I. __Australasian

Number 204 Autumn 2009 50 cents ALP Rules for Racist Australian Imaerialism U.S.//NATO Out 01 Alghanistan Now!

After more than seven years of imperia­ list military terror, leading to the loss of tens of thousands of Afghan lives, 'the U.S.-led occupying forces in Afghanistan are preparing to ramp up their murderous campaign. In mid-February, the new U.S. Democratic Party president, Barack Obama, ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan, part of his promise to increase forces there while withdrawing troops from the Iraq quagmire. As Wash­ ington beefs up its occupation forces, U.S. military leaders are pushing for Australia to take the lead role in NATO-led coalition operations in the province of Oruzgan. This would mean at least doubling the 1,100 Australian forces, including SAS, already stationed in southern Afghanistan. While polls show that more than half the Australian population are opposed to the Afghan operation, Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd remains an enthusiast for the Left: Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd in Afghanistan last December gr,eets Australian troops involved in bloody occupation. slaughter declaring it to be in Australia's Right: U.S. military on one of their terror raids. Below: U.S. air strike in November killed up to 37 civilians in Kandahar. "national interest." Addressing an audience at the Aus­ The White Australia ruling class has tralian war memorial last October, Rudd always existed in Asia as the lackey ally spoke darkly of "a global terrorism move­ of a more powerful white-Anglo Chris­ ment that roamed the world and reached tian imperialism. Australian capitalism into South East Asia." He went on to de­ was founded on the massacre and dispos­ clare that Australia is "preventing the session of the Aboriginal population and spread of terrorism" and "helping Af­ exclusion of the Asian masses. The slav­ ghanistan to rebuild itself into a more ish loyalty of the Australian capitalist peaceful and stable state." This Orwellian rulers to first the British and later the doublespeak came amidst reports that U.S. has meant joining bloody imperial Australian troops had locked Afghan sol­ adventures on far-flung battlefields for diers in dog pens without food or water, more than a century. In return, the Aus­ and that almost 600 Afghan civilians had tralian capitalist rulers have expected pro­ been killed at the hands of occupation tection as they pursue their own predatory forces in the first eight months of 2008. regional interests. On 12 February five Afghan children were The imperialist occupation of Afghan­ slaughtered in an attack involving Aus­ istan has resulted in bloody warfare tralian forces. among tribal warlords, famine and the Following the January inauguration of ongoing brutal oppression of women. The Obama as the new Commander in Chief country has the highest infant mortality of U.S. imperialism, Rudd pompously rate in the world, while life expectancy is declared, "As allies we share grea~ chal­ just 44 years. Imperialist overseers in lenges in Afghanistan and beyond. But Afghanistan have brokered a constitution in President Obama I say this: Australia that enshrines anti-woman Islamic funda­ EPA will have a friend and ally to shoulder mentalist sharia law. Iraq also remains a Meanwhile U.S. air strikes bombarding In forthright oppositIOn to our own these challenges together." Mirroring hell-hole of all-sided bloodshed. Well in border areas between Afghanistan and ruling class, the Spartacist League of Aus­ Obama's so-called "smart" power projec­ excess of 100,000 Iraqis have died since western Pakistan have led to many civil­ tralia, section of the International Com­ tion and "multilateralism," Rudd has the imperialist blitzkrieg of Baghdad in ian deaths, as the imperialists threaten munist League (Fourth Internationalist) argued for a beefed-up Australian navy March 2003 signalled the beginning of to extend their assault deeper into' Pak­ (ICL) stood for the military defence of and air force, projecting an Australian the ongoing neocolonial occupation. This istan. While there are mixed signals ema­ Afghanistan and Iraq in the lead-up to the military force capable of backing its has come on top of the tens of thousands nating from Washington, the U.S. also imperialist invasions, without giving an U.S. big brother across the globe as well who were slaughtered in the first 1991 continues to threaten Iran over its pur­ iota of political support to the reactionary as enforcing Australian imperialist plun­ Gulf War and the more than 1.5 million ported nuclear weapons program. U.S.! woman-hating Taliban or the capitalist der of resources and superexploitation killed as a result of United Nations Australian imperialists keep your bloody dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. We of the working masses in the region. sanctions between 1990 and 2003. hands off Pakistan and Iran! continued on page 2

./ J ., . " " " international working class. But we do liberation of the oppressed peoples of the an Australian terror cell." Six others also Afghanistan ... not imbue the forces presently organising neocolonial world cannot be achieved received jail sentences. Committing no (continued from page 1) guerrilla attacks on U.S.-led occupation under capitalism. It requires the overthrow terrorist act or even laying down plans for forces with "anti-imperialist" credentials. of bourgeois rule. In places like Iraq this one, in truth, these men have been impris­ underlined that every military victory for The ICL has warned that in the absence means combining opposition to the occu­ oned for expressing opinions, for alleged the imperialists encourages more preda­ of working-class struggle in Iraq and pation with a proletarian-centred fight thought crimes. Several more men ar­ tory wars; every setback serves to assist internationally against the occupations, against all manner of bourgeois nation­ rested in in the same police oper­ the struggles of the working people and the victory of one or another of the reac­ alism and religious fundamentalism. It ation are now facing trial. oppressed around the world. We are for tionary clerical forces is likely to come poses the urgent need to build Leninist­ Such state-sponsored witchhunts, com­ the defeat of the imperialists. As prole­ about through an alliance with U.S. Trotskyist parties to lead the struggles of bined with cQntinued anti-immigrant tarian internationalist opponents of im­ imperialism and its lackeys. We are in­ the working people in a fight for a social­ measures, including the Rudd govern­ perialism we demand the immediate transigent opponents of the murderous ist federation of the Near East. If such ment's ongoing mandatory detention of unconditional withdrawal of all Australian communal violence against other ethnie, revolutions are not to be strangled by refugees and the establishment of a new military from Afghanistan, the Middle religious and national populations often­ imperialist military intervention and/or deportation centre on remote Christmas East, East Timor and the South Pacific! times carried out by the very same forces economic blockade or by their own inher­ Island, havee~boldened racist and fas­ When insurgents in Iraq and Afghan­ fighting the occupation armies. And we ited material backwardness, these revolu­ cist scum. This 'was graphically illustrated istan aim their blows against the U.S. and have condemned the kidnappings and tions will necessarily have to extend to the in the northern Sydney beachside suburb their Australian and other lackeys, such executions of foreign civilian workers. imperialist centres. This is the perspective of Manly on "Australia Day" this year. acts coincide with the interests of the In the epoch of imperialism, national of permanent revolution outlined by Russ­ Reminiscent of the pogromist riots in ian revolutionary leader , and Cronulla three years ago, mobs of white which was confirmed by the victory of the male youth, chanting sexist and racist 1917 Russian Revolution. In countries like epithets, rampaged against Asian and Defend the Cuban Revolution! Afghanistan, where the working class is non-white people, assaulting some and very weak or non-existent, there is no smashing shop and car windows. Fifty years ago, as Fidel Castro's Rebel purely internal solution. The destiny of At the time of the arrest of Benbrika Army marched into Havana in January 1959, these countries is tied to the international and the others 1'n November 2005, we the bourgeoiS army and the rest of the capital­ class struggle, in the first instance in those noted that the~ri.ister raids were carefully ist state apparatus that had propped up the countries in the region, such as Iran or orchestrated ;~occur on the eve of the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fuigencio Batista Egypt, which do have significant proletar­ vote on thethen"Howard government's shattered. In the face of the '1tCstile encir­ ian concentrations. "anti-terror" legislation. They also oc­ clement of u.s. imperialism, the Castro regime As we have made clear from the outset curred in fhelead-up to mass union in 1960-61 expropriated the Cubp,n bourgeoisie of the imperialist attacks on Afghanistan demonstrations' against draconian anti­ as a class, creating a bureauqatically de­ and Iraq, the key means of defending these union laws.'I.H's no accident that aspects formed workers state. Evers/nee, the U.S. neocolonial countries against imperial­ of the subseguent legislation targeting TROTSKY ruling class has worked reienJitlssly to over- LENIN ism is through international working­ building work,t:rs for state persecution, throw the gains of the CubanJllitolution and class struggle. The imperialist devastation including the)~~tablishment of the hated re-establish the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. ii'" '. of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Australian Australian ")3\lJ)'ding and Construction From the time of its inception as the RevolutionMyTendency in the Socialist Workers imperialist jackbooting in tiny East Timor Commission!' w.~re modelled on the "anti­ Party, which was undergoing political degeneration toward reformism, the Spartacist and the Solomons, have gone hand-in­ terror" laws,'We say: Down with racist League has fought for unconditional military defence of the Cuban deformed workers hand with increased attacks at home "war on terr~r:" government repression! state. At the same time, w~ fight for proletarian political revolution to oust the ruling against workers and the oppressed. As the All those ... armsJed should be released Stalinist bureaucracy and to establish a regime based on workers democracy and revo­ international capitalist economic crisis from prisoQ jmmediately. From Mel­ lutionary internationalism. The following excerp(s,are from a document submitted by snowballs these attacks will only increase. bourne to P"';lH' and Afghanistan: free all the Revolutionary Tendency to the 1963 Convention of the Socialist Workers Party, the detainees :now! It is necessary to which had given open political support to the CastrolJureaucracy. "War on Terror" -Racist War on organise a proletarian-centred fight Workers and Oppressed against all t,?:~: reactionary "anti-terror" 13. The Cuban Revolution has exposed the Vasfinroads of revisionism upon our Rudd is an ardent supporter of the "war and anti-union laws. movement. On the pretext of defense of the Cubarl. Revolution, in itself an obligation on terror," aggressively pushing Afghan­ A class-st~ggle fight against thecapi­ for our movement, full unconditional and uncritical support has been given to the Castro istan as its "frontline." This "war" has talist rulers ..at, home requires a political government and leadership, despite its petit-bourgeois nature and bureaucratic behav­ serVed as a pretext for Australian imperi­ struggle ag.~l)st the trade~union tops', ior. Yet the record of the regime's opposition to the democratic rights of the Cuban alist intrigues and depredations from whose class treachery can be measured in workers and peasants is clear: bureaucratic ouster of the democratically-elected leaders Indonesia to Iraq to Afghanistan. The pre­ the million~ P-f dollars of workers' union of the labor movement and their replacement by Stalinist hacks; suppression of the Trot­ vious Howard federal government, like dues they. spent mobilising to elect the skyist press; proclamation of the single-party syste'n1iand much else. This record stands capitalist governments around the world, union-hating 9apitalist Rudd government. side by side with enormous initial social and ecoilo1l1ic accomplishments of the Cuban seized on criminal acts such as the 2001 The Labority ' ijnion misleaders are a pro­ Revolution. Thus Trotskyists are at once the most tiiilitant and unconditional defenders World Trade Center attack and the 2002 capitalist bureaucratic layer atop the against imperialism of both the Cuban Revoluti9Q;.~ of the deformed workers' state Bali bombings as an opportunity to also unions, bougl)t off by the crumbs from which has issued therefrom. But Trotskyists cannqllft..~·cOnfidenCe and political support, shred democratic rights and increase state Australian 'lln.perialism's exploitation however critical, to a governing regime hostile:m.!E.1!!~., 1most elementary principles and repression at home. This was done with abroad. W1Ui~they can sometimes, under practices of workers' democracy, even if our tact~proach is not as toward a hard- pressure from.' their worker base, be bi-partisan support from the ALP. Now in . ~; ,. ' ened bureaucratic caste.... . , the government saddle, Rudd's ALP impelled to ~l, strikes and other actions 15. Experience since the Second World War has .demonstrated that peasant-based maintains the "anti-terror" legislation, to defend: wpr:¥rs against the capitalist guerrilla warfare under petit-bourgeois leadership can.in itself lead to nothing more than which is in the service of suppressing rulers' attac;k,~, ~J1ch as strikes and rallies an anti-working-class bureaucratic regime. The creatfp,n of such regimes fias come about potential opposition to bloody colonial against H9~.Mfl's WorkChoices legisla­ under the conditions of decay of imperialism, tht(: ,demoralization and disorientation occupations and stymieing class and tion, overalt#!w act to police the work­ caused by Stalinist betrayals, and the absence of r~v,OiJ.ltionary Marxist leadership of the social struggles against the exploitative ing class fOl;._~ .. bosses and are the chief working class. Colonial revolution can have an unequivocally progressive significance capitalist system of poverty, , un­ means for ,w~nsmitting bourgeois con­ only under such leadership of the revolutionary prol~tariat. For Trotskyists to incorporate employment and war. sciousness ~nt~)tpe proletariat. into their strategy revisionism on the proletarian leadership in the revolution is a pro­ The frenzy accompanying the "war on Potentia(c\<:issstruggle against Aus­ found negation of -Leninism no matterwp~ipious wish may be concurrently terror" has also sought to demonise the tralian impe~Hst militarism abroad has expressed for "building revolutionary Marxist parties in colonial countries." Marxists Muslim minority and whip up xenophobia been repeat¢ql,¥derailed by the social­ must resolutely oppose any adventurist acceptance ofihe peasant-guerilla road to social­ and thus serving to divide the democratic'l!~Jpn misleaders who chan­ ism-historically akin to the Social Revolutionary program on tactics that Lenin fought. working class and regiment the population nelled wbrkirig,-class opposition to war This alternative would be a suicidal course for the socialist goals of the movement, and into accepting gross violations of civil into support to,the' United Nations, a tool perhaps physically for the adventurers. . rights. In early February, ­ for the imperi~lstS, and into nationalist -Revolutionary Tendency, "Toward Rebirth of the. Fourth International" based Muslim cleric, Abdul Nacer Ben­ appeals for the Australian capitalist rulers (June 1963), Marxist Bulletin No.9 brika, already imprisoned three years, was to act more independent of the U.S. Anti­ sentenced to a minimum of twe~ye years Americanism has long been a cheap jail after being found guilty of "forming continued on page 4 SPARTAC'IST ~ 'Wsrt8cul::fQWItJ~lMUbEctl6nts··· For a worker.s republic of Australia, part of a socialist Asia! MELBOURNE SYDNEY Marxist newspaper of the Central Committee of the Spartacist League of Australia, section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Saturday, 7 March, 2.30pm Sunday, 15 March, 1.30pm EDITOR: Margaret Rodda Imperialism, the Highest Bankruptcy of Capitalism: YOUNG SPARTACUS EDITOR: D. van Scheveningen CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mike Wallace Stage of Capitalism Workers Must Rule! PRODUCTION MANAGER: Phil Newman New International Bookshop,Trades Hall, Humanist House,1 0 Shepherd St, Printed by trade-union labour. enr Victoria & Lygon Sts, Carlton Chippendale (off Broadway) Published quarterly by Spartacist ANZ Publishing Co., GPO Box 3473, Sydney NSW 2001. Information and readings: (03) 9654 4315 Information and readings: (02) 9281 2181 E-mail: [email protected]. Subscriptions: $5 for 4 issues; overseas $7. or e-mail [email protected] or e-mail [email protected] Opinions expressed in Signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. Printed by Spotpress Pty Ltd, 24-26 Lilian Fowler Place, Marrickville. ISSN 0311-3264 No. 204, Autumn 2009 D~te of issue: February 2009 ·vi.'tt.' 'CL''''b~!,twww.'9Rl_~:)·;;:,;:·:

2 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST Unions Must Defend Immigrant Workers! Down With Reacti~nary Strikes Against Foreign· Workers! The following article is reprinted from English in England and the French in Workers Vanguard (No. 930, 13 February), France" (Reuters, 5 February). newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S. The capitalist system is based on the The Socialist party in Australia is affiliated brutal exploitation of all labour, and to Peter Taaffe's Socialist Party, which was the ruling class inflames racial and eth­ up to its neck in these reactionary strikes. nic hostilities to keep the working class divided and thus ensure greater profits. When construction is booming it relies on immigrants, who in Britain were histori­ cally Irish but today are drawn heavily Britain from East Europe. With the advent of a LONDON-For over a week, thousands severe global recession, the scramble for a of construction workers at oil refineries diminishing number of jobs is becoming and power plants across England, Scot­ more intense. This scramble is particu­ land, Wales and Northern Ireland staged a larly acute in construction where tempo­ series of strikes demanding "British jobs rary contract work and job insecurity are for British workers." The strikes were not endemic and where the ~ystem of subcon­ intended to secure more jobs or indeed tracting drives wages down lower and any gains for the working class as a whole, Protectlonlsl rally against foreign workers at L1ndseyoH refinery, 30 January. increases the. bosses' opportunities for nor to defend existing jobs. They were divide-and-rule. . about redividing the existing pool of jobs Socialist party calls "one of the most and under whot conditions they wotk. The Labourlte Reformism according to the nationality of the workers. significant strike waves in recent times," way to undercut attempts by the bosses to and Protectionism These reactionary strikes, pitting British Italian migrant workers have been holed "level down" the wages and working con­ Rather than wage a fight for jobs for all workers against foreign workers and up in a rusting barge in Grimsby, fear· ditions, including'safety standards, of all construction workers, whicbrequires an immigrants, are detrimental to the inter­ ing for their lives, not without reason: . workers, by playing· off one nationality internationalist perspective, and cham­ ests of the' multiethnic working class in according to the Times (31 Januaiy); 40 against the other, is for the Unions to pioning the rights of immigrants, the ref-· Britain and those of the workers of Europe striking construction workers from Lind­ demand: Full union payfor all work at the ormist trade-union bureaucracy pandered as a whole. The main strike slogan, "Brit­ sey oil refinery in Lincolnshire-the hub prevailing ratl, no matter who does the to the reactionary demand "British jobs ish jobs for British workers," long asso­ of the racist strikes-visited the Italian jobl EqualpayjOrequal workl This poses for British workers," even as they have ciated with the fascists, was recently workers to tell them to "go back to your the need for international collaboration condemned BNP incursions into the affirmed by Labour prime minister Gor­ own country." Generalised insecurity aq4 between construction workers. across ' strike. On behalf of Unite, Derek Simpson don Brown at the 2007 Labour Party fear about job losses caused by tbe'wofl(J:. EUropean countries. . issued a statement saying: ''Tr~e union­ conference.· The strikes received gushing wide economic recession provide fertile The chauviriist nature of the "British ists stand against everything the BNP sympathy from the likes of the virulently ground for the kind of chauvinism that jobs" campaign is starkly obvious when stand for. We have warned union members anti-immigrant, anti-working-class Daily this strike wave has unleashed. viewed through the lens of workers on construction sites to remain vigilant Mail and were actively supported by the Trade-union leaders have been cyni­ across the channel. Indeed, protectionism when it comes to ultra right wing leeches," fascist BNP who churned out racist gar­ cally banging on about British workers cuts both. ways: Italian· :workers (includ- while asserting that the industrial action bage, including the claim that British was "not about race or immigration, it's workers were losing out to foreigners. about class." But any mobilisation of The strike wave centred on Lindsey workers on the basis of protectionism is refinery in Lincolnshire, owned by French Full Union Pay for All Work! poisonous to class consciousness and oil giant Total. Part of a construction proj­ plays into the hands of the fascists. It ect was subcontracted to IREM, an Italian serves to reinforce anti-immigrant racism contractor, which brought in Italian and being discriminated against. Derek Simp­ ing IREM workers!). who are currently Portuguese workers, and did not hire any son, co-leader of the union Unite, working alongside .British construction and weakens the capacity of the working British workers. A similar situation exists addressed "the growing problem of UK workers in northeast Italy, could easily class to defend its own interests. The at Staythorpe power station in Notting­ workers being excluded from important retaliate with strikes and mobilisations bureaucracy uses protectionism as a cover hamshire where Spanish subcontractors engineering and construction projects" demanding "Italian jobs for Italian work­ for rejecting class struggle in favour of . brought in their own crews. According to and demanded that "companies involved ers," which would undoubtedly get the class collaboration. What's needed is to reports of the settlement, over 100 "new" in engineering and construction projects support of the Italian fascists. According mobilise the multiethnic working class construction jobs have been created at give UK workers equal opportunities to figures from the European Commis­ against the Brown-led Labour govern­ Lindsey, earmarked for British workers. to build Britain's infrastructure" (Unite sion, 47,000 British workers were tempo­ ment for jobs for all. This requires a The real outcome however will reverber­ statement, 30 January). The Labourite rarily "posted" to other EU countries in political fight to replace the current union ate against foreign and immigrant work­ bureaucracy's touching concern for "equal 2006. which is three times more than the misleaders-the labour lieutenants of ers, not least on building sites such as the opportunities" for British workers stands 15,000 foreign workers "posted" to Brit­ capital-with a class-struggle leadership. 2012 Olympic projects where over a third in sharp contrast to their abject betrayal of ain at the time (Financial Times, 3 Feb­ Trade unions must oppose anti-immigrant of the workers are immigrants and where class struggles by Britain's multieth­ ruary). Regarding the British strike, a racisml Down with protectionist poison I in recent months some 200 Romanian nic working class, from the Grunwick spokesman for the General Confederation Much of the Labourite reformist left workers were removed during a clamp­ strike by Asian women in 1976 to the of Italian Workers (COIL), Guglielmo managed to take an elementary position of down on "illegal" foreign labour. More Labourites' knifing of the great miners Epifani, said, "we have to be careful, opposition to the reactionary strikes. In a broadly, the protectionist poison emanat­ strike of 1984-85, to the sellout of the because if unemployment is used against 31 January statement, the Socialist Work­ ing from the strikes sends a chilling mes­ Heathrow airport strike in 2005 in soli­ workers from other countries" it would ers Party (SWP) correctly noted that these sage to all immigrants and minorities, darity with over 600 Asian women who mean "Italians could only work in Italy, continued on page 8 fuelling racism and reinforcing national were sacked. divisions between workers in Britain and . The bureaucracy's claim that British their class brothers in other European workers are being "discriminated" against London, countries. by foreign contractors rests on a "posted" September 2007: The responsibility for this social­ King$ton branch workers directive in European Union (EU) of Northern Rock chauvinist crusade lies with the Labourite law, under which subcontractors can sup­ during first run leadership of the Unite and GMB trade ply their "own" workers to work on short­ on a British bank unions, who embraced this patriotic term projects in other EU countries. No in 150 years, crusade as naturally as they embraced British workers were fired at either Lind­ as tens of Labour's racist "war on terror" that sey or Stay thorpe. Until the workers take Ihousands is directed against Muslims. Particular power, we will not be in a position to besieged blame lies with Peter Taaffe's Social­ worry about the ebbs and flows of labour branches ist Party, which had a member on the migration or the world economy more Ihroughoul strike committee and authored its key generally. The bottom line for the trade­ the country. demands, while whitewashing its chau­ union movement must not be whom the vinist character. Throughout what the contractors hire, but at whot rate oj pay AUTUMN 2009 3 revolutionary workers party. Such a party, Now!' pointed to the fact that the Aus­ and maritime security. This agreement is . a tribune of the people, would fight to tralian military is already at 'home,' car­ the latest expression of renewed ties Afghanistan ... rying out a vicious racist occupation of (continued from page 2) . lead the multiracial working class in Aboriginal communities while enforcing between the Indonesian rulers and Aus­ socialist revolution to overthrow the a naked land grab. They were also very tralia following the criminal 2002 Bali cover for the union leadership's sub­ racist Australian capitalist rulers. much 'at home' in Sydney this month, bomb attack, which saw the then­ servience to their own bosses. Identifying mobilised to help enforce the suppres­ Megawati regime enact sinister "anti-ter­ with the "national interests" of the bour­ Little Australia Reformists sion of anti-APEC protests!" ror" decrees including detention without geoisie and its state, they betray the inter­ Plead: Bring the Troops Home Reformist groups such as Socialist trial and the death penalty for those con­ ests of the working class at home and Our internationalist, proletarian, revo­ Alliance call for the bourgeoisie to reorder victed of "terrorism."-Today anti-woman abroad. lutionary perspective stands counter­ its priorities, for example calling for aid, Islamic fundamentalism in Indonesia pro­ Today, in the face of the economic cri­ posed to any support to the various not occupation. But the capitalist system vides a further pretext for "war on terror" sis, the Laborite union misleaders bellow cross-class "anti-war" coalitions such as cannot be pressured or reformed to work repression which will be used to crack for greater protectionism to "defend" the Sydney-based "Stop the War" Coali­ in the interest of human needs. The relent­ down on dissent and target the restive jobs rather than taking up the fight tion(StWC). Through such coalitions, less drive for profits and spheres of influ­ Indonesian working class which faces the against the capitalist rulers. Preaching the reformist left groups such as the DSP ence by big capitalist powers inevitably loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs due lie that workers will benefit from protect­ and SAlt have spent years treacherously leads to neocolonial exploitation, pillage to the world economic crisis. ing Australian industry from overseas pushing working-class anti-war sentiment and ultimately war between rival imperia­ While the Australian imperialists are . competitors, these nationalist misleaders into forging alliances with mythical list powers. As leader of the 1917 Russian mainly concerned to enforce an unhin­ act to promote loyalty to the bloody im­ "peace-loving" sections of the bour­ Revolution, V.I. Lenin, explained, imperi­ dered flow of imperialist profits for the perialist military. When the bombs began geoisie. In contrast, we Marxists have alist aggression and war are not "policies" likes of BHP-Billiton, Leightons Hold­ raining on Baghdad in 2003, union lead­ fought for class struggle against the capi­ that can be ended within the framework of ings and Santos, this latest defence coop­ ers reneged on their earlier promises of talist rulers at home while demanding not capitalist rule-the entire system must be eration doubtless ensures stronger protest strike action against an attack on one person, not one cent for the Aus­ overturned. The imperialist rulers will not Indonesian support to the Rudd govern­ Iraq, arguing they did not want to disad­ tralian imperialist military. give up their military hardware for the ment's reactionary "border control" vantage "our troops." It should be axiomatic for anyone benefit of people any more than a boss measures which are designed to prevent In 1999 it was the union tops (cheered claiming to be a socialist that it is impos­ would abandon his profits in the interests refugees, including from Afghanistan and on by the fake socialists) who were in sible to defeat imperialism in alliance with of job security and a decent wage for Iraq, from reaching Australia's shores. the forefront of chauvinist mobilisations Opposing all anti-immigrant laws and demanding Australian military interven­ regulations, we demand: No deporta­ tion to "Save East Timor." The Australian tions! Full citizenship rights for all neocolonial occupation of that tiny state immigrants! has resulted in gun-toting Australian Australia's role in the region-from troops terrorising the population and strengthening ties with Indonesia, to enforcing abject poverty while Australia policing in the southern Philippines, to plunders the oil and gas reserves. Today, the 2007 military pact with Japan-also under the Australian jackboot, hunger supports the U.S.-led imperialist goal stalks the majority of East Timorese fam­ of tightening the military chain around ilies while women are 300 times more the Chinese bureaucratically deformed likely to die during childbirth than in workers state. With Obama in the White developed countries. While the pseudo­ House, the targeting of is likely to socialists-from the Dempcratic Socialist escalate. Obama represents that wing of Perspective (DSP), to Socialist Alterna­ the American ruling class who seek to tive (SAlt), to the Socialist Party-joined extricate their troops from the Iraq quag­ the chauvinist "troops in" marches, the mire in order to aim the U.S. military at SL held speakouts and forums OpposiIig more strategic and long-term targets such the AustralianlUN intervention. Kee as China. Thus, Hillary Clinton's first The historic role of the ALP parlia­ Detained Afghan asylum seekers en route to Christmas Island deportation overseas visit as U.S. Secretary of State mentary and trade-union misleaders is centre. Labor government enforces racist mandatory detention of refugees. was to Asia, where she attacked North to subordinate the working class to the Korea over "human rights" and its capitalist rulers by furnishing the lie capitalist parties like the Greens. They in workers. Only through the working class nuclear programs. For its part, the Rudd that it is possible to have a govern­ principle uphold the bourgeois state, wresting the means of production from the government, while still maintaining al­ ment-particularly a Labor one-that which consists at its core of the cops, hands of the capitalist imperialist rulers most 1,000 troops in Iraq, has long been will administer the bosses' state in the courts, prisons and military and exists to and organising an international collec­ anxious to free up Australian military interests of workers and the oppressed. enforce the rule of the exploitative capi­ tivised and planned economy can the basic forces to playa greater role in the region The ALP is a "bourgeois workers party: talist minority over the working class and needs of the billions of toilers now en­ under the D.S. umbrella. thoroughly pro-capitalist in its leader­ oppressed. The pseudo-Marxists of StWC slaved by imperialist exploitation and While Obama opened his presidency ship, program and outlook, while having refuse to draw a class line against their oppression begin to be met and the threat promoting "Made in the U.S.A." protec­ organic ties to the working class through own imperialist rulers and preach the lie of war be ended once and for all. tionism and with verbal attacks that the trade unions. To defeat imperialist ter­ that imperialist war can somehow be China is manipulating its currency, Rudd ror abroad and capitalist oppression at ended under capitalism, consistently Down With Australian Imperialism! Defend China! has been more circumspect. With the home requires breaking the chains of pushing bourgeois pacifist and social resource-driven economy now spiralling Laborism and building a class-struggle patriotic demands "to end Australia's in­ Reformist demands to "Bring the into recession/depression, the Australian leadership in the trade unions, linked to a volvement." troops home" also reflect the appetites of imperialist· rulers continue a policy of Last November, following the deaths of the ALP and Greens, who the fake social­ "constructive engagement" towards China Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, the ists (including the DSP, SAlt, Socialist on whose i~ports they so critically de­ ...... - StWC sought to ingratiate themselves with Alliance and the International Social­ pend. At the same time, a nationalist \\01ll4'n and I(pu.lnrion 4i everyone-from peaceniks to returned sol­ ists-now.Solidarity) campaigned for in backlash is developing within this coun­ diers, calling on "peace activists to dedi­ the November 2007 federal elections. For try against China as it seeks to invest in cate Remembrance Day to victims of years the ALP and Greens have been in Australia's flagging mining industry. currerit U.S.-led wars." Burying the crimes the forefront of pushing for a greater role Whateverconjunctural diplomatic ap­ of Australian imperialism, they rallied out­ for Australian imperialism in the region. proach Ausfralia's rulers may take to­ side the U.S. Consulate in Sydney on 11 Seeking to capitalise on the euphoria wards China,. they deeply share in the November seeking to pressure the Rudd surrounding Obama's election in many U.S. imperiatists' strategic aim to restore govetnment by pleading that "Australia parts of the world, and on Obama's capitalist rule in China. For this, the im­ shoul~ take a stand against the US's unde­ "promise" to the Muslim world of a new perialists have a two-pronged strategy: clared policy of spreading the 'war on ter­ way forward based on "mutual interest military enCirclement combined with ror' to. neighbouring Syria and Pakistan" and mutual respect," the Rudd government capitalist economic penetration. Under (Green Left Weekly, 19 November 2008). has acted quickly to sign a new statement the counterrevolutionary U.S.lAustralia Continuing their "little Aussie" nation­ on defence cooperation with Indonesia in alliance, Australia pursues its own ex­ alist appeals to the capitalist rulers, the areas of counter-terrorism, intelligence ploitative interests in the region while upcoming 21 March demonstrations have been called under the demands to "Bring ALL the Troops Home" and "Prosecute the War Criminals," the latter an appeal to Spartacist League of Australia the imperialist butchers to act against themselves. These opponent!! of revolu­ Web site: www.icl-fi.org Spartacist (English edition) tionary Marxism act to uphol~ the racist Melbourne Sydney Theoretical journal of the exploitative capitalist status quo by sowing GPO Box 2339 GPO Box 3473 International Communist League .illusions that the capitalist rulers can fun­ Melbourne Vic 3001 Sydney NSW 2001 (Fourth Internationalist) damentally clean up their system. As we Phone: (03) 96544315 Phone: (02) 9281 2181 No. 61, Spring 2009 stated in our 11 September 2007 leaflet E-mail: [email protected] E-mail:. [email protected] $2.00 (64 pages) protesting state repression against anti­ APEC protesters: Order from/pay to: International Communist League "While the reformists demanded 'Bring Spartacist ANZ Publishing Co. Box 7429 GPO, New York, NY 10116, USA GPO Box 3473, Sydney NSW 2001 the troops home,' our placard 'CopslMili­ tary Get Out of Aboriginal Communities 4 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST

L acting as the southernmost military an­ chor for the U.S. in the Asia-Pacific. The network of U.S. spy bases, which collect intelligence from around the world, are key to pinpointing and preparing for im­ perialist military strikes from Iraq and Afghanistan to China and North Korea. As proletarian internationalists we de­ mand: Down with all of Australia IS regional military agreements! Down with the U.S.lAustralia alliance! U.S. bases out now! We Trotskyists stand for the uncondi­ tional military defence of the Chinese, North Korean, Vietnamese and Cuban ~~.~.~--...... ~ ...... e1cM ...... ~ bureaucratically deformed workers states a--., .... A'Mt~ -!- ~tII ... * ... ,. against imperialist atta¢k and internal capitalist counterrevolution. We also fight for workers political revolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucrats whose appeasement Publishers of imperialism and bureaucratic misman­ Soviet military intervention in 1979 opened road to emancipation of Afghan women (left, in Kabul march). Spartacists hailed agement and corruption pave the way for Red Army in Afghanistan, called for extending gains of October Revolution to Afghan peoples. Anti-Communist Cliffite capitalist counterrevolutionary forces that International Socialists sided with Islamic fundamentalists' holy war to re-enslave Afghan women (right, Afghanistan 2001). aim to return China to the imperialist exploitation and misery that existed prior alive for the "crime" of teaching young far better to fight the forces Of counter­ under the program of Bolshevik inter­ to the 1949 Revolution, and which exists girls to read. When the PDPA requested revolution in Afghanistan than within the nationalism. Genuine opposition to im­ in many neocolonial countries today. assistance from Moscow to quell this borders of the Soviet Union. In stark con­ perialism begins with defending those Raising the banner of working-class inter­ bloody rebellion, the Soviet Army inter~ trast the reformists celebrated the Soviet gains that the international working class nationalism, a genuinely communist gov­ vened, acting to defend the USSR's south­ withdrawal, with the Democratic Socialist has already won. Anti-imperialism abroad ernment in China, based on. workers and ern border against the CIA-backed Perspective (then Socialist Workers Party) also demands a class-struggle program at peasants councils, would spark a fight for insurgency. This was the first war fought cheering on Gorbachev's sellout..For their home. A revolutionary fight against im­ revolutionary struggle by the workers and in modern history where the status of part the IS unambiguously took a side perialist war must be based on the inde­ oppressed of Asia, from South Korea to women played the central role. with reaction declaring the Soviet with­ pendent mobilisation of the working class Japan, to the Indian subcontinent to the The 1979 Soviet intervention in drawal "a tremendous victory for the which, with its hands on the levers of Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. Afghanistan-a country so backward that rebels [mujahedin]" (The Socialist, March production, has the potential social power it lacked a proletariat to carry out a social 1989). Gorbachev's betrayal paved the to challenge and in the last analysis over­ We Said: Hail Red Army in revolution-was unambiguously progres­ way for Taliban rule and opened the turn capitalist rule. Afghanistan! sive. The liberating effects of the Soviet road for the 1991-92 counterrevolution­ The horrors being played out in The U.S.-led imperialist terror around intervention were proven by hard facts. ary destruction of the Soviet degenerated Afghanistan and Iraq are among the the world today is a direct outgrowth of By 1988, women made up 40 percent of workers state, a historic defeat for the pro­ starkest expressions of the choice that has the 1991-92 capitalist counterrevolution the doctors and 60 percent of the teachers letariat and oppressed around the world. been posed since the advent of the in the Soviet Union, the world's first at the University of Kabul; 440,000 While the bulk of the left internation­ imperialist epoch in the latter part of the workers state, created by the 1917 Octo­ female students were enrolled in educa­ ally, including in Australia, stood on the 19th century: or barbarism. It is ber Revolution. Despite its subsequent tional institutions and 80,000 more in lit­ side of capitalist counterrevolution in the the same capitalist imperialist rulers who degeneration under a parasitic nationalist eracy programs. Women enjoyed some USSR, we of the International Communist are engaged in bloody war and imperi­ Stalinist bureaucratic caste, the Soviet real measure of freedom from the suffo­ League fought to the bitter end in defence alist plunder from Iraq to Afghanistan to Union provided a military counterweight cating veil and subjugation for the first of the Soviet Union and the bureaucrati­ East Timor who are now throwing mil­ to U.S. imperialism. Despite the rather time in Afghanistan'S history. Now this cally deformed workers states of Eastern lions out of work around the world, while miserable circumstances of backward has all been drowned in blood. and Central Europe. In East Germany whipping up racist reaction and enforcing Russia, it offered living proof that the A Red Army victory posed the exten­ (DDR) in 1989-90 we uniquely opposed strong state repression. In the course of overturn of capitalism and the construc­ sion of the gains of the October Revolu­ the capitalist reunification. We called for sharp class struggle, the proletariat must tion of a collectivised economy could tion to Afghanistan through the country's a red Germany of workers councils (sovi­ become conscious of themselves as a provide everyone with a job, housing, integration into the Soviet system. The ets) through political revolution in the class fighting for their own independent healthcare and a decent education. This is Soviet intervention cut against the grain East and socialist revolution in West Ger­ interests and those of all the oppressed something no capitalist society has, or of the Stalinist dogma of "socialism in many. We initiated the call for a 3 January against the brutal capitalist system. This ever will, achieve. one country" and offered the prospect of 1990 united-front workers mobilisation requires the building of a revolutionary The Spartacist League in Australia, as reanimating the Bolshevik program of against Nazi provocations at the Treptow party to educate the working class in their part of our Trotskyist international, proletarian revolutionary internationalism Park Soviet war memorial in East Berlin, objective and historic interests. In politi­ fought for the defence of the Soviet in the Soviet Union. Highlighting the which was taken up by the ruling Stalinist cal opposition to Laborite nationalism Union against capitalist counterrevolu­ bureaucracy's capacity to betray, we regime. A quarter million people came out and reliance on the state, the aim of the tionary threats from without and within, stressed at the time that a genuinely inter­ to protest this fascist desecration and in Spartacist League of Australia, section of while fighting for proletarian political nationalist perspective in Afghanistan defence of the DDR and the Soviet Union. the International Communist League revolution to oust the nationalist Kremlin would take a workers political revolution In the Soviet Union we distributed (Fourth Internationalist) is to build such a bureaucrats. Our unconditional military in the Soviet Union to throw out the Stal­ more than 100,000 of our 1991 statement Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard party dedi­ defence of the Soviet degenerated work­ inist bureaucracy and return the USSR to in Russian calling on Soviet workers to cated to lead the overthrow of this bar­ ers state was sharply posed in late 1979 the road of Lenin and Trotsky. "Defeat Yeltsin-Bush Counterrevolution" baric system and to the establishment of when Soviet troops went into Afghanistan Joining the imperialists' anti-Soviet war and urging the proletariat to form soviets workers rule.• to help a left-nationalist Afghan govern­ drive, the bulk of the international left ment put down a CIA-bankrolled, Islamic condemned what they called the Soviet fundamentalist insurgency, which aimed "invasion" of Afghanistan. In Australia the at jettisoning social progress and re­ International Socialists (IS)-forebears of AustralaSian Spartacist Subscription Drive enslaving Afghan women. today's Solidarity group and Socialist The insurgents the U.S.INATO/Aus­ Alternative-criminally stood with their Quotas for 2009 (in points) - Melbourne (70) Sydney (100) Total (170) tralian imperialist troops face in Afghan­ own imperialist rulers and the anti­ istan today are Frankenstein's monsters woman Islamic fundamentalists. Such was 23 February - 5 April turned on their former masters. Under the their anti-Communist fervour, the I.S. in banner of U.S. president Jimmy Carter's Australia initially lined up behind union­ Workers VanguardlAustralasian Spartacist anti-Soviet "human rights" crusade im­ busting Liberal prime minister, Malcolm Marxist working-Class biweekly of the Spartacist League/U.S. and perialist aid to the Afghan mujahedin Fraser, to call for a boycott of the 1980 quarterly Marxist newspaper of the Spartacist League of Australia began in the late 1970s. This crusade was Moscow Olympics. Indeed much of the fully backed by the then-governing Lib­ reformist left called for trade bans and o $20 for 22 issues WVand 4 issues ASp eral Party and the ALP. The Islamic fun­ joined with the ALP to attack Fraser's OR 0 $5 for 4 issues, overseas: $7 Australasian Spartacist only damentalist mujahedin were in rebellion Liberals from the right with the slogan 0$15 for 22 issues Workers Vanguard only against the pro-Moscow People's Demo­ "Malcolm's wool keeps the Russians cratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which warm." Today's leaders of SAlt and Soli­ All subscriptions include English-language Spartacist. Workers Vanguard took power in April 1978. ThePDPA tried darity who shamelessly supported the subscriptions include Black History and the Class Struggle. to implement some minimal reforms to anti-Soviet Islamic fundamentalist muja­ I would like to contribute $ __ to the production of Australasian Spartacist. bring Afghanistan closer to the 20th cen­ hedin cutthroats have the blood of Afghan tury: land distribution, freeing women leftists, school teachers and women on Name______from the burka (the head-to-toe "veil"), their hands. Address______reducing the bride price to a nominal sum When the then-Soviet leader Mikhail and providing education for girls. Gorbachev, seeking to appease imperial­ Suburb State P'code____ _ These reforms sparked a vicious back­ ism, withdrew forces from Afghanistan in lash by landlords, tribai chiefs and mul­ 1989, we denounced this as a cold­ Phone E-mail______~=_:_ lahs who launched a jihad (holy war), blooded crime against both the Afghan 204 burning down schools and flaying teachers and Soviet peoples. We warned it was Mail/make cheques payable to: Spartacist ANZ Publishing Co.• GPO Box 3473. Sydney NSW 2001 ,AUTUMt,I.ZO()9, 5 ,. . ", '" " ·······OCla'stS· I·······,i -·pportunists Del - " ',,, 'cc.( ~ , On Marxism and Religion

For youth repelled by the exploitative women's oppression, and ruling class braying about their attendance at Muslim for their real happiness. To calIon them capitalist system and beginning to explore authority. All modern religion acts as an prayer meetings, SAlt foster backward to give up their illusions about their con­ dition is to call on them to give up a socialist ideas, organisations claiming the instrument of capitalist reaction that' consciousness among the masses, concili­ condition that requires illusions." mantle of Marxism might seem a bewil­ defends exploitation and befuddles the ating both religion and religious leaders -"Critique of Hegel's Philosophy dering assortment. Reading an article in working people. such as the Muslim clerics involved in Of Right" (1844) Socialist Alternative (Oct-Nov 2008) titled Our goal is to build a revolutionary recent protests against Israel's murderous Declaring "Marx was a democrat before "The real story of what Marxists think of party that can lead the working class in its attacks on Gaza. This is no surprise as he became a socialist," SAlt do their best, religion," you could forgive such potential historic task of overthrowing capitalism they and their forebears have long por­ through selective quoting, to devolve him revolutionaries their confusion. Eulogis­ and replacing it with socialism. Only then trayed Muslim fundamentalism as "anti­ into a "harmless" modern-day bourgeois­ ing religion as having the potentiill to be a will religion, which enforces mindless imperialist" and even "revolutionary." liberal democrat. "platform for resistance to oppression," To expunge the taint of atheism from Socialist Alternative (SAlt) contend that their fake brand of "Marxism," under the Marxism isn't opposed to religion at all! heading "" SAlt pick on two "What!?" such youth might exclaim, prominent authors who are self-identified "What happened to Marxism being scien­ atheists. First they cite reactionary jour­ tific and atheist?" nalist, Christopher Hitchens, as "living Perhaps it was one such individual who proof that being an atheist does not make wrote to Socialist Alternative (November you more left-wing." In fact Hitchens' 2008), calling on SAlt to stop sugar-coat­ pro-imperialist warmongering over Iraq ing religion and observing that "Islam owes more to the classless pontificat­ like Judaism and Christianity are tools ing about "tyranny" versus "democracy" of the oppressors." The letter provoked a fundamental to SAlt's worldview than to venomous response. Three replies, in­ his non-Marxist critique of religion. cluding from SAlt cadre, published in the Hitchens, once a member of SAlt's fore­ "Dec 08-Jan 09" issue denounced the bear, the anti-communist Cliffite Inter­ correspondent as on the "elitist, atheist national Socialists, long ago took the 'God Delusion' bandwagon" and "filled logical step to bourgeois reaction. with Islamophobic shit" having "sucked The other target of SAlt's anti-atheist up ... the anti-Muslim mind poison, sugar­ vitriol is Richard Dawkins, evolutionary coated in leftism fed to you by the ruling biologist and writer of popular science. class." While we are not uncritical of the SAlt quote from The God Delusion where original (edited) letter and have no way Dawkins gives a straightforward list of of knowing fully what the writer stands atrocities committed in the name of reli­ for, SAlt's unhinged response, like their nco gion, including the Crusades and the article penned by Patrick Weiniger, is a Bolshevik leader Alexandra KoHontai with Central Asian women, drinking wine Spanish Inquisition. SAlt assert "Dawkins bald-faced repudiation of Marxism. in defiance of teachings of Koran. argues that religion is to blame for war. As Marxist revolutionaries who want to This patently false idea provides a cover change this world and end human exploit­ subordination to "higher authority" and is Their outlook is both a product of their for imperialism." Never mind the fact that ation and oppression, we're firmly on the responsible for so much guilt and misery, liberal opportunism and a direct out­ Dawkins protested Britain's involvement side of science, which studies the natural quickly wither through education once its growth of their anti-communist hostility in the invasion of Iraq. False conscious­ world and validates theories by observa­ state props are kicked away. to the former Soviet Union and other ness like religion and nationalism cer­ tion and experiment, as opposed to reli­ societies where capitalism has been over­ tainly is a powerful tool to inspire division gion which asserts blind faith in an unreal, Down With Anti-Muslim thrown. It has led them to politically in the working and oppressed masses, and supernatural power controlling events. We Racism! embrace such vile reactionary forces as in this epoch of imperialist reaction often are, in the words of Russian revolutionary We Marxists have been forthright in our the Vatican-backed Polish Solidarno§c provides the tripwire for the bloodiest leader v.1. Lenin, "absolutely atheistic and opposition to the racist "war on terror," (Solidarity) and the Islamic fundamental­ conflicts. positively hostile to all religion." At the opposing the bloody occupations of Iraq ist Afghan mujahedin. Indonesia 1965-66 is but one chilling same time we oppose all forms of reli­ and Afghanistan abroad and the vile racist To the extent that SAlt have influence, illustration. More than a million Com­ gious persecution and oppression. Thus scapegoating of Muslims at home. Strug­ their program has actually helped create munists, workers, peasants and ethnic our comrades in the U.S. have opposed the gling in the interests of the whole working today's post-Soviet reactionary political Chinese were massacred when the Indo­ arrest of Mormons for practising polyga­ class, and against Laborite nationalism, climate marked by all-sided capitalist nesian generals unleashed Islamic funda­ my (see Workers Vanguard No. 916, we are fora class-struggle fight to defend brutality and heightened religious obscu­ mentalist reactionaries to crush the 6 June 2008). Comrades in France and the rights of Muslims and all immigrants rantism. In August 1991 when Boris Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). In the elsewhere have protested government and minorities. As for SAlt, for all their Yeltsin's imperialist backed forces of face of this terror, the workers and peas­ moves to ban the Islamic hijab or head­ "militant anti-racist" posturing, come counterrevolution staged a countercoup in ants of Indonesia were politically, organi­ scarf in schools, notlngthat such persecu­ election day they fall into line behind the Moscow, every capitalist ruling class sationally and militarily disarmed by the tion can only reinforce the grip of religion Labor Party and racist capitalist rule. around the world celebrated. Then part of PKI program of "national unity," a popu­ by driving women out of secular society. For example, in the 2001 elections SAlt the International Socialists, SAlt cadre lar-frontist alliance of bourgeois national­ We stand opposed to the imperialist advocated to "grit our teeth" and vote for joined in the jubilation declaring that ists, Islamic groups and the PKI (see impoverishment and exploitation of the the ALP, even as the ALP was demanding '''Communism is dead' .... It's a fact that "Lessons of Indonesia 1965," Spartacist masses of the neocolonial world, but this "security abroad, security at home" and should have every socialist rejoicing" No. 55, Autumn 1999). The Australian and does not mean that we are cultural rela­ trying to outdo the then-Howard govern­ (The Socialist, September 1991). U.S. imperialists were up to their necks tivists who prettify the horrible status ment in support for the war on Af­ in these atrocities, promoting the mobili­ quo in such countries. Thus we oppose ghanistan and the war on refugees. SAlt: Haunted by sation of Islamic reactionaries against hideous "customs" such as female genital In fact SAlt's "socialist alternative" has the Spectre of Marx "godless communism" and providing the mutilation or the head-to-toe veil. While never extended beyond trying to pressure As if to justify their anti-Marxist con­ Indonesian generals with a hit list of some recognising that people should be able to the pro-imperialist Labor Party. Thus, in ciliation of religion, SAlt quote Karl 5,000 Communists to exterminate. In hold their religious beliefs without inter­ the 2007 elections they championed a vote Marx, who explained: helping to orchestrate this massacre the ference from the state, we oppose religion for the bourgeois Greens (an act of class "Religious suffering is at one and the same imperialists were applying an imperative dictating the policy of the state. treachery) as a means to apply pressure on time the expression of real suffering and a noted in 1950 by then-U.S. Secretary of Upholding the liberating ideals of the Rudd's Labor Party. For our part we protest against real suffering. Religion is State John Foster Dulles: "The religions of enlightenment and Marxism, we revolu­ Spartacists declared the elections a bi-par­ the sigh of the oppressed creature, the the East are deeply rooted and have many tionaries fight for the complete separation tisan war on workers and minorities, and heart of a heartless world and the soul of precious values. Their spiritual beliefs soulless conditions. It is the opium of the of religion and state! In fact, the full sepa­ called for "No vote to ALP! No vote to people." cannot be reconciled with Communist ration of religion and state has nowhere bourgeois Greens!" SAlt pibusly claim, "Those who wish to atheism and materialism. That creates a been fully realised by the bourgeoisie for Under the cover of fighting against the present Marx as anti-religious trot out common bond between us, and our task is the simple reason that religion has great "war on terror," SAlt poisonously insinu­ . only the last sentence." One only need to find itand develop it" (cited in Paul A. value for the ruling class in its struggle ate that any criticism of Islam equals sup­ quote Marx's very next lines to expose Baran, The Political Economy o/Growth). against the proletariat. With its deep social port for racist anti-Muslim persecution. this self-serving lie: Hostile to the lessons of Indonesia roots, religion serves to buttress the insti­ In fact, from their written repudiation of "The abolition of religion as the illusory 1965, the anti-communist opportunists of tution of the family, the main source of the Marxist attitude toward religion to happiness .of the people is the demand SAlt ~riminally encourage workers down 6 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST the same blood-drenched popular-frontist had supported the kadis, were expropri­ reactionary, anti-woman, anti-Semitic is not a recipe to tolerate ignorance or path. A letter by Weiniger and Colleen ated and redistributed among the peas­ "union" Solidarnosc, backed to the hilt by superstition, but on the contrary an obli­ Bolger published in Socialist Alternative antry, the kadis disappeared completely. the CIA and the Catholic Church, gation to actively expose and refute reli­ (Dec 08-Jan 09) excitedly reported on the Scandalously, in 2005 SAlt's political throughout its rise in the 1980s. When in gion as an obstacle to the satisfaction of "Socialism and Islam" session they co-thinkers in Canada, the International September 1981 Solidarnosc came out for human needs. As Lenin wrote: attended at a Socialist Party of Malaysia Socialists, supported government propo­ capitalist restoration we said: "Stop Soli­ "The dialectical materialism of Marx (PSM)-hosted conference last November. sals to establish sharia tribunals for darity's Cpunterrevolution!" Later Soli­ and Engels ... applies the materialist phi­ losophy to the domain of history .... We Enthusing that "we got to debate how the family law, as part of the capitalist state. darnosC's program triumphed in the form must combat religion-that is the ABC Left should relate to Islamic parties in a Our comrades of the Trotskyist League/ of the devastating 1989 capitalist counter­ of all materialism, and consequently of largely Muslim country," they lauded the Ligue trotskyste actively protested against revolution in Poland, which ushered in Marxism. But Marxism is not a materi­ PSM for "eschewing sectarian dismissal these moves. Such courts could only mass unemployment and the brutal roll­ alism which has stopped at the ABC. of Muslim political forces." No doubt they deepen the isolation and oppression of back of women's rights, particularly Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to combat religion, and in also support the PSM standing in the Muslim women (see Spartacist Canada abortion rights. order to do so we must explain the Malaysian elections last year under the No. 147, Winter 200512006). Weiniger's article concludes by source Of faith and religion among the banner of the main bourgeois opposition, denouncing a July 2008 Sydney demo masses in a materialist way." which includes Islamic fundamentalists. Support to Counterrevolution = protesting and opposition to -"The Attitude of the Workers Party to Religion" (1909) Support to Anti-Woman Reaction effective birth control by the Catholic SAlt Slander the Bolsheviks Despite the Soviet Union's degenera­ Church. This demonstration, which we It will take a proletarian revolution to SAlt would have us believe that their tion under a nationalist parasitic bureau­ Spartacists attended, was called by the smash the power of capital and open the chasing of religious "allies" has the cratic caste, which usurped political reformist Democratic Socialist Perspec­ road to the egalitarian socialist society endorsement of the Bolshevik Party that power from the Soviet proletariat in a tive (DSP) in response to the visit of based on the material abundance needed led the October 1917 Russian Revolution political counterrevolution beginning in Pope Benedict. during "World Youth to sweep away the basis of religion. This establishing the world's first workers 1923-24, the proletarian collectivised Day," which saw hundreds of thousands requires the building of a Leninist van­ state. In a September 2006 article, "Why property forms created by the 1917 Octo­ of "pilgrims" descend on the city in a guard party which can lead the working socialists fight for religious freedom," ber Revolution remained until capitalist "celebration" of religious obscurantism. class at the head of a!l the oppressed. Its cadre Diane Fieldes writes: "In some of counterrevolution in 1991-92. It was the Unable to utter a word of protest against cadres will be the most advanced fighters, the southern republics of the USSR in the elementary duty of revolutionaries to the reactionary, anti-woman Catholic including in defence of science and in early 1920s as many as 15 per cent of defend the gains of the revolution by fight­ Church, SAlt instead are outraged that opposition to religious superstition. Lenin party members were believers in Islam" ing for the unconditional military defence some protesters "thrust" condoms at pil­ explained: and declares "Muslims were encouraged "So far as the Party of the socialist prole­ of the Soviet degenerated workers state grims en route to pray at the pope's feet, tariat is concerned, religion is not a private to join the Communist Party." and for proletarian political revolution to lamenting that this could only serve to affair. Our Party is an association of class­ Far from conciliating religion, Soviet oust the Stalinist misleaders who paved "isolate" the left from these "potential conscious, advanced fighters for the policy in Central Asia recognised that the the way for capitalist restoration. We allies." While SAlt wring their hands emancipation of the working class. Such path to overthrowing the entrenched an association cannot and must not be apply the same program to the deformed about the sensibilities of Catholic pil- indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, power of religion, in lands almost entirely ignorance or obscurantism in the shape of devoid of a working class, mandated religious beliefs." admitting a fraction of the most conscious -"Socialism and Religion," 1905 members of society, outside the Euro­ This Leninist perspective stands diametri­ peanised elite, into the Communist par­ cally opposed to SAlt's accommodation ties. As Russian revolutionary, Leon to organised religious movements as Trotsky, explained: allies-in-waiting. "We will admit into our ranks those Addressing the French public in 1767, comrades who have yet to break from religion not in order to reconcile Voltaire wrote "Anyone who has the Marxism with Islam, but rather tactfully power to make you believe absurdities has but persistently to free the backward the power to make you commit injustices." members' consciousness of superstition, SAlt oppose Marx's program, not out of which in its very essence is the mortal enemy of communism." ignorance, but as a consequence of their -"Tasks of Communist Education" anti-communist program, which rejects (1923) in Problems of the Marxist principle that only the work­ Everyday Life ing class has both the interest and the SAlt lyingly infer that the Bolsheviks social power to overthrow capitalism and abandoned the bourgeois-democratic sepa­ build a classless society. ration of church and state by claiming the The Spartacist League and Spartacus young Soviet state accommodated sharia Der Spiegel Solidarnosc leader Lech Walesa praying in Gdansk Shipyard, 1980. Capitalist Youth Club are dedicated to freeing the law, the 1,300-year-old body of Muslim counterrevolution in Poland, with Vatican support, ushered in mass unemploy­ oppressed from religion's yoke. As we say canon law regulating every aspect of life ment, threw back rights of women. in the article "Marxism and Religion," including enforcing capital punishment reprinted in our pamphlet Enlightenment for homosexuality and "honour killings" workers states of China, North Korea, grims, we Marxists say: Free contracep­ Rationalism and the Origins of Marxism: of women and girls accused of "improper" Vietnam and today. tion and abortion on demand for all! For "In order to win over a new generation to the struggle for socialism, based on a relations with men. According to Fieldes: SAlt's political origins go back to the the separation of church and state! "A parallel court system was created in materialist conception of society, social­ late and his followers who ists must ceaselessly combat religion 1921, with Islamic courts administering bowed to the pressure of anti-communist For a Multiracial Leninist and other forms of idealism which look justice in accordance with shari a law hysteria during the Korean War. Vanguard Party! to the supernatural, explaining that free­ alongside the soviet system. Thousands of Capitulating to the British bourgeoisie and Religion at best serves to propagate and dom from oppression lies in this world, Muslim schools were set up with govern­ not another." _ the then-ruling British Labour Party, they enshrine mind-numbing delusions, to ment encouragement." In truth, as we refused to defend the Soviet Union, China lessen the pain of existence. Religious wrote in "Early Bolshevik Work Among and North Korea against imperialist attack institutions help enforce the worst preju­ Women of the Soviet East" (Women and and were expelled from Trotsky'S Fourth dices, oppression of women, and subjuga­ Revolution No. 12, Summer 1976): " ... the Soviet government waged a International for reneging on their revolu­ tion of youth and, along with the campaign to build the authority of the tionary duty. institution of the family, serve as a prop Soviet legal system and civil courts as an Motivated by hostility towards the for the capitalist system of private prop­ alternative to the traditional Muslim kadi Soviet Union, throughout the 1980s, as erty. Often, where material want is great­ courts and legal codes. Although the kadi then-members of the Cliffite International est, such as societies based on subsistence courts were permitted to function, their powers were circumscribed in that they Socialist Organisation, SAlt cadre sup­ agriculture, organised religion exercises a were forbidden to handle political cases ported the CIA-bankrolled Islamic Afghan monopoly over social welfare. For exam­ or any cases in which both parties to the mujahedin cutthroats against the Soviet ple, Catholic medical centres throughout dispute had not agreed to use the kadi Red Army, alongside Washington and its regions of Africa, Asia and South Amer­ rather than the parallel Soviet court system. As the Soviet courts became union-busting Hawke/Keating Labor gov­ ica are often the sole provider of health­ more accepted, criminal cases were ernment ally in Canberra. This was a war care services, but they use their resources eliminated from the kadis' sphere. Next, directly over the status of women-the to implement the Vatican's prohibition of the government invited dissatisfied tribal chiefs and mullahs went to war the- use of condoms, an elementary public parties to appeal the kadis' decisions to a when the Afghan government attempted to health measure in societies ravaged by -"'1 Soviet court. In this manner the Soviets 150 Years of the CommunIst ManIfesto 35 open up education for girls and to reduce AIDS. The historic task of the interna­ earned the reputation of being partisans MarXism and Religion 48 of the oppressed, while the kadis were the bride price. Standing upon our uncon­ tional working class is to make the pro­ ~ c.i.IiiUI .... "...... _-----..~ ...... -..0.. .. ,_..0._...... exposed as defenders of the status quo." ditional military defence of the USSR, the ductive resources of the world available to After only a few years the kadis were Spartacist League took the side of social all, based on need, not profit. Only world­ forbidden to enforce any Muslim law progress. We said "Hail Red Army! wide proletarian revolution can lay the Includes "Marxism and Religion" which contradicted Soviet law. Soviet rep­ Extend social gains of the October Revo­ basis for the end of material want; the $2.50 (48 pages) resentatives attended all kadi proceedings lution to Afghan peoples!" (see front page foundation of religious superstition. Mail/make cheques payable to: and their approval was required for all article). The Marxist program aims at the eradi­ Spartacist ANZ Publishing Co. court decisions. In the mid-1920s, when Driven by their hostility to the Soviet cation of religion, not by force of arms or GPO Box 3473, Sydney NSW 2001 the wafts (endowment properties), which Union, SAlt also hailed Polish clerical- law, but scientific mastery of nature. This AUTUMN 2009 7

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to the Zionist rulers, Palestinians are nothing more than untermenschen ("sub­ Gaza ... human," as the Nazis described those (continued from page 12) whom they enslaved and exterminated). diplomatically during the Cold War. As The leaflets that Israel drops warning the Moscow Stalinist regime under Palestinians to flee are a cruel reminder Mikhail- Gorbachev disintegrated, the that Gaza's residents have nowhere to South African rulers came to terms with flee from what is essentially a concentra­ Nelson Mandela and the ANC. tion camp surrounded by an electrified With the end of legalised apartheid fence, a sealed border with Egypt and the what followed was the election of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel has bombarded ANC-Ied bourgeois Tripartite Alliance, a schools, mosques and United Nations refugee centers-as the Zionists have popular front consisting of the Congress done in the past. On January 6, over 40 of South African Trade Unions, the South Palestinians taking refuge in a UN school African Communist Party and the ANC. in Jabaliya were killed by Israeli bom­ As a result the ANC leaders became the bardment. Two days earlier, Israeli mili­ black frontmen for neo-apartheid South tary forces shelled a house in Zeitoun, African capitalism, thus enforcing the southeast of Gaza City, after telling over continued superexploitation of the black 100 Palestinians to take shelter there, masses. The 1994 election of the bour­ killing up to 30. Human Rights Watch has geois ANC was praised by reformists accused Israel of using U.S.-made. white worldwide, including the DSP and Inter­ Israeli tank advances at Gaza border, 8 January. phosphorus shells, which burn the flesh national Socialist Organisation, many of down to the bone. Israel used white phos­ whose cadre went on to form SAlt and (No. 928, 16 January), newspaper of the twice as many Palestinians as during the phorus during the 2006 war in Lebanon Solidarity. In contrast we in the Spartacist Spartacist LeaguelU.S. first whole year of the Palestinian uprising and the U.S. used it in Iraq during the League forthrightly declared that the that began in September 2000. 2004 attacks on the city of Falluja. ANC/De Klerk deal was a betrayal of JANUARY l3-Some 1,000 Palestinians A week after the December bloodbath Meanwhile, in the West Bank, the black freedom and fought to build a Bol­ in the Gaza Strip, nearly half of them began, Israeli stormtroopers began their Palestinian population has been sealed off Shevik workers party to lead the fight for women and children, have been slaugh­ ground invasion. Over 10,000 troops of by an apartheid wall and subjected to a a black-centred workers republic. tered in little more than two weeks of one of the most highly mechanized and deadly Israeli military occupation, includ­ Rather than bourgeois sanctions and Zionist terror, with over 4,300 wounded. powerful military machines in the world ing the shooting of demonstrators protest­ appeals to the capitalist rulers the work­ The carnage began December 27 with have torn a swath of terror and destruc­ ing the rampage in Gaza. Surrounded by ing class must be mobilised against their round-the-clock air assaults that turned tion through Gaza, split the Strip in two 450,000 Zionist settlers who are backed own capitalist rulers. This can include virtually all of the Gaza ghetto into ash and are now poised for an invasion of the up by thousands more troops, Palestinians tactics such as refusing to handle military and rubble, with streets littered with limbs cities. It is vital for the international pro­ are subjected to a series of military check­ goods for Israel and organising material of Palestinians dismembered by Israeli letariat to stand for the military defense points and "Jewish only" roads that make aid for the Palestinians. Ultimately the bombs and missiles. Under the pretext of of Hamas against Israel without giving travel between towns virtually impossible. liberation of the deeply oppressed responding to Hamas's (largely ineffec­ that reactionary Islamic fundamentalist All Zionist troops and settlers out of the Palestinian people requires a fight for tual) rocket attacks on nearby Israeli outfit any political support. Down with West Bank and East Jerusalem! workers revolutions throughout the Near towns, the Zionist butchers-armed with U.S. aid to Israel! The Zionists' war on the besieged East and beyond. The following articIe U.S. warplanes, helicopters and mis­ Israeli officials declared that there was Palestinians is part of their drive for is reprinted from Workers Vanguard siles-have already slaughtered nearly "no humanitarian crisis" in Gaza; indeed, lebensraum ("living space," the Nazi term

in East Europe. We demand: Full citizen­ commitment to nationalised industry tried to hire East European workers at a Britain ... ship rights for all immigrants! A class­ under capitalism-is inherently protec­ fraction of Irish workers' wages. Our com­ struggle leadership in the unions would tionist. The extensive nationalisations of rades issued a leaflet calling for the power ( continued from page 3) ___ <1emand jobs for all,_ Jhro\lgh aSQorter jndu!iJ.fY _.carried. out under Clement of the working class to be harnessed strikes "are based around the wrong workweek at no loss in pay, and undertake Attlee's Labour government in the post­ -behind defence of immigrants, declaring: slogans and target the wrong people," a union organising drive to draw into their war period had nothing to do with social­ "Unions must organise immigrant work­ adding that "those who urge on these ranks all workers, including those in dan­ ism; rather they were a "rescue package" ers! Full wages and benefits for immi­ strikes are playing with fire." Workers gerous and low-paid jobs. for British industry which was in profound grants!" Another example was the Power "unreservedly oppose" the strikes decline against its rivals. Heathrow strike in 2005 when, in response saying, "the strikers' target is not their Workers of the World Unite! The further expansion of the EU impe­ to the sacking of low-paid catering work­ employers but 100 Italian and Portu­ In the face of world capitalist recession, rialist trade bloc into the former ers and replacing them with immigrants at guese workers" (Workers Power, February protectionism is increasing. Thus Barack deformed workers states of East Europe even lower wages (which did not happen 2009). A leaflet (undated) issued by Gerry Obama included a "buy American" clause provided the European bourgeoisies with in the construction sites at power stations), Downing, a member of the Socialist Fight in his "rescue" package for American a vast supply of very cheap skilled the workforce at British Airways staged an organisation, says, "Socialist Fight (SF) industry. For the bourgeoisie, "free trade" labour. This expansion was made possible immensely powerful wildcat strike that unequivocally opposes the 'wildcat' and protectionism are options they can by the series of capitalist counterrevolu­ crippled BA's international operation. But strikes and their outcome because they debate, but for the proletariat, protec­ tions that swept across East Europe and the trade-union leadership under Tony were called on the reactionary basis of tionism is poison. It is a classic means of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1992 Woodley snatched defeat from the jaws of 'British jobs for British workers'" and "it channelling discontent over job losses into creating massive unemployment and victory by ending the strike without hav­ was on this xenophobic basis they were hostility towards foreign workers and social immiseration. This historic defeat ing obtained the reinstatement of the spread, with the assistance of the right immigrants while building illusions in the for the workers and oppressed was sup­ sacked workers. wing media and on this basis they were benevolence of our "own" capitalists. The ported by the Socialist Party, SWP, As far back as 1866, under Karl Marx, tacitly endorsed by the entire Unite and global economic crisis has exacerbated ten­ Workers Power and sundry other refor­ the International Working Men's Associa­ GMB leaderships. And it was on this basis sions between capitalist governments mists. In contrast, we Trotskyists of the tion prevented an attempt by London they were settled." within the EU who are jostling to "save" International Communist League fought master tailors, who were big capitalists, But the Socialist Party, whose support­ their own economy. The EU directive that to mobilise the working class in defence to replace journeymen tailors in Lon­ ers were a key part of the strike leader­ allows contractors operating in other coun­ of the gains that those states embodied. don by recruiting journeymen in France, ship and which proposed the demands tries not to hire local workers has fuelled Protectionism is doubly pernicious Belgium and Switzerland. Marx wrote adopted by the strike committee, was opposition to the EU among construc­ when directed at the People's Republic of that the secretaries of the International up to its neck in this shameful cam­ tion workers. Contrary to the trade-union China, where Britain, the U.S., and other "published in Belgian, French and Swiss paign. The strike demands, while paying bureaucracy's pledge that EU laws can be imperialist powers have had as a central newspapers a warning which was a com­ lip service for "All immigrant labour to amended to serve the interests of workers, goal the restoration of capitalist rule. The plete success. The London masters' be unionised," do not defend job rights levelling down of wages and conditions for fact that capitalism was overthrown in manoeuvre was foiled; they had to sur­ for foreign workers. They include the workers is part of the purpose of the EU. China by the 1949 Revolution, leading to render and meet their workers' just de­ demand for "Union controlled registering As revolutionary, proletarian international­ the building of a collectivised economy, mands" ("A Warning," 4 May 1866). of unemployed and locally skilled union ists, we oppose the EU, an imperialist con­ represents a historic gain for the working There is no answer to the boom-and­ members, with nominating rights as work sortium designed to improve their class internationally. We continue to fight bust cycles of capitalism short of prole­ becomes available." In other words, jobs competitiveness against their American and for the unconditional military defence tarian socialist revolution that takes power would be filled from "local" (Le., British) Japanese rivals, at the expense of the work­ of China against imperialism and capital­ out of the hands of the irrational capitalist applicants. This is a version of "British ing class in Europe, including its minority ist counterrevolj.ltion, and for proletarian ruling class and replaces it with a planned, jobs for British workers." In contrast to component. Our programme is for workers political revolution to oust the parasitic socialised economy. Only the achieve­ a Leninist vanguard party that fights revolutions leading to a Socialist United Stalinist bureaucracy and replace it with ment of a world socialist order can elimi­ against all manner of chauvinism, the States of Europe. the rule of workers and peasants councils. nate the age-old problem of poverty, Socialist Party is mired in it. Our programme is completely counter­ The workers movement has seen many scarcity and want. We seek to build a As part of the fight for a class-struggle posed to "little England" nationalist oppo­ examples of trade-union solidarity against multiethnic revolutionary workers party, leadership, the trade unions must oppose sition to the EU that is associated with old the capitalists' attempts to use low-wage forged in opposition to Labourism, to the "war on terror" and racism against Labour reformism, to which the SWP, immigrant workers as a club against overthrow the bloodsoaked British capi­ immigrants and minorities. We oppose Workers Power and the Taaffeites are all the unions. In Dublin in 2005, workers talist order and replace it with working­ all the bourgeoisie's anti-immigrant laws wedded. Old Labour's erstwhile claim to throughout Ireland demonstrated against class rule. Down with the reactionary and regulations, including work restric­ "socialism," as upheld by former miners Irish Ferries-and in solidarity with ;'United Kingdom"! For a federation of tions on workers from EU countries leader Arthur Scargill and Tony Benn-a immigrant workers-when the bosses workers republics in the British Isles! • 8 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST I .:

for displacing -those they conquered), in the region is overthrown through a self-determination by one will necessarily With some 50 percent of the Palestin­ which threatens to engulf the entire Near series of socialist revolutions. be at the expense of the other. So long as ian population living outside the.Occu­ East in conflagration. The New York the national principle prevails, the pied Territories-in Jordan, Lebanon, Times (11 January) reported that in 2007 For a Socialist Federation of oppression of the Palestinians, the weaker Israel-the national liberation of the Israel sought U.S. "bunker buster" bombs the Near East! side, will deepen. Palestinians demands a perspective of to take out what the Israelis believed to Nearly a century ago, revolutionary The national emancipation of the socialist revolution throughout the Near be Iran's nuclear development sites. The Marxist leader Rosa Luxemburg declared Palestinians-including the right of all East, including within Israel, the most Times said that the U.S. (for now) denied that the choice facing humanity is refugees and their descendants to return powerful and economically advanced the request because it had its ,own pio­ "socialism or barbarism." What the world to their homeland-necessarily entails country in the region. This means recog­ gram to undermine the Iranian regime. As is witnessing today in Gaza is an expres­ workers revolutions to shatter the Zionist nizing the right of the Hebrew-speakiq.g we have repeatedly asserted, in the face sion of the barbaric logic of capitalist state from within and to sweep away the people to national self-determination. In of imperialist threats and blackmail, han imperialism and Zionist nationalism. For Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Syr­ turn, breaking the Hebrew proletariat needs nuclear weapons and adequate more than 60 years, Palestinians have ian Ba' athist bonapartists and the capital­ from their Zionist rulers requires that delivery systems to defend itself and suffered under the jackboot of Zionist ist rulers of Lebanon-countrles that all they champion the national rights of the deter an imperialist attack. Israel-an oppression that has intensified have sizable Palestinian populations. Palestinians. We have no illusions that Predictably, the Bush administration since the 1991-92 counterrevolutionary The Arab bourgeois regimes have winning the Hebrew proletariat to this has backed brael's onslaught against destruction of the Soviet Union. The col­ always been enemies of Palestinian perspective will be an easy task. Indeed, Gaza to the hilt. For his part, president­ lapse of the USSR, which acted as a national liberation. When the Arab armies it will likely require the victory of social­ elect Barack Obama made clear his sup­ ist revolution in one of the other Near port for Israel's attacks during the 2008 Eastern states to break the Hebrew prole­ election campaign, stating during a visit tariat from Zionist chauvinism. This task to Israel: "If somebody was sending is not made easier by the criminal indis­ rockets into my house where my two criminate terror bombings carried out by daughters sleep at night, I'm going to Palestinian forces against Israeli civilians, do everything in my power to stop that. which drive the Hebrew popUlation fur­ And I would expect Israelis to do the ther into the arms of the Zionist rulers. same thing." Earlier, in January 2008, The Zionist state is not only a catas­ Obama wrote a letter to the U.S. ambas­ trophe for Palestinians-it is also a sador to the United Nations on the eve deathtrap for Jews. As long as Zionist of UN discussions on Israel's blockade oppression of Palestinians continues, of Gaza since Hamas's takeover of the Israeli Jews will continue to be a target of Strip in 2007, a year after Hamas won hatred and outrage by the more than 100 the Palestinian legislative elections. million Arabs who surround them. It is Obama claimed that "Israel is forced" only the working class of Israel-Hebrew into imposing the blockade and that it and Arab-that has the· capacity to "has the right to defend itself." destroy the Zionist citadel from within. Behind Israeli terror stands the far Israeli society is not a seamless reac­ greater terror of U.S. imperialism, which tionary mass. Some 25 percent of citizens has slaughtered hundreds of thousands in live in poverty and income disparities are the bloody occupations of' Iraq and higher than in Egypt and Jordan. It is the Afghanistan. Obama has vowed to aug­ false consciousness of religion and Zion­ ment the Afghan occupation with 30,000 Above: March in Tel Aviv against Israeli assault on Gaza, 3 January. Below: Demonstrators outside Egyptian consulate in Istanbul protest Gaza attack, ist nationalism and racism-in the face of additional U.S. troops, while maintaining S January. pervasive anti-Semitism-that is the glue American forces in Iraq and ratcheting up binding the Hebrew proletariat to its threats against Iran and Pakistan. Refer­ Israeli ruling-class enemy. ring to Obama's "seeming reticence to Even in the face of the current anti­ comment on Gaza," the reformist Interna­ Arab hysteria and widespread support for tional Socialist Organization (ISO) com­ the Gaza war, there have been antiwar plained that "Israel has nothing to fear demonstrations in Israel, including a L from an Obama administration" (Socialist to,OOO-strong rally in Tel Aviv on Janu­ Worker, 9 January). Meanwhile, the ary 3. Sephardic Jews, though over­ Workers World Party (WWP) declared, whelmingly under the sway of right-wing "Obama's Middle East policy is not fun­ and religious parties, suffer widespread damentally different from the policies of discrimination and poverty. The Palestin­ Bush or McCain" (Workers World, 15 ian Arabs, nominally "citizens" who con­ January). Such declarations are rich com­ stitute 20 percent of Israel's population, ing from these organizations, whose are consigned to segregated, impover­ entire political outlook is determined by ished areas and low-paid, unskilled jobs. what is "possible" under the capitalist On January 12, Israel's Central Elections system of exploitation and oppression. Committee banned two Arab political On the night of the U.S. presidential elec­ parties from running in next month's tions, the ISO threw a party in Harlem to elections. "celebrate the end of far tO(} many years It is vital to forge revolutionary Marxist of republican rule" and to discuss "what parties throughout the Near East to unite can activists do to press their demands on counterweight to U.S. imperialism, went to war with Israel in 1948, it was the proletariat-Arab, Persian, Kurdish the next administration?" WWP, in the deprived the late Yasir Arafat's Palestine not to "liberate" Palestine but to carve it and Hebrew, Sunni and Shi'ite, Muslim very same issue cited above, declared that Liberation Organization (PLO) of crucial up among themselves. Between 1948 and and Christian-in struggle against im­ Obama's election "was" 'a watershed diplomatic and financial support, paving the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the West Bank perialism and against the Zionists, mul­ moment in U.S. history because it repre­ the way for the ignominious 1993 U.S.': and Gaza were, occupied by Jordan and lahs, colonels, sheiks and all the other sented a breakthrough in the struggle sponsored Oslo "peace" accords, estab­ Egypt respectively. And the Palestinians capitalist rulers. The conquest of power against racism"! lishing the Palestinian Authority as the there remained politically dispossessed by the proletariat in the Near East does The idea that one can expect "change," Zionists' police auxiliaries in the Occu­ and subject to brutal repression. In the not complete the socialist revolution, but including on Near East policy, from pied Territories. In an article headlined decade following the 1967 war, nearly only opens it by changing the direction of Obama and the Democrats is as obscene "Israel-PLO Deal for Palestinian Ghetto" 50,000 Palestinians were slaughtered by social development. But that social devel­ as it is absurd. Nearly every Democratic we wrote that this deal "does not offer Arab governments, including' soine opment can be consolidated only through politician has lined up behind Israel's even the most deformed expression of 10,000 militants killed by the Jordanian the international extension of the revolu­ war. New York governor David Paterson self-determination" and "would place the monarchy in the 1970 Black September tion, particularly to the advanced, indus­ spoke at a pro-Zionist rally in New York PLO's seal on the national oppression of massacre. trialized imperialist centers. Defense of City on January 11, while Democratic the long-suffering Palestinian Arab The solidarity of the Arab masses with those subjugated by the imperialists Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spon­ masses" (WV No. 583, 10 September the oppressed Palestinian people must be around the globe demands the pursuit of sored a resolution in support of Israel's 1993). It was this betrayal by the secular­ directed toward proletarian revolution class struggle in the U.S. and other onslaught-which passed by 390 to 5. nationalist PLO that paved the way for against their own Arab rulers, who, imperialist centers, pointing toward a pro­ There have been protests in cities the rise of reactionary Islamic groups like whether bourgeois nationalists or Islamic letarian struggle for power. The Spartacist across the world against the bloodbath in Hamas and Islamic Jihad among the traditionalists, are fundamentally the League, U.S. section of the International Gaza-and against the pro-U.S. Arab Palestinians. political agents of Western imperialism. Communist League, is committed to the regimes, such as that of Egypt, which has Since Oslo, one "peace" accord after If this does not happen, the intense and fight to forge a revolutionary workers virtually sealed its border with Gaza. The another has been heralded as opening the justifiable hostility against Israel and party to lead the multiracial proletariat in Spartacist League/U.S. and other sections door to Palestinian national emancipa­ its American protector will serve to fur­ the struggle to sweep away U.S. imperi­ of the International Communist League tion. In reality, under the rubric of the ther strengthen the forces of Islamic alism ~ough socialist revolution. have intervened into these protests to "peace process," the noose of Zionist fundamentalism, which posture as the express our solidarity with the Palestinian oppression has only tightened, with ever "radical" opposition to the mainly pro­ Zionist Rulers Supported masses and to put forward the only per­ deadlier cycles of terror against the Pales­ Western Arab regimes. We look to the Rise of Hamas spective-international socialist revolu­ tinian population. proletariat of the region more widely, Our Marxist perspective is counter­ tion-that can put an end to Palestinian The IsraelilPalestinian conflict is one such as in Egypt, which has been a center posed to those reformist socialists who national oppression. The myriad peoples of interpenetrated peoples: two peoples of working-class strikes and protests over reject the prospect of ArablHebrew work­ of the Near East will not know peace, laying claim to the same piece of land. the past several years. For a socialist fed­ ers revolution as utopian. Instead, they prosperity or justice until bourgeois rule Under capitalism, the exercise of national eration of the Near East! continued on page 11 AUTUMN 2009 9

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received a threatening call from Presi­ Lanka ... dent Rajapaksa warning that he would be (continued from page 12) killed if he continued to speak out. social liberation. We have long upheld the Imperialist Green Light right of self-determination for the Tamil for Army Terror people-i.e., their right to form an inde­ .The calls for the Tamil protests in pendent state in the largely Tamil North Canada and Britain have featured appeals and East. We stand for the military to Western imperialist governments to defense of the LITE against the army come to the aid of the Tamils. A protest assault and demand the immediate and call in Toronto, for example, called for unconditional withdrawal of the Lankan pressure to be put on the Canadian gov­ army from the area. ernment to "intervene immediately to stop At the same time, we give no political the war." There should be no illl'sions that support to the LTTE-bourgeois national­ the governments in Ottawa, London, ists who, carrying out the logic of nation­ Washington or other imperialist centers alism, have staged their own interethnic will act for the liberation of the Tamil peo­ attacks on Sinhalese villagers and ex­ ple. In fact, the imperialist powers have pelled Muslims from the historic Tamil January 12: overwhelmingly supported the regime's city of Jaffna, the capital of the north­ Grieving relatives murderous anti-Tamil offensive. Over the ern region, while employing murderous In Vavuniya, past 12 years, first the U.S. and then Bri­ violence against other Tamil nationalist Sri Lanka, bury tain, Canada and the European Union have groups. Our perspective is the fight for Tamil civilians declared the LITE a "terrorist" organiza­ Marxist workers parties througho.ut the killed during tion, effectively giving the Lankan regime region that can unite the working people government a green light for its attacks. The workers and oppressed in the struggle for workers assault against movement in the imperialist centers must revolutions in Lanka and throughout South Tamil Tigers. oppose the anti-terror witchhunt, which Asia. That is the only road to liberation has seen Tamil organizations banned, from the poverty, oppression and national their offices raided and individuals rail­ chauvinism that are endemic to capitalist roaded to prison (see "Protest Ottawa's rule and visited with particular brutality on Ban on Tamil Tigers!" Spartacist Canada the masses of imperialism's neocolonies. No. 149, Summer 2006). U.S. imperialism in particular has given Roots of Sinhalese-Chauvinist clear backing to the Rajapaksa govern­ Terror the economy back at least a decade and government in 2002. But the Sinhalese­ ment. On January 6, the American ambas­ The roots of the decades-long Tamil are forcing the separation of the peoples. chauvinist army's provocations never sador in Colombo issued a statement J.R. has ripped the country apart, mas­ insurgency lie in systematic discrimina­ sacring many thousandS and forcing the stopped. After the 2005 election of hard­ welcoming the fall of the Tigers' adminis­ tion against the Tamil people by succes­ survivors into a virtual 'bantustan' in the line SLFP president Mahinda Rajapaksa, trative capital, Kilinochchi, to the Lankan sive Sri Lank~ governments following barren North." who ruled out even autonomy for Tamil army and affirming that the U.S. "does not independence from British coloni~ rule -"Massacre in Sri Lanka," regions, the government abrogated the advocate that the Government of Sri in 1948. As part of its racist'divide-and­ Spartacist (English edition) cease-fire and then withdrew from it Lanka negotiate with the LITE" (Asian No. 35 (Autumn 1983) rule strategy, Britain had brought ele­ entirely early last year. Tribune, 9 January). Soon after, a high­ ments from the largely Hindu Tamil The previous economic and geographic While its troops massacre Tamils in level delegation from the U.S. Pacific Fleet minority into the administration of its interpenetration of the two peoples was the North, in the South the government Command arrived for "discussions" with colony, then known as Ceylon. The post­ largely severed in blood, and Tamils were has cracked down on civil liberties. the heads of the Lankan security forces independence regime, based on the Bud­ increasingly compacted in the North and Tamils living in Colombo have been (Indo-Asian News Service, 21 January). dhist Sinhalese majority, began to the East, which, while largely Tamil, had ordered to register with the police, and Only after the army drove the LTTE from displace Tamils from government service historically been a region of mixed popu­ hundreds have been expelled from the its final urban bases in early February did and access to higher education. Espe­ lations, including a substantial Muslim city. Journalists. critical of the govern­ the U.S. and Britain call for a "temporary cially with the passage of a Sinhala-only component. The dire situation of the Lan­ ment have been killed. On January 8, no-fire" agreement (International Herald language law under the Sri Lanka Free­ kan Tamil people today is testimony to the Lasantha Wickrematunge, editor of the Tribune, 4 February). dom Party (SLFP) government in 1956, reactionary logic of nationalism: under Sunday Leader, was gunned down by Washington's central strategic goal on the national chauvinism of the Sinhalese capitalism, when two peoples are inter­ armed men on motorcycles as he drove the island is a stable regime that can ruling class led to growing communal penetrated within the same territory, the to work. The murdered journalist, who provide access to the strategic deep-water polarization. national rights of one people can only be was harshly critical of the government's harbor of Trincomalee in the long­ The grisly climax came in 1983 with expressed at the expense of the other peo­ conduct of the anti-Tamil war, had contested Eastern Province. Successive government-inspired pogroms against the ple. Only the overthrow of capitalism Sri Lankan governments have engaged in Tamils, many thousands of whom were through workers revolution can lay the brutal "ethnic cleansing" in the area. murdered in wholesale massacres. Tamil basis for the equitable resolution of the Hundreds of thousands of Tamils have homes and businesses in the capital, conflicting national claims of the peoples been forced to leave, either into exile Colombo, were burnt to the ground, often of Sri Lanka. abroad or to relatively safer areas of the with the occupants inside. Following the Sinhalese chauvinism, designed and island. Those who remain live under a 1983 pogroms, orchestrated under presi­ instigated by the Lankan ruling class, has state of siege. A rare eyewitness report by dent J. R. Jayewardene of the United been wielded to assert domination over a North American journalist, Stephanie National Party, we wrote: both the Tamil and Sinhalese workers and Nolen of the Toronto Globe and Mail "The massive atrocity taking place in oppressed, to head off any popular revolt (27 January), paints a chilling picture of Sri Lanka marks a watershed in that by preventing working-class unity. For the army occupation in her article, "How island's history. The bloodletting and their part, the LITE and other Tamil Can People Say This Is Peace?": the mass population transfers have set nationalists have long dismissed the strug­ "Ninety-eight people were abducted in gles of the strategically placed "Indian this area last year, snatched off the streets Tamil" tea plantation workers in Sri by the infamous white vans with no Lanka's central highlands. The ancestors licence plates that are used by government security agencies. Eighty-five other of this deeply exploited population were Tamils simply disappeared .... brought in by the British as indentured "The streets of Trincomalee, banded every laborers starting in the 19th century. 150 metres or so with checkpoints where At the time of the 1983 pogroms, our Tamils are grilled about who they are and comrades initiated and joined protests where they are going and whether they can prove they do not support the LTTE, in cities around the world against the offer a grim vision of what the north will massacre. Noting that the bloodbath had soon be like." "catastrophically altered for the fore­ Nolen describes the government's seeable future the prospects for common stepped-up "Sinhalization" campaign: class struggle betw ~en the Sinhalese "Historic sites commemorating ancient working class and the oppressed Tamil Tamil kingdoms have, in the months minority," we raised the call for the right since the government took control of the of Tamil Eelam-a separate Tamil state in area, suddenly become memorials to Sin­ the North-and for a l'ederated socialist halese kingdoms. Some Tamils stopped at republic of Eelam and Lanka as Bart of a checkpoints can no longer give th( names socialist federation of South Asia. of their home villages, because those In the 25 years of civil war that fol­ places have new Sinhala names." lowed, at least 70,000 civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands of Toward a Socialist Federation Tamils driven into exile or squalid refu­ of South Asia $2 (56 pages) gee camps. The LTTE managed to com­ While the Tigers appear to have suf­ Make cheques payable/mall to: pact a Tamil mini-state in parts of the fered a decisive military setback, this by Spartacist ANZ Publishing Co. GPO Box 3473, Sydney NSW 2001 North and East and eventually signed a no 'means equals the end of the Lankan cease-fire agreement with the Colombo conflict. The communal divisions fostered 10 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST .; Gaza ... (continued from page 9) have vicariously cheered on one form or ' another of Palestinian nationalism. In 2002, when Israel was fighting the Pales­ tinian Authority in the West Bank and pummeling the Jenin refugee camp, Workers World had no criticism of Arafat or his calls for Western imperialist inter­ vention into the region. Instead, an 11 April 2002 article enthused that in the wake of the first Intifada in the early 1990s, "Washington and Tel' Aviv were forced to recognize the Palestine Libera­ tion Organization after 20 yeltrs of strug­ Workers Vanguard Le Bolchevik ASp photo gle," calling this a "victory they had won Spartacists join international protests. Left to right: New York, Paris, 3 January, Sydney, 18 January. Sign in French reads: on the battlefield." In fact, the outcome of "Israeli Troops, Settlers Out of the Occupied Territories! Down With the American-European-Zionist Embargo Against Gaza!" that "victory" was the Oslo accords. Today, even as Palestinian Authority pres­ former military governor of Gaza, international community that votes tons own bourgeoisies. As v.1. Lenin, founder ident Mahmoud Abbas, while condemn­ Yitzhak Segev, said: "We extend some of resolutions that they never apply" (Le of the Bolshevik Party which led the only ing the bombing of Gaza, blames Hamas financial aid to Islamic groups via Monde, 10 January). The toothless successful workers revolution in history, for the Israeli onslaught and has sup­ mosques and religious schools, in order "cease-fire" resolutions that have passed stated in 1913, "Marxism cannot be rec­ pressed protests in those areas of the to help create a force that would stand the UN so far do not even call for lifting onciled with nationalism, be it even of West Bank that his Fatah organization against the leftist forces which support the starvation embargo against Gaza. the 'most just; 'purest; most refined and controls, one will find no word of criti­ the PLO." Carrying out attacks on secu­ Meanwhile, a leading spokesman of the civilised brand. In place of all forms of cism of Abbas, Fatah or the Palestinian larists and Communists, the Islamists French Communist Party has demanded nationalism Marxism advances interna­ Authority in the issue of Workers World engaged in neither political nor military that "European intervention forces are put tionalism." (15 January) containing their statement, struggle against Israel. in place between the belligerent forces" The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which "Support Gaza Resistance!" In the 1980s, the Yitzhak Shamir gov­ (l'Humanite, 30 December 2008). laid the basis for the liberation of the One will also not find a word of criti­ ernment set up conservative, tribal-based It is grotesque to appeal to the Euro­ tsarist empire's many subjugated peoples, cism of Hamas. In a simiHu';'vein, the "Village Leagues" in the Occupied Terri­ pean imperialists, whose bloody legacy of was a beacon of liberation for the British (10 January) of tories. The Islamists became a force in divide and rule laid the basis for the con­ oppressed throughout the world, inspiring the late Tony Cliff's Socialist Workers these organs of collaboration. Israel's tinuing misery of the peoples of theN-ear anti-colonial revolts throughout the Near Party carried an article' headlined, rulers helped the Islamic Association gain East. Following the collapse of the Turk­ East. This legacy continued despite the "Hamas's History ofResistance;"enthus­ control of the Islamic University of Gaza ish Ottoman Empire after the First World Stalinist degeneration of the USSR. In ing over Hamas as the "bearer'of a tradi­ , and a base among the intelligentsia, while War, the British and French imperiatists 1958, Iraqi workers led by the multina­ tion of Palestinian resistance.""; funding welfare programs to help the fun­ carved up the region. From Egypt' to tional Iraqi Communist Party-which In reality, Islamic fundamentalists like damentalists win a base among the poor. Syria and Iraq, they bloodily suppre&sed included Muslims, Jews and Christians, Hamas and Islamic Jihad a:tevile anti­ With the beginning of the first Intifada one anti-colonial struggle after another. Arabs and Kurds-fought to make a revo­ Jewish and anti-Christian religioUs bigots in 1987, the Islamists feared that if they Both Britain and France joined with lution and came to the brink of power. who seek to enslave women and'extirpate stood aside they would lose their follow­ Israel in invading Egypt in 1956 after the However, this and other revolutionary any manifestations of social-progress. ing. Hamas was founded in the spring of' Egyptian government nationalized, ,tl~e opportunities were betrayed by the Krem­ Hamas is descended from the Clerical-fas­ 1988 as an Islamist political movement Suez Canal. And it was the French lin and the Stalinist-led Communist par­ cist Muslim Brotherhood, whibh became with an armed wing. Hamas sought to imperialists who played a key role'in ties, subordinating the proletariat to an particularly prominent in Egypt in the fuse the national struggle, previously a assisti)1g Israel in its development of alliance with "progressive" bourgeois late 1940s. Under the slogan 'Icommu­ secular movement containing a leftist nuclear weapons. ,. ' nationalists, who, once in power, nism=atheism=liberation of women," the component,. with reactionary Islamic fun­ For its part, the United Nations is ,9n launched a bloodbath against the Com­ Muslim Brotherhood mobilized a terror damentalism. It wa,s only in the fall of assembly_of the imperialisLpow.ers ,;W4 .... munisHed workers . . ·campaIgn agamst communisa kndother­ -[g89:-afte-r"discovering killed' '. tmitHarrias their semicolonial victims. The . "UN ' What is necessary is the forging of secular forces. Hamas preaches the social two Israeli soldiers, that Israel broke rela­ presided over the establishment of'tpe revolutionary Marxist parties throughout segregation of women, the wearing of the tions with the group. state of Israel at the expense of the~­ the Near East, built in opposition to all hijab (Islamic headscarf) and anti-woman possessed Palestinian people in 194.8. It forms of nationalism and religious funda­ sharia law. ' For Arab/Hebrew Workers Revolution! was the UN that disarmed Palestiruan mentalism, and committed to the struggle Far from embodying a' "history of fighters during Lebanon's bloody 'C~VM for socialist revolution, which, on an resistance," Hamas was initially sup­ Out of utter desperation, many have war, setting up the 1982 massacre of international scale, can finally open the ported by Israel as a counterweight to the called on the UN or European powers to some 2,000 civilians in the Sabra"and door to human equality and liberation. As secular-nationalist PLO. In 1978, Men­ engineer some kind of cease-fire in Gaza. Shatila refugee camps by Christian rlght­ we wrote in the' International Communist achem Begin's right-wing government This has been seized upon by reformist ist forces directed by Israeli troops~p:der League Declaration of Principles approved an application from Sheik leftists, who always promote one imperia­ the leadership of the (now-comatose) (Spartacist [English-language edition] Ahmed Yassin to license' the' Islamic list agency or another as a potential sup­ butcher Ariel Sharon. No to UN, Epro,7 No. 54, Spring 1998): porter of the Palestinians. Olivier Association, a front group ofthe Egypt­ pean Union intervention!'j, "The victory of the proletariat on a world ian Muslim Brotherhood. As an official Besancenot, spokesman for the fake-Trot­ Every "solution" to the PalestU.iian scale would place unimagined material charity organization, Yas~iri's group skyist Ligue Communiste Revolution­ national question under capitalism either abundance at the service of human needs, received funding from Israet'Iti'1986, the naire, denounced "the hypocrisy of the lay the basis for the elimination of classes ." ::·t perpetuates the oppression of the, Patys­ tinian Arab people or envisions a rev~;"sal and the eradication of social inequality based on sex and the very abolition of the . of the terms of oppression, denyirig:.'the :;11 social significance of race, nation and legitimate national rights of the Hebrew­ ethnicity. For the first time mankind will by the regime are too deep, tfie'disposses­ exploiters and for an internationalist per­ speaking people. The Arab natiopalists grasp the reins of history and control its sion and violence against tli¢~Tamils too spective, looking in the first instance to and Islamists look to a "holy war" of the own creation, society, resulting in an profound, to offer a prospect of a lasting the powerful and growing working class Arab peoples against Zionist Isr-ael. undreamed-of emancipation of human peace between the peoples. Marxists fight to bring the class question potential, and a monumental forward across the Palk Strait in India. What we surge of civilization. Only then will it be As Marxists, we continue'to denounce wrote in Spartacist in the wake of the to the fore, to mobilize the proletariat of possible to realize the free development Sinhalese chauvinism and! 'defend the anti-Tamil pogroms 26 years ago remains the predominantly Muslim countrie& of of each individual as the condition for the rights of the Tamil people, Induding their true today: the Near East in struggle against their free development of alL" • right to a separate state. Bui the hard fact "Today Ceylon experiences the bitter fruit is that the eradication of national oppres­ of decades of betrayal and defeat in the sion and true social progresS for the peo­ class struggle. The early LSSP tradition

ples of Lanka and the region will come of defense of the Tamil masses was 'N, ' , A,", C C only when barbaric capitalist rule and the destroyed by the popular-frontist accom­ divisions inherited from imperialist domi­ modation of the Sinhalese 'left' to the nation are overturned through socialist communalist SLFP; today these parties Zionist·Blo.odbathin G'8za· revolution. It is crucial that the most are anathema to the Tamil liberation fighters, It is necessary to begin again in Defend the P,llestb,ianPeoplel • Israel Out of the Oce. Territories! advanced pro-working-class elements, the light of all experience since the British For·a ·$oQi'-;Ff¥Jeration of the Neal'"Ea$t"" Tamil and Sinhalese alike, draw the les­ departed .... sons of the present desperate pass. This "What is desperately needed is to further includes drawing the lessons of the the building of a Trotskyist party in Sri !~I~I.;rI""""~ betrayals of the once-Trotskyist Lanka Lanka, necessarily substantially based TransJatl'dfrom , !~\..,..l)~I..,.J.".n"..! t# Sarna Samaja Party (LSSP), which aban­ among the exploited Tamil masses. The Iiy:. ~I ~.Ill struggle for the national rights of the J..i' rt...- doned the interests of the proletariat and ! .&.. J~I J.r-u ~\pi .,ll),u .)1l1 'y-1.:r Tamil people is vital to forging such a the defense of the Tamil people when it '--IIV<...SI,,-.:.~li....a..Il....,...... r),.....JI.....J.>, ",L,I >':'),;..~IV,.),.o..olIJ'--.II:...... JJ.:....,..-r--JI..Oi ....r'--.J.)W'JI..OiI party. Lasting national and class justice entered the chauvinist SLFR government ;...... J.I ... ")',JL( ..... !"'"""));.,JJ-Ut..".~ for the Tamil working people will be ~)y~ J,Wi.,-" .L:.>l..oj.lo...... sJ,)....rJW1jS"L...,.. .."r--J'J"'.lJ..I"fl,/"' ...... ~Il-.,J...... $./ __ 1· .Ar--<' r· in 1964. secured through permanent revolution­ 1....-J'"W·,4... ?"',1,L...;t,....,Jo....J>,-y . ..,...... L. (T"},.r--<'fA "'...... ~I..J'_.;..I~P.... L~ ...... IJI. ".".-la-WI,..l.l1 .}l'r-l...J--I~'LJ..-ir-/~y)< ...... ;..;'<.... '~I)• .JI .... J,·;I,...,lI-'+".uJ rl,i.;"j;J-';.rtUo>~J,l'.r"'-';..l.o"'.L.o Above all, it is necessary to fight for rule by the workers and peasants-and a ...... <"\..'iI?"'...,...... 'J..F-.:...,.J' .... j.lU!I.,...)oil\,o ...... ft! ':'1.)1"';\..0' "w rlL<.;,.."JIr'"~I."...rJ1'"".f-'''' ...... -JI...... lI,t~ class independence from all wings of the socialist federation of South Asia." • ...-."'..0I.!II)L.,...!:.Lo.JJI-")Jj... i,..;-.-J. ...JI>, ...... ,i.fW

,. ,- {' L", I -----~~~,' _._. - :. I. Australasian , N.Y. SPARTACIST LEAG!.'~ P.o. BOX 3381 CHURCH ST. STATICIN NEW YORK, NY 1000a SPARTACIST '~ 112 - 267-1025 Defend the Tamil People! Army Bloodbath in Sri Lanka The following article, written by our on January 22 when troops bombed a least a quarter million Tamil civilians January 30, filling downtown streets for comrades from the Trotskyist League/ makeshift health center in Vallipunam, a are trapped in a small area of the north­ five hours on a weekday afternoon. Ligue trotskyste of Canada, 'section of village the government had declared to eastern jungle, without access to shelter, Another 50,000 marched in London the the International Communist League be in a "safe zone." The last functioning clean water or food. The government has next day. The government ofIndia's Tamil (Fourth Internationalist), is reprinted hospital in the area came under fire in banned relief agencies and the media Nadu state ordered the closure of all col­ from Workers Vanguard (No. 930, 13 early February, killing at least 12 and from the war zone and even threatened leges and student hostels to prevent a February), newspaper of the Spartacist forcing its evacuation. to expel reporters from CNN, Al J azeera threatened student strike in support of League/U.S. The army has driven the nationalist and the BBC from the country for airing Lankan Tamils. FEBRUARY 5-Many hundreds, per­ Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam video clips of the devastation. The Trotskyist LeaguelLigue trotskyste haps thousands, of Tamil civilians have (LTTE), which has been fighting for an The working class internationally must of Canada has joined protests against the been killed in a murderous offensive by independent Tamil state for the last three protest the murderous onslaught by massacre, distributing literature in soli­ the Sri Lankan army, whose aim is the decades, out of the northern Jaffna the Sri Lankan government and army! darity with the besieged Tamils and destruction of the Tamil mini-state in the Peninsula and from its last urban bases. Around the world, tens of thousands of putting forward our proletarian-revo­ North and East of the Indian Ocean Besieged by 50,000 soldiers backed by Tamils have taken to the streets in protest. lutionary perspective for national and island. At least 30 people were killed fighter jets and helicopter gunships, at Fifty thousand protested in Toronto on continued on page 10

u.s., Australian Imperialists Cheer On Israeli Terror in G·a·za Zionist ass urder

:t> Having slaughtered over 1,300 people 'U and sanctions against apartheid South and laid waste to wide swathes of Gaza, Africa in the 1980s. This campaign was on 18 January the Zionist rulers of Israel based on a claim that South African capi­ halted their savage three-week military talism could be fundamentally reformed offensive against this huge Palestinian through pressuring "democratic" imperia­ ghetto. Sporadic bombing and a strangu­ list powers like the U.S. and Australia to lation blockade continue, with Israel threat­ economically divest from South Africa. ening to renew the all-out offensive at At the time our organisation uniquely any time. The Spartacist League/Aus­ told the truth: that divestment was at best tralia, like other sections of the Interna­ an empty gesture; that if foreign com­ tional Communist League around the panies did withdraw substantial produc­ world, joined protests against the Zionist Palestinian tive assets this would hurt black workers bloodbath. Defending the Palestinians we woman weeps and weaken the powerful black union demanded troops and settlers out of all over dead movement; and most crucially, that it was the occupied territories and called for a relatives after obscene for purported leftists to look to socialist federation of the Near East. Here Israeli missile U.S. imperialism and its Australian junior strike in Gaza, in Australia we argued against illusions in 8 January. partner as a force for "democracy" any­ the ALP, raising a sign at the 18 January where in the world. Sydney rally which declared "Imperialist It was not this attempt to refurbish the Rudd Government: Enemy of Australian "democratic" credentials of the imperia­ Workers, Enemy of Palestinians." lists, but mass struggle by the black toil­ In contrast reformist groups appealed to ers of South Africa, particularly the the imperialist rulers. The Democratic powerful working class, that led to the Socialist Perspective-led Socialist Alliance dismantling of formal apartheid. More­ and their ex-comrades in the misnamed over this did not end the deep oppression Revolutionary Socialist Party called on Gillard, backed tbe onslaught, coldly An increasingly popular call-initiated of the black masses. Far from it! By the the Rudd government to condemn the declaring Hamas "have broken the cease­ by Palestinian organisations, pushed by early 1990s much of the white apartheid slaughter and break all ties with Israel. fire and engaged in an act of aggression liberals and supported by social-demo­ capitalist ruling class and their U.S. and Such calls can only build illusions in this against Israel. Israel has responded." Far cratic union tops, such as the Western British patrons had decided to enlist the junior imperialist ally of the U.S. As part from a proletarian perspective a key Australia branch of the Maritime Union, ANC in a power-sharing deal. A key fac­ of the U.S. alliance Australia is a staunch demand of pseudo-socialists such as and reformists-is for "boycott, divest­ tor in this was the counterrevolutionary supporter of the. Zionist state. Echoing Socialist Alternative (SAlt) is to call for a ment and sanctions" against Israel. This destruction of the Soviet Union, which U.S. Democratic Party President Obama, "democratic secular" Palestinian state, invokes the African National Congress had supported the ANC materially and then-acting Labor prime minister, Julia i.e., a capitalist Palestine. (ANC)-promoted campaign for divestment continued on page 8 Defend the Palestinian People! For a Socialist Federation of the Near East!

12 AUTUMN 2009