An analysis of two strategies for the trade unions: The SWP's flawed assessment of the Eastern and Pittston strikes

Scan page 13

Eastern strike supporters rally in Boston shortly after walkout began nearly 18 months ago.

(Third in a Series)

and BARRY SHEPPARD Last month we discussed the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) leadership's view that the labor movement has been at the "center stage" of politics in the U.S. since the 1976 campaign for union democracy in the United Steelworkers and the successful 1977-78 strike of the United Mineworkers. This concept is closely associated with the idea that the working class has begun to politically radicalize.

This article will take up the SWP leadership's view of some of the important labor battles of the last five years, concentrating on the strikes at Eastern Airlines and Pittston Coal.

Eastern Strike lessons

The current strike at Eastern Airlines is pointed to by the SWP leadership as confirmation of their analysis that the labor movement is at center stage of American politics. To do this, they have exaggerated the importance of this strike compared to others, and have overblown the real correlation of forces in the strike.

The "World Political Resolution" adopted by the SWP at its June 1990 convention claimed that the Eastern strike is "the first sustained nationwide strike in the decade that was not rapidly checked if not defeated by the bosses."

This is an overstatement. Not only Eastern, but the current Greyhound strike is a nationwide strike. The Greyhound strike of 1983 was also national. The strikes by the the meatpackers in 1985-86, the paperworkers in 1987-88, the telephone and Boeing workers in 1989 also had national significance. None were "checked rapidly" by the employers, and the telephone and Boeing workers won modest gains.

Reflecting this exaggeration of the Eastern strike's importance over other labor battles was the error made by the SWP when the coal miners first struck the Pittston company in the spring of 1989. They counterposed the Eastern strike to the Pittston strike and claimed the former was more important. This went so far as to lead the editors of the Militant to say—one week before the victory of the miners-that the Pittston strikers should learn from the Eastern strikers how to wage a strike.

Pittston Strikers Show Way The exact opposite was the case. Through their use of militant tactics in the face of a combined assault by the employers and the government the Pittston strikers refused to be bound by the rules as laid down by their adversary.

They kept up massive picketing by the strikers and their families in the face of court injunctions. They organized "Camp Solidarity" which attracted thousands of union fighters from around the country to participate in the battle, and which mobilized the strikers on a daily basis. They mobilized contingents to go out and support other strike struggles-like going to rallies and other activities for the Eastern workers.

A high point of the strike was the wave of wildcat sympathy walkouts by miners in other companies in the summer of 1989, which the top United Mineworkers officials could not immediately dissipate and which remained a potential threat the employers and the government knew was real.

These and other tactics that transgressed anti-labor "legality" were in sharp contrast to the strait-jacket the top Machinist leaders imposed on the Eastern strikers. At the beginning of the strike the potential existed to spread the strike to workers at the other airlines and the railroads.

Such sympathy strikes are technically legal in the transportation industry as contrasted to other sectors of industry. Such action would no doubt have been countered by injunctions the employers would get from the courts, but the Pittston workers showed that can be defeated, too. The top 12 SOCIALIST ACTION leadership of the IAM backed away from that course, however, and the momentum of the strike was progressively dissipated The Eastern strikers have shown the labor movement, as have other strikes of the past decade, that it is better to fight against the concessions demanded by the bosses in this period-even if you lose— than to accept such concessions without a fight (and lose anyway). Their example of tenacity in refusing to give in is important.

But in contrast, the Pittston strikers were not only tenacious, they began to go in the direction labor has to go to be successful when the employers utilize the government to mount a combined assault on the workers. The lessons of the Pittston strike are more important because they show that class struggle tactics, even if hampered by the top union officialdom, can lead to victory even in difficult situations.

In their recently adopted "World Political Resolution," the SWP has made a partial correction. They now say it was an error on their part to counterpose the Eastern strike to the Pittston strike. But they still exaggerate the importance of the Eastern strike compared to the Pittston battle.

Eastern Strike "Stronger Than Ever"?

The SWP leadership's exaggeration of the importance of the 18-month-long Eastern strike in comparison with others is reflected in its wrong assessment of the relationship of forces as the strike has progressed.

The high point of the battle was at the beginning when the machinists had the support of the pilots and flight attendants, who refused to cross the picketline. Eastern was grounded.

The potential existed to extend the strike to other airlines and branches of transportation. When that road was rejected, the effectiveness of the strike was slowly eroded. Scabs were gradually hired.

A turning point for the worse came when the pilots and flight attendants called off their supporting strikes in November of last year. It was to the credit of the striking machinists that they continued their battle, but the real relationship of forces had become much worse for the workers.

The SWP, however, took this occasion to claim the strike was stronger than ever! And to this day, they maintain this grossly unrealistic assessment.

AUGUST 1990 The SWP's approach to the Eastern strike involves more than overstating the place of the strike in U.S. politics. It also involves adapting to the polices of the union officialdom as well as to the current level of consciousness of the striking workers.

When the strike began, the Militant, which reflects the views of the SWP, explained that the strike was against union-busting and for a decent contract. The Militant correctly explained that the issue wasn't who owned Eastern, but the need to defend the union and its members.

The IAM, pilots and flight attendants' union leadership had another view. They said the strike was over getting a "good" boss. They had tried to work with Eastern boss Frank Lorenzo but he refused. The issue, they said, was how to "save" Eastern from anti-labor bosses like Lorenzo.

When Lorenzo failed to get the pilots and flight attendants to cross the IAM picketline, he went on the offensive, declared bankruptcy, sought to use the courts to trim down Eastern, get rid of unprofitable routes, and reopen it on a non-union basis.

The IAM officials rejected the course of extending the strike. Instead of deepening the mobilization of the workers, they turned towards the bankruptcy court to help find a "friendly" boss to replace Lorenzo. They said that if such a "nice" boss could be found, they would be ready to accept deep concessions.

In late spring of 1989, they were almost successful in this, but the deal fell through. With the workers hobbled by this strategy, Lorenzo was able to begin rebuilding the airline and hire scabs. After the pilots and flight attendants decided the strike was lost and crossed the picketline in November of last year, the focus of the struggle became more and more a boycott of the airline, as opposed to a strike to shut down the carrier.

Consumer boycotts can be an effective adjunct to a strike, but are generally a weak substitute for shutting down the operation.

SWP Adapts to a Wrong Policy The SWP shifted its stance by the summer of 1989. Contrary to its initial position, it accepted the IAM leaders' view that the main issue was Lorenzo. "Stop Lorenzo" became the slogan for the SWP, not winning a decent contract.

"It was necessary to keep the fire focused on Lorenzo as chief executive officer of Eastern," says the SWP World Political gan that could or should be bypassed. Only through 'Stop Lorenzo' could the ranks wage the fight against Lorenzoism."

Later the resolution states, "By pressing along this course in a determined way—'by doing more of the same'—it would be possible to strengthen the rank and file fighters of the IAM, continue using union power to nail Lorenzoism, and, as has now happened, bring the fight to a new, as yet unresolved, level. It would be possible to face-off Lorenzoism with its slave-labor contracts and scab havens, in order to prepare for the most difficult battle-to maintain the union and the spirit of its fighting cadres, not Eastern Airlines with or without Lorenzo.

But this misses the main point. The fight at Eastern has always been to defend the union and win a decent contract. Identifying with the rank and file strikers' hatred of Lorenzo does not mean going along with how the IAM tops misused that sentiment to turn the workers towards the courts and finding a "better boss."

When the bankruptcy court removed Lorenzo it was not to reject his union-busting, but because Eastern's creditors were concerned that he could no longer protect their assets. The new trustee continues to press the same course as Lorenzo did. He has no intention of firing the scabs and replacing them with strikers. That can only happen by winning the strike.

The role of class conscious workers in strikes like the one at Eastern is not only to be on the picket line and in rallies in support of the strike. That's important. But we must also explain the broader issues in the fight, and explain why class struggle methods are the best ones to maximize the possibility of winning.

We do not start out as opponents of the trade union bureaucracy. We start out as opponents of the bosses's attacks on workers. But when we raise the need for class struggle methods we are bound to come into conflict with the bureaucracy's class collaborationism. We should not shrink back from a class struggle perspective on that account.

If we do, we help depoliticize and miseducate those involved in fights. In articles in the Militant, SWP leaders have placed more criticism on the pilots, and misguided mechanics who have signed up for craft unionism because of dissatisfaction with the IAM, than countering the false policy of the union officialdom.

The IAM officials at Eastern, for example, advocate employee buyouts as the answer to future Lorenzos. At United Airlines, where one of the authors of this article is employed, the IAM put together an employee buyout plan. Many Eastern strikers now employed at United are some of the strongest advocates of such plans. The main lesson they draw from their Eastern experience is, (continued on next page)

Scan page 14

Striking Pittston coal miners at UMWA-organized "Camp Solidarity."

Socialist Action political committee statement SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1990 13 (continued from preceding page) "we need to own our own company!"

Currently the Militant says the fight must focus on "no contract, no peace." That's an advance. But there is no criticism of the old policy. There is no presentation of broader questions for strikers and other thinking workers: why the officials' policy on employee buyouts is wrong; why the "good" boss vs "bad" boss approach is wrong; and why the labor movement needs to draw lessons on the role of the capitalist government and courts.

The SWP got into the position of tailing the IAM bureaucracy not by seeking to become part of this privileged layer that sits on top of the unions, but through adaptation to the rank and file militants who came forward to help lead the struggle, who themselves were confused by the IAM tops.

A "Minimum-Maximum" approach In their new "World Political Resolution," the SWP leadership has codified its trade union strategy. In it they state that revolutionists in the unions have two tasks. One of these is to join in labor battles as they emerge, working with the rank and filers who come forward. The other main focus of our work should be to distribute socialist propaganda and "talk socialism."

We should, of course, seek to work with the rank and file fighters who come forward in such battles. And, of course, we shouldn't come in as "tactical" experts telling the workers just how to wage their fight. We should seek to reach them at their level of understanding and consciousness.

But we don't have to adapt to their wrong views, and we should explain why the road forward is through class struggle methods, and not class collaborationism; that is, that there is no commonality of interest between the bosses and workers.

We should not, as the SWP did in the Eastern strike, go along with whatever the fighters think, on the one hand, and raise our maximum program, on the other. We have many important things to say about everything in-between. Our objective has to be to link up with workers in struggle at their level, but also to seek transitional steps that help bring them along the class struggle road that leads to socialism. If not, we become adaptionist on the one hand, and ultra-left socialist proselytizers on the other.

Hormel and Paperworkers strikes The 1985-86 strike by Local P-9 of the meatpackers at the Hormel plant in Austin, Minn. demonstrated how powerful the workers can be when the rank and file is mobilized. Preceding the strike, the workers at this plant threw out the entrenched leadership that had helped the bosses force concessions down the workers throats in the past. The workers took over their own local. They sought help in their battle from the Corporate Campaign of Ray Rogers.

Rogers helped the local to see the importance of mobilizing the families of the strikers and the rest of the community. They organized daily rank and file meetings, set up a kitchen and other strike support activities and reached out to union militants and other fighters across the country. Thousands were inspired to come to Austin, as later thousands were inspired to join the Pittston miners' Camp Solidarity.

When P-9 members and supporters challenged scabs entering the Austin plant in January 1986, Minnesota governor Perpich, a liberal democrat, called in the National Guard to herd the strikebreakers through the picketline. This was a mortal blow to the strike because the P-9 leadership was not prepared to wage a struggle against the National Guard, Minnesota state troopers, Hormel management, and the UFCW bureaucracy-all at the same time.

In the face of the use of the Guard, Ray Rogers' Corporate Campaign strategy counseled pacifism, and the scab herding was left unchallenged. The axis of the fight shifted from mass picketlines to shut down production, to "embarrassment" campaigns against Hormel and its anti-labor policies combined with an attempt to organize a consumer boycott of Hormel products. Thus the strike just withered away.

In addition, the P-9 leaders, faced with the treachery of their own international union leadership, abstained from supporting a wave of meatpacker strikes that swept many areas in the summer and fall of 1986, on the false grounds that since these strikes were supported by the UFCW international bureaucracy, they were somehow phony. This left P-9 further isolated.

The SWP remained silent on these developments for months, and never took up the negative aspects of the role of the Corporate Campaign, which, in the last analysis, misdirected the striking P-9 workers.

In the paperworkers' strike of 1987, the International officials themselves employed the Corporate Campaign. The workers put up a big fight against the union busting of International Paper, but once again, the use of police power broke the workers' picketlines; the plants were reopened with scab labor and the strikers lost their jobs.

Leadership Default The SWP refused to recognize this defeat, claiming that the strike continued because some of the militant fighters-to their credit-wanted to continue the battle, and continue to reach out for solidarity. But by following the strategy of the Corporate Campaign of seeking to embarrass members of the boards of directors of other companies, they paved the road for the strikers' demoralization and ultimate defeat. And On Aug. 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky was killed in Coyoacán, Mexico, by an assassin sent by Joseph Stalin. Fifty years later, almost to the month, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)-which Leon Trotsky thought of as his own-has broken from political solidarity with the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution founded by him in 1938.

Trotsky, along with V.I. Lenin, was a central leader of the Bolshevik-led revolution that established the first workers' state and opened up an era of struggle for a world socialist society of fraternity and cooperation.

Trotsky was the organizer and commander of the Red Army which successfully defended the infant workers' republic from internal and external counterrevolutionary assault. This was the first time in history since the Paris Commune of 1871 that the armed forces of the state were democratically organized and controlled by the ranks.

Along with Lenin, Trotsky led the fight against the Stalinist bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union. After Lenin died, Trotsky, almost alone at first, continued the struggle to defend the system of soviet democracy established by the October 1917 Revolution.

Soon after Lenin's death it became clear that Stalin's "theory" of "Socialism in One Country" really meant the rejection of that's exactly what happened.

Once again, the SWP said nothing about the wrong strategy of the Corporate Campaign, recognizing the defeat of the strike months and months later when the top paperworker officials formally acknowledged the defeat.

The question of what to do when the employers use the courts, police, national guard and other instruments of the state to break strikes and break unions is one that more and more workers have to face in the present period of employer-organized offensives against working people.

Revolutionists should be helping emerging fighters figure out how to counter such attacks through political mobilizations, the use of mass picketing, sit-down strikes and other tactics that workers developed in the past when confronted with such tactics by the employers.

This doesn't mean prescribing tactics to the workers in any particular battle, but explaining the lessons of past struggles of the workers and the need for class struggle methods to defeat such employer the Bolshevik perspective, which viewed the first workers' republic as the "advanced outpost of the world revolution." Trotsky became Stalin's most intransigent opponent and he devoted his life to defending and explaining the organic connection between workers' democracy and the goal of a world socialist society.

The Socialist Workers Party, in withdrawing from solidarity with the Fourth International, has made clear this also constitutes a break from the "Trotskyist movement." The SWP includes in this category all those who are defenders of revolutionary Marxism—i.e., Trotskyism—as well as some who have revised our historic program.

Socialist Action, however, is determined to carry on the struggle begun by the Bolsheviks when, under Lenin and Trotsky's leadership, they founded the Third International and which Trotsky continued under the banner of the Fourth International. We intend, moreover, to maintain the best traditions of the Socialist Workers Party before its break from Trotskyism.

And even though the SWP is now outside our world movement, we intend to carry on the struggle to win the party founded by Trotsky back to its proud theoretical and programmatic heritage—a heritage based on political positions which have stood up splendidly to the test of events.

Donna Binder/Impact Visuals › strikebreaking.

This default by the SWP to educate rank and file leaders who are stepping forward in the Eastern and other strikes is a retreat from its traditional policy in the unions. That policy centered on presenting a class struggle program and seeking to win the most conscious workers to a revolutionary policy.

Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution and a mentor of the SWP, explained the Marxist approach to work in the unions this way:

"We know that the mentality of every class of society is determined by the objective conditions, by the productive forces, by the economic state of the country, but this determination is not immediately reflected. The mentality is in general backward, delayed, in relation to the economic development. This delay can be short or long....

"The program must express the objective tasks of the working class rather than the backwardness of the workers." It must reflect society as it is, and not the backwardness of the working class. It is an instrument to overcome and vanquish the backwardness. That is why we must express in our program the whole acuteness of the social crisis of the capitalist society.

"We cannot postpone or modify objective conditions which don't depend on us. We cannot guarantee that the masses will solve the crisis; but we must express the situation as it is, and that is the task of the program." (The Changing Face of U.S. Politics, Pathfinder Press, pages 233-4)

In other words, socialists have to tell the truth. We do so in a manner that makes our ideas most understandable to the workers we are seeking to reach. We do so pedagogically. And we do it not only in times of "labor peace" but especially when workers are in fights. That's the policy the SWP followed for 50 years and in other social protest movements such as the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements in the 1960s.

To sell the Militant, disseminate pamphlets, and talk about the gains of the Cuban revolution while adapting to the present views of the workers seeking answers to what way forward in their battles, is not sufficient to win unionists to a revolutionary policy in the labor movement. It can, in fact, become a left cover for an opportunist course.

Correction

Our July issue failed to state that Mike Alewitz's speech dedicating a mural in Los Angeles to undocumented workers (page 15)

was abridged for reasons of space.

The article on the same page by artist Samia Halaby ("An artist reports on 3rd Havana Biennial"') was also highly abridged.

Copies of the original version, which includes a poignant critique of the recent art biennial in Venice, Italy, can be obtained from Socialist Action.- The editors

Scan page 15

... Apartheid regime pressing for concessions Subscribe to Socialist Action...

Send to: 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francisco, CA 94110. strikes (especially the 1973 Durban strikes) and the 1976 Soweto uprising—allowed unions to be officially established among Blacks.

Unionized Black labor forced major concessions from the employers. The result has been a closing of the wage gap between unionized Black and white workers.

According to the British publication, The Economist, "Between 1976 and 1985, pay inequality between [unionized] Blacks and whites was reduced by roughly half; and by 1989 the gap had shrunk to the point that Blacks got 15 percent less than whites for doing the same job."

At the same time, most Black workers' families live in the countryside and in poverty. Relatively few urban workers are allowed to live there permanently. Many are living in squatter communities, which continue to be bulldozed by the government— even since de Klerk's reforms.

Black workers have tasted what their economic power can bring. And they demand the full political rights now denied them.

The economic sanctions imposed on South Africa by imperialist governments, under pressure by the international anti-apartheid movement, are also having an impact. The foreign trade barriers, combined with the unabated internal resistance of the Black masses, caused the white business community to urge the government to "reform" apartheid several years ago.

As Mandela noted during his recent tour, "The willingness of Mr. de Klerk and his government to talk, which is what we demanded before we went to jail 27 years ago, has come about because of pressure from the youth, workers, and the religious, peasant, and professional communities—supported by the international community."

Compromises in negotiations?

Mandela's European, North American, and African tour in June and July was a big boon for the fight against the apartheid regime. Mandela demanded stronger sanctions until apartheid is completely eliminated and a transition to a new South Africa is underway.

Speaking at a July 25 news conference in Johannesburg, Mandela suggested that the African National Congress would consider compromises in negotiations with the South African government. But one issue he would refuse to give in on, he insisted, is "one person, one vote."

"That is a demand," Mandela has repeated in his speeches, "for which people have paid with their own lives. And it is a demand over which there can be no compromise."

Unfortunately, he indicated that the ANC could be "flexible" in regard to the timetable by which Black majority rule takes effect.

In meetings with Bush and white South African capitalists, Mandela has also made it clear that the ANC is willing to discuss the demand in its "Freedom Charter" program for the nationalization of the basic wealth of the country.

"The view that the only words in the economic vocabulary that the ANC knows are nationalization and redistribution is mistaken," Mandela told the business meeting in Johannesburg. He likewise assured the U.S. Congress, "we take it as a given that the private sector is an engine of the growth and development which is critical to the success of the mixed economy which we hope to see in the future South Africa."

Polarization among whites

Meanwhile, the situation continues to sharpen inside South Africa. On the one side, there is a polarization among whites. The ruling National Party continues to lose support among a layer of whites who oppose any moves away from legal apartheid. They argue that whites should protect their privileges by any means necessary.

Support is growing for the official white opposition Conservative Party as well as the extreme right-wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement (ARM), which advocates armed actions against the Black majority.

On June 22, the South African police arrested and later released 11 whites who reportedly planned to kill Nelson Mandela upon his return to South Africa July 18. A news report said the terrorists also planned to assassinate Joe Slovo, head of the South African Communist Party and a leader of the 14 SOCIALIST АСТІОЛ ANC, as well as prominent government figures.

Furthermore, more South African whites are joining the fight against apartheid, being visible at Mandela rallies and involved in other protests against apartheid.

Freedom groups discuss strategy Discussions over future strategy are also intensifying among the Black majority. The ANC is the dominant group but not the only player on the scene.

On the right, the main political force is Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha movement, which is based among the Zuluspeaking Blacks. Inkatha has been indirectly backed by the government and police against the ANC, AZAPO, and other more radical formations in the Black population.

Since 1987, more than 3000 Blacks have died in Natal province, where Inkatha goons have carried out violent attacks on supporters of the United Democratic Front. The ANC and its supporters recently organized a one-day strike demanding the government intervene against Inkatha to stop the fighting.

As the genuine anti-apartheid groups grow, Buthelezi is seeking to broaden his base. Inkatha recently decided to open its membership to whites. De Klerk has also made it clear to the ANC that negotiations must eventually include all political formations in South Africa.

Supporters of the ANC include the South African Communist Party, the United Democratic Front (UDF), and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). They stand on the Freedom Charter and its call for a nonracial democratic South African republic.

The ANC and SACP say that the role of different classes in the new South Africa will be decided after the overthrow of apartheid. The Communist Party's strategy is one of two-stages: democratic revolution first; socialist revolution later after the end of apartheid.

The main contender to the ANC on the left is the Azanian People's Organization (AZAPO) and its supporters in the National Forum and the National Council of Trade Unions (NACTU). AZAPO leaders originated out of the Black Consciousness Movement that developed in the mid-1970s, particularly after the 1976 uprising.

AZAPO, like the ANC, is for the total dismantling of apartheid but emphasizes that the new South Africa must be led by Blacks and that it must have a pro-socialist orientation. In addition, AZAPO rejects subordinating the struggle of the Black working-class majority to alliances with the white liberal bourgeoisie.

Other formations are smaller. They include the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), formed in 1959. Like other formations in South Africa, the PAC has been growing since it was unbanned and its leaders released. It advocates a Blacks-only republic and currently rejects any leadership role by whites under a new government.

The most important force in the present situation is the trade-union movement. While many unions are affiliated with one or another political tendency in the anti-apartheid movement, the size of the Black AUGUST 1990 working class and the fact that the unions are defensive organizations of all workers whatever their views, puts them in a strong position to help determine South Africa's future.

Unions such as the mineworkers and the railway workers have already played a big role in forcing the government to grant political as well as economic concessions.

A combined struggle The position of working people toward the impending South African revolution is simple: We must accept without reservations the complete and unconditional right of the Black majority to self-determination. This stance is independent of the leadership of the national-liberation fight or the debates taking place within that movement over strategy and perspectives.

A democratic South Africa and on full equality for all citizens—Black and white. The Black majority, however, liberated from the terror of apartheid, will put its decisive imprint on the new state. The mostly working-class and landless Blacks will demand affirmative action to get their rightful share of the wealth now controlled by whites. This means land to those who want it and a social policy that defends the interests of the working class.

Imperialism and the white rulers seek a "Black-led" South Africa where their privileges are not harmed. They seek a Zimbabwe solution where the former white rulers still dominate the country's economy even with former "revolutionaries" now at the head of the government.

If that comes to pass in South Africa, the enormous victory of overthrowing apartheid will not be consolidated. The Black majority will face the same struggle as their brothers and sisters on the continent: the fight for a workers' and peasants' government and for socialism.

The "two-stage" process advocated by the South African Communist Party (a Stalinist party) and others is not inevitable, however. Full equality for the oppressed Blacks of South Africa is possible by carrying out a radical national, democratic revolution. But such a revolution in the imperialist epoch is not possible unless it is carried out by the working class with the support of other toilers, particularly the poorest peasants.

The revolution in South Africa must be a combined struggle-against apartheid and against capitalism-for it to eradicate apartheid root and stem and for the oppressed Black majority to begin to transform society in its interests.

The fight against apartheid is not merely over laws but over who controls the wealth of South Africa. This means a head-on clash with the capitalist rulers. The democratic and anticapitalist struggles are thus interwoven.

What is needed in South Africa today is a genuine Marxist working-class party, a Bolshevik party. Such a party must be built now. It will be a key player in the democratic movement, particularly as the struggle sharpens and the pro-capitalist forces seek to "contain" the struggle within a "mixed-economy" capitalist framework.

Without such a party, the Black working-class majority will be in a weaker position to put its imprint on the new South Africa.

Intensify anti-apartheid struggle!

The people of South Africa will hammer out their future. What opponents of apartheid in the United States, and other countries, must do is to intensify our pressure on the U.S. employers and government to break all ties with South Africa. Working people must intensify our efforts to help abolish apartheid.

In particular, we must urge the trade unions to take the lead in demanding total sanctions until apartheid is eliminated. Mandela gave special praise to the longshoremen's union in San Francisco for its refusal to unload ships carrying goods to and from South Africa. That example should be emulated.

Intensified international solidarity for the freedom struggle in South Africa is the order of the day. The downfall of apartheid and the creation of a truly free South Africa will be a victory for all of us. Turn up the heat.

12 months for $8. 6 months for $4.

I l Enclosed is a contribution [] Send me more information about Socialist Action.

----- pull-quotes -----

Socialist Action Scott Adams-Cooper/≤

PILE WITH ENSO

LES NUMT US !