The stuff about Cuba and interviews with Fidel are my favorite parts. The Militant's support of Cuba since 1959 has been proven to be correct.

Please accept my donations to further the struggle.

David Bouffard

Lithonia, Georgia

Gammage update
I thought readers would like to be updated on the struggle to get justice for Jonny Gammage here in Pittsburgh.

On May 24 over 50 protesters picketed and chanted outside the graduation exercises of the University of Pittsburgh Law School where Janet Reno, the attorney General was the keynote speaker. The protesters demanded that the Justice Department prosecute all five cops who were responsible for the death of Jonny Gammage.

On May 27 close to 200 people marched and rallied in a local church in Brentwood, a suburb of Pittsburgh. This is the borough where two of the cops who killed Gammage are from and which recently promoted one of them to sergeant.

And on May 29, a federal judge ruled that three of the officers can no longer delay their sworn pretrial statements in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Gammage's parents. Their lawsuit claims that their son's death was caused by lax municipal and police supervision, which fostered a racist environment that led to the traffic stop and the subsequent fatal confrontation.

Finally, a factual error occurred in the June 2 issue of the Militant with the story on the May 16 march and demonstration around the case. An officer from Brentwood tailed Gammage through that borough, but didn't pull him over until he had entered the Pittsburgh city limits, where the murder occurred.

Edwin Fruit

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Again on Labour Party
In reply to Ciaran Farrell's letter ("Wrong to vote Labour"- Militant June 9, 1997) I would like to make a number of observations.

An organization or a class does not as the liberal concept of history teaches, get a leadership that it deserves. In reality, leaderships are shaped in the course of the class struggle and not at all a product of its own free will or a mere reflection of a class. A class or an organization may tolerate for a long time a leadership that has suffered a complete inner degeneration; great historical shocks are required to reveal the contradiction between the leadership and the class. This is why it is necessary to find a bridge between present demands and the socialist program of revolution. This was the reason for the founding program of the FI [First International].

Workers will not spontaneously come to a clear class consciousness the tasks needed for the proletarian revolution when each time they enter class battles they are blocked by their own conservative bureaucratic machines like the British Labour Party, which depoliticize, dissipate, and demobilize the revolutionary edge of working class struggle and tailors workers' demands to the political line of the bourgeoisie.

Jonathan Silberman was right in his analysis and response to a letter questioning why workers should vote Labour. The general election provided workers and small farmers throughout Britain with the chance to kick out the Conservatives by voting Labour. It was our chance to drive out the Tories who have attacked us for 18 long years.

We know from previous experience that electing a Labour government is not an end of the matter. This is why we need a system of transitional demands and slogans which connect worker-militants in the present period and bridges the minimum program of Blair and the maximum program which promises the substitution of socialism for capitalism.

A vote for Labour in Britain is a class vote. It is a means through which the working class can battle on an electoral level against the capitalist class and their direct representatives, the Conservative Party. The return of a Labour government is the best outcome for the working class to defend itself and in which to fight to reverse the past Conservative government's attacks. It opens up the prospect of a mass movement placing demands upon the new Labour government, putting the treacherous politics of the leadership who have ditched even social-democratic perspectives to the test. This will pose massive conflict that a new generation of revolutionary leaders can be created and opens up the possibility of building a revolutionary socialist party with deep roots within the working class in Britain.

S. Cholewka

Brecon, Wales

The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of general interest to our readers. Please keep your letters brief. Where necessary they will be abridged. Please indicate if you prefer that your initials be used rather than your full name.  
 
 
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