The Internationalist No. 42 January-February 2016 50¢ Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, Minneapolis… DemocratsFor Workers ActionAre the to BossesDefeat Barackof the Obama’s Racist Iraq/SyriaKiller Cops War

If 2014 was the Year of Mass Protest charged. And while Against Racist Cop Terror, 2015 was the there has been an up- Year of More Racist Cop Terror. After draw- tick in prosecutions Mobilize Labor-Black-Immigrant Power – ing up the annual balance sheet of official since then, with 24 murder in the United States, the bottom line last year compared to Only Workers Revolution Can Bring Justice! is 1,202 killed by the police, according to less than five a year the tally of killedbypolice.net. In 2014 the over the previous de- Ellen Moynihan / Gothamist body count was 1,108. And 2016? Still more cade (New York Times, racist cop terror, count on it. 30 December 2015), Well over a thousand people a year, killer cops are almost torn from family and friends, their lives never convicted. While cruelly snuffed out, their futures stolen by thousands of civilians a lawless armed force that kills with impu- were killed by police nity: the police. And those deaths are only from 2005 to 2014, the ones reported in the media. They don’t only eleven cops were even include the name of Sandra Bland, convicted of anything, found hanged in a Texas jail cell last July, according to the Wash- because a county coroner ruled it a suicide. ington Post (11 April We say Sandra Bland was lynched, as so 2015). many others have been as well, by a sys- The slaughter has tem of racist police terror. The name of that become so notorious system is American capitalism, founded on that there are now mul- chattel slavery and resting today on wage tiple lists of victims, up- slavery. Racial oppression is in its DNA. dated daily. In addition 2015 also underscored how the entire to killedbypolice.net, capitalist “justice system,” from top to bot- the second and most tom, works seamlessly to protect the kill- detailed accounting is ers. As the year drew to a close there was a The Counted, a project drumbeat of legal decisions in which cops of the London Guard- were not charged or not found guilty in the ian, which showed deaths of their unarmed black victims. On 1,138 killed by police December 16, a mistrial was declared in in 2015. A third com- the case of one of the Baltimore police of- pilation, at mappingpo- Demonstrators in New York City on December 28, the night it was announced that the ficers in the van where Freddie Gray was liceviolence.org, gave a Cleveland cop who murdered 12-year-old Tamir Rice would not be indicted for anything. killed last May. On December 21, a grand total of 1,152, while a jury hand-picked by a local judge and the fourth, by the Washington Post (with the can Americans make up one-third of those fully half the victims are racial/ethnic mi- district attorney in Waller County, Texas apparent intent of whitewashing the cops), killed by the police, and together with La- norities. Compare that to Britain, where failed to indict anyone for Sandra Bland’s showed a death toll of “only” 986. Afri- tinos, Asians or Native Americana victims, continued on page 6 death. And on December 28 a grand jury in Cleveland, led by the nose by a DA who Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of the Middle East! drip-fed the media with leaks favorable to the cop, brought no charges against the trigger-happy officer who gunned down Democrat Sanders Aboard the 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014. Although the outcomes produced consternation and outrage, they were no “War on Terror” Bandwagon surprise, since the ruling class depends on Following the November 13 Paris sions of the same (“no Syrian refugees in to keep interest alive in the Democratic Par- its badge-toting hired guns as capitalism’s attack and the December 2 rampage in my state,” they say). Meanwhile, Demo- ty “contest.” Hillary Clinton had that sewn first line of defense. And the police murder San Bernardino, California, both claimed crats debate how to escalate U.S. imperi- up long ago in the real primaries, the fund- machine grinds on, at a rate of over three by the Islamic State (I.S., also known as alist war in the Middle East, whether “no raising race, where she far outpaces Sand- victims a day. So despite constant protests ISIS), the Western world seems engulfed in fly zones,” U.S. troops or outsourcing the ers, mainly due to big money, the heavy hit- since the release of the dashcam video of an anti-terrorist frenzy. France’s “Social- ground war to “moderate” jihadis in Syria ters on Wall Street and in Hollywood. Now Chicago police killing Laquan McDonald ist” president François Hollande declares and the Saudi and other Arabian monar- it’s time to send a message to the voters, so over a year ago, on December 26 Chicago a perpetual state of emergency as police chists who have bankrolled and armed all the populist challenger is portrayed as “soft cops shot Quintonio LeGrier, 19, and Bet- kick in doors in immigrant neighborhoods the Islamist gangs. on terrorism.” In an article on the latest tie Jones, 54, a grandmother, as she opened while the fascist National Front surges Amid the “security” hysteria, the Democratic debate, the New York Times (20 the front door to let the police in. ahead in regional elections. In the United “mainstream” (i.e., big business) media December) wrote of Sanders: In the face of mass protests of tens of States, the presidential election campaign are beginning the process of writing off “His progressive political message, thousands who marched night after night has become an orgy of xenophobia and Democratic contender Bernard Sanders as so popular with liberals for much of 2015, in 2014 over the police murders of Eric militarism. As Donald Trump calls to ban an “outlier.” For quite a while, the Vermont now seems lost in a fog of fear. Americans Garner in New York and Mike Brown in all Muslim immigrants, his Republican ri- senator, who describes himself as a “demo- are more anxious about terrorism than in- Ferguson, Missouri, the cops were never vals and governors present soft-core ver- cratic socialist,” enjoyed good press in order continued on page 2 posed a year’s wait for family reunification. Rehan Khan / EPA Sanders... The government even placed ads in Leba- continued from page 1 nese papers saying how bad it was to immi- come inequality. They want the government grants. When that wasn’t enough, it stopped to target the Islamic State more than Wall trains at the German border to pull refugees Street executives and health insurers. All of off. Now the Danish parliament is debating this plays to Mrs. Clinton’s strengths – not a bill to seize refugees’ cash and valuables, only as a hawkish former secretary of state including jewelry (only excepting wedding but also as a savvy politician who follows the rings!). No wonder “Refugees are fleeing public mood.” Denmark, a Scandinavian ‘wonderland,’ en But for all the pundits’ supposed expertise masse” (Washington Post, 11 September). on what “Americans” think, based on polls So we have rampant anti-immigrant which reflect media-manufactured “public racism, aggressive imperialist militarism opinion,” Sanders is fully on board the and “welfare state” capitalism governed imperialist “war on terror” bandwagon. by right-wing parties in a small country Hillary Clinton is indeed a certified that (like Sanders’ Vermont) is largely eth- war hawk, her hands dripping with blood, nically homogeneous – hardly a “demo- from Iraq to Libya and Syria. She is cer- cratic socialist” model for the U.S. What tainly the candidate most likely to escalate Bernie Sanders is campaigning for in 2016 the U.S. war in the Middle East to a region- has even less to do with any notion of so- wide and even world war, far more danger- cialism, however devalued. We’re not the ous than a Donald Trump. Sanders’ sup- Trade unionists march in 2010 against Obama’s drone strikes that have killed only ones who’ve noticed. In an October posed “antiwar” credentials, however, are thousands in Pakistan. Bernie Sanders says he will continue to use drones . 25 PBS interview with Charlie Rose, chal- solely based on voting against the U.S. war munists we fight to smash imperialism by rental leave and high trade-union member- lenged about what was “socialist” about on Iraq as a “blunder,” akin to Obama’s op- international socialist revolution. ship. Sanders’ praise drew a complaint from his program, Sanders responded: Sanders supports Obama’s policies in Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen of position to George W. Bush’s “dumb war” “We got a really strong socialist senior the Middle East. He won’t rule out using Denmark’s Liberal Party that his country (which hasn’t stopped him from launching program, it’s called Social Security, “dumb and dumber” wars once in office). drones. Like Clinton, he wants to oust Syr- is “far from a socialist planned economy” how’s that? Social Security has come In fact, Sanders has a long history of sup- ian leader Bashar al-Assad, just later. He but rather a “market economy.” In fact, the a long way to lowering poverty among porting U.S. imperialist wars, and Zionist calls for an international coalition against governing “center-right” coalition rests on seniors since Roosevelt introduced it. Israel’s invasion of Gaza.1 As Hillary Clin- the Islamic State, but with the fighting done the support of the virulently anti-immigrant We got well over 50 million people who ton pointed out in the December 19 debate, “primarily by Muslim nations,” including Danish People’s Party (DFP). The so-called are on Social Security. Lyndon Johnson this self-proclaimed “democratic social- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Nordic “welfare state” (or “social state”), introduced a very strong socialist- ist” voted for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, his favorite, King Abdullah of Jordan. Yet erected under social-democratic govern- type program in the ’60s, it’s called and despite his criticism of Clinton’s pre- Abdullah is a puppet of the Israelis to keep ments, is nothing but capitalism with some Medicare. We have a beautiful national dilection as secretary of state for “regime the Palestinians caged, and the oil-rich more social programs, many of them now park system owned by the people of the change,” notably in Libya, he also voted Arabian monarchies are extreme Islamist being whittled down. United States. We have a postal service owned by the people. If you go to your for military action to oust Libyan strong- regimes which along with Erdoğan’s sup- In the Danish case in particular, this local library, if you call up the fire man Muammar Qaddafi. posedly “moderate” Islamist government is combined with aggressive imperial- department, it is owned by the people. In a November 19 policy speech on in Turkey have been financing and arming ist military policies abroad. Danish tanks all of the jihadi gangs in Syria, including participated in the 1994 war against Bos- So we have many socialist programs in “Democratic Socialism and Foreign Pol- the United States.” icy” at Georgetown University, Sanders the I.S. Unlike the capitalist Democrat nian Serbs, Danish F-16s bombed Serbia Only in the fevered imaginations of Tea emphatically declared that “the United Sanders, who uses slightly social-demo- in the 1999 U.S./NATO war, hundreds of Party reactionaries, Ayn Rand fanatics States must pursue policies to destroy the cratic rhetoric to disguise his imperialist Danish troops participated in the invasion and Wall Street moguls does any of this brutal and barbaric ISIS regime” and to politics, genuine socialists would seek to and occupation of Iraq from 2003 to 2007, have anything to do with socialism. When “prevent fanatical extremist ideologies overthrow all these Sunni autocrats who Danish warplanes played an outsize role in Sanders went on to rebuilding the crumbling from flourishing.” He cited as a model lord it over a population of downtrodden the NATO assault on Libya in 2011, and infrastructure, roads, rivers, etc., Rose the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Shiites and foreign-born workers without former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh responded, “That doesn’t require you to be (NATO), supposedly founded “in response rights, to eradicate the sectarian militias Rasmussen was head of NATO from 2009 a socialist” and said “I’m the first person to the fear of Soviet aggression,” as a “col- they back in Syria, and to drive their impe- to 2014. Denmark was part of the U.S./ trying to argue you away from the idea lective defense against a common enemy.” rialist overlords from the region. NATO occupation of Afghanistan from that you’re a socialist.” Later Sanders told He said, “We must create a new organi- start to finish, from late 2001 until it was “Welfare State” Capitalism another talk show host, Stephen Colbert, zation like NATO” to “combat the global formally ended in December 2014. A doc- in Denmark, “New Deal” that he prefers the label “progressive.” threat of terror.” But NATO was in fact the umentary film, Armadillo (2011), shows Liberalism in the U.S. spearhead of the anti-Soviet Cold War, and hostile Afghan villagers, children chanting In his Georgetown University speech by “we” he means U.S. imperialism, which In the first Democratic debate in Octo- “Go home!” at Danish soldiers on patrol Sanders ran through a list of the programs is far and away the most brutal, barbaric, ber, when questioned about calling himself and Danish soldiers executing wounded ascribed to Franklin D. Roosevelt in the murderous terrorist regime on the face of a “democratic socialist,” Sanders responded Taliban prisoners. In September 2014, the 1930s – social security, unemployment the planet. Sanders has been Cold War- that the U.S. “should look to countries like Social Democratic-led Danish government insurance, abolition of child labor, collec- rior since his student days in the virulently Denmark, like Sweden and Norway” as an sent a squadron of jets and 250 military tive bargaining, banking regulation, jobs anti-Communist Young People’s Socialist example. In particular, he is taken with Den- personnel to participate in the war against programs ,and concluded saying, “Almost League (YPSL). As internationalist com- mark, inviting the Danish ambassador to a the I.S. in Iraq. everything he proposed, almost every pro- 1 See “If Donkeys Could Fly: Bernie Sanders and speaking tour of Vermont and writing an In Denmark itself the welfare state for gram, every idea he introduced was called the Pressure Politics of the Opportunist Left,” article extolling the virtues of its free health citizens has been accompanied by harsh socialist.” Whereupon he winks, and the The Internationalist No. 40, Summer 2015. care and education, guaranteed income, pa- restrictions on immigration, and the rise of audience applauds. With a wink and a nod, anti-immigrant racism. In 2006, the furor “democratic socialist” Sanders is a New Visit the League for the Fourth International/ over anti-Muslim cartoons in a Danish pro- Deal Democrat. To disappointed liberals Internationalist Group on the Internet vincial paper sent shock waves around the who lament the rightward drift of the Dem- http://www.internationalist.org Middle East.2 Earlier this year, the Social ocratic Party that might sound like a “po- Democratic government tried to cut back on litical revolution,” but Roosevelt’s entire refugees from Syria by limiting residence program was intended to save capitalism The Internationalist for those fleeing wars to one year. The anti- from revolution … and to co-opt the left. A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism immigrant backlash brought a right-wing While labor struggles spread, the social- for the Reforging of the Fourth International coalition into office that has slashed social democratic and Stalinist reformists quickly Publication of the Internationalist Group, benefits for refugees by 50 percent and im- fell into line with FDR liberalism. Did that section of the League for the Fourth International 2 We wrote at the time: “The League for the end poverty, provide security and “eco- EDITORIAL BOARD: Jan Norden (editor), Fred Bergen, Mark Lazarus, Abram Negrete, Fourth International condemns the anti-Muslim nomic freedom” for the masses and put Marjorie Salzburg cartoons as a racist provocation against immi- people back to work? It did not. It was the The Internationalist (ISSN 1091-2843) is published bimonthly, skipping July-August, by Mundial grants and an attempt to whip up war frenzy, imperialist World War II that finally ended Publications, P.O. Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. while at the same time we oppose any censor- the Depression. Telephone: (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 E-mail: [email protected] ship by the bourgeois state.” See “Racist Anti- Subscriptions: US$10 for five issues. Muslim Provocations Trigger Storm of Islamic Any supporter of Bernie Sanders who No. 42 1162-M January-February 2016 Reaction,” in The Internationalist No. 23, seriously thinks he could win the nomina- April-May 2006. tion has a deep misunderstanding of the 2 The Internationalist The League of Pre-Squeezed Lemons Yesterday’s “Obama Socialists,” Today’s Bernie Boosters a flattering photo of Obama) on the cover

Build a Revolutionary Jim Cole/AP of its magazine, the International Socialist Review (see “The ‘Obama Socialists’,” The Workers Party! Internationalist No. 28, March-April 2009). Then, after Obama took office and presented Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign his first federal budget the ISO proclaimed: has nothing to do with winning people to “After 30 years of Republican ascendance socialism. It’s all about getting disaffected in Washington and the retreat of liberalism “progressives” and youth to vote Demo- at every turn, Obama’s willingness to draw cratic in 2016, and at most to nudge this the line and promise a fight for his priorities pillar of American capitalism in a slightly is a welcome blast of fresh air.” Obama’s more liberal direction. Sanders is well priorities included the biggest U.S. military aware of his role. In 2008, Barack Obama budget since World War II. won by feigning an antiwar stance in a Socialist Alternative likewise hailed country sick of the Iraq War, and by ex- Obama’s war budget as “a sharp break from citing large numbers of youth and African political policies during the last 30 years” Americans with the prospect of the first (Justice, March-April 2009). Nowadays, black president of this country founded on SAlt is all Bernie, all the time. Its other, slavery. Today after eight years of Obama’s implicitly pro-Democratic Party campaigns administration, governing on behalf of Wall like $15 Now which proposed to win a $15/ Street while continuing and escalating the hr. minimum wage by legislative and ballot U.S.’ endless war in the Middle East, that initiatives, have fallen by the wayside as it Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton yuk it up at December 19 Democratic can- brand is well past its sell-by date. Sanders pushes the populist Democrat. After an ini- didates debate. Opportunist leftists snuggle up to self-described democratic has noted that Republicans win when there tial pro-forma call to “persuade” Sanders to socialist Sanders. Buyer beware: vote “progressive” Bernie and you’ll get war- is low voter turnout, and in 2014 midterm run for president as an independent, which monger Hillary. But then, Sanders also supports imperialist “war on terror.” elections 80% of youth didn’t vote. So he had already rejected, and saying it was a he seeks to “reinvigorate democracy” by ty of war, poverty and racism. Others want ing to defend the USSR in the post-WWII “mistake” for him to run in the Democrat- pushing a liberal populist program spiced to go all the way with “Bernie,” hoping Cold War, labeling it “state capitalist.” ic primaries, SAlt dropped any pretended up with some “socialist” rhetoric and talk to pick up disappointed Sanderistas when SAlt is an offshoot of the Militant tendency scruples and has been busily participating in of a “political revolution” to attract them. he endorses “Hillary” after the charade of Ted Grant, who along with Cliffites and “People for Bernie,” “Labor for Bernie” and Some of Sanders’ earliest backers of primary elections. Genuine revolution- Shachtmanites (and most of the left) con- similar efforts, while mounting the Million are leftovers from the 2011 Occupy Wall ary Marxists and communists, in contrast, demned Soviet intervention in Afghanistan Student March as a pro-Sanders event. Now, Street movement, with its populist jibes warn against the Sanders swindle. in the 1980s. In contrast, authentic Trotsky- in time-honored opportunist fashion, it has at “the 1%.” (He goes them one better, at- The pseudo-socialists have had some ists hailed the Soviet army in Afghanistan formed a new front group for the campaign. tacking “the 1/10th of 1%.”) This includes practice at this con game already. Almost and, while calling for political revolution If the DSA has #WeNeedBernie, SAlt has the hip Marxoid Jacobin Magazine, whose all of today’s Bernie Boosters were, in one to oust the sellout Kremlin bureaucracy, set up #Movement4Bernie as its own whol- initiators came out of Cold War social de- way or another, “Obama Socialists” in 2008. intransigently defended the USSR and So- ly owned subsidiary to recruit out of. mocracy. On the other hand, the Vermont In the “all-in for Bernie” corner we have the viet bloc deformed workers states against A statement on the website of #M4B senator’s “color-blind” economic populism Communist (in name only) Party (CPUSA) imperialism and counterrevolution. calls to “Join the political revolution against has not attracted the tens and hundreds of and the Democratic (Party) Socialists of We have already commented on the the billionaire class,” in order to “help Ber- thousands of young people and others America (DSA). These star-spangled social pseudo-debate between SAlt and the ISO nie win in 2016, stop the right-wing Repub- who marched against racist police terror patriots almost always back the Democratic over how to sidle up to the populist Demo- licans and counter the Wall Street domi- in 2014.1 What Sanders has done is place presidential nominee no matter who it is. The cratic candidate (“Bernie Sanders and the nated Democratic Party establishment.” much of the socialist left in a quandary, as CPUSA, which in 2008 proclaimed “A New Pressure Politics of the Opportunist Left,” Similarly, it calls to “Challenge Clinton” reformists and opportunists dream of hav- Era Begins” over Obama’s election, now The Internationalist No. 40, Summer 2015). but “Stop the Republican Right.” It even ing an audience in big-time bourgeois poli- headlines: “Feeling the Bern: Bernie Sand- While SAlt has plunged ever deeper into the has a shout-out to “Many people [who] are tics. Some still want to maintain a pretense ers is hot in Los Angeles” (People’s World, Sanders campaign, the ISO continues to pi- excited about the prospect of having our of independence from the Democratic Par- 11 August). In turn, a DSA vice chairman ously wish that Sanders, the long-serving first woman President.” So just as Sanders was quoted in a front-page article in the Wall imperialist bourgeois politician, were “inde- carefully avoids labeling Clinton the candi- 1 See “Capitalism’s Racist Electoral Circus Is Back,” The Internationalist No. 41, September- Street Journal (11 December) hailing Sand- pendent.” This hasn’t stopped these Cliffite date of Wall Street, although she practically October 2015. ers, who has spoken at DSA conventions, as social democrats from gushing with enthusi- invited it in the first Democratic debate, So- “a gift from the gods.” The organ of finance asm over his campaign, with article after arti- cialist “Alternative” goes out of its way to nature of the Democratic Party. It’s not that capital quoted Sanders saying in an interview cle praising Sanders as a “breath of fresh air,” not attack the Democratic Party as such, and Sanders is in any way a threat to Ameri- that he supports “the strong entrepreneurial “a welcome departure from the mainstream,” certainly not to denounce it or call to break can capitalism. On the contrary, he is do- spirit that we have in this country,” that he is saying everyone “should welcome Sanders’ from this capitalist party. With its deliber- ing his very best to keep social discontent, not for government ownership of the means praise for ‘democratic socialism’ and his fre- ate silences and weasly formulations about of which there is plenty, corralled within of production, and only wants “to make cer- quent appeals to the virtues of Scandinavian “countering” and “challenging” the Demo- the bourgeois electoral arena and under tain that the wealth is much more equitably social democracy,” that “Bernie Sanders’ cratic “establishment,” SAlt is participating the thumb of this party beholden to Wall distributed than is currently the case.” call for political revolution is welcome,” etc. in Sanders’ campaign in the Democratic pri- Street and a pillar of U.S. imperialist domi- Of the social democrats who simulate We’ve seen this “breath of fresh air” stuff be- maries while cynically slithering around to nation of the world. His job is to lure the a degree of separation from the Democratic fore from the ISO … over Barack Obama. avoid saying so openly. disaffected back into the Democratic fold, Party (the DSA doesn’t even pretend), the When Obama, then a senator from Il- If anyone had any doubt on that score, to “sheepdog for the Democrats” round- most prominent are the International So- linois, started making waves with his high- the first initiative of this new “movement” ing up strays. Vote for “Bernie” and you cialist Organization (ISO) and Socialist Al- flown liberal rhetoric and denunciation of was to publicize a letter from SAlt’s “social- will get “Hillary” and the “Global War on ternative (SAlt). The DSA is a continuator Bush’s “dumb war” in Iraq, the ISO quickly ist” Seattle city council member Kshama Terror” (GWOT), which he also supports. of the “State Department socialists” whose sensed an opportunity. It showed up at a Sawant defending Sanders in a flap inside Revolutionary socialists, communists and chief ideologist was Max Shachtman, who February 2007 Obama rally in Chicago the Democratic Party over his campaign class-conscious working people must op- split from Trotskyism refusing to defend with a banner reading “Obama: Stand Up! sneaking a look at a Hillary Clinton cam- pose Democrats, Republicans and all capi- the Soviet Union in World War II claim- Cut the funding!” As past masters in op- paign voter database. The #Movement4Ber- talist parties in order to defeat imperialist ing it was “bureaucratic collectivist” (and portunism, they were soon repeating the nie is a get-rich-quick scheme, and SAlt aggression in the Middle East, and to build who later became a propagandist for U.S. Democratic candidate’s campaign slogans, has to move in a hurry, to make headway a revolutionary workers party to lead inter- imperialism). The ISO is an heir of Tony plastering “Yes We Can” and “The Politics among Sanders’ supporters before the Ber- national socialist revolution. n Cliff, who broke with Trotskyism refus- of Change or Politics as Usual” (along with continued on page 10 January-February 2016 3 Dossier: The Democratic Party and Racist killer cops Baltimore, Cleveland: “The System Is Rigged” When a Baltimore judge declared a told me they didn’t ex- hung jury in the proceedings against Wil- pect justice in Freddie liam Porter, the first of the police officers Gray’s death. They ex- to go on trial for the death of Freddie Gray pected disappointment. last April, hundreds of demonstrators gath- Passions, anger and ered, many questioning why there was no yearning for change conviction. “We want justice and we’re just that Ferguson sparked not going to get it,” said a protester with a are still real and strong. banner reading “It Stops With Cops.” He But not many were sur- added, “This just sets the stage for all the prised at the mistrial…. other trials” of the five cops also charged I saw that same sense in the case (Baltimore Sun, 17 December). of resigned defeat be- In fact, many “legal observers” expected fore and after the grand Porter to be acquitted since he faced the jury announcement in least serious charges and is black. Due to Ferguson. Even as ac- the mistrial, he may now be offered immu- tivism has grown over nity or a plea bargain to get his testimony [the] past year, many against the others. Or not. here and there have Porter was charged with failing to no faith in the justice call for medical help when Gray asked system’s treatment for it, and with not securing him with a of blacks” (New York seat belt, which meant that his body was Times, 17 December). Workers revolution will avenge Mike Brown (Ferguson), Freddie Gray (Baltimore), Tamir bounced around in the van that prosecutors “When are we Rice (Cleveland), Palestinians in Gaza and kidnapped and Ayotzinapa students in Mexico. said caused his death (although witnesses going to get justice?” asked a young woman is rigged” (D. Watkins, in City Paper [Bal- tors, and the working class which produces reported Freddie was already screaming at the Gilmore Homes public housing proj- timore], 22 December). There’s the “blue the fabulous wealth of the ruling class. in pain when cops tossed him in the van ect where Freddie was arrested. Baltimore wall of silence” from this uniformed mafia, The main left group active in Bal- handcuffed). Porter’s “defense” was that and its then police commissioner, Anthony and rules negotiated with the Fraternal Or- timore, Workers World Party (through he thought Gray was faking his injuries Batts, have been hailed by the Interim Re- der of Police blocking questioning of cops its Peoples Power Assembly), which has and that prisoners were rarely belted, even port of the President’s Task Force on 21st after an incident. There’s the “qualified made “indict, convict” its trademark slo- though that is required and police brass had Century Policing (March 2015), appointed immunity” of police from civil lawsuits, gan, has lately taken a more leftist tack, been on a campaign demanding it because by Obama in response to the Mike Brown even for negligence and gross negligence with an article on “Racist police violence of the high cost of court suits resulting and Eric Garner protests. Baltimore was the resulting in death.1 There is the grand jury & the need for socialist revolution” (Work- from the notorious “rough rides” given to model of “promotion of community trust” system controlled by prosecutors elected ers World, 14 January). The article quotes those arrested. The prosecution didn’t re- and overcoming “the role of policing in past or appointed according to the will of the Marx, Engels and Lenin, and says quite but this naked assertion of police power in and present injustice and discrimination.” FOP. There are the decisions of the Su- accurately that “the real aim of the police setting their own rules. Yet one month after that report came out preme Court permitting searches without is not to protect and serve but to terrorize And the minute the trial was over, the there was the Baltimore upheaval over the warrants, trespassing, entrapment and oth- and oppress the workers and oppressed as police began asserting that power on the police murder of Freddie Gray. Every one of er abuses. a class. And just as the police cannot be re- street. With a few dozen protesters gathered the bogus “reforms” recommended by liber- While leftists leading protests against formed, neither can the capitalist system.” outside the courthouse, they immediately als has been tried in Baltimore, and changed police murder have popularized the chant, But this comes right after, and flatly con- arrested activist leaders Kwame Rose and nothing. “Indict, convict, send the killer cops to tradicts, the WWP’s call for “disarming pastor Westley West for blocking the side- –Black mayor? Baltimore has it, and a jail,” that almost never occurs. And for a the police, which is part and parcel of the walk, and slammed a 16-year-old against a majority black city council. very simple reason: the job of the police overall demand for community control of glass door, with cops piling on top of him –Black police chief? Baltimore had it, is to “serve and protect” capital. The kill- the police.” (supposedly for using a bullhorn, although for years. ers in blue are there to defend the interests The idea that the capitalists and their he wasn’t, and even if he were, that’s no –Black police? Almost half the police of the exploiters against the exploited, and politicians would permit “the community” crime). The city has spent millions on new force is black. all those who have good reason to revolt. of working, poor and oppressed people to Their targets are first and foremost African control the cops – the hard core of the capi- police equipment since last spring, and dur- –Civilian review board? Baltimore has it. ing the trial it brought in state troopers and American, Latino and other oppressed sec- talist state apparatus – goes utterly against Now we had a trial with a black pros- riot police from all over the area along with the Marxist analysis of that state. Call- ecutor, a black judge, and a jury with sev- 1 Bearcats and other military vehicles, hold- See “Killer Cops, White Supremacists: Racist ing for it, as the WWP and other pseudo- en black jurors out of 12. And the result? Terror Stalks Black America,” The Internation- ing them at the ready in Druid Hill Park to socialist groups do, is promoting a deadly Zero. Why? Certainly “because the system alist No. 40, Summer 2015. strike at a moment’s notice in case of unrest. reformist illusion. The same goes for the Meanwhile, Baltimore paid $6.4 notion of “disarming the police” – much less in a country of 330 million people with million to the family of Freddie Gray to Gail Burton/AP settle civil claims. To the extent that loss some 310 million non-military firearms! of black lives matters to city rulers, it is Cleveland: Killer Cop Murders mainly the price they pay to settle legal is- sues, which they dismiss as a cost of do- Tamir Rice, 12, and Walks ing business, much as giant corporations Next up in the parade of racist injus- routinely violate environmental and safety tice was Cleveland. For months, even as laws and regulations and write off fines as a grand jury was deliberating in secret, a business expense. In this case the money Cuyahoga County district attorney Timo- is supposed to come from millions in an- thy McGinty had been leaking material ticipated awards, including a class action to the press seeking to exonerate Timo- against Wall Street banks. But the bankers thy Loehmann, the cop who gunned down are beginning to worry about the “soaring” 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014. cost of police misconduct cases, which for Lawyers for Tamir’s mother complained, the ten cities with the largest police depart- “We have never seen a prosecutor try so ments went from $168 million in 2010 to hard to lose a case” (New York Times, 24 $249 million in 2014 (Wall Street Journal, December). Sure enough, when the grand 16 July 2015). jury returned its verdict on December 28 Back in Freddie Gray’s neighborhood, it was not to indict killer cop Loehmann, journalist John Eligon tweeted about the re- So determined were Baltimore’s rulers to isolate protesters against police or his partner. Cleveland pastor Rev. Jawa- sponse to the mistrial, “People in Sandtown murder that they had Orioles play April 28 game before empty stadium. nza Colvin noted, “The fact that we are not

4 The Internationalist Dossier: The Democratic Party and Racist killer cops surprised is in and of itself an indictment of not informed of this goes way beyond used to justify the large majority of the lege” in the use of deadly force. Accord- the culture of the criminal justice system.” “miscommunication.” The cops radioed in more than 1,000 civilians killed by cops ing to the U.S. Supreme Court (Tennessee The decision provoked a wave of repu- that the black male was “maybe 20” years every year, it is worth going into briefly. v. Garner), a search or seizure by police diation. Millions had seen the surveillance old, rather than 12. An assistant prosecu- McGinty released a 74-page “final re- (including killing) is “reasonable,” if based video which showed the patrol car pulling tor said Rice “was big for his age and eas- port” on the killing of Tamir Rice, half of on “probable cause” of a “significant threat up right next to Tamir, the officer step- ily could have been mistaken for someone which is dedicated to arguing that “Police of death or serious physical injury.” So, un- ping out with gun drawn and immediately much older” (AP, 28 December). But he officers may not be criminally charged in like the general population, a cop just has shooting (“less than 2 seconds”). There was 5’7,” which even the coroner said was deadly force incidents unless their conduct to claim he felt he was “probably” threat- was no time to make three verbal warn- normal for a young adolescent. And since violates the Fourth Amendment” against ened and he can get away with murder. Lit- ings (as the police claimed), and if the cops when does being big for your age justify unreasonable search and seizure; that “[u] erally. As killer cop Loehmann did. really thought they faced a deadly threat getting shot? nder the Fourth Amendment, the tactics The system is rigged, deliberately. As they would never have gotten so close to It was a “perfect storm,” all right, not used by the officers prior to the use of we have noted previously, this has been Tamir. They then left their victim bleed- of “human error,” but of ingrained racism, deadly force cannot be the basis for find- true of all class societies since the appear- ing on the ground for over ten minutes as outright lies and a system set up to guar- ing the use of deadly force itself unreason- ance of the state, that apparatus of “special the life drained out of him. When Tamir’s antee that the murderous police would go able”; and that “[t]he incident conforms to bodies of armed men” (the military and po- sister ran to her brother they tackled her, free. You had an unstable cop who had the Cleveland Police Department Active lice, together with courts and prisons), as handcuffed her and threw her in the back been forced out of another police depart- Shooter policy,” which “calls for the first “an organization for the protection of the of the police cruiser. His mother was also ment for a “dangerous loss of composure” officers responding to a scene to quickly possessing class against the non-possess- prevented from coming to her child’s aid. during firearms training. You have a police engage and attempt to neutralize active ing class” (Friedrich Engels in The Origins In justifying the decision, which he department notorious for the use of “exces- shooters” in order to “prevent death or se- of the Family, Private Property and the spoon-fed to the jury, D.A. McGinty ar- sive force,” capable of shooting a child at rious harm to innocent persons.” State (1885). As Engels noted, the police gued that this was a “perfect storm of hu- point-blank range. You have a racist pros- Yet there was no one anywhere around are everywhere protected by “special de- man error, mistakes and miscommunica- ecutor’s office that will cover for this hei- where Tamir was sitting, threatening no crees, which invest them with a peculiar tions.” The fact that the initial caller said nous crime. And you have a legal doctrine one. The Cleveland PD policy amounts to sanctity and inviolability.” Result: there is that the gun was “probably fake” and the that permits it. a directive to “shoot to kill first, ask ques- no justice for the oppressed in the capital- person waving it was “probably a juve- Since that doctrine is applied univer- tions later.” And the reference to the Fourth ist courts, here or anywhere else. It will nile” and that the responding police were sally throughout the United States, and is Amendment encapsulates “police privi- take a socialist revolution to get it. n Minneapolis: “Cops and Klan Go Hand in Hand” In the early hours of Sunday, No- bor movement, as AFSCME Lo- vember 15, an unarmed black man, Jamar cal 3800, which represents cleri- Clark, 24, was shot in the head by police in cal workers at the University of JeffWheeler/Star Tribune north Minneapolis, Minnesota just a cou- Minnesota, and the SEIU Min- ple blocks from the 4th Precinct station. A nesota State Council passed res- crowd gathered at the scene screaming at olutions of solidarity with Black the cops. According to witnesses, Jamar Lives Matter demonstrators and was in handcuffs when he was shot. Police repudiating police attacks. at first denied he was cuffed, but the Minne- That Saturday, November apolis Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions 21, over 200 union members later said it was “still examining” the issue. from around the Twin Cit- Handcuffed or not, whatever the circum- ies gathered at the 4th Precinct stances of what authorities are calling his campsite where labor officials “altercation” with the police, Jamar Clark from the state Nurses Associa- is one more victim of murderous, racist tion, Letter Carriers, and others U.S. capitalist rule. Even in “progressive” including the vice president of Minneapolis, police murder unarmed black SEIU Healthcare MN and the men in plain view on the street. president of the St. Paul Federa- The next day protests led by Minneapo- tion of Teachers, spoke out. “It is lis Black Lives Matter marched through the our union’s duty to fight for our city. Family members reported that Jamar freedom … we have nothing to had been shot point-blank, right above the lose but our chains,” said CWA eye “execution-style.” An official of the lo- Local 7250 activist Alanna Gal- cal NAACP told the press that they had been loway to cheers and applause. Black residents of North Minneapolis demand answers from police at 4th Precinct saying for some time that “Minneapolis is But as protests continued, the on November 15 after Jamar Clark was shot by cops. just one bullet away from Ferguson. That police built a concrete barrier in front of The murderous attack did not deter conference with U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison bullet was fired last night.” The city has a the precinct. When racists began showing people waging a determined fight against denouncing “near-daily threats to burn history of police killings, 29 since 2000, 18 up, cops made “disparaging comments to racist injustice. The next day, November the precinct, kill our officers and to hurt of them of black people. Two-thirds of those those at the protests instead of taking the 24, protests swelled as thousands marched people.” The Star Tribune (1 December) arrested are African Americans, although threat seriously,” a BLM organizer said. on City Hall. Students and campus work- reported, “Hodges described the scene as they are only 20% of the population. Minne- Then late on November 23, four ers came from the UofM. Hundreds of one with protesters’ warming fires pollut- apolis was already one of six cities nation- masked fascists who had previously ha- high school students walked out at South- ing the air, makeshift barricades blocking wide in a Justice Department “pilot project” rassed the protests appeared and began west and Washburn high schools to join ambulances and snowplows, and outside to “improve community relations.” Feeling filming the camp. When a safety commit- the downtown march, defying the previous agitators committing violence with guns.” the heat, the mayor immediately called for a tee escorted them away after they refused day’s fascist attackers and drawing atten- Finally, at 4 a.m. on December 3, the city federal investigation. to remove the masks, the white suprema- tion to the de facto segregation of Min- brought in police and dump trucks and When Jamar died in the hospital two cist infiltrators began firing, shooting five neapolis public schools. By the end of the gave the Black Lives Matter protesters 15 days later after being taken off life support, protesters, all black men. A relative of Ja- day, three of the white supremacist attack- minutes to pack up and get out or be ar- enraged protesters besieged the police sta- mar Clark told the New York Times (25 No- ers were arrested. They had bragged in an rested (eight were). tion demanding that video footage from vember) that the police just “sat here and on-line video that they were headed to the Significantly, all of the politicians the shooting be released. Meanwhile, hun- watched.” When protesters asked why they protest, flashing a pistol and spewing racist involved are from the Democratic Farm- dreds streamed onto the nearby I-94 free- didn’t do anything, the police responded, insults, saying they were going to “make er-Labor Party (DFL), including Mayor way and shut it down for several hours; 51 “This is what you all wanted, right?” As the fire rise” and to “stay white.” Hodges, Rep. Ellison, Governor Mark were arrested. As people returned to the the would-be assassins fled, police at- Outrageously, and typically, the re- Dayton (of the Dayton/Target department spot where Jamar was shot, they set up an tacked the encampment with pepper spray. sponse of various politicians to the deadly store dynasty, married to a Rockefeller encampment saying they wouldn’t let the Here was proof positive: from the days of attack was to smear the protesters and in- heiress) and the rest. Although Minnesota issue go away. The police crackdown only Jim Crow to today, “cops and Klan go hand crease pressure to shut down the protest has turned to the right in recent decades, escalated tension. Protest spread to the la- in hand.” camp. Mayor Betsy Hodges held a press the DFL (a merger of the Democrats and January-February 2016 5 Dossier: The Democratic Party and Racist killer cops

the Farmer Labor Party), from which Hu- family members who had called bert Humphrey purged the Communists in 911 for help. The current police 1948, has a reputation of being on the lib- chief, Chief Janee Harteau, says eral wing of the Democratic Party nation- she fired officers who made rac-

ally. Yet here are the liberal Democrats lin- ist remarks in Green Bay. But SEIU ing up to defame anti-racist demonstrators, Fraternal Order of Police head defend the cops and then order police to re- Bob Kroll belches out this filth move the protesters, all the while claiming almost daily. to respect First Amendment rights to free Democrats and Republicans speech and assembly! will not and cannot put a stop Having maintained the protest camp to racist police terror because for 18 days in the face of freezing tempera- they depend on the guard dogs tures, fascist attack, and police threats and of capital to maintain “law and arrests, Black Lives Matter demonstrators order.” Some of these politicians refused to be intimidated. On December feign support to protests like 23, hundreds of BLM protesters converged Black Lives Matter in order to on the Mall of America in suburban Bloom- make sure they don’t get “out of ington, the largest mall in the country, to control” (i.e., threaten the domi- protest on one of the biggest shopping nation of United Healthcare, Tar- days of the year. While a judge refused to get, Best Buy, 3M, U.S. Bancorp, Union members came out to protest police murder of Jamal Clark, November 21. enjoin protesters from coming, the mall General Mills and other giant Labor must use its power to shut down the Twin Cities over racist cop terror. owners brought in an army of rent-a-cops corporations). And if protesters can’t be as- contingent in the May Day 2015 protests taken so many of our brothers and sisters and state police in riot gear to enforce their suaged by “I feel your pain” bromides, the marching under the banner, “Labor Against from us. “right as private property owners to pro- liberals call in the cops. It is important that Racist Police Murder.” (The CSWP is a We need to oust the bureaucrats, hibit demonstrations on our property.” The hundreds of trade unionists have come out tendency in Portland-area unions that is break with the Democrats and build a rev- evicted protesters then proceeded to the to protest the murder of Jamar Clark. In an- politically supported by the Internationalist olutionary workers party as a champion Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, where they other promising effort, young members of Group.) These are small examples of what of the oppressed, a party in which African faced a combined force of suburban police, the United Electrical Workers in Burlington, needs to be done, but they point in the right American, Latino, Asian, Native Ameri- managing to shut down access to Terminal Vermont organized a workers defense guard direction. The idea that justice could be can and immigrant workers play a lead- 1 and temporarily block the highway. to counter the Ku Klux Klan. But much obtained by pressuring the courts and capi- ing role. The task of this party is to finally Behind a liberal façade, Minneapo- more is needed. talist politicians to investigate, “reform” or sweep away the racist terrorists, in and lis has long had festering racism, and not It is necessary to mobilize the workers prosecute the racist police on which capital out of uniform, and finish the Civil War, just in the police.1* Longtime Northside movement to shut down the profit system. depends is a dangerous illusion. We must by achieving the revolutionary emancipa- residents remember Nelson Tycel, 17, shot And that requires, first of all, a fight to look to using our own class power to put an tion of today’s wage slaves from the tyr- in the back six times in 1990 while flee- break with the DFL and all bourgeois par- end to the bloody lynch law system that has anny of capital. n ing from the police. Terrance Franklin, 22, ties and politicians. was shot ten times in the back and back of Several leftist groups have been in- the head in 2013 because police said some- volved in the Minneapolis protests, includ- forces – a reflection of the fact that black one said he looked like someone involved ing Socialist Alternative (SAlt, whose can- Killer Cops... and brown men in particular are targeted in a burglary a week earlier. There were didate, Ty Moore, endorsed by the Green continued from page 1 as “suspects.” Even where this is proven 3 people were killed by police in 2015, 1 demonstrations then, too, and demands Party, narrowly lost a 2013 election for city in great detail, for example in the Depart- in 2014, 0 in 2013; or Germany, where 2 that police practices change, but noth- council), Freedom Road Socialist Organiza- ment of Justice investigation of Ferguson, were killed in 2015, 1 in 2014, 2 in 2013. ing did. Then there was Dominic Felder, tion, Socialist Action and Workers Interna- nothing changes. What is hardly ever men- Like the death penalty, the massive racist suffering from mental health issues, who tional League. All criticize the Democrats, tioned, however, is that the police have killing by U.S. police goes back to the very in 2006 was shot seven times in front of but fighting inside the unions to break the bosses, namely mayors and city councils, foundation of American capitalism on the chokehold of this party of big business over which in cities across the U.S. are almost * basis of slave labor. That bloody heritage Recently the local Fox TV posted a casting labor is another matter. SAlt, in particular, all Democrats. The federal government, continues to this day. call on its Facebook page for a “Caucasian Fe- limits itself to attacking the “Democratic which supplies local cops with huge arse- According to the Washington Post (26 male co-host For Luxury Product Placement… Party establishment,” since it is now fever- nals of heavy weapons, and controls the December), “the kind of incidents that have no visible tattoos, 5’8”or taller” on a weekly ishly campaigning for Bernie Sanders as he FBI, ICE and other police agencies, is also TV show titled Minnesota Nice – until they got ignited protests in many U.S. communities runs in the Democratic primary. These so- run by Democrats. a flood of critical comments, and took the post — most often, white police officers kill- cial democrats consider cops to be “work- From mayors Rahm Emanuel in Chi- down (CityPages, 5 January)! ing unarmed black men — represent less ers in uniform” and call for “community cago, Frank Jackson in Cleveland, Stepha- than 4 percent of fatal police shootings.” control of the police,” an illusion that flatly nie Rawlings-Blake in Baltimore and Bill Instead, “the great majority of people who contradicts the Marxist understanding of the de Blasio in New York City to Barack died at the hands of the police fit at least class nature of the state. Obama in the White House and his attor- one of three categories: they were wielding Instead of forlornly appealing for ney general Loretta Lynch, the political weapons, they were suicidal or mentally Democrat Obama’s federal government leaders who preside over the murderous troubled, or they ran when officers told to “investigate” the police – which every- police forces, and thus are responsible them to halt.” But contrary to the Fraternal one from Black Lives Matter organizers to for the racist killing spree, are almost all Order of the Police (FOP), running from union leaders to the mayor did, and which Democrats. Obama, meanwhile, is running the cops, as Mike Brown did in Ferguson, will at most produce only cosmetic chang- an international Murder, Inc., personally

Internationalist photo is not a crime: he might have (rightly) es – the unions must move beyond gestures signing off on drone strikes that have killed feared for his life. Nor is mental illness. As and bring out the economic and social thousands of civilians in Muslim countries. for “wielding a weapon,” by the Post’s cri- power of their tens of thousands of mem- It is the Democratic Party of racist repres- teria the pocket knife in the hand of Laquan bers to shut down the Twin Cities and pro- sion and imperialist war that is running the McDonald and toy guns like that held by tect the protests. As an example, last May country on behalf of Wall Street. But since Tamir Rice count as “weapons.” 1 International Longshore and Warehouse the Democrats’ partners in crime, the Re- The fact is that the police consider a Union Local 10 shut down San Francisco publicans, like to play hard cop, especially badge a license to kill with impunity, and Bay Area docks and marched on Oakland in this election year, much of the anti-racist the statistics bear them out. Since the kill- City Hall at the head of thousands demand- protest is directed at them. Racist state ter- ing goes on and on – and despite all the ing “Stop Police Terror.”21 ror has been a cornerstone of U.S. capital- cellphone videos, surveillance cameras On the same day, inspired by the Bay ism throughout, and it is this system that Members of CUNY Internationalist videos, dashcam and now bodycam record- Area action, Class Struggle Workers – must be shut down, by workers and the op- Clubs joined hundreds who marched ings, the killers are almost never punished Portland, Oregon organized a multi-union pressed mobilizing our class power, lead- in NYC on November 24 in solidarity – liberals now talk of better police “train- ing to socialist revolution. with Minneapolis protest over cop 1 See “May Day Oakland Port Shutdown ing.” But the police are doing exactly what As the Internationalist Group has in- murder of Jamar Clark which was Against Racist Cop Terror,” in The Internation- they are trained to do: shoot to kill. Viru- sisted from the start, only revolution can attacked by white supremacists alist No. 39, April-May 2015. lent racism is well-nigh universal in police bring justice! n 6 The Internationalist Overwhelming Vote Gains Union Recognition V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! B&H Workers in Big Win for Labor and Immigrant Rights Hundreds of immigrant warehouse

workers in Brooklyn, New York, won a Internationalist photo historic victory on November 4 when their year-long organizing campaign brought a landslide unionization vote at the nation- ally known B&H Photo Video professional supply firm. On October 11, 18 and No- vember 1, they had held spirited demon- strations outside the store on 34th Street in Manhattan. Now the decisive day had arrived. Well before sunrise on the 4th, workers gathered near the company’s warehouses at the Navy Yards and Ever- green Avenue. “Hoy vamos a ganar – we’re going to win today,” workers kept saying with a mixture of determination and jubilation as they had coffee and pastries brought by supporters and made sure everyone was showing up for the union certification election, held inside each of the two work- places. As the polls opened at 6:30 a.m., the workers marched in detachments to the voting sites, chanting “¿Qué queremos? ¡Unión! ¿Cuándo? ¡Ahora!” (What do we Some 250 warehouse workers fighting for a union and their supporters demonstrated in front of B&H Photo store want? Union! When do we want it? Now!) in Manhattan, October 18. Referring to solidarity action three days earlier when management threatened mass For activists in the workers movement and firings, they chanted: “What happened Thursday shows that we are not afraid.” On November 4, the B&H workers supporters of immigrant rights, it was a won union recognition by an overwhelming vote of 200 to 88. morning to remember. favor of the union had won by an over- celed. “We showed it can be done” workers dor” (Up with the workers, down with the “We’re going to get 200 votes,” vowed whelming 200 to 88, with approximately said. Above all, there was determination to exploiters), and “Unión, fuerza, solidari- organizer Mahoma López of the Laundry 80% participation. Inside, workers spread maintain their solid organization and unity, dad” (Union, power, solidarity), frequently Workers Center (LWC), reflecting the in- the word from department to department. which won the union recognition vote, in chanted in the demonstrations. tensive, systematic nature of the organizing Managers were downcast – “their heads the next battle: to win a union contract. Ar- The formal program of the evening campaign. López is the leader of the Hot were hanging,” several workers reported turo Archila, lead organizer for the USW, began with a recognition of the group of and Crusty bakery workers, whose success- – while some “congratulated” the workers told the workers, “This is your day, your elected area leaders that was a key factor ful 2012 unionization campaign inspired on their victory, in a mocking tone but also victory. Now you will determine the de- in the victory. Workers expressed apprecia- the B&H Photo warehouse workers’ drive, recognizing the indisputable fact. mands for the contract struggle.” tion for the role of the LWC in orienting the which has been spearheaded by the LWC to- As they gathered after work that eve- Two nights later, hundreds of work- struggle, as well as to the dedicated team of gether with the United Steelworkers (USW).1 ning, workers expressed pride at standing ers, their families, together with organizers lawyers, who played a key role in blocking Shortly after noon, as organizers and up successfully to a company that used and supporters, packed a Brooklyn social one company dirty trick after another, and supporters waited impatiently nearby for every trick in the anti-labor manual to try hall in a spirited celebration of this vic- to groups that supported the struggle. The the count, the news came – the vote in to intimidate, silence and wear them down. tory. Workers’ children chased balloons, fact that the United Steelworkers threw its support behind the workers struggle, 1 See “Victory to the B&H Photo Warehouse Two days before the vote, the company strobe lights flashed, the dance floor was Workers’ Struggle!”, 19 October, at www.inter- held a raffle and announced a party for the filled. T-shirts were silkscreened with the becoming their collective bargaining rep- nationalist.org/victorybhworkers1015.html. workers, but so few came that it was can- slogans “Arriba trabajador, abajo explota- continued on next page Internationalist photo Laundry Workers Center Laundry Workers

Workers at the Evergreen Ave. warehouse of B&H Photo in Brooklyn held On November 6, hundreds of B&H workers, their families and supporters solidarity demonstration October 15 immediately upon hearing that workers jammed into a Brooklyn social hall to celebrate winning a union. This historic at Navy Yard warehouse were threatened with mass firing. victory holds great promise for hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers. January-February 2016 7 Labor and All Defenders of Democratic and Women’s Rights: After Colorado Attack: DEFEND ABORTION CLINICS! On November 27, a gunman laid siege for the workers movement and to a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic op- defenders of women’s rights to posite a shopping mall in Colorado Springs, organize mass mobilization to Free Abortion On Demand! Colorado, killing three people including a defend the clinics, not just in police officer and wounding nine. At this Colorado but everywhere. Internationalist photo point, authorities have released little infor- Since the uproar this sum- mation about the killer other than his name, mer funded by ultra-rightist lob- and nothing about his ideology or affilia- bies over Planned Parenthood’s tions. But it is clear that this is a domestic provision of fetal material for terror attack that is part of the right-wing scientific research, there have assault on abortion rights that has been rag- been at least four cases of ar- ing across the country for months. This is son against Planned Parenthood the terrorist wing of the virulent campaign clinics in the last four months, to defund Planned Parenthood in action, in Washington, California, Il- the latest attempt to sabotage women’s linois and New Orleans. There most basic rights. are bills in at least eleven states Whether a fascist, a crazed religious to restrict the PP from providing fanatic, a deranged individual or whatever, health care to women, includ- the shooter targeted and entered the clinic, ing contraception, ultrasounds, where abortion providers have been hero- cancer screening and abortions. ically providing vital medical services for While Republicans have been women despite daily harassment by anti- leading the latest attacks, federal abortion bigots. According to reports, there funding of abortion services was Internationalist protesters at November 28 emergency demo in New York City are at least a dozen people a day outside banned as early as 1978 under following the murders at Colorado Springs abortion clinic. the facility seeking to intimidate women Democratic president Jimmy Carter. Thus the former National Abortion Rights abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller in as they arrive for appointments, with the Democrat Barack Obama says he is League is now just NARAL, Inc. and many Wichita, Kansas in June 2006: mobs sometimes swelling to 200-300 personally opposed to abortion, Hillary only call for women’s “right to choose.” “The Internationalist Group and League people. The attack underscores the need Clinton says she wants to make it “rare.” Against the frenzied “god squads” of anti- for the Fourth International stand for Now Obama says Colorado Springs attack abortion bullies, “right-to-life” killers and abortion that is legal, safe, free, and on showed the need for more gun control. their politician accomplices who carry demand. That is, if a woman, of what- Wrong! What the deadly assault on the out their dirty work in the legislatures and ever age, wants an abortion to prevent clinic made excruciatingly clear – as did courts, the Internationalist Group calls for an unwanted pregnancy, then she has the the attack by white supremacists who shot free abortion on demand! It is up to the right to have it. No politician, priest or police, or husband or boyfriend or par- five people two days earlier in Minneapo- woman and her medical provider to make ent or anyone else, should be able to lis, Minnesota at a protest camp demand- this decision, and no one else. force her to give birth. Period, end of ing justice for Jamal Clark, another black Tens of thousands of women die each story. Rather than looking to the state to year because of unsafe, botched abortions. youth gunned down by the police – is the protect abortion providers and their pa- need for defenders of women and all op- The right to abortion contained in the There tients, we call for class-struggle defense pressed groups to have adequate means have been hundreds of attacks on abortion of the clinics against the anti-abortion of protecting themselves, exercising their clinics over the years. Women’s access to ‘god squad’ thugs. We put forward this right to organized armed self-defense, and abortion services has been severely cut program in the United States, in Mexico, for mass clinic defense to sweep away the back, due to violent intimidation and right- Brazil, Algeria and throughout the world anti-abortion thugs. ist efforts to get state legislatures to enact as part of our program for women’s lib- While Democratic politicians join impossible restrictions. Today there are eration through socialist revolution.” the attack on women’s rights, even liberal twice as many fake abortion “counseling –“Defeat the Anti-Abortion Crusade,” women’s rights groups refused to frontally centers” that try to scare women into hav- The Internationalist No.23, April-May Class Struggle Workers – Portland oppose the rightist assault, refusing to pro- ing an unwanted child as there are actual 2006. See also “War on Abortion Rights is organizing unionists to protest a nounce the “A-word” (abortion) for fear abortion clinics. As we wrote in 2006, and Escalates,” The Internationalist No. 29, rally of anti-abortion bigots. of irking some reactionary constituency. again at the time of the last murder of an Summer 2009. n

spokesman Antonio told the crowd at the ers of immigrant rights. So, too, is remem- dríguez emphasized, the workers’ victory B&H Workers... November 6 celebration. “This is an exam- bering the lesson of struggles like Hot and required courage and hard work, “a year continued from page 7 ple for all immigrants, as well as U.S.-born Crusty, that “Jugar con reglas del patrón of organizing, and a lot of sacrifice.” This resentative, was cited as a key part of the workers,” he said. There are “half a million es segura perdición” (Playing by the boss- preparation, together with lessons the work- campaign. A high point of the evening was undocumented immigrants in New York es’ rules means you’re sure to lose). To ers drew from attempts over the years to re- the reading of a poem in Spanish by ware- City,” he noted. At least 150,000 Mexicans win, the workers must rely on their own sist the employers’ abuses, paid off big time. house worker Jorge Lora, who said in part: live here, overwhelmingly workers, to- class power, not on the institutions, media “The B&H workers have shown a level of “More than a year ago, on a date I don’t gether with “Ecuadorans, Guatemalans and and politicians of the capitalist system. organization, discipline and determination recall, a group of workers decided an Dominicans, as well as Africans, Haitians, that I have rarely seen over many decades empire had to fall. Subjected to mis- Chinese, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and so “¡Unión, fuerza, solidaridad!” in the workers movement,” a veteran labor treatment, disrespect and discrimination, many others of us who share a life of ex- A high-profile and lucrative business activist told The Internationalist. this group was made up of workers who ploitation with the black, Latin, Asian and known throughout the photo and video in- Three weeks before the vote to union- come from many nations.... It brought white workers born in this county.” dustry, behind the scenes B&H’s operation ize the B&H warehouses, the workers great satisfaction to see the union win... “We have to prepare for this example brings to mind the sweatshop labor and showed the power of their solidarity and now the fight to win a contract is about to spread,” he continued, and for the next callous disregard for workers’ safety that determination when managers and anti- to begin.... This struggle will continue.” phase of this fight. Winning a union is a led to the “uprising of the 20,000” garment union “consultants” threatened workers We noted previously how the victori- crucial first step. In the fight for a contract, workers – mainly Jewish and Italian immi- with mass firing at the Navy Yards location ous struggle at the Hot and Crusty bakery it will be essential to mobilize the indepen- grant women and girls – in New York City, in retaliation for refusing to sign anti-union in Manhattan inspired the one at B&H. dent power of the workers as a class, with two years before the infamous Triangle documents. On hearing of the employers’ Now the victory at B&H will inspire oth- active support from the rest of NYC labor Shirtwaist factory fire of 1911. provocation, workers at the Evergreen ers among the heavily immigrant working (transport, communications, construction, Facing a hard-line opponent in B&H Avenue warehouse immediately stopped class of New York, Internationalist Group education and other unionists) and defend- management, LWC organizer Rosanna Ro- work in a solidarity protest that knocked 8 The Internationalist Mobilize Union Power Against “Right-To-Work” Union-Busters As we go to press, the U.S. Supreme process of becoming ballot measures in Or- WHEREAS, the same forces backing legislation in Wisconsin; and Court is hearing a case, Friedrichs v. Cal- egon; and these union-busting laws such as Illinois WHEREAS, the power of our ifornia Teachers Association, threatening WHEREAS, the Evergreen Freedom governor Bruce Rauner want to eliminate unions rests in our ability to use our eco- to eliminate the “agency shop” in public Foundation, a main sponsor of misnamed the minimum wage entirely rather than nomic strength in defense of our rights sector unions, where non-members pay a “right-to-work” initiatives in the Pacific raising it to a living wage; and as workers, and failure to use that power fee to the union which represents them in Northwest, financed by union-bashers WHEREAS, support for these mea- only emboldens the labor-haters; and negotiations with the employer. This repre- such as the Koch Brothers and Wal-Mart, sures in Oregon comes from big lumber, WHEREAS, we have had enough sents a dire threat to many unions, whose is pushing lawsuit against SEIU Local 503 including Freres Lumber Co. and Stimson of the one-sided class war waged by bureaucratic leadership is incapable of which represents over 20,000 home care Lumber Co. and right-wing politicians profit-greedy bosses, defying the capitalist state (and is politi- workers in Oregon; and such as Washington County Attorney, Jill THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, cally chained to the Democratic Party). WHEREAS, the unionization of the Gibson; and that this body expresses the determination In Oregon, class-struggle unionists largely minority home health care workers WHEREAS, workers in “right-to- of Oregon workers to whatever it takes to have defiantly confronted the union-hat- in the state has raised their wages by more work” states earn substantially lower wag- defeat any such union-busting laws, includ- ers, defeating a threat of jail for protesting than two-thirds, as well as providing medi- es, have less employer-sponsored health ing using our right to strike to defend the a right-wing 2013 “right to work” meet- cal and health coverage; and insurance or pensions and significantly union shop; and be it further ing.1 This past October, they presented a WHEREAS, unionization has boost- higher workplace death rates due to weak- RESOLVED, that we urge Oregon motion to the 2015 Oregon AFL-CIO con- ed the wages and job security of all work- ened union protections; and and Washington unions and their sup- vention calling to mobilize union power ers and particularly of African American, WHEREAS, the experience of Michi- porters to mobilize at “right-to-work” against this existential threat. The resolu- Latino, Native American and immigrant gan, where anti-union forces pushed through events with rallies, marches and other tion had been adopted by IUPAT Local 10 workers; and “right-to-work” laws with a stealth campaign means to expose the drive by cutthroat and IATSE Local 28 in Portland. WHEREAS, the anti-labor ballot while organized labor did little to stop them, employers to drive our wages to the bot- Although the bureaucrats nixed it, measures are designed to undermine and shows the danger of complacency; and tom while they make billions in profits preferring their non-strategy of lobby- financially ruin public sector unions which WHEREAS, backroom deals with from our labor; and be it further ing legislators, the resolution points to are vital to the welfare and living standards legislators and state officials will not stop a RESOLVED, that area unions the only way to bust the union-busters, of all workers; and determined employer offensive; and should prepare a major region-wide stop- through sharp class struggle. The text of WHEREAS, ballot measures in Or- WHEREAS, the union-bashing of- work action against this effort to impov- the resolution is printed below. egon are part of a national campaign by fensive that began even before the 1981 erish workers by using the courts and the corporations and their political supporters PATCO air controllers strike, which many rest of their legal arsenal; and be it further WHEREAS, unions are required to destroy unions and wipe out the gains other unions failed to support, shows that RESOLVED, that the Oregon AFL- by law to represent all employees in a won by organized labor; and a failure to fight has disastrous results; and CIO will encourage and support any af- bargaining unit, whether they are union WHEREAS, the U.S. Supreme Court WHEREAS, the powerful labor mo- filiated locals collecting dues from rep- members or not; and last July agreed to hear a case that could bilization in Wisconsin in 2011 demon- resented workers directly, in order to WHEREAS, at least two “right- eliminate “fair-share” fees paid to public strated that the public will enthusiastically stymie employer attempts to cripple la- to-work” initiatives, allowing workers sector unions, in effect creating a national back unions when they fight, despite anti- bor financially; and be it finally in unionized public sector jobs to avoid “right-to-work” law by judicial fiat; and labor media campaigns; and RESOLVED, that in defending union paying for their representation, are in the WHEREAS, Wisconsin governor WHEREAS, the failure of Wisconsin independence from the bosses and standing Scott Walker, after eliminating collective 1 See “Defend Wyatt McMinn, Defeat ‘Right unions to call a state-wide strike at the cru- together in defense of all those threatened to Slave’!” in The Internationalist No. 13, bargaining rights for public sector workers cial moment, even after preparing for one, by the employers’ assault, WE HAVE January-February 2014; and “Wyatt McMinn in 2011 and now ramming through a state led to a devastating defeat while the strategy THE POWER TO DEFEAT THE WAR Not Guilty!” (June 2014) at www.internation- “right-to-work” law, is campaigning for of a “recall” and voter turnout campaigns ON WORKERS, BUT WE MUST USE alist.org. such a law nationally; and predictably failed to repeal “right-to-work” THAT POWER OR LOSE IT. n

“On Thursday we showed that we are not University of New York students brought Workers’ consciousness and organiza- afraid!” and “¡Unión, fuerza, solidari- to the protests and support activities by tion will continue to be crucial in the fight dad!” (Union, power, solidarity). the CUNY Internationalist Clubs, the ex- to win a union contract entailing significant Workers whose voice and individuality perience has been “an incredible learning advances for the workers at a company is smothered in the daily grind of exploita- experience,” as one young woman activist where “the warehouses seem like prisons.” tion – treated “like animals” by bosses who put it, “since the things we read and study Continuing and deepening ongoing work- saw them as little more than beasts of burden, about in the Marxist education circles come ers education activities will be crucial in as several put it – learned what they could do to life right there, and we’re part of it.” the coming period. It will also be vital to

Internationalist photo in the course of collective struggle “for our At the November 6 celebration, a the establish a women’s committee linked to dignity and our rights.” The struggle brought Internationalists and others joined in sing- the union (due to discriminatory company out enormous creativity, as workers painted ing two songs written by a comrade the hiring policies, all the warehouse workers their slogans on boxes to carry on high at the night before the historic vote for union- are men), to fully integrate workers’ wives protest marches. Workers raised and lowered ization. One chorus went, “Es la hora de and companions into the struggle in a situ- boxes and signs as they chanted “Arriba tra- decisiones, los obreros no somos reos, los ation where this question can be key to bajador, abajo explotador.” almacenes no son prisiones” (“It’s the deci- victory or defeat, as shown in many class Another heart-felt chant was “Uno, sive hour, workers are not prisoners, ware- battles of the past. dos, tres, queremos nuestros breaks” (One, houses are not prisons”). Another mocked Through their intensive campaign over CUNY Internationalist Clubs actively two three, we want our breaks). Many had the bosses’ raffle, vowing “we won’t let the past year and resulting union victory, supported B&H unionization struggle. been working 58 hours a week, or more, ourselves be bought by the bosses’ tricks.” B&H workers can help spark and lead strug- the bosses for a loop, forcing them to re- with only a short pause for lunch. In the Nationally, there has been a lot of me- gles of the entire working class in the New tract the firing threats and “apologize” for November 1 rally in front of the B&H store dia attention to protests and “strikes” at York area. New organizers are emerging in their “mistake.” on November 1 there was a symbolic vote. notorious low-wage companies, including the course of the fight. The enormous poten- Having signed up the notorious Jack- When casting his ballot, each declared his fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and tial for an offensive against intolerable in- son Lewis “union-prevention” firm, the reason for voting “yes” to unionization: Walmart. But in fact, very few workers in equality, discrimination and racist repression company continued to follow the anti- “safety on the job,” “no more discrimina- those shops actually strike, fearing they requires a class-struggle leadership equal to union playbook, but each play fell flat as tion,” “better pay,” “respect,” “dignity,” would immediately be fired, and these are the task, committed to taking the struggle of the workers confirmed that organizers’ “for my children” and “I am voting for the run by union bureaucrats as media events, the working class through to victory over this predictions of the company’s tricks were future” were among the many responses. often to showcase Democratic Party politi- entire capitalist system of merciless exploita- coming true one after another. Workers In this union town, the B&H ware- cians. A real attempt to unionize low-wage tion. The B&H Photo workers’ victory will answered the owners’ attempt at intimida- house workers’ outspoken courage sparked workers requires a sustained organizing ef- be an inspiration and an example to all who tion with a large and spirited march on the support from many quarters. More than a fort to mobilize the rank-and-file indepen- seek to make that happen. company’s midtown Manhattan store three thousand photographers and artists signed dent of the bosses’ parties. This is what the ¡Luchar, vencer, obreros al poder! days after the mass firing threat, chanting: a petition backing their cause. For City victories at Hot and Crusty and B&H show. (Fight, win, workers to power!) January-February 2016 9 ers & the Labor Movement,” Socialist Ac- Bernie Boosters... tion, 5 September 2015). Yet to avoid the continued from page 3 common fate of such movements of be- nie bandwagon runs out of gas a few months ing co-opted, sucked into the Democratic from now, at the latest by the Democratic Party and defeated, it is crucial to directly convention when Sanders throws his sup- oppose the Democrats and to oust the pro- port behind Clinton. It’s hardly a new tactic, capitalist bureaucrats in a struggle to build but it marks the formal entry of SAlt into a revolutionary workers party. the Democratic Party. From having its sup- The DSA, ISO, SAlt, FSP and SA are porters participate in Sanders’ campaign, virtually indistinguishable varieties of what it has graduated to building that campaign they call “democratic socialism” (the adjec- as an organization. Whether M4B says it in tive being a promise to the bourgeoisie, lib- so many words or not, that fact is that the erals in particular, that they are definitely not necessary first step to “help Bernie win in communists). Another neck of the reformist 2016” is getting people to vote for him in marshland is populated by a Stalinoid strain, the upcoming Democratic primaries. heirs of the late Sam Marcy, who broke with Socialist Alternative has class collabo- Trotskyism to embrace Chinese Maoism. ration written in its DNA, it’s at the heart Following a 2004 split over non-program- of reformist social democracy. An outfit matic issues, the Marcyites are divided into that considers cops to be workers, SAlt is the Workers World Party (WWP) and its willfully blind to the class line separating offshoot, the Party for Socialism and Liber- the working class and the capitalist class, ation (PSL). PSL vice presidential candidate Black Lives Matter activists seize the stage from Democrat Bernie Sanders pitting the proletariat against the bour- Gloria La Riva told Bloomberg Politics, “I at August 8 Seattle campaign rally. Sanders’ “color-blind” economic populism is no answer to racial oppression, while Democrats preside over geoisie. Its entry into Democratic Party don’t think he [Sanders] is a socialist. He racist police terror in cities from coast to coast and nationally. politics is a fundamental betrayal of any ignores socialist countries,” by which she fight for working-class independence, the means the Stalinist-ruled bureaucratically PSL runs on. And, given the “surprising Making “Socialism” cornerstone of Marxist politics. As Karl deformed workers states. But it seems that popularity” of his campaign, Becker Respectable Is Not Preparing lectures those “very militant and radical Marx underscored in his 21 September they’re “feeling the Bern” anyway. An ex- Socialist Revolution 1871 address to the International Working tensive article by PSL leader Brian Becker young people” (including PSL youth, The WWP and PSL Marcyites iden- Men’s Association, “Our politics must be responds to “confusion” on the left about perhaps?) to make nice with Sanders tify socialism with Stalinist regimes like working-class politics. The workers’ party how to deal with “the sudden popularity supporters and pressure them to pressure Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Genuine revolutionary must never be the tagtail of any bourgeois of the self-proclaimed democratic-socialist him to run as an independent – the same Marxists (Trotskyists) defend those bureau- Bernie Sanders.” line as the social democrats. party; it must be independent and have its cratically deformed workers states against In contrast to “some radical socialists” But the power of positive thinking won’t goal and its own policy.” In the Sanders imperialism and counterrevolution. At the who have emphasized “how ‘bad’ Sanders is turn Sanders into his opposite: in addition to campaign, SAlt is going beyond its usual same time we insist that they cannot lead to on some issues, or that he is not a ‘real so- being a capitalist politician and supporting tailing after the capitalist Democrats to di- genuine socialism without a proletarian po- cialist’,” Becker argues to focus on “the vast imperialist war, what he stands for is coun- rect participation. In doing so, it is feeding litical revolution to oust the narrow nation- opportunity created by the explosive growth terposed to socialism. Instead of pandering and even creating illusions that the cause alist bureaucracy, establish soviet democra- and surprising popularity of the Sanders to his popularity, these are some of the hard of “socialism,” or at least its caricature of cy and extend the revolution internationally campaign.” He writes that, “even the most truths that must be told to those with illusions it, can be advanced through struggle within to the imperialist centers. The ISO, SAlt and moderate socialists have been forced to swim in the Democratic Party “socialist.” this bourgeois-imperialist party. sundry other social democrats, on the other in a very small pond” for the past seven de- In 2008, Workers World trumpeted Various other denizens of the social- hand, see socialism as a “welfare state” writ cades since anti-communism became the “Millions in streets seal Obama victo- democratic swamp want a little more dis- large, with more extensive nationalizations U.S.’ “unofficial religion.” “Now the pond ry” while the PSL’s Liberation declared tance between Democrat Sanders and them- than in Sanders’ favored Scandinavian mod- has suddenly got bigger.” Becker goes on: Obama’s election “an occasion of historic selves, but despite some soft criticisms, el, but without socialist revolution to smash “Does it make any tactical sense, if you significance,” helpfully offering the new none take him on frontally. And no wonder, the capitalist ruling class and its state. Nei- want to truly popularize socialism with CEO of American capitalism “a clear pro- since the program he is running on differs ther Stalinism nor social democracy (and the millions of new Sanders support- gram focused on what the new adminis- little from the reformist pablum they rou- much less Sanders’ New Deal liberalism) ers who are supporting him precisely tration should do to meet the needs of the tinely dish out. An article by David Freed- represent socialism as envisioned by Marx, because they want change and see a working people; to fulfill the expectations lander on the Bloomberg Politics web site Engels, Lenin and Trotsky who fought for ‘socialist’ candidate as the vehicle for its campaign has created.” Not wanting to (13 October) quotes Steve Durham of the international socialist revolution to prepare change, that they are just really wasting spoil the party and turn people off, all crit- Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) saying of the way to a communist society. their time or worse? icisms were relegated to the inside pages Sanders, “He isn’t an anti-capitalist! He is The basic argument of the pseudo- “No, it does not make sense. Perhaps (see “The ‘Obama Socialists’”). Today the for reforming capitalism” (“Bernie Sanders socialist “Bernie boosters” of every de- it is a psychological fear by small fish WWP is taking a somewhat harder stance Isn’t Socialist Enough for Many Socialists,” who have been comfortably swimming nomination is that Sanders’ candidacy, even toward Sanders, no doubt partly for fac- 13 October). The FSP criticizes Socialist Al- in small ponds for so long that they fear though running in the Democratic Party tional advantage against its PSL rival. A ternative for its Berniemania, but writes that the scary waves and powerful currents of – that elephant’s graveyard “where social lead article titled “Sanders campaign has “If he chose to, Sanders has the momentum larger bodies of water or simply being movements go to die,” as one DSAer, of people asking: What is socialism?” com- and the numbers of supporters to break free swallowed up by the bigger fish. Or, in all people, accurately described it – opens a mented that many workers “are confused from the Democrats and contribute toward the case of some very militant and radical “discussion on what socialism is” and “pop- because his ideas do not seem fundamen- launching a formidable anti-capitalist party” young people who are unfamiliar with the ularizes socialism.” Besides, the platform tally different from those of others in the (Freedom Socialist, October 2015). Yet if crushing suppression of the socialist and he’s actually running on coincides pretty Democratic Party” (Workers World, 5 No- Sanders were running as an “independent,” communist left in the U.S., they are un- much with their own reformist minimum vember). A couple of weeks later, an article he would still be a bourgeois politician, de- derstandably turned off by and not seeing programs. Yet what Sanders is advocating on “Bernie Sanders and Cuban socialism” fending capitalism and imperialism. past Sanders’ liberalism…. is precisely what socialism isn’t. And what “We should argue that Bernie Sanders’ (titled more sharply on the WWP website The FSP proposes that various “social- he’s doing in the concrete is trying to rope program for guaranteed health care, col- “Why Bernie Sanders isn’t socialist: In de- ist groups … increase their impact in the people, particularly young people, into vot- lege education and other major reforms fense of revolutionary socialism”) says: electoral arena by joining together with a ing for the Democratic Party of racist police is what’s important and if Sanders is tru- common platform.” But the reformist com- “Sanders isn’t a socialist. Socialism terror and imperialist war, which is presid- ly serious about winning these reforms, must be defended from the misleading mon ground these social democrats share ing over the obscene enrichment of the capi- he should run as an independent…. If confines of the capitalist elections…. with each other (and with Sanders) is pre- talist class at the expense of poor and work- Sanders ran as an independent candidate “Sanders has been useful to the rul- cisely the illusion of reforming capitalism, ing people, which is deporting millions of for president, as a ‘democratic socialist,’ ing capitalist class, even though they as the bourgeois populist SYRIZA (Coali- he would receive the votes of millions of don’t reward him for this. His campaign immigrants, the party whose hold over labor tion of the Radical Left) party proposed people. That would be something really hooked the growing number of disaf- and minorities must be shattered on the road to do in Greece. It was an utter fiasco, for significant in creating a new political dy- fected workers back into the Democratic to socialist revolution. which Greek working people paid a heavy namic in the United States.” Party with his commentary on issues such Is Sanders “popularizing social- price. Socialist Action (SA), for its part, –“Socialist tactics and the Bernie as the lack of affordable health care and ism”? Not really. There has been a notable counsels leftists to sidestep the Sanders Sanders campaign” (Liberation, 19 the predominance of low-wage work…. change in popular attitudes toward social- campaign and keep on with antiwar, anti- October 2015) “The task at hand is to distinguish revo- ism in recent years, before most people had racist (Black Lives Matter), environmental The article praises Sanders’ reform lutionary socialism from Sanders’ poli- ever heard of Bernie Sanders. This is borne and women’s rights protests, with the aim proposals, not surprising since it overlaps tics so the two are never confused.” out even in rigged opinion surveys. When of building a “labor party” (“Bernie Sand- with the electoral reformist program the Indeed. So what is socialism? his candidacy was picking up steam, the 10 The Internationalist Gallup polling organization added a ques- United States. This would establish work- tion about whether respondents would vote ers rule, the “dictatorship of the proletari- for a socialist if their party ran one. The at,” to replace what we have now behind James P. Cannon on “Third Parties” media duly reported that socialist was the the façade of democracy, the dictatorship In 1948, a discussion took place in- situation, so that the old two-party most unpopular of all categories, that less of capital.2 As Marx wrote in the Critique side the then-Trotskyist Socialist Work- system will no longer suffice to serve people would vote for a socialist than for of the Gotha Program: ers Party (SWP) over how to respond to the needs of the American bourgeoisie. a Catholic, a woman, a black, a Hispanic, “Between capitalist and communist capitalist “third parties” when the Com- “The less it becomes possible to a Jew, a gay or lesbian, a Muslim or even society lies the period of the revolutionary munist Party launched the Progressive mobilize the workers’ votes for one or an atheist. But when you look at the stats, transformation of the one into the other. Party presidential campaign of Henry the other of these two old bourgeois what it showed was that 47% would vote Corresponding to this is also a political Wallace, who had been Franklin D. Roo- parties, the more impelling and for a socialist, and among young people transition period in which the state can be sevelt’s vice president. Some in the SWP powerful will become the urge of the workers to found a party of their own ages 18 to 29, nearly seven in ten would nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship wanted to support Wallace, a longtime or to seek a substitute for it. That mood vote for a socialist. A 2010 poll Gallup poll of the proletariat.” liberal Democratic politician. Before of the workers will create a condition reported that 36% of Americans viewed Social democrats would have you be- Sam Marcy split from the SWP in the late wherein American capitalism will lieve that by enacting a number of social 1950s to embrace Mao Zedong and prior socialism favorably, and a 2011 Pew poll objectively require a pseudo-radical reforms (free education, free health care, to his support for the Kremlin crushing found young people favored socialism party to divert the workers from a over capitalism by 49% to 43%. throw in free public transportation and rent of the 1956 Hungarian workers uprising, control), nationalizing banks, utilities, ma- party of their own…. So things have changed somewhat an incipient political revolution, the 1953 jor industry and commerce (call it “public “Next time, the role played by from the past when calling someone a so- founding document of Marcy’s proto- ownership” to make it more palatable), add [Democratic president Franklin D.] cialist was a drop dead swear word. This is Stalinist tendency argued for “critical sup- a dash of “participatory democracy” and Roosevelt—which was a role of primarily the result of the economic crisis port” to Wallace on the grounds that it was salvation for American capitalism— – presto! – you have “socialism.” Simple, of 2007-08 and the ongoing depression, a “progressive-radical movement.” But will most likely require a new party. In and wrong. Won’t happen, the capitalists with its mass unemployment – disguised James P. Cannon, the founder of Ameri- the essence of the matter that is what will see to it. Look at Greece. The Stalinists by official statistics but acutely felt by can Trotskyism, speaking for the SWP Wallace’s party is. Wallace is the, as identify socialism with existing bureaucrat- youth who can’t find a job, no matter what. majority in the 1948 discussion, warned yet, unacknowledged, candidate for ic regimes, claiming it is possible to have Less and less people believe in the bogus against the danger of “lesser-evil” politics the role of diverting the workers’ socialism in a single country. Wrong again. “American Dream” of getting ahead by and laid out the reasons why Wallace and movement for independent political Not only does that contradict the Bolshevik working hard, since workers today make any candidate of a capitalist “third party” action into the channel of bourgeois program, its falsity was tragically proven less than what they earned four and a half had to be emphatically opposed while politics dressed up with radical by the counterrevolution that destroyed decades ago. It may also have to do with a fighting for a workers party: demagogy which costs nothing. That the Soviet degenerated workers state, and is what we have to say, and that’s reaction against a right wing which inces- “The traditional two-party system in is underscored by the mounting counter- what we have to fight—vigorously santly labels Obama a socialist (as well as a the United States has been very well revolutionary threat in Cuba and China. As and openly, and with no qualifications Kenyan, Muslim, etc.). What Sanders’ can- suited for normal times. The ruling Trotsky warned in The Revolution Betrayed capitalists couldn’t ask for anything at all. We have to be 100% anti- didacy is doing is not making “socialism” (1936) as he dissected the anti-Marxist dog- better than this system which absorbs Wallaceites. We have to stir up the more popular, but making it more respect- ma of building “socialism in one country”: shocks and grievances by shifting workers against this imposter, and able in polite bourgeois circles. But those “If a bourgeoisie cannot peacefully grow people from one bourgeois party to explain to them that they will never who really fight for socialist revolution into a socialist democracy, it is likewise another. But that system can blow up get a party of their own by accepting and for communism are never going to be true that a socialist state cannot peaceful- in time of crisis. The aggravation of substitutes.” respectable in bourgeois society. The rul- ly merge with a world capitalist system. the crisis which we all see ahead can –James P. Cannon, “On the 1948 ing class and their media will treat genuine On the historic order of the day stands shake up the whole American political Wallace Campaign” (February 1948) communists and revolutionary socialists as not the peaceful socialist development of their implacable enemies, which we are. ‘one country,’ but a long series of world ple’s Coalition for Peace and Justice anti- together on a common reformist program, Karl Marx in his writings on the 1871 disturbances: wars and revolutions.” war group supported a number of Demo- it could be called (paraphrasing Trotsky’s Paris Commune and his 1875 Critique of So how do we get from here to there, cratic Party “dove” candidates. In 1984, label for another unprincipled lash-up) as the Gotha Program, Friedrich Engels in from today when political power is monopo- the Marcyite WWP-led All-Peoples Con- the League of Pre-Squeezed Lemons. It The Origin of the Family, Private Property lized by the two partner parties of American gress backed the presidential bid of black shouldn’t be all that hard to oppose a some- and the State (1884) and V.I. Lenin in The capitalism to the direct fight for revolution? Democrat Jesse Jackson, and continued to what-popular bourgeois presidential candi- State and Revolution, written on the eve The key is to develop the class consciousness organize rallies for him long afterwards. In date. Relative to other tests that face those of, and as preparation for, the 1917 Bol- and political independence of the working 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Ralph Nader who would be proletarian revolutionaries, shevik Revolution in Russia, insisted that class from the bourgeoisie. The response of ran as an “independent” under different class opposition to the Democrat Bernie socialism is a society without classes, the reformist pretend socialists is instead to pro- party labels and was supported by several ought to be a no-brainer. Class-conscious lower stage of communism, in which the mote “third parties,” minor bourgeois parties of the groups chasing after Bernie Sanders workers and defenders of the oppressed state had “withered away.” This requires an like the Greens today, the Progressive parties today. As we wrote in an article on “Capi- won’t forget which “socialists” buckled un- abundance of material goods available to in the 1910s and ’20s, and Farmer-Labor par- talist Nader’s ‘Socialist’ Foot Soldiers” der the featherweight pressure of the Sand- all, which presupposes the development of ties in the ’20s and ’30s. Such parties act as (Revolution No. 2, October 2004): ers fad: such people are not serious. They socialized production at the highest techni- pressure groups on the major capitalist par- “The ISO and other reformists are fond of rounded up votes for the party of war in Iraq cal levels. To achieve that, a series of revo- ties, mainly the Democrats, and most disap- talking about an ‘alternative,’ appealing and Syria, for the party whose mayors are lutions are necessary, in at least several pear after having served their purpose as an to those who would like a more ‘progres- the bosses of the racist killer cops from coast advanced capitalist countries such as the escape valve to blow off the steam of popular sive’ leadership of the Democratic Party. to coast. They can’t be trusted, who knows discontent. This is what the left-wing Bernie Their role is to sucker young people back where they will turn in their next maneuver. boosters are aiming at when they beg him into the shell game of capitalist electoral The Internationalist Group, section of to go “independent.” That will do nothing politics. For Marxists, it is not a matter the League for the Fourth International, has to develop class consciousness and would of picking between ruling-class ‘lesser an opposite program. Our goal is workers in fact be a roadblock to revolution, just as evils,’ but building a revolutionary party revolution to clear the way for socialism. campaigning inside the Democratic Party for that tells the truth. The truth is that all This puts us in irreconcilable opposition to dissident “progressives” is. bourgeois politicians are our enemies…. Sanders the Democrat, and to Sanders the As mentioned earlier, “socialist” “Because of the class they represent, “independent” “socialist” who exists in the groups building political support and even ruling-class politicians of every stripe wishful thinking of the leftist Bernie boost- organizational vehicles to campaign for are the enemies of full citizenship ers. As internationalist communists we call dissident liberal and populist bourgeois rights for immigrants, of a genuine for a workers party that fights on the program politicians is nothing new. In the late 1960s fight for black liberation and women’s of class struggle against all forms of class col- and early 1970s, the Stalinist CP-led Peo- emancipation, of the struggle to defeat U.S. imperialism. For this reason they laboration. And what we have to say to work- 2 This was dramatically demonstrated by recent are the enemies of young people who ing people, African American, Latino, Asian, events in Greece. Despite the January 2015 elec- want to change the world instead of immigrant and other oppressed minorities, to tion victory of a bourgeois populist party, SYRIZA trying to find a place in the capitalist women and radicalizing youth is the same as (the Coalition of the Radical Left), on a program electoral circus as illusion-peddlers for the Trotskyist James P. Cannon said in 1948 of opposition to austerity, and a July 5 referendum Social democrats of all denomina- the bourgeoisie.” (see box, above): accept no substitutes. We in which over 60% voted against the vicious aus- Chasing after “progressive” capitalist tions unite to hail “political revolution” terity demands of the European central bankers need to oust the bureaucrats, break with the of Democrat Bernie Sanders. Above: and the International Monetary Fund, it was the politicians: it’s what opportunist pseudo- Democrats and build a party on the program Democratic Socialists of America. Be- bankers who prevailed. See “Greece: The Naked socialists do. And they do it time after time, of Lenin and Trotsky’s Bolsheviks. Anything low: Kshama Sawant, Socialist Alter- Rule of Finance Capital,” The Internationalist No. because it leads nowhere, and certainly not less is a diversion that will only prolong the native city council member in Seattle. 41, September-October 2015. to revolution. If they do ever manage to get bloody rule of capital. ■ January-February 2016 11 Imperialist War Engenders Islamist Terror After the Slaughter in Paris: Down with the State of Emergency, U.S./France Out of the Middle East! 19 NOVEMBER 2015 – The horrific at- around, after the No- tacks against civilians in six different lo- vember 13 attacks, the Christian Hartmann/Reuters cations in Paris on the night of November call by Prime Minister 13 were the long-expected blowback from Manuel Valls on the the imperialist terror bombing campaign parties to unite went no- in Iraq and Syria over the last 15 months. where. Nor were there The murders by the Islamic State (I.S.) in any marches, only war- the French capital, which killed over 130 mongering rhetoric and people and wounded more than 400, many repression. On the first of them still in critical condition, were an two days of the “state attack against working people everywhere. of emergency,” almost Such indiscriminate terror is fundamen- 300 raids were carried tally counterposed to a struggle against out by police without imperialism. It inevitably generates mass judicial authorization, chauvinism in the targeted population, put- jailing dozens and plac- ting Muslims and immigrants in particular ing over 100 people un- at risk, in France and elsewhere, and serv- der house arrest on the ing as an excuse to escalate imperialist war basis of suspicion of in the Middle East. Islamist militancy, but French president François Hollande no proof of any actions. immediately seized on the attacks to bomb While the Novem- Raqqa, Syria, the reputed capital of the I.S. ber 13 attacks were in- (also known as ISIS or ISIL). U.S. presi- discriminately directed dent Barack Obama vowed to intensify at the population as a the American air war in the region, whose whole, the I.S. itself death tolls far exceed the night of terror underscored their Is- in Paris. (Drone strikes okayed by Obama Police search resident during siege of Paris working-class suburb of Saint Denis, October 18. lamist4 character, aim- have killed over 3,800 people, including Iraq and Syria a year ago, we have called to seeking to mobilize workers in the streets ing them against “pagans” and infidels. A hundreds of civilians.) Meanwhile, the “Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of the against the government policies of war and majority of the victims were under 30, in- bourgeois government of “socialist” Hol- Middle East!”2 Imperialist war and occu- repression. It is moreover an urgent duty cluding many from the heavily immigrant lande has imposed a state of emergency pation have engendered Islamist terror, and of class-conscious workers to defend im- suburbs. The Islamic State has often struck in France cancelling constitutional guar- the response to the Paris attacks must be to migrants and refugees as well as the mil- at the civilian population in Syria and Iraq antees. He is demanding that parliament demand that the U.S. and France get out lions of people of immigrant origin under in the name of its religious jihad (holy extend it for three months (!) and that the of Iraq and Syria, as well as Afghanistan, police siege or facing racist and fascist war). In its statement claiming the attacks, constitution be amended to include a “state the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, where attacks, from the camps of Calais to the the I.S. said the attackers were “hoping to of crisis” which would prolong police-state since early 2013 Hollande has been wag- banlieues (working-class suburbs) outside be killed for Allah’s sake … in support of measures indefinitely, threatening the dem- ing a war against Islamist jihadis in Mali. Paris, Lyon, Marseille and other French His religion,” called Paris the “capital of ocratic rights of all. And just as it was an elementary duty cities, as well as in Germany and elsewhere prostitution and vice,” described the crowd Since the onset of the U.S.-led “war on to denounce the post-9/11 U.S.A. PATRI- in Europe. at the Bataclan music hall as “hundreds of terror,” launched immediately after the 11 OT Act as an assault on fundamental civil pagans gathered for a concert of prostitu- The War Comes Home September 2001 (9/11) attack on the NYC liberties, revolutionary Marxists in France tion and debauchery,” and rejoiced over the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the should oppose the state of emergency and For the second time in less than a deaths of the victims whom it called “cru- League for the Fourth International and the the “security at all costs” constitutional year, Paris was the scene of a massacre. saders.” Not even a pretense of striking at Internationalist Group/U.S. have called to amendment tooth and nail, including In January, there was the killing spree that the imperialist state. “defeat the U.S./NATO drive for war and began with the execution of the editor and Even so, the Paris attack was indeed, 2001), in The Internationalist No. 12, Fall 2001. 1 caricaturists of the satirical weekly Charlie repression.” Since Obama began bombing 2 See “For Workers Action to Defeat Barack as François Hollande told French legis- Hebdo and ended with the killing of Jew- 1 See “U.S. Whips Up Imperialist War Frenzy, Obama’s Iraq/Syria War,” The Internationalist lators, an “act of war” – Hollande’s war. Drives Toward Police State” (14 September No. 38, October-November 2014. ish customers at a kosher supermarket. In More specifically, it was what Pentagon response, the government called for “na- strategists call “asymmetric warfare,” in tional unity,” bringing over four million which the weaker side attacks “soft” tar- people into the streets to march behind gets – in this case civilians unable to de- capitalist heads of state against “terrorism” fend themselves. And the imperialist lead- while singing the French national anthem, ers knew it was coming the minute they La Marseillaise. This was accompanied by started bombing. The hundreds of casual- a wave of anti-Muslim attacks and gov- ties, dead and wounded, in Paris are the ernment denunciation of students in the “collateral damage” of the U.S.-led war on banlieues who dared to say “Je ne suis pas the Islamic State, only this time the wan- Charlie” (I’m not Charlie) due to the mag- 4 azine’s anti-Muslim and racist caricatures. Islamism, or political Islam, is a doctrine hold- In January, revolutionary internation- ing that Islamic law (sharia) should govern so- ciety. Thus for Islamists there is no separation alists, while upholding freedom of the of mosque and state. While there are different press in the face of this “grotesque terror Islamist currents, and sharp differences between Jean Marc Bourquin/Photothèque NPA attack,” also declared “we are not Charlie,” Islamists of the Sunni and Shia branches of Is- denounced chauvinist “national unity” and lam, all call for a theocratic regime in which French imperialism’s colonial wars, and religious doctrine and authority are supreme, called to defend immigrants.3 This time and thus are inherently anti-democratic. Jihadis or jihadists seek to impose Islamic rule through 3 See “Defend Muslims in Europe Against Rac- holy war (jihad) against infidels, apostates and Immigrants march from Place de la République, Paris, near where I.S. attackers ist ‘War on Terror’ Backlash!” (16 January 2015) all non-believers. struck, demanding “Housing, Documents: Respect the Rights of Refugees.” in The Internationalist No. 39, April-May 2015). continued on page 18 12 The Internationalist the Soviet degenerated workers state, de- All Sides Squalid in Syria/Iraq Sectarian Civil Wars – spite the sabotage of that defense by Sta- lin’s bureaucratic regime, but opposed both the German-led Axis and U.S.-led Al- Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of the Middle East! lies who were fighting over colonies, raw materials and imperialist hegemony rather than for “democracy.” A key component of this “coalition,” the Russian leader argued, would be “Mus- Flashpoint Syria: lim nations,” including the Islamist re- gimes of Shiite Iran and Iraq and Sunni Wahabist2 Saudi Arabia. To this end, Pu- tin met on October 10 with Saudi defense Russian Intervention and minister and deputy crown prince Moham- med bin Salman al-Saud where they agreed to cooperate in Syria, and on September Dmitri Vinogradov/RIA Novosti Dmitri Vinogradov/RIA Imperialist Aggression 21 with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his military chiefs to reas- sure them that Russia would safeguard the interests of the Zionist state. Against Pu- tin’s defense of these oppressive capitalist states, Trotskyists fight for workers revolu- tion to overthrow Zionist and Islamist rule, as well as Egypt’s military dictatorship and the authoritarian Syrian regime. At the U.N., Putin hailed the 1945 Yalta conference of the “anti-Hitler coali- tion” that he said gave rise to a “Yalta sys- tem” which supposedly “saved the world from large-scale upheavals.” In fact, Yalta demarcated Soviet and Western imperialist Russian fighter jets preparing for bombing mission at Latakia air base in Syria, October 1. spheres of influence, leading to the defeat tarting in late August, Russia as they did in Libya in 2011, NATO war- pressed peoples against imperialism, and of potential socialist revolutions at the end Slaunched a major intervention in planes would face Russian jets and air de- workers in the imperialist countries seek of the war in Greece, Italy, France and else- Syria aimed at shoring up the deteriorating fense systems. This would likely result in the defeat of “their own” bloody imperial- where. The “system” was soon replaced by military position of the regime of Bashar significant losses of aircraft and person- ist rulers through revolutionary struggle. the anti-Soviet “Cold War,” with imperial- al-Assad, under attack by a host of Islamist nel and could set off not just regional but At the same time, in the overlapping con- ist wars directed at the USSR and its allied militias backed by Western imperialists global war. Left-over Cold Warriors and flicts proletarian internationalists are for deformed workers states, as well as others and their Middle Eastern allies/flunkies as saber-rattling U.S. presidential candidates the defeat of all sides in the inter-ethnic deemed to be Soviet “proxies,” from Korea well as by the Islamic state (I.S.). Russian (including Hillary Clinton) are clamoring and sectarian-religious wars now ravaging in the 1950s to Vietnam in the 1960s and president Vladimir Putin’s move took the for action to counter Russia. Cooler heads Syria and Iraq, while upholding the right of early ’70s, and Afghanistan and Central Pentagon and other NATO war planners may prevail, but the chances for miscal- communal self-defense against a genocidal America in the ’80s, ultimately leading to by surprise, as did Russia’s lightning take- culation or accidents are enormous. And threat. This was clearly the case of Kurds counterrevolution in the Soviet bloc. over of Crimea last year in response to the don’t forget the Israelis. in Kobanê in late 2014-early 2015, and we Moreover, Russian spokesmen have imperialist-backed fascist/nationalist coup As Barack Obama bombs away in called to defend them against the advance called for the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA) in Ukraine. The Syria intervention is be- western Iraq and eastern Syria, now of the Islamic State, while warning of the backed by the U.S. and armed by the Saudi ing called “a geopolitical earthquake,” “a joined by France and possibly Britain, dangers of allying with imperialism. and Gulf monarchies, to join the “politi- huge, potentially decisive, turning point, revolutionaries and class-conscious work- While hard-line imperialist politicians cal process” and foresee (as does Assad) the most significant moment in global af- ers seek above all to drive the imperialists and right-wing media like Fox News hy- a coalition government with some of these fairs since the end of the cold war” (Guard- out of the Middle East. Every blow struck perventilate against “Russian aggression” reactionaries. Yet all the Syrian “rebel” ian, 6 October). against the NATO marauders, even by the in Ukraine and Syria, social-democratic militias, whether the Islamic State, the Coming as pressure was building to atavistic jihadis (holy warriors) of the pseudo-socialists rail against “Russian Al Qaeda franchisee (al-Nusra Front) and impose a NATO-enforced “no fly zone” I.S., is in the interests of the exploited and imperialism.” In reality Moscow’s moves other hard-line salafis (Ansar al Sharia), or and a Turkish-dominated “safe area” for oppressed. The “democratic” militarists have been defensive in nature against the the largely phantom FSA, seek to impose a Islamist “rebels” in northern Syria, Mos- are by far the biggest mass murderers (and threat of U.S./NATO encirclement. Post- theocratic regime of Islamic law (sharia), cow’s action qualitatively raised the costs exploiters and oppressors) on the planet. Soviet Russia is neither imperialist nor a posing a mortal threat to the working-class, of such imperialist aggression. Instead of But while geostrategically Putin’s move global superpower but an intermediate secular and religious/ethnic minority popu- having uncontested control of the skies, may stymie (for now) a direct imperialist capitalist country and regional power with lations. Putin could well strike a deal with assault on his imperial ambitions.1 At present Moscow Obama or his successor that would put the Syrian client, is intervening on the side of the Assad re- Alawite, Shiite, Druze, Christian and other it does not al- gime in the fratricidal civil war in which communities in Syria in grave danger. ter the nature the working class has no side, but should Washington now cynically claims that of the sec- U.S./NATO forces directly attack Russian Russian presence in Syria is creating more tarian civil or Syrian government forces, revolution- jihadis. The reality is that the very existence war, in which ary Marxists should be for the defense of of Al Qaeda and its offshoots, including the the victory Syria and Russian forces against imperial- I.S., is the direct result of U.S. imperialist of any side ist domination. domination and wars in the region: first in could lead to But ultimately the Kremlin is seeking Afghanistan in the 1980s when Washington

Internationalist photo slaughter or a prominent place for a resurgent Russia bankrolled Osama bin Laden and Islamist expulsion of in a “multi-polar” imperialist world order. mujahedin to fight Soviet and Afghan gov- the defeated In his September 28 address to the United ernment troops; then in Iraq from 2003 on, religious/eth- Nations General Assembly, Putin called for 2 The Wahabi sect of the Sunni branch of Islam nic groups. an “international coalition against terror- dominates Saudi Arabia and is sponsored by the As Lenin ism … similar to the anti-Hitler coalition” government in exchange for the sect’s support and the Bol- of World War II. The rhetoric of fighting for the Saudi monarchy. Wahabis are salafists sheviks in- “terrorism” only serves to justify imperial- who consider the practices of the first three gen- sisted in the ist domination while Marxists fight to drive erations of followers of Muhammad to be the first World the imperialists out of the Middle East. As model of an Islamic society. They are also tak- firi, who label all non-Sunni Muslims, includ- War, com- for WWII, Trotskyists militarily defended ing the tens of millions of Shiites, apostates and As Obama threatened to bomb Syria over false flag chemical munists un- 1 For a detailed analysis, see “The Bugbear of infidels. Osama bin Laden was a Wahabi, as are weapons attack, IG/LFI called to defend Syria against U.S. conditionally ‘Russian Imperialism’” The Internationalist the adherents of the Islamic State and many of imperialist attack. NYC protest, 7 September 2013. defend op- No. 40, Summer 2015. the so-called “moderate” rebels.

January-February 2016 13 where bin Laden’s Al Qaeda garnered sup- not only Alawites but other ethnic and reli- port from Sunnis under attack by the Shiite Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters gious minorities, saw the ostensibly secular regime installed by the U.S.; and now in regime as a protector against Sunni Islamic Syria, where the U.S. financed and armed fundamentalism. Even if Assad were forced hard-line Islamists through its Saudi allies out, the core of the state apparatus is unlike- to fight against the Assad regime, eventu- ly to give up, since they (rightly) fear that ally giving rise to the Frankenstein’s mon- the result would be a theocratic dictatorship ster of the Islamic State. and genocidal ethnic and sectarian “cleans- A secular, democratic Syria under bour- ing.” This base of support is why the Syrian geois rule is impossible, as it is throughout government hasn’t collapsed despite huge the Middle East and in semi-colonial coun- losses by its army. tries generally. Under imperialist domina- The Western public has been so brain- tion, the local ruling classes are so weak washed by the imperialist media that many that they cannot tolerate any semblance of haven’t a clue as to what is happening in democracy for the impoverished masses. Syria. While politicians and pundits talk Armed with Leon Trotsky’s perspective of of Assad “killing his own people” and of permanent revolution, Fourth Internation- endless massacres, they ignore the fact that alists fight for workers revolution leading body counts by pro-opposition outfits like all the oppressed throughout the region and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights extending to the imperialist centers. Key to admit that the largest number of those this are the millions-strong Egyptian and killed are Syrian Army soldiers (while especially Turkish proletariats, but also Is- Syrian government “barrel bombs”? No, U.S. “precision bombing” lays waste dead opposition fighters are counted as raeli workers breaking from the straitjacket to Kobanê, 18 October 2014. Drive the imperialists out of the Middle East! “civilians”). In denouncing Syrian use of of Zionism. Such a revolutionary socialist previously discounted the possibility of Once they had recovered from the crude barrel bombs, it’s never mentioned force would necessarily seek to obliterate Moscow entering the Syria imbroglio. The initial shock of the Russian interven- that this weapon was pioneered by the all the Islamist armed groups. Institute for the Study of War headlined tion, Western leaders demanded that it Israelis in 1948, then used by the United a Warning Intelligence Update “Russian must “stop” (lots of luck with that) and States in carpet-bombing Vietnam, and it is Imperialist Offensive Stymied Deployment to Syria: Putin’s Middle East predicted imminent or eventual disaster. just as indiscriminate as the unguided 500- While the Western media portray Rus- Game Changer” (17 September). It dawned Obama’s warning that the attempt to prop lb. bombs the U.S. dropped on Iraq. sian intervention as an expansionist offen- on them that, “The Russian mobilization up Assad “is just going to get them stuck Nor do the media report the constant sive by a demonic Vladimir Putin, it was may be aimed at precluding expanded U.S. in a quagmire and it won’t work” is main- indiscriminate firing of mortars into pro- actually in response to the escalation of im- action against the Assad regime,” which ly wishful thinking reflecting American government districts by Islamist militias in perialist intervention. The U.S. is not only the Institute has long advocated. A second fears. Others made outlandish claims that Damascus and Aleppo. And when Turkish bombing the Islamic State but also supply- update concluded that “It can compel the Putin was trying to achieve global stature legislators held a press conference on Oc- ing advanced TOW anti-tank missiles to Is- U.S. to accept a de facto combined coali- and bomb his way back into respectabil- tober 20 where they presented a local pros- lamist militias attacking the Syrian Army. tion with Russia, Syria, Iran and Lebanese ity, and to overcome economic sanctions ecutor’s indictment detailing how sarin gas In an article titled “Did U.S. weapons sup- Hezbollah” (“Putin Ushers in a New Era of over Ukraine which supposedly “wal- was procured in Turkey from the govern- plied to Syrian rebels draw Russia into the Global Geopolitics,” 27 September). loped the Russian economy” (New York ment MKE chemical corporation and de- conflict?” (Washington Post, 11 October), When the Pentagon first detected pre- Times, 23 October). But aside from stock livered to Islamist terrorists in Syria – thus the well-connected Post correspondent fab material to build barracks near Latakia, market speculators, Russia has barely felt corroborating Seymour Hersh’s charge Liz Sly (who like her counterpart Anne it hopefully opined that this would only a pinch from U.S./European Union sanc- that the September 2013 sarin attack that Barnard at the New York Times acts as a be for base defense of aircraft. When they tions, and as one analyst wrote: killed 1,300 people in a Damascus suburb conduit for Syrian “rebel” and CIA propa- saw 1970s vintage Sukhoi SU-24 and SU- “Russia didn’t launch this campaign for was in fact a false flag operation by the ganda) noted that TOW missiles delivered 25 fighters, mainly used in ground attack world power status. Nobody launches Turkish MIT intelligence agency to blame by covert U.S. programs were key in “driv- and close air support, they argued that Rus- an intervention in the Middle East, a the Assad government and thereby get the ing rebel gains in northwestern Syria”: sia was only sending outdated equipment. graveyard for military power, expecting U.S. to bomb Syria – this bombshell was “Supplied mostly from stocks owned But when the 1990s era SU-30, specialized an easy political victory, certainly not not deemed “fit to print” by the “free but by Saudi Arabia, delivered across the in air-to-air combat, turned up and “ac- after America’s experiences there. Nor responsible press.” does Moscow need a distraction from Turkish border and stamped with CIA cidentally” flew into Turkish air space, it In the government-held areas of Syria approval, the missiles were intended to was a clear message that Moscow could Ukraine, where its plans are coming together quite neatly, and a clear align- where 80% of the population lives, includ- fulfill another of the Obama administra- challenge any effort to impose a “no fly ment is emerging between the German, ing several million refugees from the fight- tion’s goals in Syria – Assad’s negotiated zone.” And when top-of-the-line SU-34 French and Russian positions on how to ing, there are reports of a warm welcome for exit from power. The plan, as described fighter-bombers, first deployed in 2014, by administration officials, was to exert close out the conflict.” the Russian intervention, seen as a lifesaver, blasted I.S. sites in Raqaa (and buzzed U.S. sufficient military pressure on Assad’s –“The Russian Intervention in Syria: including by many opposed to the regime. warplanes), it signaled that Russia was pre- forces to persuade him to compromise Policy Options and Exit Strategies,” War (The main complaint voiced is that it should – but not so much that his government pared to match any NATO escalation. on the Rocks, 21 October have come much earlier.) Those rare voices In addition, Russia launched Kalibr would precipitously collapse and leave a There’s no need to engage in Krem- in the bourgeois media welcoming Russian cruise missiles from corvettes in the Cas- dangerous power vacuum in Damascus. linology, Putin has been quite explicit intervention, such as British journalist Pat- pian Sea, flying 1,500 kilometers, making 3 “Instead, the Russian military intervened about what he is seeking: to prevent an rick Cockburn, seek a united imperialist a sharp right turn over Iran and passing to shore up the struggling Syrian army – implosion of the Syrian state as occurred war on the Islamic State. But it is these very over Iraq to hit Islamic State sites (report- an outcome that was not intended.” in Libya, and “positive results in military same imperialists who spawned the I.S. by edly within 3 meters of their targets). By The U.S. claims that the TOW missiles operations [which] will lay the base for fostering the Islamist gangs. And such a using these missiles, never before seen in were only distributed to “carefully vetted” then working out a long-term settlement “savage war for peace” would hardly bring combat, and releasing dramatic videos of Syrian militias. But accounts of the spring based on a political process that involves salvation to the millions who have suffered the pinpoint airstrikes, Putin was using offensive that dislodged government troops all political forces, ethnic and religious as Syria was laid waste. Syria as a proving ground while showcas- from northern cities make it clear that the groups.” To make sure that Assad was on What that would mean in practice, as ing Russia’s recent military technological anti-tank weapons were in the hands of the board with this program, Putin summoned Putin laid out at the U.N., is upholding the advances. He was effectively warning: recently formed Jaish al-Fatah (Army of the Syrian president to Moscow to say that sovereignty of all existing governments. “Don’t mess with Moscow.” But most wor- Conquest), an Islamist coalition dominated the goal was “reaching a political settle- That would condemn the 30 million Kurds risome of all to U.S. strategists: by the Nusra Front. It also includes “more ment” including “the entire nation.” In to remain the largest nation without a state; “Russia is not only bringing some of its short, achieve sufficient military stability it would mean supporting not only the au- moderate” FSA units funded and armed by most advanced hardware to the fight, it so that the Syrian regime isn’t negotiat- thoritarian Assad regime in Syria but also the the CIA, until they were cut off last De- has also deployed large field kitchens sectarian Shiite Islamist government of Iraq, cember after turning over their weapons to and even dancers and singers to enter- ing from weakness, and then bargain over the Al Qaeda affiliate. Meanwhile, Saudi tain the troops – all signs that Moscow a “transition” that Moscow already agreed the Zionist oppressors of the Palestinians, Arabia purchased some 14,000 of these is settling in for the long haul, American to in 2012. the murderous military dictatorship in Egypt weapons, which it has sent directly to the analysts said.” As for the demand that Bashar Assad and the Wahabi Sunni Islamist monarchy and Ahrar al-Sham jihadis. Since the Pentagon –New York Times, 15 October must go as a precondition, even the U.S. is various emirates and sheikdoms who hold requires “end user” certificates, U.S. ap- Who knows, maybe the hip Russian waffling on that. Washington seriously mis- sway on the Arabian peninsula. This defense proval is implicit. police chorus that wowed audiences at the judged Syria from the beginning, consider- 3 See Patrick Cockburn, “The Road to Peace for When the Russian build-up was first 2014 Sochi Olympics with their gyrating ing Assad an isolated dictator like Mubarak Syria Means War,” The Independent on Sunday, reported, various U.S. Middle East “ex- performance of “Get Lucky” will soon in Egypt and failing to appreciate that sig- 27 September, and “Let’s Welcome Russia’s perts” reacted with consternation, having arrive in Latakia. nificant sections of the Syrian population, Entry into Syria,” IoS, 4 October. 14 The Internationalist of the status quo is hardly in the interests of workers, peasants and peoples oppressed by those brutal capitalist regimes. As for the armed Islamists, neither Russia nor the U.S. would have any funda- mental problem in collaborating with these arch-reactionaries, as long as they play by the imperialist rules. Washington has a long history of promoting religious reac- tion, sponsoring the mujahedin forerunners of Al Qaeda against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and more recently (through their Saudi and Qatari proxies) financing and arming the I.S. and other jihadis against Assad in Syria. For its part, Moscow is quite sincerely offering to buy up the FSA merce- naries. As capitalism decays, it takes revolu- tionary communists to defend secular dem- ocratic principles against those who would subject everyone to the retrograde imagined dictates of their god. Putin proposes to “strengthen gov- ernment institutions” and “restore state- hood” in places like Libya via the United Nations, the fraudulent body that seeks to mask imperialist domination with the cloak of “international law” and which has presided over monstrous crimes, from the rape of Korea to the assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. The Russian president condemns “our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union exported so- cial experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences and caused degradation instead of prog- ress.” This distortion is an apology for the counterrevolution that destroyed the mul- tinational Soviet state that issued from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. In fact, under Stalin and his heirs, the Kremlin rulers far from “exporting social experiments” sought to block revolutions Washington has been arming Islamist gangs against the Syrian government for years. 2013 graphic documents more at every step in the name of the lie of build- than 3,500 tons in one year of U.S.-financed, CIA-organized arms deliveries from Saudi Arabia and Qatar via Turkey. ing “socialism in one country,” while under posedly “more moderate” groups linked to case of the Middle East can be traced back Aviv figure that a greatly weakened rump Lenin and Trotsky the Soviet republic sup- the Muslim Brotherhood. Also threatened to the 1996 policy paper, “A Clean Break: Sunni state under a pliant Sunni Arab ruler ported revolutionary struggles. Almost a are many Sunni Muslims in the cosmo- A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” might be easier to dominate militarily and hundred years later, Leninists and Trotsky- politan cities of what used to be the most This piece by U.S. “neoconservative” ideo- better able to control radical Islamists, ists fight to bring down all those regimes secular country in the Middle East. The logues led by Richard Perle , written for Is- while depriving Hezbollah in Lebanon that Putin would “strengthen,” as well as U.S. has consciously promoted the major- raeli prime minister Netanyahu, called for of its corridor to Iran. The smaller eth- his own semi-bonapartist rule in Moscow. ity Sunni religious opposition to the Assad ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It also ad- nic and religious communities would be And that requires above all uniting the regime, which has been based on various vocated “rolling back Syria” by “a redraw- out of luck. Already the various Christian working class and the oppressed in interna- minorities as well as the Sunni Muslim ing of the map of the Middle East which populations have lost many to emigration, tional socialist revolution to overthrow the bourgeoisie. In Iraq, Washington similarly would threaten Syria’s territorial integrity” most of them likely never to return, as Pat- imperialist club that Putin yearns to join. used Islamist sectors of the majority Shiite using “tribal alliances with Arab tribes that rick Cockburn testified after a visit to the That is the central task in Syria today. population, as well as the Kurds, against cross into Syrian territory and are hostile Assyrian region in eastern Syria (“Why to the Syrian ruling elite.” Although Netan- Syria’s Christians can never go home,” In- Syria Unraveling the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq based in the Sunni minority. yahu supposedly rejected the proposal, the dependent, 11 October). The same has oc- Meanwhile, Syria has been coming The imperialists also whipped up neocon Republicans and warmongering curred with the larger Christian, Yazidi and apart at the seams. While 60% of the popu- ethnic nationalism to dismember the fed- Democrats in the U.S. under the Bush and Turkoman communities in Iraq. lation (some 14 million) are Sunni Muslim eral republic of Yugoslavia in the wake of Obama administrations have carried it out. The Syrian Army has had to withdraw Arabs, there are numerous religious sects counterrevolution, and spurred national- And now the Israelis are getting into it. from some areas due to manpower losses, and remnants of peoples scattered around ist sentiment in the Baltics and Caucasus After years of harassing pro-Assad forces, as Assad himself said in a major speech last the country. In addition to 3 million or in their drive to destroy the Soviet Union striking military/intelligence targets alleg- July, leading to a growth of local defense so Alawites or Alawis (a syncretistic sect and restore capitalism. The result has been ing that they were aiding the Lebanese He- forces, many using the name “shield,” al- historically persecuted by Sunni rulers an orgy of ethnic, national and religious zbollah and quietly providing medical care lied to differing degrees with the regime, and considered pagans by salafis), there cleansing, including forced population for wounded Islamist “rebels,” Zionist war to protect against incursions by the Islamist are religious communities of Ismaili Shi- transfers and mass murder. As we have hawks are now aiming for “regime change” gangs. Thus a number of new Alawite mi- ites, Twelver Shiites, Maronite Christians, written, imperialist intervention from the and dividing Syria into ethnic statelets. A litias have arisen in the Western coastal Greek Orthodox Christians of Antioch Balkans to the Middle East has led to: “a paper by the Israeli Institute for National region and Druze militias in the Sweida and Melkite Greek Catholics, all Arab- massive escalation of inter-communal Security Studies, “Russia’s Involvement in province in the South. The latter was in speaking, as are upwards of 500,000 mem- and sectarian slaughter, as minority popu- Syria: A Strategic Opportunity for Israel” response to an offensive by the Islamic bers of the Druze ethno-religious group in lations are driven out everywhere. The (20 October) argues that “Israel must gear State and U.S.-armed Islamists in Sweida the South, There are (or were) 400,000+ multi-ethnic states resulting from artificial up for active efforts to topple Assad,” to and following a massacre of several dozen Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Syriac and boundaries are being homogenized with a produce “a strategic loss for Iran and Hiz- Druze villagers in Idlib province in the Chaldean Christians in the East, 200,000 vengeance, with the U.S. pushing the pro- bollah in the bleeding Syrian state.” A sec- North in early June by the Nusra Front, Turkomans and over 2 million Sunni Kurds cess in the name of ‘democracy’.”4 ond INSS text, “Farewell to Syria” (13 Oc- which accused them of blasphemy after in the North, as well as half a million Pal- This is not “unintended consequenc- tober), calls for carving out Alawite, Druze earlier demanding forcible conversion to estinian refugees. es,” “collateral damage” or ad hoc deci- and Kurdish entities. And Israel is creating Sunni Islam. All of these minorities are at risk sions, but a deliberate policy that in the “facts on the ground,” stepping up coloniza- The sectarian massacres and indiscrim- should the Sunni Islamist militias take 4 See “From Ukraine to Middle East: U.S. Im- tion in the largely Druze Occupied Golan. inate killing continue unabated. In March, power, whether the various Al Qaeda off- perialism Strikes Out,” The Internationalist No. With this classical colonialist “divide the I.S. posted a video of its thugs behead- shoots and other salafist jihadis or the sup- 37, May-June 2014. and rule” strategy, the geostrategists in Tel ing eight Ismaili Shiites in Hama province. January-February 2016 15 But the dubious claim that “At least seven a Trotskyist program of permanent revolu- hospitals or medical facilities in Syria have tion, fighting for a socialist federation of been hit by airstrikes since Russia entered the Middle East. President of Russia the civil war there, killing at least four [!] For Workers Revolution From people” (New York Times, 23 October) is an all-too-obvious attempt to take the heat off Istanbul to Damascus, Tel Aviv the U.S. for its October 3 deliberate target- and Cairo ing and bombing of a Doctors Without Bor- The bulk of the Western left, however, ders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, kill- has once again lined up with their imperial- ing 22 patients and staff. In that case, a U.S. ist masters. A year ago, many were calling gunship plane kept strafing the facility for on NATO to arm the Kurds against the “Is- over an hour, even though it was a known lamic fascists” of the I.S. This time around medical facility and long after military com- they are denouncing Russian intervention manders had been informed. in Syria. The most blatant case is that of After all the adulation in the impe- the heirs of Tony Cliff, the renegade from rialist press of the Syrian Kurdish-led Trotskyism who broke from the Fourth In- YPG (People’s Protection Units) militia, ternational pinning the label “state capital- formerly labeled terrorists but rebranded ist” on the Soviet bureaucratically degen- as freedom fighters since it began - coor erated workers state and refusing to defend dinating with U.S. airstrikes against the it during the Cold War, from Korea on. Islamic State, reports are now surfacing Syrian president Assad and Russian president Putin meet at the Kremlin, After decades of denouncing “Soviet im- about Kurdish atrocities against Arabs and October 20. perialism,” the Cliffites have seamlessly Turkomans in recently conquered areas. of the Middle East,” we wrote: and Palmyra in Syria. Despite U.S.-aided gone over to vituperating against “Russian Residents of ten villages and towns under “the U.S. and European imperialists will advances by the Kurdish YPG along the imperialism,” from Ukraine to Syria. the Kurdish Autonomous Administration never accept Kurdish independence, or Turkish border, which provoked the ire of Thus Alex Callinicos, the guru of the were driven from their homes, their prop- even real autonomy in northern Syria. That NATO ally Turkish president Recep Tayy- British Socialist Workers Party (SWP), erty destroyed or confiscated and in some would threaten the Ottoman ambitions of ip Erdoğan, the prospects for Obama’s called Syria a “battlefield of imperialist cases their houses were burned and bull- the Islamist Erdoğan and the Turkish na- “coalition of the unwilling” aren’t look- rivalry,” arguing that, contrary to part of dozed (Amnesty International, We Had No- tionalism of the army. And NATO Turkey ing too good these days. The Iraqi army the left that “perceives only the West as where Else to Go, October 2015). is a linchpin for Western imperialist domi- still won’t fight, and now 17,000 U.S. and imperialism .... Russia too is an imperial- Christian militias of the Syriac Mili- nation of the Middle East.” other NATO troops will stay in Afghani- ist power” (Socialist Worker [UK], 6 Octo- tary Council and Suntoro, which are part of –“For Workers Action to Defeat Barack stan at least another year. ber). The International Socialist Organiza- the YPG, have also driven out Sunni Arab Obama’s Iraq/Syria War,” The Interna- U.S. policy in the region is an all- tion (ISO) in the U.S. likewise argues that residents, and some Assyrian Christians tionalist No. 38, October-November 2014 round failure. The $500 million program Syria is “Caught in the web of imperialist as well, in areas occupied with the aid of This warning remains true today. to train non-existent non-sectarian, mod- rivalries” and seeks to revive the Cliffite U.S. air strikes (Middle East Monitor, 18 The League for the Fourth Interna- erate Syrian rebels was a fiasco, now ter- slogan, “Neither Washington nor Mos- October). Last fall we wrote that, so far, tional has stated that: “Proletarian revolu- minated, fielding at most “four or five” cow” (Socialist Worker [U.S.], 5 and 13 Syrian Kurds had “largely stayed out of tionaries would defend the Kurdish areas fighters. The White House and Pentagon October). While Cliff & Co. claimed to the fratricidal communal civil war,” since against attacks by the Assad regime or the are reluctant to get bogged down in the represent a “third camp” in the anti-Soviet both the Assad regime and the armed oppo- Free Syrian Army and certainly against Syrian quagmire, yet all the anti-govern- Cold War, in reality their supposed neutral- sition oppose Kurdish autonomy. Now, in the Islamic State whose victory would ment militias continue to receive Ameri- ity was just a “left” cover for supporting advancing on Sunni areas currently held by mean wholesale slaughter of Kurds.” We can arms via U.S. proxies (the I.S. from the “first camp” of Western imperialism. the I.S. the YPG is employing some of the have also reiterated our call for a social- Turkey, al-Nusra from Qatar, Ahrar al-Sh- We see this again today. kind of strong-arm “Kurdization” tactics ist republic of united Kurdistan. At the am from Saudi Arabia) or directly (FSA Although claiming to oppose U.S. im- that the autonomous government of Iraqi same time, the LFI has consistently stood and YPG). Washington politicos who perial aims, the ISO repeats Syrian “rebel” Kurdistan has used in pushing Turkomans for revolutionary defeatism on all sides want to escalate the bombing have been complaints that “promised military aid and Arabs out of the oil center of Kirkuk in the communal civil wars wracking Iraq checked by Russia’s move. And after 14 from U.S. and European governments has and elsewhere in northern Iraq. and Syria, while supporting the right of years, the U.S. population has no stomach never included the kind of heavy weapons, Today, the Syrian Kurdish YPG is a self-defense of threatened communities. for more Middle Eastern adventures. like anti-aircraft batteries, that would help semi-ally of U.S. imperialism against the As long as the YPG was defending Kobanê With a standoff on the battlefield, even them confront the Syrian military and now Islamic State, reportedly receiving airdrops and Rojava (Western Kurdistan) it was if the Syrian regime is able to make a break- Russian warplanes.” While the American of arms for an advance on the I.S. “capital” exercising this right, but as it expands its through with Russian support (for example, Cliffites still affect a pretense of “indepen- of Raqaa. But since July the U.S.’ NATO sway it has joined the all-sided communal/ taking back rebel-occupied areas of Aleppo dence” from imperialism – just quoting the ally Turkey has been heavily bombard- sectarian bloodbath. or Damascus suburbs), no side in the over- “rebels” they support asking for Western ing the YPG’s allies of the PKK (Kurd- In late August 2014, U.S. president lapping conflicts is able to defeat the oth- arms, as they did in the NATO assault on ish Workers Party) in Turkey, has bombed Obama admitted that “we don’t have a ers. The Saudi and Iranian governments, Libya – their main “analysis” of Russia’s PKK camps in Iraqi Kurdistan and is now strategy yet” in Syria. That didn’t stop intent on waging a Sunni vs. Shiite contest Syrian intervention is by Gilbert Achcar, directly attacking the YPG inside Syria him from launching an open-ended bomb- for regional hegemony, are not about to who in 2011 pilloried those opposed to the as it tries to advance across the Euphrates ing campaign against the Islamic State back down. Even if a “political settlement” U.N. “no fly zone” in Libya and explic- River to the west. Last fall we noted that less than two weeks later. Some 7,700 is reached, which would take some time, it itly demanded, “arms should be delivered the YPG “is doing everything it can to be- airstrikes since then haven’t rolled back will at most be a façade masking an unstable openly and massively to the insurgents” come acceptable to the imperialists.” Call- or even stopped the advance of the I.S., division into spheres of influence. One need (ZNet, 11 March 2011). ing to “Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out which this year conquered Ramadi in Iraq only look at the 1989 Taif Agreement in Today this appeal for imperialist aid Lebanon that put an end 14 years of sectari- is raised by one Joseph Daher, who writes: an/communal civil war stoked by the Israeli “We must also support the delivery of arms Zionists – a tenuous truce that could blow and weapons with no political conditions up again at any point. attached from the West to democratic sec- Much of Syria has already been de- tions of the FSA and of the Kurdish forces stroyed by the U.S.-fueled civil war aimed to fight and struggle against the Assad re- Sotoro/Facebook at toppling the Assad government. The gime and Islamic fundamentalist forces” only way out of this morass, the only way (Syria Freedom Forever, 4 October). Da- to overcome ethnic and religious hostilities her, who grew up in Geneva, Switzerland dating back to the collapse of the decrepit and is now at the University of Lausanne, Ottoman Empire in World War I, the only is often quoted in a range of leftist publica- way to achieve self-determination for the tions as the voice of the non-existent “Syri- Kurdish nation and defend all the endan- an Revolution,” just as Achcar, who has for gered minorities, is through a proletarian- decades been a professor in Paris, Berlin led offensive to drive imperialism from and now at the University of London, is the the region and defeat all the warring Zi- go-to “Marxist” authority on the Middle onist, Islamist, militarist and communal- East for various pseudo-Trotskyists. Syriac Christian militia Sotoro, part of the Kurdish-led YPG, in Qamishli, June ist regimes and forces. That requires an Whether themselves appealing di- 27. YPG has expelled Sunni Arab residents from recently conquered areas. internationalist communist leadership on rectly to the Western militarists like Da- 16 The Internationalist ignore when it doesn’t suit them. Calling cratic” imperialists and smash the Islamists U.S. policy “reckless,” “nonsensical” and of all stripes, who would impose the social “short-sighted,” Becker goes on: and legal norms of seventh-century nomadic “Obama promised ‘no boots on the tribes on modern secular industrial societies. ground’ in Syria…. But from a military It was the bankruptcy of the Stalin- standpoint, the armies of ISIS and Al- ist policy of backing bourgeois national- Qaeda cannot be defeated by air assault. ists such as Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt,

Murad Sezer/Reuters They can only be defeated by other Hussein in Iraq and Hafez Assad (father of forces on the ground.” the current president) in Syria who could In contrast to the “incompetence” and not fight imperialism that led to the rise of downright “weirdness” of Obama’s Islamism. Because they maintain capital- refusal to “support the Syrian military ist rule, they are always at the mercy of that is actually fighting against ISIS and the world market which condemns semi- an array of other terrorist groups,” Becker colonial countries to perpetual poverty recommends Putin’s “fully rational” call while stoking reactionary wars squabbling on the Charlie Rose CBS TV show for: over the crumbs that fall from the tables “strengthening the effective [Syrian] of the imperialist feast. The persistence government structures and rendering of bonapartist (police-military) regimes in them help in fighting terrorism. But at Latin America, Asia and Africa confirms the same time, urging them to engage Trotsky’s analysis that in imperialist-domi- Turkish workers, key force for socialist revolution in the Middle East. Left-wing in positive dialogue with the rational nated countries democracy, national libera- unions march in Istanbul on May Day 2015. In the face of brutal repression, opposition and conduct reform.” tion and agrarian revolution – the principal workers have the power to bring down the Islamist capitalist regime. These Stalinoid reformists, like the tasks of the bourgeois revolution – cannot her and Achcar, or using a “cutout” of Syria5 – various Stalinist and proto-Stalin- social-democratic reformists, are merely be achieved under bourgeois rule. supporting the Islamists who appeal for ist tendencies call to back the authoritarian proposing an alternative policy for Obama The programmatic conclusion of this U.S./NATO support, all of these fakers are Assad regime. This, also, is nothing new, & Co. The difference is that while the is the Trotskyist perspective of permanent “left” apologists for imperialism. Rather as they have for decades regularly given ISO et al. want the U.S. to back “moder- revolution, that in order to accomplish the than fighting to defeat the would-be mas- political support to nationalist strongmen ate” Syrian Islamist gangs, the WWP/PSL tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolu- ters of the world, the ISO, SWP and the in semi-colonial countries. In the U.S., the want Washington to back the Syrian gov- tions it is necessary for the working class to rest of the social-democratic crowd want a Workers World Party (WWP) and Party of ernment. Recall that these opportunists seize power at the head of the impoverished more “people-friendly” imperialism. From Socialism and Liberation (PSL) have made all greeted the 2008 election of Democrat peasantry and all sectors of the oppressed Libya to Syria, the pseudo-socialists and this their trademark. Obama. And since they always seek to ally and to undertake socialist tasks while ex- imperialist governments back the same Both WWP and PSL are heirs of Sam with liberal Democrats, these leaders of the tending the revolution internationally. This “insurgent” forces supposedly fighting for Marcy, who split from the then-Trotskyist various popular-front “antiwar” coalitions was the program that Lenin and Trotsky “democracy” against dictators. And today Socialist Workers Party in the early 1960s (IAC, ANSWER, UFPJ) called no protest carried out in October 1917, against the the opportunist leftists line up with the supporting the Mao-Stalinist regime in marches when Obama started bombing the opposition of the bourgeoisie but also of most bellicose imperialists on Syria. China. Both sing hosannas to the Kim dy- Islamic State a year ago, or since. Rather Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and In France, the Nouvel Parti Anticapi- nasty in North Korea, one really deformed than fighting to defeat “their own” impe- Stalin and others in the Bolshevik Party. taliste (NPA) publishes Daher’s denuncia- workers state. WWP leader Sara Flounders rialist rulers, they have all signed on to the The phony “Marxist-Leninists” of today tion of “Russian imperialism” and appeal penned an article upholding Syria’s “right “anti-terrorist” war against the IS. represent the program of those who op- for NATO imperialist arms against Assad to defend its sovereignty” and arguing that In contrast, upholding the program posed Red October. (L’Anticapitaliste, 8 October), even as So- “Because of its independent economic and of Lenin and Trotsky, the Internationalist This underscores the urgency of the cialist president François Hollande launch- political policies and because of its de- Group and League for the Fourth Interna- League for the Fourth International’s strug- es French airstrikes against the Daesh (Ar- cades of support for the Palestinian strug- tional call to drive U.S./NATO forces out gle to forge specifically Leninist-Trotskyist abic acronym for the Islamic State) in Syria gle, Syria was on the ‘hit list’ slated for of the Middle East. While the social dem- communist parties based on the Bolshevik while demanding that Assad must go. The U.S. conquest since the George W. Bush ocrats buy into the human rights rhetoric program of international socialist revolution, NPA is led by the political heirs of Ernest administration” (Workers World, 15 Oc- that the Democrats bandy about to justify from the millions-strong working classes of Mandel who are part of what poses as the tober). While the U.S. has certainly gone imperialist war going back to Bill Clinton’s Turkey and Egypt, to the “belly of the impe- International (formerly United) Secretariat after Syria, this is a one-sided portrayal of two wars on Yugoslavia, the Stalinists and rialist beast,” fighting for proletarian class in- of the Fourth International. But over time, the Assad regime’s relation to imperialism. Stalinoids back the nationalist strongmen dependence from all the bourgeois forces, to Cliffites and Mandelites grew closer as the Actually, under Bush II, Syria cooper- from Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia put an end to the imperialist-capitalist system latter abandoned any pretense of defend- ated closely with the U.S. at the outset of to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Bashar al- of war, poverty and racism. n ing the Soviet Union, a pillar of authentic the “Global War on Terror.” Washington Assad in Syria. Nothing Trotskyism, and both hailed the counter- sent many suspects to be tortured in Syria remotely revolutionary League for the Fourth International revolution that destroyed the USSR. under the “extraordinary rendition” pro- about either. The IG and LFI, Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY For the followers of the anti-Trotskyst gram. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq that LFI defend those coun- 10008, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] Tony Cliff, support for reactionary Islamist ousted Saddam Hussein – whose military- tries militarily against based regime like Assad’s in Syria was forces goes back decades. They hailed imperialism, while fight- Internationalist Group/U.S. Khomeini’s 1979 “Islamic revolution” in derived from the Arab nationalist Baath ing for workers revolu- , Box 3321, Church Street Iran that butchered tens of thousands of (Renewal) party – put an end to that. Assad tion to bring down the Internationalist Group Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. leftists, women, homosexuals and Kurds, exported local Sunni Islamist fighters to capitalist regimes. E-mail: [email protected] while authentic Trotskyists opposed the harass the U.S. occupation (and jailed In opposing all sides mullah regime; in the ’80s Cliff & Co. them when they returned to Syria). Today in the sectarian religious New York Tel. (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 Portland Tel. (971) 282-7903 praised the Afghan mujahedin fighting he would renew the “anti-terrorist” col- and ethnic communal Soviet troops in Afghanistan – while the laboration with imperialism, offering his slaughter of the Iraqi and Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil then-Trotskyist Spartacist tendency hailed services as a bulwark of stability in the re- Syrian civil wars, it must write to Caixa Postal 084027, CEP 27251- the Soviet intervention; for years the Brit- gion, keeping Israel’s northern border quiet never be forgotten that the Brazil: 740, Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil ish SWP met with Hezbollah in Lebanon while talking “resistance,” if only the U.S. greatest mass murderers and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. would allow it. of all are the imperialists, Rio de Janeiro: write to Caixa Postal 3982, CEP Rejecting Trotsky’s theory of permanent For his part, PSL leader Brian Becker who have killed millions 20001-974, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil revolution and the need for a proletarian writes: “Russia’s intervention was for- from Korea to Vietnam E-mail: [email protected] mally requested by the sovereign Syrian vanguard, they made common cause with to Iraq. And while hail- LIVI/Deutschland whatever bourgeois movement was popu- government led by Bashar Al-Assad and ing actual blows against lar at the time. thus conforms to international law” (Lib- imperialism landed even Germany: write to Postfach 80 97 21, 21007 Hamburg, If pro-imperialist social democrats eration, 1 October). It is telling that would- by arch-reactionary forces Germany be revolutionaries would place such stress like the ISO routinely peddled Western lies such as the I.S. in Syria/ Grupo Internacionalista/México about Syria – such as the fabrication that on “international law,” that fiction that Iraq or the Taliban in Af- the Damascus regime used chemical weap- reflects the interests of the dominant im- ghanistan, we look to the México: write to Apartado Postal 12-201, Admón. Postal Obrero Mundial, CP 03001, México D.F, México ons on “its own people” when everything perialist powers, and which they routinely international working E-mail: [email protected] points to the Islamist gangs and their Saudi 5 See “Defend Syria Against U.S. Imperialist class – from the Middle and Turkish backers as authors of that at- East to the imperialist cen- Tel. Mexico City: 55-3154-7361; Guadalajara: 33-1752- Attack!” (28 September 2013), in The Interna- 6643; Oaxaca: 951-129-2086 tack, hoping to trigger U.S. bombing of tionalist No. 36, January-February 2014. ters – to defeat the “demo- January-February 2016 17 General Strikes Are Back in Greece: Revolutionary Leadership Needed After the populist SYRIZA (Coali- precipitate the end of the GSEE/ADEDY tion of the Radical Left) came into office Petros Giannakouris/AP rally also had a rather ritualistic character, in January 2015, the Greek working class lobbing some Molotov cocktails at the cops held off from mass protest in hopes that from the cover of some far-left contingents Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras would carry (including some anarcho-syndicalists) in- out election promises to end the punish- ducing the cops to teargas everyone in the ing austerity program imposed by Euro- vicinity, including us. The anarchists went pean central bankers and the International on to set fires in dumpsters and trash cans, Monetary Fund. When Tsipras did an hurled some more Molotovs against the abrupt about-face in July and imposed the doors of various banks and chipped away brutal austerity policies demanded by the at their marble steps, which was quite sym- imperialist financiers, there were big labor bolic of the futility of their actions. The protests, but then a return to quiescence. press then had its photos of flames and Two months later, Tsipras was able to win a charging riot police and its headlines about new mandate in snap elections on Septem- “clashes break out at general strike.” No. ber 20 despite anger over his dramatic U- 41, going on 42. turn.1 But this fall, Greek workers returned The PAME march, which included to the streets. high school students with handmade ban- On November 12, the first “general ners and a student contingent, was defi- strike” under the SYRIZA government nitely the larger, with 15,000-plus marchers brought out tens of thousands of marchers compared to 10,000-plus for the GSEE/AD- in Athens and other major cities, shutting EDY/far left contingent, and gave a quite industry, transport and much of commerce. militant appearance. The next day, the KKE Contingent of PAME (All Workers Militant Front), linked to the Communist A few days later, a November 17 march on denounced the “hollow anti-Memorandum Party, in November 12 general strike in Athens. the U.S. embassy commemorating the 1973 rhetoric” of its rivals, and rightly so. But student uprising that was brutally attacked the Athens subways and buses to rail, Greek voters to say “OXI” (NO) to the EU’s while it has kept its distance from SYRIZA by the Washington-backed military junta was domestic air flights and the ferries from austerity demands, almost all of which he and called the July referendum a fraud, the also quite large. This was followed by region- the Greek mainland to the islands – was had already agreed to, and then when 60% KKE is itself only seeking to pressure par- al transit strikes, a farmers protest against severely disrupted. Public schools and voted “no,” he turned around and agreed to liament. Rather than calling for workers ac- tax hikes, student sit-ins against repression, a universities were shut down and hospitals worse austerity. The purpose was to absolve tion to smash austerity, including measures work stoppage by ambulance workers, a two- had only emergency service. The strike SYRIZA of responsibility for its crime. already passed, PAME posters focused on day walkout by hospital workers and on De- was effective in all of the ports. While the bulk of the left went along with issues pending a vote by parliament: “Don’t cember 3, a second, somewhat smaller, one- The preceding week was filled with this pantomine, the League for the Fourth gut social security, No foreclosures by the day national strike to protest further pension rolling labor struggles. On Monday Novem- International warned that even a “no” vote bankers, Lower taxes.” cuts agreed to by Tsipras & Co. ber 1, the seamen’s union PNO decreed a would lead to more austerity. Over at the GSEE/ADEDY march it Many labor officials and activists had two-day strike of ferries to the Aegean is- The strike was called by the GSEE was striking that virtually none of the ban- worried what the response would be to the lands. Also on Monday, the OLME teach- (the General Federation of Greek Workers) ners attacked the government directly. At November 12 strike call. Coming not long ers union walked out while high school and ADEDY, the government employees’ most there were some pink balloons with after Tsipras won the September elections students protested over shortages in the federation. Giorgios Kalomoiris, a leader the words “Alexis’ Promises,” implying despite imposing hated austerity measures, schools. On Tuesday, workers at two main of ADEDY, told the press, “The winter is that they were so much hot air. SYRIZA the large turnout shows that the willing- Athens hospitals walked out, followed by going to be explosive and this will mark could endorse the strike because it was just ness to struggle of the Greek working peo- subway, streetcar and electric railway work- the beginning.” Kalomoiris is a supporter intended to blow off steam. Even most of ple is unbroken. As result, the Greek left ers in the evening.. On Wednesday the ferry of LEA (Popular Unity), the former Left the banners at the “far left” contingent fo- almost unanimously proclaimed the strike strike was renewed for another 48 hours. On Platform of SYRIZA that split off in the cused on European Union dictates impos- a success or “big success.” Yet while strike Thursday, pensioners rallied in central Ath- summer (after its ministers were sacked) ing austerity measures to Greece. The LAE action and mass protests are back, this is ens. On Friday, November 6 the seamen’s yearning for the “good old days” of the opposed memoranda and “austerity and still a far cry from the situation of 2010- strike was called off, reportedly due to pres- pre-2015 SYRIZA. The GSEE leadership privatizations” in the abstract. The OKDE- 2 11 when hundreds of thousands struck and sure from the PAME labor federation linked includes supporters of the populist-nation- Spartakos attacked the memoranda and marched. Above all, there is no strategy for to the Communist Party (KKE). alist PASOK and even the right-wing New the “new and old minions” of the EU – its a fight for power, in a situation in which The November 12 strike was against Democracy, the bourgeois duopoly that maximum demands were the cancellation the Eurobankers have driven home what the austerity policies imposed by the governed Greece for four decades. The of the debt and the exit of a (capitalist) has been obvious for years, that no amount Greece from the Eurozone and the EU. European Union. You can’t exactly say the fact that the various sellout bureaucrats or- of pressure will produce an end to austerity ANTARSYA (Front of the Anti-Cap- strike was against the left/right bourgeois ganized even a one-day protest strike was under capitalism. The crisis of revolution- italist Left), a coalition of allegedly far- government led by Tsipras, as SYRIZA’s a sign of desperation and a need to respond ary leadership is as acute as ever. left parties that tried desperately to join up labor department called on workers to join to pressure from the ranks. The Internationalist had a team in with the ex-ministers of the LEA before it! And one even has to put the words “gen- In many respects the November 12 Greece reporting on the November strike the September elections, did call to “de- eral strike” in quotation marks, because strike followed the pattern of preceding and events in the following days. Here is feat the government,” but what was to be what this denotes in Greece (and Europe general strikes since the onset of the Greek their report: “overthrown” was “EU-Capital.” Another generally) these days is a one-day work financial crisis – by one count there were ANTARSYA banner said, “Let the capital- stoppage combined with mass demonstra- already no less than 40 since 2010. When ATHENS – November 12 saw the first ists pay for the crisis.” I.e., increase taxes tions. For Marxists, a real general strike is the GSEE/ADEDY called a strike, PAME, general strike here since SYRIZA took on big business rather than calling to bring office early this year in coalition with a frontal clash between the workers move- the trade-union federation close to the down the bourgeois government and ex- the right-wing populist Greek Democrats ment and the capitalist government – one KKE (Communist Party), called its own propriate the capitalists. All of this fits in (ANEL). Some 30,000 marched through step below an insurrection on the scale separate event. The PAME march moved with a policy of amnestying SYRIZA by the streets of Athens, 10,000 were reported of revolutionary tactics. Nevertheless, out from Omonia Square a half-hour be- pretending that at its worst it was just ca- in Thessaloniki in the north, and thousands the substantial turnout showed that the fore the GSEE/ADEDY march left Klaf- pitulating to the Eurobankers. Before the more in the port city of Piraeus, at Patra SYRIZA spell is wearing off. monos Square, and was then joined by a strike, an ANTARSYA spokesman de- in the Peloponnesus, Volos in the east The spectacle of a government party feeder march of the ostensible far left com- clared bombastically, “our rage will be re- and elsewhere around the country. The backing a strike against the policies it is im- ing from the Archaeological Museum. So 2 Affiliated with the International Committee turnout among public workers in particular plementing may be a first. The Greek right- the PAME marched past the Parliament wing parties and European finance ministers building in Syntagma Square in one direc- (formerly United Secretariat), followers of the was solid. Transport of all types – from late Ernest Mandel, which poses as the Fourth 1 See “Greek Elections: For a Europe-Wide howled, denouncing SYRIZA for wanting tion somewhat before the other march ar- International. While the OKDE-Spartakos is Workers Revolt Against Capitalist Austerity,” to “have its cake and eat it too.” But then rived and went by Parliament in the other part of ANTARSYA, its international ostenta- The Internationalist No. 41, September-Octo- the double-talking Tsipras last July pulled direction. tiously supported SYRIZA, seeing it as the ber 2015. a fast one, calling a referendum and urging The anarchist attacks which helped more successful opportunist coalition. 18 The Internationalist government (ban lay- An important development is taking ernment, its imperialist mechanisms, offs, cancel the debt, place in the military under the impact of the and the bourgeois world of oppression.” nationalize the banks refugee crisis. Almost 600,000 migrants The appearance of such class-con- under workers con- from the Middle East have flowed through scious soldiers is a sure sign of the esca- trol, exit the E.U., etc.) Greece this year. Now the same EU bosses lated radicalization among Greek workers rather than a program who are impoverishing Greek workers are and youth, reminiscent of developments leading to the over- demanding that Greece “crack down” on in the U.S. Army when soldiers turned on throw of the capitalist immigrants by setting up concentration officers as the imperialist war on Vietnam Alessandra Tarantino/AP state. camps (“hot spots”) to house these desper- spiraled downwards to defeat in the late But is the unlim- ate people fleeing imperialist bombing and 1960s. But their demands are incompatible ited or “indefinite” Islamist terror, from Syria to Afghanistan. with capitalist rule. For this radicalization general strike pro- At the beginning of November, conscript to lead anywhere except to defeat it is nec- posed by the EEK an soldiers from 50 different units signed a essary to join it with a program for revo- alternative? Merely joint statement declaring “We don’t fight, lutionary struggle. We addressed this in an setting no time limit we do not surpress, we don’t hunt down article last summer as the crisis was com- is playing a passive migrants.” At the November 17 march on ing to a head: Alexis Tsipras and German chancellor Angela Merkel waiting game – the old the U.S. embassy we met some of these “What’s needed, as the League for the having a good laugh at conference in Malta on anarcho-syndicalist leftist soldiers. Fourth International has repeatedly refugees during Greek general strike, November 12. utopia. A genuine gen- They are part of Diktyo Spartakos stated, is a revolutionary mobilization of lentless”. But not too relentless, it seems. eral strike involves constructing potential (Spartacus Network), linked to the New the Greek working class, seizing banks, So SYRIZA tries to take the heat off organs of dual power – elected and revoca- Left Current (NAR), which is the larg- ports, airports, and key industries and imposing workers control, organizing by endorsing the strike while criticizing ble strike committees, workers committees est component of ANTARSYA, but also workers defense guards to crush the “neoliberal policies and economic black- in the factories, workers councils in prole- including other “far left” groups, among Nazi-fascists of Golden Dawn and tarian districts, the organization of work- them OKDE-Spartakos and anarchists. mail,” as if it were some kind of alien ob- appeal to the ranks of the conscript ers self-defense. None of this is included in The draftees’ statement denounces the server, and the “far left” plays along. In army, and organizing workers councils an article on the November 12 strike, the the “transitional” program of the EEK, or state’s “collaboration with the Nazi Golden with delegates recallable at any time. editor of the newspaper of the SEK (So- the various components of ANTARSYA, Dawn”; that they are ordered to participate This would lay the basis for a new state 3 cialist Workers Party), Panos Garganas, which are wedded to bourgeois elector- in “crowd suppression drills,” to prepare to power, a workers state, led by a Leninist- proclaims it “the biggest strike demonstra- alism. Above all, a genuine transitional repress “hungry-thirsty-imprisoned immi- Trotskyist communist party built on tion since the huge strikes that brought program for socialist revolution requires a grants” such as on the island of Kos; and the program of international socialist down the government of technocrats in political mobilization under revolutionary, the Parmenionas 2015 exercise at the bor- revolution.” 2012” – even though those were far larger. i.e., Trotskyist leadership. der fence separating Greece from Turkey, –“What Road for Greece: Perpetual Calling the prospect of a “real” left govern- There is much flammable material in where several refugees have been gunned Debt Peonage or Workers Revolution?” ment advocated by the LAE “remote” (he’s crisis-ridden Greece. You see signs of acute down by border police. Unlike many of the (12 August), in The Internationalist No. right about that), Garganas argues that the social decay everywhere – the homeless, mealy mouthed banners on November 12, 41, September-October 2015 strike showed that “workers’ own action the addicts, the beggars. Eurostat figures for the soldiers directly denounce the Tsipras As a warehouse worker at the No- can force the government to make a U-turn Greece show overall unemployment of 25%, government: vember 12 march bitterly remarked to us, and stop implementing austerity.” the highest in the EU; youth unemployment “The SYRIZA-ANEL government con- what’s needed is a revolutionary left “in In this social-democratic fantasyland, over 50%; 39% of working-age population tinues the War on Terror, participates in deeds and not just words.” Nowhere more the Eurobankers force Tsipras to make a U- in poverty. Along with the permanent wage imperialistic plans, targets ‘asymmet- than in Greece is this so excruciatingly turn (kolotoumba in Greek) to austerity, but freeze exacerbated by huge tax hikes (value ric threats’ (immigrants, social move- clear. And that means, first and foremost, workers’ pressure can force him to make a added tax of 23%) , the bankers are now de- ments), playing on the false distinction a Trotskyist nucleus fighting to build a U-turn back! It’s all to deny that SYRIZA manding stepped-up foreclosures of homes of ‘good’ refugees from war – and ‘bad’ genuinely Leninist communist party of the is a bourgeois (populist) party represent- of those behind on mortgage payments. They economic migrants. The Armed Forc- working class, a party that opposes class ing a section of the ruling class, and to also threaten to decimate small businesses. es call on us, the conscripted soldiers collaboration in every form and which is delude people into thinking that pressure Pharmacists and even some shopkeepers alongside professionals and officers, to capable of being a “tribune of the people” make war on the ‘enemy within’… politics can get the bourgeoisie to abandon joined the general strike. But this is a volatile championing all of the oppressed – first “We refuse to convert the Greek army austerity policies which are vital to Euro- social layer, and if it does not see the working and foremost the immigrants and refugees. into a repressive apparatus whether class as its rescuer, it could well turn to the The many variants of opportunism have pean capitalism’s survival. Yet Tsipras’ ko- that involves migrants or social move- fascists of Golden Dawn. already been tried over the last five years, lotoumba after the 60% OXI vote in July ments…. We call on our colleagues to and all have failed to stop the money goug- was the clearest possible demonstration Many on the left have been wringing not only show compassion but to take that the bankers’ dictatorship will not be their hands over defeatism and resignation note of our common class interests. It is ers who have ruined the lives of Greek moved by protests or votes (see our article, among the masses. If so, much of the re- the bourgeois institutions, bourgeois poli- working people. “Greece: The Naked Rule of Finance Capi- sponsibility lies with opportunist leftists, cies, bourgeois governments themselves With the euro or new drachma, a tal” (18 July), in The Internationalist No. who “by seeing the populists in power as al- which are destroying even our dreams. capitalist Greece inside or outside the 41, September-October 2015). lies rather than representatives of the class “We are part of a modern anti-war and imperialist European Union will only Even the most left-wing contingent enemy,” as we warned months ago, could labour movement that can exist only intensify the austerity. Revolutionary in- at the march, the ostensible Trotskyists of only “demoralize the mass of the work- within a working class, anti-capitalist ternationalists fight instead for a socialist the EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party),4 ers and poor” (see “Greece The SYRIZA and internationalist perspective. We re- federation of the Balkans and Europe- pulled its punches about who was the ene- Illusion Exploded” [March 2015], in The sist, oppose, and totally reject the gov- wide socialist revolution. n my – its banner said “Down with the Mem- Internationalist No. 39, April-May 2015). orandum and its Managers!” (Who might But the Greek working class remains

those be?) It went on to call for an “Un- militant, as we saw on November 12. In New Yorkfor The Ponomarev Sergey Times limited General Political Strike” against Piraeus, even dock workers from the non- austerity and “All Power to the Workers.” union container port owned by the Chinese Only a few short months ago, the EEK was shipping conglomerate Cosco marched in a calling on SYRIZA to break with the bour- contingent for the first time ever. geoisie, i.e., with itself. Then, after Tispras’ Public employees are on the chopping about-face in July, the EEK ran a joint slate block. At the GSEE/ADEDY march we with ANTARSYA in the September elec- spoke with a group of Athens municipal tions on a supposed “transitional program” workers who have only temporary con- consisting of demands on the bourgeois tracts and make barely half the previous 3 The SEK is also part of ANTARSYA and minimum wage, meaning they have to live aligned with the British Socialist Workers Party, on around €400 (about US$435) a month. followers of the late Tony Cliff, who split from And these “pampered” public workers are Trotskyism at the start of the anti-Soviet Cold supposed to be the “privileged” sector! War, calling the bureaucratically degenerated While the bourgeois press pretends that Soviet workers state “state capitalist” and refus- private sector workers are hostile to gener- ing to defend it against imperialist attack in the Korean War. al strikes, the solid shutdown of shipping, 4 The EEK is part of the Coordinating Commit- not to mention contingents such as the tele- tee for the Refoundation of the Fourth Interna- phone workers of the privatized OTE (now Syrian refugees arriving on island of Lesbos from Turkey, July 2015. Leftist tional led by Jorge Altamira’s Partido Obrero owned by Deutsche Telekom) in the strike Greek soldiers refuse to suppress or hunt down refugees. LFI calls for (Workers Party) in Argentina. march, expose this as a lie. asylum for all refugees, full citizenship rights for all immigrants. January-February 2016 19 ICL Consigns Revolution Petros Giannakouris to the Greek Calends*

document of the Internationalist Group up- result of the “no” vote, which Tsipras then *In the Roman calendar, the calends holding the central thesis of the Transitional used to impose more austerity, was to de- were the first day of every month, when the Program – “The historical crisis of mankind moralize Greek workers, leading to res- pontiffs, or priests, would announce the is reduced to the crisis of the revolution- ignation rather than struggle. If it served number of days until the end of the month ary leadership.... the crisis of the proletar- to “expose” Tsipras & Co., how come when debtors had to pay off their debts. ian leadership, having become the crisis in SYRIZA got almost the same percentage Alexis Tsipras at July 3 Athens rally The Greek calendar, however, had no such mankind’s culture, can be resolved only by of the vote in September elections as it did calling for a “No” (“Oxi” in Greek) concept, so consigning something “to the the Fourth International” – the ICL declared in January? The ICL joins the ANTARSYA vote in referendum. We warned that Greek calends” was to relegate it to a time this outdated in the post-Soviet world. and LEA (Popular Unity) opportunist left- this was a scam, and even a “No” that will never arrive. Trotsky’s thesis, the very reason for being of ists who pretend that the “no” vote in the vote would bring more austerity. As the FI, “predates the present deep regression referendum was somehow against the gov- we foretold, immediately after the The Greek working class has been bat- of proletarian consciousness,” declared the ernment. But large numbers of those who vote, Tsipras accepted the bankers’ tered by one political disaster after another ICL, essentially pinning the blame on the followed Tsipras’ appeal to vote “no” did ultimatum. ICL joined other oppor- this year. First, SYRIZA, the “Coalition of workers rather than the misleaders. Now, so precisely in order to back him in his tunists in heeding Tsipras’ call. the Radical Left” which is actually a bour- faced with a potentially revolutionary crisis negotiations. Shocked that the outcome To justify its call for Greece to leave the geois populist party, formed a coalition gov- in Greece, these ex-Trotskyists have turned did not serve to rally the working masses, euro and the European Union under capital- ernment with the right-wing populist ANEL sharply to the right. leftist backers of the “no” vote seek solace ism, Workers Vanguard repeats its claim that, (Greek Democrats) the day after its January Stung by our description of the ICL/ in conjuring up a “movement for No” that unlike hard-line German imperialists who 25 election victory. After running on a plat- TGG’s perversion of Trotsky’s Transitional only existed in their imagination. want to push Greece out to shore up profits, form promising to undo the brutal austerity Program in omitting the socialist revolu- Actually, the ICL was well aware of the ICL’s “Grexit” scenario “would create imposed on Greece, only weeks after taking tion as a “road to nowhere” and a “mini- what was going on in the referendum, which more favorable conditions for the working office, on February 20, the SYRIZA-ANEL mum program” like those of Stalinists and only underlines its cynicism. A subsequent class to struggle in its own interests.” We government signed a joint statement with social democrats who limit struggle to the article in Workers Vanguard (13 Novem- have repeatedly said that Greece may be the Eurogroup of central bankers agreeing bounds of capitalism, the ICL responded ber) stated: “Syriza called for a ‘no’ vote, forced to leave the eurozone simply to stave to more austerity measures. Then, following with an article titled “IG on Greece: Bridge with the declared intent of utilizing the out- off economic collapse, but to claim that this several months of Sturm und Drang (thun- to the Fourth Reich” (Workers Vanguard, come to pressure the EU for more favor- will create better conditions for Greek work- der and lightning) negotiations in Brussels, 2 October). The demagogic headline indi- able conditions.” It goes on to report, as we ers shows fatal illusions in the imperialists. the bankers demanded a Greek capitulation. cates that they have decided to play dirty. did months ago, that SYRIZA insiders said The Eurobankers can simply refuse to accept Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, having al- (An accompanying piece slanderously ac- Tsipras secretly expected and hoped for a a new drachma and continue to demand the ready agreed to almost all their extortionate cuses us of “provocation” and “a set-up for “yes” vote, so he wouldn’t have to do the euro debt be paid. It also ignores the extent demands, tried to wash his hands of respon- violence” against the ICL.) The ostensible dirty work. But that didn’t negate the fact that EU membership has destroyed large sibility by calling a referendum on the terms justification for the soft-core Nazi baiting that Tsipras called for a “no” vote as a pres- parts of the productive apparatus. Greece is of surrender, urging a “NO” vote (OXI in is our warning that the July referendum sure tactic, and that once he got it, he went heavily dependent on imports simply to feed Greek). 62% voted “No,” whereupon Tsip- was a fraud, that while a “Yes” vote would ahead and agreed to the sellout that he was itself: 63% of pork consumed (for example in ras pulled a U-turn and agreed with the par- mean abject surrender to the Eurobankers, preparing all along. We in the League for souvlaki) is imported, as is much of the milk ties that voted “Yes” to an even worse pro- even a “No” vote would approve draco- the Fourth International warned in advance in “Greek” yogurt, two-thirds of flour used gram of devastating austerity.1 nian austerity and be a vote of confidence that the vote was simply to hide the fact that in baking bread, along with 80% of beef and Those on the left who contributed to in Tsipras. Our warning, according to the the government had accepted the Troika’s almost all fuel, fertilizers, pesticides and ag- these betrayals by fostering the SYRIZA ICL, “was nothing less than a betrayal, a terms, and that’s exactly what happened. ricultural machinery. illusion were left dumbfounded and bitter. capitulation to the EU [European Union] Squirm as it might, the ICL can’t get around SYRIZA came to power peddling the This included the various components of imperialists, centrally the Fourth Reich of that basic fact, and that in its modest way, it illusion that it would somehow be possible the Left Platform of SYRIZA and a second German imperialism.” helped stoke the illusions. Having done so, to put an end to, or at least substantially lim- electoral coalition, ANTARSYA (Front of The ICL claims that the referendum it shares responsibility for the result. it, the devastation wrought by policies im- the Anti-Capitalist Left), which acted as a was just “‘for or against’ the Troika’s vi- Next on the ICL’s list of grievance is posed by the Troika of imperialist bankers pressure group on SYRIZA. Also among cious austerity program,” as if this was the LFI position on Greek exit from the Eu- that have slashed wages by 40%, produced those who got singed was the International some kind of simple opinion poll. It was rozone, colloquially referred to as Grexit. 25% unemployment (over 50% among Communist League (ICL – the Spartacist not, it was a ploy by Tsipras to give the ap- According to the ICL, a Grexit “would help youth) and sent the Greek economy into a tendency), and its local outlet, the Trotsky- pearance of resisting the hated “Troika” of break Greek workers from nationalism,” tailspin. We have explained elsewhere that ist Group of Greece (TGG). After having imperialist bankers (ECB, EC, IMF), while and for us to say that calling for Grexit under the entire Eurozone structure was designed called for no vote to SYRIZA in January, actually giving into their demands. It was a capitalism is pandering to bourgeois nation- to enforce austerity on the working class, the ICL did its own flip-flop and heeded classic “bait-and-switch” scam which any alism is pro-imperialist. The mental gym- and that this is the result of the depression Tsipras’ call for a “No” vote in the July street-smart New Yorker, and certainly any nastics they perform to buttress this claim in the advanced capitalist countries since referendum. Coming off that debacle, the revolutionary Marxist, should instantly surpasses Nadia Comaneci’s perfect-10 per- the 2007-08 market crash and financial cri- ICL/TGG issued a call for “workers com- spot: promise them one thing, give them formance in the 1976 Summer Olympics. sis, and more generally of the falling rate of mittees of action” on an eight-point pro- 4 another. Ever hear of “αγοράζετε ένα γου- In the first place, a capitalist Grexit is the profit. That will not substantially change gram that makes no mention of revolution, ρούνι στο σακί” (buying a pig in a poke)? program of Greek nationalists of every hue, whether a capitalist Greece is in or out of the a revolutionary party or the overthrow of The reformist KKE at least recognized this, from right to left. The ICL then claims that EU. To pretend that somehow Greek work- capitalism. It was a parody of Trotsky’s but the ICL helped Tsipras’ rip-off. Instead Greece “has even less national sovereignty ers can escape the hammer blows of auster- concept of transitional demands as a of going along with the charade, the job today than neocolonial Mexico,” and argues ity without overthrowing capitalist rule, as “bridge between present demands and the of Trotskyists is to warn the targets of this for Grexit on the grounds that “control over virtually the entire Greek “far left” and the socialist program of the revolution.”2 cynical operation, that they are being used, its currency is an elementary prerequisite continued on page 22 After three decades of upholding revo- that there is no escape from austerity under for national sovereignty.” So in the case of ber-December 1998). It was logical then, in a lutionary Trotskyism, the ICL was unhinged capitalism. As the Transitional Program Greece, part of the imperialist European perverted way, when these social-colonialists by the counterrevolutionary destruction of says, “To face reality squarely; not to seek Union, the ICL calls to defend its “national the Soviet Union and entered on a down- defended the U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti the line of least resistance; to call things by sovereignty,” but in Puerto Rico, an actual after the 2010 earthquake, supposedly to supply ward spiral of almost 20 years of centrist their right names; to speak the truth to the colony of U.S. imperialism, it pointedly re- humanitarian aid but actually to prevent the out- 3 degeneration in which it has abandoned one masses, no matter how bitter it may be… fuses to call for independence. break of protests, a position that we denounced key plank of the Trotskyist program after – these are the rules of the Fourth Interna- 3 The ICL, which used to call for Puerto Rican and the ICL later renounced as “social-imperial- another. In opposition to the 1996 founding tional.” Not so for the ICL, though. independence, abandoned this fundamental de- ist” (“Spartacist League Backs U.S. Imperialist Workers Vanguard also alleges that, mand in 1998 and has since then called only Invasion of Haiti” and “Repentant Social Im- 1 See “Greece: The Naked Rule of Finance Cap- “The resounding “no” vote in the July 5 for its “right to self-determnation” (or “right perialists: Open Letter from the Internationalist ital,” The Internationalist No. 41, September- of independence,” which is the same thing), Group to the Spartacist League,” in The Inter- Greek referendum destabilized the parlia- October 2015. something every U.S. president in at least the nationalist No. 31, Summer 2010. 2 See “The ICL on Greece: Goodbye Trotsky, mentary order in that country, providing last four decades has claimed to support (see 4 For example, in “Greece: The SYRIZA Illu- Hello Minimum Program,” also in The Interna- an opening for the working class to come “ICL Renounces Fight for Puerto Rican Inde- sion Exploded,” The Internationalist No. 39, tionalist No. 41. forward in struggle.” This is fantasy. The pendence,” The Internationalist No. 6, Novem- April-May 2015. 20 The Internationalist Channel tunnel linking France to Britain. In Thibault Camus/AP Paris Attack... recent days, 1,800 police have besieged the continued from page 12 camp. CRS riot cops lob tear-gas grenades ton killing shocks Western sensibilities while Nazis in hoods attack migrants near because it occurs “at home,” not in some the Eurotunnel. Dozens of residents have far-off land invisible to the citizenry, and it been put on planes to camps in the South, instills fear, as intended. and on November 12 construction equip- There was no such outcry about an- ment began bulldozing dwellings, suppos- other indiscriminate suicide-bombing by edly to build a “safer” camp (consisting of the I.S. that killed 43 people the day before shipping containers!) that would hold only in Beirut, Lebanon. On the contrary, the a quarter of the 6,000 living there now. initial headline of the New York Times (13 The report that one of the Paris attack- November) called the targeted neighbor- ers had a Syrian passport and may have ar- hood of southern Beirut a “stronghold” of rived in the wave of refugees a couple of the Shiite Hezbollah militia (which is aid- months ago has led right-wing demagogues ing the Syrian government), as if to justify to claim that migrants are being used as a the terror attack. Nor was there internation- cover to smuggle in terrorists. The same al commotion when at least 99 people were hysterical appeals are echoed in the United killed in an attack on a peace demonstra- States, not only by the execrable Donald tion called by left-wing unions and Kurd- Trump but also “mainstream” Republican ish parties in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, on governors who announced they would October 10. Or when 34 socialist youth Some of the 130 people killed in carnage of indiscriminate terror attack by not take any Syrian refugees, even though were killed in Suruc on July 20. These ter- Islamic State in Paris, November 13. many are fleeing from areas controlled by ror attacks were carried out by Islamists The League for the Fourth Interna- those born in France, and to ban them from the I.S. (and bombed by the U.S.). Now the in league with sectors of the Turkish state. tional calls instead to drive out and de- returning to France if the government de- U.S. House of Representatives has over- Since Turkey is an “ally” and member of feat the imperialists and their allies. As cides they “represent a terrorist risk.” whelmingly passed a vile racist bill tight- NATO, its crimes are unmentioned. we have repeatedly stated, “Every blow In addition, Hollande is demanding the ening restrictions on these refugees, with And while the French president de- struck against the NATO marauders, even government’s right to use “the whole range dozens of Democrats joining the Republi- nounces “the enemy” – the I.S. – as “bar- by the atavistic jihadis (holy warriors) of of intelligence techniques offered by new cans in the vote. At the same time, local barians,” there is no mention about how the I.S., is in the interests of the exploited technology” by administrative decision (i.e., police, Homeland Security and the FBI are this terrorist force was for years armed by and oppressed. The ‘democratic’ militarists without a court order), to tighten gun control ominously stepping up surveillance, while the imperialists and their regional allies are by far the biggest mass murderers (and and to expand police officers’ right to use intelligence agencies want to reinstate and puppets (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, exploiters and oppressors) on the planet” their weapons so they can shoot at will “in monitoring of all e-mails and phone calls. etc.) in their failed attempt to bring down (“Flashpoint Syria”). From Afghanistan legitimate defense.” He gave parliament un- Across Europe, immigrants and refu- 6 the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, in the 1980s on, Trotskyists emphatically til Friday to vote yes. In short, this pudgy gees are feeling the heat of an anti-foreign- seen as an ally of Iran and stumbling block opposed the Islamist cutthroats, whose social-democratic wannabe Napoléon just er backlash against the dramatic wave of for imposing a Pax Americana in the region. services the imperialists repeatedly used took over the security program of the right- migration from the Middle East, including Not a word about how Hollande secretly against targets from the Soviet Union to wing parties in the name of fighting a “war threats of violence, fascist attacks and of- approved shipments of thousands of arms the Middle East. And we do so today call- against terrorism.” Fascist National Front ficial repression. While Balkan countries to Islamist gangs in Syria who then joined ing for workers revolution to smash the I.S. leader Martine Le Pen grimaced and made seal off borders with barbed wire, in Ger- the Al Qaeda affiliate and eventually the and all the Sunni and Shiite Islamist, Zion- approving noises while saying Hollande many, the far-right Pegida (European Pa- Islamic State. Or about how the casualties ist, militarist and authoritarian regimes that didn’t go “far enough” in the “indispensable triots Against the Islamization of the West) inflicted by the I.S. “dogs of war” who have oppress the peoples of the region. cleaning out of the cellars and suburbs gan- movement regularly brings out 10,000 to slipped the leash in Paris are only a fraction grened by criminality.” No to the State of Emergency 20,000 demonstrators in Dresden to de- of those caused by their former masters. If, so far, there hasn’t been a wave of mand closing the borders. Arson and other 130 lives cruelly taken away in the City – Defend Muslims and anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attacks as attacks on asylum facilities in Germany are of Lights – that’s how many victims U.S. Immigrants! there was after the attack on Charlie Heb- skyrocketing, with 580 registered so far warplanes take out every time they hit a “La patrie en danger!” (the Father- do, the fascists are laying the basis for it by this year compared to 198 in all of 2014, wedding party in Afghanistan, which they land is in danger) cry French rulers when- whipping up hysteria against Syrian refu- with Nazis implicated in many. This under- do with sickening regularity. What about the gees. The government, meanwhile, is using ever they want to step up repression. And scores the urgency of organizing workers 600,000+ violent deaths between 2003 and police to attack migrant camps, notably the the (bourgeois) republican and (reformist) defense of immigrants, in France, Germa- 2006 due to the U.S. invasion of occupation “Jungle” at Calais, near the entrance to the socialist left invariably snaps to attention, ny, Belgium and elsewhere. of Iraq, including some 100,000 caused by 6 saluting the tricolor flag and intoning the On Thursday, November 19 the French Na- Despite the immigrant-bashing war aerial bombing, according to the report by tional Assembly voted overwhelmingly (551- Marseillaise. It was no different this time. frenzy, Parisians’ most common form of “re- researchers from the Johns Hopkins Univer- 6) to approve the draconian security laws, At the Congress of Versailles on November sistance” has been to have a drink at the local sity School of Public Health published in with only a handful of dissident Socialists and 16, Communist Party (PCF) senator Éliane café or bistro. But the main danger is from the respected British medical journal Lan- Greens voting against and every single deputy Assassi declared that in the face of the at- the government as it escalates the war in Iraq cet? Or the over 1 million Iraqis who died of the PCF and PG shamefully voting for the tacks, “the state of emergency is fully justi- repressive legislation. and Syria and seeks to impose police-state because of the United Nations economic fied,” while piously appealing for “respect sanctions between 1991 and 1998, including Eric Feferberg/AFP of public liberties.” Left Party (PG) leader over 500,000 children, according to surveys Jean-Luc Mélenchon greeted Hollande’s by the United Nations Children’s Fund? declaration that the “security pact is supe- Faced with the utter failure of the U.S. rior to the financial stability pact,” while (and French) war campaign against the I.S., ironically expressing doubts about his two policy options are being weighed by the “staggering addition to imagined security.” “great” and not-so-great powers: intensify The French president began his speech the bombing and oust Assad in Damascus, to the Congress declaring, “France is at or intensify the bombing in conjunction with the Assad regime. Both depend on the war,” as if this was something new. France, policy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.5 Hard- which refused to join the 2003 U.S.-led in- line war hawk Democrats and Republicans vasion of Iraq, has been bombing the I.S. in in Washington and “socialist” Hollande in Iraq and now Syria since Obama launched Paris want to topple the Syrian president, his war there in September 2014. But Hol- but not have the regime apparatus collapse, lande’s war is above all against the “en- a nearly impossible scenario. The “realists” emy within.” He went on to call not only want to work in tandem with Russia, Iran to extend the State of Emergency for three and Assad without saying so or openly col- months, but also to add thousands of new laborating. In either case, the elusive goal is police officers, to create a National Guard, a “peace” imposed by the imperialist mass to amend the Constitution to introduce an murderers and their reactionary allies. ongoing “state of crisis,” to shut down French president François Hollande (at tribune) and legislators sing La mosques that “preach hatred” and deport Marseillaise at Congress in Versailles Palace, October 16. The Communist 5 See “Flashpoint Syria: Russian Intervention their imams, to permit the cancellation of Party and Left Party shamefully voted to extend state of emergency and and Imperialist Aggression,” on page 13. French citizenship and deportation even of grant police-state powers to the bourgeois government. January-February 2016 21 in 1932 about Germany that the situation ICL... “dictates a clear strategic plan, beginning on continued from page 20 the defensive, then assuming the offensive” ICL do, is to propagate the same kinds of leading to “the conquest of power” (“What illusions that SYRIZA did, only this time Next? Vital Questions for the German Prole- with the drachma instead of the euro. tariat” [January 1932]). Workers Vanguard accuses us of “try- A program for defensive struggle that

Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP ing to make time with the Stalinists of the does not lead to struggle for revolution is Greek Communist Party” because we noted precisely a reformist “minimum program.” that in calling for a “double OXI” (no to Actually, the social democrats and Stalin- the austerity of the Troika and of SYRIZA) ists would often tack on a few phrases about the KKE stated that there is no “alternative socialism and even revolution in the sweet for the people in a capitalist Greece of the bye-and-bye – their “maximum program” drachma.” WV pretends this means dropping for Sunday speechifying. This mini-max opposition to the EU, even though it quotes program is the very antithesis of Trotsky’s our article saying that “Unlike Euroleftists Transitional Program, but the ICL dispens- like SYRIZA, authentic Trotskyists have es with any reference whatsoever to a final opposed the imperialist European Union goal. To try to give its Greek minimum from the beginning.” But it has a little prob- program a Trotskyist pedigree, the Workers lem: while the LFI called for critical support Vanguard article cites Trotsky’s November Head of personnel at Air France flees from strikers, October 5. Union tops to KKE candidates in the January election, 1935 article “For Committees of Action – distanced themselves from workers’ action, called off new strike scheduled so did the ICL’s Trotskyist Group of Greece. Not the People’s Front” (part of his pam- for November 19. Almost entire left has gone along with state of emergency. It now claims that this was “because it [the phlet Whither France?). Well and good. measures indefinitely. The state of emergen- demanded, repeatedly, that Hollande – i.e., KKE] stood in opposition to the EU” in Trotsky’s call for Committees of Action is cy which was used by future Socialist Party the French imperialist government – arm January but subsequently changed its poli- explicitly directed against the popular front leader François Mitterrand against Algerian the “Free Syrian Army”! In fact, Hollande cy. However, the KKE dropped its call for tying the workers organization to sections independence fighters in the 1950s and after admitted last year that France had been sur- a Greek exit from the euro under capitalism of the bourgeoisie – just look at the title. the generals’ putsch in 1961, which allows reptitiously doing just that. (In the U.S. there well before January 2015. After rereading But the ICL’s eight-point program includes the government to ban demonstrations and have been no major antiwar protests since the documents, perhaps the ICL/TGG will no plank against the populist SYRIZA gov- meetings, censor media, carry out arbitrary Obama began bombing: since liberals sup- renounce its earlier critical support. ernment, and is clearly intended to include searches and seizures, impose curfews and port the war on the I.S., the opportunist left- The ICL takes us to task for “argu[ing] critical SYRIZA supporters. house arrests, even set up military tribunals, ists who tail after them stay home.) that there is no way out of debt peon- Okay, so there’s no call for a revolu- is not sufficient for the va-t-en-guerre (war- As for the state of emergency, almost age for the Greek working class and op- tionary workers party, workers government, monger) Hollande. He wants all those pow- the entire French left is “electoral cretin- pressed short of a Europe-wide workers workers revolution, struggle against SYRIZA ers and more, permanently. ist” to the core. Even though “far left” par- revolution.”5 “Sounds really r..r..revolu- – or occupying the ports and banks, heaven ties get a tiny percentage of the vote and tionary, but it isn’t,” sneers Workers Van- forbid – that’s because it’s “an application of Build a Revolutionary almost no one elected, they devote a huge guard. (Actually, what we called for was “a the tactic of the united front.,” says the ICL. Internationalist Party amount of their efforts to participating in Europe-wide workers revolt that becomes But the united front is a temporary agreement What’s urgently needed in the wake the capitalist election shell game. They are a revolution.”) It derides our alleged “hot for united action. The program for the ICL/ of the Paris attacks is a revolutionary op- not about to risk their ballot status, or the air urging the Greek workers to occupy TGG’s “workers action committees” calls position to the imperialist aggression and government subsidies they receive for run- the banks and the ports.”6 It scoffs at the to cancel the debt, abolish regressive taxes, bonapartist repressive measures “at home.” ning candidates, by violating a government “‘revolutionary offensive’ blowhards in expropriate the banks, decent pensions, etc. Certainly that won’t come from the reform- ban on demos. Yes, Bolsheviks can make the IG” for whom “the very notion of de- That is no united front, it’s a propaganda ist, long-since social-democratized PCF, use of the rigged electoral platform to put fensive struggle as outlined by Trotsky is bloc – which Trotsky always warned against. whose Senate spokeswoman said they forward our revolutionary program, but it anathema.” Instead the ICL proffers the It’s a political coalition of the sort that’s been would “study” Hollande’s call for more is hardly a main focus of activity. If anti- program for “workers action committees” plaguing the Greek left for decades, where police powers. Unions led by the PCF and parliamentarism is an “infantile disorder it put forward in its July 17 leaflet. We have coalitions exist within coalitions. The WV PS have dutifully called off strikes and mo- of communism,” as Lenin wrote, the in- noted that this leaflet raised “some correct article makes this explicit, saying “such com- bilizations. One canceled walkout was that grained electoralism of the French left is a calls, including for a number of demands mittees would be arenas for vital debates on scheduled for Air France on November 19 sign of social-democratic senile dementia. we have put forward in recent articles the way forward involving the different par- to protest massive layoffs and arrests af- In the Middle East, Islamist forces have (workers defense guards, shorter work- ties that claim to represent the workers’ in- ter their militant strike last month when mushroomed because of the failure of the week with no loss in pay, workers control terests.” So they’re to be social-democratic incensed workers tore the shirts off top Stalinist left and the bourgeois nationalist of food distribution),” but with a crucial debating clubs for sundry fake-left groups, airline executives. (CFDT and CGT union regimes it supported to confront imperial- difference: the ICL/TGG did not link these all of whom call for a capitalist Grexit, have leaders shamefully distanced themselves ism and offer an alternative to the grinding to a struggle for workers revolution. very similar minimum programs, and all from the workers’ bold action.) poverty and social disintegration of neo- Rather than calling for a workers gov- (ICL included) attack the reformist Stalinist But even groups traditionally clas- colonial capitalism. Likewise in France and ernment based on organs of workers power KKE from the right. sified as “far left” have almost all tacitly elsewhere in Europe, the reactionary jihadis (the dictatorship of the proletariat), the ICL If such committees ever come to exist gone along with the government. Reform- recruit among disaffected Muslim youth refers vaguely to “a government which will at all, that is. The ICL is a latecomer to this ist pseudo-Trotskyists like the Nouveau who see no future for themselves amid the act in the interests of the working people and milieu and may not find many takers. But Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA), led by follow- opulence of the imperialist metropole, and be subordinated to them.” This could be, we what they’re not is what’s needed most: a ers of the late Ernest Mandel, and Gauche no revolutionary alternative to their degrad- wrote, “a government of the capitalist state step toward galvanizing Greek workers to Révolutionnaire (GR), part of Peter Taaffe’s ing life. If when residents of the banlieues backed by unions and supposedly pledged take class-struggle action against the Eu- Committee for a Workers International, rose up in 2005 against police brutality, to carry out pro-worker reforms.” The ICL robanker loan sharks and their local col- take exception to calls for “national unity,” French leftists and workers had come out to formula is almost identical to calls by Greek lection agency, the SYRIZA government; say that this is “their war, our dead” (NPA), set up defense guards around the besieged pseudo-Trotskyists like the DEA who mean to fight for asylum for all refugees and full “not our war” (GR), and criticize the state HLM (housing projects), it would be a very exactly that7 and whose pseudo-“transitional citizenship for all immigrants; and above of emergency. But beyond these abstract different story today. program” bears a striking resemblance to the all, to forge a revolutionary workers par- bromides neither they nor other groups like Any of the three major organizations in ICL’s. Now, the 2 October Workers Vanguard ty to lead a workers revolt, from defense Lutte Ouvrière (LO) are calling to mobilize France claiming some affinity to Trotsky- explicitly confirms that its program is not against austerity attacks to offense against in the streets to demand France get out of ism had the numbers and wherewithal do calling for proletarian rule. As for Trotsky’s the capitalist system. To fight for a social- Syria and Iraq – i.e., not only opposing the that. But for that what’s required above all view of defensive struggles, he does not di- ist federation of the Balkans and a social- state of emergency in words but defying is a Leninist and Trotskyist program of rev- vorce them from revolutionary struggle as ist united states of Europe requires build- the bans on demonstrations. olutionary action, and that they were lack- the ICL does, but links them. Thus he writes ing an authentic Trotskyist vanguard on a The reason there is not now and has not ing. The heinous killings in Paris, the never- 5 “What Road for Greece: Perpetual Debt Peon- transitional program for socialist revolu- been a mass struggle against French bom- ending imperialist butchery in the Middle age or Workers Revolution?” The Internation- tion, which the ICL’s “bridge to nowhere” bardment in the Middle East is that these East and the intensifying police repression alist No. 41, September-October 2015. platform most decidedly is not. Having 6 opportunists largely share the same policy as everywhere cry out for an authentically See “Greek Workers: Defeat the Bankers’ Dik- relegated workers revolution to the Greek the ruling Socialist Party, calling for support tat, Occupy the Banks and Ports!” The Interna- calends, after so many other revisions of Bolshevik, internationalist workers party. tionalist No. 41. the Trotskyist program, these centrists are to the supposedly “moderate” Islamist armed It’s up to the League for the Fourth Inter- 7 See “Capitalist “Left Government” vs. Revo- gangs against the Assad regime in Syria. The national and revolutionary-minded militants lutionary Workers Government,” The Interna- tacking to and fro in the Aegean, adrift NPA, which is the most egregious, has even everywhere to build it. n tionalist No. 41. without a compass headed … where? n

22 The Internationalist propio poder de clase, nuestros derechos”. La lucha despertó una como Walmart. Pero de hecho, muy pocos no en las instituciones, enorme creatividad, por ejemplo cuando trabajadores en esos lugares de trabajo han medios y políticos del los trabajadores pintaron sus consignas en ido efectivamente a huelga, por temor a que sistema capitalista. cajas para llevar en alto a las marchas de de hacerlo serían inmediatamente despedi- “¡Unión, fuerza, protesta. Subían y bajaban las cajas con dos, y se trata de acciones tipo espectáculo consignas mientras coreaban “Arriba tra- dirigidas por burócratas sindicales, orien- solidaridad!” bajador, abajo explotador”. tadas a los medios de comunicación y con Empresa lucrativa Otra consigna coreada con mucho sen- frecuencia para servir de plataforma a polí- y de alto perfil, cono- timiento fue la de “Uno, dos tres, queremos ticos del Partido Demócrata. Un verdadero cida en toda la indus- nuestros breaks”. El break es un descanso, y intento de sindicalizar a los trabajadores de tria de la fotografía y muchos habían estado trabajando 58 horas bajos salarios exige un sistemático esfuerzo el video, lo que hace a la semana, o más, con apenas una breve de organización para movilizar a las bases B&H tras bambalinas pausa para comer. En el mitin del 1º de no- con independencia de los partidos patrona- trae a la mente los ta- viembre frente a la tienda de B&H hubo una les. Esto es lo que muestran las victorias de lleres del sudor y el El 6 de noviembre, cientos de trabajadores de B&H, sus votación simbólica. Al depositar su voto, Hot and Crusty y B&H. cruel desdén por la familias y activistas abarrotaron un salón de reuniones cada uno declaraba sus razones para votar La conciencia y la organización de los seguridad de los tra- en Brooklyn para celebrar el triunfo histórico del logro “sí” a la sindicalización: “seguridad en el trabajadores seguirán siendo cruciales en la bajadores que llevó al de la certificación sindical. trabajo”, “no más discriminación”, “mejor lucha para conseguir un contrato sindical “levantamiento de los salario”, “respeto”, “dignidad”, “por mis hi- que incorpore avances significativos para 20 mil” trabajadoras de la industria del jos” y “Estoy votando por el futuro”, fueron los trabajadores en una compañía en la que Victoria!... vestido –principalmente mujeres y adoles- algunas de las muchas respuestas. “los almacenes parecen cárceles”. Continuar sigue de la página 24 centes inmigrantes judías e italianas– en la En este bastión sindical que es Nueva y profundizar las actividades de educación trabajadores expresaron su aprecio por ciudad de Nueva York, dos años antes del York, la notoria valentía de los almacenis- obrera que ya están en curso será de impor- el papel jugado el LWC al orientar la lu- tristemente célebre incendio de la fábrica tas de B&H despertó para ellos apoyo de tancia fundamental en el período que sigue. cha, así como para el dedicado equipo de Triangle Shirtwaist de 1911. parte de muchos sectores. Más de un mi- También será vital establecer un comité de abogados, que jugaron un papel clave al Frente a un oponente de línea dura tal llar de fotógrafos y artistas firmaron una mujeres vinculado a la unión (debido a la bloquear uno a uno los sucios trucos de la como la gerencia de B&H, enfatizó la or- petición para respaldar su causa. Para es- discriminatoria política de contrataciones compañía, así como a quienes apoyaron la ganizadora del LWC Rosanna Rodríguez, tudiantes de la Universidad de la Ciudad de la compañía, todos los almacenistas son lucha. El hecho de que el sindicato United la victoria de los trabajadores ha exigido de Nueva York (CUNY) que los Clubes varones) para integrar completamente en Steelworkers respaldó a los trabajadores, valor y trabajo duro, “un año de organiza- Internacionalistas de CUNY trajeron a las la lucha a las esposas y compañeras de los convirtiéndose en su representante para la ción y mucho sacrificio”. Esta preparación, protestas y para apoyar las actividades de trabajadores en una situación en la que esta negociación de un contrato colectivo, fue junto con las lecciones que los trabajadores los trabajadores, la experiencia “ha repre- cuestión puede ser clave para la victoria o la citado como una parte clave de la campaña. extrajeron de los intentos que realizaron sentado un increíble aprendizaje”, como derrota, como lo han mostrado muchas ba- Un momento memorable de la velada ocu- durante años para resistir en contra de los dijo una joven activista, “puesto que lo que tallas de clase en el pasado. rrió cuando el almacenista Jorge Lora leyó abusos de los patrones, han rendido frutos leemos y estudiamos en nuestros círculos Por medio de su intensa campaña a un poema que escribió, que dice en parte: de gran importancia. “Los trabajadores de de estudio marxistas cobró vida aquí, y so- lo largo del año pasado y de la resultante “Ya hace más de un año, el día yo ni B&H han mostrado un nivel de organiza- mos parte de esto”. victoria sindical, los trabajadores de B&H me acuerdo, un grupo de trabajadores deci- ción, disciplina y determinación que he En la celebración del 6 de noviembre, pueden ser la chispa para luchas, que ellos dieron tumbar un imperio. Eran sometidos visto raras veces a lo largo de mis muchas los internacionalistas y otros cantaron dos pueden ayudar a dirigir, de toda la clase a maltrato, irrespecto y discriminación, el décadas en el movimiento obrero, dijo un canciones escritas por un camarada una obrera en el área de Nueva York. Están grupo de trabajadores que venían de dis- veterano activista de las luchas obreras a El noche antes de la histórica votación para emergiendo nuevos organizadores en el tinta nación.... Y todos estamos contentos Internacionalista. la sindicalización. Uno de los coros dice: curso de la batalla. El enorme potencial con el resultado de la votación.... Ahora es Tres semanas antes de votar la sindi- “Es la hora de decisiones, los obreros no para una ofensiva obrera en contra de la que empezamos la lucha para el contrato calización de los almacenes de B&H, los somos reos, almacenes no son prisiones”. intolerable desigualdad, la discriminación ganar.... Y esto después va a continuar.” trabajadores mostraron el poder de su so- Otra canción se burla de la rifa organizada y la represión racista exige una dirección Ya habíamos señalado previamen- lidaridad y determinación cuando la ad- por los patrones y declara: “No nos deja- clasista a la altura del desafío, empeñada te que la victoriosa lucha de la panadería ministración y “consultores” antisindica- mos comprar con trucos del patrón”. en llevar a la victoria la lucha de los tra- Hot and Crusty en Manhattan inspiró la de les amenazaron a los trabajadores con un A escala nacional se ha dedicado mu- bajadores contra todo el sistema capitalista B&H. Ahora la victoria de B&H inspirará despido en masa en las instalaciones de los cha atención en los medios de comunica- de despiadada explotación. La victoria de otras, entre la clase obrera de Nueva York, Navy Yards en represalia por haberse re- ción a las protestas y “huelgas” en com- los trabajadores de B&H será inspiración con su gran contingente de inmigrantes, husado a firmar documentos antisindicato. pañías tristemente célebres por sus bajos y ejemplo para todos los que quieren que como señaló el camarada Antonio, porta- Al enterarse de la provocación de los pa- salarios, incluidos restaurantes de comida esto ocurra. voz del Grupo Internacionalista, durante trones, los trabajadores del almacén de la rápida como McDonald’s, y grandes tiendas ¡Luchar, vencer, obreros al poder! la celebración del 6 de noviembre. “Es un avenida Evergreen pararon de inmediato ejemplo para todos los inmigrantes y tam- labores en una protesta de solidaridad que bién para los trabajadores nacidos aquí”, puso a los patrones contra las cuerdas, obli- dijo. Hay “medio millón de inmigrantes gándolos a retractarse de sus amenazas de The indocumentados en Nueva York”, señaló. despido y a “disculparse” por este “error”. Internationalist Al menos 150 mil mexicanos viven aquí, Habiendo contratado al infame bufe- en su gran mayoría trabajadores, junto con te legal Jackson Lewis, conocido por sus A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism for the “ecuatorianos, guatemaltecos y dominica- maniobras para impedir la formación de Reforging of the Fourth International nos así como africanos, haitianos, chinos, sindicatos, la compañía siguió el manual bangladeshis, paquistaníes y muchos más antisindical, pero cada triquiñuela les Publication of the Internationalist Group, que compartimos la explotación con los resultó inútil, pues los trabajadores con- section of the League for the Fourth International trabajadores negros, latinos, asiáticos y firmaron una y otra vez las predicciones blancos nacidos en este país”. que hicieron los organizadores sindicales Annual subscription US$10 for five issues. “Así que la lucha de ustedes va a inspi- con respecto a las jugarretas que vendrían. rar a muchos más trabajadores en esta ciu- Los trabajadores respondieron al intento Name______dad y tenemos que prepararnos para eso”, de los propietarios de intimidarlos con Address______continuó, y para la siguiente fase de esta lu- una numerosa y animada marcha frente cha. Ganar un sindicato es un primer paso a la tienda ubicada en el centro de Man- ______Apt. #_____Tel.(___)______crucial. En la lucha por el contrato, será hattan tres días después de la amenaza de City______State/Province______esencial movilizar la fuerza independiente despido en masa, coreando “¡El jueves de los trabajadores como clase, con apoyo mostramos que no tenemos miedo!” y Postal Code/Zip______Country______activo por parte del resto del movimiento “¡Unión, fuerza, solidaridad!” obrero de Nueva York (transporte, comuni- Los trabajadores cuya voz e indivi- Make checks/money orders payable to Mundial Publications and mail to: caciones, construcción, educación y otros dualidad son sofocadas en el molino diario Mundial Publications sindicalistas) y defensores de los derechos de la explotación –en que los patrones que Box 3321, Church Street Station New York, NY 10008 U.S.A. de los inmigrantes. Así también, es funda- los “tratan como animales” y los ven como mental recordar la lección de luchas como poco más que bestias de carga, como va- Write the Internationalist Group at the above address, or contact: la de Hot and Crusty, de que “jugar con re- rios comentaron– se dieron cuenta de qué Tel (212) 460-0983 Fax (212) 614-8711 glas del patrón es segura perdición”. Para es lo que pueden hacer en el curso de una E-mail: [email protected] ganar, los trabajadores deben basarse en su lucha colectiva “por nuestra dignidad y January-February 2016 23 El Internacionalista enero-febrero de 2016 Con votación arrolladora se gana la sindicalización ¡V-I-C-T-O-R-I-A! Almacenistas de B&H logran triunfo histórico para el movimiento obrero y los derechos de los inmigrantes Foto: El Internacionalista

Almacenistas y sus partidarios se manifiestan frente a la tienda de B&H Photo en el centro de Nueva York, el 1° de noviembre. La muchedumbre coreó, “¡El 4 de noviembre, vamos a ganar!” De hecho, el 4 de noviembre, los trabajadores de B&H ganaron la certificación sindical con una votación de 200 contra 88. Cientos de trabajadores almacenistas pañía en los Navy Yards y en la avenida de los derechos de los inmigrantes, fue una expresaron su orgullo por haber desafia- inmigrantes en Brooklyn, Nueva York, Evergreen. mañana para recordar. do con éxito una compañía que ha usado lograron una victoria histórica el 4 de “Hoy vamos a ganar”, decían los tra- “Vamos a conseguir 200 votos”, ase- todos los trucos del manual antisindical noviembre, cuando su campaña de sindi- bajadores una y otra vez, con una mezcla guraba el organizador Mahoma López para intentar intimidarlos, silenciarlos y calización –que llevaba un año en curso– de determinación y júbilo mientras toma- del Laundry Workers Center (LWC), esto desgastarlos. Dos días antes de la votación, consiguió una votación arrolladora en la ban café y pan que habían llevado sus par- como reflejo del carácter intensivo y sis- la compañía realizó una rifa y anunció la conocida empresa de equipo profesional de tidarios, asegurándose de que todos se pre- temático que tuvo la campaña de organi- celebración de una fiesta para los trabaja- fotografía y video B&H. Los días 11 y 18 sentaran a la votación para la certificación zación. López es el dirigente de los traba- dores, pero ésta fue cancelada cuando casi de octubre y 1º de noviembre, los trabaja- sindical, que se llevaría a cabo en estos dos jadores de la panadería Hot and Crusty, nadie asistió. “Mostramos lo que se pue- dores realizaron animadas manifestaciones lugares de trabajo. Cuando abrieron las ca- cuya exitosa campaña de sindicalización de hacer”, dijeron los trabajadores. Sobre afuera de la tienda de la empresa en la calle sillas a las 6:30 a.m., los trabajadores mar- de 2012 inspiró la campaña de los traba- todo, hubo determinación para mantener la 34 en Manhattan. Y entonces llegó el día charon en destacamentos hacia los sitios jadores de los almacenes de B&H Photo, solidez de su unidad y organización –que decisivo. Mucho antes del amanecer del de votación, coreando “¿Qué queremos? que fue encabezada por el LWC junto con fueron fundamentales para ganar la vota- día 4, los trabajadores se concentraron en ¡Unión! ¿Cuándo? ¡Ahora!” Para los acti- el sindicato United Steelworkers (USW). ción para el reconocimiento sindical– en la las cercanías de los almacenes de la com- vistas del movimiento obrero y defensores (Véase “¡Victoria a la lucha de los trabaja- próxima batalla: conseguir un contrato co- dores de B&H Photo!”, 19 de octubre, en lectivo. Arturo Archila, organizador princi- www.internationalist.org/victoriatrabaja- pal por la USW, les dijo: “Hoy es su día, doresdeBHphoto1015.html.) su victoria. Ahora ustedes van a determinar Poco después del mediodía, mientras las demandas en la lucha por el contrato.” que organizadores y simpatizantes espera- Dos noches después, cientos de tra- ban con impaciencia en los alrededores a bajadores y sus familias, junto con orga- que se anunciaran los resultados del recuen- nizadores y grupos solidarios, abarrotaron El Internacionalista to, llegaron las noticias: el voto a favor del un salón de reuniones en Brooklyn en una sindicato había ganado con un aplastante animada celebración de la victoria. Los hi- 200 contra 88, con una participación de jos de los trabajadores perseguían globos, aproximadamente el 80 por ciento del per- mientras las luces estroboscópicas cente- sonal. Dentro del almacén, los trabajadores lleaban y la pista de baile estaba repleta. hicieron correr la voz de departamento a Se hizo playeras con los eslóganes “Arriba departamento. Los jefes estaban descon- trabajador, abajo explotador” y “Unión, solados –“tenían las cabezas gachas”, co- fuerza, solidaridad”, que fueron frecuente- mentaron varios trabajadores– en tanto que mente coreados en las manifestaciones. algunos “felicitaron” a los trabajadores por El programa formal de la noche co- su victoria en tono burlón, pero también en menzó con un reconocimiento para el El Grupo Internacionalista y los Clubes Internacionalistas participaron reconocimiento del indiscutible hecho. grupo de dirigentes elegidos que fue un activamente en apoyo a la campaña para la sindicalización. Aquí en la Cuando se reunieron después del tra- factor fundamental para la victoria. Los protesta del 1° de noviembre. bajo esa misma tarde, los trabajadores sigue en la página 23