Spartacist Demands U.S. Nationalize Oil Companies

The current energy crisis was caused by the failures of large oil companies and the Federal Power Commission, a leader of the Trotskyite Spartacist League said last night.

"The working class should not be made to suffer for the failure of the capitalist system," George Foster told an audience of about 50 people in Boylston Hall, adding that "the crisis has been made by the bourgeoisie."

Foster cited two major reasons for the energy shortage:

* The failure of oil companies to build new refineries in the United States; and

* The failure of the Federal Power Commission to raise the price at which oil companies may sell natural gas. This failure has made it unprofitable for oil companies to market natural gas, Foster said.

Ludicrous

The Nixon administration's energy policy ranges "from the ludicrous to the self-destructive," Foster said. He called for the nationalization, without compensation, of all American oil companies.

The energy crisis could be resolved within the framework of capitalism, he said. However, the solution would mean the "genocide or dispersion" of either the Israelis or the Palestinians. "The ultimate bourgeois solution is that of thermonuclear war," he added.

The Spartacist League, a national organization, "seeks to build a revolutionary party in the United States and to reconstruct a Trotskyist Fourth International," Foster said.

Foster also warned against the development of a new Japanese militarism. "The bourgeoisie of Japan need oil, and they will build an army to get it if necessary," he said.