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No. 810 ~X-523 26 September 2003

/ For Class Struggle Against U.S. Capitalist Rulers! Imperialist Occupation of Iraq

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We print below a presentation, edited "New World Order" emerging from the and abridged for publication, by com­ demise of the Soviet Union in 1991-92. rade Don Cane at a September 13 Spar­ This counterrevolution, which restored tacist League forum in San Francisco. the capitalist profit system, was a huge The International Communist League defeat for the world's working class. opposes the U.S. imperialist occupation The 1917 Bolshevik-led October Revolu­ of Iraq. As the American section, the tion, the world's first and only victorious Spartacist LeaguelU.S., we recognize the workers revolution, seized power for the Iraqi people and the American working working class. It was a beacon of hope for Reuters Falluja, September 13: Iraqi protesters chant anti-American slogans at funeral class have a common enemy-the Amer­ the millions of oppressed and exploited, for eight police officers shot by U.S. troops. ican capitalist ruling class. Every victory particularly in the colonial East. Bolshe­ for the imperialists encourages yet more vism meant resolute anti-imperialism. ist overlords, the U.S. Congress and the rulers prattle about bringing 'democracy' military adventures; every setback assists What we need is that kind of a revolution imperial presidency-we must sweep and 'liberation' to the Iraqi people-like the struggles of working people and the -not a few reforms, or a new deal with them away into the dustbin of history! the Zionists 'liberated' the Palestinians oppressed. What force can act against this the capitalist government. The whole in the Occupied Territories. The grue­ In the U.S.-led imperialist assault on lone superpower? We need class struggle bastion of private property has got to some devastation planned for Iraq is Iraq, the International Communist League the true face of U.S. imperialism-wad­ in the imperialist centers as the chief go, along with the state powers that prop clearly took a side. On March 19, the ing in blood and dripping with filth, a means to act for the defense of Iraq. As it up. SLIU.S. issued a statement demanding roaring beast devastating culture and we said from the beginning of the buildup The Wall Street bankers and the oil humanity." "Defend Iraq Against U.S.lBritish Attack! to the U.S. invasion of Iraq: Every strike, cartels, the generals and colonels-we We stood for the military defense of Down With U.S. Imperialism! All U.S. every labor mobilization against war must sweep them away into the dustbin Iraq without giving an ounce of political and Allied Troops Out of the Near East plans, every mass protest against attacks of history! support to the Saddam Hussein regime. Now!" (WVNo. 800,28 March). We said: on workers and minorities, every struggle The mullahs and priests, the sheiks and Hussein was a bloody oppressor of Iraqi "This is nothing but a colopial war of against domestic repression weakens the landlords-we must sweep them away naked imperialist aggression to be fol­ workers, leftists, Shi'ite Muslims and the imperialist war drive. into the dustbin of history! lowed by a colonial occupation of this Kurdish people. His Ba'ath Party regime, Our struggle takes place within the The kings and the would-be national- oil-rich Near Eastern country. The U.S. continued on page 4

Defend the PalestinianPeop-le! Israel Hands· Off Aralal! When Israeli vice prime mInIster April 2002 bloodbath in Jenin. To punc­ governments, sharply escalating over threatening to assassinate the elected Ehud Olmert bellowed, "Arafat can no tuate the message, Israeli warplanes the past three years. Likud prime minis­ president of the Palestinian Authority and longer be a factor in what happens buzzed ominously over the ruined re­ ter Ariel Sharon has openly expressed icon of the Palestinian struggle for here .... ExpUlsion is certainly one ofthe mains of Arafat's Ramallah compound, regret he didn't take out Arafat 21 years national liberation. options, and killing is also one of the where he has been held under si~ge for ago in Beirut, when Sharon commanded Murderous terror and expUlsion have options," the full intent of this threat nearly two years. Despite our political the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and pre­ been the program of the Zionist state was clear: the Zionist. regime was opposition to Arafat and Arab national­ sided over the slaughter of some two since 1948, when some 700,000 Pales'" announcing to the world that they were ism, we revolutionary Trotskyists add thousand Palestinian men, women and tinians were driven from their homes. ready for a mass slaughter of Palestin­ our voice to the worldwide outcry against children in the Sabra and Shatila refu­ Over the past three years, in addition to ians that would far overshadow the Zionist state terrorism: Hands off Ara­ gee camps. Last month, Israel assassi­ the "targeted killings" there have been fat! Defend the Palestinian people! nated a key political leader of the other killings of some 2,600 Palestin­ 39 The threat to "liquidate" Arafat is Islamic fundamentalist Hamas, follow­ ians, including nearly 500 children and only the most recent provocation in the ing this with an attempt on Sheik 180 women. Thousands more have been Zionist state's long history of assassina­ Ahmed Yassin, the group's spiritual imprisoned or rounded up in military tion as policy. Such "targeted killings" leader, seeking to provoke Hamas' dragnets. In April, Israeli troops loaded of Palestinian activists have been car­ many supporters into a bloody con­ up to 3,000 men and boys in the West ried out under both Likud and Labor frontation. Now the Israelis are openly 7111125274118103011117 continued on l!age 11 AFSCME Union Rally Demands: Rehire Charles DuBois! member of Local 444, serving terms as a shop steward and executive board mem­ ber, and has fought for the unions to take up the fight against all forms of oppres­ sion. Company bosses fired him in early July following a years-long campaign of harassment and bogus charges. Work­ OAKLAND-More than 100 union mem­ ers who attended the rally from every Oakland, bers' and supporters-immigrant, Latino, section of the District-janitors, meter September 17: black, white--came out on September 17 readers, maintenance, pipe repair, water Rally in in a spirited rally to defend fired black inspectors, water conservation, clerks, defense of union militant Charles DuBois, as part of sewage treatment, engineers--came out Charles DuBois called by the continuing fight for his reinstatement. to assert the unions' determination to AFSCME Locals AFSCME Locals 2019 and 444, repre­ defend DuBois, fired EBMUD workers 2019 and 444 senting some 1,400 workers at the East Kathy Greig and Robert Mena, and all in front of Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) their members. headquarters who provide water and sewage services, A "Call to Action" written by of East Bay called the rally at EBMUD's Oakland head­ AFSCME union members in defense of Municipal quarters under the slogans: "Defend Union DuBois began: "The District has once Utility District. Rights! An Injury to One Is an Injury to again used workplace violence policies All! Reinstate Charles DuBois!" Mem­ to target and terminate an individual who bers of a half-dozen other local unions is a thorn in the side of District manage­ joined, and AC Transit bus drivers and ment." An article in the June issue of deserve it"(the offending words cited by anti-labor climate, EBMUD had gone passing motorists honked their support. Local 444's newsletter Mainline made management itself)." Black workers are a after concessions in contract negotiations Judy Goff, executive secretary-treasurer available by rally organizers described special target for this kind of treatment, earlier this year and succeeded in pitting of the Alameda County Central Labor how DuBois had been suspended last as employers seek to use racism to divide one union local against another. Union Council (CLC), brought solidarity greet­ March under such policies: " ... you can the workers. members told WV that many workers felt ings from the 126,600-strong federation. now be disciplined for telling a manage­ Rally participants cheered when Randy demoralized in the outcome, and the com­ Throughout his 18 years at EBMUD, ment official that 'I'm going to file a Kim, a 23-year Local 444 member fired pany was pushing its advantage. The exis­ meter reader DuBois has been an active grievance so hard about this and you'll in 1998 in a similar "workplace vio­ tence of separate unions is a big gift to the lence" frame-up despite a defense cam­ employers. There should be one union at paign by both locals, took the mega­ EBMUD, joining together not only the phone. (For brother Kim's story, see AFSCME locals but the smaller Operat­ Democrats and Republicans­ "'Workplace Violence' Witchhunt Tar­ ing Engineers Local 39, while excluding Parties of Capital gets Unions, Minorities," WV No. 695, 28 management (currently organized in a The labor bureaucracy's support to the August 1998.) The protesters chanted: bosses' "union," IFPTE Local 21), Democratic Party "friends of labor" is a key "Workplace violence is a management The rally flyer reported that "At one obstacle to advancing the struggles of the attack-Bring DuBois back!" Gregg location, District management arrogantly working class in the U.S. In a speech announc­ Best, the author of the Mainline article told workers: 'Your union is so weak ing his presidential campaign in 1904, Social­ and an organizer of the rally, told the it should be on suicide watch'." Local ist leader Eugene V. Debs stressed that the crowd: '''Workplace violence' witchhunts 2019 president Jay Morgan told the rally Democrats and Republicans are both parties are also being used as part of the so­ that "water conservation representatives of the capitalist exploiters. The chief task is to called 'war on terror' which in fact targets were disciplined for exercising their free forge a workers party committed to sweeping TROTSKY LENIN labor, blacks and immigrants-a biparti­ speech rights, for questioning supervi­ away the whole capitalist order through san war backed by both Democrats and sors, for wondering about workloads" at socialist revolution. Republicans. National unity is a lie!" a staff meeting. Many workers saw this The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican­ During the invasion of Iraq, the San Fran­ joint union rally as a chance to let man­ Democratic Party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the polit­ cisco Chronicle fired columnist Henry agement know the unions would fight ical wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to Norr for attending an antiwar demonstra­ back, seeing the firing of DuBois as an spoils and not to principles. tion. Last April 7, Oakland cops opened attempt to intimidate all union workers. With either of these parties in power one thing is always certain and that is that the fire with "less lethal" weapons on antiwar The entire crew of janitors at the capitalist class is in the saddle and the working class under the saddle. protesters and longshoremen at the Port EBMUD building, mainly immigrant Under the administration of both these parties the means of production are private of Oakland. . women, came out to picket right in front property, production is carried forward for capitalist profit purely, markets are glutted Several signs at the rally called for the of their bosses to defend DuBois because and industry paralyzed, workingmen become tramps and criminals while injunctions, two locals to join in one. union at he fought for them when he was a union soldiers and riot guns are brought into action to preserve "law and order" in the chaotic EBMUD. Emboldened by the general continued on page 11 carnival of capitalistic anarchy. Deny it as may the cunning capitalists who are clear-sighted enough to perceive it, or ignore it as may the torpid workers who are too blind and unthinking to see it, the struggle in which we are engaged today is a class struggle, and as the toiling millions come to see and understand it and rally to the political standard of their class, they will drive all capitalist parties of whatever name'into the same party, and the class struggle BAY AREA TORONTO will then be so clearly revealed that the hosts of labor will find their true place in the conflict and strike the united and decisive blow that will destroy slavery and achieve Monday, 5 p.m. Alternate Saturdays, 3 p.m. their full and final emancipation. September 29: Principles of Marxism October 4: Defend the Palestinians and the Nature of the Capitalist State Against Zionist Terror! -Eugene V. Debs, "The Socialist Party and the Working Class," For a Socialist Federation Writings and Speeches of Eugene V. Debs (1948) San Francisco State University, Room TBA of the Near East! Information and readings: (510) 839-0851 Ontario Institute for Studies or e-mail: [email protected] in Education, Room 5185 252 Bloor St. West BOSTON (above SI. George Station) Information and readings: (416) 593-4138 Alternate Tuesdays, 6 p.m. or e-mail: [email protected] !~!,!!!!J!ll..'!(!!!.~r!.1!.. ~ October 7: Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Len Meyers VANCOUVER EDITOR: Alan Wilde BU College of Arts and Sciences, Alternate Thursdays, 6 p.m. EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael Davisson Room B25A PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller 725 Commonwealth Avenue October 9: Defend China, North CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff Thomas (8U East/Central on Green Line 8) Korea, Vietnam, Cuba Against Imperialism! For Workers Political EDITORIAL BOARD: Rosemary Palenque (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule, Information and readings: (617) 666-9453 Karen Cole, Paul Cone, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, or e-mail: [email protected] Revolution! Defend North Korea's Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer Right to Nuclear Arms! The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the Infernational Communist League NEW YORK CITY Simon Fraser University, (Fourth Internationalist). Maggie Benston Center, Room 2290 Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and Alternate Tuesdays, 8 p.m. August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Information and readings: (604) 687-0353 Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 September 30: Capitalist Rulers or e-mail: [email protected] (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO. New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected]. Wage War on Blacks- Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address For Black Liberation Through 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. Socialist Revolution! The closing date for news in this issue is 23 September. Columbia University, Kent Hall, Room 405 Information and readings: (212) 267-1025 No. 810 26 September 2003 or e-mail: [email protected]

2 WORKERS VANGUARD -Zionist Censors Unleashed at Rutgers-

USSR, a degenerated workers state, to the imperialists" ("Shcharansky Is Guilty as Hell!", WVNo. 212, 28 July 1978). Today Break the Ban on Sharansky is infamous as a Zionist for­ mer "Minister of Housing" who presided over paramilitary "settler" invasions of Palestinian land and bulldozing of Pales­ tinian homes. Palestine Conferencel We Marxists are intransigent defenders of the Palestinians against the Zion­ In an outrageous act of political cen­ "inspire" is cruelty, sadism and genocide. policy dubbed "the Prince of Darkness" ist state. At the same time, we oppose sorship, the Rutgers University adminis­ The Israeli rulers relentlessly close in during the Reagan years, today a close all variants of Islamic fundamentalism tration has banned the Third North on the desperate Palestinians, sealed off adviser to Donald Rumsfeld. Why are and nationalism, from ultra-reactionary American Conference of the Palestine behind concrete ghetto walls, their homes such major "America iiber alles" pro­ Hamas-style terrorism against innocent Solidarity Movement (PSM), scheduled bulldozed, the sky over their heads ruled Zionist warmongers (and war profiteers) Israeli civilians to the PLO's pathetic for October 10-12 on the New Brunswick, by helicopters raining death. It's no acci­ being brought out to counter this student appeals to the UN and capitalist Arab New Jersey campus. We protest this ban, dent that now, as Israeli officials shame­ gathering? Clearly, they're not concerned regimes, who themselves oppress the and stand in solidarity with the student lessly, openly discuss killing Yasir Arafat, with petty bureaucratic rules on "dead­ Palestinians. We counterpose to this pro­ organizers, who have vowed: "We refuse the Rutgers administration decided to just lines" and administrative procedures on letarian revolutionary internationalism. to be silenced. We will hold our con­ shut down the student Palestinian confer­ the Rutgers campus (the ostensible rea­ The road to the liberation of the Pales­ ference wherever we must." The cam­ ence. From the Students for Justice in sons for banning the pro-Palestine confer­ tinian people lies through common class pus president of New Jersey Solidarity­ Palestine group that was temporarily sus­ ence). In fact, they represent the state struggle by the Hebrew-speaking and Activists for the Liberation of Palestine, pended at UC Berkeley to Rutgers, cam­ itself taking a firm stance against all Arab workers against the ruling classes of Paola Rizzuto, pointed out in the group's pus groups nationwide are being targeted defense of Palestinians, right down to the the Near East. We are for a socialist fed­ 12 September statement, "This ~s politi­ to be shut down. campus level. eration of the Near East, the only way that cal repression-just as the Palestinian The sinister "Israel Inspires" counter­ As part of this campaign, on September the right of national self-determination people have been repressed through his­ conference is an overt platform for mur­ 18 Israeli cabinet member Natan Sharan­ for both the Palestinian and Hebrew­ tory." To ban this conference is to say that derous state terror: speakers include the sky spoke at Rutgers (getting a pie in speaking peoples can be realized. defense of the Palestinian people is out publisher of the lerusa£em Post, which his face from Abe Greenhouse of Central Those who speak out in defense of the of the range of "free speech" and to legiti­ called for murdering Arafat. Other invited New Jersey Jews Against the Occupa­ Palestinians have been targeted by U.S. mize the claim that Palestinian equals ter­ speakers are the big guns for the Ameri­ tion). Sharansky, who later emigrated to officials and rabidly Zionist groups like rorist. The crusade to silence opponents can imperialist invasion of Iraq and take­ Israel, was first made famous as a pro­ the nefarious Anti-Defamation League, of Zionist terror, including the murder of over of the Near East: neocons James imperialist dissident in the USSR. As we which just gave Italian leader Silvio solidarity activists in the Occupied Terri­ Woolsey (former CIA director) and Rich­ pointed out at the time: "Shcharansky is "Mussolini did not murder anyone" tories, goes hand in hand with the escala­ ard Perle, the former assistant secretary guilty of a crime against the world prole­ Berlusconi its Distinguished Statesman tion of murderous repression against the of defense for international security tariat-transmitting military secrets of the Award! This campaign against support­ Palestinians themselves. ers of the Palestinians is part of the U.S. For almost as long as the conference state's attempt to stifle dissent domesti­ has been planned for Rutgers, Zionist cally. The racist anti-immigrant dragnet groups have plotted to crush it. Last year, immediately after September 11 grabbed the Zionists mobilized over 1,000 students over 1,200 immigrants, mainly of Arab from as far away as New York to protest background, and held them in punitive the second PSM conference, hosted in detention. Lately, pro-Palestinian activ­ Ann Arbor, Michigan. This year the Zion­ ists such as Faruk Abdel-Muhti have been ists expect 5,000 in a rally to kick off arrested and Palestinians deported. We their "Israel Inspires" counter-conference forthrightly defend them and call to drop scheduled for the exact same weekend as all charges against the pro-Palestinian the Palestine conference. activists! No deporations! We call for Those taking aim against the PSM con­ dropping all the charges against those ference extend to far higher places than targeted by the racist INS dragnet. It is in campus Zionist groups. The university the interests of all students, faculty and president has "pledged his support for campus workers at Rutgers, and else­ Israel Inspires," according tothe counter­ where, to protest this ban, which if suc­ conference Web site. He ,has joined with cessful will further embolden the forces the New Jersey governor in calling the of repression. We say: Break the ban on PSM conference "reprehensible," while , Young Spartacus the Rutgers Palestine conference! the co-president of the New Jersey State University of Illinois at Chicago: SYC raises slogan "Defend the Palestinian Defend the Palestinians! Down with the Senate called it "abominable." People!" at September 16 speakout against anti-immigrant witchhunt in U.S. U.S. imperialist and Zionist "war on ter­ The only thing the Zionist state can and colonial occupation of Iraq. ror" on campus! •

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26 SEPTEMBER 2003 3 of recent struggle and not too distant his­ from a backward, tribal area by a social­ pation of Iraq becomes evident. Troops Out! ... - tory. We must also examine the question ized planned economy. Recently the chairman of the New (continued from page 1) of war and its related issues such as The old Soviet Union was undermined York Stock Exchange, under scrutiny for national oppression, women's oppression by decades of Stalinist misrule and sold a $139.5 million pay package, stated that put in power with the aid of the U.S., and the class struggle concretely. This is out to Western imperialism. But the 75- he felt "blessed" to receive such pay. defended the existing social relations in the only way to choose a side to stand year experience of a planned economy Indeed, many of his class brethren may Iraq based on tribal and religious privi­ with. I want to convince you to choose the and how the Russian workers took power not be as blessed, but still manage to lege extending back to the days of the side of revolutionary internationalism. will not be forgotten. The party of Lenin steal more in profits in one week than the Ottoman Empire. Today the American and Trotsky, the Bolsheviks, finds expres­ average worker sweats to earn in a year. imperialists offer a sham democracy as Trotskyists Hailed Soviet sion today in the International Commu­ Labor productivity, an indication of the an alternative to the Hussein regime to Intervention in Afghanistan nist League. We fight today for new level of exploitation within the American better mask their rape of Iraq. The history of the Near East. shows October Revolutions based on precious economy, has climbed' nearly 6 percent over and over again the bankruptcy of the lessons learned from it. Our opponents on while steady job losses have led to "Peace Patriots" and bourgeois road of deals with the imperi­ the left and within the workers movement unemployment figures over 6 percent. Opportunist "Socialists" alists and relying on .the so-called "pro­ work equally as hard against new Octo­ Fewer workers are working· harder to During the period of the recent anti­ gressive" Arab nationalist bourgeoisie to ber Revolutions based on their belief that produce more goods and services. Here war protests, the ICL intervened around break the chains of imperialism. The idea it was a "failed experiment." But soci­ is an indicator of the living conditions the world, including with revolutionary that the working class and the oppressed eties, with the wars and revolutions-the of the average American worker: HUD internationalist contingents-marching can move forward by pressuring the rul­ class struggles-that shape them, are not (the Department of Housing and Urban in opposition to the U.S. war and coun­ ers to make reforms, or by joining with cooked up in a laboratory but fashioned Development) places the average "hous­ terposed to the social-patriotic programs them in administering their state, has led by the human hand guided by the human ing wage" (what a worker needs to earn of the protest leaderships. These social­ to one bloody defeat after another. To mind and need. to maintain housing) last year at $15.21, patriotic programs consisted of a mixture overturn this system means a sharp break about $2 less than the average hourly of liberal pacifism and appeals to patriot­ from such illusions in conciliation of Labor Must Oppose pay. This leaves the worker $2 for all ism-"peace is patriotic" being a promi­ imperialist and nationalist forces, from Anti-Immigrant Witch hunt! other needs. Capitalism blesses the capi­ nent slogan. These "peace patriots" op­ reliance on that den of thieves, the United There is a wide chasm between our talists and damns the workers. posed the war not from the standpoint of Nations. We must forge revolutionary proletarian, revolutionary, internationalist Many of the union antiwar resolutions defending Iraq-a weak, semicolonial parties committed to the principles of program and the abjectly reformistlliberal simply opposed unilateral U.S. action and country-from a predatory attack by the .. proletarian internationalism and a Social­ politics of the rest of the left in the U.S. placed their opposition within the frame­ U.S., an imperial power, but of safe­ ist Federation of the Near East; parties However, in times of heightened social work of American bourgeois democracy. guarding the best interests of the preda­ that fight for national equality and for struggle these organizations can and will They called for a UN cover. They reflect tor, U.S. imperialism. The best example women's liberation as a motor force for posture to the left. The fight to transform the politics of the more liberal wing of the of this attempt to "safeguard" was the revolutionary struggle. The imperialists the working 'class from a class in itself, capitalist Democratic Party. The aim is appeals for United Nations approval and and bourgeois nationalists are utterly the object of capitalist exploitation, to not to mobilize labor's social power in cover for the aitack-"Don't go alone," hostile to women's emancipation and a class for itself, conscious of its rev­ concrete acts of class struggle against they said, "it's too dangerous." This is the equal rights of all oppressed nations olutionary purpose as the agency for U.S. imperialism, such as political protest like telling the alpha wolf, "Yes, your strikes against the war and the occupa­ prey is wounded and ready to finish off, ~ tion. Their aim is to organize labor as one "U more constituent of a pro-Democratic but the situation is dangerous, it still can :I bite. For your own safety wait for the o Party "peace movement." rest of the pack to finish the job even if Workers must be brought to understand you are the leader." that they share no interests with their cap­ The current spectacle of the lesser italist bosses; that imperialist war is sim­ great powers-France, Germany, Rus­ Los Angeles, ply the extension of capitalism's quest for sia-that led UN "opposition" to the war March 30: the profits that are solely obtained by the now demanding their place at the trough Workers World exploitation of labor; that for the imperi­ of Iraqi oil and "reconstruction" is ob­ Party's alists guns are butter; that the UN operates ANSWER scene. Remarking on the great power alli­ solely to perpetuate and enforce world coalition domination by the major imperialist pow­ ance that sought to militarily crush the promotes pro­ young Soviet republic, Lenin observed imperialist lie ers. Leading up to and during the war on in an October 1920 speech, "Property that American Iraq, Scottish railroad workers and Italian divides whereas labour unites. Private occupation metal workers showed the way forward property is robbery, and a state based on forces are for the international working class by private property is a state of robbers, who "our troops." engaging in concrete acts of class strug­ are fighting for a share of the spoils. gle against the war. On the West Coast, Though they have not yet finished this we witnessed a cop assault-the firing of war, they are already fighting among and national minorities, which can only the eradication of the capitalist order, blast grenades and wooden bullets, on themselves." The lesson here is that no be achieved through a thoroughgoing requires battling the false consciousness an antiwar protest at the Oakland docks imperialist alliance-UN, NATO, Euro­ socialist revolution that shatters capital­ which ties the workers and oppressed to on April 7. Longshoremen who honored pean Union, etc.-can stay united be­ ist property relations and all associated their own rulers. Within the workers this peaceful picket line were also fired cause they "are bound by no genuine or social institutions. movement, it is not only the trade-union upon and arrested. With their union's very permanent interests." Only the interna­ Imperialism has sought to drown in bureaucracy that serves to reinforce the existence under the gun of the capital­ tional working class is capable of united blood every movement for emancipation rule of capital but also the reformist and ist state-witnessed by the coastwide action based on common interest. The from the centuries-old chains of tradition centrist pretenders to Marxism. employer lockout, Bush's invoking the Bush administration is now beginning to and the exploitation of the landlords and We often make the point that~he AFL­ Taft-Hartley 1\.ct and the passing of the heed the warnings of danger and trying to the capitalists. In this aim, institutional­ CIO officialdom views the world through Maritime Security Act-the longshore­ get the UN wolf pack to help it devour ized religion has been one of their main the same lens as the capitalist rulers. men did not actively engage in this picket Iraq. Only the international working class tools and the rights of women one of the This is not simply ideological, but has its line. But their sympathies were clearly has the interest and the power to disperse main casualties. roots in the fact that for these labor tops with the protesters. this pack in defense of Iraq. While there are many examples of this, to retain their privileged position atop On February 9,2002 those same long­ Between our revolutionary internation­ probably the most glaring ~s Afghanistan. the labor movement, they not only need shoremen were the core of a united-front alist position and the ;'peace patriots" In the late 1970s a civil war between the the maintenance of capitalism but also laborlblack demonstration based on the stood assorted so-called socialists. Nearer Soviet-allied modernizing Kabul regime benefit from the dominance of their own demands: Anti-Terrorist Laws Target to the peace patriots were the reformist and the tribal mujahedin broke out. In dis­ imperialist bourgeoisie. They are aptly Immigrants, Blacks, Labor-No to the socialist organizations, the International pute was the government's move to intro­ described as "labor lieutenants of the USA-Patriot Act and the Maritime Secur­ Socialist Organization (ISO), the Workers duce a few rather minor reforms-like capitalist class." ity Act! Down With the Anti-Immigrant World Party (WWP) and the Revolution­ reducing the bride price, not even abol­ The AFL-CIO tops don't give a damn Witchhunt! The rally, initiated by the ary Communist Party (RCP), that in fact ishing it. To protect its borders from the about the Third World poor, and tum their Spartacist League's fraternal organiza­ organized and led the assorted antiwar rightist threat, in late 1979 the Soviet back on sweatshop workers in the U.S. as tions, the Labor/Black League for Social coalitions-ANSWER (WWP), Not In Union sent in the Red Army to defend well. The labor. bureaucracy acts as the Defense and the Partisan Defense Com­ Our Name (RCP) and the various campus Kabul, folJowing repeated requests by the capitalists' political police inside the mittee, aimed to mobilize the multiracial networks (ISO). Posturing more to the Afghan government. The Red Army's working class, including by championing working class against the capitalist state's left were smaller groups like the League presence was defending the rights of the American imperialist war efforts from drive to legitimize its violence with "ter­ for the Revolutionary Party, which talked women of Afghanistan. Its opponents, the Korea and Vietnam to Iraq. But the poli­ rorist enemy within" demagogy. We suc­ of defense of Iraq and voiced opposi­ .mujahedin, were shooting schoolteachers tics of class struggle is in fact a struggle. ceeded on a modest scale in driving a tion to U.S. imperialism but joined with for teaching girls how to read and throw­ The wave of patriotism ignited by the wedge into the cracks of the "national the reformists in promoting the class­ ing acid in the faces of unveiled women. criminal attack on the World Trade Cen­ unity" barrage. This was the work of a collaborationist antiwar movement. And on their side was-the United ter is receding amid the increasing real revolutionary workers party in action. But the most important political force States, arming and funding them in what miseries and wholesale attacks on demo­ is the bureaucratic leadership of the was at that time the largest CIA operation cratic rights that confront the American Black Democrats Front for AFL-CIO trade-union federation with in history. population. At least 42 union locals, 14 Racist Imperialism its ties to the Democratic Party, a not-so­ We said, "Hail Red Army in Afghani­ district or union regional councils and The key to class struggle in the U.S. is liberal capitalist party. It is in that party stan!" and called on the Soviets to extend four national unions issued some state­ black workers within the organized labor that America's chosen black leadership the gains of October to the peoples of ment of opposition to the war on Iraq. movement. The trade unions are the prin­ comes into power and influence. It is Afghanistan. What were those gains? Just These resolutions were a reflection of cipal and most powerful organizations of here, through the Democratic Party, that across the border, Central Asia had once growing discontent among workers with the politically backward American work­ the multiracial American working class, been exactly like Afghanistan-a miser­ the venal Bush administration, which ers. The black trade unionist will play a in particular the oppressed black masses, ably backward, desolate and benighted showers billions in tax cuts and contracts leading role in bringing the social power are chained to the war chariot of their place. But in the 1920s Soviet power on its cronies while workers face job cuts of these organizations to bear on behalf own racist oppressors and exploiters. ~came to Central Asia. In 50 years, Soviet and attacks on their pensions and medical of all the oppressed. This is our call We must examine concretely the poli­ Central Asia had moved forward ten cen­ benefits. This discontent has only deep­ for the American revolution: Unleash tics of all these forces both in the context turies, because it had been transformed ened as the true cost of the bloody occu- laborlblack power! It's time to finish the 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Civil War! Forward to a workers state! states unconditionally and thus under­ American blacks constitute an op­ mine the defense of these same states pressed race/color caste segregated at the and the nationalized property forms that bottom of American capitalist society. they are based on. They reject the call for From the days of slavery to the present political revolution to oust the Stalinist they have been a key component of the misrulers and to return to the internation­ labor that has produced the profits of the alist road of Lenin and Trotsky. The fat American capitalist class. But in the smashing of capitalist class rule is histor­ economic ordering of things black labor ically progressive, but the construction of has been ghettoized and white racism a socialist society is possible only on used as a tool to divide the American an international scale based on a planned workers. The American Dream and the economy of abundance. The Stalinist mis­ melting pot have always been an Ameri­ managers are nationalist in outlook, polic­ can nightmare and fire for black people. ing economies of scarcity. They are para­ Our program of revolutionary integration­ sitic obstacles on the road to socialism. ism means simply this: the promise of While Workers World may sometimes racial equality will only be achieved with cheer for revolution abroad, they do not an egalitarian socialist America based on work for revolution at home. They com­ a planned economy producing for human plain that the Democratic presidential need and not profit. Those layers of the candidates "are desperately trying to co­ working class long oppressed at the bot­ opt the anti-Bush mass movement," tom will rise to lead the fight for this as though the "anti-Bush" movement workers America. This Civil War story boosted by WWP is anything other than gives meaning to this: A newly freed a vehicle for the Democrats (Workers slave in the Union Army encounters his World, 11 September). Their ANSWER old master looking on in fright as his unit Spartacist-initiated Revolutionary Internationalist Contingent at NYC antiwar propaganda echoes the labor officials and marches by. The former slave soldier protest, March 22. the liberals-they say (in a leaflet for a shouts to his old master, "Bottom rail on January 18 antiwar protest), "Like Dr. top now, massa." We will say the same to for the Revolutionary Party (LRP) nuclear weapons along with the delivery King did during the Vietnam War, we will the masters of Wall Street who foment whined that it wanted a real united front system necessary to make them an effec­ demand that hundreds of billions of dol­ racism and race terror to keep black that includes "revolutionaries-not just tive deterrent to the Pentagon war lars be spent on jobs, education, housing, people in their place as an oppressed those who support the Democrats and machine. Nuclear weapons in this day of healthcare and to meet human needs­ race/color caste. other pro-imperialist liberals" (Proletar­ the Ameri6an nuclear cowboy are the not for wars of aggression in the Third The black .Democratic Party mouth­ ian Revolution, Fall 2002). Here they only guarantee of national independence. World." pieces, such as Al Sharpton and Jesse seek a common movement and a common The ISO is an effective NCO on the This sounds all very sweet. But we Jackson, embrace the armed forces of program against imperialist war with rep­ campuses across the country. Their must inform these sweethearts that the American imperialism as "our troops." resentatives of the very capitalist class in vision of "unity" means subservience to U.S. capitalists have acquired their But the capitalist rulers spit on the black whose interest such wars are waged. But the liberal wing of the ruling class. Hav­ untold billions of dollars through the and working-class ranks of the military, the LRP's "anti-imperialism" is even ing helped build a movement that was exploitation of labor and the immisera­ who are just so much cannon fodder to more fraudulent given their anti-Soviet shot through with illusions in the UN, tion of the oppressed. If you want to get kill and be killed in the interest of Wall credentials: howling with the rest of the they now cynically warn against liber­ your hands on the money, you have to Street. Support for the war on Iraq pack in opposition to the Soviet military als who urge that the "movement that break the power of the capitalists and among blacks ran some 30 percent lower intervention against the CIA-backed opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq should place the means of production in the than among whites. The reasons are woman-hating Islamic fundamentalists now assume the role of lobbyists for a hands of those whose labor creates the obvious: blacks make up 12 percent of in Afghanistan in the 1980s and standing bigger UN 'fig leaf'" (Socialist Worker, wealth of society. Besides Dr. King, the the American population but 21 percent with the counterrevolutionaries who de­ 5 September). And during the 1991 Gulf Workers World Party's favorite liberal of military personnel and 30 percent of stroyed the Soviet Union in 1991-92. War the ISO endorsed a demonstration "peace" activist is Ramsey Clark, a Army enlistees-we can also add, 44 There is another anti-Soviet outfit that that explicitly included demands sup­ Democratic Party attorney general during percent of the prison population. Rich is probably more familiar to you than the porting UN sanctions against Iraq. Today the Vietnam War and the bloody COIN­ man's war, poor man's fight is the theme LRP-the International Socialist Organi­ the ISO is again ready to build a "move­ TELPRO domestic war against the Black of these figures. The capitalist rulers can zation. The ISO is a good candidate for ment" with the enemies of the workers Panther Party. This makes sense-the barely conceal their racist contempt­ the title of "State Department socialists." and minorities. While they denounce famous Black Muslim cartoon showing witness their fumbled attempt to slash If they have not achieved this job yet it is "direct action" activists for being too Dr. King praying during the 1965 L.A. the $250 a month family bonus pay for only because the U.S. State Department militant, they call for "the widest pos­ Watts rebellion, "If there is any blood combat troops. has no current need of them. But their sible expressions of antiwar opposition," spilled in the streets, let it be our blood," Across the political spectrum, from resume for the job is impressive. They including "everyone who wants to say complements Clark, who made sure that the black Democratic Party hacks to the embraced the Afghan mujahedin hailed no to Bush's war" (Socialist Worker, this was true with the blood of Panthers. reformist socialist left, the slogan "sup­ by Reagan as "freedom fighters" and 2 April). They welcome everyone from As we argued in the mobilizing call for port our troops" is a loyalty pledge to cheered the downfall of" the Soviet Democrats to Republicans, cops and our revolutionary internationalist contin­ American imperialist interests. The inter­ Union. They have supported counterrevo­ those who didn't oppose the war on gents in the October 2002 demonstra­ national working class must militarily lutionary mobs in Havana, Cuba as pro­ Afghanistan (the U.S. revenge on the tions: "It is futile to oppose war against defend those Iraqi forces fighting the democracy demonstrations. Their politi­ Afghan people for harboring the Taliban Iraq but not oppose the economic sys­ U.S. colonial-type occupation of their cal tendency was born in flight from the and Osama bin Laden, the CIA's crea­ tem which generates war and the ideol­ country. The U.S. government is not defense of the North Korean deformed tions). They have proven themselves ogy that legitimizes it. Moreover, pushing "our" government and neither is its army workers state during the 1950s U.S./UN­ ready to hustle votes fot ,the Green illusions in the reformability of the "our" army. This is not to say that the led imperialist war effort on the Korean Party-a third capitalist party no less bloody American imperialist state can American ruling class does not have a peninsula. They have echoed the "human committed to the existing imperialist only result in the demobilization of the problem with the current composition rights" hypot:risy of the imperialists order than the Democrats and Republi­ only force in capitalist society that can and morale of its armed forces despite against the People's Republic of China. cans and which is colorblind to racism challenge the rule of the capitalist class: their voluntary character. Many working­ For the imperialists, "human rights" is and black oppression. the working class." class and impoverished youths enlist in . the right of the human capitalists to The Workers World Party, the leader I simply urge you to join us in this the armed forces mainly for economic . exploit humanity'S labor and markets­ of the ANSWER antiwar coalition, is the fight for new October Revolutions by opportunities and advancement rather Asia, centered on China, is the most opposite side of the same reformist coin embracing a revolutionary internationalist than out of gung-ho patriotism. Thus we prized target. . of the ISO. They embrace the Stalinist perspective. Join us! Those who labor now see U.S. soldiers in Iraq publicly The Bush gang has made it clear that bureaucracies of the deformed workers must rule!. complaining that their tour of duty has after the takeover of Iraq its' next target been extended. Such disaffection among will be North Korea. Standing behind lower-class youth sent abroad to kill and North Korea, geographically and politi­ Spartacist~ Forums risk their own lives for the interests of cally, is China, by far the most powerful Wall Street banks and corporate America of the remaining states where capitalism is a weakness for U.S. imperialist mili­ has been overthrown (the others being tarism. We say: Not one dime, not one North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba). Hav­ man for the imperi.alist war machine! ing su~ceeded in their goal of destroying the Soviet Union, the American imperial­ "Left" Tails of the Democrats ists view the continued existence of the Thursday, Sept. 25, 7 p.m. For more information: (212) 267-1025 If the trade-union bureaucrats of the People's Republic of China as a very 322 West 48th St., 1st Floor e-mail: [email protected] AFL-CIO can be called "labor lieutenants large piece of unfinished business. Their (Between 8th and 9th Avenues) goal: to reverse the 1949 Chinese Revo­ of the capitalist class" within the workers Take E or C train to 50th 81. stop. NEW YORK CITY movement, then the reformist and centrist lution in order to subjugate and ~exploit socialists can be called the NCOs-the China. Their strategy: to combine exter­ non-commissioned officers~of the capi­ nal military pressure with internal capi­ Trotskyist League/Ligue Trotskyste talist class within the workers movement. talist penetration facilitated by the ·"mar­ Anyone who knows about military hierar­ ket reforms" of the venal Beijing Stalinist chy knows that when the times get rough bureaucracy. and the troops need to get moving or be The ICL stands for the unconditional kept in line it is the NCOs-the sergeants military defense of the Chinese and and corporals-who get the job done. North Korean bureaucratically deformed Perhaps one day the capitalist might workers states against imperialist attack Friday, Oct. 3, 7 p.m. For more information: (604) 687-0353 e-mail: [email protected] reward the NCO with promotion for work from without and capitalist counterrevo­ Britannia Community Centre well done. Now I will address the politics _ lution from within. Especially in the 1661 Napier St. and roles of some of these NCOs. present context, that means supporting (off Commercial Drive) VANCOUVER Within the antiwar protests, the League the right of North Korea to develop 26 SEPTEMBER 2003 5 Why We Fought to Delend

th L SDUl~... ". ., .. ,.,. ..".· ...... I." .: ....~::.: .. :.:: .. U·.nlon · We conclude below an edited and appeal was such that the ruling Stalinist expanded version of a presentation by --Wahlt-- party, the SED/PDS, was compelled to comrade Victor Gibbons at a public Spar­ join in building this demonstration of a tacist educational in New York City on SPARTAKIST quarter of a million workers and soldiers April 27. In particular we have added initiated by us. Lothar Bisky, a leader of a more extensive account of the inter­ the SED/PDS, told us, "You have the vention of the International Communist . =-.=:..-;.:::::- workers." League in the USSR in the .early I990s ~=t=.:::- I and another comrade were in Lenin­ which was taken from a July 12 presenta­ .~~..:.-==.: grad a few days later when the issues of tion by comrade Gibbons in London. Part :~:=:::-..::::::­ the main Communist Party daily, Pravda, One appeared in Workers Vanguard No. .~~ and the Soviet Army daily, Red Star, 809 (12 September). came out with coverage of the Treptow :i~~~~- demonstration. Both papers hailed the demonstration, and the Soviet Army PART TWO paper ran a prominent photo of our signed Trotskyist banner reading "Down With The International Communist League NATO! Defend the Soviet Union!" over intervened at the crucial moments in our hammer, sickle and four! East Germany~the German Democratic The mass ICL~initiated protest awoke Republic (DDR)-in 1989-90 and in the 3 January 1990: Gorbachev, Soviet foreign minister Ed­ Soviet Union in 1990-92. We put for­ Spartakist -i n itiated uard Shevardnadze & Co. with a start ward the program of proletarian politi­ demonstration of from their illusion in a gradual transition cal revolution to overthrow the decompos­ 250,000 in Treptow to capitalism in the DDR. Here's what ing Stalinist regimes as the only possible Park, East Berlin Gorbachev himself said in an interview way to defeat the powerful, imperialist­ protesting .Nazi on German TV on the tenth anniversary backed forces of capitalist counterrevolu­ desecration of Red Army monument. of those events: tion. Today, we need to make· a special "We changed our point of view on the effort to put ourselves back into this Sparta kist Workers process of unification of Germany under Party poster in period, before the defeats that followed, the impact of events that unfolded in March 1990 East the DDR. And an especially critical situ­ in order to appreciate the reality of the German election: ation came about in January. In essence, revolutionary opportunity that opened up, "No to Capitalist a breakdown of structures took place. and how the ICL seized upon it. Reunification!" A threat arose-a threat of disorganiza­ In the summer of 1989, the Soviet tion, of a big destabilization. This began Union was shaken by the miners in the on January 3 and [went] further almost every day .... This was, as you know, first ever nationwide strike. Their strike like a torrent of fiery lava: the current committees resembled soviets, running was flowing." [our translation from TV whole cities. That same summer, Soviet transcript] president Mikhail Gorbachev visited Bei­ Gorbachev recounts that when West jing and saw the Chinese deformed work­ German chancellor Helmut Kohl visited ers state's People's Liberation Army Moscow shortly thereafter, the Soviet beginning to melt in the face of an in­ leadership urged him to swallow up the cipient political revolution triggered by DDR immediately. In his own way Gor­ the mass protests in Tiananmen Square. bachev recognized and feared that our Workers, soldiers and students together Trotskyist program of proletarian politi­ were singing the "Internationale." It began cal revolution and socialist international­ to look like Hungary 1956, where the pro­ ism was beginning to attract mass sup­ socialist working class had erected soviets port among the East German (and from and briefly shattered the Stalinist regime. there, the Soviet) working class. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping drowned It was under the impact of Tiananmen, the nascent proletarian political revolu­ the Soviet miners strike and Treptow that tion in blood. But within a few months, Gorbachev endorsed Boris Yeltsin's plan the spectre of political revolution was for a 500-day forced march to capital­ back, in East Germany. As mass protests ist restoration in August 1990. At the besieged the discredited Stalinist bur~uc­ same time, the terminal disintegration of racy, we threw our international resources formed soldiers committees, some of Germany, 1989-90," WV Nos. 730 and the Kremlin bureaucracy also made it into the fight for a red Germany of work­ which circulated Arprekorr. It was these 731,25 February and 10 March 2000.) possible for the ICL to openly establish ers councils based on political revolu­ units the panicky Stalinists dissolved. The signal event of our intervention in our direct presence in the USSR. We tion in the East and socialist revolution in We published internationalist greetings the DDR was the 3 January 1990 united­ began massively distributing our first the West. in several languages reaching out to front demonstration against the desecra­ leaflet, "Soviet Workers: Smash Yeltsinl Our daily Arprekorr (Workers Press workers from Vietnam, Cuba and Poland tion of Berlin's Treptow Park Soviet Sol­ Gorbachev 500-Day Plan!", and published Correspondence) called for the found­ in the DDR and to Soviet soldiers and dier Memorial by German rightists. The the first issue of our Russian-language ing of workers and soldiers councils, officers stationed there. ICL comrades demonstration was essentially in deferise Byulleten'Spartakovtsev (Spartacist Bul­ like those in Russia in 1917. Workers from were addressing meetings of hundreds of of the DDR workers state and against letin), titled "What Is Trotskyism." large East Berlin factories came to ask Soviet soldiers and officers with our the drive for capitalist annexation by the I'll give one dramatic example of how us how to do that. Because of our propa­ Trotskyist program. (For further details, Wt;st German imperialists, the heirs of we fought to mobilize the Soviet proletar­ ganda, units of the East German army see "Revolution vs. Counterrevolution in Hitler's Third Reich. The impact of our iat on the basis of a revolutionary interna-

The spectre of political revolution: Beijing workers (left) arrive in Tiananmen Square, May 1989. Right: Strike by Soviet miners in summer of 1989 threw up incipient workers councils (soviets).

6 . WORKERS VANGUARD tionalist program and perspective. That EC as an attempt to restore the "Com­ solidate a new capitalist state apparatus International even crowed in its newspa­ was at the October 1990 Soviet CoaLMin­ munist" system and moved to organize amid the fractured state structures of the per Rabochaya Demokratiya (October ers Congress held in Donetsk, Ukraine­ a countercoup, setting up barricades former USSR: 1991) of sabotaging efforts by workers the heartland of the mass strike wave the around the White House, the Russian "While Yeltsin & Co. now see a clear to mobilize against Yeltsin and Bush's year before. presidential headquarters in Moscow. Yet field to push through a forced-draft re­ "democrats," warning of introduction of capitalism, the outcome is "the danger of support to the putschists There were only two of us, but politi­ the EC made no move to arrestYeltsin not yet definitively decided.,., The Soviet cally it was the ICL on.the one side and, or otherwise obstruct his efforts to mobi­ by workers organizations that did not proletariat, whose capacity for militant share the principles of the 'democrats'­ on the other, U.S. and British embassy lize whatever forces he could against action was dramatically shown in the the rule of private property and capitalist representatives, the AFL-CIO's Freedom them. Moreover, Yeltsin was throughout miners strike of the summer of 1989, has power. And that is exactly what hap­ House, the Russian fascist NTS and, in open communication with U.S. presi­ not been heard from. Opposition from the pened ... at several factories the workers factories against the ravages of capital­ last but not least, the scab British "Union dent George Bush Sr., who became the even tried to organize defense detach­ ist assault could throw a giant wrench in ments in-support of the putschists. of Democratic Miners" (UDM), an anti­ co-organizer ofYeltsin's countercoup. the works and prevent the rapid consoli­ Communist outfit formed and financed in In an effort to gain the acceptance of dation of counterrevoltion," [emphasis in "From the morning on, all of our mem­ original] bers explained to workers at their enter­ an attempt to break the great British coal Western, above all American, imperial­ prises that the positions of the Emer­ strike of 1984-85 led by Arthur Scargill' s ism, the EC issued a proclamation which In this historic statement, we said a gency Committee did not coincide with NationaI Union of Mineworkers (NUM). made no mention at all of "socialism." call for workers militias "to smash the their interests. In addition to this, they The Soviet miners had raised huge funds Rather they pledged to continue Gor­ counterrevolutionary Yeltsinite demon­ connected up with worker activists of other organizations, in order to prevent in solidarity with the British miners and bachev's course, that is, to promote pri­ strations was certainly in order." We hasty actions." their union during the strike. This Soviet vate property and to honor all of Gor­ called for the formation of workers coun­ In mobilizing internationally to fight aid was a powerful countermeasure to bachev's foreign policy commitments. cils to fight the plunder and destruc­ for a Trotskyist party in the Soviet Union, the red-baiting campaign against Scargill Domestically, the EC declared martial tion of the planned, collectivized econ­ we acted on Trotsky's injunction: and the NUM conducted by the Tory law and told the workers to stay home. omy; for soldiers and officers committees "But in the event of this worst possible government of Margaret Thatcher and the variant, a tremendous significance for British ruling class in general. Now the the subsequent course of the revolution­ "AFL-CIA" types were pushing Soviet ary struggle will be borne by the ques­ miners to repudiate their past support to tion: where are those guilty for the catas- . trophe? Not the slightest taint of guilt Scargill and demanded the NUM hand must fall upon the revolutionary interna­ over the money to the scab UDM! tionalists. In the hour of mortal danger, But the ICL spiked this attempt and they must remain on the last barricade." caused a sensation. At the congress of - "The Class Nature of the Soviet 900 delegates, we sold over 600 copies of State" (October 1933) Byulleten; Spartakovtsev and we exposed Our Lenin-Trotsky Fund, collected from the scab role of the UDM. Various dele­ around the world, made it possible for gations took back whole stacks of our our Moscow Station to bring in reinforce­ bulletin. We played a crucial role in the ments, engage in mass literature distri­ decision of the congress not to pursue the bution and translations, secure office UDM's appeal to join in denouncing facilities-all in the effort to spur the pro­ Scargill. The remarkable thing about this letariat to mount a political revolution was that the bourgeoisie was represented against the capitalist-restorationist regime by every spy agency and fascist around, and revive the Soviet Union as a work­ Above: Miners at October 1990 congress in Donetsk bought hundreds of ers state. This fund also made it possible but the proletariat's historic stake was copies of Russian-language Spartacist Bulletin. May 1991: ICL comrades at represented by the ICL alone. Our singu­ East German air base address 300 Soviet officers and soldiers commem­ for our Prometheus Research Library to lar role demonstrated that 'our program orating Red Army victory over Nazi Third Reich. bring to the Soviet workers the first had an impact vastly, even explosively, Spartakist ever Russian-language version of Trot­ out of proportion to our tiny size. We sky's 1928 The Communist International counted on the power of our Trotskyist After Lenin, the key founding documents program to have this same explosive of world Trotskyism in opposition to impact across the USSR. "socialism in one country." Our Fourth Internationalist banner was August 1991: ICL on the there for all to see at the Revolution Last Barricades Day celebration in Moscow on 7 Novem­ The introduction of economic competi­ ber 1991. The demonstration was banned, tion and other market mechanisms served but some 100,000 Muscovites-mostly to intensify regional disparities between workers-came out in defiance. So fear­ industrially more advanced and more ful were Yeltsin & Co. of a confrontation backward areas and to embolden reac­ that the ban was lifted at the last minute. tionary separatist forces in the better-off Our intervention that day was spectac­ republics, like the Baltics. Openly bour­ ularly successful. The ICL's Moscow Sta­ geois movements sired by Gorbachev had tion sold thousands of pieces of literature, won elections during 1990 in Russia, including our call to defeat Yeltsin­ the Baltics and other Soviet republics. Bush counterrevolution. Nobody was more They sought to gain as much control as When Bush, nonetheless, made it clear to prevent the army from being used shocked at the turnout than the Stalinist they could over the local militias, armed that Yeltsin was his man in Russia, the to attack workers' 'interests; for multi­ "patriot" organizers, who cut it off mid­ forces and budgets. The leading figure in EC rapidly disintegrated. Yeltsin and his national workers defense guards to ward way when the ICL demanded the micro­ this camp was the head of the Russian henchmen quickly moved into the result­ off communalist butchery and anti­ phone in Red Square. The Stalinists knew republic, Boris Yeltsin, formerly one of ing power vacuum. Communist terror; for a return to the road about the Spartacists at Treptow! Gorbachev's chief lieutenants, who had The ascendancy of Boris Yeltsin's of Lenin and Trotsky through the forging Another important test was Yeltsin's split from the Kremlin leader to the right. capitalist-r-estorationist forces in August of a Trotskyist party and linking the murderous assault on the Soviet Red Opposing Yeltsin and the pro-Western 1991 was a pivotal event determining the struggle in the USSR to the class struggle Army Day march in Moscow, 23 Febru­ "democrats" were the so-called.."conser­ fate of the Soviet Union. There was no internationally. ary 1992. The elite OMON militia forces vatives" or "patriots" of the Stalinist bu­ longer a central Soviet government pre­ In sharpest opposition to the ICL, boxed in the demonstrators, beating one reaucracy based in the military-industrial' siding over USSR state organs or over the almost every "far left" group in North Soviet general to death right there in complex and CPSU apparatus. Contrary governments of the constituent republics. America and West Europe supported and pUblic. The pavement of Moscow's main to the propaganda of Western imperi­ These now began declaring their inde­ hailed the Yeltsin-Bush countercoup in street ran red with blood. The message alism and its Russian camp followers, pendence from the USSR. But the final the name of defending "democracy" was clear: a new master was blooding his the "conservatives" were not committed undoing of the October Revolution was against Stalinism. The British group then attack dogs. Partisans of the Soviet state, to preserving a collectivized economy, not yet a foregone conclusion. Only those affiliated to the anti-Soviet reformists of opponents of private property forms, much less to restoring the old Stalinist who were politically desirous of washing the International Socialist Organization could be demonstratively lynched in the order. Rather they wanted to preserve a their hands of the now-fractured workers exulted: "Communism has collapsed .... land of October. We immediately issued a USSR-wide state formation while intro­ state were in a hurry to immediately write It is a fact that should have every social­ new leaflet calling for "Workers and Sol­ ducing capitalism more slowly and in off the USSR. ist rejoicing" (Socialist Worker, 31 diers Soviets to Stop Capitalist Restora­ a way that benefited themselves. Gor­ The ICL, on the contrary, uniquely August 1991). Posing to the left of the tion!" We warned the moment was grow­ bachev, now officially president o( the raised the alarm, distributing tens of thou­ ISO is the small League for the Revolu­ ing late; the would-be bosses were taking USSR, swung between the "democrats" sands of copies throughout the Soviet tionary Party, which stated that "revolu­ the streets of Moscow away; and that and "conservatives." Union of our August 1991 statement, tionary workers would have ... tactically White tsar Boris was bent on a decisive On August 2Q; 1991, a new Union "Soviet Workers: Defeat Yeltsin-Bush lined up in a military bloc with Yeltsin to massacre, a new Bloody Sunday. Treaty was to be signed granting far Counterrevolutionl" This was the first defeat the immediate threat to workers' It was right in this period, on 9 Febru­ greater control over economic policy and anti-Yeltsin communist protest in all of interests" (Proletarian Revolution, Fall ary 1992, that our leading spokesman in the armed forces to the constituent repub­ the USSR. It began: : 2002). Catherine Verla, a leading spokes­ Moscow, comrade Martha Phillips, was lics of the USSR. It was to prevent this "The working people of the Soviet man for the international pseudo­ murdered at her post. The authorities new treaty that the day before a group of Union, and indeed, the workers of the Trotskyist current then led by Ernest stonewalled while we tried in vain to find world, have suffered an unparalleled Gorbachev's lieutenants declared they disaster whose devastating consequences Mandel, the United Secretariat, likewise out who killed her. She paid the ultimate were taking power in the Kremlin in the are now being played out. The ascen­ asserted: "It was necessary to unhesitat­ price to plant the flag of the ICL on the name of the State Emergency Committee dancy of Boris Yeltsin, who offers him­ ingly oppose the coup and, on these last barricades in defense of the gains of (EC). Tbroughout the day, tanks and self as Bush's man, coming off a botched grounds, to fight at Yeltsin's side" (Inpre­ October. armored personnel carriers rolled into coup by Mikhail Gorbachev's former Yet working-class resistance-strikes aides, has unleashed a counterrevolution­ cor, 29 August 1991). Moscow. I went among them and talked to ary tide across the land of the October Supporters of a number of "left" and protests-to the Yeltsin regime, even the soldiers. It turned out that none of Revolution." groups, like the British Workers Power, after it had introduced economic "shock them had the slightest hint of what they But we insisted that the battle was not yet literally stood on Yeltsin's counterrevo­ therapy" in early 1992, was sporadic were there to do. As soon became evident, over. We called upon the Soviet working lutionary barricades. The Russian affili­ and ineffective. Furthermore, the "hard­ neither did their commanders. - class to mobilize against the still-weak ate of Peter Taaffe's British Socialist line" Stalinist opposition repulsed and Yeltsin responded by denouncing the Yeltsin regime before it was able to con- Party and Committee for a Workers' continued on page 8 26 SEPTEMBER 2003 7 remember the horror on the faces of co­ iii workers as the ruble lost half its value in ~ Soviet Union ... Ol one month. Before my eyes they became Q. (continued from page 7) (f) paupers. But even having a wage pre­ demoralized the multinational Soviet sumes one has a job, and who did? proletariat by making a political bloc with According to a September-October 1998 Russian fascists and other right-wing study sponsored by the U.S. Information nationalists, the so-called "'red' -brown Agency, only 50 percent of Russian adults coalition." We exposed these anti-Semitic were employed and only a quarter of the Great Russian chauvinists for what they so-called "employed" got paid with any were to anti-Yeltsin workers and youth, regularity. devoting the entire issue of Byulleten' Some 75 percent of the population of Spartakovtsev No.3 (Spring 1992) to the the Russian Federation was now com­ Moscow, 1 December 1991: fight for a Leninist party that was a trib­ pelled to grow some or all of their own ICL organizes une of the,people, combatting every form food, moreover, in a society that was 70 of national chauvinism, anti-Semitism, cleanup of Karl Marx percent urban. Individual garden plots statue defaced and anti-woman and anti-gay bigotry sprang up along commuter train lines by Yeltsin's mob. roiling the brown tide of capitalist coun­ around every city, providing the major Banner reads: "No to terrevolution. We also, uniquely, mobi­ source of food for the urban population. the Restoration of lized in defense of the besieged foreign Every Sunday evening the commuter Capitalism! Yes to the students of Moscow's Patrice Lumumba trains headed back into Moscow were full Gains of October!" People's Friendship University after Yel­ of bone-tired workers, including those tsin's police murdered an African student with college educations, hands cracked in August 1992. and dirty from scratch-gardening, too When the air traffic controllers went tired to think except perhaps when talk on strike that same month, Yeltsin de­ turned to farming tips. A nuclear power monstratively launched his first full­ plant engineer in my neighborhood quit scale, frontal attack on the Soviet trade his job to guard his potato patch! An edu­ unions. The ICL put out a leaflet rallying price of oil on the world market. Russia's tion. By 1999, 14 percent of prostitutes in cated urban proletariat had reverted to role in the world economy is now similar Moscow were infected. The helpless age to the union's defense. Tellingly, the ex­ scratch subsistence farming. Stalinist has-beens joined their fascist­ to those Third World countries critically (10 to 14) of some of the prostitutes and In the period between 1960 and 1980, dependent on the export of a few prod­ the piggish johns who pay extra for monarchist partners of the '''red' -brown a massive construction campaign had coalition" in opposing the strike. ucts. Oil, natural gas, oil products and unprotected sex guarantee its continuing provided (for a nominal rent and utility metallic ore make up almost two-thirds of rapid spread. charges) every urban family with its own Russia's exports by value. What little pro­ As much as poverty and drugs, a major apartment with modem amenities, usu­ ductive investment is taking place is over­ factor behind the explosion of AIDS Martha Phillips ally including a telephone, central heat­ whelmingly concentrated in these extrac­ in Russia is the reactionary ideological ing, electrical power, water, sewage and tive sectors. filth pushed in place of health education. local public transport. All this was con­ However, the basic economic infra­ There is an explosion of HIV / AIDS in sidered a right of Soviet citizenship. A structure and manufacturing industry con­ Irkutsk, a main Siberian city on the truly historic achievement. tinues to deteriorate, starved for capital Afghan drug route. But the chairman But in 1991 all municipal construc­ investment. In 2002, more than two-thirds of the province's Committee on Youth tion halted, and for the next five years of the equipment in use in the Russian Policy rails against the "moral degen­ housing rotted, looking more like dark Federation had been in place for 15 years eration" of '''safe' sex and sex educa­ caves than comfortable homes. Municipal and almost a third for 20 years. The aver­ tion classes." The Russian Orthodox water pipes began to burst, at times turn­ age age of Russia's industrial plant is church campaigns against the use of ing whole city intersections into boil­ three times that of North America's, West condoms; fascists march against their ing mud pits in which people fell to Europe's and Japan's. use to promote Russian procreation. In horrible deaths. The basic problem was Furthermore, with capitalism based on fact, they are promoting the extermi­ that the service life of the heating grid social inequality and the need to extract nation of the Russian people. 1948-1992 was designed for only 20 years. Break­ ever-greater profits from the working Most ominously, the AIDS epidemic is downs have increased exponentially, and class, the "improved" economic perform­ intersecting a TB epidemic. One medi­ in 2010, less than seven years from now, ance in the past few years has not miti­ cal specialist warns: "When the HIV epi­ When by late 1992 the counterrevolu­ the entire national heating grid in Russia gated the terrible impoverishment of the demic hits the pool of latent TB infec­ tion in Russia had been consolidated, we will face complete collapse. Russia,n people and its resulting social tions, there's going to be an explosion of analyzed the main factors underlying the Many bourgeois ideologues in the West pathology. Thus the life expectancy of MDR-TB [Multiple Drug Resistant TB). fateful political passivity of the Soviet blame the unprecedented economic col­ Russian men continues to fall while TB and HIV are like gasoline and a working class: lapse of post-Soviet Russia on the crimi­ infant mortality continues to rise. match." Studies now find TB in 70 per­ "In the name of building 'socialism in nal behavior of its new capitalist opera­ cent of Russia's homeless, 20 to 30 one country,' the Stalinists-through ter­ tors (the "oligarchs"), who looted the A Demographic Holocaust percent of the prison population and 40 ror and lies-methodically attacked and productive wealth of the former USSR In the Soviet Union, the entire pop­ percent of refugees from the war in eroded every aspect of the revolutionary and then transferred their ill-gotten gains and internationalist consciousness which ulation-children in school, adults at Chechnya and other areas. Soviet prisons had made the Soviet working class the to Western banks. But the basic underly­ work-were required to undergo annual were plenty brutal, but they were not vanguard detachment of the world prole­ ing cause is the destructive logic of the screenings for diseases such as tubercu­ hothouses for plagues. Now each year tariat.... capitalist system itself. As we explained in losis (TB). But as a Russian journalist 30,000 former prisoners with active TB "Atomized and bereft of any anti-capital­ a 1994 article titled "Post-Soviet Russia: commented in Izvestia (16 April 2002): and 10,000 with MDR-TB are being ist leadership, lacking any coherent and Immiseration and Chaos": consistent socialist class consciousness, "The universal preventative examinations released into the general population with skeptical about the possibility of class "The employment of labor clearly dem­ that were regarded as one of the great little or no medical follow-up. onstrates the fundamental difference be­ struggle in the capitalist countries, the achievements of Soviet medicine died Soviet working class did not rally in tween the c'apitalist system and a collec­ tivized economy, even one subject to along with Soviet medicine itself." The Brutal Oppression of resistance against the encroaching capi­ Youth and Women talist counterrevolution. And as Trotsky pervasive bureaucratic mismanagement The number of HIV cases in Russia last noted in The Third !nternational After and parasitism as was the former Soviet year was estimated to be between one and The overall degradation of Russia's Lenin: 'If an army capitulates to the bloc. The aim of a capitalist firm is to maximize the return on the money in­ two million. A recent study by the World populace is compounded by the special enemy in a critical situation without a Bank projected that by 2020, up to 10 oppression of youth and women. A lead­ battle, then this capitulation completely vested in that particular company. Manag­ takes the place of a "decisive battle," in ers therefore seek to maximize output (if percent of Russia's rapidly shrinking ing Russian pediatrician estimates that politics as in war'." it can be sold) while minimizing the cost population would be infected. Primarily only 5 to 10 percent of children are - WV No. 564, 27 November and employment of labor. Hence, you can spread in Russia via drug users' dirty nee­ healthy. Child malnutrition is now the 1992, reprinted in Spartacist see in North America and West Europe mass unemployment coexisting with bru­ dles, a growing avenue for the spread of norm, and by 1999 from 15 to 45 percent pamphlet How the Soviet HIV / AIDS has since become prostitu- of children in the Russian Federation Workers State Was Strangled tal speedup for those workers fortunate (August 1993) enough to have jobs. Some people are forced to beg in the streets while others The Ravages of are forced to work 10-12 hours a day. "The aim of a collectivized economy is to ISPARTACJSTI~ ~ Counterrevolution maximize the output of society as a whole ISPARTACJSTI~ ~ _1Ell.4lI_04I ENGUSIlIEIII'TtOtt WlJrn1!'Rl_.. NUMRRao EHOLISHEDmOM by utilizing all available resources, both r . A half decade after the counterrevolu­ Documents ana DIscussion on tion, the desperate and despairing condi­ labor and the means of production. More­ over, Soviet-bloc governments prevented i! ...the Collapse of Stalinism tion of Russian working people was mov­ unemployment by not laying off workers ...... ~.,...... fiiit... ·..•. ·· ...... , •• . "' ...... ,....i...... ingly expressed in a letter from a rural even if their additional contribution to / village cited on a Russian trade-union production was less than the wage paid .c-~-.... ,...... ~ .... 1I them. That was far better than baving Web site: ...... ··tf ..... •.••...... ~ ,...... ~ .. ': .. ,...... " "We are dying in the direct meaning of them live on welfare or beg in the streets, / --=~tfUili"** ...... , ...... ~-.. >•..... the word. The collective farm is hardly risking unrest. As a result, industrial enterprises in East Europe and the ex­ breathing. For a year we have been paid '...... CWt~-...... •..••.•.- •..... 'IJ!...... ' .'.. ' .4•..... I.I.C.• ~...•.•••. ..•"~ -...... ;...... •••.••.. ~....._ ...... L .... no wages. No money has been found to USSR were grossly overman ned by the I«...... et~"'~ ...... , ... standards of capitalist profitability .... 1··-~ __IiIIiiIi ...t buy fuel for sowing. Everybody sits at ' ...~...., ... _I.;.. ,...... " .... home depressed. Many get cancer and "Now with the capitalist counterrevolu­ other diseases. We are perishing like tion, production costs in post-Soviet Rus­ flies." sia are being driven into line with those on the world market through a massive con­ By 1997, the real value of the average lOUilk..Ir:AFrienll.nll traction of industrial capacity and an even TroluySeiloIlrOil1 lttter.&lII'"dOIi'JlptII 2 wage in the Russian Federation had fallen ... 3 Tamal'l Delltu"", 1913-1910 .. 30 greater slashing of the industrial labor 4tIliTII.t.uA .... A.$2 by almost 80 percent, of pensions by force." - WV No. 595, 4 March 1994 almost 70 percent. This was accom­ No. 54, Spring 1998, $2 (48 pages) No. 45-46, Winter 1990-91, $1.50 (64 pages) plished by "shock therapy" freeing price Over the past five years Russia has Make checks payable/mail to controls and setting off an inflation experienced some modest economic Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 rate as high as 20,000 percent in 1992! I growth, mainly as a result of the higher 8 WORKERS VANGUARD under the age of 15, depending on the have won influence over Russia's multi­ Yeltsin's invasion completely destroyed imperialist powers-<:entrally the U.S. province, were diagnosed as mentally national working class, to say nothing Grozny. But the Russian army was still and Japan-for the redivision of markets retarded. As of last year, there were an of the urban petty bourgeoisie and rural militarily defeated by the Chechen forces. and spheres of exploitation. More gener­ estimated several million "orphans" in peasant masses, without being the best In 1996, Moscow accepted an armistice ally, if socialist revolution does not inter­ Russia-more than were left in the wake champions of the just causes of the which gave Chechnya de facto independ­ vene, heightened interimperialist rivalry of World War II! These orphans' parents oppressed Polish, Ukrainian,.Baltic, Cau­ ence. Then, in the winter of 1999, new will sooner or later lead to military con­ are mostly still alive; they were aban­ casian and Central Asian peoples. This Russian prime minister and soon-to-be flict, very possibly dragging humanity doned. The character of Russia's orphan­ proletarian internationalism was reflected president Vladimir Putin launched a sec­ into a nuclear holocaust. ages can be measured in the fact that in the composition of the Bolshevik Cen­ ond war against Chechnya. In part this On the other hand, a victorious prole­ one-third of those who grow up in them tral Committee: Lenin was a Russian, was intended to spike the plans of the var­ tarian political revolution in China or a become alcoholics and 10 percent com­ Trotsky a Jew, Dzerzhinsky a Pole, ious bourgeois-nationalist regimes in the socialist reyolution in one of the capital­ mit suicide within a year of leaving. Shaumyan an Armenian, Stalin a Geor­ Caucasus and Caspian Sea region, acting ist countries will have an electrifying But only a third of Russia's castaway gian, Stuchka a Latvian, and so on. in concert with Western oil companies, effect on workers around the world, as did children are even in orphanages. The oth­ The nascent Kremlin bureaucracy dem­ to build new oil pipelines which would the October Revolution of 1917. The des­ ers live in cellars," attics, abandoned onstrated its first alien political impulses exclude Russia. The second Chechen perate and besieged toilers of Russia, who houses and in larger cities by seeking through the Russian-centered apparat's war was also an attempt to divert popular today fight for their very survival, will shelter from the cold in sewer systems. chauvinist disregard for the rights of outrage in Russia and a sense of national once again take their place in the struggle Such youth are a modern-day reappear­ minority peoples. Lenin launched his final humiliation provoked by the U.S.INATO for world socialist revolution. ance on the Russian landscape of the political struggle in late 1922-early 1923 terror bombing of Serbia, a historic Rus­ These are the stakes! We know that bezprizorniky. These were the packs of against Stalin's bureaucratic abuse of the sian ally, earlier that year. Putin ran for those under our banner today are few. wild children who emerged from the Caucasian peoples. As the degeneration of president by reasserting Russia's military We are but an international, revolution­ ruins of World War I and the Russian the Soviet workers state deepened, the "power" through a renewed genocidal ary Marxist propaganda group. Our· Civil War, preying in gangs on the towns bureaucratic caste went further toward onslaught against Chechnya. In response Marxist worldview and program is based and descending like wild dogs on rural Great Russian chauvinism as a political­ the ICL called for the military defense on . the understanding that capitalism villages. In 1921, the Soviet government ideological glue for its brittle rule. of Chechnya's hard-won independence has created its own gravedigger, the formed a commission headed by the But even this was held in check by the against Russia. proletariat. It exploits and brutalizes the Bolshevik leader Feliks Dzerzhinsky to need to preserve the USSR as a vast mul­ This war is still going on, and it is working masses, and mobilizes them spearhead a nationwide campaign which tinational state. In marked contrast to a ghastly picture of the barbarism capi­ for slaughter in nationalist bloodletting saved several million bezprizorniky, giv­ capitalism, the centrally planned collec­ talism has brought to the Caucasus. and imperialist wars. Billions of toilers ing them full lives as Soviet citizens. This tivized economy made possible an allo­ Whereas in Afghanistan in 1979-89 the around the world are forced to seek a chapter of Soviet power and the saving of cation of resources which brought about Soviet Red Army's presence made pos­ way out. The demoralizing effects of the bezprizorniky remain a point of pride a relative equality between the various sible the beginnings of a modern urban defeats such as the destruction of the to this day. national republics making up the USSR. infrastructure with universities, hospi­ Soviet Union will be overcome. New Contrast this to what capitalist counter­ This resulted in the rapid socio-economic tals and factories built along Soviet lines, generations-less schooled but also less revolution· in Russia and the other former and cultural development of the most Putin's Russian army in Chechnya has scarred-will enter into the struggle. Soviet republics offers its castaway chil­ backward peoples of the former tsarist now reduced virtually every single city The tide will turn our way again, as it dren. Petty theft by boys in Kyrgyzstan is empire (e.g., in Central Asia) and also and town there to rubble! Russian forces did at Treptow in January 1990. Our punished by up to half a year in prison, eased historic national tensions (e.g., in have to date killed over 100,000 Che­ resources in the DDR at that point were often in solitary confinement, with no the Caucasus). chens, that is 10 percent of the population. truly small. But the power of our pro­ education or even parental visits. In Geor­ The progress of the Tajik people in gram, its unique capacity to render the gia, "repeat offender" youth can be jailed Soviet Central Asia, in contrast to their For New OctQber Revolutions! proletariat's deepest material longings up to three years without any trial. And ethnic counterparts across the border in The global toll of the USSR's destruc­ into a historically conscious force-into what does it mean for a youth to be in the Afghanistan, is only the most striking tion must be torn from the tissue of lies of a Leninist vanguard party with a mass general prison population? It means rape example. In the Caucasus, centuries-old the so-called "death of communism," and base-that program is what enabled the and other sexual assaults. This unspeak­ blood feuds among the patchwork of geo­ be put where it belongs: in the prole­ very small forces of the ICL to begin able barbarity is made worse by the level graphically interpenetrated peoples were tariat's indictment of the capitalist system winning over socialist-minded workers of AIDS among prisoners. for the first time abated through the strug­ in its death agony. As the revolutionary and soldiers in East Germany. The impe­ In 1993 Women and Revolution pub­ gle to root out the sheiks, Cossack ata­ Marxist leader Rosa Luxemburg said at rialists, social democrats and Stalinists lished an extensive article titled "From mans, landlords and mullahs, and to the beginning of the imperialist epoch, were all fearful that the proletariat had East Berlin to Tashkent: Capitalist Coun­ establish a new life based on economic mankind's crossroads lead to socialism or begun in the course of an incipient polit­ terrevolution Tramples on Women." modernization and rising living stan­ barbarism. ical revolution to rally around the ICL's Today I will limit myself to something dards. At the same time, Soviet industrial The October Revolution took socialism banner of a Red Germany. new that has proliferated in the decade development created a historically new out of the realm of theory and put its The political and organizational stages since that article was published, the inter­ pattern of ethnic interpenetration, this potential before us in concrete terms. The that we will have to pass through in the national sex trade. From Russia alone it time of proletarian populations in indus­ Trotskyist program of world socialist rev­ rapids of the coming class struggles are is estimated that 160,000 women each trial and mining centers across the USSR. olution is the only way that this potential not knowable. What we do know, and year are trafficked to Europe and Asia. Workers of different nationalities fre­ can be realized, unlocking the planet's what is given, is that future workers rev­ They are drawn by ads offering work, or quently intermarried. They and their chil­ human and material resources, opening a olutions must have a Bolshevik political simply kidnapped. Once delivered, their dren began to no longer think of them­ dawn of prosperity. And the alternative, a arsenal; its cadres must be educated in the passports are taken from them and they selves as Ukrainian or Armenian but descent into capitalist barbarism, is now experiences of the October Revolution, are terrorized into submission. The prof­ rather as Soviet. visible in far greater detail. the early Communist International, Trot­ its from this sex slavery out of Russia The forces of capitalist counterrevolu­ Consider the future effects of a counter­ sky's Fourth International, and our own match even those of its drug business­ tion-from Russia and Ukraine to the revolutionary destruction of the People's ICL. That is a fact! New gains will be about $7 billion annually. The women Caucasus and Central Asia-have used Republic of China, a bureaucratically won only by those who proved able to and girls are sold several times over, each nationalism (often linked to religion) as deformed workers state. If the capitalist fight to defend past gains. As reformist time upping their buy-out ransom. A par­ their main political-ideological battering slavery, plunder, disintegration and wars and centrist opponents of Trotskyism ticularly horrific example came to light ram. The capitalist law of the jungle dic­ that have devastated the former Soviet seek shelter and fortune on the cheap late last year when Swedish police ques­ tates that- each capitalist state must have bloc were to descend on China with its among social democrats, Stalinist has­ tioned a 13-year-old Russian girl who one dominant nationality. All the historic population of over a billion, the Russian beens, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois reported being kept in a locked van as a ethnic patchworks which had begun to catastrophe will be multiplied many times nationalists and the like, the ICL tena­ sex slave for two y'ears, driven by Russian weave together into a common Soviet over. All of East Asia will become an ciously fights to uphold the banner of new pimps from one city in Europe to another. pattern were now torn asunder. Over a arena of a renewed struggle between the Octobers. Join us!. hundred armed national, ethnic and relig­ Chechnya and Other ious conflicts have erupted across the Nationalist Bloodbaths former Soviet bloc, bringing death and We've talked about what the return to destruction to millions. the capitalist profit system has brought. By far the bigges! bloodbath brought The other major catastrophe has been the on by the capitalist counterrevolution reimposition of bourgeois nation-states in the former USSR is in Chechnya. Web site: www.icl-fi.org • E-mail address:[email protected] across the territory of the former USSR. Yeltsin's colonial-style invasion in 1994 Here it's necessary to emphasize that was about asserting the Kremlin's role National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860 the Bolsheviks came to power by cham­ as regional cop in the Caucasus and gain­ Boston Los Angeles Oakland pioning the struggles of the scores of ing control of the Caspian Sea oil fields. Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 nationalities trapped in what Lenin called The Chechens were also to be made an Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 the tsarist "prison house of peoples." example of because of their special his­ (617) 666-9453 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 This was an integral part of the Bolshe­ tory of heroic wars in the 19th century Public Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m. Public Office: viks' struggle for world socialist revolu­ against the Russian tsarist conquest of the Chicago 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Sat. 1-5 p.m. Box 6441, Main PO tion leading to a communist society in Caucasus. 1634 Telegraph Chicago, IL 60680 New York 3rd Floor which the rise of international productive The ICL forces in Russia~at the time (312) 563-0441 Box 3381, Church St. Sta. forces brings about the dissolution of all called for the military defeat of Yel­ Public Office: New York, NY 10008 San Francisco nation-states. The Bolsheviks could not tsin's colonial-style invasion without giv­ Sat. 2-5 p.m. (212) 267-1025 Box 77494 ing any political support to the bourgeois­ 222 S. Morgan Public Office: San Francisco CA 94107 nationalist regimes of Dudayev, and later (Buzzer 23) Tues. 6:30-8:30 p.m. Maskhadov, in Grozny, Chechnya's capi­ and Sat. 1-5 p.m. CORRECTION tal. We called for the right of the Chechen 299 Broadway, Suite 318 In "Chickens Come Home to Roost people to decide their own fate, explain­ in Kiev" (WV No. 808, 29 August), ing the roots of the war in the capital­ we incorrectly spelled out the ITO as ist counterrevolution. We also raised the the "International Trotskyist Organi­ urgent need to defend the peoples of the Toronto Vancouver zation." The name of the group is the Caucasus, Central Asia and all non-Slavic Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 International Trotskyist Opposition. foreigners against racist pogroms and (416) 593-4138 (604) 687-0353 police persecution throughout Russia. 26 SEPTEMBER 2003 9 Spartacist League stood for armed black Recall ... self-defense against racist terror. (continued from page 12) Another cornerstone of Britton's cam­ paign is "Stop Washington's economic (who is supported by many Latinos), cit­ war against Cuba! Normalize relations ing his college membership in the Chi­ California has long been a spring­ the campaign for Prop. 209 il\ 1996. now!" The SWP fails to characterize cano student group MEChA and the fact board for racist crusades nationwide­ Connerly and his supporters have been what kind of society Cuba is, leaving the that he's backed by money from Native from the passage of Proposition 187 in cynically marketing Prop. 54 as a way impression that it supports Cuba from American casinos. But black people 1994 denying education and health to supposedly introduce a "colorblind" the standpoint of Third World national know him best as the racist who care to undocumented workers, to society where race is "becoming less liberation. But Cuba is a country in prompted a walkout when he used the Proposition 209 in 1996 banning af­ relevant" and would signify "an end to which the capitalists were overthrown, "N" word at a February 2001 meeting firmative action and Prop. 227 in 1998 the indignity of classifying people." In a huge advance for the workers and of black trade unionists. Meanwhile, scrapping bilingual education. This fact, only vile apologists for racist poi­ peasants, even though it has been ruled Austrian-born actor Arnold Schwarze­ fall another reactionary proposition, son try to deny that the racial oppres­ from its inception as a deformed workers negger is ,a member of' the advisory Prop. 54-cynically called the "Racial sion of blacks and other minorities state by Castro's bureaucracy rather than board of U.S. English, a national Privacy Initiative" but also known doesn't exist, and that's precisely why the workers themselves. The Spartacist "English-only" group appealing to anti­ as CRECNO (Classification by Race, they need to ban the evidence with League extends unconditional military immigrant racism. (His best known Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin) Prop. 54. defense against all imperialist attacks to "English-only" remark is "hasta la vista, -is on California's October 7 ballot From education to social services, Cuba, as we do the other deformed baby.") Nor is this recall going exactly as to recall the governor. the rights of the working class as a workers states-China, Vietnam and the right wing planned-Schwarzeneg­ In essence, this proposition would whole are always attacked by playing North Korea-while calling for political ger may be running as a Republican but ban the gathering or publication of sta­ the race card first. We seek to mobilize revolution to oust the Stalinist bureauc­ he's pro-abortion and pro-gay adoptions. tistical evidence of the brutal racial dis­ the integrated working class to fight racy. The SWP is, on the other hand, crimination endemic in racist capitalist for jobs and free, quality education for utterly uncritical of Fidel Castro, whose Communist Tactics in Elections America. Prop. 54 further supplements all, particularly reaching out to the accommodation to U.S. imperialism has In any capitalist government election, Prop. 209's ban of affirmative action, masses of unemployed minority youth led him to stab in the back countless the Spartacist League begins from the denying the state or other "public enti­ and women with special union recruit­ struggles of workers and peasants standpoint of the Marxist understanding ties" the ability to ask about race, while ment and training programs. But racial throughout Latin America. of the state. The government is not a neu­ allowing for exceptions in medical oppression can only be banished with In its campaign literature, the SWP tral arbiter but the executive committee research and treatment, law enforce­ the overthrow of private property. Our makes no distinction between Cuba and for managing the common affairs of the ment and prison management. perspective is one of revolutionary North Korea on the one hand and capital­ whole bourgeoisie. At the core of the cap­ Prop. 54 is being introduced by the integrationism: the full integration of ist states that are the victims of imperial­ italist state are institutions of organized notorious Ward Connerly, a black con­ black people into an egalitarian social­ ist aggression, Iraq and Iran, on the other. force and violence-police, courts, pris­ servative member of the University of ist society. Vote no on racist Proposi­ In 1979 it actually hailed Ayatollah ons, army-dedicated to defending the California Board of Regents who led tion 54! Khomeini's assumption of power in Iran property of the capitalist rulers. In The as an anti-imperialist victory! Increas­ State and Revolution (1917), Bolshevik ingly the SWP has drifted toward enthu­ leader V. I. Lenin characterized capitalist democracy of capitalist society. If we from Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Africa, siasm for Third World nationalists like elections this way: look more closely into the mechanism of and elsewhere." To its credit, the SWP Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, and state­ "To decide once every few years capitalist democracy, everywhere ... on all called to defend Iraq against the bloody ments by Islamic reactionary Osama bin which member of the ruling class is to sides we see restriction after restriction Laden have been published in the Militant repress and oppress the people through upon democracy. These restrictions, American invasion. However, Britton also parliament-this is the real essence of exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the demands, "Bring the GIs home now!" (see Militant online, 29 October 2001, for bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in poor, seem slight. .. but in their sum total This slogan is an accommodation to the an example). Its main public existence is parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, these restrictions exclude and squeeze social-patriotic "save our troops" wing of through the Pathfinder book business. but also in the most democratic out the poor from politics and from an the antiwar movement that preached While it still publishes Leon Trotsky and republics." active share in democracy." James P. Cannon (the only remnants of its We have no illusions that the road to bet­ belief in the reformability of U.S. imperi­ From the beginning, the U.S. Constitu­ alism, begging the capitalists to "stop the once honorable revolutionary past), its tering the lives of working and oppressed tion was crafted for this very purpose by, press churns out a myriad of books adu­ people can be through the ballot box. war." But the struggle against war means for example, staggering elections and a struggle against the capitalist system as lating Castro and Che Guevara as well as Since Karl Marx first expounded the placing the selection of the president in works by the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and lessons of the heroic Paris Commune a whole. The Spartacist League organized the hands of an electoral college. The Revolutionary Internationalist Contin­ the late Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso. of 1871, a basic tenet of revolutionary Constitution was based on the existence In his campaign statement, Britton socialism has been that "the working gents to intervene in the antiwar move­ of slavery in half the country, while the ment to demand, "For class struggle says, "Stop INS raids and deportations­ class cannot simply lay hold of the ready­ electoral clout of the slaveowners was end 'no match' firings!" and in inter­ made state machinery and wield it for its against the U.S. capitalist rulers! Defend increased by granting them the represen­ Iraq against U.S. imperialist attack! Down views has called for "supporting the fight own purposes." The working class must tation of three-fifths of the slave popula­ for equal treatment of immigrants." The seize power and establish its own govern­ with the UN starvation blockade!" tion. The Civil War threw that provision Furthermore, the U.S. troops are the SWP's idea of such a fight is uncritical ment to expropriate the capitalist system. into the dustbin of history, but the Con­ support to the AFL-CIO's Immigrant Many capitalist politicians and news­ imperialist armed forces, the instrument stitution remains a very difficult docu­ of American conquest and enforcers of Workers Freedom Ride, which is the papers nationally have called for curtail­ ment to amend-and black people still union bureaucracy's vehicle for roping ing the existing recall provision in the the capitalist system of exploitation. And have a hard time voting (as in the state of "at home" they are no less the enemy in the Latino vote for the Democrats. California state constitution as an excess Florida). Today intricate and expensive In contrast, we call for full citizenship that undermines "legitimate" election of the exploited and oppressed: witness requirements that vary by state and city the racist crackdown in Detroit in 1967 rights for all immigrants and fight within results. This provision, which dates from virtually forbid any but the Republicans the unions for the mobilization of its the 1911 reforms of Progressive Party carried out by the 82nd Airborne. What and Democrats from running for state or would the troops do today' "at, home"? members, independent of the capitalist governor Hiram Johnson to break the federal office. class, in defense of immigrants. hold of the Southern Pacific Railroad, is Last year Bush threatened to inilitarize the West Coast docks to break the power a perfectly good democratic device that Vote for SWP's Joel Britton! 134 "Lesser Evils"? we defend, although its current appli­ of the International Longshore and Ware­ cation has some grossly undemocptic Marxists run in elections, as the Spar­ house Union when it was locked out by The remainder of our reformist oppo­ aspects. The recall ballot is divided into tacist League has in the past, in order to the Pacific Maritime Association. nents base their positions in the recall two parts: the first is a "yes" or "no" take advantage of the heightened politi­ In the 1960s during the Vietnam anti­ election not on the class interests of the vote to recall Davis; the second is a vote cal interest during election time to gain a war movement, the SWP was despised working people but on the inherently sub­ for a candidate to replace him if he is hearing for our progra!ll. But we are among leftist militants for building a jective index of what's popular. Accept­ recalled. Davis is not allowed to run on opposed in principle to participating in single-issue campaign of class collabora­ ing the framework of capitalism means the second part, so he could conceivably administering the bourgeois state appara­ tion with the liberal antiwar bourgeoisie. that they perforce must tail some existing lose the recall with 49 percent of the vote tus. We run on a program for socialist While today it stands to the left in the political entity as an "answer," seeking to and be replaced by a candidate who wins revolution as the only solution to the antiwar movement" the slogan "Bring the pressure the capitalist state into reform­ by a mere plurality. exploitation and racial oppression inher­ GIs home now" leaves open the question ing itself. Depending on which sector of The 135-candidate recall "circus" so ent in capitalist society. Marxists on of pursuing a similar bloc with a defeatist society it is interested in appeasing, each ridiculed by the capitalist media under­ principle will not vote for a capitalist wing of the bourgeoisie (which so far reformist group alters its position on the scores the effective disenfranchisement candidate-we stand for the complete does not exist). This is particularly true recall accordingly. For example, when the of the population under the U.S. two­ independence of the working class from as the SWP has never repudiated its line AFL-CIO tops circled the wagons and party system that creates huge obstacles the bourgeoisie. Under certain circum­ in the Vietnam anti war movement, which committed millions of dollars to defend to getting on the ballot, restricting the stances, a small communist organization served to channel leftist students back "friend of labor" Davis to the end, offerings to Democrats and RepUblicans might call for a vote to a mass reformist into the pro-Democratic mainstream. the Communist Party's People's Weekly and the occasional (today) Green or (his­ workers party, like the Labour Party in Furthermore, in the 1960s the SWP World (30 August) blared, "California torically) Progressive. (SWPer Britton Britain, in order to show the workers advanced the slogan, "Withdraw the Labor Thunders 'No Recall!'" and approv­ himself is on the ballot as an independ­ with illusions in that party that mice in troops from Viet N am and send them to ingly quoted California AFL-CIO head ent.) As soon as a loophole allowed for power, it would defend the intereSts of Mississippi," calling on the federal gov­ Art Pulaski calling Davis the "best gov­ easier entry into the race ($3,500 and 65 the capitalists and not the workers. Lenin ernment to "protect" civil rights activists ernor for working people we've had in signatures), a much broader spectrum of called this "support .. .in the same way as from racist attack. As we wrote at the 100 years." A truly pitiful statement of candidates emerged. All the same, news a rope supports a hanged man." In the time, "So the bourgeois imperialist army, political bankruptcy! articles on the recall focus as much on U.S. where there is no such party, if we currently engaged in massacring peas­ The AFL-CIO tops have no intention of the candidates' fund-raising as on the are unable to run our own candidates, we ants and workers in South Viet-nam, in actually mobilizing organized labor's "issues" themselves-indeed, the "elec­ have sometimes advocated critical sup­ burning their villages and defoliating social power to struggle for what workers tion" among the capitalist candidates port to a candidate whose electoral pro­ their land, and imprisoning the people in really, need. Instead they function as the resembles nothing so much as an auction gram in some key way represents a break 'strategic hamlets' -this army, says the best lackeys for the false "friend of labor" to the highest bidder! with capitalist rule. In this spirit we sup­ SWP, should be transferred to the Ameri­ Democrats, who will throw some crumbs As Lenin wrote, universal suffrage port Britton's candidacy. can South! To advocate sending the U.S. to the exploited while they make off with such as exists in the United States is: We support Britton's statement, "Our Special Forces into Mississippi is treach­ the feast (the Republicans don't bother to "Democracy for an insignificant minor­ campaign demands the immediate and ery to the Negro struggle" (Spartacist leave crumbs). Gray Davis did overturn ity, democracy for the rich-that is the unconditional withdrawal of U.S. forces election supplement, October 1964). The some of former Republican governor Pete 10 WORKERS VANGUARD Wilson's most anti-labor moves (for an ostensible socialist, Britton, running example, the recalculation of overtime on a platform of opposition to the war regulations favoring the bosses), while and occupation and to the capitalist with the other hand he instituted mass parties, the ISO instead toys with support layoffs, pay cuts and slashing of social for the candidate of the "progressive" programs. And when Bush threatened to capitalist Green Party. militarize the docks during last year's In an article opposing support for lockout of longshore workers, the Davis Democratic "lesser evils," the ISO argues administration jumped into the "war on that "liberals like Kucinich have an terror" by setting up the California Anti­ important role to play for the Democratic Terrorist Information Center (CATIC) Party. Rather than pulling the party to the that conspired with Oakland mayor Jerry left, they pull the left into the party" Brown in the brutal April 7 police attack (Socialist WO'rker, 22 August). The ISO against antiwar protesters and longshore­ plays exactly this role outside the Demo­ men at the Port of Oakland. cratic Party. The ISO was the most fer­ Pleading with the government to cease vent exponent in the antiwar movement such attacks builds dangerous illu­ of ever-broader coalitions that delivered sions that the government can be made to outrage over the imperialist rape of Iraq serve the workers' interests. The Workers to ... the Democratic Party. And to what World Party correctly points out that does the ISO look for an alternative? Another capitalist party, the Greens, "organizing for a no vote on the recall Ted Mendoza gives legitimacy to the Gray Davis Janitors of SEIU Local 1877 rally outside San Francisco City Hall, August 5. which it paints as a progressive third­ administration" (Workers World online, 4 party alternative to the two parties of September). But in the past, the WWP has The 1934 gubernatorial candidacy of to be split on the question of advocating "Corporate America." not balked at voting for capitalist politi­ the author Upton Sinclair provides a a vote for him. In a letters column in A socialist program has to begin by cians-witness its support for Jesse Jack­ useful reminder. Once described as "the Socialist Worker (1 August), Bay Area telling the truth about this class society, son in 1984 and 1988. Today in Califor­ Kerensky of the Progressive movement," ISO honcho Todd Chretien came out the necessity for revolution and the task nia, it advocates a vote for candidate Sinclair won the Democratic primary on with a crass pro-Democratic Party line, of building a workers party politically C. T. Weber of the Peace and Freedom his program of "End Poverty in Califor­ calling to "reject the Republican power independent of the bosses' parties. As we Party (PFP), a petty-bourgeois formation. nia." At that point, establishment inter­ grab for what it is and vote 'no' on the state in our Programmatic Statement, Weber campaigns to keep Gray Davis in ests launched a major attack: conser­ recall," then "build a real left-wing alter­ "For Socialist Revolution in the Bastion office, saying, "Vote 'NO' on this flawed vatives threw their weight behind the native" by supporting Camejo. In Inter­ of World Imperialism!": "The shell game through which the and dangerous recall" (undated Peace and Republicans while the liberals backed national Socialist Review (September­ Democratic Party-the historic party of Freedom Party campaign pamphlet). The the candidate of the Progressive Party. October 2003), a document from the ISO the Confederate slavocracy-is por­ PFP might stand for some good-sounding Sinclair narrowly lost the election, but Steering Committee advocates abstaining trayed as the 'friend' of blacks and labor things, like "Free education through the his campaign was a clear example of a on the recall and, referring to Camejo's has been essential to preserving the rule university level." But Weber's stand for a candidacy, says, "If he gives an indication of racist American capitalism. Our princi­ bourgeois candidate attempting to pull in pal task in the U.S. is to break the power "California run by and for working peo­ leftists who do not have a central com­ of running a serious campaign, we should of the pro-capitalist trade-union bureauc­ ple" is just empty words-the PFP does mitment to the working class. have no hesitation about endorsing him racy over the labor movement. It is not stand for a break with the capitalist Green Party candidate Peter Camejo again. But at this point, we should reserve this bureaucracy-itself a component of parties and a fight for a workers gov­ plays the same role today. The "progres­ judgment." When ISO members are asked the Democratic Party-which politically chains the proletariat to the bourgeoisie ernment. The PFP is really just a sandbox sive" stockbroker stands for a "fair tax why they don't support Camejo since and is the major obstacle to revolution­ for homeless leftists who have long since plan" and "fiscal responsibility"-that is, their organization went all out for Green ary class consciousness, to the forging of made their peace with bourgeois society. he hawks himself as a better administra­ Party candidate Nader in his 2000 presi­ a revolutionary workers party." Insofar as they ever acquire influence, the tor and fund-raiser for the capitalist dential bid, they reply that Camejo No vote to capitalist candidates! For a role of such capitalist "third parties" has government. The International Socialist doesn't have a movement behind him. class-struggle workers party to fight for historically been to get the working class Organization (ISO) calls Camejo a "gen­ It's clear that the ISO has no class cri­ a workers government! For international back on the road to electoralism-that is, uine progressive" and supported his teria but fixes its political stands based socialist revolution to open a new period they act as a shill for the Democrats. gubernatorial bid in 2002. But it appears on which way the wind is blowing. With of human development!.

paign to murder Saddam Hussein. Such mento is not our salvation. The only hope Arafat ... assassinations have been carried out under DuBois ... for us is for workers, unions to support Democratic and Republican administra­ each other like we're doing today." ( continued from page 1) ( continued from page 2) tions alike. Indeed, when it comes to sup­ Addressing the rally, DuBois said, "You Bank town of Tulkarm and dumped them port to the Zionist state, the Democrats officer. Black janitor Theresa Walker, a can't find anybody in the White Pages, in a nearby camp for three days. Israeli are at least as rabid as the Republicans. Local 444 E-Board member who played a Yellow Pages or anywhere else that really liberal Uri Avnery called the operation Gaza and West Bank residents who key role in organizing the rally, was the co­ fights for black rights, for labor rights, "an army exercise and test to see how the have expressed their sense of betrayal by emcee. The understaffed janitors have except right home in our union." Empha­ world, the media, and the Israeli public the PLO leadership for abandoning the been the most under the gun, their work­ sizing the need for the unions to take would react. And there was no reaction, right of return and accepting the Zion­ load constantly increased while manage­ up the cause of black freedom, he called which proves that it can be done. The ist state's dictates nevertheless rallied to ment threatens to contract out their jobs. for a workers party that unites these people on the trucks could easily have Arafat's defense, reflecting their recogni­ One-third of DuBois' co-workers defied struggles. been taken to the Jordan River bridges"­ tion that all their lives are at stake as well the intense intimidation in the meter­ For decades, the pro-capitalist AFL­ i.e., expelled from the Occupied Territo­ and their disgust at Israel telling them reading department to show their support CIO leadership's purely legalistic 'strat­ ries entirely. who their leaders should be. Despair at the rally. The alternate steward there told egy of voting Democrat and collaborating Arafat has repeatedly shown himself to fueled by the PLO's bankrupt program of WV that his department was also badly with the bosses and their government has be a pliant and willing tool of the imperi­ appeasemept has invited anti-woman, understaffed. Signs and chants called for weakened the ability of the unions to alists and the Zionist rulers, not least in anti-Semitic fundamentalists like Hamas hiring more janitors and meter readers. defend themselves. At the rally, Local the signing of the 1993 Oslo, "peace" to pose as fighters against the Zionist The rally featured a kind of debate 444 member Best told the truth when accords, which he still sees as his great occupation. These arch-reactionaries with as some union officials who did come he said, "But like the Republicans, the triumph. That cynica1 fraud created a Pal- . their program of indiscriminate bomb­ out in defense of DuBois urged support Democratic Party represents the inter­ estinian patchwork of mini-bantustans ings of civilians in Israel serve only for the Democrats. In fact, by mobilizing ests of the bosses. It's an illusion to think and authorized an impotent Palestinian to reinforce Zionist chauvinism among the unions' own power this rally stood we can pressure EBMUD's Board of Authority whose only purpose was to use the Hebrew-speaking masses and thus counterposed to the political program of Directors or the Democrats in Sacra­ its CIA-trained police to repress the long­ help the Israeli capitalist rulers cover up the labor bureaucracy, which is to rely mento to take our side.... We need our suffering Palestinian masses on behalf of for their Nazi-like policies against the on Democratic Party or other capitalist own party-not an electoral party but a the Zionist occupiers. That Sharon & Co. Palestinians. "friends of labor." Indeed, union mem­ fighting workers party that on a large now threaten to kill Arafat is a statement Today the Palestinians face bulldozed bers expressed frustration that some scale organizes our strength as we have that "negotiations" and the "road map" homes, barbed wire fencing, electronic union officials who had been busy work­ here today, to fight for the are a thing of the past. Underlining that sensors, guard towers, concrete walls, ing to support California governor Gray interests of workers, blacks, immigrants point, Israel last week rejected out of checkpoints and roadblocks. Gaza's Davis in the current recall election did not and women." hand an offer of a cease-fire by Islamic entire border has been surrounded by come to the rally. Local 444 was among many unions, Jihad and Hamas and Arafat. electrical fencing for some time, and now Alameda County CLC head Judy Goff including longshore Local 10, which Israel's rulers are barely restrained on the West Bank is also being carved up and portrayed the problem as the Republican endorsed the labor-centered, united-front a loose leash by their U.S. imperialist surrounded by a wall, turning the area Bush administration attacking the unions mobilization initiated by the Partisan patrons, for the time being, fearful that into a network of holding pens and ghet­ because the unions mobilize votes for Defense Committee and the Bay Area the elimination of Arafat would only fur­ tos. Since 1993, the number ofsettlers­ supposedly more labor-friendly Demo­ Labor Black League for Social Defense ther inflame Arab hostility to the U.S., ultra-chauvinist armed auxiliaries of the crats. As she told a WV reporter, "We in Oakland on February 9, 2002 under the which is already embroiled in an ongoing military occupation-in the West Bank, have people power that we put together call: "No to the USA-Patriot Act and the guerrilla war in Iraq. But while Washing­ Gaza and East Jerusalem has grown to when it comes to the electoral process." Maritime Security Act! Down With the ton mouths opposition to Israel's threats more than 400,000. At the same time it Local 444 president Reggie Moore Anti-Immigrant Witchhunt!" This multi­ against Arafat, it vetoed a UN Security issued its warning against Arafat, the advocated the unions "organize at the bal­ racial show of union power in defense Council resolution condemning moves to Israeli government released seven settlers lot box to put Directors [members of of all the oppressed was mobilized by a deport or kill the Palestinian leader. The who were being held for deadly attacks EBMUD's elected administrative board] political program to organize workers U.S. ruling class certainly has never had against Palestinians. in office who stand with workers and then independent of all the parties and agen­ qualms about assassination as a tool of its Defense of the Palestinian people is hold them accountable." cies of the capitalists. The kind of fight­ foreign policy, from the killing of Congo­ the urgent duty of the international work­ In contrast, Local 2019 president Mor­ ing workers party that does this on a large lese nationalist Patrice Lumumba in 1961 ing class! All Israeli troops and settlers gan pointed out in his rally speech that scale is the weapon we need to bring to the repeated attempts to assassinate out of the Occupied Territories! All U.S. "Washington, D.C. is not our salvation .... about a society where those who labor, Cuba's Fidel Castro and the current and allied imperialist forces out of the Republicans and Democrats rolled over rule. An injury to one is an injury to all­ "global war on terror," including the cam- Near East!. and played dead with Patriot Act I. Sacra- Reinstate Charles DuBois'! • 26 SEPTEMBER 2003 11 WfJlilllliS """'lil)

Break with the Democrats! Forge a Class-Struggle Workers Party! California: Vote Yes to Recall Davis! No Vote to Capitalist Parties!

OAKLAND, September 23-Cali­ convenient scam designed to pit fornia's widely hated Democratic petty-bourgeois homeowners against m unions and government workers. governor Gray Davis has achieved The real beneficiaries were large the distinction of becoming the first commercial property owners, who in the state's history to face a recall in San Francisco alone reaped an election, originally scheduled for annual windfall of some $600 mil­ October 7, then postponed by a fed­ lion as a result of Prop B." eral court ruling and today resched­ Some bourgeois pundits are now uled for October 7. With a person­ looking to Prop 13 as a scapegoat on ality to match his name, a penchant which to hang the crisis and are for bureaucratic viciousness and an mooting a partial rollback of Prop 13 obsession for venal campaign fund­ with respect to commercial property. raising, Davis has become the focus However, the same forces that fueled for discontent arising from the pro­ Prop 13 are the motor behind the longed economic crisis rocking the recall petition, led by the conserva­ state. As the witty scribe Alexander tive, anti-immigrant, anti-affirmative Cockburn put it, "Gray Davis! There action, millionaire Republican Con­ was a time once when 'lesser of gressman Darrell Issa (who now two evils' actually meant something vows to call for a "no" vote on the momentous, like the choice between recall if the Republican vote remains starving to death on a lifeboat, or eat­ split among two or more candidates, ing the first mate. Was there ever a Arnold Schwarzenegger Gray Davis threatening a Democratic victory). In man who brought the always gray gathering the two million or so sig­ phrase 'lesser of two evils' into greater masses as a whole behind a fight for free, populous state now has the lowest credit natures to get the recall on the ballot, disrepute?" (CounterPunch, 9 August). quality education and health care, for free rating of any state government, approach­ organizers targeted rural and suburban The California recall has assumed mass transit, for full employment for all, ing junk-bond status. The one growth areas using buzz words like "overspend­ greater national importance as the two for an end to racial oppression and anti­ industry that is guaranteed financing by ing taxpayers' money" to appeal to layers capitalist parties continue their petty immigrant discrimination, as part of the the near-bankrupt state government is the hostile to social welfare programs mini­ bickering over chads, sex and fund­ struggle for a socialist revolution. mammoth prison system, where predom- mally benefiting poor, immigrant, black raising-while they unite to stomp all and Latino residents. At the same time, over the world. The Republicans appear the recall has tapped into the broader dis­ to be aiming for a California power-grab content over the fiscal crisis and crippled as a stepping stone to the 2004 presiden­ Critical Support to the economy, raising everything from "poor tial elections. And the Democrats have schools" to the energy crisis on which the been hoping to win the recall through the Enron execs and the other energy compa­ courts, believing that any delay in the SWP for Governor nies got rich. election will favor Davis, who is now The recall campaign thus contains hurrying a spate of new legislation aimed truly volatile elements of a populist at rounding up more votes. Angling for The SWP platform, as printed in the inantly black and Latino inmates endure revolt. Davis cried right from the start the substantial Latino vote, he has signed official state ballot, calls for opposition to a living death in ever greater numbers. that the recall was part of a "right-wing legislation to issue California driver's U.S. imperialist military intervention; for The yearly state budget crisis in Sacra­ conservative agenda" trying to overturn licenses to undocumented immigrants­ the abolition of the death penalty; and for mento is now as regular as the seasons. the results of last November's "legiti­ which may be the only good thing to jobs for all at no cut in pay. Britton, a As Workers Vanguard No. 579 (2 July mate" election. While some on the left come out of these elections. longtime trade unionist, says, ''I'm for a 1993) commented in "California Killer imply to the contrary that the recall is a The Spartacist League advocates a . workers' and farmers' government, which Cutbacks": left-wing revolt, such inchoate populist "yes" vote on the recall as a vote of will abolish capitalism in the U.S. and "In part, the current budget represents anger can go either way, with the divid­ no confidence in Democrat Davis, and a join in the worldwide struggle for social­ the delayed impact of the 1978 Proposi­ ing line often being racism or anti­ vote for Joel Britton, the Socialist Work­ ism." Fine words (except "farmers"? In tion 13 ballot initiative, which put a cap immigrant chauvinism. Right-wingers on property tax increases. Prop 13 was a ers Party (SWP) candidate, for Davis' the U.S., that means agribusiness!). But de facto racist referendum aimed against are whipping up hysteria over the candi­ replacement as governor, as a vote against the SWP is not a step to the kind of revo­ social programs which particularly bene­ dacy of Democrat Cruz Bustamante capitalism and war. Normally, we would lutionary party the working class needs to fited blacks and other minorities-a continued on page 10 not consider giving even very critical sup­ fight for a workers government. In pro­ port to the SWP, whose quirky reformist gram and practice, the SWP is virtually ".".Willlll!W"llit ;m;,',:,,,,,r,;;,,,f_ - JP'_ ft_ .?""ii?if~- program and nominal existence do not uncritical of the trade-union bureaucracy, ·;@REAK· WtTHTHE D£MO~/~f!1P_:tINt>1 make them a particularly appetizing whose reliance on the "pro-labor" Demo­ , .. ~HAlN' LABOR I BLACK POWER!~' prospect. We originally decided to abstain crats and the ballot box is the biggest .YJ0RKERS PARTYTO ' on the recall because we want neither to obstacle to the working class exercising :SOCJALIST RE.VGLUTION1 support a capitalist politician, in this case its power. Thus, while it calls for "a fight­ , LEAGUE 4( the Democratic governor, nor to implic­ ing working-class alternative to the twin itly support a capitalist (likely Repub­ parties of imperialist war and occupa­ lican) replacement. The SWP's elec­ tion," the SWP dodges the necessary w tion platform, which presents, in however political fight for working-class ind~pend­ crude a way, a working-class line, allows ence that will make that possible. us to make concrete and clear-cut our opposition to Davis while at the same California Scheming time expressing our opposition to the Beset by the nationwide depression Republicans' attempted electoral coup. sharpened by the dot.com bust, California What the working class needs is to faced a $38 billion deficit this year. forge, through political combat, a multi­ Republicans and Democrats united to racial, class-struggle workers party to close most of the gap by slashing social fight for a workers government. Such a programs and the wages and jobs of gov­ revolutionary party would mobilize the ernment workers, raising fees and taxes workers in defense of their own class that disproportionately target poor and WV Photo interests and in defense of the rights of working people and borrowing heavily at Oakland, 9 February 2002: Labor-centered mobilization against Patriot Act, the oppressed. It could unite the working high interest rates. The country's most anti-immigrant witchhunt.

12 26 SEPTEMBER 2003