,

soe No. 742 ....~ 22 September 2000

Fuel Protests Rock Europe The following article was written for Workers Vanguard by our comrades of the Spartacist League/Britain. LONDON, September 17-A blockade of oil refineries and depots by protesters brought Britain to the brink of total shut­ down in a matter of days and gave vent to the seething anger felt by millions of people against Tony Blair's Labour gov­ ernment. The protests were called off as Blair moved army fuel tankers into posi­ tion to break the blockade. Crucially aid­ ing Blair in this was the Labourite Trades Union Congress (TUC) bureauc­ racy which, meeting at its annual confer­ Truckers block road at German-Belgian ence at the height of the protests, moved border, September 13. Pr~tests against a resolution denouncing the blockades high fuel prices have paralyzed Britain as "a crude attempt to hold the country and other European countries. to ransom." The protesters have given the government 60 days to meet their the fundamental question is one of polit­ demand for lower fuel prices and, while ical programme and leadership. Forging a the petrol tankers have started rolling revolutionary proletarian party as the nec­ again, Labour's crisis is far from over. essary instrument to lead the working The effects of the blockade will be felt class in struggle, committed to nothing for weeks, while the hatred toward the less than victorious workers revolution arrogant Blair government remains. against the whole rotting capitalist Protests in Britain followed closely system, is the urgent task posed. It is such on similar blockades by French truckers a party that we in the Spartacist League! and farmers; protests have since erupted Britain seek to. build. throughout Europe and continue to spread Tony Blair, having been chased around from Ireland to Germany and Poland. Yorkshire by angry protesters, summoned These actions are hugely popular expres­ oil bosses and police chiefs to Downing sions of opposition to the social-demo­ Street, reportedly demanded they get cratic administrations of Blair, France's tough with the protesters and declared on Jospin and Germany's SchrOder which, as national television that within 24 hours capitalist governments, seek to jack up the oil tankers would be back on the the bosses' bloated profits through devas­ roads. In order for Blair's boast to tating attacks on the livelihoods of the become a reality, unionised tanker drivers working people, dismantling welfare pro­ had to drive the tankers out and break the grammes and grinding down the poor. blockade which they had supported until Exorbitant taxes on items such as petrol then. Enter the trade-union bureaucrats, and diesel fuel are regressive taxes which AP whose slavish loyalty to "their" anti­ hit poor and working people hardest. In stake-cheaper fuel prices-is clearly in direct them clearly against the real cul­ working-class Labour government and "rip-off Britain," fuel prices are higher the interests of .the working class, as was prit: capitalism and the Labour govern­ the bourgeois order it upholds knows no than anywhere else in Europe. Taxes and reflected in the overwhelming support ment which administers it. The fuel cri­ bounds. Initially, many drivers refused to duties make up 76 per cent of the price of for the protests among the population as sis is the most acute social crisis Britain move oil except for emergency supplies. unleaded petrol, which costs around 80 a whole. has seen since the great miners strike of But the bureaucracy of the Transport and pence a litre [$4.37 a gallon]. In the past , The attitude of Marxists to such petty­ 1984-85. It has starkly illustrated the General Workers Union (TGWU) scan­ 18 months alone, the cost of petrol has bourgeois mobilizations is based upon the venal nature not only of Labour but par­ dalously instructed their members to risen by 18 pence a litre. The cost of pub­ target of the protests and the nature of the ticularly of the trade-union bure.aucracy, bring the oil out. A TGWU press release lic transport is astronomical, as is the cost demands raised: do they further the inter­ which acted as Blair's partners in crime issued 12 September, the same day as of running a car. In an industrial society, ests of the proletariat? In this case, the . and played a decisive role in saving the Blair's ultimatum, said: "The Union cars are not a lUXUry but are essential for protests were clearly aimed at the Blair government's hide. which represents tanker drivers urged its vast numbers of workers to get to work. government and indeed the demand is one A tanker drivers strike would trans­ members to continue working as long as The blockades were initiated and led supportable from a proletarian stand­ form the protests into a mighty class it was safe to do so," adding "We urge the by farmers organisations and road haul­ point. Because of their position in society struggle against the Labour government. protesters to remove the blockades and age companies-small and medium-sized between the two classes with social It could appeal to rail and all transport allow our members to resume deliveries." capitalist companies, often employers power-the capitalists and the working workers to strike the railways and the TGWU general secretary Bill Morris in their own right-who are driven by class-groups like the farmers and haul­ privati sed public transport system which egged on the cops, saying "If they are the need to compete with their rivals iers will swing widely in their orientation, is equally hated. Such a mobilisation by breaking the law, the protesters should be in other countries, particularly within sometimes militantly protesting along­ the union membership requires impla­ arrested" (Guardian, 13 September). the European Union.The protests also side the workers and sometimes becoming cable opposition to the pro-capitalist According to a report in the Sunday enjoyed tacit support from the giant oil the recruiting grounds for the fascists. trade-union bureaucracy. While the oil Telegraph (17 September): "While Mr corporations, at least at first. While the A revolutionary leadership of the blockade used militant tactics, and gen­ Blair pondered sending in the troops, forces leading this revolt were for the workers movement must seek to t~e the tleman farmers were heard to repeat the [finance minister] Mr [Gordon] Brown most part petty-bourgeois, the issue at lead of protests such as these in order to fashionable phrase "direct action works," continued on page 11

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o o1""1 ..- 00 ...:t "Marxist Politics or "­ N lI'\ N Unprincipled Combinationism?': .. " ,... LOS ANGELES, September 18-For the clerks, who are also without a contract, past three days, a solid strike by 4,300 bus are walking the UTU picket lines carry­ drivers and train operators has shut down ing handmade signs in solidarity with the the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit strike. Teamsters members are refusing Authority (MTA). The heavily black and to drive the extra buses set up by the sub­ Latino strikers are members of the United urban Metrolink light-rail system to Transportation Union (UTU). The union shuttle passengers from Union Station has refused to give in to the MTA's de­ to other parts cif the city, stymying the mand to switch 400 drivers to a four-day bosses' strikebreaking scheme. L.A. transit strikers workweek, forcing them to be on the job All the MTA unions are targeted by have won wide for 13 hours a day at ten hours' pay. This a union-busting plan long pushed by support from working people would mean a pay cut of at least 15 per­ Republican mayor Richard Riordan, and minorities. cent for many drivers, and the increased MTA chief Julian Burke and Democrats hours, stress and fatigue are a recipe for on the MTA board like Zev Yaroslavsky to killing both workers and riders. create "regional transportation zones" While L.A. still relies heavily on cars, under so-called "local control." Their with the transit system expanding the model is the Foothill Transit zone, spun potential power of the transit workers off in 1987, which contracts out to private contracting out and the creation of a divi­ ica. If! was a driver, I would be on strike." has increased. On its first weekday bus companies with low pay and few ben­ sive "two-tier" wage system. In 1997, the The fabulous profits being raked in by today, the strike has shut down service efits. This was the core issue in an eight­ UTU leadership likewise agreed to the the capitalists in the much-touted "new for 450,000 riders. Amalgamated Transit day ATU strike six years ago, but the imposition of a "two-tier" scheme under economy" are the result of enormous Union (ATt]) mechanics and Transporta­ union tops caved in to MTA demands to which hundreds of part-time drivers have speedup and forced overtime and wage­ tion Communications International Union allow privatization of bus lines through been hired for as little as $8 an hour, slashing through "multi-tier" pay scales undercutting one of the few decent union and increasing use of low-paid part­ jobs available to blacks and Latinos in timers. These issues have repeatedly Bourgeois "Democracy": the city. fueled strikes in the last few years, from The city's rulers have tried to pit the the UPS Teamsters in 1997 to GM Flint Mask for Dictatorship of Capital largely poor and minority MTA ridership in '98 and Verizon phone workers this From the day the Bolshevik-led proletar­ against the strikers. The Los Angeles summer. "A backlash is building against iat in Russia seized power in the Octo­ Times (18 September) cynically reported the new economy's voracious appetite ber Revolution of 1917, social democrats that "particularly hard hit were immi­ for Americans' time," reports a New York inveighed against the proletarian dictator­ grants and the poor." Black Demo­ Times (17 S~ptember) article headlined ship in the name of "democracy." Polemiciz­ crat Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, an L.A. "Overtime Rises, Making Fatigue a ing against Social Democrats Karl Kautsky County supervisor and MTA board chair­ Labor Issue_" The article notes: "From and Philipp Scheidemann, a leading mem­ man, demanded that the strikers "stop 1886, when a potent eight-hour move­ ber of the German imperialist government, holding our city's poor and middle-class ment exploded in street violence in the TROTSKY Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin exposed the LENIN residents hostage." But like the janitors Chicago Haymarket, it took 52 years for hypocrisy of capitalist democracy as a cover strike by the heavily immigrant SEIU American society to agree on a 40-hour for brutal exploitation and oppression. In smashing the rule of the capitalists Local 1877 last spring, the transit strike workweek with the passage of the Fair and landlords in Russia and establishing the rule of workers councils (soviets), prole­ is widely popular. The low-wage Latino, Labor Standards Act in 1938. But now, tarian democracy, the October Revolution served as a beacon to the working masses immigrant and black workers, students the strains that the booming economy is internationally. and the elderly who rely on the MTA face putting on workers, especially women, The Scheidemanns and Kautskys speak about "pure democracy" and "democracy" in grinding poverty and racist oppression are reopening the debate_" general for the purpose of deceiving the people and concealing from them the bourgeois and look to the integrated transit unions as While the capitalists refuse to hire new character of present-day democracy. Let the bourgeoisie continue to keep the entire an organized, powerful force against the workers at union wages and full benefits, apparatus of state power in their hands, let a handful of exploiters continue to use the city establishment which has historically the sharp drop in real wages in the last 20 former, bourgeois, state machine! Elections held in such circumstances are lauded kept LA. an "open shop" town. A Los years has forced many older workers to by the bourgeoisie, for very good reasons, as being "free," "equal," "democratic" and Angeles Times (16 September) headline grab all the overtime they can get. What "universal." These words are designed to conce~l the truth, to conceal the fact that the acknowledged, "Bus Riders Share a Bond is necessary is a fight for a sliding scale of means of pro<,fuction and political power remain in the hands of the exploiters, and that With Drivers." One nursing student said, wages and hours-an automatic increase therefore real freedom and real equality for the exploited, that is, for the vast majority "I don't know much about the strike, but in wages to keep up with increases in the of the population, are out of the question. It is profitable and indispensable for the I know people are overworked in Amer- continued on page 11 bourgeoisie to conceal from the people the bourgeois character of modern democracy, to picture it as democracy in general or "pure democracy," and the Scheidemanns and the Kautskys, repeating this, in practice abandon the standpoint of the proletariat and spartacist~ Forums side with the bourgeoisie.... • . This is tantamount to trampling on .the basic truths of Marxism which has taught the workers: you must take advantage of bourgeois democracy which, compared with feu­ dalism, represents a great historical advance, but not for one minute must you forget the bourgeois character of this "democracy," its historically conditional and limited charac­ ter. Never share the "superstitious belief' in the "state" and never forget that the state even in the most democratic republic, and not only in a monarchy, is simply a machine for the suppression o.f one class by another. ... Saturday, October 7, 3 p.m. For more information and location: The dictatorship of the proletariat alone' can emancipate humanity from the oppres­ (312) 454-4930 sion of capital, from the lies, falsehood and hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy­ CHICAGO democracy for the rich-and establish democracy for the poor, that is, make the bless­ ings of democracy really accessible to the workers and poor peasants, whereas now (even"in the most democratic-bourgeois-republic) the blessings of democracy are, in fact, inaccessible to the vast majority of working people. -V.I. Lenin, "'Democracy' and Dictatorship" (December 1918)

Friday, September 29, 4 p.m. Folwell Hall, Rm. 50, Univ. of Minnesota 9 Pleasant St., S.E. !~!!!.!!or..4.!~!~l!.! ~ MINNEAPOLIS For information: (312) 454-4930 EDITOR: Len Meyers EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna Woodman PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mara Cadiz EDITORIAL BOARD: Barry James (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule, George Foster, Uz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Saturday, September 30, 7:30 p.m. Trinity-St. Paul's Centre Alison Spencer 427 Bloor Street West (near Spadina) The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth TORONTO For more information: (416) 593-4138 Internationalist). Workers Vanguard (iSSN 0276-0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the SpartaCist Pub­ lishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected]. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoInt. The closing date for news in this issue is September 19, Saturday, September 30, 3 p.m. Britannia Community Centre, Room L4 1661 Napier Street (off Comm.ercial Drive) No. 742 22 September 2000 VANCOUVER For more information: (604) 687-0353

2 WORKERS VANGUARD --Why I Broke from the YSA and Joined the SYC

We print below a letter to Young Spar­ political spectrum they could logically the working class. I began to work with Trotsky'S name is rarely mentioned. The tacus by Lital S., a Spartacus Youth Club understand the need for a new trial. But Youth for Socialist Action because I had YSA has no need to politically oppose member in Los Angeles. calling for a new trial does not exist as a friendly relations with many of their any anti-Marxist petty-bourgeois ideol­ politically neutral demand. The demand members and because they posed as an ogy (e.g., environmentalism, feminism) When I began attending UCLA in the stifles any real challenge to the state alternative. But what I observed a~ YSA because they have already incorporated it fall of 1998, my orientation session apparatus, which imprisoned Mumia in meetings and forums, which I attended into their own program! included only one black student out of the first place, by placing faith in the cap­ regularly, was that the YSA was not inter­ Another example is black national­ three hundred. Such was the initial result italist courts as though we Can pressure ested in educating its members about rev­ ism, which Socialist Action staunchly of the repeal of affirmative action, one of them to be fair. Within a few weeks after olutionary Marxism and how to apply it to supports. In a December 1995 article giv­ the last remaining gains of the Civil we returned back to UCLA, the coalition the world today. The organizers of the ing acclaim to Louis Farrakhan's pro­ Rights Movement. Having attended an pretty much disintegrated. Those who YSA did not want to challenge popular capitalist Million Man March, Socialist urban Los Angeles high school which remained were Youth for Socialist Action sentiments on campus for fear that they Action justified its support to black mainly consisted of blacks and Latinos, I (YSA) members and a few others such as would isolate themselves,so they capitu­ nationalism by claiming that "the right to was disgusted that so many of those faces myself who were not done with Mumia's lated to them instead. Such capitulation choose the road to freedom belongs to the I had seen growing up were absent at cause just because the protest was over. took the form that I had witnessed with oppressed nationality and to no one else. higher education institutions such as The breakdown of the coalition was a fur­ the Mumia <;:oalition, where instead of Class unity cannot be imposed on Black UCLA. I began to attend protests organ­ ther reiteration in my mind of the void educating people on winning Mumia's workers." Socialist Action does not have ized by the Affirmative Action Coalition liberalism leaves. Because the mobiliza­ freedom, they choose to push the call a program for black liberation so they (AAC) which was my initiation into tion was not organized around a greater for a new trial. It was not a coincidence adapt to the nationalists whose program "family of the left" politics at UCLA. The understanding of the racist nature of this that the new trial slogan was not only is not only utopian but also reactionary AAC was composed of various student capitalist state, it was easy for liberals posed by the Mumia coalition but also and divisive. Being both Jewish and a groups whose aims were centered on involved to flee his case and move on to by Socialist Action, even though YSA woman, black nationalism as represented pressuring the $300,000-a-year chancel­ other momentary interests. claimed that the two organizations were today by the likes of Farrakhan for obvi­ lor to stop purging UCLA of minority stu­ After going through two cycles of stu­ separate. My experience with the YSA ous reasons did not sit well with me. I dents. One such protest consisted of dent activism I was thoroughly disillu­ soon proved that I had not escaped the understood that black oppression is the about 300 students who took over Mur­ sioned with pressure politics. I was begin­ bankruptcy of reformism but had rather foundation of U.S. capitalism and that phy Hall and demanded that the chancel­ ning to understand that many of these plunged myself into its most disturbing black liberation is completely tied to the lor meet with us. The chancellor spewed student organizers were not interested in form, liberals with socialist pretensions. struggle for socialism. It is not difficult to platitudes about fostering diversity in the fundamentally changing society because There are a few members of the YSA observe that racial oppression is endemic UC system through funding groups ~uch that would mean renouncing their oppor­ who want to call themselves revolution­ to capitalism, that those who live in the as the African Student Union, while re­ tunities to have successful professional aries, something that is hard to do when ghettos of Los Angeles are predominantly fusing to sign a written statement acknowl­ careers. It was at that time that I began to the YSA's lO-point program does not black and Latino. edging the effects of dismantling affir­ look seriously at Marxism and to under­ call for a revolution once. They like to It must further be noted that the his­ mative action. Most of us left in tears, stand that it is not students who possess call themselves Trotskyists when no one tory of black struggle in the U.S. has feeling closer to each other, yet not really the social power to change society, but is looking, yet at meetings or forums continued on page 7 discussing why our politics were ineffec­ tive, why pressuring the chancellor was bankrupt. We should have been defending affirmative action but also fighting for open admissions, free tuition and for the campuses to be run by those who work and study there! After these failed pressure protests, I began to become active in the fight to free death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal on campus. This fight ..took the shape of the Student Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, organized by Students for Socialist Action (now called Youth for Socialist Action). The coalition comprised members from various student groups as well as independents such as myself. Everyone in the coalition agreed that Mumia was innocent and that was Der Spiegel the extent of political agreement. In all, While supposedly "Trotskyisf' Socialist Action hailed "democratic" capitalist counterrevolution jn Soviet Union, joining it proved to be more a gathering of social reactionaries and clericalists/monarchists (above, Orthodox priest on Yeltsin's barricades) in pushing foi' destruction of leftists who enjoyed artwork for Mumia workers state, Trotskyist ICL fought against capitalist restoration. Our placard and banner (below) at 7 November 1991 anti­ but who shied away from a serious Yeltsin Revolution Day demonstration in Moscow calls to "Return to the Road of Lenin and Trotsky"; ICL statement "Soviet understanding of what Mumia' repre­ Workers: Defeat Yeltsin-Bush Counterrevolution!" was mass distributed in the USSR. sented and how to fight black oppres­ sion in the United States. Our main focus was to educate students on Mumia's case through forums, video showings of A Case for Reasonable Doubt, and r==:.:~=~.,J ~'.Nl.' organizing carpools for the April 24th ••8TIIPIU.1(III81 1 f'."'.!:: [1999] "Millions for Mumia" protest in San Francisco. Our forums were well SOIIII Worklrs: attended, and we organized about 30 stu­ Deleal YellSin-Bush dents to go up to the Bay Area with us Counlenevolulionl for the protest. The flyers, pins, and ban­ ners all demanded that Mumia receive a "New Trial Now!" While I had very few illusions in the capitalist courts, I believed that calling for a new trial was the only "realistic" demand. When leafletting, I would appeal to people that Mumia received an unfair trial and so wherever one stood on the 22 SEPTEMBER 2000 3 KEY DOCUMENT OF U.S. TROTSKYIST MOVEMENT "Marxist Politics or Marxist Politics or Unprincipled prinCipled Comblnationlsm? Internal Problems of the Workers Party by Max Shachtmal1 Combination ism?" Reprinted from Internal Bulletin No~ 3,· February 1936, of the Workers Party of the United States Just- Out from Prometheus Research Library With Introduction and Appendices

The Prometheus Research. Library, archival and CLA apart. With no principled and program­ research facility of the Spartacist League/U.S., has just matic issues in dispute, Trotsky intervened in published tJ?e fifth in its Prometheus Research Series the spring of 1933 to put a stop to the polar­ of historical bulletins reprinting key documents of the ization. Shachtman subsequently went over Marxist movement. PRS No. 5 reprints a document by to collaboration with Cannon in pursuing the Max Shachtman titled "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled opportunities posed by the AWP and the Combinationism?" which was originally published in Feb­ growing SP left wing. But, as Shachtman ruary 1936 in the Internal Bulletin of the Workers Party admits toward the end of his document, the of the United States (WPUS), the American Trotskyist core of his former faction, still animated by organization at the time. Shachtman's document, written personal animosity to Cannon, continued to when he was a close collaQorator of Trotskyist leader exist. The Abern clique was the Shachtman- Get your copy now! Eighty-four pages, $6.00 (includes James P. Cannon, is an excellent presentation of Lenin­ ites ... without Shachtman. . postage). Order from/pay to: Spartacist Publishing Co., ist methods of internal party struggle, illuminated While providing one of the only detailed Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116. through the political disputes which were then roiling the accounts by a participant of the internal fac­ American Trotskyist movement. PRS No.5 also includes tional struggles in the later CLA and the WPUS, nature of the Soviet state. But he still united with Burn­ an introduction by the PRL and a previously unavailable Shachtman's document transcends the confines of the ham. Shachtman thus repudiated the organizational prin­ Al,lgust 1935 report by Cannon on the internal si~uation particular controversies that occurred over 60 years ago. ciples he outlines in "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled in the WPUS as well as an objection to this report writ­ It is a manual of internal party struggle, as cogent and Combinationism?" He reunited as well with his former ten by Albert Glotzer. instructive today as when it was written. Shachtman's factional partners in the Abern clique, who claimed to The 1930s were a time of tumultuous social struggles goal, as he noted in introducing his document, was to defend the USSR, opposing only Cannon's "organiza­ and political turmoil in the U.S. and internationally, pos­ train the members of the Workers Party, particularly the tional methods." ing opportunities for the building of a revolutionary many young members who had recently been recruited: The struggle against this petty-bourgeois opposition workers party. The WPUS was formed in December "The youth must be trained in the spirit of revolutionary -the last faction fight waged by Trotsky before his 1934 through a fusion of the Trotskyist Communist Marxism, of principled politics. Through its bloodstream assassination in 1940-is documented in Trotsky's In League of America (CLA) and a leftward-moving cen­ must run a powerful resistance to the poison of clique pol­ Defense of Marxism and Cannon's The Struggle for a itics, of subjectivism, of personal combinationism, of trist organization led by A. J. Muste called the American intrigue, of gossip. It must learn to cut through allsuperfi­ Proletarian Party. In his October 1939 "Speech on the Workers Party (AWP). When Shachtman wrote his docu­ cialities and reach down to the essence of every problem. Russian Question," reprinted in the latter book, Cannon ment, the Trotskyists were about to enter into the Social­ It must learn to think politically, to be guided exclusively declared: ist Party (SP) in order to win over its growing left wing. by political considerations, to argue out problems with "The Russian question is no literary exercise to be taken Shachtman's document deals with the internal political themselves and with others on the basis of principles and up or cast aside according to the mood of the moment. to act always from motives of principle." The Russian question has been and remains the question battle within the CLA against those who obstructed of the revolution. The Russian Bolsheviks on November fusion with the AWP and then went on within the Cannon's Tradition, Not Shachtman's 7, 1917, once and for all, took the question of the WPUS to obstruct or oppose entry into the SP. workers' revolution out of the realm of abstraction and This factional battle pitted a Leninist core around This document does not represent the political posf~ gave it flesh and blood reality." Cannon and Shachtman against an ultraleft grouping led tions or methodology attributable to the Jater political In May 1940, Shachtman-Burnham-Abern split from by Hugo Oehler and a rightist clique· grouped around current that bears Shachtman's name. Shachtmanism the Trotskyist movement to form the Workers Party, Martin Abern, Jack Weber and Glotzer. The document­ is correctly characterized by his renegacy-his flight which Burnham abandoned almost immediately to was written after Oehler and;his supporters were ex­ from Trotskyism in 1939~40 when on the eve of World become an open bourgeois anti-Communist. Shacht­ pelled in late 1935 for repeated; flagrant violations of War IT, under the influence of the petty-bourgeois anti- man's Workers Party-not to be confused with the ear­ lier WPUS-soon joined Burnham in proclaiming the Soviet Union a new form of class society. But they still claimed to be Trotskyist and even to support the Fourth International until 1948. Under the impact of the renewed Left to right: anti-Communist hysteria of the Cold War, the Shacht­ Martin Abern, manites moved rapidly to the right, ultimately liquidat­ James Cannon, ing into the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation Max Shachtman. in 1958. Backing the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba Shachtman's and the vicious, losing imperialist war against the Viet­ document exposed namese social revolution, Shachtman ended his days in and combatted Abern's- unprincipled the right wing of the Democratic Party. combination ism Notwithstanding Shachtman's later evolution, this against "Cannon document is a major contribution to the arsenal of those regime" as obstacle to seeking to build an international vanguard party in the forging revolutionary Leninist tradition. As the PRL's Introduction to PRS No. workers party. S states: "Unlike the Stalinists, we do not disappear people from history and we do not denigrate the contributions made by renegades when they were still guided by Marxism and Communist hysteria which greeted the August 1939 Hitler­ were active proponents of the workers' struggle against party discipline. Shachtman aimed most of his fire at the capitalism. Rather, we follow the example of Lenin, who poisonous personalism which had led the Abern-Weber­ Stalin pact, he abandoned the program of unconditional continued to urge his followers to study. the early works Glotzer group to obstruct the necessary fight against military defense of the Soviet Union against imperialism of Plekhanov despite his social-patriotism during World Oehler, noting that the basis of this group was "that· of and capitalist counterrevolution. In this, Shachtman took War I and his opposition to the October Revolution. In an unprincipled personal combination, of a clique that his lead from the bourgeois pedant and New York Uni­ earlier years, it was Plekhanov who not only translated Marx's works into Russian but actively recruited a new refuses to live down ancient and completely outlived versity professor James Burnham, a former leader of the generation to Marxism; one of those was Lenin. Shacht­ personal and factional animosities." AWP- who was won to revolutionary Trotskyism in the man's document was written during the period when he Shachtman had intimate personal knowledge of the course of the fight in the WPUS. By 1939, Burnham collaborated closely with Cannon and Trotsky, and it origins and methods of the Abern-Weber clique. In the denied the Trotskyist understanding that the Soviet belongs in our tradition." early CLA, Shachtman had been the leader of a group of Union remained a bureaucratically degenerated workers It is not Shachtman the Trotskyist leader, but Shacht­ young cadre that included Abern, Glotzer and Maurice state, i.e., one based on proletarian (collectivized) prop­ man the renegade who is today embraced by a host of Spector. This group had counterposed itself to the older, erty forms despite the political counterrevolution in fake leftists who likewise repudiated Soviet-defensism more experienced worker militants around Cannon in a 1924 which usurped political power from the working and capitulated to their "own" bourgeoisie during the vicious internal struggle which threatened to tear the class. Shachtman claimed to be agnostic on the class Cold War IT offensive which culminated in the destruc- 4 WORKERS VANGUARD tion of the Soviet Union in 1991-92. Thus "Marxist Pol­ Even before the fusion with the AWP, the CLA leader­ itics or Unprincipled Combinationism?" does not appear ship had been probing the emerging left wing in the at all in the lengthy tome of reprints of Shachtmanite American Socialist Party. The CLA's factional group­ articles produced in Britain by Labourite social-patriot ings had agreed to dissolve with the fusion, but in the Sean Matgamna, The Fate of the Russian Revolution: WPUS the Oehlerites continued their agitation against Lost Texts of Critical Marxism, Volume I (see "The the "French turn," labeling it as the ICL's "capitulation" Bankruptcy of 'New Class' Theories-Tony Cliff and to social democracy. Entry into the SP was not a fea­ Max Shachtman: Pro-Imperialist Accomplices of Coun­ sible tactic for the Trotskyists so long as the right wing terrevolution," Spa rta cist [English-language edition] continued to control the SP organization in New York. No. 55, Autumn 1999). Nor does Shachtman's docu­ However, Cannon and Shachtman insisted that the ment get even a passing mention in Peter Drucker's WPUS had to pay attention to developments there. They 1994 biography, Max Shachtman andHis Left. geared up for an all-out political fight to stop the Oehlerites from paralyzing the party's activities. The Early American Trotskyist Movement Meanwhile, the Abern-Weber clique began filling The American Trotskyist movement was born in Muste's ears with slanders about Cannon's "organiza­ October 1928, when Cannon, Shachtman and Abern tional methods," causing Muste to waver in the fight were expelled from the Workers (Communist) Party against Oehler. (Muste would eventually oppose the SP (CP) for Trotskyism. As a delegate to the Sixth Con­ entry, leaving the Trotskyist movement to return to paci­ gress of the Communist International (CI) earlier that fist activism.) A worker who had come from the AWP year, Cannon had received a partial copy of Leon described his first experience of factional struggle and Trotsky'S "Critique of the Draft Program of the Commu­ the impact of Cannon's intervention at a June 1935 nist International," later published in The Third Interna­ WPUS plenum: tional After Lenin. Thoroughly convinced by Trotsky's "This Bolshevik method of a free, democratic, organized trenchant exposure of the Comintern's abandonment of a factional struggle to settle serious differences over pro­ revolutionary perspective, Cannon returned home to gram and policy was brand new to us .... "Jim's speeches gave us our first lesson in the ABCs of organize for the Trotskyist opposition. The CLA, which principled Marxist politics as he fairly but mercilessly became the u.s. section of the International Left Oppo­ dissected the political position of each group in our bloc. sition (ILO), was founded in May 1929 by Cannon and We noticed at once that Jim didn't stoop to petty debater's points or misrepresent an opponent's position. He stated some 100 of his former factional supporters in the CP, Basil Blackwell, Inc. most of whom had been expelled simply for questioning each position fully and fairly and answered them squarely Red Army commander Leon Trotsky addresses in such a way as to obtain the maximum educational the propriety of his expulsion. Soviet troops in 1920. value for the membership .... The ILO considered itself an expelled faction of the "For the first time it became apparent to us that each Comintern-fighting to return the CI to the program and tarian revolutionists to reactionary scoundrels and fak­ member of our bloc had different principles and motives practice that had animated it during its first four years ers." Besides contending with Oehler's ultrllleft opposi­ for joining the bloc. Jim put the right name on it-an of existence-until 1933. That year, Hitler's Nazis came unprincipled bloc." tion within the CLA, the CLA leadership had to politi­ - Essay by Ted Grant in James P. Cannon . to power in Germany without organized resistance by cally isolate or at least neutralize the right wing of the As We Knew Him (1976) the powerful working class. The Social Democracy had AWP. As Cannon expiained, "Our political task was to The Oehlerites' position was rejected at a subsequent been a prop of the German capitalist order since World prevent the Stalinists from swallowing up this move­ plenum in October. A few months later, the SP's right War I. But the German Communist Party-which com­ ment, and to remove a centrist obstacle from our path by wing split away, making a Trotskyist entry an immediate manded the allegiance of millions of workers-also effecting a unity with the proletarian activists and the possibility. "Marxist Politics or Unprincipled Combina­ allowed Hitler to triumph, and no opposition was raised serious people, isolating the frauds and fakers, and dis­ tionism?" was written on the eve of a March 1936WPUS within the Comintern to this disastrous course. At that carding the unassimilable elements." convention where the Cannon-Shachtman faction finally point, Trotsky called for new communist parties and a In Europe, left currents were emerging from within obtained a decisive mandate in favor of the "French turn" new, Fourth International. The ILO reconstituted itself the reformist social-democratic parties. France was in as applied to the American SP. After an entry lasting less as the International Communist League (ICL). the throes of social crisis, with a combative proletariat than two years, the Trotskyists had doubled in size, hav­ Under the blows of the Great Depression and Hitler's on one side and a growing fascist movement on the ing acquired the majority of the SP youth and valuable rise to power, a number of reformist and centrist cur­ other, and workers and youth began flocking into the accretions of trade unioni~ts in the maritime industry. In rents were impelled to the left. The ICL sought to effect social-democratic SFIO. In June 1934, Trotsky proposed his History of American Trotskyism, Cannon noted how a regroupment of revolutionary forces, and the CLA's that the French ICL section, the Ligue Communiste, the entry had dealt a death blow to the SP: "Since then negotiations with the AWP were part of this regroup­ enter the SFIO in order to split away its left-wing cur­ the SP has progressively disintegrated until it has virtu­ ment effort. A former pacifist and preacher, Muste had rents and \vin them to Bolshevism. Trotsky's call for ally lost any semblance of inilut:IlI;t: in any pariy of the been active in the labor movement since 1919, and what became known as the "French turn" met internal labor movement" his Conference for Progressive Labor Action, which opposition from various sectarian elements, most of The Socialist Workers Party was formed in January became the AWP, had been the most visible force for whom ended up abandoning the ICL. It is not unusual 1938, and was the Trotskyist party in the U.S. until "progressive," but generally pro-capitalist, trade-union for a revolutionary party, in a period of sharp political the early 1960s, when it departed from the Leninist pro­ activism. But at their convention in late i933, Muste's turn, to generate internal conservative oppositions to gram with its uncritical embrace of Castro in Cuba and supporters declared the necessity of building a new rev­ new tasks. In the U.S., Oehler opposed the application black nationalism in the U.S. This centrist degeneration olutionary party, insisting: of this Leninist tactic of splits and fusions, arguing that it culminated in full-blown reformism in 1965, when the "The revolutionary struggle of the masses against the cap­ represented a liquidation of the vanguard party. Trotsky italist system which more and more depresses their stan­ SWP began pushing for a class-collaborationist "anti­ dard of living, takes various forms .... The primary form responded to such arguments: ''The League is not yet a war" strategy in the protests against the Vietnam War. is the economic struggles of the worker and farmer. The party. It is an embryo, and an embryo needs covering The Revolutionary Tendency, precursor to the Spartacist struggle is, however, inspired, coordinated, carried to its and nourishment in order to develop." League, arose in the SWP in opposition to the party's goal of taking power, by the revolutionary political party." The formative years of the International Left Opposi­ centrist degeneration and was bureaucratically expelled In 1934, the AWP led the Toledo Auto-Lite strike and tion had been devoted to steeling the cadre of a propa~ by the SWP leadership in 1963. the CLA led militant strikes for union recognition by the ganda group on the basis of Bolshevik principles. Now it Minneapolis Teamsters. These two major union victo­ was necessary, as Shachtrnan explained in his document, '·Tamiment Conference Organizers ries, along with the CP-Ied San Francisco general strike, to seize on the outbreak of class struggle to present Promote "Death of Trotskyism" laid the basis for the working-class upsurge that built the these "formerly elaborated principles to the masses in For Marxists, historical evaluation is not a religious act CIO later that decade. Unity negotiations between the the form of agitational, day-to-day slogans" and to go designed to uphold the essential purity of our forebears. AWP and CLA were propelled by these victories. from there to building a party "which can discharge the Rather it is an act of critical materialist investigation The AWP had been moving to the'left, but it remained responsibilities incumbent upon an organization claim­ designed to aid us in the achievement of our goal: the an extremely heterogene~)Us organization. As Cannon ing to defend the daily as well as the historical interests establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat around described it in his History ofAmerican Trotskyism, "The of the proletariat, which can actually set masses into the world, the first step on the road to a classless, membership of the AWP included everything from prole- motion-in other words, a party of action." continued on page 6

1934: Trotskyist CLA press reported Toledo Auto-Lite strike led by A.J. Muste's AWP (left), Minneapolis Teamsters strike led by CLA. Labor ~.5P:!!fJrAJ!T e. victories helped lay basis for fusion of CLA and STRIKE WAVE SWEEPS COUNTRY AWP later that year. II in T~~Union RecOanition G.i ~£:::-~ :-.:-_ 'Mhnt, MinnapoI;. I

22 SEPTEMBER 2000 5 of the Cannon and Shachtman "traditions." PRS ... All three are supporters of the United Secretariat (continued from page 5) (USec) which was led, until his death in 1995, by Ernest Mandel. Now Mandel's heirs, having capitulated to commmiist society. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and increasingly embraced social-democratic anti­ the defining event of the 20th century, is our essential ref­ Communism during the anti-Soviet war drive of the ·erence point. Trotskyism was forged in the struggle to 1980s, plan to drop all mention of the Fourth Interna­ defend the gains of the October Revolution-both mate­ tional-or indeed the fight for proletarian revolution­ rial and ideological-against the Stalinist usurpers who from their statutes at their upcoming world congress. ultimately destroyed the world's first workers state. Writ­ While Wald, Le Blanc and Drucker all claim to have ing of his struggle to forge the Fourth International, discovered "new" reasons to junk the old Trotskyism, Trotsky noted: the politics they argue are, in fact, at least a century old: "For the sake of clarity I would put it this way. Had I not either a warmed-over version of the Second Inter­ been present in 1917 in Petersburg, the October Revolu­ tion would still have taken place-on the condition that national's "party of the whole class" or even harking Lenin was present and in command .... back to the eclectic political bloc that was the First "Thus I cannot speak of the 'indispensability' of my International. work, even about the period from 1917 to 1921. But now Another central speaker will be Pierre Broue, whose my work is 'indispensable' in the full sense of the word. mainmoth biography of Trotsky was tailored for the There is no arrogance in this claim at all. The collapse of neo-Bukharinite intelligentsia which promoted pro­ the two Internationals has posed a problem which none of RTsKhIDNI the leaders of these Internationals is at all equipped to capitalist "market reforms" in Gorbachev's USSR in the James P. Cannon with Red Army soldiers during solve. The vicissitudes of my personal fate have con­ 1980s (see "Pierre Broue's Trotsky-Tailored for Pere~ Communist International's Sixth Congress, Mos­ fronted me with this problem and armed me with impor­ stroika," Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 45- cow 1928. Cannon was won to Left Opposition tant experience in dealing with it. There is now no one 46, Winter 1990-91). Broue's Cahiers Leon Trotsky has after reading Trotsky's suppressed criticism of except me to carry out the mission of arming a new gener­ ation with the revolutionary method over the heads of the lately made a campaign out of defending the opposition draft program of Stalinized CI. leaders of the Second and Third International." led by Albert Goldman and Felix Morrow. which split -Trotsky's Diary in Exile (1935) from the SWP in 1946. Goldman and Morrow argued ,such "Trotskyists" is the direct result of their rejection A myriad of deserters from the Trotskyist move­ for unity between the SWP and Shachtman's Workers of the Trotskyist purpose. Comparing the value and reli­ ment-starting with Trotsky's great biographer, Isaac Party. They insisted that Cannon was wrong to project ability of Cannon's recollections of the early American Deutscher-have sought to label the fight in exile that revolutionary po~sibilities would open up in Europe Communist Party to those of other founding members to build an international organization based on the pro­ at the end of WW II, arguing instead that the Trotskyists wh9 had broken from Marxism, historian Theodore gram and principles which animated the Russian Revolu­ should emphasize democratic demands. Draper observed in his 1961 preface to Cannon's First tion as a quixotic and hopeless venture unworthy of a Proletarian revolution was in the air as WWII ended, Ten .Years of American Communism: "For a long time, I man of Trotsky'S intellectual stature. It is precisely the not so much in France where the Resistance movement wondered why Jim Cannon's memory of events in the rejection of Trotsky's fight to forge an instrument for the haa poisoned the air with anti-German nationalism, but Nineteen-Twenties was so superior to that of all the oth­ ers .... Unlike other communist leaders of his genera­ tion, Jim Cannon wanted to remember. This portion of his life still lives for him because he has not killed it within himself." The publishing program and archival collections of the Prometheus Research Library exist because we in the International Communist League seek to be the Trotskyists fought active subject of Trotskyist history, not passive com­ against capitalist mentators. The majority of participants in the Tamiment counterrevolution in conference are at best indifferent to our fight to forge an USSR and East Europe. instrument for the proletarian seizure of power. None­ Spartakist banner at theless, our documentary collections are open to revi­ January 1990 East Berlin demonstration: sionist "Trotskyist historians," too. It was Stalinism that "For a Red Germany of brought into the workers movement the pernicious idea Workers Councils in a that you couldn't share the time of day, let alone an old Socialist Europe!" document, with a political opponent. A representative of the PRL will be speaking at the conference. We believe the assiduous attempt to dis­ cover and document historical truth is in the interests of the proletarian revolution, and hence of all humanity. proletarian seizure of power which unites the "historian" in Italy and Greece. But the capitalists, under the cover We will be speaking in the tradition of Cannon and in organizers of the three-day conference, "Explorations in of Allied imperialist occupation and with the crucial the spirit of the Shachtman who collaborated with him in the History of U.S. Trotskyism," beginning September assistance of the Stalinists, succeeded in restabilizing the WPUS, the Shachtrnan who wrote in concluding his 29 at New York University's Tamiment Library. Flyers the tottering bourgeois order. (See the Introduction to document: for the conference whine that Trotskyism has often been PRS No.2, "Documents on the 'Proletarian Military "We have before us a truly breath-taking job: the building of a powerful Bolshevik party in the citadel of world reac­ seen "as sectarian and as idealizing the early Bolshevik Policy'," for more extensive treatment of this issue.) For tion. But this party will never be built-or if it is built, it tradition." Goldman and Morrow, this was empirical confirmation will never stand up in a crisis-unless it has as its spinal Already in 1995 conference organizer Alan Wald of their anti-revolutionary perspectives. In jumping to column a steel cadre: hard, tough, finn, flexible, tem­ proclaimed the "end" of American Trotskyism in the their defense, Broue reveals nothing so much as his pro­ pered. The two are inseparable: a cadre without a party is a skeleton without flesh or muscle; a party without a pages of Against the Current, a thesis he elaborated in pensity to reduce historical research to the worship of cadre is a mass of gelatine that anybody's finger can go Trotskyism in the United States (Humanities Press the accomplished fact. through. And how else will the Bolshevik cadre be tem­ [1996]), co-authored with Paul Le Blanc, who is also Broue complains that Cannon attacked Goldman and pered unless, on every occasion, it has hamme~d into it co-organizer of the conference. Le Blanc similarly Morrow as "used up and demoralized militants." But more and more of the wisdom we have tried to learn from insists that "an attempt to build a revolutionary socialist .. this was manifestly the case. Morrow became an open the great teachers: a deep respect for principle and a hatred for cliquism and intrigue, an equally deep regard party equivalent to the organizations of the early U.S. anti-communist soon after leaving the SWP while for objective judgement of problems and a suspicious Trotskyists will, in today's realities in the late 20th Goldman, after a brief sojourn in Shachtman's WP, intolerance of subjective and personal considerations, a century United States, tend to result in the creation of rejoined the Socialist Party. And their supporter, Jan Van political approach to all political problems and a political yet one more political sect" (Bulletin In Defense Of Heijenoort-a former secretary of Trotsky's who is a solution for them. Now more than ever before are these indispensable, for the revolutionists function today amid Marxism, May-June 1997). Featured speaker Peter special favorite of Broue's-later collaborated with the a veritable sea of corruption and decay of the old move­ Drucker infused his utterly superficial biography of FBI in order to remain in the U.S. ments, the poisonous fumes of which cannot but be felt in Shachtman with similar views, arguing for the melding The superficial quality of the historical research of our own ranks unless we constantly counteract them.".

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6 WORKERS VANGUARD workers state? The Russian Revolution in bands like Rage Against the Machine class program and mobilize behind the Why I Joined October 1917 was the first successful display the brave martyr on t-shirts. SA's social power of the multiracial working workers revolution that took Marxism out fake defense of Cuba boils down to class. When I turned away from the YSA of the realm' of theory and into practice. cheerleading for the Stalinist bureauc­ I did so with the hopes of finding a pro­ the SYC ... It laid the basis for a planned economy, racy. Castro, like all Stalinists, upholds gram that was truly revolutionary, that (continued from page 3) wi~h immense gains for the working class the dogma of socialism in one country, did not capitulate to liberal conscious­ been towards integration, black national­ which remained after Stalin's usurpa­ meaning pursuit of "peaceful coexis­ ness. When I first read James Cannon's ism gaining sway only during extreme tion of political power in 1923-24. What tence" with imperialism, as exemplified writings in Nofebook of an Agitator on moments of defeat. Full social, eco­ occurred in 1991-92 was a social counter­ when Castro advised the Nicaraguan the Sacco and Vanzetti case I noticed nomic, and political integration of blacks revolution led by Yeltsin which resulted Sandinistas not to expropriate the capi­ a disturbing similarity to where we are under capitalism is not possible. The only in the current economic misery Russians talists. SA refuses to call Castro a Stalin­ today with Mumia Abu-Jamal. Sacco and solution is-the fight for revolutionary inte­ are faced with today. China remains a ist because if they did, their basis for Vanzetti were Italian anarchists who in grationism through socialist revolution. deformed workers state with a planned "defense" would be gone. Massachusetts in 1920 were falsely con­ By giving political support to black economy that is under constant threat One must wonder how Socialist Action victed of robbing and killing the paymas­ nationalism, Socialist Action denies that of imperialist intervention and internal can claim solidarity with Cuba when they ter and guard of a shoe company. Their the black proletariat composes not only a counterrevolution. When SA disasso­ supported counterrevolution in the Soviet s.entence, which was based on their polit- strategic component, but also the most ciates themselves from workers states class-conscious and advanced section of they do so because they do not want to the working class. Thus there is an inher­ defend states that are unpopular due to ent contradiction between members of the U.S. bourgeois propaganda about these YSA calling themselves Marxist and at states. Not militarily defending such the same time thinking blacks somehow states means supporting counterrevolu­ fit outside the equation, having a path tion as SA did in Poland with Soli­ separate from the rest of the working darnosc, in the USSR by hailing Yeltsin, class. SA's support for black nationalism. and continuing today by calling for represents not only a lack of faith in the "class-struggle methods" against trade black working class being able to fight for with China. What needs to be fought for socialist revolution, but the entire working is workers political revolution to oust the class as well. Stalinist bureaucrats and establish work­ After coming to such realizations about ers democracy. When a group like SA their line on black nationalism, I began to calls itself Trotskyist yet does not call understand why at YSA meetings I was for unconditional military defense of surrounded by so many petty-bourgeois the deformed workers states of Vietnam, students who felt safe because their lib­ China and North Korea in their lO-point eral politics were not being challenged. program, it is lying. As Leol) Trotsky Many of these students believed that a wrote in In Defense of Marxism, "The WV Photos socialist society was inevitable and some­ workers' state must be taken as it has San FranCiSCO, 24 April 1999: Spartacist League exposes nature of the how developing "gradually" out of capi­ emerged from the merciless laboratory of capitalist courts and raises call to free Mumia, while reformists push lie that talism. SA calls themselves Lenipists, history and not as it is imagined by a the way to free Mumia is through a new trial. which one would think would make them 'socialist' professor, reflectively explor­ realize that the capitalist state is in place ing his nose with his finger. It is the duty to keep the working class oppressed and of revolutionists to defend every conquest that only a socialist revolution can smash of the working class even though it may the state and lay the basis for socia:iism. be distorted by the pressure of hostile One only needs to read State and Revolu­ forces. Those who cannot defend old tion to understand why "revolution alone positions will never conquer new ones." can 'abolish' the bourgeois state." To say Furthermore, if you are not actively that socialism will develop gradually is defending the gains of the past, you are another way of saying, "I am a reformist." supporting defeats of the working class in It is important to note that the first the future. Such was the realization I had point on the YSA's lO-point program to make, that my problems with the YSA states that socialism is "the idea of a soci­ were not just a difference of opinion or ety that puts human needs before profits." "ideas" but the difference between revo­ And they say that unlike "the Stalinists lution and counterrevolution. (sic) countries Uke China and the former It is important to note that Socialist USSR which were neither democratic or Action attempts to pose as a defender of (sic) socialist, we fight for s (sic) society one deformed workers state, Cuba. The that is truly democratic .... " Without men­ YSA's la-point program states that they tioning the word revolution, how are peo­ "stand in solidarity with the people of Union which meant the drastic cutoff of ical views, was death by electrocution. In ple to build such a society? Further, is it Cuba and their onKoing revolution." But trade and crucial economic an<;l military 1927, the movement for freedom for so simple to say that the former USSR it is not too difficult to support a workers aid to Cuba. Without this ~id the Cuban Sacco and Vanzetti was shifted by "capi­ and China were neither "democratic nor state whose hero, Che Guevara, has Revolution is increasingly··endangered. talistic and 'liberal' elements" towards socialist," without mentioning that the today become an immense commodity SA's position on the collapse of the an emphasis on life imprisonment, in USSR was, and China continues to be, a on college campuses and when popular Soviet Union is clear in" the September other words, a living death. At the time 1991 issue of Socialist Action which Cannon wrote, "In all this there is noth­ declared: "Many stood ready on the bar­ ing new for those who understand the ricades, prepared to battle troops and class struggle and have no illusions tanks in the cause of democracy and a about the possibility of 'justice' and 'fair better life." Whose barricades? Yeltsin's. play' from the courts and other institu­ A better life for whom? For the world's tions of the class enemy." The slogan BERKELEY BOSTON imperialists but not for the 75 percent then became "Put no faith in capitalist Introduction to Marxism Fight for Commlinism of the Russian population which now justice." Mumia, who was falsely con­ Tuesdays, 7 p.m. Saturday, September 23, 1 p.m. lives below or barely above subsistence victed of killing a police officer, was also Next Class: September 26 The Greenhouse, level and definitely not for Cubans who railroaded to death row for his political U.C. Berkeley, 79 Dwinelle Hall Harvard Science Center are suffering as a result of capitalist views. The movement today for Mumia's For informatiori and readings: For information and readings: counterrevolution in the Soviet Union. freedom is cast in terms of a new trial, (510)839-0851 (617) 666-9453 While SA defends Cuba in words, real which is being pushed by every fake­ defense requires opposing U.S. imperi­ socialist group, and the slogan that is LOS ANGELES NEW YORK alism which SA did not do in 1991. SA necessary to counter such reformism is Meet the Marxists at UCLA Revolutionary Marxism instead chose to support U.S.-backed "There is, no justice in the capitalist Yeltsin's barricades in the name of bour­ courts." The Spartacist League/Spartacus Monday, October 2, 7 p.m. Alternate Thursdays, 7 p.m. geois "democracy" which means counter­ 3517 Ackerman, UCLA Youth Clubs are the ones raising this slo­ September 28: The Fight for revolution. A revolutionary Trotskyist gan, they are the ones fighting to abolish Socialist Revolution, Hamilton Hall, For information: (213) 380-8239 organization would have uncondition­ the racist death penalty, fighting for free, Room 302, Columbia University ally militarily defended the Soviet quality, integrated public education for VANCOUVER For information and readings: Union by distributing a class-based all, and for unconditional military de­ (212) 267-1025 Class Series; The Fight for program to Russian workers to defeat fense of the deformed workers states. Revolutionary Marxism TORONTO the Yeltsin-Bush counterrevolution. The I wanted to' be part of a group that Alternate Wednesdays, 6:30 p.m. only group that did this was the Sparta­ fights to break people's illusions in capi­ October 4: The State and Revolution Class Series: The Fight for cist League. talism, which understands that class con­ SUB, Room 212A, University of BC Revolutionary Marxism I considered myself a socialist not sciousness is not spontaneous, but must For information and readings: Alternate Wednesdays, 7 p.m. because I thought it was a good "idea" be continuously elevated by a vanguard (604) 687-0353 October 4: Marxism and the State but because I wanted to concretely fight party: I broke association from the YSA International· Student Centre against capitalist oppression. Capitalism and joined the Spartacus Youth Club will not gradually fade away, a socialist when I realized that I wanted to help build VIsit file leL Web Sltel U of T, 33 St. George Street For information and readings: society will not all of a sudden appear; a revolutionary, multiracial workers party WWW.ic.-fi.org (416) 593-4138 students who want to fight exploitation that fights for socialist revolution, that need to arm themselves with a working- fights for new October Revoh.itions! • 22 SEPTEMBER 2000 7 ~ leL Statement ... .cn. (continuedfrom page 12) ~ the lives of billions of working people in China, across Asia and around the world hang in the balance. We fight for the Seattle WTO protests unconditional military defense ofthe Chi­ last fall were politically nese workers state against renewed impe­ dominated by AFL-CIO rialist military machinations and eco­ bureaucracy's nomic encroachments. The gains of the chauvinism and anti­ 1949 Chinese Revolution are threatened Communist China­ bashing, with signs by the Chinese Stalinists' market eco­ reading: "People First nomic "reforms," but these attacks have Not China First." While also engendered significant proletarian fake lefts hailed "spirit revolt. A Trotskyist party is necessary to of Seattle," Spartacists lead the "proletariat to victory through a denounced circus of workers political revolution to preserve pro-imperialist and extend the gains of the 1949 Chinese protectionism. Revolution. The devastating and worldwide conse­ quences of capitalist counterrevolution also destroy the anti-Marxist theories of workers state much like a labor bureauc­ jective revolutionists who solidarize with wards a single clearly defined goal along "state capitalism" espoused by the late racy sits atop a trade union"arose in the the proletariat and genuinely seek the the paths traced for it by a scientific doc­ Tony Cliff's International Socialist Ten­ Soviet workers state under conditions of overthrow of the bourgeoisie. In the latter trine. Being such a force, the party is the dency and the crackpot and ever-shifting product of the necessity, that is the laws economic backwardness and isolation Case, anarchism's appeal is a healthy "theorists" of the League for a Revolu­ of history itself. That revolutionary elite due to the failure to extend the revolution rejection of the parliamentary reformi~m tionary Communist International (LRCI, which in a time of violence remains to any of the advanced capitalist coun­ of the social democrats, the ex-Stalinists unorganized, undisciplined, without con­ a/k/a Workers Power) and other rene­ tries. The Stalinists claimed they were and the fake leftists who prop up and sistent direction and open to variable or gades from Marxism (see "The Bank~ going to build "socialism in one coun­ maintain the capitalist order. In fact, for contradictory impulses, is heading for ruptcy of 'New Class' Theories," Sparta­ suicide. No view at odds with this conclu­ try," an impossibility, as Leon Trotsky opposing the reformist falsifiers of Marx­ cist [English-language edition] No. 55, sion is possible." (and before him Marx and Engels) ism, Lenin himself was denounced as an -La Autumn 1999). According to the Cliff­ Vie ouvriere, 21 March 1922; explained since socialism is necessarily anarchist. ,When the Bolshevik leader reprinted in The Serge-Trotsky ites, the triumph of counterrevolution in international in scope. "Socialism in one arrived in Russia in April 1917 and called Papers, Cotterill, ed. (1994) the former USSR was merely "a step country" was a justification for selling for a workers revolution to bring down The diffuse popUlarity of "anarchism" sideways" from one form of capitalism out revolutions internationally to appease the capitalist Provisional Government, among youth today is itself a reflection of to another. Their rabid Cold War anti­ world imperialism. As Trotsky brilliantly the Mensheviks denounced Lenin as the retrogression in political conscious­ Sovietism was expressed at the time: explained in The Revolution Betrayed "a candidate for ... the throne of Bakunin!" ness in the new political period which "Communism has collapsed .... It is a began with the colossal defeat of capital­ fact that should have every socialist ist counterrevolution in the USSR and rejoicing" (Socialist Worker [Britain], 31 East Europe. At bottom, anarchism is August 1991). a form of radical democratic idealism Today, the proletariat has been hurled which appeals to the alleged innate good­ back, worldwide, and the U.S. imperial­ ness of even the most rapacious imperial­ ists, unhindered by Soviet military might, ists to serve humanity. The League of the now ride roughshod over. the planet, Just (which changed its name to the Com­ sometimes using the United Nations as a munist League around the time Karl fig leaf, wrapping global military inter­ Marx joined it in 1847) had as its main ventions in the cloak of "humanitarian­ slogan, "All men are brothers." Observ­ ism." Rival imperialisms, especially Ger­ ing that there were some men whose many and Japan, no longer constrained by brother he was not and had no desire to Cold War anti-Soviet unity, are pursuing be, Marx convinced his comrades to apace their own appetites for control of change the slogan to "Workers of all world markets and concomitantly project­ countries, unite!" ing their military power. These conflicting Neville Elder Historically, anarchism has proven national interests led to the breakup of the London, May Day: Labour government of Tony Blair unleashed riot police on to be a class-collaborationist obstacle to WTO talks in Seattle last year. These protesters who defaced symbols of British imperialism, arresting nearly 100. the liberation of the oppressed. Unit­ interimperialist rivalries outline future Drop the charges now! ing with the counterrevolutionary White wars; with nuclear weapons, this threat­ armies, some anarchists hailed the Kron­ ens to extinguish life on the planet. (1936), the contradictions of Soviet soci­ (Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution,' stadt uprising against the Russian Revo­ Thus the task of wresting power from ety could not endure forever: "Will the 1917: A Personal Record [1984]). (Baku­ lution, and Kronstadt remains an anti­ the capitalist exploiters is more urgent bureaucrat devour the .workers' state, or nin was the anarchist leader in the First communist touchstone for anarchists now than ever. Without revolutionary will the working class clean up the International.) As LeQin put it in State today. During the Spanish Civil War, an­ theory there can be no revolutionary bureaucrat?" That contradiction was and Revolution: "The opportunists of archists became ministers in the popular­ movement. Today the basic premises of resolved bitterly in the negative. modern Social-Democrac~ accepted the front government which

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10 WORKERS VANGUARD French miners sang the "Internationale" . racy to this government. Blair actually capitalist states. Ever since the 1920s, Fuel Protests ... with British miners, is an example of the more resembles Pinochet's fan Margaret control over the Persian Gulf oil fields (continued from page 1) kind of international class solidarity Thatcher during the yearlong miners has given British and American imperial­ which is needed. We fight to mobilise strike and the later poll tax upheaval than ism an enormous strategic advantage over was attempting a different plan to break workers in opposition to every mani­ Allende. rivals Germany and Japan. London, in the dispute-by using the trade unions." festation of national chauvinism and The reformist left demonstrated their alliance with Washington, massacred tens It goes on: "At the TUC in Glasgow the racism and for full citizenship rights for loyalty to Labourism in the course of the of thousands of Iraqis during the Gulf day before, he had met Bill Morris, the immigrants. protests. The Communist Party's Morn­ War in 1991 to secure U.S. and British leader of the Transport Union, whose ICL sections in Britain and France ing Star (13 September) opposed the pro­ control of the region's oil supplies. One members include many tanker drivers. gave no support whatsoever to Blair's tests and urged Blair: "The government and a half million people, including half a He convinced him of the need to end the Labour and Jospin's Socialist-led popu­ should take all lawful steps necessary­ million children, have been killed through crisis." [Deputy Prime Minister] John lar front. This is in stark contrast to fake without the use of police violence-to a starvation embargo. The imperialists Prescott warned Blair that sending in "socialists" in both countries who helped ensure free movement of oil and petrol." continue the slaughter with almost daily troops would backfire and would wreck elect the Blair and Jospin governments The Socialist Workers Party supported bombing raids and sanctions, which pre­ "delicate n~gotiations taking place that and are beholden to them. Jospin's bour­ the protests, headlining "Bitterness Ex­ vent Iraqi oil from reaching the world night between trades union leaders and geois Green coalition partners, in act­ plodes in Blair's Face," while neglecting market. If you want cheaper oil, break the tanker drivers." Thus, the trade-union ing as the most hardline opponents of to mention that they were "over the blockade of Iraq! We say: Down with the bureaucracy was pivotal to the Labour lower petrol taxes, underlined the anti­ moon" when Labour was elected in 1997. starvation sanctions! gove'!lment in defusing the crisis. working-class character of Green en­ And despite some whining about the evils Shaken by the impact and depth of vironmentalism. Today, a class-struggle wrought by the Blair government, the support for the fuel blockades, the Blair Break with Labour! government is gearing up for a major The depth of the crisis triggered by the confrontation. The Financial Times (16 oil protests provoked the government September), mouthpiece for the City into a response which illuminates the [financial district], editorialised: "Minis­ workings of the capitalist state and the ters should dig out the files from 1981 sinister forces that are arrayed against when Margaret Thatcher gave in to the the working class and its allies in times miners. She was not prepared; coal of social crisis. The police presence at stocks were low. But after the 1983 land­ refineries was reinforced, use of troops . slide, she was ready and a year later the was prepared and in Essex, tankers leav­ miners were vanqujshed." The Spartacist ing a depot had a cop riding shotgun. League fought to extend that strike to Behind the veneer of parliamentary rail and the docks and to shut down the democracy lurks the reality of the repres­ country. But although the miners fought sive British state. The capitalist state, as militantly and heroically against the Lenin explained, consists of special bod­ forces of the capitalist state, they were ies of armed men-the cops and the betrayed by the treachery of the Labour army-who are committed to the defence leaders and the union bureaucracy, while of private property. The capitalist state miners leader Arthur Scargill remained cannot be reformed; the power of the cap­ tied to the Labour Party. We seek to italist class must be broken and replaced instill the lessons of that strike into by a workers state. The Privy Council, workers' consciousness so that the work­ presided over by the Queen, met to ing class can go forward to victories. accord "exceptional powers" to the gov­ Sturrock/Network The action of the petrol tanker drivers ernment to assume control of fuel distri­ Picketing strikers battle scabs and cops during 1984-85 British miners strike. almost brought the country to a halt. With bution, including the use of military facil­ petrol pumps running dry, supermarket ities, for the purposes of breaking the oil fight would galvanise opposition to these SWP is committed in advance to return­ shelves emptied, banks ran low on cash blockade. This "private" council of the anti-working-class, racist governments. ing it for another term, as SWP honcho and rail operators warned that workers Queen is composed of current and past The Labour Party is a bourgeois work­ Chris Harman has made clear: "Most would not be able to get to work. This ministers and includes Labour "left" Tony ers party-revolutionaries seek to split socialists will be supporting socialist can­ explodes the myth of a "new economy" Benn. We say: Abolish the monarchy! the working -class base from the pro­ didates where possible in the next general according to which "global" capitalism The farmers and small haulage firms capitalist tops and win it to the need for election, but will still be voting Labour operates in virtual reality and goods are leading this protest openly espouse a revolutionary programme and party. when there is rio socialist standing" moved around the country by the click of national chauvinism, reflecting their eco­ From the strikebreaking Labour govern­ (Socialist Review, September 2000). a mouse. The capitalist economy is nomic interests. This was expressed ad ments of the 1970s to knifing the heroic Meanwhile they conceal the role of the dependent on the labour of the proletariat nauseam by Brynle Williams, a promi­ miners strike, the Labour Party and the trade-union bureaucracy behind a front­ and on fuel which is delivered by tanker nent spokesman for the farmers' blockade TUC tops are the strategic obstacle to the page headline asking: "Why Won't Trade drivers. in Cheshire, who said: "We don't like the fight for working-class rule. Union Leaders Act?" (Socialist Worker, The working class is the only force idea of Irish drivers coming over here TUC general secretary John Monks 16 September). But the union bureauc­ which has the power, the social cohesion with their cheap'diesel then working two outrageously compared the fuel protests racy did act-predictably, to get the oil and the direct interest in defeating the or three days and bringing over their to the CIA-backed truck drivers mobilisa­ flowing again. In addition to Morris' attacks of the government. This must cheap meat, robbing us of a living" tions against the Allende regime in Chile scabherding, Bill Speirs, general secre­ be linked to a struggle to overthrow (Guardian, 12 September). The interest in 1973. Those mobilisations were part of tary of the Scottish TUC, denounced the the entire system of class exploitation, of the working class in contrast lies an imperialist "destabilisation" campaign protests as a "bosses' blockade." This was national oppression, racism and war, a squarely with the workers of other coun­ against the popular-front Allende gov­ also the line of the union bureaucracy in system Labour upholds with a vengeance. tries. As protests engulfed France, Britain ernment which culminated in the bloody France to justify scabbing andto save the Large numbers of workers who face plant and Belgium, there was a burning need military coup by General Pinochet and Jospin government in its hour of crisis. -closures, privatisation and racist attacks for proletarian international solidarity in were fundamentally aimed at crushing are itching to engage in some militant sharp opposition to the anti-French chau­ the Chilean wprking class in the midst Labour Rules for class struggle of their own. We seek vinism promoted also by Blair & Co. The of a prerevolutionary situation. To draw British Imperialism to build a party committed to leading proletarian internationalism seen.during an analogy with popular mobilisations Oil is not just another commodity; it is the proletariat in socialist revolution to the 1984-85 miners strike, when workers against a Labour-administered capitalist the source of more than 40 per cent of the expropriate the capitalist class, includ­ from France and other' countries raised government in Britain today is a measure world's energy. Access to oil is thus of ing the oil companies, and to construct a money for their British comrades and of the utter fealty of the labour bureauc- vital strategic importance for modern planned socialist economy .•

been in the buildup to the Democratic King. When a carload of cops drove by a directly to the need to organize the non­ L.A. Transit ... National Convention in L.A. in July. But picket line this morning honking in sup­ union bus lines and for one industrial when Democratic governor Gray Davis posed "solidarity," one striker yelled out, union of all transit workers. Down with (continued from page 2) ordered a 60-day "cooling off' period so "We know what side they're on!" Mean­ multi-tier wage scales-Equal pay for cost of living combined with a shorter that nothing would interfere with Al while transit supervisors who are cross­ equal work! workweek at no loss in pay to spread the Gore's nomination, the transit union tops' ing picket lines to scab on the strike are To defeat the MTA and the city rulers available work around. Such demands bowed to the strikebreaking edict. UTU organized by the AFSCME tops, who also who stand behind them, the transit unions point to a struggle against the entire cap­ International president Charles Little recruit prison guards to the union. These can only rely on their own strength, mobi­ italist profit system. As revolutionary bragged that his was the first major union enemies of labor have no place in the lizing support from the entire labor move­ leader Leon Trotsky wrote in the Transi­ to endorse Gore. workers organizations. Cops, supervisors ment and tapping into the evident popu- tional Program (1938): "If capitalism is Instead of fighting the MTA's anti­ out of the unions! . larity of the strike among the black, incapable of satisfying the demands inev­ union privatization plans, the union While the L.A. County Federation of Latino and Asian masses. The unions itably arising from the calamities gener­ tops look to pressure Davis to enact a Labor has called on all unions to honor must actively fight for demands that ated by itself, then let it perish. 'Realiz­ bill supposedly guaranteeing that ~union UTU picket lines, unionized rail work­ speak to the felt needs of all the exploited ability' or 'unrealizability' is in the given wages and benefits continue (for four ers at Metrolink remain on the job, and and the ghetto and barrio masses. L.A. instance a .question of the relationship of years) in any new zones. The union 17 other municipal bus lines in the transit unions should call for massive forces, which can be decided only by the bureaucracy preaches reliance on the cap­ metro area, many of them unionized, spending to build free, quality mass tran­ struggle. By means of this struggle, no italist state, which is an agency for the have increased service to undercut the sit. But labor cannot successfully fight for matter what its immediate practical suc­ suppression of workers and minorities. strike. Strikers outside the bus plaza its interests and those of all the oppressed cesses may be, the workers will best That includes the courts which impose adjoining Union Station chanted, "Union! if it is beholden to the capitalist class come to understand the necessity of liqui­ ,strikebreaking injunctions and the cops Union! Union!" and "Scabs go home!" enemy and its Democratic Party. We fight dating capitalist slavery." who bust strikers' heads to enforce those One picketer asked, "When are we to forge a workers party to lead the strug­ But the labor bureaucrats are loyal to injunctions. L.A. blacks, Latinos and going to shut down Metrolink?" Mass gle for a workers government that will the capitalist system, expressed politi­ Asians remember the murderous cop pickets should ring the transit complex expropriate the capitalist class and create cally through their support to the Demo­ - occupation in 1992 that crushed the mul­ around Union Station. All L.A. transit an egalitarian socialist society in which cratic Party. Striking workers told WV tiracial upheaval in protest against the unions must be mobilized to shut down labor reaps the benefit of the wealth it that the best time to strike would have acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney the entire transit network. This points creates .• 22 SEPTEMBER 2000 11 WfJIIIlEIiI ""'fI'lIl)

leL Statement for Prague Protest Against IMF, World Bank Smash Imperialist Exploitation Through World Socialist Revolution! We publish below a 16 September statement by the International Commu­ nist League directed at the planned pro­ tests against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, this month. These are the latest in a series of anti-"globalization" protests which have become a major focus of left-wing activ­ Unemployed and homeless line up at soup kitchen ism internationally: the protests against in Berlin. Capitalist the World Trade Organization (WTO) in counterrevolution has Seattle late last year, against the IMF/ brought misery to working World Bank in Washington, D.C. this people of East Europe past spring and against the World Eco­ and former Soviet Union, nomic Forum, in Melbourne, Australia increased imperialist earlier this month. As with the earlier explOitation internationally. protests, the Melbourne demonstrators were met with vicious police terror and mass arrests. We demand the immediate release of all those arrested and the drop­ ping of all charges. angrily denounce the IMF, WTO and , ing the basis for an international planned "Labour" leaders presently ruling capital­ The radicalized youth attracted to World Bank for being undemocratic and socialist economy. ist Europe. these protests want to overcome the hid­ under the control of large "transnational" We comrades of the International Com­ eous impoverishment of the masses corporations. At the same time, they * * * munist League are proud to fight for in the "global South" which is justi­ -appeal to the "democratic" governments "Tum Prague into Seattle"? Were it the authentic communism of Lenin and fied and enforced in the name of "free of North America and West Europe. In not for the capitalist counterrevolution Trotsky's Bolsheviks. Our perspective is market" capitalism. However, the organ­ reality, the American capitalist state is which destroyed East Europe and the proletarian, revolutionary and interna­ izers of the' anti-"globalization" cam­ the primary political instrument of the former Soviet Union a decade ago, the tionalist. We recognize that the funda­ paign seek to channel these concerns Wall Street banks, General Motors, Boe­ World Bank and the International Mone­ mental conflict in society is the struggle and the striving for social justice into ing et al.; the German capitalist state is tary Fund would not be meeting in by labor against capital. Because of its national-chauvinist appeals to their own likewise that of the Frankfurt banks, Prague! The "velvet revolution" ripped central role in production, the proletar­ imperialist bourgeoisie. Daimler-Benz and Siemens; etc. Inter­ Czechoslovakia apart and now the work­ iat has the social power to bring down the The main demand of the Seattle protest national economic institutions like the ing people, women and national and eth­ capitalist exploiters and their whole was that the Clinton White House IMF and WTO are politically dominated nic minorities suffer the raw exploitation, system of class exploitation, racial, sex­ pressure the WTO into adopting and by the major imperialist states while impoverishment and depredations of the ual and national oppression and imperial­ enforcing a code of international labor increasingly becoming an arena of con­ capitalist market. As for the illusions of ist war, The proletariat has the power and and environmental standards. Moreover, flict betweeu them. "freedom," today police forces specially the class interest to create a society­ that protest was politically dominated , In fundamental opposition to the trained by the American FBI and backed initially a workers state-based on collec­ by the AFL-CIO labor bureaucracy, pseudo-leftist purveyors of "human rights up by NATO threaten labor and leftist tivized property and a rational, planned which staged an orgy of anti-Communist imperialism," the International Commu­ demonstrations with a brutal enforce­ international economy, leading to a class­ China-bashing and flag-waving trade pro­ nist League stands for the liberation of ment of "law and order" for the imperi­ less, communist society and the wither­ tectionism. The demonstrations in Wash­ the workers, peasants and other toilers alist bankers. ing away of the state. To achieve this ington a few months later were focused from exploitation,po~erty and social deg­ For all the talk about concern for the goal requires the construction of an inter­ on liberal appeals to the directors of the radation through proletarian revolutions toiling masses, the official call for a national Leninist-Trotskyist egalitarian World Bank to cancel the debt of "Third both in the imperialist centers and against "global day of action" in Prague says party. We struggle to become the party fit World" countries. the imperialists' henchmen in the depen­ nothing about the capitalist shock treat­ to lead international socialist revolutions. The organizers of these mobilizations dent neocolonial countries, thereby lay- ment which has led to a plunge in life Integral to our fight is holding on to expectancy and returned starvation to proletarian conquests already wrested Russia, rolled back women's right to from the capitalist class. That is why we abortion across East Europe, and given Trotskyists fought for the unconditional rise to a murderous brown plague of fas­ military defense of the Soviet Union and cist terror directed especially against the deformed workers states of East immigrants and Roma (gypsies). Last Europe against imperialist attack and cap­ year's Balkans War wreaked worse dev­ italist restoration. With every resource at astation on Serbia than Hitler's Nazis. our disposal we fought in 1989-90 in the The resulting economic, social and eco­ DDR [East Germany] to lead a workers logical disaster in the Balkans also does political revolution, maintaining the col­ not merit mention in the official mani­ lectivized property forms and replacing festo for Prague. Why is this? Because the Stalinist misleaders with the rule of ostensible leftists organizing this year's workers councils. This could have been "anti-globalization" protest are mainly the beacon for resistance against capital­ the very same people who supported the ist restoration across East Europe and for imperialist war against Serbia in the name proletarian socialist revolution in the of "humanitarian" concern for the Koso­ West. The ICL again fought to rouse the var Albanians. They are also the same Soviet workers to preserve and extend the "leftists" who joined with their own cap­ gains of the 1917 Russian Revolution italist rulers in fighting for the destruction which had been grossly betrayed by of the Soviet Union and the East Euro­ decades of Stalinist misrule but not over­ pean deformed workers states and who 'thrown until 1991-92. Today the fa:te of "Human rights" imperialism in Somana, 1993: demonstrators gunned down supported the election of the bloody cabal the Chinese deformed workers state and the streets by UN "peacekeepers." of fake "socialist," ex-"communist," and continued on page 8

12 22 SEPTEMBER 2000