Chief government attorney Edward Williams 'WE didn't go to court to get justice. Our aim was to get out the truth. And we succeeded beyond our wildest hopes.' That is how Jack Barnes, national secretary of American Socialist Workers Party (SWP), sums up the trial of the lawsuit brought by the party and the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) against the US government and police agencies, which ended in New York City on 25 June.
The socialists are demanding $40 million in damages for illegal activities against them by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and others. They also want declaration that there is no constitutional basis vestigating them.
Socialist Challenge talked to Barnes and Larry coordinator of the Rights Defence Fund (which handles all aspects lawsuit), shortly after the end of the trial.
'I think really that we forced out into the open the ultimate power of Called sovers ves control.
also exposed the thoughtcontrol legislation like the Smith Act, the Voorhis Act. People thought they had died along with McCarthyism In the 1950s, but our case has now tney re sull usea lo larass upponents of government policy.
In tne course or tweive weeks we dragged out the wnole really unfettered governmental power: executive orders, loyalty programmes, the lot. And in doing that we also put paid to the myth of the bad FBI Hoover the maniac, and so on. Wha was done to us was carried regardless whether those ornice Democrats or Republicans.' wordS are liose Seigle, and as they suggest, right from Socialist Challenge 13 August 1981 the a Jack Barnes, Workers Party (SWP) for inSeigle, Political TV show of that of the mental abuses.
go after so- CIes. Practically Many the lot.
shown the stakes were a lot higher. of simply inal Ine responsibilities of matters of and YSA government matter.
In effect, were • detend democracy …ot larry national secretary of the American Socialist the start the socialists' suit was seen as victims ops overment harasse government harassbig Actor Ed Asner (Low Grant in the name) spoke manv when he said. "look torward to the trial in the Socialist Workers Party lawsuil as lic culmaon ol alone struggle for justice against govern- LOKCI Public support broadened as the case uncovered a fantastic array of dirty tricks by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other ageneverything the socialists had charged the government with turned out to be true: burglaries, wiretaps, bugs, mail openings, use of informers, collaboration with rightwing lerrorists in onysical allacks ..
But gradually it became clear that government's defence to all this was the President' se Prity allowed national the FBI to do what it liked to the SWP - or anyone else, for that clear. it argued that the government is above the laws it makes d orner peopic. Allu lus is necessa.
So it's not altogether surprising that the trial itself was almost completely blotted out in the media. The boycott was truly extraordinary. I welve weeks of a trial which raised constitutional Issues, over and over again how the govern ment tramples all over the democratic rights of American citizens -the national papers can manage is a article wien it opens and another when it ends.
Yet as Barnes points out: lt was a good story. That's why our rallies in ¡ltterent parts of the countrv got suci good local coverage - big stories in the local press, radio interviews, anc o on. But nationally: nothing The response at those rallies als nelps to explain wny lne media lea to shut out news of the trial. Barnes collinuca.
'We totally underestimated the example we were setting for the rest of the left. I've been amazed at the praise the party has come in for rallies. In cities from California to New York, people have said the same thing: we didn't understand what you were doing, but now it's all become 'Our trial has coincided with the greatest onslaught on democratic rights in a quarter of a century. This 1s at the centre of the whole war drive.
But American workers nave been through too much in the last They can't face another Vietyeals.
nam, package.
that's what vou leer in ine railes. San Francisco, organisations outside the SWP La question of solidarity.
resist the cutbacks, etc.
working people class conflict.
June) warned
presidentia 'mandate" for ministration to impose its not because they thing he said, but up showing tion.
- and al Rights rights, and opposition to the polls Salvador That secret police powers will be YSA and more at these dustrial jobs has a lot the lawsuit.
'Without
we a be oll in a corner. unable to take few they happen to be socialists.
local union Watergate, depression. Yet this is the ruling class 'Our case makes all the links. And we had Cull Calls and and YSA in attendance. And it wasn't just • People came because they wanted to discuss how to fight against the threat of war, how to What is at stake in the socialists' case are the methods the capitalist class needs to maintain its rule over ty. • the vast maoriti of the country — at a time of growing important The Economist magazine (13-19 •US imperialists against mistaking the result of the 'for a general the Reagan adwill. In reality it is nothing of the kind. People voted for Mr Reagan in November agree, with everybecause they were does me macane men tioned popular support for the Equal tax-cut proposals. It might lust as well have added that on foreign policy too show overwhelming rejection of US support for the junta in El Yet the recession means that the that. ruling class has little alternative but to pursue its current attacks on working mail, down on any independent political leadership that begins to emerge in the labour movement. A whole battery of Cuban required - all those used against the SWP anc Larry Seigle explains that the turn made by the party a few years ago to get a majority of its members into in.
to do with the support l das been adie lo win around our turn to industry We'd be up the concrete implications for the labour movement less to - things like the sacking of our com- Salvador.
arcockneed simov because Having orticials speak at ou rallies and be identified with the par on this question, having groups of c workers attend all this is new.
Adds Barnes: 'We've found th co-workers will come to the suit ralli more than thev would to an anti-u action; it's a bigger response then y find around economic issues "And what they can see very clea ly from the suit is the class questio involved. The fact that the Democr and Republicans represent the sar class interest. They're more recepti to arguments that working peop need their own party - a labour pa The international conis trials aspeci trial. longtime SWP leader Farrell Dob explained in court, you can't ha democratic rights at home while it perialist war is being waged abroad Farrell Dobbs The whole suit was evidence Government ettorts to bur SWP and YSA premises, open th tap their phones, bug th meeting rooms, and plant agents their ranks were massively stepped with the Trotskyists' support for t revolution against perialist blockade, followed by th leading role in the movement agai the Vietnam war.
todav the situation is d ferent. Jack Barnes explains:
deeper and broader than it did wh Vietnam wal Worki people feel that it was they as a cl who had to fight and suffer in V nan That is why - and for what?
Reagan is so pow decisively What would happen wh the first American body was broug back from El Salvador? The wh country would see Vietnam all or