Buddy, can you spare 12 million dimes? millions: Harry Stoan

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officers of the US-trained propped up the regime Atonal battalion and an since last March.

troops. that without the removal Hero in Thio nonc dovare ninh- of onn ar tran ultra-richt week as a prominent and effort to 'clear up' the fanatical anti-communist grisly public face of the colonel led a mutiny against Salvador regime. ine Washington-backed re- Ochoa's reply has been gime. to refuse the order and deColonel Sigfrido Ochoa mand instead the resignamas six years a leader of tion of the man who issued the country's brutal Treas- it, defence minister Gen. try Police. Now, as Guillermo Garcia. And his commander of the govern- stand on behalf of the ment offensive against torturers and executioners FMLN guerrillas in the of the military elite has Cabanas district, he has drawn the support of ON official figures, no less than twelve million people - 10.8% of the working population - were unemployed in the USA last month. A further 250,000 are expected to join them on the job queues in January, and even the most optimistic government spokespeople predict unemployment at around the 9% level (10 million) throughout 1983.

The closures and lay-offs are still in full swing. The TSA's second biggest steel croporation, Bethlehem Steel, has announced cutbacks at two major plants involving the loss of :0.000 more jobs in an tadustry which has shed *ell over 200,000 jobs in recent years. So vast is ine unemployment problem inat even hard-nosed capitalist politicians of the Democratic and Republican parties are talking of possible jobs programmes -including a $5 billion per year 'highway jobs' scheme.

But Reagan's economic policies leave little room for expensive new public works programmes. Rather discussion has focussed on how to bridge the yawning budget deficit, currently estimated at $200 billion, which threatens to engulf ['S puppet-masters seeking to control the extent of overt torture and represion is El Salvador ran inte corinne nenhloma laat. SEIGE TOODS are resisting available sources of investment finance and destroy any hopes of an industrial recovery.

The root of the problem is the contradiction between Reagan's determination on the one hand to escalate the arms race at colossal expense, and on the other to slash taxes in the midst of a major industrial recession, thus cutting revenue. At the same time with re-election looming ever-closer neither Reagan nor his Republican colleagues wish to be remembered as those who took the axe to the already pitiful social security system - the costs of which are rocketing with the rise in unemployment.

It now appears that Reagan has offered a compromise on taxation raising the social security taxes paid by the self employed - in exchange for a cutback in cost-of-living rises for old age pensioners. Since Reagan's opponents in the Democratic Party have always been willing to concede cuts in benefits in exchange for moves to balance the budget, it would seem likely that some form of deal can be arrived at over this between the twin capitalist been ordered to leave his post and take up an appointmert as Salvadoran defence attache in distant Truanav in a dAsnerate mores clean up their parties the expense of those the US poverty A recent report in the Sunday Times has exposed the scale of poverty and its impact on working class families in the USA, where state welfare provision is at best rudimentary and in many cases nonexistent, An article by John Barnes pointed to the growing problem of children pushed out of their homes by desperate and poverty-stricken families, and forced to resort to crime and prostitution on the streets of the big cities of the most wealthy capitalist nation on earth. Destitute groups of unemployed are reported camping out beneath 100 miles of elevated motorways in the West Coast, while homeless camps have incurred the anger of middle class citizens in cities in Texas, Arizona, Colorado and other states.

The tensions raised by long-term unemployment and poverty have also helped produce an alarming rise in violence in the home - with recessionhit Oregon registering 42% increase in childabuse cases last year.

Elsewhere the frustration estimated total of 4,000 LILD PUSCO SEVELE PINN lems for the ostensibly "moderate' right wing government assembled by President Magana following the farcical 'election' of March last year.

Magana had set out to ensure a continuity of massive US economic and military aid by presenting a more "acceptable' outward face of the regime while sustaining a ruthless military offensive on the ground aimed at crushing the FMLN guerillas and the political organisations of the left.

For Ochoa now to dig in his heels and fight the regime could cause damaging rifts in the armed forces of the state -already hard-pressed by the guerilla forces, which successive offensives have failed to defeat.

The US envoy in El Salvador, Deane Hinton, has done what he can to defuse this conflict, pointing our that Ochoa, even were he to seize control of the country. would be unlikely to secure the scale of suppor which has and resentment building up amongst the most oppressed and hard-hit sections of US society have taken a more overt form = with a renewed explosion of anti-police riots in the black ghetto neighbourhood of Overtown, Miami, following the shooting of a black man by Miami cops.

With no short-term prospect of Reagan's continually-promised 'upturn' materialising, such eruptions of anger express the acute lack of any leadership from the American trade union movement.

Yet the recent historic rebuff to United Steel Workers union chiefs - whose package of concessions on lay-off pay was rejected last month by a meeting of District Presidents - and the ousting of Miners' President Sam Church indicate reserves of militancy within the trade union rank and file.

The task now is to mobilise that fighting capacity in a political direction, towards a break from the Republican / Democratic straitjacket and the building of a mass Labour Party based on the trade unions, through which the independent needs and demands of the working class can be raised.

There is even speculation of one or two ultra-right scapegoats, Reagan might not sign the routine certificate declaring that progress is being made in Salvador towards human rights; and thus effectively block official US aid.

This threat however may well be taken with a pinch of salt by Ochoa and his fellow torture chiefs after a year in which US aid continued uninterruptedly to the Israeli government through the midst of their slaughter in Lebanon.

The US decision last week to resume arms sales to the bloody Guatemalan dictatorship of Rios Montt is a further indication that its threats against the Salvadoran regime lack credibility.

Meanwhile, news has emerged of a renewed wave of strikes by the working class of El Salvador - whose struggles have tended to be eclipsed by the guerrilla battles in the countryside, and whose organisations have suffered the most intense intimidation and repression at the Areas suitable for 185 hands of fascist murder squads and the armed forces of the state.

November saw strikes nver wares hu civil servants UTVI THEYU NJ VA THALAMM at the Ministry of Agriculture and other ministries, and by textile and construction workers in the capital city.

Any further escalation of trade union struggles will póse the workers' movement with the need to develop their own armed organisations to defend their picket lines, occupations and mass meetings as well as the working class districts.

Such organisations must in turn seek liaison to co-ordinate their struggles as far as possible with the war effort being waged by the FMLN in the countryside.

In the struggle to topple the present military regime and move towards socialist revolution in El Salvador as part of the establishment of the socialist United States of Central America, the role of the urban working class is crucial - as is the oevelopment of a consisteni revolutionary Marxist leadership with roots in that working class. ain approach to the latest proposals from Soviet leader Andropov for talks on reduction in stockpiles of nuclear weapons is the outcome of numerous pressures.

On the one hand there remain major technical doubts and worries over the feasibility of the latest plans for the long-range MX missile, coupled with even bigger financial problems in paying for it.

On the other there is the mounting political opposition in Europe to the US escalation of the arms race, _ Advertisementi The Socialist Worker:

Party of the USA, an old-established Trot.

skyist group, has recently and suddenly announced that Trotsky's theory of 'permanent revolution' was wrong after all. This new pamphlet - 40p plus postage from PO Box 135, London NI ODD - looks at the arguments and the siting of Cruise and Pershing missiles in European bases, along with frequent talk of 'limited' nuclear war thei will obliterate Europe. Such pressure was indicated during last week's visit to the US of the new German Social Democratic leader HansJochen Vogel.

The indications are that while Reagan may adapt his stance, and make gestures towards talks, the arms spree will continue - and can only be stopped by mass resistance by the working class in Europe and in the USA itself.

of the poltical evolution of the American ryist International Liaison Commit SWp

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Socialist Organiser no.115 Januar: :3: 4; F00 =

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The American dream ha become a nightmare for

reports RONALD Reagan's uncert-

|Trotskyism or Castroism? An analysis