SOLIDARITY RALLY IN NEW
New York
A protest meeting to free Hugo Blanco was held here June 9. A large nunber of speakers representing a broad cross section of the American left addressed the audience of 135, demanding freedom for the imprisoned Peruvian peasant leader. The meeting was sponsored by the Militant Labor Forun.
The meeting was chaired by George Novack, the well-known Marxist philosopher and author. In opening the meeting he drew special attention to the cases of other political prisoners in Latin America, particularly Régis Debray in Bolivia; Victor Rico Gal4n and Adolfo Gilly, and a number of Trotskyists in Mexico.
The first speaker was Edward Boorstein of the U.S. Committee for Justice to Latin American Political Prisoners.
He pointed out that "Hugo Blanco has been fighting our battle, because anybody who is fighting in Peru, in Cuba, -618-
Leninist norms.
But let us close this review of the Central Committee organ's latest contribution to "Marxism" with a quote that brings out its essential purpose. There is one lesson above all that the reader is urged to conclude from this study of events in China. Too much militancy or "pevolutionism" inevitably leads to trouble. If people would only adhere to the mature policies of Soviet diplomacy, all would go well.
"In our time, when new peoples are entering upon the road of socialism, when the broadest social layers [?] are adhering to the revolutionary movement, it is of exceptional importance to understand that petty bourgeois adventurism in domestic policy, 'revolutionism' and militant chauvinism in foreign, lead only to national catastrophe. They are hostile to the fundamental interests of the working class, the peasants, and other toiling sectors of the population, as hostile to the interests of particular peoples as to the general interests of the revolutionary forces, for they undermine unity [?] in the struggle for common goals."
Rather than see Maoism for the peculiar combination of ultraleftism and opportunism that it is, the Soviet theoreticians would like revolutionists all over the world (especially restless ones like the Cubans) to conclude from the fiascoes in China that militancy of any kind should be abandoned.
YORK FOR HUGO BLANCO
in Africa or in Asia, is taking a chunk out of imperialism. The enemy is one. The battle is one."
The black freedom movement was represented by speakers from the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Ron Clark of CORE was quite ill but said he felt so strongly on the subject that he got out of bed to come. He said that "Black people have empathy for Hugo Blanco. We are the only group who, like Hugo Blanco, are fighting for survival. We have to give the people of the world an alternative to capitalist exploitation...We have to move from protest to action to help free the Hugo Blancos of the world."
John Wilson of SNCC spoke of the world as a big plantation run by American oppressors. He said "There is trouble down on the plantation, and one of the biggest troublemakers is Hugo Blanco."
A leader of the Puerto Rican Pro- Independence Movement (MPI) called for freedom for Hugo Blanco. Pedro Juan Rua, New York organizer for MPI declared:
"It is gratifying for us to come today and see that a representative section of the U.S. left speaks out against the brutal repression of Latin-American freedom fighters, my historic brothers in the continent, by the pro-imperialist regimes. For us in the Puerto Rican Independence forces, Hugo Blanco represents, like many others, the courage and 200year-long struggle of the Latin-American masses against class oppression, colonialism and racism, firstly against Spain, today against the rapacity of U.S. imperialisn."
Enselmo Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Casa de las Americas, said:
"We Cubans in New York -~ I refer to those who are with the Cuban Revolution -- we give our whole support to this campaign to liberate Hugo Blanco...Anywhere in the world people fight, that is our fight." He closed his remarks with the slogans of the Cuban Revolution, "Patria O Muerte! Venceremos! "
Irving Beinen, a member of the coordinating committee of the radical newsweekly, the National Guardian, and an antiwar activist, said:
"We have a big debt to Hugo Blanco. We owe a debt of struggle to the oppressed of the colonial world." Describing the active struggle of Hugo Blanco, he said, "We need to learn this kind of commitment in this country."
Peter Henig of the large radical student organization, Students for a Democratic Society, commented:
"I don't see how we have Hugo Blanco in jail while Rockefeller and others are running around free."
A number of messages were received from important figures who were unable to attend in person. Many of these were copies of cables sent to Peruvian President Fernando Belafinde Terry.
Such a message sent June 6 by Paul
SPRING MOBILIZATION