in the United States.

Since I believe in cooperation between all the socialists of the world, I want to keep in touch with you. And I would really like to have the latest issues of Socialist Action sent to my address here.

B.E., Ankara, Turkey

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1 SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1985 SOCiAliSE

Inside out. Richard not guilty

Letters to editor Enjoys paper