WfJRI(ERS 'AHIIIAR' so¢ No. 847 ",,4fgCil(~C-1'01 29 April 2005

Chinese Bureaucracy Promotes Reactionary Nationalism Resurgent Japanese Imperialism Sparks Protests in China APRIL 26-For the past month. many's bid for a permanent seat. tens of thousands of protesters have The truth is that the UN is nothing marched in anti-Japanese demon­ but an imperialist den of thie\es strations in cities throughout China. and their victims. From the The protests were sparked by Korean War to the sanctions Tokyo's approval of new jun­ against Iraq. which killed over ior high school history textbooks 1.5 million people. the UN has that \\hitewash past atrocities car­ shown itself to he an enemy of ried out hy Japanese imperial­ working people CInd the oppressed ism. The 19.7,7 Rape of :\anjing. international I Y. in which 300.000 Chinese were Re\'olutionary proletarian inter­ slaughtered by japanese troops. nationalism. not nationali~t cia~s is now described as "an incident." collaboration. is essential to ad­ The enslavement of more than vance the intert'sr., of the Chi­ lO().UOO Kllrean and Chine,e so­ ne,e \\orker., In defen'l' of the c:alkd "comfort \\ omen:' who were gaim of the Chine,e Re\olution. forced to sene as sex slaves in and Japanese workers in their Japanese arm) brothels during struggle against revanchist Japa­ World War II. has been erased nese imperialism. As we wrote in from hiswry. a 13 :".1arch joint statement be­ The Japanese texthook white­ tween the International Communist \vash i ... a provocation not only League"., Japanese and American against the Chinese deformed \\ ork­ ,ecti, \/1\ against the C()UllleITe\'olu­ cr" state. hut workers throughout tionary agreement between the A,ia. and. in t~lCt. it ha, sparked l;S, ~md Jap,m ('\'('r Tai\\,lP (HT protests in South Korea. It is the 'io. iI-1-.+. I iI March): lateq in a series of prm'ocations Getty "The Spartaci,t League/U.S. and the Spartaci,t Group Japan ... ,tand by Japanese imperialism against Chinese protest in front of Japanese-owned store in Guangzhou, China. Nationalist poison pushed by Stalinist bureaucracy poses deadly danger to Chinese deformed workers state. for the unconditional military de­ China. including Japan's recent fen,e of China and North Korea­ statement that it "ill driil for oil as we do for the other remain­ and gas around the Diaoyu­ iI1~ deformed \\ orker, >tate';. tai blands. which are claimed by Vi~tnalll and Cub",,-agdimt impc­ riali>t attack and internal capital­ China. ~'lost significant was the i,t countclTC\ olution .. issuing of a joint policy statement "Since the 19.+9 Chinc,e Revolu­ in Fehruan hetv,cen the U.S, and tion. from which the Chinc,e Japan C\\ll\\ing thaI Tai\\an is "a deformed workers ,tatc cmer1led. Taiwan has been an outpost for mutual ... ecurit: concern." Most of L'.S, imperialism', counterrcyo\u­ :he protests in China. \\hich for tionan scheme,. military threah i1()\\ have largely ,topped. \\ere and il;terference in Chin~~c inter­ tacitl) organized or apprO\ed by nal affair, through the puppet the gO\ernment as a respome to Chine,e bour!2coisie. Tai\van ha, heen ,ince ancient times a part of the prmocalions hy Japan. The China. and \IC Tnmk\i,r" will bureaucrac) had allowed the pro­ stand with China in the e\ ent of tests to continue-while anxiously any military contlict with imperi- seeking to keep them from getting out of by the Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy dous oppression once suffered by China's alism ovcr Taiwan .... hand-to provide a distraction from the poses a grave danger to the gains of masses. laying the basis for a tremendous "\Ve arc opposed to the Stalinish' plan deepening social turmoil tearing at the the 19.+9 Chinese Revolution itself. As leap in economic development. And. with of reunification \\ ith Taiwan embodied in 'one country. t\\ 0 svstems.' Instead. t'abric of Chine,e society. As one Shang­ oppo,ed to class unity between the Chi­ the internationalist extension of the revo­ we advance a -progran; for the relolu­ hai demonstrator put it. "People are tak­ nese and Japanese proletariat. the bureauc­ lution. it could lay the basis for the even­ tionar\' rcunification of China. which ing part in this march because they aren't racy is pushing unity of all Chinese peo­ tual construction of a socialist society. requires a workers pl)litical revolution allowed to protest anything else" (Nell' ple. including Chine,e capitalists from However. China from its inception has against the Stalinist bureaucracy on the been a deformed workers state. in which mainland. a proletarian socialist re\olu­ York Times. 17 April). Taiwan and Hong Kong, against all Japa­ tion in Taiwan to overthrow and expro­ Howe\ er. the prote,ts. which continued nese people. This was expressed in a a consen'ative caste of bureaucrats. rul­ priate the bourgeoisie. and the expropria­ longer than any major public demonstra­ recent demonstration in Hong Kong. ing in its own narrow interests. blocks tion of the Hong Kong capitalists," lions in China since the 1989 Ti,ll1an­ where anti-Japanese protesters carried development toward a classless. social­ men revolt. have promoted a nationalist the Taiwanese tlag of the Guomindang. ist society. Ever since (and including) For Revolutionary re,ponse to Japan's provocations-i.e .. which represents the capitalists and land­ Mao Zedong. these bureaucratic rulers Internationalism! not against the capitalist rulers of Japan. lords who fled the Revolution. The Chi­ have championed the nationalist Stalin­ The dogma of "socialism in one COUll­ hut rather against the entire Japanese nese government recently hosted a dele­ ist dogma of building "socialism in one try" means opposition to the perspective population. workers no less than their gation of the Guomindang from Taiwan country.-- Flatly repUdiating Marxism. of workers revolution internationally and capitalist oppressors. "Japanese pigs get for the first time since the Civil War. a the Stalinists have historically preached accommodation to world imperialism. out'''. shouted Chinese protesters as they display of Chinese "unity" against the the idiocy that socialism could be built in The recent protests. for example. have trashed Japanese-owned shops. One ex­ pro-Taiwanese-independence Democratic a single country-even one as materially aimed their entire fire against Japan. pression of the nationalism has been calls Progressive Party that expresses the deep backward as China-if only imperialist whitewashing the crimes of U.S. impe­ for boycotting Japanese businesses and nationalism and class collaborationism of military intervention were thwarted. rialism. (Apparently. Beijing considers goods. the Chinese Stalinists. One aspect of the recent protests in Tokyo the easier target in the U.S.-Japan The nationalist poison being promoted The gains of the Chinese Revolution­ China has been opposition to Japan's military alliance.) This reflects and feeds above all the nationalized. collectivized attempts to gain a permanent seat in into an illusion in China that the U.S. is economy-represent a historic advance the United Nations Security Council. For a more henigll imperialist power. Yet it 1 7 not onl) for Chinese workers and peas­ the Chinese gmernment. this question is was the U.S. that in 19.+5 became the only ants. but also for the entire world prole­ part of its maneuvering. within the frame­ country ever to use atomic weaponry. tariat. The expropriation of the capitalists work of "peaceful coexistence" with world causing the death of several hundred and the setting up of a socialized econ­ imperialism. between so-called "progres­ thousand Japanese civilians in Hiroshima omy represented a great advance over sive" and "reactionary" imperialist pow­ and Nagasaki. These bombings served 7 25274 11 81030 7 the imperialist subjugation and horren- ers. For example. China supports Ger- continued Oil page 9 Letter An Exchange on the .Iraq "Resistance" 6 November 2004 sive purposes. Iran would be likely to use Dear editors of Workers Vanguard, nuclear weapons on a "first-strike" basis: I am writing to take issue with WV's their attempts to acquire them present the position of military support for the "resis­ very real possibilities of Israel or the U.S. tance" against the U.S.-led "coalition" in striking first. The Iranian nuclear weap­ Iraq. I do not think that the workers have Ems program is deliberately provocative. any interest in the present Iraqi "resis­ and must be seen in light of the social­ tance." I think that the position of military political character of the Iranian state. support for any "resistance," despite the which i~ at least quasi-fascist, in nature. political nature of such military opposi­ history and present reality. While not want­ tion, against imperialist power. a position ing to make a fetish of nuclear weapons, taken by Trotsky in the 1920s-'30s (Ethi­ nor qualitatively to distinguish between opia), is not applicable to the present sit­ nuclear and non-nuclear (euphemistical­ uation in Iraq, and is a historically spe­ ly termed "conventional") military vio­ cific and bounded politics that was based lence. I think that the mullahs getting on geopolitical as well as class-struggle hold of them does nothing to further anti­ estimations that no longer apply today, capitalist social political possibilities, not after the destruction of the Soviet Union. locally nor globally. This must be dis­ For better or worse (for worse), we have tinguished from acquisition of nuclear been thrown back into a situation of po­ weapons by (however deformed) work­ tential anti-capitalist social-politics that ers' states such as North Korea (or, histor­ resembles the pre-19l7 world. More so' American Army vehicles destroyed by car bomb near Baghdad, April 20. ically, by the Soviet Union and China). than in the Soviet era, each particular While indeed our "main enemy is at configuration seems to demand a case­ revolutionary anti-capitalist political pos­ Similarly, whereas it might have made home," that does not mean that we should by-case social-political analysis and eval­ sibilities, I think that this is no longer the sense to call for the defense of Iraq and defend or call for the defense of the mul­ uation. Whereas one could broadly under­ case after the destruction of the Soviet for an objective military bloc with the lah's clerical-fascist state, nor of the pres­ stand "anti-imperialism" of various forms state, and given other social-political real­ Saddam Hussein/Baathist state in Iraq ent Iraqi "resistance." Al-Sadr's follow­ in the Soviet era as objectively favoring ities locally and globally. against the U.S., the destruction of that ers, for instance, have already laid down state fundamentally changes the charac­ their weapons. One must distinguish be­ ter of the social politics of military posi­ tween the social politics of military oppo­ tions on the ground in Iraq. For example, sition that seeks bargaining power and that of fascist reaction. We in the "belly of For International Proletarian it is my understanding that the (remnant) Iraqi Communist Party, while officially the beast" should take positions that are Class Unity! "opposing" the U.S. military occupation, at least acceptable to those on the ground In response to recent Japanese provoca­ supports the "interim government" and in Iraq. To hold U.S. and (also E.U.) im­ tions, including attempts to deny Japanese politically (and militarily) opposes the perialism ultimately responsible for the imperialism '.I' crimes in Asia, large-scale "resistance." In perspective, the first Iraq social-politics of Islamist fascism should protests have erupted in China and South war was fundamentally related to and fa­ not mean defending it. Rather, the Iranian Korea. Throughout the protests, the ruling cilitated by the destruction of the Soviet mullahs and the U.S. imperialists deserve Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy has actively state, and raised the specter of inter­ each other, and both are to blame for the promoted poisonous nationalism, which is imperialist war: the object of the 1st Iraq suffering of the people who are their sub­ counterposed to the proletarian internation­ war was as much the USSR and the U.S.'s jects. Any anti-capitalist social-political alism needed to defend and extend the 1949 imperialist competitors as it was Iraq. possibilities are not qualitatively reduced TROTSKY Chinese Revolution. III its 1922 program, LENIN Now, the French-Gennan opposition to the by U.S. occupation of Iraq (or of Iran .. .), the then-revolutionary Communist Party of U.S. has become the most salient social­ and are only very dubiously furthered by Japan laid out the perspective of international working-class unity while opposing the historical feature of the 2nd Iraq war. military "resistance" that is not interested imperialist designs of its "own" ruling class. The situation vis-a-vis Iran raises in defending anyone's lives and whose another, related matter. The Mujahideen political aims are only furthered by the The Communist Party of Japan is resolutely opposed to every species of the Imperi­ slaughter. Would Trotskyists have sup­ alist policy. It is opposed to the intervention, open and secret, in China and Siberia, Al-Khalq [MEK] has been instrumental in making public and providing intelli­ ported fascist-supported military resis­ the interference with the government of these countries, the "Sphere of Influence" and tance to U.S. occupation in post -WW II "Vested Interests" in China, Manchuria, and Mongolia, and all the other attempts and gence to the U.S. and European powers on the mullahs' nuclear weapons pro­ Germany or Italy or France? I think not. practices of similar nature. In that instance, the U.S. was more in­ The most infamous of all the crimes of Japanese Imperialism has been the annexation gram. As part of their "negotiations" with the mullahs, the EU powers have agreed terested in disarming their erstwhile of Korea and the enslavement of the Korean people. The Communist Party of Japan Communist-aligned anti-fascist resistance to maintain the MEK's official status as not only condemns the act but takes every available step for the emancipation of fighters. And, since then, political possi­ Korea. The majority of the Korean patriots, fighting for the Independence of Korea, is "terrorists." If Mordechai Vanunu is to be commended for revealing Israel's nuclear bilities have only changed for the worse. not free from bourgeois ideology and nationalist prejudice. It is necessary that we act in Comradely, cooperation with them-necessary not only for the victory of the Korean Revolution weapons program, shouldn't an ostensibly Chris c., Chicago but also for winning them over to our Communist principles. The Korean Revolution Leftist organization such as the MEK be commended-and defended-as well? will bring with it a national crisis in Japan, and the fate of both the Korean and Japa­ WVreplies: nese proletariat will depend on the success or failure of the fight carried on by the The duplicity of the European powers as Chris C. raises many issues in his let­ united effort of the Communist Parties of the two countries. well as the U.S. as regards groups such as ter, and there is no way in this reply to The three principal nations in the Far East, China, Korea, and Japan, are most the MEK, as well as the Kurdish national­ respond to all of them. The main issue closely related to one another in their political, social, and economic life, and thus ist organizations (despite their support for we aim to take up is the question of the bound to march together on to the goal of Communism. The international solidarity of the U.S.-led Iraq war), seems clear. The Iraq "resistance" and what attitude revo­ the proletariat, and particularly of these three countries is the condition indispensable to mullah's nuclear weapons program seems lutionaries should have toward it. the Victory and Emancipation of the Proletariat, not only of the respective countries likely to make actual what WV has in the In Iraq today, we have a side against the but of the whole world. past called the Zionist state's "death trap for Jews." U.S., its allies and Iraqi lackeys. Our start­ -"Program of the Communist Party of Japan" (September 1922), reprinted in Unlike North Korea, which seeks to ing point is to demand the immediate, Spartacist (English-language edition) No. 58, Spring 2004 acquire nuclear weapons for purely defen- continued 011 page II

0- <0: ~!J~!!'f..!!}!..'ll!.l!l!.~!!.1l ~ DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Alison Spencer EDITOR: Alan Wilde EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Rosemary Palenque CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff Thomas EDITORIAL BOARD: Kathleen Harris (managing editor), Helene Brosius (letters editor), Linda Jarreau (production manager), Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, Helen Cantor, Paul Cone, George Foster, Walter Jennings, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). U.S. troops Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly. except skipping three alternate issues In June. July and brutalize civilians August (beginning WIth omitting the second issue in June) and skipping the last Issue in December, by the Spartaclst in Falluja, Publishing Co .. 299 Broadway. Suite 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]. November 2004. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/21 Issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard. Box 1377 GPO. New York, NY 10116. Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial vIewpoint. The closing'date for news in this issue is 26 April.

No. 847 29 April 2005

2 WORKERS VANGUARD Columbia Administration Report Retails Zionist Lies The ./i!llrming lea/7el was isslIed exciusion or' Professor Rashid Kha­ hy [he Colilmbia Spurlaclis YUlIth iidi from a New York City Depart­ Cill/) ill Xew York Cit" on April 9 Fight the Ongoing Witchhunt! ment of Education program shO\~s. in de}£'l1. l e ol Professor Joseph Mas­ Its principal instigators nationally, ,I{/(I, l\/)o' has been the target of like Daniel Pipes and David Horo­ all ongoing Zionist v.'itchhullt. Fur No Reprisals Against Professor Massad! witz, are closely linked to the Bush more information about this case see government. Democrats also have "Right- Willg Thought Police Assault joined in, including those in the City Free Speech on Campus" (WV No. Hands Off MEALAC! Council who earlier announced their 842, 18 Februwy J. intention to conduct another investi­ However loudly pro-Zionist stu­ lIf[HOlf gation if Columbia's "comes up dry." dents are howling at its conclusions, FAlEsnNl~~ In its 7 April editorial, the "respect­ the recently released Ad Hoc Griev­ !10A11 able" bourgeois New York Times en­ ance Committee Report at bottom Nl istfHl dorsed the campaign for political imbibes in the ongoing right-wing 1irof'$ i:lil.lt censorship by bemoaning the Com­ witchhunt of the MEALAC Depart­ OOT eft mittee's "limited" mandate and call­ ~uP!W· ment and above all Professor Joseph rti~m)! ing for Columbia to "follow up on Massad. Not only does the report in complaints about politicized courses effect label Massad a liar by finding and a lack of scholarly rigor." Indic­ credible an account of classroom ative of the depths of this reactionary "intimidation" by one of his former campaign, legislatures in almost a students, paving the way for official dozen states are considering bills to punishment by the administration, give conservative students the "right" but it also whitewashes the system­ to sue their "intolerant" professors­ atic harassment of Massad himself such as biologists who teach evolu­ over the past three years-the infil­ Spartacus Jason Bello/Columbia Spectator tion as scientific fact ~ tration of his classes by snoops, the Spartacist supporters at Columbia press conference, December 2004, in defense of At this critical juncture, militant routine heckling there by Zionists, Professor Joseph Massad (right). protest by students, faculty and work- the numerous death threats directed ers demanding that the Columbia at him. The focus of a sinister campaign up the VICIOUS witchhunt with its pro­ I'm a pro-Jewish Palestinian cntlc of administration keep its hands off Profes­ to silence dissent on campus, Massad fessed concerns for "civility" and "mutual Zionism" (Nell' York Times, 8 April). The sor Massad and MEALAC is as urgent as did nothing wrong! The Spartacus Youth respect" on campus, proves our point. Committee report even admits that the ever. Not only the campus community, Club demands: Hands of! MEALAC! No In contrast, the International Socialist vast majority of the complaints against but also working people and minorities reprisals against Professor Massad! Organization, now attempting to cover MEALAC were about the "content" of everywhere have a stake in defeating this The administration, the agent of the its tracks by writing of "Bollinger's dam­ lectures, not "intimidation." Zionist stu­ onslaught on our democratic rights. The ruling class on campus, gave legitimacy aging role" (Socialist Worker, 8 April), dents have routinely railed about getting same forces that want to keep the elite to the witchhunt by launching an investi­ has consistently reinforced illusions in Massad fired when coming across our universities dissent-free and all-white gation that should not have occurred in the administration as a potential ally of campus lit tables. Now, with the report (recall the racist "affirmative action bake the first place! For [university president] besieged minorities on campus, includ­ out the Zionists have vowed to carryon sale" provocation against blacks, Jews Bollinger, it is all about safeguarding ing by imploring the administration to their fight. As we wrote in our earlier leaf­ and other minorities last year) are all Columbia University as an oh-so-liberal "take a stand against the attacks on its own let (26 November 2004), "Key to defeating for union-busting and increasing U.S. institution, while at the same time throw­ professors" (Socialist Worker, 3 Decem­ the witchhunt against Columbia professors imperialism's stranglehold on the world. ing Massad to the wolves. At the October ber 2004) after Bollinger had already ini­ and MEALAC is forthrightly taking up the Those students seeking the best means to 28 faculty meeting, Bollinger even pro­ tiated the investigation. defense of the Palestinian people." Down defend Massad should link their struggles vocatively said that the First Amendment The racist witchhunt against Massad with the Zionist witchhunt! to the working class, the ultimate target docs not apply to Columhia because it is a and the other professors-exemplified by The witchhunt is fueled by C.S. impe­ of this right-wing offensive, as it is the private institution and has since indicated a Zionist professor grotesquely baiting rialism's bloody neocolonial occupation working class which has the interest and that there are limits to freedom of speech Massad as "a pathetic typical Arab liar" in of Iraq, the post-Septemher II bipartisan the social power to strike a blow against in the classroom. Down with the attack an e-mail-is not in essence about "aca­ "war on terror" and Zionist state terror the wave of reaction, and in the end shat­ on the right to free speech on campus! demic freedom," but is part of a well­ against the Palestinian people. As such, it ter the capitalist: order itself. For a class­ From the time of the early organizing organized political campaign to intimi­ transcends the campus, as the recent struggle fight for all our rights!. meetings of MEALAC's supporters, the date and purge faculty who speak out SYC argued against relying on the admin­ against the crimes of U.S. imperialism istration to defend Massad. We wanted and its Israeli allies, As Massad recently CORRECTION the investigation dropped, not made more noted: "My crime is not only that I'm In "Independence for Chechnya! that of the International Helsinki Feder­ "evenhanded." The report, which dresses Palestinian. What galls them most is that Russian Troops Out Now!" (WV No. ation, which in 2002 estimated Chech­ 840,21 January), we wrote: "Estimates nya's population to be less than half of the number of Chechen civilians a million; and the Russian govern­ ---SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. --­ killed in the first Chechen war of 1994- ment which that same year ludicrously -, 96 and the second war launched in 1999 claimed Chechnya's population had Local Directory and Public Offices range from about 100,000 to 200,000- undergone a "miraculous expansion" to out of a total population estimated at nearly 1.1 million. Although establish­ Web site: www.icl-fi.org • E-mail address:[email protected] 300,000 to 450,000!" The estimate of ing Chechnya's current population is National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860 Chechens killed by Russian forces over difficult it is clear that Russia's assault the past decade was correct. However, has driven out an extremely high Boston Los Angeles Oakland the population estimate was misleading, number of Chechens-approximately Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 implying that up to 45 percent of the 150,000 according to the Danish Refu­ (617) 666-9453 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 population might have been killed. gee Council-\vhile slaughtering a high [email protected] [email protected] sycbayarea@ Due to the war, population estimates percentage of those remaining. Public Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m. sbcglobal.net -as well as estimates of casualties and The same article also incorrectly Chicago 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Public Office: refugees-vary drastically from the referred to the Soviet Union as Box 6441, Main PO Sat. 1-5 p.m. 1990s to the present. According to a a "deformed workers state." Before Chicago. IL 60680 New York 1634 Telegraph, 1989 Soviet census, the total population its collapse, the Soviet Union was (312) 563-0441 Box 3381, Church St. Sta. 3rd Floor of Chechnya was 1,3 million, of whom a degenerated workers state, as the chicagospartacist@ New York, NY 10008 sbcglobal.net (212) 267-1025 San Francisco some 735,000 were Chechens (most of Bolshevik-led October Revolution of the rest \vere Russians). The figure we Public Office: [email protected] Box 77494 1917 underwent degeneration under Sat. 2-5 p.m. Public Office: San Francisco, CA 94107 cited of 300,000 to 450,000 comes from a parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy that 222 S. Morgan Sat. 1-4 p.m. sycbayarea@ an official estimate by the Danish Refu­ seized political power in 1924. The (Buzzer 23) 299 Broadway, Suite 318 sbcglobal.net gee Council in early 2000-after years term "deformed workers state" is used of war had driven the population to a hy Trotskyists to characterize China, TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE DU CANADA low point. Later in 2000 after further North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba (as research, the Danish Refugee Council well as East Europe before capitalist Toronto Vancouver arrived at an estimated Chechen popula­ counterrevolution), where capitalism Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O, tion of approximately 715,000, which is was overthrown but where the workers Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 probably more accurate than the num­ states were bureaucratically deformed (416) 593-4138 (604) 687-0353 ber we cited. Other estimates include from their inception. [email protected] [email protected]

29 APRIL 2005 3 ~£ Parti§an Defen§e .. £o...... ittee CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES Leonard Peltier Becomes poe Stipend Recipient Free Leonard Peltier! This article is reprinted from the Parti­ became involved in struggles for Native cealed ballistics tests which showed that san Defense Committee's Class-Struggle American rights and joined AIM. As an Peltier's gun could not have been used in Defense Notes No. 33. Spring 2005. The AIM member he joined in the 1972 Trail the shooting, while the trial judge ruled PDC is a class-struggle. non-sectarian of Broken Treaties caravan to Wash­ out any possibility of another acquittal on legal alld social defense organization ington, D.C., where he participated in grounds of self-defense by refusing to whose purpose is in accordance with the the occupation of the Bureau of Indian allow any evidence of government terror political views of the Spartacist League. Affairs (BIA) building. It was in his capac­ against Pine Ridge activists. At the trial, The Partisan Defense Committee ann­ ity as a trusted and respected AIM activist the prosecutors claimed that Peltier shot Incredibly, Skretny acknowledges the ounces that it has recently added Leo­ that he came to assist the Oglala Lakota the agents at close range; by the time of a admissions of the Eighth Circuit Court nard Peltier to its class-war prisoner sJi­ people of the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1985 appeal hearing the lead government that the jury could possibly have acquit­ pend program. Leonard Peltier is known South Dakota in the mid '70s. attorney admitted, "We can't prove who ted Peltier had the records improperly throughout the world as one of the most At that time, AIM fell within the gov­ shot those agents:' withheld from the defense been made prominent political prisoners in America. ernment's cross hairs because it was The Feds' conspiracy against Peltier available. He also found no disagreement His nearly three decades of incarceration attempting to combat the enforced pov­ and other AIM leaders was orchestrated with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals because of his activism in the American erty of Native Americans and the contin­ right from the top, through the FBI's which ruled in November 2003 that Indian Movement (AIM) has come to ued theft of their lands by the Feds and notorious "Counter-Intelligence Program." "Much of the governmeot's behavior at symbolize this country's racist repression the energy companies, which were intent COINTELPRO was launched against the the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be con­ of its indigenous people, the survivors on grabbing the rich uranium depos­ Communist Party and was then deployed demned. The government withheld evi­ of centuries of genocidal oppression. its under Sioux land in western South to "neutralize" radical organizations in dence. It intimidated witnesses. These In a March 28 letter to the PDC. Peltier Dakota. Pine Ridge became a war zone the 1960s, particularly the Black Panther facts are not disputed." asks that his stipend money be donated as the hated BrA and the FBI trained and Party, whose members were framed up But still Skretny turned down the defense to his defense committee. The PDC was armed thugs to terrorize and crush Indian and imprisoned by the hundreds while 38 requests and, like the courts which have happy to oblige and sent a check to activists. Between 1973-1976, these kill­ were killed in cold blood. Despite the acknowledged the frame-up of Peltier, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, ers carried out more than 300 attacks, massive evidence of Peltier's innocence, continued the long history of governmen­ P.O. Box 583, Lawrence, KS 66044. We murdering at least 69 people. the courts have repeatedly turned down tal cover-up of official misconduct in the encourage our readers and supporters to When 250 FBI and BIA agents, SWAT his appeals, just as his requests for service of racist repression. likewise donate to the cause of Peltier's cops and local vigilantes launched an parole have been denied again and again Peltier's attorneys have sought to use freedom. assault against Pine Ridge in June 1975 since he became eligible in 1993. At a the Freedom of Information Act to un­ Leonard Peltier needs no introduction and the FBI came up two agents short, hearing in June 2000, the parole officer cover the volumes of secret FBI files per­ to subscribers of Class-Struggle Defense Peltier and three others were charged outrageously turned Peltier down cold taining to Peltier's frame-up prosecution. Notes or Workers Vanguard, the Marxist with their deaths. Charges were dropped without even bothering to look at the Attorney Michael Kuzma said that the newspaper of the Spartacist League, with against one of them, while AIM support­ materials his lawyer submitted. The fol­ total of the illegally withheld government which the PDC is associated. Peltier is ers Dino Butler and Bob Robideau were lowing year, outgoing Democratic Party evidence in Peltier's case amounted to a now 60 years old; he was born on the acquitted in a trial in Cedar Rapids, president Bill Clinton turned down Pel­ staggering 142,579 pages. Clearly the U.S. Anishinabe Turtle Mountain Reservation Iowa, as jurors stated that they did not tier's petition for executive clemency. ruling class has much to hide in its on­ in North Dakota. He faced the brutal believe the government witnesses and And there is no end to the bourgeois going criminal prosecution of this coura­ racism and grinding poverty of working­ that it seemed "pretty much a clear-cut courts' trampling on Peltier's rights. On geous fighter for Native Americans. There class Native American Indians, working case of self-defense" against the murder­ March 31, U.S. District judge William is no justice in the capitalist courts for variously as a migrant farm worker, an ous FBI raid. Skretny rejected a request by Peltier's class-war prisoners like Leonard Peltier automobile mechanic, a welder, a carpen­ The government went into overdrive to lawyers to release FBI documents that and Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Partisan De­ ter and a community counselor. In assure a conviction against Peltier after they believe would provide evidence of fense Committee reiterates its decades­ response to the hideous oppression he the Feds had dragged him back from ref­ government attempts to place sources long commitment to justice for Leonard experienced and sawall around him, he uge in Canada. The prosecution con- near Peltier's original legal defense team. Peltier. Free him now!. Free Ohio 7 Prisoner Tom Manning! Earlier this month, the Partisan the prison system-USP Marion (Illinois) other Ohio 7 activists are not crimes. We Defense Committee added Tom Manning and USP Florence ADMAX (Colorado), a salute the courage and integrity of class­ to the list of recipients of its monthly sensory deprivation unit of steel and con­ war prisoners like Manning, but we reject stipend as part of the PDC's class-war crete with no sound and minimal human the strategy of "armed propaganda," as he prisoners program. Support for class-war contact, designed to break prisoners. puts it. This strategy substitutes isolated prisoners is not social work but an act of Manning is currently at USP Leaven­ individual actions for the mobilization of so Ii dari ty. worth (Kansas). In 1999, he was moved the power of the proletariat. Instead, we Tom Manning is part of the Ohio 7, left­ to the U.S. Medical Center for Federal seek to win the working class to the per­ ist activists convicted for their role in a Prisoners in Springfield (Missouri) for spective of sweeping away the whole cap­ radical group that took credit for "bank hip surgery and, even though he returned italist system through socialist revolution. expropriations" and bombings in the late to Leavenworth in 2002. it took another We urge readers of Workers Vanguard 1970s and '80s against symbols of U.S. two years for him to get back his legal to write to Tom Manning and express imperialism such as military and corporate and medical records. their solidarity with him. Write to Tom offices. Manning is one of three remaining From the standpoint of the working Manning at: 10373-016, P.O. Box 1000, Ohio 7 activists still in prison and, if the class, the actions of Manning and the Leavenworth, KS 66048 .• U.S. government has its way, he will spend PI(' ••.. rti~n Defen!ie the rest of his life behind bars. As Tom D ' £olHnlittee states in "A Short Biography" posted on Get Your Copy of his Web site (www.geocities.com/tom­ December 16th Committee manning). he was sentenced in 1985 to 53 CLASS-STRUGGLE years in federal prison: prison last year. Manning grew up poor DEFENSE NOTES! "for a seri

At a March 30 showing of the Farm­ all immigrants is a critical struggle that subordinating workers to the capitalist,' ingl'ille video in New York City or­ all labor must take up. Immigrant work­ anti-strike laws: wasting millions of hard­ Long Island, NY ganized by District Council 37-which ers, bringing with them traditions of labor earned union dues to line the pockets of organizes hospital, municipal and other struggle in Latin America and elsewhere. Democratic Party politicians rather than In recent years, Long Island has workers-it was reported that Levy was can playa key role in revitalizing U.S. using the financial muscle of organized seen an outbreak of anti-immigrant and forced to back down from his proposal. labor. The attacks on immigrant workers labor to support strikers and their fami­ anti-black attacks. Anti-immigrant groups But Levy's objectives are being carried on Long Island are by no means isolated. lies: abandoning effective means of class such as the Sachem Quality of Life out under the cover of a campaign against Day laborers in Freehold, New lersey are struggle in favor of building illusions that Organization (SQL) in Farmingville have "gangs" and "sexual predators." The code facing threats similar to those faced by capitalist Democratic Party politicians are organized to force immigrants, primarily words for the racist campaign of mass Long Island workers. In Arizona, a group "friends of labor"; refusing to take on the Mexican day laborers, out of their task of confronting the racist open communities and the country. When shop South with a hard-hitting union SQL. along with the Federation organizing drive. It means refusing for American Immigration Reform to aggressively unionize immigrant (FAIR). defeated a resolution to pro­ labor. vide a hiring hall for day laborers in The fight to build a labor leader­ 200 I, fascist groups, such as the ship that recognizes that the interests World Church of the Creator, took an of capital and the interests of labor interest in recruiting in Farmingville. are irreconcilable is critical to revers­ Fascist and racist thugs have been ing the AFL-CIO's current disastrous targeting immigrants in Long Island course. The working class needs its since before the hiring hall resolu­ own political party based on a pro­ tion. In September 2000, two Mexi­ gram of socialist revolution, a party can immigrants were attacked with a that will be the voice of all those knife and beaten with shovels and a oppressed by capitalist society. posthole digger after racists. includ­ ing one covered with racist tattoos, Long Island: lured them from Falmingville with A Long History of Racism the promise of work. On 51uly 2003, Long Island is one of the most five white racists used fireworks shot Mexican immigrant Sergio Perez outside his Farmingville home, which was fire­ segregated suburbs in the U.S. Some from a car to burn Mexican immi­ bombed by white raCists, July 2003. 80 percent of blacks in Nassau grants out of their home in Farm­ County are concentrated in a mere ingville. The driver, one Kyle Mahler. had black incarceration are now being used to calling itself the "Minutemen" is organiz­ 10 percent of the county. A recent re- pictures of KKK members and anti­ deport immigrant day laborers. In recent ing armed vigilante patrols at the U.S.! port by Erase Racism, a Long Island Latino literature in his car. Many of these months, cops in Nassau and Suffolk Mexico border, targeting immigrants des­ advocacy group, noted that over the racist attacks are documented in the 2004 counties have arrested and slated for perately seeking work in the U.S. Mean­ past decades, segregation patterns have film, Farmingville: Welcome to the Sub­ deportation dozens of Hispanic youth on while, the capitalist media have been changed little in the area. The only places urbs, Home of the New Border Wars. sweeping criminal conspiracy charges, whipping up an anti-immigrant frenzy, more segregated than Long Island are Making it clear that anti-immigrant accusing them of being "gang members." complaining that immigrant workers are cities like Detroit, where the segregation reaction and anti-black racism go hand in Evidence in these cases can be as flimsy "stealing American jobs." rate stands at about 85 percent of black hand, last November fascists burned a as wearing tattoos or bandanas of a certain Instead of waging a real struggle for people. cross outside the home of an integrated color. Being deported to a country like EI immigrant rights, the AFL-CIO tops have There have been black communities couple in Lake Grove. This was the latest Salvador, where right-wing death squads used the plight of immigrant workers to on Long Island going back to the early in a string of racist attacks against black have for years targeted accused gang promote illusions in the Democratic Party, 19th-century settlements of black freed­ people in heavily segregated Long Is­ members arriving from the U.S., can con­ as they did with the 2003 Immigrant men, a number of whom were land­ land. In 1998, a black family in Amity­ stitute a virtual death sentence. Suffolk Worker Freedom Ride, which consisted owners. Around the turn of the 20th cen­ ville returned home from church to find a County police signed an accord last fall of little more than election rallies for tury, the establishment of rich estates on burning cross on the lawn. In 1994. the with EI Salvador's notorious national home of a black family moving into Nes­ police, providing for joint training and conset, a predominantly white enclave sharing of information on deportees. west of Lake Grove, was burned down. In Meanwhile, George Graf, the new 1997, the KKK planned a recruitment mayor of another suburb. Farmingdale, rally at the Smith Haven Mall in Lake has increased fines against drivers who Grove. stop to pick up immigrant day laborers. June 2001 protest Democrat Steve Levy. a member of His administration has also renewed a by Latino day the Suffolk County executive. has been plan to spend $6 million to S 14 million laborers against in the forefront of the drive against im­ to buy the property from under homes racist harassment migrants in the area, proposing to grant where immigrants currently live. Once by Farmingdale police the power to jail anyone they ar­ ownership is secured, they plan to raze mayor Joseph Trudden, who rest on other charges if the cops suspect these houses, throwing the inhabitants was arrested in them of being an "illegal" immigrant. He into the streets. January 2005 on has also proposed to give police broader Immigrant day laborers are among the grand larceny and powers to enforce immigration laws and most vulnerable sections of the working other charges. have them trained by the Department of class in this country. Many are undocu­ Homeland Security. mented, with few rights or social benefits, and live in constant fear of being rounded up and deported. That threat is a weapon in the hands of the employers to prevent Democratic politicians courting the His­ the North Shore's "Gold Coast" and SYC Class Series unionization and drive down wages for all panic vote. A 9 February 2002 labor­ summer resorts on the South Shore workers. Holding tenuous jobs as day centered united-front mobilization in brought some (woefully insecure and un­ BOSTON laborers on small, suburban construction Oakland, called by the Partisan Defense derpaid) employment opportunities for projects or as gardeners, cooks and chauf­ Committee and the Labor Black League, increasing numbers of blacks. The in­ Wednesday, May 4, 6:30 p.m. feurs for rich families, these workers lack provides a modest example of the kind tersection of rural backwardness and For Political Revolution to Oust the Stalinist Bureaucracies! much of the social power of the urban and of struggle that the labor movement must haughty, upper-class enclaves underlay a industrial proletariat. lead. Over 300 people. including a large nasty, racist climate in Long Island. Defend China, North Korea, The fact that, as depicted in the Farm­ contingent of overwhelmingly black long­ exemplified in the mid ' 30s by "Camp Vietnam and Cuba! ingville documentary, many working peo­ shoremen, came out in defense of immi­ Siegfried," the summer retreat of the Harvard Sq. Finagle a Bagel ple on Long Island have voiced opposi­ grant rights and against the government's Hitlerite Bund. There, in the heart of 14 JFK St. (in the lower level) tion to racist persecution of immigrant "war on terror" legislation. which. in the Suffolk County, tens of thousands of Information and readings: (617) 666·9453 or e·mail: [email protected] workers is important. It means these im­ first instance, targets immigrants but is fascists paraded in Nazi regalia, sporting migrants do not stand isolated and with­ ultimately aimed at black people and the swastikas and giving stiff-armed salutes. CHICAGO out allies. Unions in the New York metro­ entire labor movement. As large numbers of middle-class politan area should build on this and The unions have failed to mobilize in white families moved to the suburbs. Tuesday, May 10, 7 p.m. dispatch labor defense groups to Long defense of immigrant rights because the especially following World War II. there From Brest-Litovsk to Kronstadt Island to make it clear that the unionized primary allegiance of their leaders is not was a determined drive on Long Island­ University of Chicago workforce is prepared to provide what­ to the proletariat but the capitalist system as in cities and suburbs across the COUI1- Cobb Hall, Room 214 ever protection it can for foreign-born of exploitation. In upholding the suppos­ try-to demolish and relocate black 5811 S. Ellis Ave. workers from bands of racist thugs and ed alliance of capital and labor. the union communities in the name of "urban Information and madings: (312) 563-0441 or e-mail: [email protected] fascists. tops sacrifice the interests of labor to renewal." The black neighborhood of The fight for full citizenship rights for keep class peace. This means slavishly Freeport, a suburb of commuters and

6 WORKERS VANGUARD

Ii i ~ Northwest' Airlines Unio"n President Suspended for Protesting

nnesota Public Radio Ted Ludwig displays piece of a shattered brake part at March press conference. Unsafe Planes

On March 30, Northwest Airlines sus­ Regner to get his job back with all back discharge. The United States Supreme geois rulers against working people. A pended the president of the Minneapolis/ pay. Now. Northwest requires the blue Court has upheld discharges under simi­ clear example of that is the anti-labor lar rules. finding that employees owe St. Paul local of the Aircraft Mechanics cards be placed into a locked box after RLA. which makes it extremely difficult Fraternal Association (AMFA) for hold­ a duty of loyalty to their employer and use. In 2000. United Airlines mechanic are subject to discipline for disparage­ for airline workers to strike. Safety lies in ing a press conference where he ques­ George Davis was fired for writing up ment of the products or services of their the hands of aviation workers. And their tioned the safety of third-party mainte­ two mechanical problems. (He has since employer. or to hamper the business." power to resist the diktats of management nance shops. Ted Ludwig must go 60 successfully fought for reinstatement.) -Letter to Jeff Mathews by Julie and the government. including the RLA. days without pay for holding up a few Tim Hafer. a warranty coordinator with Hagen Showers. Vice President of Labor Relations for lies with their unions and. ultimately. with pieces of metal and saying: "These are United. in charge of extracting informa­ Northwest. 18 June 2004 their ability to withdraw their labor power. parts off a brake that was overhauled by a tion from United's Aircraft Maintenance Northwest has been seeking large While noting the lack of federal over­ third-party vendor. ... This brake blew up 'Information System. was fired in 2001 concessions from its work force for sight and the fact that the subcontractors when it was on taxi to the gate ... pieces after he submitted to the FAA a stack of upcoming contracts-currently $1.1 bil­ are non-union. AMFA has also demonized went into the engine" (Minnesota Public evidence. documenting numerous inci­ lion-and AMFA has so far refused to these facilities for hiring "illegal" immi­ Radio online, 18 March). Labor and any­ dences of unlicensed persons at third­ grant them any. On January 4. Northwest grants and for being located outside the one who flies has an interest in fighting to party contractors-often office workers Airlines forced the issue. getting the country. including in countries "where overturn this suspension, which clearly -illegally signing off on repair work. National Mediation Board to declare an terrorists are known to operate." Such shows that public safety is jeopardized by And United mechanic Mark Sassman "impasse" in contract negotiations. This America-first protectionism and anti­ the airline bosses. Drop the suspension in ~ndianapolis was fired after he told means that after a 30-day "cooling off' immigrant chauvinism. buoyed by the and give Ted Ludwig all lost pay! the FAA that management distributed period imposed by the Railway Labor Act "united we stand:' "war on terror" propa­ Airlines have increasingly looked to a letter there threatening "termination" (RLA). the union can take a strike author­ ganda of the bosses. is the very opposite of third-party maintenance shops both in the of mechanics for "excessive write-ups" ization vote; it also means that after the what workers need to fight the bosses' U.S. and abroad for cheap. non-union (CBS News, 16 June 2003). 30 days. the company can impose a con­ attacks. It only serves to divide workers labor. When located in the U.S .. often in The Northwest suspension of Ludwig tract on the union. and create a false unity between American the "open shop" South, such shops oper­ comes amid a campaign by management Airline bosses clearly care little for the bosses and American workers. Against the ate under little federal supervision and to break the back of the union. In retalia­ safety of their workers or paying passen­ increasingly vicious attacks of the airline have just a few licensed mechanics to tion for the union's refusing to grant the gers; their main concern is that the profits bosses. what is needed is international sign off repairs. In essence, customers are company concessions, Northwest decided keep flowing. For example, the National labor solidarity. Organized labor must fight flying in planes maintained by auto to layoff thousands of workers (3.700 Transportation Safety Board ruled that the for full citizenship rights for all immigrants mechanics, if that! The 1996 crash of mechanics alone since the end of 2000). 31 January 2000 Alaska Airlines flight and to unionize the third-party contractors ValuJet flight 592, which killed all 110 retiring many planes but also sending 261 crash, which killed all 88 aboard, was and non-union airlines like letBlue! people on board. and a 2003 US Airways much of the maintenance work to non­ caused when a critical control mechanism AMFA has gained popularity in recent Express accident. were attributed to faulty union third-party contractors. In response, driven by a defective jackscrew assembly years because of its posture as more mil­ maintenance from third-party shops. AMFA began its current campaign of broke apart in flight. A lead mechanic itant and "democratic" than the lAM Ted Ludwig is not the only worker the exposing the poor maintenance practices had ordered that the $60,000 jackscrew machinist and other AFL-CIO unions. airline bosses have gone after for being at these facilities. In July 2004. members assembly be replaced in 1997, but the But AMFA's craft-union orientation plays concerned with passenger safety. In 1998. of AMFA and the Professional Flight company did not change it. into the unceasing attempts by the bosses Northwest fired mechanic Thomas Reg­ Attendants Association at Northwest held More often than not, when the govern­ to set one work group against another. ner, who kept tabs on safety issues crop­ an "informational picket" against the out­ ment and FAA intervene. they do so to What airline workers need is a single ping up in his shop by keeping a copy of sourcing of maintenance. After learning protect the bosses and not safety. For industrial union of all workers-from bag­ the maintenance records that would nor­ of this, management distributed a memo example, following the ValuJet crash in gage handlers and cleaners to pilots-at all mally be thrown out-so-called "blue which stated in part: '96, the inspector general of the Depart­ companies. Such would facilitate united, cards." When serious maintenance prob­ "Disparagement of the safety. security. or ment of Transportation resigned after industry-wide strike action to defend jobs lems kept recurring. he went to the Fed­ quality of Northwest's operations. would her scathing reports of the FAA ignoring and extend hard-fought gains. For their eral Aviation Administration (FAA) with constitute a violation of Northwest's massive safety violations were themselves part. passengers must realize that airline longstanding Rules of Conduct.... Such his blue cards. Northwest accused him of conduct would. therefore. subject any ignored. The workers must understand management and the government, left to a work slowdown: it took three and a Northwest employee responsible for that that the capitalist government and state their own devices. would ensure the skies half years of fighting in the courts for conduct to discipline up to and including exist to defend the interests of the bour- won't remain so friendly .• resort homes on the South Shore. was Mexico by the U.S. imperialists. However, dividing line in American society. a gogues have whipped up hostility to declared "the worst rural slum in the many trade-union tops oppose NAFTA on key prop for obscuring the irreconcil­ immigrants within the black popUlation. state" and was torn down in favor of a the basis of protectionism, claiming that able class divide between labor and capi­ However, the responsibility for dispro­ car dealership and U-Store-It rental Mexican workers are "stealing American tal. The united struggle of black. white portionately high black unemployment units. Levittown. the celebrated arche­ jobs." This protectionist poison serves to and immigrant labor against race and doesn't lie with the immigrant worker: it type of postwar suburban housing devel­ obscure the fact that workers in Mexico class oppression across the North Ameri­ lies with the racist American capitalist opments, had ~ovenants barring sales to and the U.S. face a common capitalist can continent can turn the tide of labor class. Black workers must join with their non-whites. enemy and therefore must be allies in the defeats and result in decisive victories. It immigrant class brothers and sisters in the struggle against capitalist exploitation on is in the interests of the capitalist class to struggle for jobs for all at union wages! Full Citizenship Rights both sides of the border. derail united struggle of this type by pro­ While black workers must break through for All Immigrants! The capitalist integration of the Mexi­ moting the kind of anti-Mexican and anti-immigrant chauvinism in order to win The growth of Mexican immigration is can, U.S. and Canadian economies de­ racist filth as has erupted on Long Island. future class battles. immigrant workers evidence of the impoverishment of work­ mands the organization of workers from The fact that fascist groups like the KKK must break with all forms of anti-black ers and farmers in Mexico as a result of the Yukon to the Yucatan. With Ford benefit from the growth of anti-immigrant racism. The struggle of the Mexican work­ imperialist "free trade" agreements such as pickup trucks being assembled in Mex­ chauvinism demonstrates the threat that er in the U.S. as well as in Mexico is in­ the North American Free Trade Agreement ico, using engines from Ontario and this poison poses to black people. creasingly linked to the struggle of all (NAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the transmissions from Ohio and Michigan. Proclaiming that immigrants take jobs North American labor. As Karl Marx pro­ Americas (FTAA). Capitalist politicians it is apparent that any significant labor from black people, pro-capitalist black claimed more than 150 years ago: Workers heralded NAFTA. which went into effect action against a company like Ford nationalist and Democratic Party dema- of all countries, unite!. on 1 January 1994. as the means whereby requires the coordination of workers "developing" nations would lift themselves actions throughout North America. Anti­ out of poverty. However. in the first two immigrant bigotry is deadly poison in the years of NAFTA, more than 2.3 million labor movement. and it stands as an Mexicans lost their jobs while the cost of obstacle to waging successful class strug­ basic necessities such as gas and electric­ gle. Only the overturn of capitalist rule Labor's Turning Point ity skyrocketed. During the ten years since through socialist revolutions throughout "free trade" has gone into effect. Mexican the Americas can. through rational eco­ A documentary film about the 1934 Minneapolis general strike which forged the workers who work minimum-wage jobs nomic planning of production for human Teamsters as a powerful industrial union. The lessons learned in this historic fight, led by "reds," Trotskyist militants, remain central to winning labor struggles today. haw lost 50 percent of their buying power. need rather than capitalist profit. provide This has forced millions to face either star­ jobs and decent living conditions for all. Saturday, May 7, 2 p.m. For more information: (213) 380-8239 or e-mail: [email protected] vation or migration. The key to unlocking the power of 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 As Marxists. we oppose NAFTA be­ labor in the U.S. is the fight for black BeverlyNermont Red Line station LOS ANGELES cause it represents the free-trade rape of liberation. The color bar is a fundamental 29 APRIL 2005 7 Reformists and liberals today argue Boston ... that we should rely on the institutions of (continued from page 12) the state to "ban the Klan" (the line of the Communist Party) or outlaw "hate University in Illinois. The next year. the speech," as though this could alter the Chicago Spartacist League mobilized poisonous social contradictions that give 200 people to successfully drive Hale off rise to fascist terror. The "fight the right" iMPlEMEM1THI~~{~~~~~~S\ the Northwestern campus. These fascists Boston Antifascist (June 2004) states that are killers. They can be defeated now. "while beat-downs may keep fascists in BUSING l~~~ ~£t \\~~ln~ crushed in the egg by the workers move­ hiding for a little while, nothing can com­ ment while they are still small: they must pare to a long prison sentence when it p, A Y'I 0N fU t\ t''-'"'' not be ignored. comes to keeping nazis off the street." The Klan. Nazis and fascist skinheads The line that prison is the way to stop the ;::IJYI/.: l'Al!/J :~\ ,SPAR1AC\S1 are not ideologues of the David Horowitz fascists is another way of placing confi­ ~G~t/~'\' . '.'' '14" variety. but action groups. who recruit on dence in the capitalist state. ,1,,;/~~y#~ '" .... 1 .lo\, .. the basis of genocide and murder. Presi­ Our strategy is based on the under­ fJ!ff1~!'E1 dent George Bush. though a reactionary standing that the capitalist state is not bourgeois. is not a fascist. In "normal" neutral. It is the instrument for organized "IW'I74 , \'­ .\? .,111' / 7.. j. times, \vhen the bourgeoisie feels secure violence to ensure the rule of one class. 1& in its own class rule. it keeps its unruly the capitalists. over another class. the pro­ WV Photo fascist dogs on the leash. But in periods letariat. The bourgeois state at its core Boston, 1974: Spartacists fought for labor defense of busing to integrate of deep social crisis. when open class consists of armed bodies of men-the schools (above). Rep's predecessor, Revolutionary Union, blocked with warfare explodes, the bourgeoi,ie lets cops. the military. the prison system and racist anti-busing forces (below, left), while SWP youth group pushed loose its fasci,t gangs to try to crush the the whole ''justice system "-whose job is reliance on federal troops. workers movement with blood and ter­ to protect the profits and rule of the cap­ ror. The fascists are the organized expres­ itali~(s and to repress the workers. This sion of the despair and fury of the petty state cannot be made to defend the inter­ bourgeoisie. hopelessly squeezed between' ests of the oppressed. because it is a gov­ the two classes with real social pmver. the ernment of. by and for their oppressors. .~I@l capitalists and the working class. This is the same state that has a long, sor­ These violent scum target black peo­ did history of aiding the fascists in terror­ People Must Unite To ple; they arc the poisonous and violent izing and murdering their victims. as in Smash Boston Busing Plan expression of the deep racism that char­ the 1963 Birmingham church bombings acterizes American society. The 2004 and the 1979 Greensboro massacre. October 1974 presidential election was marked by the RaCists, Liberals and the whipping up of terrorism hysteria. anti­ Young Spartacus immigrant bigotry and all kinds of relig­ Battle for Boston Busing ious and sexual backwardness by both You can't talk about racism and reac­ facade blown to pieces-while of course cratic right of blacks to equal education. Democrats and Republicans. In Boston, tion in Boston today without understand­ their children remained serenely undis­ We made urgent appeab to the trade­ as elsewhere. the fascists have a symbi­ ing the explosive battles over busing in turbed in their lily-white suburbs. But union movement and black and socialist otic relationship with the crazed Chris­ the 1970s. which marked the final defeat busing wasn't killed just by the racists. organizations to mobilize in mass demon­ tian fundamentalist and Catholic ranks of the civil rights movement nationwide. The truth is. it was the liberals. along with strations around the common slogan. who seek to ban gay marriage and shut The battle over school busing in the the racist mobs. who killed busing nation­ "Stop the Racist Attacks Against Black down the few remaining abortion clinics. 1970s was a magnet for fascists. Then as wide. When it came down to actually School Children!" We were in the fore­ When Hitler came to power in 1933 in now, the Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan defending black schoolchildren in the front of fighting for mass, integrated labor­ Germany, the working class wanted to gathered in Boston. hoping to add muscle streets. the liberals ran. When the politi­ black defense of black schoolchildren fight. but they were prevented from doing to the anti-busing movement centered on cians and courts, on which the liberals against the howling racist mobs in Southie. so by their leaders in the Social Democ­ racist outfits like ROAR (Restore Our relied, turned from false friends to out­ We also linked the struggle to defend bus­ racy (SPD) and the Communist Party Alienated Rights) and the South Boston right reactionary opponents, the liberals ing to calls for low-rent, racially integrated (CP). The CP leadership refused to make Marshals. A big obstacle to the Klan's had no answer. And then, as now. those in public housing; we called for quality. inte­ the left and workers movement who grated education for all, and for the exten­ a united front with the SPD against ability to recruit in Boston W:l'i their his­ the fascists until it was too late, The bit­ toric terror against Catholic immigrants. capitulated to liberalism and preached sion of busing to the suburbs as minimaL reliance on the state share the blame. albeit inadequate. steps toward black ter price paid is well known: the Holo­ Now some Klan organizations accept Incredibly, there were leftists and self­ equality. Obviously, this didn't happen­ caust and the crushing of the workers Catholic members. Moreover, many local proclaimed socialists who actually aped in good part because the trade-union mis­ the same line as the while racists. Groups leaders didn't lift a finger so as not to ,AII~ like the Revolutionary Communist Party alienate the Democratic Party so-called (then called the "Revolutionary Union"). "friends of labor" like Teddy Kennedy -efetJd ihe ~ which followed Chairman Mao in claim­ (who basically ducked the whole issue). ing the Soviet Union, a degenerated Our revolutionary strategy is to mobi­ Palestinian! workers state. was "Soviet social imperi­ lize the power of the working class inde­ . Peofle:1 alist" and sided with the American bour­ pendently of the state and independently geoisie against the USSR, also capitu­ of its class enemies. the capitalist parties Israel Out i1 lated to the racist mobs. They headlined in of racism and war. Democrats as well as their press: "People Must Unite To Smash Republicans. The working class needs the Oc,(:~pieJ Fascists (with flag Boston Busing Plan" (Revolution, Octo­ to gain strength and self-confidence in Terr ories in background) ber 1974). The Socialist Workers Party organizing for its own interests, learning it stage provocation (SWP) and the Workers World Party­ how, in action, it can lead all sectors of at Palestinian rights which today has taken over the role of the the oppressed in common struggle. We ~ protest, 9 June SWP as "best builder" of big antiwar fight for burning necessities, like the 2002. ANSWER demonstrations limited to reformist poli­ need to smash racist segregation, in such marshals protect tics in order to appeal to liberal Demo­ a way as to show that the only genuine fascists from efforts crats-were then doing the donkey work solution is the overthrow of capitalism by Spartacists and and the creation of a workers govern­ others to drive for local black Democrat Bill Owens. The them out. WWP put out a pamphlet. Busing and ment. The role of liberalism has always Self-Determination, which stated: "Sep­ been to keep the struggle for black social aration or Assimilation-It's Up to the equality within capitalist bounds. Oppressed." So they simultaneously tailed the petty-bourgeois liberals of the NAACP For Labor/Black Mobilizations and the separatist Black Muslims. to Stop the Fascists! movement in Germany for a generation. Democratic Party politicians were already At that time, the Socialist Workers By the early 1980s in Boston. demor­ Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky and his leading the anti-busing mobilizations and Party was calling for federal troops to alized black parents were backing away followers fought the rise of fascism tooth didn't care to cede that leadership to the Boston to implement busing. Along with from busing after a decade of attacks on and naiL but were unable to win over the fascists. Local politicians like Louise Day Workers World. the SWP, then a some­ their children. Boston's black people left and working class in time. Trotsky Hicks ("You know where I stand"). Billy what more influential left group than it is continued to face official cop terror. a analyzed the reasons for Hitler's triumph: Bulger (brother of notorious South Boston today. organized mass demonstrations on crumbling economy and segregation "The petty bourgeoisie swung over in gangster "Whitey" Bulger. who was thick behalf of the NAACP and black Demo­ that showed no sign of abating. In Octo­ its overwhelming majority to the side as thieves with the Boston FBI) and Ray crats. who also made the demand for fed­ ber 1982. "'imperial wizard" Bill Wil­ of National Socialism only because the Flynn, who later became mayor. built polit­ eral troops a major focus in Boston. The kinson appeared on a Boston television proletariat. paralyzed from above. proved station. During the show, members of powerless to lead it along a different road. ical careers presenting themselves as "pop­ Spartacist League opposed this. pointing The absence of resistance on the part of ulists" instead of the racists they were. out that it created illusions that the state the Progressive Labor Party (PL) rose the workers heightened the self-assurance The violent mobs in the streets of Bos­ could serve the working class and that from the audience and pelted Wilkin­ of fascism .... The inevitable demoraliza­ ton starting in the fall of 1974 were mobi­ "by raising this demand, the reformists son's pinstriped suit with eggs. where­ tion of the Communist detachment, in­ lized by racist demagogues to prevent take the responsibility (whether they want upon the humiliated KKK terrorists creasingly isolated from the proletariat. rendered impossible even a partial resis­ black schoolchildren from being bused to it or not) for a possible invasion by the vowed to parade in downtown Boston tance. Thus the triumphal procession of urban schools in white areas like Southie bourgeois authorities which would clamp in full regalia. PL is well known for Hitler over the bones of the proletarian (which were themselves about as run­ martial law on the ghetto and prevent any such individualistic acts. But. however organizations was assured." down as the black ghettos). Meanwhile, independent mobilization" ("No Troops courageous individual PLers may be, PL -"The German Catastrophe: The the upper-class "Boston Brahmins," who to Boston. For Labor/Black Defense!" rejects the strategic necessity of organiz­ . Responsibility of the Leadership." occasionally prided themselves on their WV supplement, December 1974). ing the working class independently of 28 May 1933. in The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany city's reputation as an abolitionist center We demanded the busing plan be the bourgeoisie and the need for united­ (Pathfinder Press. 1971) before the American Civil War, saw this implemented as an elementary demo- front mobilizations. 8 WORKERS VANGUARD c J1 land to Yokohama, south of Tokyo, China ... where, in the words of the London Guar­ (continued from page 1) dial! (19 April), "the primary focus of its forward deployment is likely to be the as a warning to the Soviet degenerated defence of Taiwan, regional challenges workers state. During the Korean War posed by China's military expansion, and in the early 1950s, U.S. imperialism the nuclear standoff with North Korea." was responsible for the death of some Right-wing chauvinists in Japan took three million Koreans. China's heroic the provocations by Japan and the pro­ sacrifices defended the North Korean Japanese tests in China as a green light to terror­ deformed workers state and stopped war crimes in ize Chinese residents. Chinese diplomatic U.S. forces-fighting under the flag of Nanjing, 1937: offices and other Chinese-related institu­ the United Nations-from grabbing the Chinese tions were either attacked or vandalized. entire Korean peninsula and turning it prisoners used There were bomb threats at the Chinese into a neocolony of the U.S. During for bayonet Consul General in Fukuoka, an anthrax the Vietnam War. which ended in 1975, practice. scare at the Chinese embassy in Tokyo more than three million Vietnamese were New Japanese and a spent bullet casing sent to the murdered by U.S. imperialism's losing textbooks Chinese consulate in Osaka with a let­ describe rape of attempt to smash the social revolution ter threatening violence against Chi­ Nanjing as an there. "incident." nese citizens. On April 10, shots were Many in China have illusions about fired at a Bank of China branch office in the nature of U.S. imperialism because Yokohama. it fought against Japan in World War n. Finally, at the April 22 Asia-Africa The Stalinists, presenting World War II as summit meeting in Indonesia, Koizumi a "war against fascism," sided with the sought to defuse tensions with China by bourgeoi s-democratic imperial ist powers Under these conditions, it became neces­ militarism. These actions were taken in offering a vague apology for the "tremen­ -centrally the U.S. and Britain-against sary to advocate a revolutionary defeat­ defiance of the pro-imperialist leaders of dous damage and suffering" caused by Germany, Italy and Japan. ist position-for the defeat of both the three main trade-union federations­ Japanese colonial rule. (The same day. a In contrast, Trotskyists understood that sides through proletarian class struggle­ including those affiliated to the Japanese member of Koizumi's government joined the interimperialist slaughter in World toward both the U.S./Guomindang and Communist Party and the Social Demo­ 80 other politicians in a pilgrimage to the War II was a conflict for redivision of the Japanese forces, while giving military cratic Party-and are a direct challenge Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japanese world's sources of cheap labor and raw support to Mao's Communist Party forces, to the "national unity" appeals of the militarism where war criminals from materials in the interest of capitalist prof­ which were not militarily subordinate to Japanese bourgeoisie. World War II are among those enshrined.) its. During World War II. the Fourth Inter­ U.S. imperialism (see "Permanent Rev­ With the outbreak of anti-Japan pro­ Prominent voices in Japan had com­ national, founded by Bolshevik leader olution vs. the 'Anti-Imperialist United tests in China, the administration of Japa­ plained last week that continued tension Leon Trotsky, basing itself on proletar­ Front' -The Origins of Chinese Trotsky­ nese prime minister lunichiro Koizumi would hurt Japanese business, while ian internationalism, fought for the revo­ ism," Spartacist [English-language edi­ engaged in one anti-China provocation China's Ministry of Commerce declared lutionary defeat .of all the imperialist tion] No. 53, Summer 1997). after another. Koizumi haughtily admon­ that boycotts of Japanese goods would nations. Simultaneously, it stood for the A central tenet of the Stalinist bureau­ ished the Chinese people to be "more harm both countries' economic interests. unconditional military defense of the crats' nationalistic outlook is that work­ grown up" and keep "a cool head" and China is now Japan's number one trading Soviet degenerated workers state against ers in the advanced capitalist countries echoed President Bush in successfully partner, and some 18,000 Japanese com­ imperialism and championed the self­ are so bought off by their exploiters that pressuring the European Union to retain panies have set up operations in China. determination of the colonies against revolutionary class struggle there is a the arms embargo of China. As the New York Times (23 April) put it, their sUbjugation by the Axis and Allied utopian (or Trotskyist) pipedream. Yet, in The provocations by Japanese imperi­ the "growing economic interdependence" imperialists alike. Japan there have been signs of opposi­ alism have been egged on by U.S. impe­ between China and Japan "has mollified During the occupation of China by tion to resurgent militarism, including rialism. Last summer, then-secretary of their positions in recent days." Japan beginning in the early 1930s, Trot­ within the organized working class. In state Colin Powell declared U.S. support Japanese imperialism is determined to skyists gave military support to the Chi­ 200 I, some 200 dock workers at Sasebo for Japan's bid to have a seat on the UN throw off the constraints of the "defeated nese resistance forces. while politically port in Nagasaki refused to load arma­ Security Council while noting that Arti­ nation" syndrome with which it emerged opposing Chiang Kai-shek's bourgeois ments and military supplies onto Japa­ cle 9 of the U.S.-imposed constitution, from World War II. To accomplish this, Guomindang forces. With the entry of nese navy ships headed to assist the which prohibits Japan from engaging the ruling class seeks to impose a policy the U.S. into the Pacific War, the war U.S.-led war of terror on Afghanistan. in warfare abroad, "would have to be of economic austerity domesticaHy. whip effort of Chiang's Guomindang was deci­ More recently, hundreds of teachers have examined in that light" (AFP English up nationalist poison and reinforce the sively subordinated to the interests of been fired or otherwise disciplined for edition, 13 August 2004). More recently. repressive apparatus needed to maintain U.S. imperialism, to the point that U.S. refusing to stand for the Hinomaru there has been a proposal to transfer capitalist law and order. The new defense officials had the final say on how Guo­ (national flag) and sing the Kimigayo the command headquarters of the U.S. guidelines not only target the Chinese and mindang forces were to be deployed. (national anthem), symbols of Japanese Army's I st Corps from the U.S. main- continued on page 10

On only 24 hours' notice, the Boston Duke thought he could goose-step into Irish Northern Aid Committee to "Gays, system of racist capitalist oppression and Spartacist League and other leftists in­ Boston unopposed, he was wrong. Boston Lesbians, Bisexuals and Friends at MIT" race hatred that seeks to divide and con­ cluding the Workers World Party and is a large metropolitan area, and is best -along with sectors of the labor move­ quer. The history of this country shows PL launched counterdemonstrations to known as a student center. Though it has ment, while allowing all participants the that when powerful social struggles erupt. stop the Klan, all focused on the KKK's lost many industrial jobs, the urban trans­ right to express their own views and racist ideology among working people threatened march site. So when Wilkin­ portation sector remains vital, even with debate others. This is the same strategy will be pushed aside by the developing son and his KKK terrorists appeared, they the passing of the city's shipyards and that the Spartacist League and PDC have consciousness of shared class interest. As were routed by 1,500 protesters who machine shops. However, it is still the used to successfully mobilize working­ the Bay Area Labor Black League for ran the white-sheeted Klansmen off the labor movement that is key to repelling class power to stop the fascists from rear­ Social Defense wrote in greetings to our streets (see "KKK Run Out!" WV No. fascist threats, because unions represent ing their heads in many major metropoli­ Boston anti-Duke protest: 316, 29 October 1982). It was the first the unity of all working people against tan centers, from San Francisco to Detroit "We need laborlblack mobilizations to clean out the fascists. David Duke de­ solid anti-racist stand after years of unre­ the fascist race-haters and because work­ to New York City. serves the kind of welcome that this citv lieved racist terror for black people in ers have tremendous social power as pro­ Today, because the class war on the used to reserve for the 'fugitive slave"" Boston. Irish from South Boston and ducers of the wealth of society. working masses has been largely one­ catchers before the Civil War. When those dreaded mercenaries tried to kid­ Dorchester. Italians from East Boston The Partisan Defense Committee, a sided during the last three decades, many and Somer-yille, students from Cambridge, non-sectarian legal and social defense or­ nap black people and drag them to slav­ activists tend to see only the painful real­ ery, the decent citizens of Boston drove blacks from Roxbury and Mattapan, union­ ganization associated with the Spartacist ity of the racism which pervades all sec­ them out of town! Mobilize the indepen­ ists and others stood together against the League, appealed to Boston labor as well tors of society in "normal" times. But dent power of the labor movement. Then we could do something to address the Klan that day. as everyone else targeted by fascist terror. Boston today is a multiethnic "majority The KKKers were shown on national The PDC called a united-front demonstra­ unemployment, homelessness, education minority" city, where the potential exists cut-backs and police terror that is capi­ television cringing and being whisked tion to "Stop KKK Hitler-Lover David for united class struggle against the whole talist America right now.". away by the Boston cops, who then rioted Duke," which was endorsed by a number against the anti-fascist demonstrators and of union officials, as well as the Vulcans local press. For hundreds of anti-Klan Society. a group of black firefighters who protesters, the bloody cop riot-which also acted as marshals at the protest, and nonetheless failed to disperse the protest­ by minority groups and student organiza­ ers-was a useful lesson: the cops pro­ tions. The anti-Duke demonstration turned tected the Klan and tried to smash those out 1.500 in protest outside the Old South who sought to re~ist. The cops were just Meeting House, while Duke. sweating doing their joh for their capitalist bosses. and unnerved, spoke inside behind mas­ This is a lesson that must not be forgot­ sive cop protection. ten today. when many leftists and even Among those who answered our call so-called socialists look to the state to were large numbers of black and Latino stop the fascists. youth from Boston schools and neigh­ The Klan tried again in 1991. That borhoods. One youth after another-from _. March, KKKer David Duke of Louisi­ ACT UP, from the Haitian commu­ ~;. ana vowed to speak in the hallowed hall nity, from black and women's groups­ t:~- of Boston's Old South Meeting House. addressed the crowd. The demonstration '" Behind Duke's "respectable" suit and sur­ was built as a genuine united front, based gically enhanced Aryan look was the fas­ on unity around the main slogan for the cist agenda of genocide for black people, actiC'n. We mobilized the many intended WVF Jews, Catholics, immigrants, Hispanics, victims of the white-supremacist Klan­ Boston, 28 March 1991: Partisan Defense Committee rallied 1,500 against > Asians, gays, unionists, leftists. But if everybody from the Boston Unit of the fascist David Duke. 29 APRIL 2005 9 i ! China ... (cnntinuedfrom page 9) N· cth Korean deformed workers states bu·. also strengthen the state's arsenal of repression against the workers move­ ment. There is considerable anger among the working people of Japan and a real desire to fight against economic austerity, discrimination, increased state repression and war. This anger and militancy must be directed toward the building of a rev­ olutionary Trotskyist party that would link the fight for socialist revolution in Japan with the unconditional military defense of the Chinese and North Korean deformed workers states. China: For Workers in C.w' Hun/National ArChives US News Political Revolution! Left: American imperialists turned Seoul, Korea into wasteland. Right: Chinese People's Volunteers capture American Speaking for many in the Chinese Sta­ soldiers near Wonsan, 1951. China's intervention during Korean War was key to defense of North Korea. linist bureaucracy, Li Rui, a former secre­ tary of Mao Zedong, made the following Richard Nixon embraced Chairman Mao for example. giving aid to the CIA­ factories, drove out 1,000 riot police and bald admission: "Nobody understands at the very moment that U.S. warplanes backed nIujahedill cutthroats fighting seized control of the city. At the same Marxism. It is ridiculous. The ideals of were carpet bombing Vietnam. U.S. Soviet troops in Afghanistan-thereby time, nearly 2,000 former PLA soldiers the past don't exist any more. So it is imperialism's rapprochement with the furthering the counterrevolutionary drive staged a series of protest demonstrations right to turn to nationalism. It is the' Maoist bureaucracy on the basis of shared which wiped out the remaining gains of in Beijing against their meager retirement means by which the party can maintain its hostility to the Soviet Union led to U.S. the 1917 Russian Revolution. benefits. Most recently. some 10,000 system and ideology" (London Obserrer, recognition of the People's Republic and Having destroyed the Soviet Union, workers at a Japanese-funded Uniden 17 April). Along with the cynical defense a seat for China in the United Nations at homeland of the only successful workers electronics factory in Shenzhen near of nationalism as an effective means for the expense of Taiwan. revolution, the imperialists are today Hong Kong went on strike demanding the manipulating the masses. this statement The alliance with the U.S. was con­ intent on restoring capitalism in China. right to unionize. By April 23. the strike reflects widespread misidentification of tinued and deepened under Deng. In To this end, they are pursuing a two­ ended. Revealing how the Chinese Marxism with Maoism. In reality. the 1979. Deng ordered the People's Libera­ pronged strategy: economic pene.tration bureaucracy acts as a labor contractor for sharp contrast that is commonly drawn tion Army (PLA) to invade Vietnam. the to build up the internal forces of capitalist the imperialist bourgeoisies investing in between Mao's policies and those of his main Soviet ally in East Asia. \vith the counterrevolution combined with military China. one striker told the Washington successor Deng Xiaoping is fundamen­ approval and encouragement of Wash­ pressure and the threat of armed inter­ Post (26 April). "Some labor officials told tally false. ington. The Vietnamese resisted effec­ vention. The Stalinist bureaucrats are in us we had to cooperate or else the Within the nc,tionalist framework of tively and inflicted 20,000 casualties on fact encouraging the imperialists through investors might withdraw and move to "socialism in one country," the regimes of the PLA. which retreated across the bor­ their policy of betrayal: allowing massive other places to invest. and we would all Mao and Deng pursued different policies der. (Speaking of doctored history text­ capitalist investment combined with a get thrown out of work." in different international contexts. None­ books, this ignominious chapter has been futile quest for "peaceful coexistence" Through their policy of "market re­ theless, in one very important respect virtually disappeared by the Chinese with the imperialists. fonns." the Chinese bureaucracy is strength­ their policies were substantially identi­ Stalinists.) During the final years of the But despite the bureaucracy's "market ening the forces of counterrevolution by cal: the alliance with U.S. imperialism Cold War in the 1980s. China bolstered reforms." the core of the Chinese econ­ allowing the imperialists to economically against the Soviet Union. That alliance American imperialism in weakening omy remains collectivized. Moreover, the penetrate the workers state. At the same 'vas sealed in 1972 when U.S. president and undermining the Soviet Union- economic policies of the Communist time, this policy is augmenting the social Party regime are still constrained by power of the industrial proletariat. The fear of social-especially working-class alternatives facing China are capitalist -unrest which could topple it. This came counterrevolution or proletarian political close to happening in 1989, when student­ revolution to oust the Stalinist bureauc­ centered protests for political liberaliza­ racy and replace it with democratically tion and against corruption triggered a elected workers and peasants Soviets. spontaneous workers revolt that was then organs of proletarian rule. A Leninist­ suppressed with great bloodshed by the Trotskyist party is needed to provide Chi­ regime. nese workers with a revolutionary prole­ Today. China is a tinderbox of social tarian internationalist strategy. There is tensions waiting to explode. According to no nationally limited road to socialism in government statistics, the number of pro­ China. The modernization of China~­ tests increased 15 percent last year to providing the basis for a decent life for 58,000. ~illions of impoverished farmers all its inhabitants on the basi~ of access and urban workers have blocked roads. to the advanced technology and pro­ waged strikes or demonstrated against ductive resources now concentrated in official corruption, land seizures. envi­ North America. West Europe and Japan­ ronmental destruction. layoffs and unem­ requires the international extension of

-f""~< ~,c ployment. miserable working conditions socialist revolution. centrally to these and the growing gap between urban imperialist powers, laying the basis for an

World Journal wealth and rural poverty. In mid April internationally planned socialist econ­ Residents in Dongyang city in China's Zhejiang province walk past residents of Dongyang in southeastern omy. This requires the reforging of Trot­ overturned police buses after successfully defending themselves from riot China, furious at the government's refusal sky's Fourth International of world police during mass protests against stifling pollution. to deal with the pollution from nearby socialist revolution .•

streets of the city. The VIPER unit is par­ ist state and its parties, the Republicans ble. Fifth Avenue. the historic stage for Cops, Lies ... ticularly known to spy on and monitor the as well as the Democrats. are the class political marches. is now off limits for (continued from page 12) tenants in public housing. VIPER types enemy of the working class and any new permits. The Bloomberg admin­ were out in full force with their high-tech, oppressed, from the picket lines to the istration has just refused a permit for a shows, Jamal told the police who came on heat-sensitive equipment during the RNC ghettos. May Day march taking off from Union the scene, "He just ran over people." The protests. One VIPER unit got caught out Leading up to the convention, Bloom­ Square, a historic gathering place for work­ next day, in standard police racial profil­ when they took a break from filming a berg and the media whipped up "war on ers and radicals. The demonstration is ing, Holiday was picked up by cops who Critical Mass bicycle protest where hun­ terror" hysteria against the protesters, being built by the Million Worker March claimed surveillance cameras showed dreds were arrested to zoom in repeatedly most of whom were liberal Democratic and the Troops Out Now Coalition, which him to be wearing the same clothing (a on a couple kissing on a roof. Party supporters. The intention was to is dominated by the pseudosocialist baseball cap and T-shirt) as an individual More recently. on April 14. the City create a climate of so much fear of the Workers World Party. According to the filmed kicking the undercover provoca­ of New York settled-to the tune of "enemy within" that the cops could have Troops Out Now Coalition, the rally and teur. With Holiday facing up to seven years $231,200-a contempt clai m brought by free rein to use any means to suppress march will take place as scheduled. in prison on assault charges, his bail was 151 people detained by the cops. The opposition to the festivities at the RNC. While the American rulers wage their set at $250,000, in part because political city intentionally violated multiple court When the city outrageously denied a per­ murderous. predatory wars around the literature was found in his home. Jamal orders to release 560 people in order to mit for a mass protest to be held in Cen­ world. their government wants to strangle Holiday spent seven months in Rikers prevent them from protesting while Bush tral Park, the liberal United for Peace protest and label all opponents "violent" Island, and after agreeing to a plea bargain, was up on his imperial podium giving his and Justice organizers did not even and "terrorists"-categories that will pro­ was finally released on probation under acceptance speech. launch a fight against the ban. Their vide the state a license to criminalize all conditions of one year of "intensive super­ The largely white. petty-bourgeois cowardly capitulation to this attack only political activity. Whatever rights we have vision," but he still faces possible charges. youth protesting the RNC got a small emboldened the cops to go after the pro­ under this oppressive capitalist order The camera "skills" of the NYPD have taste of what minority youth face every testers more viciously. were won through tumultuous class and been in the news before. The NYPD day in America's cities. For black and The Parks Department is now pro­ social struggle. The social power of the VIPER Unit (Video Interactive Patrol Latino youth in New York City, neighbor­ posing new rules on all gatherings of multiracial labor movement-welded to Enhanced Response), equipped with hood arrest sweeps, police lies and bru­ 50,000 or more people in Central Park the struggles of black people, immigrants infrared cameras, has been in place for tality, frame-ups, detentions and prison that would effectively make sizable polit­ and defenders of civil liberties-must be surveillance for several years all over the are a daily fact of life. The racist capital- ical rallies in Manhattan next to impossi- mobilized in defense of our rights .• 10 WORKERS VANGUARD Iy promoted such forces, especially as allies against the Soviet Union, and impe­ Iraq ... () 00 rialism as a system enforces the condi­ (continuedfram page 2) <{ tions of economic and social oppression unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. that breed religious fanaticism. troops and allies. We defend the peoples of As for nukes, Chris C.'s strange asser­ Iraq against any U.S.-led attack and tion that "Iran would be likely to use repression. Insofar as the forces on the Deadly nuclear weapons on a 'first-strike' basis" ground in Iraq aim their fire against the communal seems based more on an acceptance of imperialist occupiers and their lackeys. violence: over imperialist and Zionist propaganda than we call for their n:ilitary defense against 100 Shi'ite holiday reality. It is the U.S. that has proclaimed U.S. imperialism. Every blow struck worshippers its right to "pre-emptive" war, including against the imperialist occupiers is a blow were killed in the use of nuclear weapons. And in the struck against the enemy of worker~ and bomb attacks Near East. the only state with a nuclear the oppres~ed all over the world. At the in Karbala, arsenal is Israel. and the Zionist rulers same time. we are intransigent opponents March 2004. have had no compunction about threaten­ of the murderous communal violence ing to unleash nuclear holocaust on the against other ethnic. religious and national region. We reject any comparison be­ populations .oftentimes carried out by the tween Mordechai Vanunu-the heroic very same forces waging attacks against In fact. the insurgencies in Iraq are a the capitalist framework or U.S. interests. Israeli nuclear technician who revealed the occupation armies. throwback to many anti-colonial strug­ More fundamentally. imperialist occupa­ the extent of Israel's existing nuclear The bottom line of Chris C's letter is gles during the early part of the 20th tion strengthens all local forces of reac­ arsenaL which was aimed as much at the that one should only stand for military century, when many colonial countries tion. allowing them to pose as the USSR as at the Arab states-and the defense of forces that are politically "pro­ lacked even a working class. and relig­ real "anti-imperialists" for the embittered Mujahideen al-Khalq. Any group that gressive." But this is a very wrong way ious forces dominated most anti-colonial masses of the region. actively provides "intelligence to the to approach the question. Take the case movements. particularly in the Near East. At the same time. it should be noted U.S. and European powers on the mul­ of the Halo-Ethiopian war of the 1930s, Nonetheless, genuine revolutionaries de- that the insurgencies in Iraq have ham­ lahs' nuclear weapons program" as the referenced by Chris C. Trotsky advo­ . fended these struggles against their colo­ pered-at least temporarily-the Bush U.S. threatens war with Iran is highly cated military defense of Ethiopia under nial and imperialist oppressors. As Lenin administration's efforts to extend its war dubious. Haile Selassie against Italian imperial­ put it in Socialism and War. written in and occupation to countries such as Iran Ultimately, the solution to the suffering ism, even though Ethiopia was a slave­ 1915 before the Russian Revolution: "If or Syria. Thus a military draft has been of U.S. imperialism's victims depends on owning country. tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war raised as a possibility, particularly by the struggle of the American proletariat at To take another example: Genuine on France, or India on Britain, or Persia or Democrats. Recruitment to the imperial­ home. We fight to instill in the working Trotskyists stood for military victory of China on Russia, and so on, these would ist armed forces has been made more dif­ class the consciousness that the same the petty-bourgeois nationalist FLN in be 'just,' and 'defensive' wars, irrespec­ ficult, and the recruiters have lately not profit-lusting rulers who smash their the Algerian War of independence against tive of who would be the first to attack; been able to meet their quotas. The Bush unions, drive down wages, destroy health French imperialism (1954-62), not be­ any socialist would wish the oppressed, administration has had to institute a "back­ care and education, massacre Iraqis in the cause we considere'd the FLN "progres­ dependent and unequal states victory door draft," forcing soldiers to serve be­ interests of capital. To win the proletariat sive" per se, but because colonial and against the oppressor, slave-holding and yond their service contracts. There is sig­ to that understanding requires a tenacious neocolonial oppression obscures the class predatory 'Great' Powers." nificant discontent among the military struggle against its misleaders in the labor lines within any given society. The work- Today, it is in the interest of the inter- and their families, who are of a predomi­ movement, the trade-union tops who keep nately working-class background, and the working class chained to the capital­ disproportionately black and Latino. In ist system through an alliance with its the U.S., the working class and poor political representatives, particularly the mainly pay the cost of the war and occu­ Democrats. As we wrote in "Marxism, pation, w\1ile social services are slashed. War and the Fight for Socialist Revolu­ Regarding Iran, Chris C. writes that in tion" (WV No. 795, 17 January 2003): the event of a war between Iran and the "Capitalism, by its very exploitative na­ U.S. we should not "defend or call for the ture, creates its own gravediggers in the defense of the mullah's clerical-fascist proletariat. which alone has the social power to bring about the downfall of state." In the event of war between the capitalism-by virtue of the fact that it U.S. and Iran, we would call for military has its hands directly on the means of defense of Iran, as we did with Iraq. Chris production-and the objective class in­ C.'s reference to "Islamic fascism" re­ terests to do so. Military defeats abroad veals both ignorance and a capitulation to certainly help to bring about an extreme sharpening in the class contradictions of U.S. imperialism. To speak of "Islamic a particular country-war is the mother fascism" in Iran serves a political pur­ of revolutions. But it is fundamentally pose: painting "democratic" U.S. imperi­ the working class that has the power to alism as somehow more "civilized." Iran accomplish this historic task. We do not raise the call for class struggle at home is a theocratic state, not a fascist state. with the pollyannaish belief that this Fascism represents the ultimate and most particular war is going to meet its end virulent expression of nationalism in the in immediate social revolution in the epoch of imperialist decay. Islamic fun­ U.S. We raise it in order to cut through the 'national unity' mongering of the damentalism, which is certainly colored ruling class. to bring the working class Italian troops march into Ethiopia. Trotsky called for military defense of by the national terrain of each country, is to the understanding that it alone has Ethiopia, where slavery was practiced, during 1930s Italo-Ethiopian war. a fundamentally transnational movement, the power to defeat the American impe­ a reaction to imperialist subjugation that rialist system through workers revolu­ harks back to 7th-century obscurantism. tion. Out of working-class and social ers in an oppressor state cannot over­ national working class, particularly the struggle and through the intervention throw their bourgeoisie without opposing American proletariat, to militarily defend And, as Chris C. acknowledges, imperi­ of revolutionary Marxists. the workers their rulers' sUbjugation of another na­ those who take up arms against the occu­ alism is "ultimately responsible" for party essential for workers to take power tion. At the same time, the workers in an pation. To not do so would only serve the Islamic reaction. U.S. imperialism direct- will emerge:'. oppressed nation can be broken from interests of the U.S. imperialists, whose nationalism and fundamentalism and won ambitions mean more death and misery to to communist internationalism only by a the world's peoples. At the same time, the communist party that champions class international proletariat must be politi­ Spartacist~ Forums unity with the working masses in the cally hostile to the insurgency forces that imperialist countries. have revealed themselves thus far. As we Finish the Civil War! In his letter, Chris C. points out that wrote in "The Left and the 'Iraqi Resis­ since the destruction of the Soviet Union, tance'-U.S. Out of Iraq Now!" (WVNo. Harriet Jacobs: A Black Woman's "we have been thrown back into a situa­ 830, 6 August 2004): tion of potential anti-capitalist social­ "We do not imbue the forces presently Fight to Smash Slavery politics that resembles the pre-1917 organizing guerrilla attacks on U.S. forces with 'anti-imperialist' credentials and wam Speaker: Carla Wilson, Spartacist League Central Committee world." There is an important element that in the absence of working-class strug­ of truth to that statement. The collapse gle in Iraq and internationally against the Saturday, May 21, 3 p.m. For more information: (213) 380-8239 of the Soviet degenerated workers state occupation, the victory of one or another LA Public Library, Cahuenga Branch or e-mail: [email protected] was a world-historic defeat for the work­ of the reactionary clerical forces is more likely to come about through an alliance 4591 Santa Monica Blvd. (1 block east of ing class that has set back political con­ with U.S. imperialism .... Vermont/Santa Monica Red Line station) LOS ANGELES sciousne~s. albeit in an uneven and "The so-called 'national resistance' in contradictory way. In Iraq, those who Iraq is a myth promoted by U.S. and are leading insurgencies against the Western imperialism and cynical left­ Trotskyist League/Spartacus Youth Club Forum occupation are largely Islamic reaction­ ists .... There isn't a unitary 'resistance' force in Iraq but rather disparate group­ aries or former Ba'athists. Unlike the ings organizing guerrilla attacks on U.S. FLN or other anti-colonial movements of forces-and often against rival groupings The Vietnamese Revolution: that period, there is no socialist rheto­ and random civilians." ric. no group claiming the mantle of In his letter. Chris C. writes: "Any anti­ A Victory Against Imperialism secular nationalism. much less commu­ capitalist social-political possibilities are nism. The insurgency reveals a propen­ not qualitatively reduced by U.S. occupa­ Saturday, May 14, 7 p.m. For more information: (416) 593-4138 or e-mail: [email protected] sity to sharpen ethnic/religious divisions tion of Iraq (or of Iran ... )." This is dead U of T, OISE, Room 2212 in Iraq-between Arabs and Kurds as wrong. The U.S. occupation provides a 252 Bloor Street West well as Sunnis and Shi'ites-through, for military force ready to pounce on any (above Sl. George station) TORONTO example, communal terror attacks. struggle in the region that could challenge

29 APRIL 2005 11 WfJlIKEIiS "1/1"'111)

Cops, Lies and Videotape

Last summer. the Republicans spent a which the D.A. claimed was complete. knows how many videos \\ere spliced and police officers to subdue him. One da) week celebrating the prospect of another Eight months later. a member of diced b) "mistake" by the prosecutor's after the cop' s graphic testimony. before four years as the favored party of the "1- Witness Video:' a project that assem­ office and given to defendants'.' This case the defense ewn made its case. the pros­ bloody American ruling class. Outside, bled hundreds of videos during the con­ shows how the court~ and cops. t'he entire ecution abruptly dropped all charges. on the streets. New York City cops were vention week. received some police vid­ apparatus of the capitalist state. act in col­ What had happened? During a recess. a running rampant. ~weeping up over eotape for another. unrelated case and lusion as agents of repr~ssion for the rul­ video of the arrest was played which 1.800 people who were there to protest. spotted Dunlop. It was the same footage ing class. At least 162 arrestees have showed that the charges were false, and as well as others who were just trying that the lawyer had been given. but there either pleaded guilty or \\ere convicted the cop who testified was nowhere to be to go about their business. Prote,ters was an additional sequence. This uncut after a trial. and dubiou~ pol ice video- seen in the footage. were banned from rallying in Yusuke Joshua Banno. a virtually every public gather­ college student from Arizona. _'%% ing place: they were rounded was arrested on August 29. up. bound up in orange plas­ charged with assault and reck­ tic webs throughout the city less endangerment. al'cu,cd during the com el1lion weck. of igniting a !'apier-m,kht? Hundreds \\ ere detained for dragon. Hc faced se\ en) ears in days under filthy. hazardous prison. :\fter month, ofhattiiIl)2 conditions in makeshift cages the city. he furtunatcl) l',lllle at Pier 57. acms' time-sequence photlh After eight months. some of taken 1:1) a ne\\spaper plllHllg­ the arrestees finally had their .~ rapher sh(ming him far from Jay in court. and a fe\\ of the \\here the fire llccurred. All lies. dirty tricks and outright j charges \\ere dropped. How­ tearing up of constitutional New York t~mes photos C\ er. Banno has lost a semeqer rights that the statc uses all the New York prosecutors removed a section of videotape, including these frames, and pressed at school. and hi, ramil) has time to suppres, dissent hme false charges of resisting arrest against Alexander Dunlop. spent some S30.00() for baiL come lO light. .\.\c\anJer Dun­ legal fees anc! llther expenses. lop's case demow,trate" to \\ hat lengths the vc-r:-,iun dCH10nstrat,,-,J th~1t tr. ..:: charge:' tape,,> h~t\'c hU}'k;-c'd th(~ ,-'Zt-..,e;;, in 'tiilV-", ]'l.;LtI f-In;iL~~l) !':' a y()~;:'i! hl~t~'''' :nnn police went to frame up people. Dunlop against Dunlop were totally fabricated' The proliferation of video cameras in arrested during the RNC protests. On \vas arrested on his wa) to pick up some All charges were dropped. On April 14. the hands of amateurs as well as the cops August 30. Holiday was part of the Poor sushi during the RNC protests-i.e .. he Dunlop's lawyer. Michael Conroy. told themselve~ has exposed a lot more than People's March when a plainclothes cop wasn't even protesting. He \vas handcuffed Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.' that the cops ever banked on. Back in DeL'em­ drO\ e an unmarked motor scooter into and hauled off to Pier 57. Later, he was the tape he had received directly from the ber. Dennis Kyne \\as the first to h,nT his the crowd of demonstrators. striking at informed that he \vas being slapped with D.A.'s office was doctored to exclude the case taken to a jury trial on charges of least one woman. The protesters reacted four different charges. including resisting evidence of his innocence. The D.A.·s inciting a riot and resisting arrest. A cop. in defen.se against the apparently craLed arrest. Dunlop's lawyer received a video­ office claimed the tape was edited by lying through his teeth. testified that individual. As the video of the incident tape from the district attorney's office. "mistake" (i.e .. they were caught). Who Kyne put up such a fight it took four continlled (Ill flUge JO

Boston: Reformist LeftJgnor~uascis1D_~"ger For a Working-Class Strategy to Fight Fascists from the World Church of the been spray-painted with "KKK" and Creator. the :"Jational Alliance. Volks- "vVhite PO\\er" and "kill n----rs .. · After front. Whit~ Revolution and various racist enduring months of racial epithets and skinhead groups haw been emerging Fascist Provocations death threats while working on o\erhaul­ recently from their rat holes in the Boston ing the Boston Edison plant in E\erett. se\­ area. This past November. the neo-Nazi abortion. anti-gay bigot raised a sign with In Boston. organizers of events where eral black construction \\orkers tinally terrorists of the National Socialist Move­ a graphic photo of a fetus and a putrid fascist skinheads have appeared have sued their employer. the Washington ment announced the "official creation of anti-gay slogan on the other side. When repeatedly refused to take on this menace. Group. Leafleh signed "KKK" and vowing the Boston chapter. led by local resident our comrades mobilized with other left­ This was quite obvious at the May 17 bodily harm to the worker< families were John Gray" (Phoenix. 10-16 December ists to drive this pig away from the dem­ gay rights demonstration sponsored by left at their job sites while supervisors 2004). Over the past several years. these onstration. a fascist skinhead rushed to ANSWER last year. when organizers threatened these black workers with firing. latter-day little Hitlers have attempted to his defense. and was correctly repelled packed up and left a half hour early after This past December. white-supremacist harass or even insert themselves into left­ (see "Anti-Abortion Bigot Driven Out: fascists showed up. leaving them to Dimitri Long was arrested for a brutal ist rallies. At past events sponsored by Fascist Provocation Spiked" WVNo. 830. unfurl a World Church of the Creator flag. attack on a white Norwood man who ANSWER. including a demonstration 6 August 2004). dated a black woman. Long and two last year in support of gay marriage rights The fascists. though few today. must The Deadly Nature of Fascism others kidnapped the victim and taunted and a rally on Martin Luther King Jr.', not be ignored. They must be stopped­ For some time now, residents of Boston him as a "disgrace to his race," then beat. birthday this January. fascists showed up. driven away through mass labor/black neighborhoods and suburbs like Roslin­ burned. stabbed and stoned the poor man. They have also been seen next to pro­ mobilizations of all the fascists' intended dale. Arlington. Newbury and Lowell hale They drew a swastika on his forehead and Palestinian demonstrations and lurking victims. centrally relying on the power awakened to find swastikas spray-painted left him unconscious on train tracks to be around antiwar rallies. But the organiz­ of the working class. This perspective. around their homes. fascist literature in run mer. Fortunately. he regained cori­ ers of these rallies have refused to take which the Spartacist League has fought their mailboxes or leaflets around the area. sciousness and escaped. this threat. a very real physical danger. for. has successfully kept the fascists During Black History Month last year. tly­ Others ha\'e not been ~o lucky. A sup­ seriously-in fact. they have tried to from gaining ground in a number of met­ ers portrayed a white man holding a smok­ porter cif the \\'orld Church of the Crea­ ignore these deadly scum. ropolitan areas. Our strategy has repeat­ ing rifle next to a caricature of ~1artin tor. whose founder Matthe\\ Hale is now At the July 25 "National March on the edly faced obstacles from liberals and Luther King Jr. Working-class black peo­ in prison. went on a deadly rampage in Democratic Convention/Bring the Troops reformist leftists. in Boston and elsewhere. ple have been especially targeted: at New­ 1999. wounding nine people and killing Home Now!" rally called by the Workers who preach reliance on the capitalists' ton's Bowen Elementary School. \vest of a South Korean student and a black for­ World Party-initiated ANSWER coalition cops to protect them against fascists or else Boston. racists have defaced black staffers' mer basketball coach from ~orthwestern on the Boston Common. a crazed anti- try to ignore the race-terrorists. cars with obscenities and the school has COil tin lied Oil page R 12 29 APRIL 2005