Harris visited with campaign supporters at the afternoon shift change at the IBP plant in nearby Perry, Iowa. Later he met with some of these workers at the Perry public library.

One of them, originally from Mexico, asked Harris what the difference is between Cuba and China. Harris explained that in both countries working people had carried out powerful revolutions, breaking imperialist domination. Washington remains bent on undermining and ultimately overthrowing the workers states in both China and Cuba.

In China, however, a parasitic bureaucracy has usurped political power from workers and farmers, and seeks to stabilize its privileged position by seeking an accommodation with imperialism. In contrast, in Cuba there is a workers and farmers government with a genuinely communist leadership that responds to the interests of working people both in Cuba and internationally.

Other questions raised ranged from the recent elections in Mexico to how we can strengthen our unions here.

At a campaign forum in Des Moines organized by supporters of Harris's campaign the next evening, a high school youth asked how working people can change their unions when there is a bureaucracy in control. Harris explained that the union is the membership, not just the officials. In the course of struggle on the picket lines and in the streets, the union ranks can gain confidence in their own capacities and begin to assert increasing control over their organization. This tendency can be seen in a number of fights today, from the strike by Western coal miners to the union-organizing struggle by packinghouse workers in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Edwin Fruit, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Congress in the 4th district, chaired the campaign event. Fruit, who is also a member of the Concerned Citizens for Justice, introduced two of the leading activists of the group, which is demanding justice for Charles Lovelady, a young Black man who was killed by two security thugs at a local nightclub in February.

In the discussion, Harris saluted these fighters and explained that this was one of the many struggles against police brutality and other violence perpetrated against working people. He cited the recent killing of a Black man by security guards in Dearborn, Michigan, and the protest by more than 5,000 working people in response. The killing of working people on the streets by the cops and other thugs are another form of the death penalty that is carried out every day in this country.

Fruit accompanied Harris to a downtown hotel where farmers and rural activists who are members of the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI) were having their annual state meeting. Farmers explained to the socialist candidates how, with the low prices and high expenses they faced, more and more of them would be driven off the land.

A rural activist from western Iowa told Harris how the large hog confinement factories, given free rein by the government, were creating environmental and health problems in the area. Harris replied that in May he had taken part in a fact-finding delegation with U.S. farmers to revolutionary Cuba. U.S. farmers know from experience that Washington does not side with them, so the delegation was impressed when they discovered firsthand that the Cuban government guarantees fair prices for farmers and facilitates technical aid and low-cost loans for them. Cuban farmers could not understand the concept of "foreclosure," he said, as no Cuban can lose his or her farm today.

While in Iowa Harris was interviewed by the Associated Press, a columnist for the Des Moines Register, and several radio stations.  
 
 
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