strations throughout the world and in the United States itself.
stand by while the Saigon and Phnom Penh regimes disintegrated.
From the mid-1960s the SWP and YSA understood that Vietnam had become the central battleground of the mcmanonal class suruggie Recognising that the war was fundamental to American imperialism's offensive againat the world revolution, the SWP and YSA, living in the heartland of the imperialist monster itself, understood their special responsibility to do every thing possible to build a powerful antiwar movement.
With the Trotskyists playing a key leadership role, the movement began to assume a mass character. On 15 April 1967, half a million marched in New York and San Francisco, and on 15 November 1969 more than one million demonstrated in Washington and San Francisco. USA 1967: Anti-war demonstrator places carnations in raised rifle barrels of military police outside Pentagon The victory in Indochina was of course won above all by the heroism of the Vietnamese-workers and peasants. But the fact that the US rulers no longer felt able to use B-52s and napalm, let alone combat troops, to prop up their Indochinese puppets was also a victory for those millions of people who marched in the anti-war demonThe US Government might be able to carry off a coup in rescuing' the Mayaguez, but fear of a massive re- reaction by the American people to the renewed use of US military might in Vietnam forced Ford and Kissinger to "We have gone through the experience of Vietnam, through the anguish of Watergate. And I think the cumulative effect of nearly a decade of domestic upheaval is beginning......to take its toll'. decade of domestic upheaval" is a grudging admission of the power of the American anti-war movement.
But this massive anti-war movement did not develop spontaneously. It was consciously fought for by the American Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialist Alliance.
The biggest outburst of anti-war activity came in May 1970 following Nixon's invasion of Cambodia. Several million went on strike in colleges and high schools throughout the country.
The Government reacted by sending police and the National Guard onto a number of campuses.
University, Augusta and Jackson, the National Guard opened fire on antiwar demonstrations killing 12 students Within this growing movement the SWP/YSA sought to convince antiIndeed, Kissinger complained on 26 March:
Kissinger's reference to nearly a the central demand of the movement.
In sharp contrast to the demands for 'negotiations' put forward by the liberals and Stalinists, the demand tor of the Vietnamese people to self-determination.
Furthermore, the Trotskyists
understood that only by bringing masses into action could the Government be forced to get out of IndoChla The SWP and YSA continually At Kent State fended off attempts by the CP and liberals who tried to use. the anti-war movement to play pressure politics within the Democratic Party. At the same time the Trotskyists fought to prevent the movement from being working class for inactivity iTs multane Characiel general. war activists to make "Troops Out Now Vietnam continued.
"Troops Out Now' expressed the right Gels, wile and file pressure opposition to the war Nations, diverted into small adventurist actions which would have isolated the vanguard and prevented the movement from winning the support of the masses.
While most of the American left concentrated its attention on simple trade union struggles and declared that any movement must start win the - which given the lack of activity in the American working class at that time was simply a formula the SWP/YSA set ab out organising whatever forces it could into the movement against the war in Driving force The initial driving force of the antiwar movement came from the university and high school students. It was this sector of the population more than any other which gave the movement At the same time the rise of the Black Liberation movement led to growing support by American Blacks for the struggle of the non-white Vietnamese and the colonial revolution in The disproportionate number of Black youth drafted into the army and shot up in Vietnam deepened the hostility to the war in the Black com unities and brought greater particip ation by Blacks in the demonstrations to bring the Gis home.
But while the anti-war movement found its first focus amongst Univers ity and high school students, it also began to break down the deep conservatism of the American labour movem ent as the bombing and destruction in Attacked At first the anti-war movement was attacked by the trade union leadenmeshed in Democratic Party politics - gave unqualified support to Washington's war drive against the Vietnamese people But as the Johnson and Nixon administrations tried to make the workers pay for the cost or me war rougE moung inflation, trade unionists increasingly refused to foot the bill. Divisions appeared in the trade union bureaucracy, and local unions-reilecting rank started to voice the anti-war movement must find ways and means to approach the GIs as allies The Gls began to discuss the war on base, to publish anti-war newspapers and participate in demonstrations.
Feting of horrifically maimed veterans of | Vietnam war could not hide their demora ising effect on public opinion as a whole In 1969 three Trotskyist GIs at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, were imprisoned by the Army brass for org anising against the war. The growth of GI anti-war activity confirmed in prac tice the correctness of the SWP's and YA's orientation to the troops, which eventually became accepted by the ann-war movement as a whole The growth of the anti-war movement and the mass demonstration. which occurred in the United States reflected the sentiments of tens of millions. These demonstrations were far more than symbolic shows of protest. They were the main factor in pre venting a climate of social peace being established for the duration of the wai We can learn They limited US imperialism's room