First Published: The Call, Vol. 8, No. 14, April 9, 1979.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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Atlanta–Armed thugs, members of the so-called Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), opened fire on a group of tenants from Capitol Homes March 25, wounding one person.
The attack on this predominantly Black, low-income housing project seriously escalates the fascist efforts of this group to disrupt the people’s movement. It follows a series of police-like provocations that began when the RCP grabbed headlines with its anti-China campaign during the U.S. visit of Chinese Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping last January. RCPers in various cities have attacked workers and leftists, broken up meetings and used various “dirty tricks” to spread confusion and discredit the movement.
Capitol Homes has been the scene in recent months of growing struggle and militancy on the part of tenants opposing evictions and racial discrimination and fighting for decent living conditions.
The organizing has been spearheaded by the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF), a South-wide mass organization including many tenants from the projects. SCEF has therefore drawn the hatred of the RCP, which has distinguished itself in the past by opposing the Afro-American struggle for democratic rights and self-determination. The RCP was among the most outspoken proponents of the racist anti-busing movement.
For the past few weeks, the RCP has sent its small squad of loyal followers into Capitol Homes, going to tenants’ doors and harassing them about their support for SCEF and the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist). In a leaflet, they slandered these organizations as “working for the government” and as “police agents.”
But the people of Capitol Homes are familiar with these people’s organizations and repeatedly refused to be bullied and harassed by the RCP. On several occasions, RCPers were run off by tenants, only to return for more high-pressured sales efforts. One tenant remarked: “If they (the RCP) aren’t getting money from the housing authority, they’re missing a well-deserved paycheck.”
Another tenant explained: “They came to my door and told, me they ’wanted to help me.’ I asked, ’Help me with what?’ They said: ’Help you get rid of SCEF!’”
Finally on March 25, another small group of provocateurs showed up at the housing project with their leaflets and began haranguing tenants again. The tenants responded by telling them to get out of Capitol Homes.
At this, other RCPers leaped out of a van with shotguns and rifles and began firing–at first over the heads of the tenants, and then, as people retreated, at the crowd itself. Fortunately nobody was killed, and. except for one man who was hit in the hand, the hundreds of families and their children who live in the projects escaped injury.
Some tenants returned fire and drove the RCPers off. One thug reportedly was grabbed by two Capitol Homes women and justifiably beaten. Almost as if on signal, police pulled up immediately after RCP made their escape.
The attack marks an escalation by the RCP in their fascist provocations carried out under the banner of “communism.” In recent weeks, the RCP has forged a copy of The Call, trying to make it seem as if the CPML was supporting the government and the Pentagon generals. Isolated from any base of mass support, the RCP, in their anti-China, anti-communist and anti-working class frenzy, have resorted to such “dirty tricks” a la the FBI and the Nixon-Watergate schemes. They are serving as the armed frontmen for the bosses and the revisionists in the so-called “anti-China, anti-communist united front.”
All progressive people’s organizations should be vigilant against this gang of thugs. They are no more “communist” than the “national socialists” who rallied around Hitler. People who judge them by their actions, rather than their name, can see that they are strikingly similar to the KKK in their terror tactics against the tenants at Capitol Homes. One tenant explained: “They’re just like the Klan without robes.”
For their part, the tenants have gotten an education on the tactics of the enemy. They are making preparations and getting better organized to defend their community against any type of fascist or racist attacks.