No Vietnam Wor in the GULF!

Scan page 10

SOCIALIST ACTION JANUARY 1991 hard to insulate these troops from the antiwar movement as it develops.

The early signs of resistance by reservists and active duty soldiers is a sign of big trouble for the U.S. rulers should a protracted war take place.

One of the most important lessons of the anti-Vietnam War movement was that the soldiers could not remain insulated from the antiwar sentiment that was developing in the population. Of course the main factor was the inadvisability of fighting a war against a popular revolution that enjoyed the mass support of the Vietnamese people.

But the ability of the American antiwar movement to make the conscious decision to orient to winning over the American troops to the antiwar position was also decisive. Towards the end of the Vietnam War the government came to the conclusion that the American army fighting there was no longer "a reliable fighting force."

Role of students and women An interesting similarity between today's antiwar movement and the Vietnam antiwar movement is the spontaneous creation of the same organizational forms. Through ad hoc committees, coalitions and community-based groupings, demonstrations, rallies and teach-ins to oppose the war have arisen throughout the U.S. and the world.

The main forces moving into opposition and actively discussing, educating, and organizing against the war are students. There are two main reasons for this.

One, before the factors that move masses into action are apparent-casualties and body bags, real matérial changes in life—the people who have spare time to consider issues, like students and intellectuals (many of whom work part-time hours and have no families to support) will take the lead.

Two, in the general context of U.S. politics today, the main driving force of all politics-class division and class struggle-are hidden because of the unprecedented lengthy period of prosperity and stability of American capitalism This has been responsible for the almost complete absorption or co-optation of all the American trade unions and any potential militant leaders of the American working class into the organizations and institutions of the capitalist state.

Unfortunately, there is no political party, for example, a labor party, representing the interests of the American working class—or even of its most exploited and oppressed section-the Black, Latino and women section. The union officialdom is engaged in a program of partnership with their own bosses in competition with workers in other countries and other industries.

Even the leaderships of organizations of the oppressed, such as in the women's Susan Maicolas movement and the movements of nationally oppressed groups, are engaged in political al. liances with Democratic Party politicians that undermine the very purpose for their existence as representing the interests of the oppressed.

The refusal of the leaderships of these organizations to implement policies dictated by the needs and interests of the majority was in effect during the anti-Vietnam War movement and remain in effect today. This void has caused students to play the vanguard oppositional role in the emerging antiwar Red-baiting: Less of a problem A big difference between the early Vietnam student movement and today's movement is the failure of the use of anti-communism (red-baiting) as a deterrent to united action.

During the first several years of the Vietnam antiwar movement, a big fight was waged over a non-exclusion policy. The leaderships of the early 1960s' "Ban the Bomb" demonstrations tried to suppress "leftist" placards opposing the Vietnam War. Later, when opposition to the Vietnam war developed further there were many struggles to ensure that the movement would be open to all those who opposed the war—not just liberals. This has not been an issue in the new antiwar movement.

Another big difference between today and the 1960s is the role of women in the movement. The women's movement itself; that is, the second wave of American feminism, came directly out of the civil rights and antiwar movements-often with a lot of anger directed at sexism among leaders of the antiwar organizations.

Today the new movement is stronger because of the leadership role women are playing in much greater numbers than before. More women are taking part in teach-ins and campus organizing. I think it's undeniable that part of the reason for this is that the big fight for abortion rights has empowered a massive number of women and caused them to radicalize and question everything-not just specifically women's issues-but everything. This factor puts the new movement a big step ahead of our predecessors because of its access to expanded forces, talents, leadership, and creativity.

What policies should guide us?

Now that I've touched on some of the big differences in the movements of the 1960's and today, let me say that despite these differences we can still learn an enormous amount from the old movement and work to avoid its mistakes. In fact we can arrive at some general outlines of what policies should guide our efforts to build the movement based on how these tactics or strategies worked in the past.

The most conscious organizers of the anti-Vietnam War movement were the revolutionary Marxists (represented by the Socialist Workers Party-SWP-at that time), some non-affiliated independents, and some of the radical pacifists.

These folks had the long-term view that even though the movement began small and, at first, was unpopular, it would grow if the war continued to escalate (which it did because the Vietnamese were intransigent in defense of their revolution). They believed the antiwar movement would eventually reach and win over the majority of the American people. Think of how far-sighted this very idea was.

In the early 1960s America was experiencing a boom period of economic prosperity. Politically, the country was overwhelmingly "anti-communist." There had been no big organized opposition to the Korean War, and vestiges of McCarthyism-which was responsible for witchhunts against communists and radicals in America in the 1950s— still existed. Most people felt the spread of "communism" had to be stopped, and equated this with the patriotism engendered during the Second World War.

But big changes were also occurring in the country. In the South, Blacks were fighting against "Jim Crow" segregation laws-a struggle which exposed the hypocrisy of American "democracy" and won the sympathy and support of millions of students and youth. Internationally, there was an unprecedented upsurge in Third World countries around the fight for independence from colonial occupiers. The highest expression of this was the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Revolutionary Marxists saw these events as building blocks for organizing opposition to the Vietnam War. They had not given up on the American people; many of them had been participants in the struggles to form independent unions, the CIO, in the 1930s, and they remembered how people can become radicalized when forced to act in their own interests.

This was one of the big contributions of the SWP to the anti-Vietnam War movement. Their vision that working people and their sons and daughters could and would oppose the war if the movement structured itself (mass, peaceful demonstrations) in such a way as to leave the door wide open for them to do so was vindicated.

After many years of raising this vision and much opposition and debate from proponents of civil disobedience (as a strategy) and ultraleft street fightingthe correctness of this approach was confirmed by demonstrations that involved literally millions of peoplethe largest antiwar demonstrations in the history of the United States.

An integral part of this approach was to orient to active duty G.I.s, educating them and welcoming them into the movement-as opposed to treating them as mercenaries, as some in the movement wished to do.

A no less important component of this approach was the efforts—successful efforts-of the radical wing to keep the movement independent of the two political parties of the ruling class—the Democrats and Republicans.

At first this was easy because there was no division over the Vietnam War among the capitalists or their representatives in Washington. Liberal and conservative Democratic and Republican politicians alike supported the war 100 percent.

Later on, however, as the antiwar protests developed into a mass movement and the U.S. suffered military reversals in Vietnam -like the 1968 Tet offensive-fissures and cracks developed among the capitalists and this was reflected in so-called "peace candidates" running for election under the banner of the two pro-war parties.

Unfortunately, every election year saw a downturn in the movement. Activists prioritized electing some "peace" candidate," like Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern; candidates who had voted for every military appropriations bill to finance the war. This only added to the ability of the U.S. to continue the war as the movement was sidetracked into electoral politics as opposed to mass demonstrations.

The political demands of the anti-Vietnam War movement were heatedly debated, especially in its early stages. At the time of the first wave of teach-ins in 1965 there was no clear consensus for the one demand that respected the right of the Vietnamese to self-determination; that is, the demand on the U.S. government to get out, and get out now!

Eventually, then, like today, the demand "Bring our Troops Home Now!" became the (continued on page 10)