First Published: People’s Tribune, Vol. 5, No. 9, n.d. [1973].
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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On the weekend of Nov. 10-11, according to reports in El Nuevo Dia of San Juan and El Diario-La Prensa of New York, 10 persons said to be “affiliated” with the Revolutionary Socialist Party (M-L) were arrested on various charges, including attempted murder, armed robbery, armed assault, conspiracy to commit a robbery and other charges. The ten were accused of 138 crimes in the metropolitan San Juan area. On Sunday, bail for the ten was set at $2,760,000. Those arrested, listed with their original bail, were Narciso Rabell Martinez ($175,000), Lydia Garcia Caballero ($30,000), Federico Fernandez Salgado ($435,000), Israel Rivera Lopez ($427,000), Elizar Fernandez Diamante y ($542,000), Manuel F. Lebron ($90,000), Luis Angel Torres Feliciano ($58,000), Andres B. Paniagua ($80,000), Ricardo A. Cruz Martinez ($88,000) and Luis Alvarez Lopez ($50,000). The reports go on to say that, due to gross violations of the laws for determining probable cause for arrest, lawyers for the accused were able to have their bail reduced in a habeas corpus hearing to $3,000 apiece. The ten are now temporarily out on bail.
The enormous bail originally imposed by the Puerto Rican puppet government at the urging of USNA imperialism, the many and obviously phoney charges, the reports of seizure of weapons during the raids, the campaign, of vilification being carried out in, for example, El Nuevo Dia, all form part of the classic pattern, of framing groups and entangling them in years of court appearances, then giving out jail sentences in the end. This was the same tactic used by the imperialists against the Puerto Rican nationalist, Carlos Feliciano, in New York. And the reason for these tactics is the same in both cases, to intimidate the Puerto Rican masses.
The hand of USNA imperialism, the FBI, has now openly entered the case, on the pretext of following up the investigation of the “weapons” seized. Together with the colonial gendarmerie, the Criminal Investigations Corps (CIC), they are attempting to stifle the growing resistance of the Puerto Rican laboring masses to USNA imperialism and especially “to cut off the heads” by centering attacks upon conscious, revolutionary elements.
The need for stepping up such fascist measures becomes clearer if we look at the overall situation of the USNA and Puerto Rico. In the USNA there is the likelihood of a recession soon. Production of cars, new construction, and other important sectors of the economy are expected to be highly affected. “More and more signs that business is slowing down.”[1] Such trends show up much more sharply in the colonies, which are reserves just because of their superexploitation. While gasoline prices in early November were between $.39 and $.14.6 a gallon, in Puerto Rico the minimum price was $.50, with bigger increases expected.[2] While chicken end other meats have gone up tremendously here, in Puerto Rico in the first two weeks of November there was no rice to be had on the island, even though rice is the backbone of the Puerto Rican diet. In the city of Ponce, when one shipment of rice did come in, lines formed hours before the store opened.[3] According to the official figures, unemployment in the last fiscal year rose to 12.1%, a figure which is about 20% too low.
As was pointed out in a recent article on strikes in Puerto Rico, the spontaneous resistance of the Puerto Rican working class is on the rise. One significant sign of this is increasing resistance by rank-and-file workers to union mis-leaders, such as took place during the utilities’ workers’ strike, or such as took place among the telephone workers recently against their union president. Another sign is the increasing number of strikes. Recently, during the 25 day University strike, the maintenance workers at the Universities were also on strike. And it is impossible to pick up a paper without reading about a new strike.
It is these conditions, in which there is growing mass ferment, together with the existence of conscious revolutionary elements, which makes it necessary for USNA imperialism to further develop fascism in the colonial nations, such as Puerto Rico, The repression of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (M-L) and other such acts are the response of the most chauvinist, imperialist and reactionary elements of USNA finance capital to the rising, revolutionary discontent of the Puerto Rican masses. History has shown, in Puerto Rico as everywhere, that whenever Marxist-Leninist groups arise, the state apparatus will sooner or later come down with all its fury. At the same time, the bourgeois state will permit, and even encourage, the existence of revisionist groups, so long as it feels the need to weaken the Communist movement from within. Such tactics were applied in Puerto Rico to Causa Proletaria in the past, with the group being submitted to many charges of possession of arms and so on. And now these same tactics, which are part of an attack on the Puerto Rican people, are being used against the Revolutionary Socialist Party (M-L).
What should the revolutionaries in Anglo—America do? We have an excellent teacher by negative example in the CPUSA. During the Nationalist Revolt of 1950 the CPUSA’s Daily Worker relegated the news of the organized uprising of a colony against USNA imperialism to page 3 and then disassociated itself from the uprising by calling it “adventurist”. The leadership of the CPUSA supported the isolation of the Puerto Rican national liberation movement from the proletarian revolution in the USNA, thus setting the Puerto Rican fighters up for slaughter.
Our path must be that of proletarian internationalism. We must uphold the Marxist-Leninist thesis that, “The interests of the proletarian movement in the advanced countries and of the national liberation movement in the colonies require the fusion of these two aspects of the revolutionary movement into a common front against the common enemy, imperialism; the victory of the working class in the developed countries and the liberation of the oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism are impossible without the formation of and consolidation of the common revolutionary front; the formation of a common revolutionary front is impossible unless the proletariat of the oppressor nation renders direct and determined support to the liberation movement of the oppressed peoples against the imperialism of its own country, for no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.”[4]
What this means concretely is taking the cause of the liberation of Puerto Rico to the working class, every nationality, explaining how imperialism enslaves the Anglo-American working class by enslaving Puerto Rico, explaining how the fascists who rule Puerto Rico are now building for fascist rule of all the USNA State. This fascism can and will be stopped if workers in the USNA unite to fight its every manifestation. We must rally support for the Revolutionary Socialist Party (M-L) and all other revolutionaries undergoing repression in Puerto Rico. And most important, we must quicken our pace and redouble our efforts to build a real Communist Party to lead the toilers in the USNA in our revolutionary assault on USNA imperialism.
FREE PUERTO RICO!
DOWN WITH USNA IMPERIALISM!
[1] US News and World Report, 11/12/73.
[2] El Diaro-La Prensa, 11/9/73, p. 5.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Stalin, Foundations of Leninism, FLPP. p. 77.