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For Class Struggle Against U.S. Capitalist Rulers!

MARCH II-Over the last two weeks, vehicles-all this against a depleted Iraqi psychologically." This is the policy of denounces the "human rights" violations the U.S. drive to war against Iraq has suf­ army with barely the spare parts to main­ Schrecklichkeit, the deliberate terrorizing of the Saddam Hussein regime, Israel fered one diplomatic setback after another. tain itself. Despite the Turkish vote, the of the "enemy" population carried out by continues to pound, starve, terrorize and Last week, the Turkish parliament rejected U.S. is already moving troops and weap­ Hitler's Third Reich in World War 11- slaughter Palestinians with impunity. an American proposal to place 62,000 onry through Turkey to the Iraqi border, and by the "democratic" imperialists in Over 60 percent of the population of the US. troops in the country as an invasion while otherwise laying the groundwork the firebombing of Hamburg,. Dresden Occupied Territories now subsists on less force for northern Iraq. This was fol­ for a full-scale invasion. In a drastic and Tokyo and the A-bombing of Hiro­ than $2 a day and crippling malnutrition lowed by a raucous United Nations Secur­ escalation of air strikes in recent weeks, shima and Nagasaki. in the coming war, is rampant, especially among children. ity Council meeting where France and U.S. and British jets have been flying the U.S. is planning to use a new MOAB Under the cover of an Iraq war, the Russia said they would block the U.S.! hundreds of sorties and destroying com­ (Massive Ordnance Air Burst) bomb, government of Ariel Sharon, which in­ British resolution authorizing war. And munications and other facilities. Now which has the impact of a small nuclear cludes parties openly committed to the yesterday they explicitly vowed to veto U.S. forces are tearing down the electri­ bomb, and is also talking of using actual forcible "transfer" of all Palestinians from the resolution. fied fence in the "demilitarized zone" on nuclear "bunker-buster" bombs. the Occupied Territories, may well try to But regardless of the diplomatic wran­ the KuwaitilIraqi border. The peoples of the Near East cannot implement this genocidal policy. As a gling, George Bush has made clear his This will be a bloody, one-sided but bum with bitterness ,at the hypocrisy member of the "left" Zionist Meretz intent to go to war. Current American slaughter: The Pentagon is planning to of the Bush gang prattling on, about lreq's party wrote in a 7 MarchHa'aretz piece: deployment in the Persian Gulf region slam 3,000 "smart bombs" into Iraq in the supposed "weapons of mass' destruction" "We do not have gas chambers and cre­ includes some 250,000 troops, five air­ first 48 hours of war. Washington's stated while Israel maintains the largest arsenal matoria, but there is no one fixed method craft carriers, 100 warships, 1,000 fighter aim is a "sliock and awe" offensive to of nuclear, biological and chemical weap­ for genocide." Indeed Benny Alon, one of jets and 1,800 tanks and groun~ artillery shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and ons in the region. While Bush cynically continued on page 8

All U.S. lrOO,-5 Out of Korea! Delend North Korea's Right to Nuclear Weapons! When four North Korean MIG fight­ ing spy planes 150 miles off the Amer­ news agency as "driving the situation to ers intercepted a U.S. RC-135S spy ican coast. The real provocation is the the brink of a war." plane over the Sea of Japan off the presence of37,000 U.S. troops in South In the face of u.s. imperialism's Korean coast on March 2, Washington Korea, an occupation force established threats, we call on the international predictably denounced it as a provoca­ at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War in proletariat to stand for the uncondi­ tion. One can only imagine what the which U.S. imperialism devastated the tional military defense of the North U.S. would do if North Korea were fly- peninsula and killed more than three Korean deformed workers state against million people. Now the Pentagon has imperialism. This crucially includes the 1 1 ordered 24 B-1 and B-52 bombers to right of North Korea to develop nuclear Guam, within easy striking distance of weapons to defend itself against the Pyongyang. And, on March 3, the U.S. u.s. nuclear cowboys. began a month of military exercises in Last year, Bush declared North Korea South Korea involving over 300,000 part of an "axis of evil," and a few American and South Korean troops, a months later the Pentagon published a Spartacists at February 16 San Fran­ 7111.25274118103011117 move described by the North's official continued on page 8 cisco protest against Iraq war. I

Cop Rampage Against Black Bus Drivers CHICAGO-At about 9:20 p.m. on Feb­ job goodbye" and threatened: "Don't you against Karen Kelly, another black bus ruary 7, black Chicago Transit Authority know who the f--k we are?" At the sta­ driver, on the ludicrous claim that she (CTA) bus driver Henry Walker, a mem­ tion, Walker heard his attackers laughing had intentionally tried to run him down ber of Amalgamated TransIt Union (ATU) and joking in an adjoining room as they with her bus. Local 241 ~ pulled his bus over at 39th and cooked up a story and concocted the Racist cop terror is "business as usual" Cottage Grove for a routine stop. Min­ charges against him. in Segregation City. But the increased utes later, Walker found himself spread In a February 22 letter to Cook County assaults against unionized black bus driv­ face (lown on the hood of a police car State's Attorney Richard Devine demand­ ers in recent months is more than usual. It as a gang of white cops pummeled his ing that the charges against Walker be is no coincidence that these police attacks back and neck, then dragged him off dropped, the Partisan Defense Committee come in the midst of the government's to jail and slapped him with bogus fel­ stated: "The current charges are an obvi­ "war on terror" and its preparations for ony charges of aggravated assault and ous fabrication designed to cover the war against Iraq. The domestic face of the battery against a cop. Held for three cops' dirty work and to punish Walker "war on terror" is a war against immi­ days in custody, Walker now faces a pos­ and intimidate him and the bus passen­ grants, labor and minorities. As the Feds sible prison sentence of five or more gers from serving as witnesses." The let­ shred civil liberties in the name of "home­ years. His "crime"? Having witnessed ter continued, "This vicious police attack land security" and panic the population the cops brutally beating a black man against a black trade unionist is a threat with incessant "terror alerts," the racist as he lay handcuffed in the street. We to all working people, black people and cops feel they have the green light to run demand: Drop the charges against Henry minorities in Chicago. Bus operators, roughshod over working people, black Walker! who have a grueling job providing a vital people and immigrants. When Walker first stopped his bus, a public service, have been the target of Walker's co-workers in Local 241 shaken black woman got on board and ap­ escalating racist cop attacks." have risen t~ his defense, posting flyers pealed to the passengers for help because Last July, a white Chicago cop called in bus barns and mobilizing for his first WV Photo the police were attacking her boyfriend. bus operator Arlene Russell a "stupid court appearance on February 14, as they Henry Walker, victim of cop attack. One of the cops demanded that Walker black bitch," and when she called the have also done for Arlene Russell and get off the bus. When he refused, citing city's Office of Professional Standards to Karen Kelly, With its members being home and abroad-against the all-sided CTA policy, the cops dragged him out of protest this racist abuse, the cop tried to . beaten by racist cops and hauled before attacks of the racist capitalist rulers. his seat, ripping off his uniform sweater. grab her cellphone, twisted her arm and the bosses' courts, the ATU must bring We urge all labor, minority rights, Walker was punched in the face, his arm arrested her on bogus battery charges its social power to bear to demand that student and community organizations to was twisted behind his back as he was (see "Chicago Transit Workers Rally to the charges against these unionists be demonstrate their solidarity by attending handcuffed, and he was then ~lammed Defend Arlene Russell," WV No. 789, 18 dropped now! the next court dates for the three bus driv­ down on the squad car. As they beat him, October 2002). Three months later, a But the ATU bureaucracy undermines ers. Henry Walker's next court appear­ the cops snarled that he could "kiss this white cop pressed felony battery charges the defense of the union and its members ance will be on March 19 at 9 a.m. against the capitalist state by supporting at Chicago's Criminal Courts Building, the USA-Patriot Act, under which strik­ 2600 S. California St., Room 101. Karen ing transit workers could be slapped with Kelly is due to appear on April 11 at Capitalist Militarism and federal "terrorism" charges for something 10 a.m. at the Skokie Civic Court, 5600 State Repression as simple as defending their own picket Old Orchard Road, Skokie. Arlene Rus­ lines. Along with the police attacks on sell is going to trial in Chicago on April Increasing military aggression by U.S. its members, ATU Local 241 has faced 21 at 9 a.m. at 1340 S. Michigan Avenue, imperialism abroad is being accompanied at the CTA's union-busting assaults while Room 501. We also urge that protest home by the wholesale shredding of demo­ working for three years without a con­ statements be sent to: Richard Devine, cratic rights. At the dawn of the imperialist tract. What is needed is to mobilize the Cook County State's Attorney, 500 Rich­ age, revolutionary Marxist Rosa Luxemburg labor movement in defense of immigrants, ard J. Daley Center, Chicago, IL 60602. pointed to this tendency in polemicizing black people and all working people-at Fax: (312) 603-3000 .• against revisionist "socialists" whose per­ spective of transforming capitalism through TROTSKY parliamentary reforms was antithetical to LENIN the fight for proletarian revolution. On closer examination, the uninterrupted ascent of democracy, which to our revi­ sionism, as well as to bourgeois liberalism, appears as a great fundamental law of Defend Iraq Against U.S. Imperialist Attack! human history and, at the very least, of modern history, is shown to be a phantom. No Down' With UN Starvation Blockade! absolute and universal relation can be constructed between capitalist development and democracy. The political form is always the result of the whole sum of political factors, domestic as well as foreign. Within its boundaries it admits all variations of the scale, from absolute monarchy to the democratic republic .... Two factors completely dominate the political life of contemporary states: world pol­ itics and the labor movement. Each is only a different aspect of the present phase of capitalist development.' Speaker: Amy Rath, Spartacist League/U.S., As a result of the development of the world. economy and the aggravation and gen­ former editor of Women and Revolution eralization of competition on the world market, militarism and marinism [naval mili­ Sat., March 15, 3 p.m. Sat., March 22, 3 p.m. tarism] as instruments of world politics have become a decisive factor ip. the internal as Britannia Community Centre Cahuenga Branch Library well as in the the external life of the great states. If it is true that world politics and 1661 Napier St. 4591 Santa Monica Blvd. militarism represent a rising tendency in the present phase, then bourgeois democracy (off Commercial Drive) (1 block east of Vermont/Santa Monica Red Line Sta.) must logically move in a descending line. For more information: (604) 687-0353 For more information: (213) 380-8239 -Rosa Luxemburg, "Social Reform or Revolution" (1899); reprinted in Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg (1971) VANCOUVER LOS ANGELES

!.~~'!~~!YO!~~'!~!!.~'!.~. ~ DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Len Meyers EDITOR: Alan Wilde Saturday, March 15, 5 p.m. EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael Davisson University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller Circle Center (CCC) Room 613, 750 S. Halsted St. CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff Thomas EDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, Karen Cole, Paul Cone, CHICAGO For more information: (312) 563-0441 George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276·0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suije 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected]. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. For more information: Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. Saturday, March 29, 7 p.m. (416) 593-4138 The clOSing. date for news in this issue is 11 March. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education 252 Bloor St. w., Room 2211 TORONTO No. 799 14 March 2003 (above St. George Station)

2 WORKERS VANGUARD France: Stop the Deportations! Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants! The following statement was issued by increasingly l:tnpopular because of its the Ligue Trotskyste de France, section of attacks on the labor movement. the International Communist League. Chirac Talks "Peace" and The road to mass deportations in PARIS, March 6-The racist war against France today was paved by the policies immignints in Europe quickens apace of the French reformists from the PS with the preparations for war against Iraq. Wages War on Immigrants, Labor [Socialist Party] to the PC [Communist On February 26, the French government Party], whose previous government vastly deported 15 Chinese immigrants to Beij­ escalated anti-immigrant hysteria and France and Germany only want to pre­ workers state. The only "freedom" that ing on a commercial flight. Now the gov­ repressive "security campaigns." Even serve their economic interests in the capitalism can bring to China is the "free­ ernment has resumed the hated practice the LCR [Revolutionary Communist Near East and a bigger share of the dom" to die of hunger and the "freedom" of mass deportations by charter flights. League] has to take some credit for this spoils. Their frictions with the United of the imperialists to exploit China as Deportations by charter were the hall­ round of racist atrocities as they were the States reflect the increased interimperi­ they exploit the rest of the globe. We mark of anti-immigrant racism of the most energetic fake "socialists" who alist rivalries since the destruction of the Trotskyists stand for the unconditional Mitterand government with [Interior helped to put into place this reactionary Soviet Union through capitalist counter­ military defense of China, North Korea, Minister] Pasqua's round-up and deporta­ government by voting for Chirac in the revolution. In the framework of a worsen­ Vietnam and Cuba against capitalist tion of African immigrants to Mali in last presidential elections. Yesterday, ing economic crisis and looming impe­ counterrevolution from within and impe­ 1986-a racist atrocity 'which incited March 5, two days after the mass depor­ rialist war against Iraq, France and rialism without! public outrage and protest. On March 3, a tations, the PC went into the streets'dur­ Germany are escalating. racist campaigns The posture of the French and German joint police-state operation by the French ing the demonstration against the war in on the "home front," from the Rasteifahn­ capitalist governments as more rational and German government deported 54 Iraq to ... "continue to demand the French dung (racial profiling of Arabs or Mus­ and "humanitarian" than the war-crazed Senegalese and Ivoirians. One Senegalese authorities to remain firm, up to using the lims) in Germany to Vigipirate police­ Bush gang in Washington is obscene. was thrown on board in Germany, the oth­ . right of veto" in the UN, and the LCR had 'state measures against immigrants in The airCrllft carrier Charles DeGaulle ers were taken from Paris, surrounded a similar call! Chevenement, ex-minister France. Their "war on terror" is designed steamed on "manuevers" to the eastern by overwhelming police force and packed ofthe cops under [former prime minister] to marginalize the most vulnerable work­ Mediterranean so that France could par­ off to Dakar and Abidjan. Yesterday, 17 Jospin and particularly hated by the sans­ ers, to weaken the working class by divid­ ticipate in the imperialist rape and plun­ Chinese were deported by charter to Hong papiers [undocumented immigrants] for ing it between European and immigrant, der of Iraq. While the imperialists amass Kong and [French top cop] Sarkozy prom­ the thousands of expulsions he carried out ises more. We say: Stop the deportations! and the reinforcing of the anti-immigrant These deportations take place from air­ laws, tried to place himself at the head of ports organized by powerful trade unions. the demonstration. We solidarize with the The French proletariat" has the power to anarchist militants and the sans-papiers stop these planes on the tarmac. Some Air who chanted, ''Throw out Chevenement, France pilots refuse, as individuals, to free the sans-papiers" in order to throw carry out these deportations. On January Chevenement out of the demonstration. 30, two Air France unions protested the But the LCR scandalously sent its goon murder of an Argentine immigrant, squad to "protect" Chevenement (Le Ricardo Barrientos, who died while the Parisien, 6 March)! This ignominious French police expelled him from the deed speaks volumes about the LCR's country. Again in January, Mariame Getu commitment to defend the capitalist sys­ Hagos, a Somali immigrant, died while tem and how low they are willing to go to being deported. Thousands of asylum­ demonstrate to capitalist politicians that seekers face death if returned to their the LCR will be loyal servants in the next countries of origin, if they're lucky to capitalist popular-front government. make it that far and aren;t killed by the Immigrant workers have a significant French cops first! The French cops even amount of social power in the unions in attacked Air Africa workers in Abidjan France and Germany and they represent a who protested when the charter of ex­ living bridge between Europe, Africa and pelled Africans arrived on March 3. The the Near East. But in order to fight here cops who attack immigrants are the same against war and racism, it is necessary to who harass youth of immigrant origin in fight against the capitalist system which the ghettos of France and Germany: last generates them. For that, class independ­ Sunday, a l7-year-old youth, Mourad, was ence of the workers from their capi­ talist exploiters and from the bourgeois killed by the gendarmes in Nlmes. These AFP are also the same cops who harass union­ November 2002: Paris protesters demand papers for all undocumented state is necessary. That demands a split ists like Alain Hebert in Normandy or the immigrants. with the opportunists in the workers truckers during their 2002 strike, or who movement who, like the LCR, tie work­ laid siege to the building of the German the better to carry out assaults on the an enormous arsenal of destruction in the ers to their own national bourgeoisie, union federation, the DGB, in February entire workers movement and its gains region and threaten to drop 3,000 bombs thus dividing the workers internationally. 2002 during a conference against the wrested through decades of class strug­ in the first 48 hours of war, France and What's needed is an authentic Leninist­ Afghanistan war. The cops are the guard gles. With the new laws put into place Germany play the wolves in sheep's Trotskyist party, a revolutionary, multi­ dogs of the capitalist bosses and their gov­ since September 11, Germany is getting clothing-insisting that UN inspectors be ethnic workers party dedicated to fighting ernment. We say: Cops out of the unions! ready to deport the reactionary Islamic given more time to work. The "work" of for socialism and a world where those Today the government attacks immi­ fundamentalist, Kaplan, to Turkey. This is the United Nations is the starvation sanc­ who labor will rule. The LTF is dedicated grants because they think they can get an ominous prelude to massive deporta­ tions and economic blockade which has to this task. Join us!. away with it. They count on the time­ tions of Turkish and Kurdish leftists­ killed more than 1.5 million Iraqi men, worn "divide and conquer" scheme of deportations to death at the hands of the women and children-far more'than were racism. We better prove them wrong! chauvinist Turkish bourgeoisie which is kil1ed in the last Gulf War. France and UBOLcIlEl'ld The powerful unions of the French pro­ preparing a war against the Kurds in Germany push UN weapons inspectors .... n .... letariat, the German proletariat and the northern Iraq. whose purpose is to render Iraq unarmed Troupes fraapises, hors de COte d'lvoire I trade union organizations across Europe [French president] Chira.c's visit to and defenseless to ensure an easy win for Defense de I'lrak should stand by their most vulnerable Algeria was met by crowds chanting the imperialists. contre l'aHaque imperlallste ! class brothers and sisters. Give every "Visas, visas!" at the same time that Sar­ Without giving the least political sup­ ,....._11-4~_"'"" __<'''_I, _ =cr;:z: ::_..:-;.:~ man and woman in the hellish detention kozy is making it more difficult to obtain port to the murderer, Saddam Hussein, we' :.=:':~ ::"-=~ ...... -oIIjI _.- ... ,f! centers and squats a union membership a visa to even visit France. Immigrants in the International Communist League ---.. 1'IIok, .... _ d"~,, ...__ -- ...... 1_:" _":e'.... _ ~ <-.=. .... ':_ :-::..... card and mobilize the power of the from Africa flee the ravages of civil war, take a side: Defend Iraq against imperial­ ::!.-"!".::.; --=..::...... -:: _Ir __ organized working class in their defense! as in the Ivory Coast; bloody repression as ist attack! All U.S. and allied troops O!lt =--1:"'::-: ::.-:-.:..~ The powerful unions like IG Metall in in Kaby lia [Berber region in Algeria]; and of the Persian Gulf now! As for the sup­ :::.,":::/:::; ~=..::: :-...-...':: ~ ...... 111' - .... "'----.. •=.~Ia:: """"P/ ...... -1'_.....-no..l0__oIIi'IJoooh"'" _ .. ... ~ "____ ,._,. ___ • '"cw .. r __, _____ Ioor ____ ~ ... _ Germany and the CGT in France have squalid living conditions unde~ the op­ posed "peace loving" nature of the Ger­ ~fM __ ._..._ ...... ~. -"-"-'--_."_r ,.....,--.-. .. _ .... &_~, ...... --.. -~ many members of immigrant origin and pressive yoke of French imperialism. At man and French capitalist governments, ~-~:-....:.o:::..~ ""::----."""'*-10-..c..-II~"""""",,,_, .. 111_ ... 00IJe W,, __ Ioo_. __ -'''''--'.--_10:\0--DXl_Ir ___ lI$$fno. "" ...... ,-...,'OPIu ... ,_ .. _. -.'--'''__ 10'''--.110 have an interest in fighting against these the same time that French imperialism is any examination of their ~ecent histories ___ or_·JIIic.Io_ ...... -- ...... __. ---o.,,_,,""""_JIII* --__'_ .. PCP ..,.~ .. _ ...... --.... ---IIr!oIl<"', -~Io_._~IrC1orln GooIIr. _10 -._.~ _IO.-_.... attacks. Chirac, Sarkozy and Schroder expelling Ivoirians, French troops are set­ reveals mountains of human corpses! The i----/J-dt_.....- ...... Pour un partl oumer will use the same repression against all ting the stage for a bloodbath in the Ivory German bourgeois state is the successor revolutlonnalre multiethmque! the workers when they go on strike Coast, as they did in Rwanda in 1994. of the Nazi Third Reich that exterminated against layoffs and privatizations, in French troops out of the Ivory Coast! In millions of Jews. During the Algerian order to defend pensions in France and Germany, Kurdish and Turkish refugees War the French bourgeoisie killed over a Le Bolchevik social benefits in Germany. What is nec­ flee political repression and misery gen­ million Algerians and tortured even more. Publication of the Ligue essary is equal rights for all. Full citizen­ erated by the support of NATO and the This whole current campaign around the Trotskyste de France ship rights for all immigrants! German bourgeoisie to the murderous "French-German-Russian" plan is used in Subscribe! $5 for 4 issues These mass expulsions of immigrants regime in Turkey. Chinese immigrants France to reinforce reactionary national Includes Spartacist (French edition) by Germany and France show the rear flee unemployment and misery generated unity behind Chirac, and in Germany Order from/make checks.payable to: face of imperialist "old Europe." Far from by the incursions of the capitalist market to save the face of the SPD [Social Demo­ Spartacist Publishing Co. representing the "peace camp" in Iraq, which threaten the Chinese deformed cratic Party]-Green government which is Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 14 MARCH 2003 3 A Marxist Perspective on the Near East / We publish below a presentation by ofthe 19th and early 20m centuries came speaking (or learning) Hebrew. Not sur­ Arab revolt against British occupation. comrade Bruce Andre at a recent confer­ at a time when capitalism was already prisingly, the Jews from Arab countries The Zionists played a key role in putting ence of the Ligue Trotskyste de France, decaying. There was widespread unem­ and their descendants, known as Oriental down the revolt, together with the British, translated from Le Bolchevik No. 162 ployment and periodic economic crises. Jews, are typically among the most reac­ through military terror directed against (Winter 2002-2003). As a result, the Jews were exposed to tionary and anti-Arab layers of the Israeli the Palestinians. By the time of the UN the hostility of the petty bourgeoisie population. partition of 1947, a Hebrew-speaking and peasants, who were also rejected by nation had already been carved out of LEBOI£IIEV1KSi decaying capitalism. Birth of the Zionist State Palestine. . These petty-bourgeois layers sought to so, the Jews in Europe-as well as in The 1947 partition set off a war in Comrades, this discussion raises ques­ find a place for themselves at the expense Arab countries-were not a nation. The which the Zionists conquered what is tions which are fundamental to building of the Jews and launched pogroms, anti­ Jews living in Palestine before the Holo­ today the state of Israel and drove out a revolutionary party, especially in the Jewish riots. A wave· of refugees fleeing caust were not a nation, either. In the most of its Arab population through mass Near East. But before dealing with pro­ these pogroms arrived in West Europe at grammatic questions, I want to clarify . a time when capitalism could not absorb -" ~ the difference between three things: the them there either, thus creating a similar J:: oo Jewish people, which has existed for problem in the West. In France, there [II centuries quite independently of the state were pogroms at the end of the 19th cen­ ~ of Israel or even Zionism; the Hebrew­ tury around the Dreyfus affair. In Algeria speaking nation Ipcated in Palestine; and too, by the way. In Germany, of course, the Zionist state. I think there has been a there was the ultimate pogrom, one of the tendency to confuse them, especially the greatest horrors in human history: the latter two, the Hebrew-speaking nation Holocaust. The Nazis used modem capi­ and the Zionist state. talist production methods to carry out the Let's start with the Jewish people. Our systematic, conscious extermination of an understanding has been framed by Abram entire people. The so-called democratic Leon, in his book The Jewish Question: countri.es like the United States and Brit­ A Marxist Interpretation. This book does ain closed their doors to desperate Jewish not exist in Arabic, and I hope that we refugees fleeing the Nazis. March 2002: will one day be able to rectify that fail­ Now, Abram Leon does not deal with LTF banner at ure. Leon was a Belgian Trotskyist, who the questi()n of Jews in Arab lands. It Paris Palestinian was murdered by the Nazis at the Ausch­ would be a good thing for our party to solidarity witz death camp. He gave a materialist study and clarify the differences between demonstration: explanation for the continued existence the situation of the Jews in Europe and in "Defend the over centuries of the Jewish people in Arab lands. But one important difference Palestinian People! French/UN/U.S. Europe with their own language, culture is that the development of capitalism in Troops Hands Off and religion, and for their brutal oppres­ the Near East and North Africa did not the Near East!" sion under capitalism. Leon explained proceed to a point where it provoke-d the that the Jews do not constitute a nation, kind of systematic, violent convulsions that is, a culturally homogeneous popu­ that took pl!lce in Europe. There were lation occupying a given territory with attacks against the Jews but not at the their own national economy. This is the same level as in Europe. The condition definition of a nation according to Len­ of Jews in the Arab lands was markedly inist criteria. Rather, Leon said that the better than in Christian Europe. Jews played a particular social role in This changed with the rise of Arab feudal and pre-feudal society as mer­ nationalism in the mid 20th century. early 1930s, there were only slightly killings and terror. The Arab· regimes chants and money-lenders. He called Coming out of WWII, there was a wave more than 100,000 Jews in Palestine, and intervened, not to defend the Palestinians them a "people class." of pogroms and terrorist attacks against many of them were not Zionists. against Zionist terror but to seize the land It was this particular social role, living synagogues and Jewish pl1blic places in So how did a nation get formed out of that had been allotted to them under the in the pores of feudal society, that pro­ almost all Arab countries. It reached a these people? In Europe, before·the Nazis UN partition plan. Tens of thousands of vides a materialist explanation for the paroxysm during the 1948-49 war in came to power in 1933, Zionism was a Palestinian refugees who sought refuge Jews' continued existence in West and Palestine. This triggered-with the active tiny sect of petty-bourgeois intellectuals in the surrounding Arab countries were East Europe. With the rise of mercantile help of the Zionists, of course-a mass with no influence among the Jewish peo­ forced to live in squalid refugee camps. capitalism in Europe, the Jews' special exodus of Jews from Arab countries, with ple. Those Jews in the ghettos of East In 1970, the Hashemite monarchy in Jor­ commercial role came to an end. In West most of them going to Israel. At the time Europe who were active in politics were dan launched a massive bloodbath against Europe, they either assimilated or were of the formation of the state of Israel in primarily either communists or members the Palestinians, with the implicit support pushed to the more economically back­ 19:47-48, there were as many Jews in the of the Bund, a Jewish socialist movement of almost all the Arab regimes. This was ward East. There, in East Europe, the Arab countries speaking Arabic as their close to the Mensheviks. What trans­ called Black September. Yet despite the crumbling of the feudal order at the end first language as there were in Israel formed Zionism into a mass movement horrendous conditions in which they were was the world-historic defeat of the Ger­ forced to live, the Palestinian generation man working class in 1933 and the rise of that grew up after 1948 was more highly Hitler to power. The rise of the Nazisin educated than almost any other people Germany also laid the basis for the crea­ in the Near East, including the Hebrew­ tion of a nation of Hebrew-speaking peo­ speaking people of Israel. ple in Palestine by causing massive waves At the time, the Palestinians played a of Jewish emigration both before the Hol­ role in the Near East similar in some ways ocaust and again after WWII. The Zion­ to the Jews in East Europe. ~osmopoli­ ists appealed directly to British imperial­ tan, politicized and educated, they played ism, which controlled Palestine militarily, a disproportionate role in radical move­ to sponsor a so-called "Jewish home­ ments, including the Communist parties land." And the British rulers, anti-Semitic throughout the Near East. That fact gives to the core, agreed because they saw it as a measure of the terrible consequences of a way to help divide and conquer in the Arab nationalism, as many Palestinians Near East. There was the Balfour Declar­ today, disillusioned by the total bank­ ation at the close of World War I in which ruptcy of Arafat's bourgeois-nationalist the British promised the Zionists a home­ program have turned to the backward, land in Palestine. Today, of course, it is anti-woman Islamic fundamentalists of the U.S. imperialists who are the special Hamas. patrons of the Zionist state. The Palestinian Trotskyists took an Unlike many colonial settlers in his­ essentially correct position on the 1948 tory, the Zionists did not seek mainly to war. They opposed the UN partition exploit Palestinians but rather to displace plan and were for the defeat of both them and set up a closed economy of sides through revolutionary working­ exclusively Jewish communities. And in class struggle. They correctly defended this, through massive influx of Jewish the national rights of the Hebrew­ AP labor and capital from Europe, they were speaking nation to self-determination. As Gaza City homes demolished by Israeli troops in February as Zionist rulers ultimately successful. A major step in you know from the readings for this dis­ ratchet up anti-Palestinian terror in lead-up to Iraq war. that direction occurred during the 1936-39 cussion, we initially took a position of 4 WORKERS VANGUARD siding militarily with the forces led by ferent. We seek to smash the Zionist state, the Zionists because our evaluation of the as we seek to smash all capitalist states, situation was that the war threatened the through socialist revolution. We partic­ very existence of the Hebrew people. We ularly wish to smash the Zionist state corrected our appreciation of the facts because by its very nature it is inher­ and changed our position, but we did ently oppressive not only of the Hebrew­ not modify our underlying method. We speaking working class but also and stated: above all of the Palestinian people. "Out of the destruction of European But what is our attitude toward the Jewry by Hitler (without whose aid the Hebrew-speaking nation? Our position Zionists would have gone the way of the Shakers and other utopian sects) on all nations is for their right to self­ and at the expense of the Palestinian determination, that is, the right to form Arabs, a settler colony was transformed independent nation-states. We do not into a nation. . make a distinction on this point between "This Hebrew nation came into existence oppressed nations which alone get the through force and violence, through the suppression, forced expUlsion and geno­ right to exist and oppressor nations cide of other peoples. Communists must which, according to some, do not. For oppose this brutal national oppression. us, it is simply a basic democratic right Yet once this historical fact is accom­ that Marxists recognize for all nations. plished, we must certainly recognize Marxist concepts like "class," "nation," that nation's right to self-determination, unless we prefer the alternative, namely "state," etc. have precise definitions, national genocide .... which are based on material reality. We "Marxists could give military support to are materialists. The widely held position neither side in the 1948 Palestine war. that Jews in Israel today represent an Our position for proletarian international­ "occupation" strikes me as based on a ism requires viewing that war from the necessity of revolutionary defeatism on kind of moralism-that is, idealism­ both sides, counterposing to the victory rather than materialism. It reminds me of of either side the perspective of united the idea, which is widespread on the left, proletarian struggle, which offers the only that there are "good" people, that is, the possibility for the genuine fulfillment of the right of self-determination-through a oppressed-one could say the "occupied" socialist federation of the Near East." people-and "bad" people who are the - "Birth of the Zionist State," WV oppressors and do not even have the right Nos. 33 and 45, 23 November to exist. To speak of an "occupation" 1973 and 24 May 1974 seems to me to imply that the program­ The Palestinian Trotskyists at the time matic consequence is: "Get rid of them." Praeger Inc. were also sober about the enormous It is necessary to return to Marxist cate­ Baghdad, July 1958: Opportunity for proletarian revolution was derailed by obstacles to united revolutionary struggle gories to avoid ending up in the trap of Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy and Iraqi Communist leadership. by Arab and Hebrew-speaking workers. irredentist nationalism and to open the The "Draft Theses on the Jewish Ques~ way to a revolutionary internationalist read that recipe book. They created this But let's be clear about this: the Left tion" adopted by the International Secre­ solution in which all peoples have a right rump state, Lebanon, such that there Bank and Gaza are today truly occupied tariat of the Fourth International in 1947 to exist. was a slight majority of Christians, per­ territories. These are Palestinian territo­ pointed to some important joint strikes by manently terrified that one day the ries which are being seized by the Zion­ Arab and Jewish workers, such as the big Interpenetrated Peoples Muslims would have enough babies to ists a little more each day. The settlers are government workers strike in Haifa in At the heart of the problem is the become the majority. What finally hap­ the advance guard of that incursion. We 1946 and the oil refinery workers strike in question of interpenetrated peoples. The pened is that the Palestinians driven out are for stopping this incursion into Pales­ 1947. But they also said: process that led to the creation of the of Jordan by Black September ended up tinian land and for this occupation to "At the present stage, large-scale unity state of Israel was not unique. On the in Lebanon, and that tipped the balance. stop, even while recognizing that things between the Jews and the Arabs in Pales­ Lebanon exploded in civil war, which have proceeded to a point where that is tine is unrealizable; only on a very lim­ contrary, we have seen this many times ited scale and to the extent that a section in history. It is the policy of "divide and completely destroyed the country. no simple task. There are now a large of the Jewish workers is employed out­ rule." The British were past masters at In Palestine, the partition plan was number of settlers, some 400,000 if we side the 'closed' Jewish economy, has it this. They did basically the same thing in conceived according to the same recipe, include East Jerusalem. These settlers are been possible for Jewish-Arab strikes but this time they showed the UN how to highly armed and closely linked with the such as those of the past year to occur. Ireland when they divided it between But this does not mean that such unity is North and South, and in India with a par­ do it. They created a totally artificial Israeli army. They live largely in commu­ excluded for all time." tition between Muslim Pakistan and state of Israel, which included much nities that are scattered across Palestinian This is a point we have often made. India containing both Hindus and Mus­ more than the territories occupied at the territory like a string of fortresses. Thus, It will take convulsive historical events lims. The French did the same thing by time by the Hebrew-speaking nation, this is an extension into the Occupied Ter­ to cause even a significant fraction of splitting Lebanon from Syria. drawing the borders in such a way as to ritories which is artificial and reversible. the Hebrew-speaking proletariat to make I strongly suspect that somewhere in have a Palestinian portion which was 100 But that could change, particularly with common cause with their Arab class London there is a recipe book, probably percent Arab and a state of Israel where the approaching war against Iraq. In our brothers, but it is historically possible and written by Churchill, and entitled "How the Jews had a slight majority. But the press we have warned that the Zionists necessary. to Make a Partition." Here is the recipe. Zionists were cooking according to a dif­ may seize the opportunity to drive the You take a region where there are two ferent recipe. They dtove the Palestinians Palestinians out of the Occupied Territo­ The State Is Not the people with a long history of ethnic con­ from the land that had been allotted to ries in a vast terror campaign. Same Thing as a Nation flict, and you draw an artificial border the Jews by the partition-plan and also from much of the land toot had been The Example of Yugoslavia Let's be clear: When we speak of the according to the following criteria: on and the Russian Revolution Hebrew-speaking nation, this is not the one side you have a country with a more allotted to the Palestinians. And they same' thing as the Zionist state that was or less homogeneous population, com­ populated it all with refugees pouring The problem for resolving the Palestin­ set up following the 1947 UN partition. posed of the people that is the most out of Europe following the Holocaust ian question is that both peoples lay claim As I mentioned earlier, for Marxists, a numerous. But on the other side of the and with Oriental Jews driven out of to essentially the same land.' To set up nation is a people with its own language, border, you have a country which is com­ the Arab countries with the rise of Arab an independent capitalist state for either culture and economy, occupying a given posed of two peoples, one of whom has a nationalism, the Palestinian Arabs or the Hebrew­ territory. A state is something very differ­ slight numerical advantage over the other. By the end of this process, the territo­ speaking people can only mean denying ent. It is essentially an instrument of In that way, you get apeople which lives ries occupied by the Hebrew-speaking that right for the other. These are geo­ power through which a particular class constantly in fear that the other will one nation had greatly expanded, and, impor­ graphically interpenetrated peoples. In maintains its class rule. It consists cen­ day be in the majority. This recipe works tantly for the Zionists, they corresponded such cases, a democratic solution to the trally of instruments of repression: the wonders for the imperialists and allows to the borders of the Zionist state. But, I national question can only come about army, police, prison system, etc. Our atti­ interventions and manipulations at will. repeat, these are not one and the same through socialist revolution because only tude toward these two things is very dif- I think the French went to London to thing. We are for smashing the Zionist the proletariat in power has an interest in state, for the destruction of its army and resolving national antagonisms and can the seizure of power by the proletariat. begin to meet the material needs of all But we are not for the destruction of the working people. This is not simply a case nation that occupies that territory, with of wishful thinking. There are historical its own culture and its own economy. We precedents that demonstrate that this pro­ defend its right to exist, its democratic gram is realizable. right to self-determination, just as we Look at Tito's Yugoslavia, a deformed defend these same rights for the Palestin­ workers state that arose from the victory ian people. of the Stalinist-led Partisans against the Virtually all nations were forged Nazi occupation in WWII. The Balkans through the forced expUlsion and, in some had for centuries been the scene of eth­ cases, genocide of other peoples. It is not nic bloodshed that makes the Palestinian­ unique. Today it is called "ethnic cleans­ Hebrew conflict pale by comparison. The ing." The United States, for example, was 1912 Balkan Wars, which Trotsky wrote forged through the systematic extermina­ about as a war correspondent, were the tion of native peoples. This genocide is occasion for immense forced population still celebrated in films and popular cul­ transfers throughout the Balkans. The ture. Does that mean that the U.S. today state of Yugoslavia, an artificial creation is occupied territory? Turkey is a real put together by the imperialists after "prison house of peoples" for minorities WWI-mainly by French imperialism, like the Kurds. Does that mean Turks do 'by the way-exploded in ethnic blood­

Brian H.endler not have a right to exist? Should all shed almost from the day of its creation. Israeli public sector strike, 1997. Zionist garrison state must be destroyed the descendants of the conquistadors be However, the common experience of from within through Arab-Hebrew workers revolution. e~pelled from Latin America? continued on page 11 14 MARCH 2003 5 Young Sparlacus Defend S.F. Anarchist Protestersl We print below a letter sent by the Par­ county jail. With the spectre of the brutal tisan Defense Committee to San Fran­ "three strikes" initiative, these charges cisco qistrict attorney Terence Hallinan can only threaten a living death in prison on March 3 protesting the arrests of anti­ if they dare protest again. The remaining war demonstrators during an anarchist­ protesters have only been "discharged," organized breakaway march on February with the danger of having their charges 16. In the face of vicious violence-baiting refiled within a year. The cops and the from the state and the media, the organ­ courts are clearly using these charges izers of the main February 16 demonstra­ San Francisco as a precedent for prosecution against tion, including the Workers World Party­ cop assaults future antiwar protesters. We demand led International ANSWER and Not In antiwar protester that all these charges be unconditionally Our Name, have explicitly distanced them­ on February 16 dropped! selves from the arrested activists. These in police The repression against antiwar protest­ groups wish to remain "respectable" in the crackdown on ers is part of the government's "war eyes of the bourgeois liberals and Demo­ breakaway march. on terror" aimed at criminalizing all those cratic Party politicians they seek to attract who oppose the rulers' bloody war against in the name of "unity." Those opposed to Iraq. In New York, the courts' attempt to the aims of u.s. imperialism must demand ban the antiwar demonstration on February unequivocally that all charges be dropped 15 shows how the U.S. government seeks against all activists targeted for protesting and was immediately surrounded by cops were viciously beaten and attacked, and to regiment the population into submission the coming war. in riot gear. Once moving, the march was dozens were later arrested. by outlawing any dissent. Despite these The Partisan Defense Committee followed by mounted police officers who Out of the over 40 protesters who were attempts, millions of people marched strongly protests the arrests of 46 antiwar provocatively swung clubs at the demon­ arrested, six originally faced multiple around the world expressing their opposi­ demonstrators by the police on February strators. At one intersection, police barri­ felony charges, now reduced to misde­ tion to the slaughter the U.S. government is 16. After over 200,000 people marched in cades boxed in protesters as cops on meanors. One protester, Broderick Harri­ planning in Iraq. Drop all the charges opposition to the U.S. war against Iraq, a horseback charged the crowd. It was a son, still faces two felony vandalism against the demonstrators! Free all the smaller march of around 1,500 gathered day marked by police terror: protesters counts and another, Jack Bay, remains in protesters now!. High School Students Take To the Streets Against War Defying threats of suspension, expul­ reactions and was picked up by others in sion and arrest, thousands of youth from the crowd. some 400 colleges, high schools and School administrations worked in middle schools across the country walked cahoots with the cops to discipline protest­ out on March 5 to protest the coming ers. Some high school students in New war on Iraq. The call for a student strike York were expelled immediately upon was taken up by youth in places like walking out; others in Brooklyn were Avon, Indiana as well as in most major locked into their school to prevent them American cities and as far away as Spain from participating. In L.A., students from and Australia. Organized around the the UCLA-affiliated high school who demand "Books not bombs," the demon­ walked out were followed by a truancy strations were extremely youthful. At a officer, rounded up and returned to school New York rally, one sixth-grade speaker in a school bus. In the Bay Area, the had to stand on a chair in order to be vis­ UC Berkeley administration is threaten­ ible to the crowd; antiwar chants were ing disciplinary action against the Berke­ adaptations of popular hip-hop songs ley Stop the War Coalition for "obstruc­ and homemade signs read "Bush is dumb tion or disruption of teaching." The police Youth in Los Angeles demonstrating against war. and so is war" and "Duct tape and plas­ mobilized heavily across the country tic wrap for the administration." In Chi­ and arrested some protesters; in Oakland, cago,where Jesse Jackson Sr. was a fea­ black and Latino high school kids were tured speaker,. our contingent chanted, shoved ap.d hit by cops on motorcycles. "Remember Hiroshima, remember Viet­ We demand: Drop all charges now! Drop nam, Democratic Party, we know which all diSciplinary action against the stu­ BOSTON NEW YORK CITY side you're on!", which elicited strong dents and student groups!. Alternate Mondays, 7 p.m. Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. March 17: Defend Iraq Against U.S. April 1: For Women's Liberation Imperialist Attack! Through Socialist Revolution! against the Palestinians, Challenge (22 Socialism and the Struggle Against Columbia University May 2002) declares: "This is a dogfight Contingents ... Imperialist War 306 Hamilton Hall among gangsters. Backing the little ones (continued from page 12) Information and readings: (212) 267-1025 against the big ones merely helps the lit­ BU School of Education, Room 212 605 Commonwealth Avenue or e-mail: [email protected] Afghanistan. Otherwise, the movement tle ones get bigger." PL's grotesque refu­ Information and readings: (617) 666-9453 will close itself off." What this means in sal to defend the Palestinian and Iraqi or e-mail: [email protected] OAKLAND practice is unity with bourgeois elements people should leave no doubt that despite Saturday, 4 p.m. whose interests are irreconcilably coun­ its flaming red rhetoric, in practice PL CHICAGO terposed to those of working people and capitulates to the u.S. ruling class. The March 22: Only Socialist Revolution the oppressed. Imperialist war should be right-wing Sharon regime could well be Alternate Tuesdays, 7 p.m. Can End Imperialist War-Lessons of the 1917 Russian Revolution met not with the abandonment of strug­ planning to expel Palestinians from the April 8: Socialism and War gle against the capitalist rulers, but its Occupied Territories under cover of an University of Chicago, Cobb Hall 1634 Telegraph Avenue, 3rd floor American war against Iraq. We 'say: 5811 S. Ellis, Room TBA Information and readings: {51 0) 839-0851 intensification. or e-mail: [email protected] The Progressive Labor Party states Defend the Palestinian people! Troops Information and readings: (312) 563-0441 that they aim to "shatter the illusions out of the Occupied Territories! or e-mail: [email protected] TORONTO many have in liberal politicians and We desperately need to build an inter­ expose the opportunist 'left' serving the nationalist revolutionary workers party LOS ANGELES Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. March 19: National Chauvinism Is Democratic Party" (Challenge, 5 Febru­ like the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Saturday, 2 p.m. ary). Yet these supposed fighters for Trotsky that led the multinational work­ Poison to Class Struggle­ March 29: Black Liberation Through communism not only steadfastly refuse ing class of Russia to power. Our motto For Quebec Independence! Socialist Revolution to take a side in defense of Iraq, but must be: unity of the workers in struggle University of Toronto cannot even bring themselves to defend ,against capitalism-break with the capi­ 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Sidney Smith, Room 1088 (Vermont/Beverly Red Line station) the besieged Palestinian people! In talist class enemy and their pseudo­ 100 St. George Street Information and readings: (213) 380-8239 Information and readings: (416) 593-4138 the midst of the genocidal war of ter­ socialist assistants! Fight for interna­ or e-mail: [email protected] or e-mail: [email protected] ror by the U.S.-backed Zionist rulers tional socialist revolution-join us!. 6 WORKERS VANGUARD Down With Anti-Communist Censorshipl After the Chicago Spartacus Youth Defend the remaining deformed workers Club published and distributed a leaflet states-China, North Korea, Vietnam, protesting their threatened exclusion, What Is the I,SO Afraid of? and Cuba! the International Socialist Organization­ Anyone who knows the ISO knows that dominated Campus Antiwar Network divisive, you will have to leave." Our com­ working class has a side to take with the political censorship of leftists is nothing backed'down and allowed us entry into rade was attempting to describe a protest semicolonial people of Iraq against the new for them. In one outrageous inci­ their national conference, where we we organized against NATO's appearance U.S. imperialists. Defend Iraq! For class dent, back in March 1991 when Bush Sr. argued our revolutionary program. We at UIC while the bombs were raining struggle against U.S. imperialism! was waging the first Gulf War, they organ­ reprint that leaflet of February 14 below. on Afghanistan. The ISO boycotted our The ISO's pretense to "socialism" or ized a conference of the National Net­ In a blatant act of political cowardice, protest, preferring to go into the meet­ "anti-imperialism," is a total fraud con­ work of Campuses Against the War. The the Chicago Student Antiwar Network ing of these butchers and ask "tough sidering that they capitulated to the impe­ ISO expelled the Revolutionary Workers (CSAWN) has threatened the Spartacus questions" like "What is the acceptable rialists down the line in their drive to League (RWL) for "disruption" when they Youth Club (SYC) with exclusion from civilian body count in Afghanistan?" In destroy the Soviet Union. While bureau­ simply tried to raise a list of radical­ the upcoming Campus Antiwar Net­ other words, they seek to silence the cratically degenerated, the USSR was sounding demands for adoption by the work National Conference. We received communists but see fit to debate these a workers state, based on socialized conference. They then called the campus an e-mail on February 11 responding to criminals. property that represented real gains for cops to remove the RWL, and "anyone our request for a literature table that The ISO's much-vaunted vision of stated "Given your organization's disrup­ "unity" means subservience to the liberal tive behavior at the CSAWN student "more humane" wing of the ruling class, teach-in on Feb. 1 at UIC, we will have such as during the previous Gulf War in February 15 to ... decide if we would like your partici­ 1991 when they endorsed a demonstra­ antiwar protest pation or not." So what's behind this tion called by the National Campaign for in New York. threat of political censorship? The real Peace in the Middle East, which explic­ While ISO seeks author of this threatened exclusion is itly included demands supporting UN to pressure the Internationalist Socialist Organization sanctions, which have since killed 1.5 imperialists (ISO), who everybody knows are the ones million Iraqis. Today the ISO is again to change running CSAWN. And the "disruption" ready to build a "movement" with the priorities (sign that has them so bent out of shape was enemies of workers and minorities. Such at left), SYC simply that we put forward a revolution­ a class-collaborationist "movement" is fights for perspective ary program as the only way to struggle not only powerless to prevent war, but is of shattering against war, and exposed the ISO's liberal , actually an obstacle to real antiwar strug­ imperialist reformism as an obstacle to this fight. gle because it serves in its own way to order. The aim of the ISO is fo build "the uphold the system which breeds war. broadest possible antiwar movement" to War is a symptom of the irreconcilable better pressure U.S. imperialism to "do interests and conflicts of capitalism, and the working class internationally. But who defends them," including the SYC. the right thing." That means unity with it is ludicrous to believe that the fight the ISO howled with the imperialist Cops are the hired guns of the profit sys­ liberals, unity with the Democrats, unity against war can be divorced from the wolves in opposing the Soviet interven­ tem, and "serve and protect" nothing but with those who support the UN (sanctions class struggle as a whole.' To struggle tion in Afghanistan against the CIA­ the racist capitalist status quo. and all), and virulent bureaucratic censor­ against war it is necessary to fight against backed woman-hating mujahedin (who While the ISO wants to dress the ship of authentic Marxist politics that capitalism itself-for workers revolution! they even hailed as "freedom fighters"). blood-drenched imperialist wolves in might get in their way. The ISO were the It is necessary to break the illusion of And the ISO hailed the YeltsinlBush sheep's clothing, we have something dif­ real disrupters ,at the UIC teach-in. At the "national unity" and bring workers to counterrevolution in the USSR, writing, ferent in mind. As the youth group of the workshop on military recruitment in high understand that they share no interests "Communism has collapsed .... It is a fact Spartacist League, the SYC calls for schools, a high school comrade of the with their capitalist bosses. The same that should have every socialist rejoicing" breaking with the racist, war-mongering SYC was shouted down by an ISO panel­ imperialist rulers who are preparing to (Socialist Worker, 31 August 1991). The Democrats and Republicans. We seek to ist who yelled "That's it! Out!" when our rain bombs on Iraq have been waging war peoples of the decimated nations of Rus­ win youth to the perspective of building comrade mentioned the ISO. The chair on immigrants, black people and labor sia and Eastern Europe aren't rejoicing a workers party that fights for socialist then told her "If anyone says anything here at home. In the coming war, the today, but the imperialist bosses sure are. revolution! •

The following leaflet was issued on won, there wouldn't be a Gulf War today! March 1 by the Spartacist League/Britain, We say that workers and minorities in section of the International Communist Britain and the toiling masses of neocolo­ League. British SWP Says: nial Iraq have a common enemy in the The "Revolution 2003" teach-in at LSE war-crazed gangs running the White [London School of Economics] organised House and 10 Downing Street and a com­ by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) this mon interest in defending Iraq against weekend featured self-appointed SWP U.S.lBritish attack without giving one thought police dispatching gOOR squads iota of political support to Saddam Hus­ to harass the Spartacist League and Spar­ sein's anti-worker capitalist regime. tacus Youth Group and to impede the pub- . Imperialist wars such as the threatened lic from access to our revolutionary Marx­ slaughter of thousands of Iraqis are inher­ ist views. Inside the teach-in, the threats ent to the system of capitalism, and to put escalated after floor interventions by two an end to them what is needed is an inter­ young women supporters of the Sparta­ national succession of socialist revolu­ cist League, who argued that opposition to condemn and protest this flagrant incite­ pIe, youth and minorities in Britain today tions. For that purpose we say workers the Iraq war and its domestic repercus­ ment to violence against revolutionary need is not a swivel chair "regime in this country need not a "reclaimed" sions in the anti-Muslim witchhunt socialists! change" of Gordo~ Brown for Tony Blair, Labour Party, but a multi ethnic revo­ requires opposition to the Labour govern­ What's got Bambery's knickers in a but the construction of a multiethnic rev­ lutionary workers party modelled on ment, and exposed the SWP's support to twist? The SWP must be undergoing un­ olutionary workers party to sweep away the Russian Bolshevik Party. It was the Islamic fundamentalism, as well as its comfortable contortions to present them­ the capitalist system which breeds Bolshevik Party that, by successfully earlier support to the dispatch of British selves as socialists while maintaining racism, war and unemployment. Any­ tearing the working class away from the troops to Northern Ireland under a Labour loyalty to Blair's Labour Party (whose thing less, anything other, is nothing but pro-capitalist Corbyns, Galloways and government. In response, SWP honcho election sent the SWP "over the moon"). a reformist balm on the raw rubs of the Bamberys of the time, led the working Chris Bambery fumed that anyone who In our interventions and in discussions capitalist order. class to power and took Russia out of the doesn't politically support the ,Stop the with young militants before the meeting Political debate is vital to clarify what massacre of World War I through the War Coalition "deserves a bullet in the our comrades also warned that by pro­ programme and leadership the working 1917 October Revolution. head." This is the real face of the SWP's moting politicians like George Oalloway class needs to fight for its interests. This Like the Bolsheviks, we seek to win "give peace a chance" coalition-building: and Jeremy Corbyn-who are actively is not the first time that the SWP has the working class and the oppressed to you've got to silence the reds to get work­ campaigning for antiwar activists to join resorted to political exclusionism or thug­ the revolutionary socialist programme ers and youth to lie down like lambs with the Labour Party-the SWP and the Stop gery against the Spartacist League or through the open clash of opposing the wolves of the Labour Party whilst the War Coalition are helping channel other tendencies in the workers move­ political programmes; be it at mobilisa­ they wage war on Iraq and against work­ the growing anger against Blair's govern­ ment. In July 1980 they went berserk and tions such as the massive demonstration ing people at home! ment and its war back into the reformist assaulted SL supporters shortly after held in London on 15 February, in the Physical exclusion, political censor­ confines of the Labour Party. As Lenin the Soviet Red Army went into Afghani­ trade unions, through electoral cam­ ship and threats of violence are the despi­ wrote in Socialism and War, "unity with stan because we exposed the SWP for paigns, through united-front actions in cable acts of political cowards who dis­ the opportunists actually means subordi­ attacking Margaret Thatcher from the defence of the interests of workers and dain to debate their views, preferring to nating the working class to their 'own' right for selling British beef to Soviet the oppressed, or at political meetings substitute the fist for the brain. Today it's national bourgeoisie .. .it means splitting troops in Kabul. We said, "Hail Red Army such as today's "Revolution 2003" teach­ the Spartacist League, but who"s next on the revolutionary proletariat of all coun­ in Afghanistan!" and later denounced in. Protest SWP political exclusion ism the SWP's hit list? We call on all leftists, tries." We Spartacists fly under our own Gorbachev's treacherous withdrawal from and threats of violence! For open politi­ trade unionists and anti-war activists to banners and argue that what working peo- that country. Had the Soviets stayed and cal debate! • 14 MARCH 2003 7 Defend Iraq.~. (continued from page 1) Sharon's cabinet ministers, recently ranted of the Palestinians: "Make their life so bitter that they will transfer them­ selves willingly." And this is exactly what the Zionist rulers have been trying to do with the daily massacres of Palestin­ ians and escalating destruction of homes and entire neighborhoods. Antiwar pro­ testers must take up the call to defend the Palestinian people and demand: All Israeli'troops, settlers out of the Occupied Territories! In the U.S. war against Iraq, we take a side. We call on the international prole­ DPA tariat to stand for the military defense of Left:. Kurds slaughtered by Turkish troops. Right: Kurdish Iraq without giving any political support demonstrators in northern Iraq burn Turkish flag last month to the bloody Saddam Hussein regime. to protest threatened Turkish invasion as part of U.S. war. Every class-conscious worker, every fighter against capitalist exploitation and imperi­ liberals for its statements against imperi­ hegemony and opposition to the Soviet the facade of multilateralism and "human alist sUbjugation cannot but wish to see alism, particularly its solidarity with North Union. With the counterrevolutionary rights," the Bush administration has dis­ U.S. imperialism humiliated in Iraq. The Korea. These anti-Communist attacks not­ destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991- pensed with these diplomatic niceties, colossal military advantage of the United withstanding, Workers World are hardly 92, the U.S. has asserted its overwhelm­ arrogantly and provocatively flaunting States against semicolonial Iraq under­ reds. Through ANSWER, Workers World ing military superiority in a "one-super­ American military muscle. scores the importance of class struggle, peddles a program of liberal pacifism power world." During its existence, the USSR acted as particularly in the imperialist centers, as that never challenges the capitalist sys­ This was made manifest last year. a counterweight to U.S. imperialism, includ­ the chief means to give content to the call tem that breeds war, the better to draw in Months after the Pentagon released its ing through its large nuclear arsenal. It was to defend Iraq. We look to an extension "antiwar" Democratic Party politicians "Nuclear Posture Review" explicitly the planned, collectivized economy issu­ and deepening of the sorts of labor like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Cyn­ allowing for a U.S. nuclear first strike, the ing out of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution actions, including blockades of military thia McKinney. To build an antiwar move­ Bush administration came out with its which, despite the subsequent Stalinist goods destined for the Gulf, taken by ment with bourgeois politicians is to "National Security Strategy," affirming a degeneration of the workers state, allowed workers in Italy. build an antiwar movement with the very general policy of "pre-emptive" war and once-backward Russia to become the sec­ The U.S. drive for war has generated forces in whose interest imperialist war asserting that the U.S. is "strong enough ond most powerful state on the planet. In huge waves of worldwide protests, includ­ is waged. Indeed, even those Democrats to dissuade potential adversaries from fighting to the bitter end against capital­ ing the mobilization of millions of dem­ who for now oppose a war against Iraq pursuing a military buildup in hopes of ist counterrevolution, we warned that the onstrators on the weekend of February attack Bush from the right when it comes surpassing, or equaling, the power of the demise of the USSR would lead to a far 15, and further large-scale protest actions to North Korea, demanding a more United States." Such threats are directed more dangerous world. are planned for the weekend of March 15. aggressive line against that country. not only against small "rogue" states but Capitalist restoration has led Russia to The Spartacist League, Spartacus Youth In motivating antiwar activists to join ultimately at the Chinese deformed work­ a catastrophic economic and social de­ Clubs and Labor Black Leagues are our contingents, our mobilizing leaflet (see ers state and the U.S.'s imperialist rivals. cline unprecedented in the history of any organizing Revolutionary International­ page 12) declares: "March with the prole­ While the Bush administration is par­ modern, industrialized country. By every ist contingents in Washington, D.C., Los tarian internationalist revolutionists who ticularly bellicose in both its rhetoric and measure of human progress-infant mor­ Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago tell the truth to the masses: that only social­ actions, U.S. imperialism has been mov­ tality, life expectancy, income, literacy­ based on the demands: All U.S. troops out ist revolution can end imperialist war." ing toward such unilateralist policies the diverse peoples of the former Soviet of the Near East now! Down with U.S. since the end of the Cold War. As it Union have been brutally hurled back. imperialism! Defend Iraq! For class strug­ A New World Disorder launched a "pre-emptive" war against Nonetheless, Russia's new capitalist rul­ gle against U.S. capitalist rulers! The sharp clash between the U.S. and Serbia in 1999, the Democratic Clinton ers inherited from the USSR a power­ The Workers World Party, which politi­ Britain on one side and France, Germany White House explicitly refused to seek ful nuclear arsenal and strong conven­ cally dominates the International ANSWER . and Russia on the other signals the undo­ UN approval. Yet all the European Union tional armed forces. An alliance between coalition that has organized many of the ing of the post-World War II imperialist powers endorsed that war. A big differ­ the economic and technological resources antiwar protests, has been redbaited by order, which was premised on American ence today is that where Clinton invoked of Germany-the dominant power in

of the antiwar protests have sought to demands for a "non-nuclear Korean penin­ rubric of Juche (self-reliance). Today, North Korea ... appeal to these Democrats, as revolution­ sula." Such criminal appeasement simply North Korea is ruled by a particularly (continued from page 1) ary opponents of our "own" imperial­ emboldens the rapacious U.S. imperialists cultish, nepotistic and bizarre Stalinist ist ruling class-Republicans and Demo­ to foment counterrevolution in China regime centered on "Dear Leader" Kim "Nuclear Posture Review" that openly crats alike-we have raised the necessity itself. Jong 11. targets that country along with China, of defense of North Korea in our inter­ Despite the rule of a nationalist Stalin­ The only road forward for the belea­ Iraq and others for a potential nuclear ventions into the antiwar protests. ist bureaucracy, the ove$ow of capital­ guered masses of the North is through first strike. The North Koreans are well The American military presence in the ism in North Korea was a historic defeat the perspective of international socialist aware that. following a U.S. devastation Korean peninsula is not only aimed at for imperialism and a victory for the revolution. As we wrote in "U.S. Imperi­ of Iraq, they could be next on Washing­ the North Korean and Chinese deformed working people of Asia and the world. alism Hands Off North Korea!" (WVNo. ton's hit list. In today's world, where the workers states, but is an assertion of U.S. Following the Korean War, U.S. imperi­ 795, 17 January): nuclear madmen in Washington declare interests in the region against potential alism has not only militarily encircled the "What is desperately needed is the forg­ their "right" to carry out "pre~'emptive" rivals, chiefly Japan. It also serves as North but has also sought to starve the ing of a Leninist-Trotskyist party to lead the struggle for the revolutionary re­ strikes against anyone at any time, the a warning to South Korea's combat­ country through an economic embargo. unification of Korea-for socialist revo­ only real measure of sovereignty left is ive union movement, threatening to The collapse in 1991-92 of the Soviet lution in the South and workers political possession of nukes. Indeed, we regret drown in blood any c4allenge to the capi­ Union, which provided the bulk of mili­ revolution to oust the Stalinist bureau­ that North Korea's current facilities for talist order. Indeed, in South Korea, popu­ tary and technical aid to North Korea, crats in the North. The fight for revolu­ created a dire situation, made worse by a tionary reunification must be linked to nuclear development are so modest. lar fear and hatred of the U.S. occupation the struggle for proletarian political revo­ It is telling that while the Bush admin­ forces is escalating, with huge protests in series of natural disasters producing a lution in China and the extension of pro­ istration is gearing up to devastate Iraq, the South against U.S. troops and bases. famine of historic proportions. These des­ letarian power to Japan, the industrial those Democrats who claim to oppose Meanwhile, in China, the Stalinist perate conditions have been compounded heartland of Asia." the Iraq war are pointing to North Korea bureaucracy has repeatedly emphasized by the extreme autarky pushed by the Defend North Korea! All U.S. troops out as the real "threat." While the organizers its agreement with the imperialists' North Korean bureaucracy under the of Korea now!.

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Address $2 (64 pages) Apt.# _____ Order from/ City State Zip ______make checks payable to: Phone (__ ) - E-mail ______Spartacist Publishing. Co. 799 Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 Make checkS payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

8 WORKERS VANGUARD Europe-and Russia's military potential Shipments," WV No. 798, 28 February). would create a formidable challenge to Such labor actions have continued on a American global dominance. near-daily basis, including blockades of Many antiwar activists have looked to barracks and NATO bases by public sec­ the UN as a potential force to rein in the tor workers. Three days ago, over 50,000 U.S. Don't be fooled! Today, growing protesters, with trade-union contingents sections of the American ruling class, at their head, surrounded Camp Darby particularly as represented in the Bush and broke through the perimeter fence at administration, see no further use for least twice. Now, port workers in Livorno the UN. But the UN has been a creature are threatening to go on strike against the of the imperialist powers, centrally the loading of military supplies on American U.S., since its formation at the end of vessels bound for the Gulf. World War II. It has always served as a The centrist British Workers Power fig leaf for imperialist wars and interven­ group-whose radical phrasemongering tions. If'Is enough to recall that the sanc­ in cyberspace is matched by its craven tions that have killed 1.5 million Iraqis opportunism in reality-has seized on and devastated one of the most advanced increasing labor opposition to the war in infrastructures in the Near East were car­ Europe to raise the call for a "Global Gen­ ried out under UN aegis. Today, it is the eral Strike.;' When the centrist Independ­ UN that is vindictively disarming Iraq on ent Labour Party (ILP) called for a gen­ the eve of an American invasion, as seen eral strike against war in 1935, Bolshevik by the weapons inspections and the order leader Leon Trotsky replied in "The ILP to destroy Iraq's Al Samoud missiles, and the Fourth International": "It is com­ Daria Orlandi/lndymedia which can barely reach 100 miles. paratively easy to take a 'revolutionary' Demonstrators in Italy occupy train tracks to stop transport of war materiel. position on the question of war; but it is Banner reads, "Against the Capitalist War: General Strike." For Proletarian Internationalism! extremely difficult to draw from this posi­ Throughout Europe, the mass antiwar tion all the necessary theoretical and prac­ is to seek to chain left-wing youth and Militants engaged in actions against the protests against the U.S. war are being tical conclusions." Trotsky went on .to workers to "left" Labour Members of Par­ war should broaden this into a struggle channeled in the national-chauvinist note: "A gt;neral strike can be put on the liament (MPs) like Jeremy Corbyn and against capitalism itself. direction of getting one's "own" rulers to agenda as a method of struggle against George Galloway, who are currently cam­ stand up to American imperialism. But mobilization and war only in the event paigning to "reclaim" the Labour Party For a Socialist Republic of United Kurdistan! as we explained in a 23 October 2002 that the entire preceding developments in from Blair and tum it into a "party for International Communist League state­ the country have placed revolution and peace." In the same article that calls for Bush proclaims that U.S. imperialism ment, whicli has been translated into armed insurrection on the agenda," and a "Global General Strike," Workers Power plans to go into Iraq as "liberators." Such eight languages and distributed interna­ added: "A general strike without a victo­ declares: "We can, and must, march along­ arrogant claims are not new. When the tionally: "What's essential is to draw a rious insurrection cannot 'stop war' ." side the reformist left MPs and union British army marched into Baghdad in leaders when they mobilise their organ­ 1917, the commanding general declared: isations for action but we do not have "Our armies do not come into your cities to trim our strategy to what they will and lands as conquerors or enemies but as tolerate. If we did that, then the mili­ liberators." The British imperialists, in tant left wing of this movement would league with France, then proceeded to not grow and the compromising right draw artificial boundaries in the former wing would not lose its influence over lands of the Ottoman Empire in the Near it, which is just what is needed" (Workers East, forcibly amalgamating disparate eth­ Power Global Week, 23 February). For nic populations while carving up others, Workers Power, which is a member of the notably the Kurds who are divided among "Stop the War" coalition, this means in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. As a result practice unity with the likes of Corbyn of this criminal imperialist legacy, the and Galloway. Such unity amounts to Kurds continue to be the largest nation in keeping the working class subordinated the world without a state of their own. to racist, pro-imperialist Labourism and The American bourgeois media has thus to its "own" national bourgeoisie; it trumpeted the supposed "liberation" of means splitting the international workers Kurds in the "autonomous" region of movement along national lines. northern Iraq, created after the 1991 Gulf In fact, only a few months earlier, War. But as noted by Dilip Hiro in Iraq: Workers Power joined in an explicit In the Eye of the Storm (2002), the U.S. appeal to the very European gQvernments "refused to help the quasi-independent against which labor strikes would. be Kurdistan graduate to an independent directed. Last fall, Workers Power co­ state while vetoing the region's return to signed a call with RC, the SWP, the Baghdad's jurisdiction. All it wanted was March 4: Protesters at Turkey's Istanbul University carry banner reading French Ligue Communiste Revolution­ to deploy the Kurds as a lever to keep "Stop the Attack on Iraq." naire and others appealing to the Euro­ Saddam down." . pean bourgeois rulers to oppose U.S. The chief benefactors of the imperial­ class line and unshackle the working Workers Power spews hot air about a imperialism: "We call on 'all. the European ist carve-up of Iraq have been smugglers people and anti-imperialist youth from general strike encompassing every coun­ heads of state to publicly stand against and black marketeers, working in cahoots bourgeois politicians, their agents in the tryon the planet. But a general strike this war, whether it has UN backing or with either the Patriotic Union of Kurdi­ trade unions and their left serxants, who poses the question of which class shall not, and to demand that George Bush stan (PUK) or the Kurdistan Democratic seek to channel justified hatred of war rule. And for that to be resolved in favor abandon his war plans" (reprinted in Party (KDP), each of which took control into illusory calls for parliamentary re­ of the proletariat, what's needed is a Weekly Worker, 12 September 2002). of sections of Iraqi Kurdistan. For decades, forms of the profit-driven system that Leninist-Trotskyist party that fights for Unlike Workers Power, which issues these two nationalist formations have breeds war and, in· West Europe, into the class independence of the working meaningless proclamations for a "Global engaged in bloody internecine feuding, support for their own national bourgeoi­ class. Such a party can only be built General Strike," Marxists seek to inter­ alternately lining up with one or another sie against the Americans." by splitting Labour's' working-c~ass base vene into labor actions against the im­ imperialist or regional power, including In Britain, this reformist strategy takes away from the social-democratic tops, pending war to raise the consciousness of the U.S., Israel, Iran, Iraq and Turkey. the form of the "Stop the War" coalition, including and particularly those who pose the proletariat to the understanding that Until reaching a truce some years ago, the dominated by the Socialist Workers Party as "left." And this is precisely what Work­ it has the power to get rid of the sys­ PUK and KDP fought a civil war follow­ (SWP), which is supported by virtually ers Power rejects. tem of capitalist exploitation and imperi­ ing the Gulf War-killing some 7,000 every reformist and centrist outfit as well Workers Power's practical conclusion alist plunder through socialist revolution. people-with the latter appealing for and as oppositional sections of the Labour receiving arms from none other than Sad­ Party and trade-union bureaucrats. In dam·Hussein himself. Italy, where the right-wing Berlusconi Now the U.S. war is being seized on regime is backing the U.S., Rifondazione by the r~gional oppressors of the Kurds Comunista (RC) has latched onto the to move into oil-rich northern Iraq and French/German opposition to the war smash any semblance of Kurdish auton­ to paint the European bourgeoisies as omy. An American occupation of Iraq­ more "humanitarian" than the Americans, with its ethnically diverse population and declaring in a headline: "Paris-Berlin, the long-established civil society-would set Axis of Peace" (Liberazione, 23 January). the stage for further internecine conflicts As opposition to the war has deepened and brutal imperialist repression, and at the base of European society, there could tum the whole region into a hor­ have been a growing number of actions net's nest. The U.S. has already made it carried out by trade unionists. In Janu­ clear that its forces will take control of ary, Scottish train drivers refused to drive the oil fields around Kirkuk. The Turkish a trainload of munitions destined for a army-infamous for its brutal suppres­ large NATO base. In Italy, on February 21 sion of· Kurds in Turkey-already has trade unionists and antiwar activists blocked soine 1,200 troops in northern Iraq and is railway lines being used to transport 26 planning on deploying thousands more. military convoys from the Camp Ederle Tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds have NATO ,'base in Vicenza to the Camp 'demonstrated against and vowed to mili­ Darby NATO logistics depot in Livorno; tarily resist a Turkish inc,!rsion. For its one of the largest ammunition depots in Paris, March 5: Foreign ministers Ivanov of Russia, de Villepin of France and part, Iran has already sent hundreds of Europe (see "Italian Workers Block Arms Fischer of Germany announce intent to block UN resolution authorizing war. continued on page 10 14 MARCH 2003 9 New York TWU: Fight MTA Attacks on Muslim Women Workers! As the U.S. rulers continue their 100, which has the ability to mobilize its victimize and fire workers. anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim repres­ many thousands of members in their In a leaflet on the case that did not sion under the rubric of the "war on ter­ defense. This attack on union workers receive wide circulation, the Local 100 ror," the. racist bosses 'who run New is an attack on the whole labor move­ bureaucracy claims that the discrimina­ York City's Metropolitan Transporta­ ment-an injury to one is an injury to tion the women face is "un-American." tion Authority (MTA) have victimized all! TWU Local 100 must mobilize to put In fact, bigotry and discrimination three black women bus drivers for a stop to this racist and anti-Muslim big­ against Muslims and other minorities weanng the Islamic headscarf. These otry and demand that all three women be are facts of life in racist capitalist Amer­ workers, all of whom work out of the immediately restored to passenger service ica. We defend the right to freedom of Flatbush depot in Brooklyn, have bee,n with their records wiped clean! religious beliefs. At the same time, as subjected to company discipline and It is scandalous that the Local 100 Marxists, we recognize that the head­ are threatened with losing their jobs leadership is only now publicizing this scarf prescribed by the Koran-most merely for refusing to cover their head- case. Having filed grievances on behalf obviously in its extreme forms, like dresses with official MTA caps. ' of the women, which were denied, the the head-to-toe chador in Iran and the The MTA's outrageous trampling of TWU then submitted the case for arbi­ burqa in Afghanistan-is an expression these workers' rights began last sum­ tration on February 28 and held a small of the subjugation of women, who are mer, when a probationary bus driver, "arbitration rally" outside, with a ruling oppressed by all religions. But in post- Malikah Alkebulan, was written up for' due March 30. The union tops kept this 9/11 America, it's the capitalists and refusing to cover up her scarf, known case quiet during contract "negotiations their government that are making life as a khimar or hijab. Management then late last year, when transit workers hell for all Muslims, including women. went after veteran bus drivers Steph­ voted overwhelmingly to authorize a The domestic "war on terror" that in anie Lewis and Deirdre Small, who strike that could have shut down the the first instance targets immigrants have worn sUl;;h heads carves at work for whole city. Local 100 president Roger and Muslims will be used against just February 28: Stephanie Lewis, one 14 and 6 years respectively. An three Toussaint averted such a showdown by about everyone perceived as an op­ of three NYC bus drivers victimized women have been pulled from passen­ pushing through a deeply unpopular ponent by the capitalist rulers-from for wearing Islamic headscarf, at ger service and punitively reassigned to contract deal with a series of conces­ those who oppose U.S. imperialist wars union protest at arbitra~ionhearing. garage duty and face continual company sions. Among these are "reformed" dis­ abroad to those who speak out against harassment for defending their rights. ciplinary procedures which, far from racist oppression. The ultimate target the eyes of the capitalist rulers. It is These women are not helpless victims helping workers ensnared in the com­ of laws such as the USA-Patriot and crucial for the unions to use their social but are members of a powerful union, pany's draconian disciplinary process, Homeland . Security Acts is the labor power in defense of immigrants and all Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local in fact streamline the MTA's ability to movement, the real "enemy within" in those facing racist, discrimination.

(reprinted in WV No. 362, 14 Septem­ why our military defense of Iraq must be ist reunification of Germany in 1990, an Defend Iraq ... ber 1984): based on the sharpest political opposition increasingly assertive German imperial­ (continued from page 9) "The Kurdish masses must look to an to the bourgeois order in Iraq. It is the ism precipitated the breakup of Yugo­ alliance with the Arab, Persian and Turk­ task of the Iraqi proletariat to sweep away slavia by backing Croatian secession in troops into both the southern Shi'ite ish proletariats, who in tum must be this brutal capitalist regime. The key les­ 1991, leading to a series of ethnic civil made to become determined champions region of Iraq as well as the Kurdish of the Kurdish right of self-determination son of the 1958-59 uprising is the need wafs and imperialist attacks that claimed north. What all the regional bourgeoisies, against the great power chauvinism of for a Marxist party based on the complete hundreds of thousands of lives and drove as well as all the imperialist powers, do their own bourgeoisies. The Bolsheviks class independence of the proletariat from millions from their homes. French impe­ not want to see is the creation of any led the Russian labouring masses to real­ all map-ner of bourgeois nationalism. rialism today has an occupation force in ise that they could never become free independent Kurdish state, which would without resolute struggle against Great The Bush administration is making it its Ivory Coast neocolony in West Africa challenge the stability of the bourgeois Russian chauvinism. Such a revolution­ amply clear that American imperialism is and in the early '90s actively backed the order in the Near East. ary party must be built in each state and the deadliest enemy of all the peoples of the Hutu-based regime in Rwanda, which This underscores that any struggle for become the weapon for leading the prole- world. An easy win for the U.S. in Iraq carried out a genocidal massacre of over Kurdish national liberation must be , tarlan and peasant masses to victory and will only embolden this war-crazed govern­ 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in 1994. in consequence to encourage such victory based on implacable opposition to impe­ elsewhere." ment to embark on even bloodier military Only a series of socialist revolutions adventures elsewhere.,The Bush adminis­ can prevent the world from being thrown rialism. In channeling Kurdish hostility This struggle must be linked to the fight tration is already ominously talking about into the barbarism of interimperialist to the regime in Baghdad into the arms for socialist revolution in the advanced cap­ a supposed nuclear "threat" from Iran, wars. The new generation of fighters today of the American imperialist invaders, the italist countries. In Germany, for example, another member of Bush's "axis of evil." being mobilized against imperialist war Kurdish nationalist parties are prepar­ Kurdish and Turkish workers form a stra­ But contrary to those who must understand that any genuine opposi­ ing yet another bloody betrayal of this tegic component of the proletariat and refoimi~ts look to French and German imperialism, tion to war must be based on independ­ long-suffering people. It is only through face the same racist and anti-immigrant the overthrow of capitalist rule in Iran, there are no "benign" imperialist powers. ent struggle of the working class against measures at the h_ands of the governments Striving for domination, for new markets, the capitalist system that breeds racism Iraq, Syria and Turkey-establishing a of "Fortress Europe." Socialist Republic of United Kurdistan­ resources and cheap labor inevitably and war. A struggle against war and that the Kurdish people can finally'real­ Only Socialist Revolution leads to war. France and Germany­ against national and racial oppression ize national self-determination. As we Can End Imperialist War! whose interests by no means always coin­ requires a proletarian revolutionary inter­ wrote in our greetings to a 1984 con­ cide-are less powerful than the U.S., but nationalist party to fight for socialist ference of Kurdish militants in Europe 'When Iraq had a mass Communist hardly less bloody. Following the capital- revolution .• party in the 1950s, there was a real oppor­ tunity for the liberation of the Kurds as well as the other exploited and oppressed peoples of Iraq. But that was ruthlessly suppressed with the connivance of U.S. imperialism. Today, the U.S. denounces Saddam Hussein as a "tyrant" and a "Hit­ Web site: www.icl-fi.org • E-mail address:[email protected] ler," but when he and his Ba'athist prede­ National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860 cessors were butchering Communists, Kurds and others, Washington fully sup­ Boston Los Angeles Oakland ported him. In 1958, as the British-backed Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 monarchy was overthrown in a military Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Ahgeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 coup, the powerful Iraqi Communist Party (617) 666-9453 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 (ICP) could have seized power at the head Public Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m. ' Public Office: Chicago 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Sat. 1-5 p.m. of the millions of workers, Kurds. and Box 6441, Main PO 1634 Telegraph Organizational Rules and Guidelines other minorities that supported it. That of the Spartaclst Llague!U.S. Chicago, II:. 60680 New York 3rd Floor SEE PAGE 30 opportunity was derailed as the ICP's (312) 563-0441 Box 3381, Church St. Sta. patron~ in the Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy Public Office: New York, NY 10008 San Francisco Opponents of the Revolutionary cut a deal with the American imperialists Sat. 2-5 p.m. (212) 267-1025 Box 77494 Internationalist Workers Movement ,San Francisco SEE PAGE 31 and the ICP leadership lent its support 222 S. Morgan Public Office: (Buzzer 23) CA 94107 $2 _m_:ZOOO ..._ ~PubII"'lngeo.,Box1mOPO,N"YOfk,MY10111 to the bourgeois-nationalist officers. This Tues. 6:30-8:30 p.m. : prepared the way for a counterrevolution­ and Sat. 1-5 p.m. ary. bloodbath in 1963, when the Ba'ath 299 Broadway, Suite 318 Programmatic Statement of party briefly came to power for the first the Spartacist League/U.S. time and rounded up and murdered some $2 (40 pages) 5,000 leftists and trade unionists on the Toronto Vancouver Make checks payable/mail to: basis of lists supplied by the CIA. - Saddam Hussein's bloody history as a Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. Spartacist Publishing Co. Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 butcher of Iraqi leftists and minorities in (416) 593-4138 (604) 687-0353 the service of the imperialists underlines 10 WORKERS VANGUARD energies to fighting anti-Semitism and Near East ... defending the Russian Jews against at­ ( continued from page 5) tacks. Even in that case, the Bolsheviks did not expect to recruit large numbers of driving out the fascists and setting Jews, who worked mainly in small facto­ up a collectivized economy put a stop Tito's Communist ries where they tended to gravitate toward to national violence within Yugoslavia. Partisans the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks had their The ending of pogroms and murderous transcended base in the large factories. But this was a national conflicts was a historic achieve­ national litmus test in a country where anti-Jewish ment of the Yugoslav revolution that over­ antagonisms in pogroms wer~ a prevalent form of state­ threw capitalism. At the same time, the Yugoslavia. sponsored oppression. conservative, nationally limited Stalinist Tito (center), who bureaucracy pursued policies, like so­ was from Croatia, For a Socialist Federation pictured with of the Near East! called "JIiarket socialism," that constantly Sloven ian, Serbian undenriined the very gains of the revolu­ and Montenegrin As I said, there is a rich tradition of tion and inspired national conflicts. As Communist working-class struggle in the Near East. capitalist counterrevolution destroyed the leaders. I would like to conclude on the high­ Yugoslav deformed workers state, it once est point of that tradition, the Iraqi rev­ again became engulfed in ethnic warfare olution of 1958. That revolution was and forced population transfers. touched off by the overthrow of the mon­ The other historic example is, of course, World nationalists say about the working centuries-old anti-Semitic themes are archy by left-nationalist officers on Bas­ the Russian Revolution of 1917. To take class in all advanced capitalist coun­ there: the Jews plotting world domina­ tille Day 1958. The whole country rose just one example: the Caucasus, like the tries-that they are hopelessly linked to tion, the Jews as the embodiment of all up. As workers staged massive demon­ Balkans, had been for centuries a region their bourgeoisie because they profit from evil, and so on. You probably saw reports strations in the cities, some numbering a of inter-ethnic conflicts. The Bolsheviks imperialist exploitation of the Third last month of a TV series in Egypt based million people, peasants staged insurrec­ not only granted nations the right to World. This view of the Hebrew-speaking on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, tions throughout the countryside, kill­ self-determination, to create indepen­ working class expresses a brand of the anti-Semitic forgery cooked up by the ing landlords, seizing the land. The Iraqi dent states in the region, but they devel­ despair. And it is easy to despair about Tsarist secret police to incite pogroms. CP had the overwhelming support of oped a whole range of organizational this situation. There are certainly not The Protocols are everywhere in the Near the multinational Iraqi working class. It solutions so that even tiny proto-national many cracks in the Zionist citadel today, East. They have been endorsed and even also had broad support among other lay­ groupings, sometimes consisting of only even as the Zionist rulers openly copy distributed by Arab leaders, from Nasser ers of the population, including within a few villages, could have a measure of the methods of the Nazis in the Occu­ to the Kin:g of Saudi Arabia. Denying that the army and even some sections of the local autonomy. I once saw a map of pied Territories. The political climate is the Holocaust existed, a theme also bor­ officer corps. It is clear that the Iraqi CP the Caucasus in the early years of Bol­ so right-wing that Sharon, the butcher of rowed from the European fascists, -is now could have taken power. The U.S. sent shevik rule showing all the administra­ Sabra and Shatila, can pass himself off as common on campuses and among the the Marines into Lebanon to be ready for tive organs. It was covered with little a "centrist." This is not a situation that Near East intelligentsia. Even the age-old a possible invasion of Iraq. Socialist rev­ circles of various sizes. There too, the provides many openings for doing some­ anti-Semitic libel that Jews are killing olution was on the agenda. revolution put a stop to ethnic warfare thing in the immediate sense to relieve the Christian children to drink their blood is Isaac Deutscher, the historian and biog­ and essentially took the national ques­ situation of the Palestinians. And that is a widely repeated by Arab leaders and aca­ rapher of Trotsky, wrote: "Most western tion off the agenda. These two examples special kind of hell for revolutionaries, demics in the Near East. observers on the spot agreed that Kassem are dramatic proof of how murderous not to have any openings for intervening [the nationalist in power who had the sup­ national conflicts that seem unresolv­ effectively. In the Arab countries today, port of the Stalinist Communist Party] able under capitalism can be equitably what's on the rise is not communism could hardly hold his ground against an addressed under the dictatorship of the but Islamic fundamentalism, and this is a all-out· communist offensive." But the proletariat. product of despair. Moscow Stalinists sold out the revolution But if you go back to the 1940s and in the interests of maintaining "peaceful Anti-Semitism Binds the '50s, you had large Communist parties coexistence" with the U.S. And the Iraqi Masses to Their Exploiters in many Arab countries. Most of these CP, being a Stalinist party, went along, Our strategy for the Near East is the CPs were either formed by, or were based putting the brakes on the movement. This seizure of state power by proletarian heavily on, minorities in those countries. was the fruit of the Stalinist program of revolution. That is not going to hap­ The various Egyptian communist groups "two-stage revolution." While riding the pen unless the Hebrew-speaking working were all formed by Egyptian Jews. The crest of the revolutionary wave, the Iraqi class is in large part won over or at least Iraqi CP had Kurds and Jews in its lead­ CP continued to subordinate itself to neutralized. Think about it for a minute. ership. This is a tradition that we can hark the left-nationalist officer Kassem, in a Israel is by far the most advanced and back to. But how are we going to win supposedly "anti-imperialist" revolution. powerful country in the region. The Zion­ Arab workers to communism? Only by Of course the promised second stage of ists have the technology, the arms; they directly confronting the false conscious­ Memoires Vives Productions socialist revolution never came. Instead have nuclear weapons. How are you ness that binds them to their oppressors. Henri Curiel, an Egyptian Jew, helped Kassem turned on the Iraqi CPo In 1963, going to make a revolution in the region I want to underline the fact that rais­ found Communist movement in that the reactionary, nationalist Ba'ath party, if you don't crack the Zionist citadel from ing the consciousness of the proletariat country in 1940s. which included Saddam Hussein (who within? You have to be realistic about means a lot more than fighting to defend was not yet a national leader), came to this. And you are definitely not going to the workers' material interests. In What We insist on this not because we hope power and carried out a bloodbath of win Hebrew-speaking workers if you Is To Be Done?, Lenin said that the rev­ to recruit a lot of Jews in Arab coun­ thousands of leftist workers using lists don't recognize their right to national olutionary party must be a "tribune of tries-there are almost--none left. It's supplied by the CIA. existence. In addition, if you don't have the people," the defender of all the op­ because anti-Semitism pr-Opagated by The Iraqi revolution held out enormous this perspective, you are inevitably going pressed, not just the working class. That Arab rulers is one of the main things historic possibilities for workers of the to end up looking to the Arab bour­ means defending the rights of the Kurds, poisoning the class consciousness of Arab Near East and for minorities like the geoisies. Who else could even pretend to the Berbers, the Saharan population, the workers. Similarly in Poland, we repeat­ Kurds. Imagine, if the Iraqi proletariat be a useful ally of the Palestini~ns against Copts. It means fighting for free abortion edly published articles against anti­ had taken power, how it would have the Zionists? The. European Union? on demand. It means defending the rights Semitism. In Poland there aren't many changed workers' consciousness through­ Or maybe "la belle France" of the Alge- . of homosexuals against backwardness Jews left either. They were all driven out out the region. What would the impact rian War and ofVigipirate anti-immigrant and religious and moralistic bigotry. And or exterminated. But anti-Semitism was have been on the Israeli proletariat? Obvi­ repression? it means fighting anti-Semitism, which is key to the reactionary Polish nationalists ously we can't tell; it depends on many To write off the Hebrew-speaking work­ rampant in the Arab countries. of Solidarnosc who stood at the head of things. But it is possible that the impact ing class as hopelessly reactionary is not And it is rampant. Usually the word the working class. would have been-or will be some day in fundamentally different from what Third "Zionist" is used instead of "Jew," but the The Bolsheviks devoted enormous similar conditions-considerable .•

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·~~"0iI._.~.~ Women and Immigration In France Jewish quarter in Cairo prior to 1948 creation of Israeli state.

No. 54, Spring 1998, $2 (48 pages) No. 57, Winter 2002-03 (40 pages)

Make checks payable/mail to Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 137.1 GPO, New York, NY 10116

14 MARCH 2003 11 WfJlIN11I1 """'11' March 15 Protests:

The following call was issued on Most of today's pseudo-socialists March 7. cheered the destruction of the Soviet The U.S. imperialist rulers are Union, after having supported just about to unleash mass murder and about every counterrevolutionary destruction on Iraq followed by a movement in the Soviet Bloc, from direct colonial occupation of that Polish Solidarnosc to Boris Yeltsin. country. The U.S. government aims The International Socialist Organ­ to add tens of thousands of Iraqi ization (ISO), Progressive Labor (PL), Revolutionary Communist Party and Socialist Action, who Young today refuse to take on their "own" bourgeoisie in defense of Iraq, Sparlaeus sided with U.S. imperialism in its drive to destroy the homeland of the corpses to the more than a million Bolshevik Revolution. already produced by the last Gulf Just as the capitalists are driven War and the deadly UN sanctions. to maximize profit by squeezing This is intended as a bloody warn­ more from the workers for less, the ing to the whole world, and partic­ most industrially advanced nations ularly to Wall Street's most power­ are driven to' compete with each ful economic and political rivals in other over markets, raw materials Berlin and Tokyo: stand in the way and spheres of investment. This of the U.S. capitalists and you will struggle leads to economic wars, be crushed! This war is predatory which ultimately lead to shooting and imperialist on the part of the wars. And the destruction of the U.S. but just and defensive on the USSR has brought on increased part of Iraq. Working people and interimperialist rivalries. opponents of U.S. imperialism must The only way that a future inter­ take a side in defense of Iraq, with­ imperialist war-like World War I out giving any political support to and World War II-can be prevented San Francisco, February 16: Spartacist/SYC-organized contingent at 200,000-strong is through socialist revolutions that the bloody Saddam Hussein regime antiwar rally stood out sharply from pro-Democratic Party politics' of protest organizers. -Defend Iraq! seize control of society's productive The Spartacist League, Spartacus resources from the -capitalists and the bourgeoisie has at its cpmmand the Youth Clubs and Labor Black Leagues We are marching in counterposi­ reorganize society based on economic tion to this program of "unity" with the banks, the factories, the land, the press, call on those who oppose U.S. imperi­ planning for social need rather than profit. upholders of the capitalist system, who and the state apparatus, it will always be alism to join our revolutionary inter­ able to drive the people to war when its Only the working class, whose collec­ nationalist contingents in Washington, oppose the war for now because they interests demand it." tive labor produces all profit, has both don't think it best serves the interests of D.C., Los Angeles and San Fcrancisco "Antiwar" bourgeois politicians push the power and the objective interests rapacious U.S. imperialism. Such Demo­ on March 15, based on the demanos: All UN weapons inspections, and even the to accomplish this task. The important crats, along with the capitalist Green U.S. troops out of the Near East now! murderous UN sanctions which are them­ actions already carried out by Scottish and Down with U.S. imperialism! Defend Party, posture as friends of the oppressed selves acts of war, as a supposed "alterna­ Italian rail workers, blocking munitions in order to better channel the discon­ Iraq! For class struggle against U.S. cap­ tive" to war. The UN is nothing other than shipments destined for U.S. and allied tent with this racist capitalist system back italist rulers! March with the proletarian a fig leaf for imperialist slaughter, from forces in the Near East, point the way for­ into dead-end electoral politics. We say: internationalist revolutionists who tell the the 1950-53 Korean War which killed ward for U.S. workers, who must take up Break with the Democratic Party of truth to the masses: that only socialist over three million people to the first Gulf the struggle here in the belly of the impe­ revolution can end imperialist war! racism and war! For a workers party that War. Even with UN backing, this would rialist beast. Any blow against the U.S. imperi­ fights for socialist revolution! be a predatory war by U.S. imperialism. But it is impossible to mobilize such a The organizers of the demonstrations, alist military is a blow against the com­ As a result of the destruction of the struggle if opposition to the war is subor­ such as the Workers World Party's mon enemy of the world's working class Soviet Union by capitalist counterrevolu­ dinated to a wing of the capitalist class. In ANSWER, the Revolutionary Commu­ and oppressed. Especially given the over­ tion in 1991-92, the U.S. imperialists how the 1930s, then-Trotskyist James Burn­ whelming military superiority ,of U.S. nist Party's Not In Our Name (NION) feel free to run roughshod over the planet. ham (John West) pointed out in War and and the United for forces, the chief means of defending Iraq Peace and Justice The Soviet Union was a degenerated the Workers: is working-class struggle against the U.S. coalitions raise such calls as "No war on workers state which, despite the rule of a "To suppose ... that revolutionists can Iraq" and refuse to take a side in defense work out a common 'program against capitalists at home. nationalist bureaucracy, embodied enor­ of Iraq. To do so would mean siding with war' with non-revolutionists is a fatal Imperialist war demands class peace. mous gains for the working people, the "enemy:' a position that would pre­ illusion. Any organization based upon Workers, blacks and immigrants face an women and national minorities as a result such a program is not merely powerless all-sided attack under the "war on terror," clude the participation of any purportedly of the planned, collectivized economy. to prevent war; in practice it acts to pro­ which is backed by the Republicans and antiwar wing of the bourgeoisie. ~ The USSR was the military and indus­ mote war, both because it serves in its Leon Trotsky, co-leader with V.I. own way to uphold the system that Democrats alike. The fight against impe­ trial powerhouse for every state that had Lenin of the 1917 Russian Revolution, breeds war, and because it diverts the rialist war abroad is part and parcel of overthrown capitalism, from Vietnam to attention of its members from the real argued against this class-collaborationist the fight against the war on working peo­ Cuba. We fought for the unconditional fight against war." ple at home. It is necessary to struggle orientation in his "Declaration to the Anti­ military defense of the Soviet Union We say: for class struggle against the war Congress at Amsterdam" (July 1932): against the capitalist system of produc­ against imperialist attack and capitalist U.S. capitalist rulers! In contrast, the ISO "To condemn war is easy; to overcome it tion for profit which is the root cause of is difficult. The struggle against war is counterrevolution, and for a workers polit­ publication Socialist Worker Online (22 war, exploitation and oppression. But the a struggle against the classes which ical revolution to oust the Stalinist bureauc­ November 2002) declares that "antiwar organizers of the mass antiwar protests are rule society and which hold in their racy. Today we wage the' same fight in groups have to be open to anyone who proceeding in the exact opposite direc­ hands both its productive forces and its defense of the remaining deformed work-, opposes the Bush war drive," including destructive weapons. It is not possible to tion-turning these protests into platforms prevent war by moral indignation, by ers states: Defend North Korea's right to people who might agree with "UN weap­ to garner votes and political support for a ' meetings, by resolutions, by newspaper nuclear weapons! Defend China, Cuba ons inspections or even the lJ.S. war on wing of the capitalist Democratic Party. articles, and by congresses. As long as and Vietnam! continued on page 6

12 14 MARCH 2003