AUSTRALIA $1.50 · canada $1.50 · france 1.00 euro · new zealand $1.50 · uk £.50 · u.s. $1.00 INSIDE The stewardship of land and labor falls to the working class — PAGE 5 A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE vol. 85/no. 33 September 6, 2021 SWP campaign US rulers’ war Back the Warrior Met draws lessons in Afghanistan miners, Nabisco strikes! from past class was disaster for struggle battles working people by Roy LandersEn by Roy Landersen “This is a book about the dictator- Since Joseph Biden ordered U.S. ship of capital and the road to the dic- troops out of Afghanistan, an admission tatorship of the proletariat,” Jacquie the U.S. rulers’ 20-year war there was a Henderson read to retired health care failure, Taliban forces swept across the worker Rose Skarski from a copy of country taking Kabul, the capital, Aug. Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the 15. Some 5,800 U.S. troops, alongside Road to Workers Power at her door in 1,000 British soldiers and other allied La Grange, northeast of Louisville, forces, have occupied Kabul’s inter- Kentucky, Aug. 20. Henderson and national airport, organizing a massive fellow Socialist Workers Party cam- airlift to evacuate their own citizens and paigner Samir Hazboun were intro- approved Afghan collaborators, with an ducing the SWP and the Militant to Aug. 31 deadline to depart. working people in the area. Thousands of Afghans have sur- Henderson explained that the book rounded the airfield desperately trying by SWP National Secretary Jack to board flights. Over 20 people have Willamette Week/Mick Hangland-Skill Barnes shows “what we can learn died in the crush. U.S. troops have used Workers picket Portland, Oregon, Nabisco plant, to block bosses’ steep concession demands. from struggles during the Civil War tear gas to deter crowds trying to reach and Radical Reconstruction to today, the airport. Taliban spokesman Zabi- Warrior Met strike is a ‘union Nabisco strikers fight to helping us gain confidence to build hullah Mujahid has now announced no issue for the whole nation’ keep ‘what we already won’ the leadership needed to organize more Afghan nationals would be al- millions to take power into our own lowed to leave the country. BY SUSAN LAMONT BY REBECCA WILLIAMSON hands.” Reconstruction regimes were The U.S. rulers ended their war in Af- MCCALLA, Ala. — “We decided PORTLAND, Ore. — “We were set up in Mississippi, South Carolina ghanistan after inflicting two decades of to take up the cause of the striking the first to go out, on Aug. 10,” Cam- and elsewhere as part of the fight to devastation on working people, costing miners because this is a union issue eron Taylor, business agent for Bak- Continued on page 3 Continued on page 9 for the whole nation,” Mark Bass, ery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers president of International Longshore- and Grain Millers International Union men’s Association Local 1410 in Mo- Local 364, which represents about bile, Alabama, told the Militant in an 200 workers on strike at the Nabisco Imperialist scorn, Cuban solidarity Aug. 20 phone interview. Bass helped bakery here, told the Militant Aug. 21. organize ILA members to join in the Their strike began a cascade of oth- on display after earthquake in Haiti Aug. 4 rally in Brookwood, Alabama, er walkouts at Nabisco: its distribu- to back the strike by 1,100 United tion plant in Aurora, Colorado, Aug. Mine Workers of America members 12; at its bakery in Richmond, Virgin- against Warrior Met Coal there. ia, Aug. 16; at the company’s flagship “If we allow Warrior Met to get U.S. bakery in Chicago Aug. 19; and away with their union-busting tac- in Norcross, Georgia, Aug. 23. Continued on page 4 Continued on page 6 All working people have a stake in outcome of today’s labor struggles by terry evans fellow workers and help build solidarity The frontlines of the fight to defend and working-class consciousness.” jobs, wages and working conditions to- Dennison, a former coal miner, was day are union picket lines of miners at written up in his national union news- Warrior Met Coal in Alabama, Nabisco paper for organizing union solidarity bakery workers on strike in five states, with the striking miners at Warrior Met. nurses at St. Vincent Hospital in Mas- “Workers in many industries face at- sachusetts and locked-out Texas oil re- Continued on page 9 finery workers at ExxonMobil. Brigada Médica Cubana en Haití These workers are fighting to win Volunteer Cuban health workers treat earthquake victims, other patients outside hospital in back gains they were pressured to give Corail, Haiti, Aug. 24. Cuban internationalists have worked continuously in Haiti for 22 years. up in the past and stand up to new at- Inside by seth galinsky don’t count for much in the eyes of the tacks from the bosses. They’re setting SWP: Join Labor Day actions, With more than 2,100 dead, over capitalist rulers in Washington and oth- an example for millions of fellow work- build labor solidarity 9 12,000 injured and an estimated 136,000 er imperialist powers. Despite the death ers of how we can unite, strengthen our families left homeless after an Aug. unions and defend ourselves. Texas execution set, sentiment 14 earthquake that ravaged southwest Protest US Economic war “All workers have a stake in the out- against death penalty grows 2 Haiti, the trickle of international aid is Against Cuba! — page 7 come of these labor battles,” Henry Den- nowhere near what is needed. nison, a railroad switchman, member of Canada: Communist League Just like in previous disasters there — toll from previous disasters, Wash- SMART-Transportation Division Local files for ballot in Montreal 3 including the 2010 earthquake that left ington and the succession of Haitian 324 and Socialist Workers Party candi- about 300,000 dead and Hurricane Mat- governments it has dominated haven’t date for Seattle mayor, told the Militant. Los Angeles rally protests thew in 2016 — the grossly inadequate improved the utterly inadequate health “We need to help get the word out about Myanmar dictatorship 4 aid shows that working people in Haiti Continued on page 6 these fights. They’ll strike a chord with Texas execution set, sentiment against death penalty grows by janet post people on death row. “In seg[regation] John Henry Ramirez is scheduled you have no human contact, can’t at- to be executed by lethal injection tend classes/church/work,” he wrote in at the Texas State Penitentiary in 2015. “My routine consists of waking Huntsville Sept. 8, the third execu- up, washing up, going to rec, then com- tion there this year. ing back to the cell, going to the shower Ramirez filed a federal suit Aug. 10 and then coming back to the cell, then after prison officials denied his request just killing time till the next day when to have his pastor, Dana Moore of the I’d do it all over again.” Second Baptist Church, pray with him Ramirez’s execution has been post- in the death chamber and lay hands on poned twice — in 2017 when he asked him as he dies. Ramirez’s attorney filed for a new lawyer after his attorney failed for his execution to be postponed while to file an appeal for clemency and in the issue is litigated. 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Supreme Court halted the Six more executions are scheduled in KUT/Julia Reihs Protest in Texas against death penalty and execution of Rodney Reed in 2019. Reed, who has execution of Willie B. Smith III in Ala- Texas this year. There are some 2,550 been on death row more than 23 years, and John Ramirez, who is scheduled to be executed bama in February after prison officials death-row inmates in federal, state and Sept. 8, are two of the 198 prisoners on Texas death row, and of some 2,550 across the country. denied his right to have his pastor with military prisons today. him. In 2019 the court stayed the execu- ing alternatives, including poison gas, phia district attorney, told the Militant. tion of Patrick Murphy in Texas when Prisons want to try nitrogen electric chairs and firing squads. The “The U.S. rulers incarcerate a higher the state decided to bar his Buddhist Because more and more drug compa- Justice Department has changed its percentage of the population than spiritual adviser from the room. nies refuse to provide death rows with protocols to allow the federal death row any other country in the world, over- In 2008 Ramirez was convicted of murderous chemicals, three state prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, to use all these whelmingly working class and dispro- stabbing store clerk Pablo Castro to systems — in Alabama, Mississippi and execution methods. portionately Black. death seeking money to buy drugs Oklahoma — are making plans to put Arizona prison officials earlier this “The Socialist Workers Party fights when he was 20. He took $1.25 from the inmates to death by pumping nitrogen year announced they were planning to for total abolition of the death penalty.” dying clerk’s pocket. into their gas chambers, progressively use hydrogen cyanide for executions, During his trial, he opposed letting depriving inmates of oxygen. the same gas employed by the Nazis in family members testify before the jury The Alabama Department of Cor- Auschwitz during the Holocaust. Jew- Malcolm X, Black about how his mother had been stabbed rections “declined to describe even in ish organizations spoke up in outrage. Liberation, & the Road by her husband in front of him when general terms what it has built,” re- “While there can be no doubt about to Workers Power he was a child, his drug use at the age ported The Associated Press Aug. 10, its effectiveness — the Nazis used it of 12, and his discharge from the U.S. “including whether it is a room or an to kill millions of innocent Jews — it “This is a book Marines for manic depression. Ramirez apparatus in the existing death cham- is that very effectiveness as an instru- about the dicta- instructed his court-appointed lawyers ber — and an estimated timeframe for ment of genocide that makes it utterly torship of capital to discontinue all efforts to persuade the completing the protocol.” inappropriate for use by a civilized and the road to jury to spare his life. Because of the difficulty today of get- state,” the American Jewish Commit- the dictatorship In prison Ramirez has become a vo- ting deadly chemicals, and because of tee said June 7. of the proletariat. racious reader, writes poetry, draws and growing revulsion at clear instances of There is growing opposition to the A book about writes letters to supporters. He com- pain and suffering by inmates executed death penalty among working people the last century plains about the conditions imposed on by lethal injection, more states are seek- and an increasing number of state gov- and a half of class ernments have abolished it. struggle in the A 2019 Gallup poll reported that a United States ... majority of people — 60% to 36% — and the unimpeachable evidence oppose use of the death penalty in mur- it offers that workers who are der cases. And only 9% of people polled Black will comprise a dispropor- in the U.S. this year think that a firing tionately weighty part of the ranks squad is humane. and leadership of the mass social “The death penalty is a weapon of movement that will make a prole- Support workers’ fight against gov’t eviction! terror the capitalist ruling class wants tarian revolution.” to have at the ready to intimidate the — Jack Barnes Workers in Sydney are working class, and vanguard fighters, $20. Also in Spanish, French, standing up to the Austra- in the years ahead as resistance to its Greek, Farsi, Arabic lian government, which has rule grows,” Osborne Hart, Socialist pathfinderpress.com ordered them evicted from Workers Party candidate for Philadel- homes they have lived in for decades to build a com- Latin America, Caribbean: For one year send mercial car park. The ‘Mil- The Militant $85 drawn on a U.S. bank to above address. Vol. 85/No. 33 Africa, Asia, and the Middle East: For itant’ backs their fight, de- one year send $85 drawn on a U.S. bank to Chris Lane Closing news date: Aug. 25, 2021 above address. mands housing as a social Sam and Monika Charan carrying out fight against government evictions in Australia. Editor: John Studer Canada: For one year send Canadian $45 right for all workers. to the Militant, 7107 St. Denis #204, Mon- Managing Editor: Terry Evans treal, Quebec H2S 2S5. Editorial volunteers: Róger Calero, Seth Ga- United Kingdom: Send £30 for one year SUBSCRIBE TODAY! linsky, Emma Johnson, Martín Koppel, Roy by check or international money order Landersen, Jacob Perasso, Brian Williams. made out to CL London, 5 Norman Road (first floor), Seven Sisters, London, N15 Published weekly except for one week in 4ND, England. January. NEW READERS NAME Republic of Ireland and Continental Business Manager: Valerie Johnson Europe: Send £85 for one year by check or international money order made out to CL q.$5 for 12 issues ADDRESS The Militant (ISSN 0026-3885), 306 W. 37th London at above address. Street, 13th floor, New York, NY 10018. France: Send 100 euros for one year to Telephone: (212) 244-4899 Diffusion du Militant, BP 10130, 75723 RENEWAL CITY STATE ZIP Fax: (212) 244-4947 Paris Cedex 15. E-mail: [email protected] New Zealand and the Pacific Islands: q.$10 for 12 weeks PHONE e-mail Website: www.themilitant.com Send NZ$55 for one year to P.O. Box Correspondence concerning subscriptions 13857, Auckland 1643, New Zealand. q $20 for 6 months UNION/SCHOOL/ORGANIZATION or changes of address should be addressed Australia: Send A$70 for one year to P.O. Box . to the Militant, 306 W. 37th Street, 13th 73 Campsie, NSW 2194 Australia. floor, New York, NY 10018. 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2 The Militant September 6, 2021 Lessons from past class battles Continued from front page compared with before the pandemic. ” prevent former slave owners from re- “Only by the working class taking po- storing virtual slave labor conditions litical power out of the hands of the capi- after the Civil War. talists, can we put an end to this system “They never taught us anything about of exploitation. The SWP aims to lead Reconstruction in school,” said Skarski. such a revolution.” “And certainly not anything about these “I’m on board with that!” Negron re- governments.” They adopted universal sponded. She got a copy of In Defense of male suffrage, established the first free the U.S. Working Class by Mary-Alice public schools and hospitals, eliminated Waters for herself and her grandson. whipping and expanded grounds on which women could get a divorce. They Workers need our own party were deeply popular among working Dennis Richter, the Socialist Workers people of all skin colors. Party’s candidate for governor in Cali- Growing up in Chicago, “I was al- fornia’s recall election, was the featured ways aware that something was terribly speaker at a campaign forum in Oak- wrong,” Skarski said. “The fight against land Aug. 21. The meeting kicked off segregation didn’t just change the South. five days of campaigning in the northern Black students in my school had a sepa- part of the state that included campaign rate entrance and had to study down- supporters from Seattle, Los Angeles Militant/Josefina Otero stairs in the boiler room. No one talked and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dennis Richter, right, SWP candidate for governor of California, talks to Noble Kaus at about it. But the civil rights movement San Leandro Walmart store Aug. 22. Richter urged Kaus, who works at a union-organized Joel Britton, SWP candidate for chocolate factory, to join in bringing solidarity to workers facing lockouts and strikes today. changed all that, too.” State Assembly, opened the meeting “I want to help what you’re do- with news that the strike of Nabisco tens of thousands against anti-union “Medical care should not be a com- ing. I’m going to start by getting the workers in Portland, Oregon, has laws into an electoral effort to recall Re- modity,” Britton said. “Look at what library to order that book,” she told spread to other cities. “We will be with publican Gov. Scott Walker. working people in Cuba have won by Henderson and Hazboun as she sub- Nabisco workers on their picket lines, The end result of this class-collabo- making a socialist revolution. This scribed to the Militant. building solidarity as part of the press- rationist course was that membership made it possible for them to organize ing task of rebuilding and strengthen- in the state’s public employees unions medical care as a right, not something Bosses push workers to do more ing unions,” Richter said. fell by nearly 65% between 2011 and for profit.” “Sometimes they make us work “In order to contend with the capital- 2019. Richter urged those present to Hernandez said he was concerned through our lunch break,” warehouse ists, workers need our own party, a labor read the introduction to Tribunes of the about growing homelessness, unem- worker Milagro Negron told SWP party, with a program aimed at taking People and the Trade Unions by Jack ployment and rising prices. “To fight to members Dan Fein and Leroy Wat- power away from those responsible for Barnes. It describes how the SWP re- change these things we need to build a son when they knocked on her door in the disastrous conditions workers con- sponded to what took place by turning working-class leadership like they did in Bellwood, a suburb of Chicago. “We front today,” he said. toward working people across the state Cuba,” Britton said. “We need to build often work more than our scheduled “This is the opposite of what the to discuss what can be done to resist the Socialist Workers Party.” Hernandez eight hours — at straight time. They Democratic Party supporters of Gov. the bosses’ offensive and the need to subscribed to the Militant. don’t hire enough workers to unload Newsom and those seeking to replace organize and mobilize the power of the the trucks and stock. All for just $13 him are doing in this election,” Richter working class independent of the two Unions should fight for vaccinations an hour. My co-workers and I have dis- continued. “They are using the recall big-business parties. “My husband and I have been play- cussed the idea of a strike.” to channel workers angry at the system “We don’t take a position on these ing catch-up, trying to keep up with “Sounds like where Leroy and I work away from working class action and into recalls,” Richter said. “We say don’t bills, the rent, and to have enough to at Walmart,” Fein responded. “The supporting the capitalist parties.” check the box either for or against the buy food,” Veronica Daniel told Rach- bosses everywhere are pushing us to do Richter described the results in Wis- recall of Newsom because either way ele Fruit, SWP candidate for mayor of more work with fewer workers. There consin in 2011 when union officials you are voting for a capitalist politi- Atlanta, on her doorstep in East Point, are millions more unemployed today turned weekly protests in Madison by cian to win. Register your vote for the Georgia. She explained her husband had Socialist Workers Party, a working- been laid off from his job and she had to class alternative.” leave her job to care for her mother. Canada: Communist League files for ballot in Montreal Richter contrasted the party’s posi- “A lot of workers have been laid off tion to the course advocated by social- and what about the people who are go- MONTREAL — In a concen- ists in the Democratic Party. “They act ing to be put out of their apartments in trated 10-day effort to introduce in the framework of bourgeois electoral the next months?” she added. the Communist League cam- politics, trying to use the capitalist state “The profit system we live under paign to working people here to make reforms. They have the illusion needs to be ended,” Fruit said. “We are and gather the electors needed to that having a recall within the capitalist building a party that can lead workers place Michel Prairie, left, the CL electoral system will somehow make in our millions to take power and run candidate in the Bourassa constit- things more democratic. It won’t.” the government for human needs. It uency, on the ballot in the Sept. starts with building solidarity wherever 20 federal election, campaign When capitalist rule is threatened “in periods of economic and political cri- working people are fighting the bosses supporters talked to hundreds of and their government.” She pointed workers on their doorsteps. They sis,” Richter said, “the rulers unleash the fascists against the workers’ movement to the strike of miners at Warrior Met discussed the party’s program, the Coal in Alabama. need for solidarity with workers’ as they did in Germany.” Richter described how the union “I don’t understand why people are struggles today, and the need to afraid of getting vaccinated,” Daniel “build a party that can lead the movement in Minneapolis effectively added. “We all took our shots.” working class to take power.” This repelled the fascist goons in the late “We say our unions should be leading is the headline on the campaign 1930s by organizing mass protests and a fight to get workers vaccinated so we leaflet they gave workers they a workers’ defense guard. can organize together to fight to change talked to, inviting them to an Aug. “In a deep crisis the question is posed, our conditions,” Fruit said. 28 election campaign rally. either socialist revolution or fascism,” “You say you’re running for mayor. I Liberal Party Prime Minister Richter said. “These are the stakes in would vote for you,” Daniel said. “Most Militant/Katy LeRougetel Justin Trudeau dissolved Parlia- building the Socialist Workers Party, important,” Fruit said, “is to join with us ment and called the “snap” elec- a party that can act decisively to lead tion Aug. 15, three years early, in hopes of turning his minority government in building a movement to change this working people in their millions to take system we live under.” Daniel got a copy into a majority. “The Communist League campaign builds solidarity with the power into their own hands.” workers and youth standing up for their rights, like the meatpackers on strike of the Militant newspaper. The next day SWP campaigners went against Olymel in Beauce, Quebec,” campaigners told workers they talked to. To find out more or to join the SWP “Cuba’s socialist revolution showed that with a Marxist leadership working door-to-door in a working-class neigh- or Communist League campaigns, con- people can transform ourselves through our struggles and establish a workers borhood in San Leandro. tact the party branch nearest you in the and farmers government capable of ending all forms of oppression and ex- One of those they met was Eddie Her- directory on page 8. ploitation,” Prairie told 30 people at a Militant Labor Forum July 31 launching nandez, a Navy veteran and retiree who the campaign. “That’s what is needed here in Canada as well.” told Britton about his encounter with the Campaigners gathered 175 electors — well over the 100 required — and medical system after suffering a stroke. sold 26 Pathfinder books on the lessons of over 170 years of the international His friends called an ambulance, but he class struggle. said he screamed at them not to take him Prairie handed in the signatures and nomination papers Aug. 24. because of the cost. “Sure enough,” Her- — John Steele nandez said, “when the bill came for the 4.2-mile trip, it was for $2,500.”

The Militant September 6, 2021 3 Back Warrior Met miners! Los Angeles rally protests Myanmar dictatorship Continued from front page President Ken Riley from Charleston tics, it will affect unions and working told rally participants from the stage. people everywhere,” Bass said, add- The ILA represents some 65,000 ing that ILA Local 1410 is currently longshoremen on the Atlantic and involved in its own contract negotia- Gulf Coasts, Great Lakes, major tions at the Port of Mobile. “We un- U.S. rivers, Puerto Rico and eastern derstand the need for solidarity.” Canada. Some 60 ILA members from The ILA locals pledged to broaden Charleston, South Carolina; Jack- support for the strike, including get- sonville, Florida; and Mobile were ting the word out to the International among the more than 1,500 striking Longshore and Warehouse Union on miners, family members, UMWA re- the West Coast. tirees and other unionists who gath- UMWA members in Brookwood ered together for the strongest show are staffing round-the-clock picket of labor solidarity for the strike since lines at the two Warrior Met mines, miners walked off the job April 1. No. 4 and No. 7, as well as a prepara- ILA members were warmly wel- tion plant, central shops and at several comed at the rally and their presence railroad crossings. The union spon- had a big impact. “We’re committed to sors weekly solidarity rallies every winning this strike,” ILA Local 1422 Wednesday night at 6 p.m. at nearby Tannehill State Park, often featuring speakers from other unions. Militant/Deborah Liatos LOS ANGELES — Several dozen people rallied in front of the Myanmar Recommended reading UMWA Auxiliary Consulate here Aug. 21, the 36th rally in Los Angeles County since the military seized power Feb. 1 and moved to crush a wave of mass dem- Wives of striking miners have or- onstrations and strikes against the coup. The public rallies and marches, ganized a UMWA Auxiliary that has organized by the Los Angeles Myanmar Movement, have taken place al- raised thousands of dollars to help most every week, drawing up to 500 people. provide food, diapers, school supplies The military government has been unable to stop protests in Myanmar. and other necessities to strikers’ fami- On Aug. 8, the 33rd anniversary of an uprising against military rule in lies. Strikers get weekly benefits from 1988, protests took place in the main cities of Yangon, Mandalay, Sagaing the union’s strike fund. Its long and and other places across the country. The modest actions happened quick- growing list of contributing unions, ly, then dispersed, with coverage posted on Facebook. community organizations, and indi- “For five years we had won partial democracy,” Ii Maung, one of the or- vidual donations reflects increasing ganizers of the Los Angeles protest, told the Militant. Then the coup came. support for the strike. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced at the beginning of August Union members are fighting to re- that he was now the prime minister and that the military-enforced state of verse the conditions they’ve been emergency was extended through August 2023. working under since 2016, when a Speakers at the rally said protests will continue to support the fight of “Unionism and politics cannot concession contract was forced on the the people in Myanmar until the military government is brought down. be separated. Power generated union after the mines’ previous owner, A popular chant in Burmese at the actions is, “Our revolution must win.” at the trade-union level can be Jim Walter Resources, went bankrupt — Deborah Liatos shattered by government blows. the year before. Warrior Met — set up Workers must enter the political by BlackRock and others of Jim Wal- arena as an independent class ter’s biggest creditors — threatened went instead into the new owners’ The Brookwood mines produce force, with their own party.” to shut the mines unless the union coffers over the last five years. metallurgical coal, in high demand — Farrell Dobbs agreed to cuts in pay, increased costs On Aug. 23, the union announced by the global steel industry. Warrior for health care, loss of overtime pay National Labor Relations Board Re- Met, one of the top U.S. producers of Other books in four-part series: after eight hours, loss of extra over- gion 10 Director Lisa Henderson has “met” coal, has reported significant Teamster Rebellion time pay for Sundays and holidays, found merit in unfair labor practice profits in 2021, after a drop in income Teamster Power loss of 10 annual paid holidays, an at- charges the UMWA filed against War- in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. Teamster Bureaucracy tendance policy of “four strikes and rior Met for “bad faith bargaining” To meet some orders and to un- $16 each or all four for $50 you’re out,” no cap on forced overtime and failure to provide the union with dermine the strike, the company has and other concessions. required information. The NLRB had been mining coal at the No. 7 mine pathfinderpress.com The union calculates that these con- notified Warrior Met Aug. 13 that it with scab labor since the strike be- cessions cost workers $1.1 billion that should cease and desist. gan. Some scabs cross the picket lines in their own vehicles; others are brought in on buses with darkened 25, 50, and 75 years ago windows. There have been several incidents of scabs hitting union pick- ets with their vehicles. Support and solidarity are need- ed. Help to spread the word about the strike! Send contributions, made September 9, 1996 September 10, 1971 September 7, 1946 out to UMWA 2021 Strike Fund, to Thousands of students in South Korea An important victory in the fight The American imperialists revealed UMWA Strike Fund, P.O. Box 513, engaged in a nine-day confrontation with for GI rights was registered July 28 their true reactionary face when on Dumfries, VA 22026. Messages of the government authorities, demanding when the Army brass dropped its August 29 an order was issued by support can also be sent to District 20, reunification of the Korean peninsula. plans to court-martial Pvt. Ed Jurenas Gen. MacArthur in Tokyo prohibiting 21922 Hwy. 216 (Miners’ Memorial The protests began with a demonstra- for his role in publishing an antiwar “strikes, walkouts or other work stop- Parkway), McCalla, AL 35111; Email: tion of 7,000 students in Seoul August newspaper, The Arctic Arsenal, at Ft. pages which are inimical to the objec- [email protected]. 12. The rally was a commemoration of Greely, Alaska. tives of the military occupation.” the 51st anniversary of the victory of the The Army was forced to retreat be- MacArthur directed the puppet Japa- Korean people in throwing off the yoke cause of broad support mobilized in nese authorities to break a three-day of Japanese colonial domination. barely more than two months. strike of seamen, coupled with a threat The Reunification has been a central de- Pvt. Jurenas, like most GIs today, to use American occupation troops COMMUNIST mand of working people and youth in was opposed to the war at the time of if Japanese authorities found “police MANIFESTO Korea ever since the partition of the his induction last year. A member of force” necessary to man the five ships by Karl Marx and country by Washington and Moscow the Young Socialist Alliance, Jurenas that were tied up. Frederick Engels following World War II. The U.S.- entered the Army with the intention of On August 28, MacArthur had is- Written in 1848, backed South Korean regime, how- exercising his constitutional rights to sued another decree banning “noisy, the Communist $5 ever, has striven to halt even the most act on his opposition together with other disorderly demonstrations” and threat- Manifesto minimal political contact with the GIs. He said so in a news conference just ened to put them down with American explains why North [DPRK]. prior to being inducted. troops if this were deemed “necessary.” communism is the line of Some 37,000 U.S. soldiers accom- The response of most GIs to the pa- The Japanese government immediately march of the working class pany a South Korean army of 650,000 per’s appearance on post May 20 was got tough with unionized employees, toward power. troops deployed near the “demilitarized favorable and enthusiastic, but the brass threatening railway workers with “seri- zone,” an area that separates the DPRK immediately set out to suppress this le- ous results” if they tried to demonstrate pathfinderpress.com from South Korea. gal expression of dissent. “the union’s strength.”

4 The Militant September 6, 2021 Stewardship of land and labor falls to the working class by brian williams The United Nation’s Intergovern- mental Panel on Climate Change re- cently released its sixth assessment report, provoking renewed hysteria in the capitalist media and among liberal “Green New Deal” proponents that environmental disaster confronts us all today. The report is “code red for human- ity,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres declared, calling for an end to the burning of fossil fuels. It forecasts a “potentially catastrophic future,” predicts the New York Times. “Human-induced climate change,” the report asserts, is evidenced by “extremes such as heat waves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones.” Militant/Tony Lane Malcolm Jarrett, then SWP vice president candidate and currently SWP candidate for mayor of Pittsburgh, speaks at July 30, 2019, Allegheny But despite prophecies of impending County Health Department hearing, says workers need to fight for control of production to stop U.S. Steel plant poisoning workers, community. doom, much in the 4,000-page report shows a different picture, that disaster Similarly, increased death and de- banned chlorofluorocarbons in 1987. ers above classes and outside the class isn’t at our doorstep. struction from flooding fall in starkly The move has been more successful struggle.” Utterly absent from the U.N.’s find- different ways on different social than predicted, as the ozone layer has “The working class must also reject ings is any road for how the working classes under capitalism. “Through- increased in size and carbon dioxide all forms of fake science, exaggera- class — the only progressive class on out most of the world,” states the levels cut sharply. tions, catastrophism, and crankism,” earth — can respond to this issue, SWP resolution, “the poorest layers Of course, chemical alternatives he said. “[I]f we translate everything nor any scientific explanation of the of the rural and urban populations were cheaply available to replace the commonly thought of as an environ- causes of environmental destruction. live on or near flood plains, either to offending ones in air conditioners and mental issue into how to advance the It is the dog-eat-dog competition for scrape out a living or because better- other devices, leading to less com- protection of the working class, and markets and profit that drives the rul- protected areas are reserved for the plaints from profit-driven bosses. how the working class can extend that ing capitalist families to mercilessly propertied classes.” Liberals and others insisting dras- projection to all, then we can hardly exploit all the forces of production, The U.N. report itself admits that tic measures are needed argue that ever go wrong. With that approach, our labor and the world’s natural re- floods are not primarily caused by cli- the most extreme recommendations we will increase the possibilities for sources, with no regard for the conse- mate change. In fact, a recent study of in the report rest on more far-reaching concrete solidarity in fighting against quences for future generations. more than 10,000 rivers around world and scientific evidence than previous ecological abuses and outrages.” The questions under discussion are shows that most rivers now flood less reports. In fact, they are based not on The latest climate report will be at important for working people. “How frequently than in decades earlier, re- facts, but on computer models that the center of discussion among those social labor is organized to transform ported the Wall Street Journal Aug. 6. simulate climate changes. attending the U.N. Climate Change nature — to whose benefit, to what The Journal wrote it had data “from Models on global warming, for ex- Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, lat- social and economic ends — depends all climate-related weather disasters ample, don’t explain why rapid global er this year. It will provide a platform on the class relations of production. It such as floods, droughts, storms and warming occurred from 1910 to 1940 for liberal capitalist politicians who depends on which class rules, which fires from the International Disas- when human influences on the climate blame working people as the source of class holds state power,” says the So- ter Database.” Its conclusion? “In the were much less. The U.N. climate re- the problem. “It’s human beings who cialist Workers Party resolution “The 1920s these disasters killed almost half port also has to acknowledge that real- are adding the greatest amount of fuel Stewardship of Nature also Falls to the a million people on average each year. world warming — up 1.1 degrees Cel- to the fire,” John Kerry, President Joe Working Class: In Defense of Land The current climate narrative would sius in the past 150 years — has been Biden’s envoy for climate, scolded in and Labor,” adopted in 2007. (See New suggest that natural disasters are ever less than projected in previous climate an interview in the Aug. 3 New Yorker. International no. 14.) deadlier, but that isn’t true. Over the models reports. “The propertied ruling families,” “Global warming” is blamed by lib- past century, climate-related deaths Meanwhile, insurance companies the SWP resolution says, “try to pre- erals and middle-class radicals for ev- have dropped to fewer than 20,000 are reaping big bucks from predictions vent us from recognizing the actual ery disaster from forest fires, like those on average each year, even though of doom and gloom from the climate source of these threats to civilization: ravaging California, Oregon, Greece the global population has quadrupled “modellers.” They’re selling high pre- the capitalist mode of production, the and elsewhere today, to hurricanes, since 1920.” mium coverage to individuals, fami- world imperialist order, and the enor- earthquakes and more. The U.N. climate report says the lies and even to insure other insurance mous wealth and power the rulers But wildfires don’t just happen, they rate of global sea-level rise has been companies for when climate “catastro- wring from nature and the exploited require both tinder and sparks. The increasing over the past 50 years. But phe” strikes. producers.” real cause of social catastrophes like it doesn’t mention the fact that it was The conquest of power by workers the Dixie and other fires in California increasing almost as rapidly 90 years ‘A class question’ and farmers is “the only road to peace is the refusal of both the government ago, then decreased strongly for 40 “Environmental pollution is a social and the effective defense of labor and of and power companies like Pacific Gas years. The report also asserts that heat question, a class question,” Socialist the earth’s land, waters, and atmosphere. & Electric to take responsibility and to waves across the U.S. have become Workers Party National Secretary Jack Concrete gains for working people can act as stewards of the land. They fail more frequent since 1960, but at the Barnes wrote in Capitalism’s World and will be won as byproducts along to keep the ground clear of debris and same time it admits that they’re not Disorder. “Workers must not fall into that road of revolutionary struggle.” dead plants, to remove fallen trees, more common today than they were accepting the common view — that is, and repair and upgrade electric trans- in 1900. the bourgeois view — that the envi- mission lines and towers. They refuse Recent reports show some signifi- ronment ... is a ‘scientific’ question, a because to do so would cut into the cant progress has been made, espe- ‘natural’ question, that somehow hov- bosses’ profits. cially since governments worldwide militant The Stewardship of Nature Also Falls to the Working Class: labor In Defense of Land and Labor forums “Under capitalist social relations, human hardship from natural occurrences falls in starkly different ways Kentucky on different social classes. In New Orleans after Hur- Louisville Their Morals and Ours: COVID, Unions ricane Katrina in 2005, life or death, a home still habit- and the Working-Class Road to Power. able or forced diaspora — a few feet above or below Speaker: Kaitlin Estill, Socialist Workers sea level marked the class divide” — Socialist Workers Party. Fri., Sept. 3. Defend Cuba’s Socialist Revolution. Party statement in New International no. 14 Speaker: Maggie Trowe, Socialist Work- $14. Also in Spanish, French, and Swedish ers Party candidate for mayor of Louis- ville. Fri., Sept. 10. For both events: Re- $14 See list of distributors on page 8 or visit ception, 6:30; program, 7 p.m. Donation: www.pathfinderpress.com $5. 1939 Goldsmith Lane, Suite 134. Tel.: (502) 882-1041. www.pathfinderpress.com The Militant September 6, 2021 5 Solidarity with Nabisco strike! Protest Washington’s economic war on Cuban Revolution Continued from front page in the mixing department. “They’re by seth galinsky from the Cuban Revolution and orga- Two rallies have already taken place trying to take away jobs by trying to Car and bike caravans, pickets and nize to emulate it. in Portland, and strikers say their picket get us to do other people’s jobs,” add- rallies to protest Washington’s more The Joseph Biden administration gets near-constant honks of support. ed Eileen Giskaas. than 60-year-long economic war on has been tightening the U.S. rulers’ The workers are fighting attacks on We urged pickets to get in touch with Cuba are planned Aug. 29 in a half economic and political war against work schedules, seniority and overtime United Mine Workers members who’ve dozen U.S. cities as well as in Can- Cuba, the effects of which are exac- pay, increasing health insurance costs, been on strike since April against War- ada, the United Kingdom and other erbated by today’s worldwide capital- and cuts to pensions. The company rior Met Coal in Alabama. They hold countries. Some will take place the ist economic crisis and the COVID-19 wants to start running 12-hour shifts weekly rallies every Wednesday, includ- day before. The monthly caravans, pandemic, to tighten the screws on the or longer, with overtime pay kicking in ing one of 1,500 there Aug. 4, with buses which began last year, are helping to Cuban people and their revolution. He only if workers labor more than a 40- coming in with longshoremen and oth- win new support to the fight against has built on and expanded the mea- hour week, instead of after eight hours a ers from all around the area. The Nabis- the U.S. government embargo. sures imposed by the Donald Trump day. Bosses want to eliminate time and co strikers really liked the sound of that! Every U.S. president — Democrat administration before him. a half pay for Saturdays and double time Several picked up copies of the and Republican alike — has sought On Aug. 19 Homeland Security Sec- on Sundays. And they want to bring in Militant reporting on the rally to learn to punish the Cuban people for over- retary Alejandro Mayorkas met with a more non-union temporary workers. more about the miners strike and other throwing the U.S.-backed dictatorship range of counterrevolutionary groups in “For five years the company has re- issues affecting working people. Militant/John Hawkins of Fulgencio Batista on Jan. 1, 1959, Miami to deepen their support for the Aug. 21 picket at Nabisco plant in Chicago, one of five on strike across U.S. “We’re not ask- fused to let the union business agent When you fight you can win, said ing for anything new,” say strikers. “We’re fighting to hold on to what we’ve already won.” dismantling the capitalist regime’s administration’s anti-Cuba measures. into the plant to deal with grievances,” Joyce McNair, a baker with 14 years military, police and state machinery The Aug. 28 and 29 actions are an op- said Judy Schultz, a forklift driver with in the plant. “It makes you feel better workers against the older ones.” plant is operating, you can smell the and replacing them with a workers portunity for all those who oppose the 37 years at the plant. “All their ‘offers’ because they can’t just do anything to Under government lockdown orders product, and now there is no smell. and farmers government. U.S. embargo to join together to get out are takeaways. The plant manager said, people across the country were buy- The strike is getting a lot of support. Led by Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Militant/Jim Upton the truth about Cuba, to demand that all you — you have better working con- July 25 rally after car caravan in Montreal against U.S. embargo of Cuba. The monthly actions ‘They have too many holidays, too ditions, better pay.” ing up snacks like there’s no tomor- Teamsters Local 322, which organizes Guevara and others, working people demand end to Washington’s more than 60-year push to destroy Cuba’s socialist revolution. the sanctions and travel restrictions on many nice cars in the parking lot!’” Strikers said the company began row. “Last year during the pandemic, UPS drivers, brought two cases of in Cuba made ever-deeper inroads Cuba be lifted, and to demand Washing- Nabisco was gobbled up by candy, busing in scabs a week into the strike some people worked 16-hour days for water. Unions representing Verizon against capitalist exploitation and discrimination and enforced it. Tens America and around the globe. ton get out of Guantánamo, which it has gum and baked goods conglomerate and a few workers crossed the line. But 10 days straight,” Carpenter said. “And workers, teachers, mail carriers, Phil- property relations, transforming them- of thousands of young people went What the U.S. rulers fear most is occupied for over a century against the Mondelez several years ago. This in- they’re confident in their strike, which workers in the plant lived with the fear ip Morris and railroad workers have selves in the process. They recognized to the countryside to teach people to that working people elsewhere, espe- will of the Cuban people. See the calen- ternational giant based in Deerfield, Il- is getting support from other unions in that if they caught COVID they would joined the picket line and brought soli- through their own experience — and read and write, eliminating illiteracy cially in the United States, will learn dar below for the actions nearest you. linois, raked in nearly $28 billion for the plant who aren’t on strike but are bring it home to their families.” darity. A group of local pastors plan to were determined to defend — the so- in a year, and changing forever both the 12 months ending June 30, 2021. honoring their picket lines, including Pointing to a sign at the plant en- walk the picket line Aug. 26. cialist character of their revolution and teachers and students. The snack baron markets 53 brands, operating engineers, machinists, elec- trance that reads ‘Heroes work here,’ I told strikers on the picket line the Marxist character of their leader- Workers took increasing control Solidarity with Nabisco strike! including Cadbury, Chiclets, Chips Marva Carter, a 21-year veteran ma- that they’re fighting not just for them- ship. The depth of those changes is over production in the nationalized trical workers, and Teamsters. Continued from previous page pays 100% of the expenses, with no Ahoy! Clorets, Halls, Oreos, Philadel- chine operator, said, “We went from selves, but for all workers. They’re why six decades later the U.S. rulers factories. They became more con- You can help! Visit BCTGM Local with more solidarity. co-pays or monthly payments. They phia cream cheese, Ritz, Tang, Tate’s hero to zero in just a few days.” setting an inspiring example. have been unable to overturn it. scious of their class interests, more 364 Facebook page and send contri- Support the Nabisco strikers! Send want to make it 80/20, and want to Bake Shop, Toblerone, Trident, Tris- Despite what the company claims, “When we win this strike,” Car- They used their new government to confident in their ability to organize butions to www.gofundme.com/f/ solidarity messages and financial make us pay a weekly payment for the cuit and Wheat Thins. They profit off “nothing in the plant is running.” penter said, “come back and help us carry out a thoroughgoing land reform society, more determined to extend bctgm-local-364-strike-support. contributions to BCTGM Local 358, benefits we get,” Hamer said. “This is 79,000 employees worldwide. Christine Brown told the Militant. celebrate.” I said I’d be back soon that guaranteed land for thousands of solidarity to others fighting imperi- 1310 E. Nine Mile Road, Highland going to start forcing us to choose be- “It’s never enough for the bosses. 400 Nabisco workers join Workers pointed out that when the Continued on page 7 peasant farmers. They outlawed racist alist domination throughout Latin That’s why your example of standing Springs, VA 23075. tween health care and other necessary up is so important. Corporations are strike at Virginia bakery living expenses.” He’s 66 years old doing this all over, and they’re backed by James Harris Nabisco workers walk off and recently had a stroke. up by their fellow capitalist rulers, who HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — “I am Imperialist scorn, Cuban solidarity on display after Haiti earthquake the job in Chicago At first the company wanted to get have the state power, the cops and the overwhelmed with the amount of sup- Continued from front page medicine and sanitation. the tightening of the U.S. embargo. It’s “for propaganda,” but is in fact a prod- BY ILONA GERSH rid of 100% health care coverage for all courts,” Rebecca Williamson, a worker port we are getting. It’s the solidarity that care available on the island. While the Cuban volunteers are scru- a struggle for Cuba to get raw materi- uct of working-class values that are the CHICAGO — Some 350 workers workers. But when the union said no, the at Walmart and Socialist Workers Party is the most important,” said BCTGM The sharp exception is the interna- pulous about not interfering in the inter- als and syringes it needs to produce and bedrock of a living socialist revolu- walked off the job at midnight Aug. 19 company replied, “OK, we’ll let present candidate for City Council in Seattle, Local 358 business agent Darlene Car- tionalist aid from revolutionary Cuba, nal politics in Haiti, they are proud of administer its own vaccines. tion. “We don’t offer what we have left at the Nabisco factory on the South Side employees keep their 100% coverage, if told strikers on the picket line Aug. 20. penter when we joined the picket line whose medical workers have provided representing their socialist revolution. Despite these obstacles, the Cuban over,” Cuban volunteers often explain. here. They were joined the next day by they accept everything else we’re ask- “Workers and farmers make and create outside the Nabisco plant here. care and health education in Haiti con- We are “showing in practice the government reported Aug. 24 it has now “We share what we have.” 40 workers at a company distribution ing for as a package. But new hires will everything. We must build a working- Some 400 bakery workers went on tinuously since 1998, when it sent 350 values of solidarity and humanism obtained supplies needed to inoculate What a difference from the so-called center in Addison, a Chicago suburb. have to pay for their health care.” class leadership and our own political strike here Aug. 16 to stop the com- volunteers in the wake of Hurricanes that the heroic guerrilla Ernesto Che everyone on the island and expects to nonprofits, nongovernmental agencies “I want to emphasize, that we’re not “That’s a bribe,” Hamer said. party to break out of this cycle.” pany’s demands for more concessions George and Mitch. To combat the spread Guevara has bequeathed to us,” reads have done so by the end of November. and private companies that use the di- negotiating for anything new,” Veron- “They want to keep us all divided.” Williamson is one of three Walmart and its attempt to divide and conquer of cholera introduced in Haiti by U.N. a post on the Facebook page of Cuba’s “You are keeping medical bri- saster in Haiti ostensibly to provide aid, ica Hopkins, Bakery Workers union Strikers told us the bosses have sped workers who came to support the strike. the workers. troops in 2010, the Cuban health care mission in Haiti. Guevara was part of gades in other countries, as if there but in fact to legitimize their operations Local 1 business agent, told Militant up the line. “As a mixer, I should be Williamson and Patricia Scott, who “The company pushed us to this point workers went house to house in the most the Marxist leadership in Cuba that led were doctors and medicine to spare” and line their own pockets. worker-correspondents who joined mixing 16 batches per eight-hour shift. both work at the Federal Way store, and they don’t care,” said Carpenter. The isolated mountain regions, educating workers and farmers to take power and in Cuba, complained the editors of the picket line Aug. 21. “We’re trying Now it’s up to 20,” said Hamer. brought a card signed by co-workers lively picket line is up 24/7 and includes people about the necessary measures to subsequently served on international- CiberCuba, a Spanish-based website, Working-class solidarity to hold on to what we won a long time Paul Hood, a forklift operator, has along with contributions of $50. Strik- nightly fish fries and line dancing. prevent the spread of the disease. ist missions to Congo and Bolivia. Aug. 23. “Everything is for propa- In addition to the aid from the Cu- ago. These are rights that the company worked in the plant for 25 years. When ers on the picket line were delighted. Key to the strike is the company’s Among thousands of Cuban medi- The U.S. rulers and other opponents ganda, isn’t it?” bans, workers and farmers in Haiti have is trying to take away despite the fact we asked about safety on the job, he “They never want to fix our equip- proposed “alternative work schedule cal volunteers providing health care all of the Cuban Revolution have been try- These counterrevolutionaries, who turned to each other’s solidarity to get that they are reporting record profits. said, “Management talks the talk, but ment,” said Portia LeBleu, who works on select high-demand lines.” This over the world, there are currently 253 ing to stir up divisions in Cuba over the defend the dog-eat-dog morality of the through the current crisis. “I have a “For most of the workers, the number they don’t walk the walk. And if you would mean 12-hour shifts at straight doctors, nurses and other medical work- challenge the revolution faces in the capitalist market, are incapable of un- friend who came from Port-au-Prince one issue is health care,” Hopkins said. have an accident, they blame you.” “A giant has begun to stir ...” time, rotating two days on, two days ers in Haiti, who will remain there as midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and derstanding that such solidarity is not to bring me water and food and I shared Salvador Gustavo, a Nabisco re- In 2016, the factory shut down its off for two weeks, and three days on long as they are needed. This is a sig- that with my neighbors,” Marcel Fran- tiree, came back to work two months Oreo, Ritz cracker, and graham cracker and two days off for the third. nificant contribution in a country where cois told the press. ago in the repack department, where production lines, transferring the work $7 “They say they want to improve our there are at best 2,500 doctors, most Join Cuba Solidarity Caravans Aug. 29 Dominican journalist Deisy Tous- everyone is part time. “I couldn’t af- to a factory in Mexico. Six hundred jobs ‘work-life balance,’” said Keith Bragg, in private practice and concentrated in saint, who traveled by land from Port- ford to retire,” he said. “I want to in Chicago were eliminated. president of BCTGM Local 358. “But wealthier neighborhoods. Halt Washington’s economic war against Cuba! au-Prince to Les Cayes, told channel transfer into the factory. Where I am, “They hired 200 back, but we still it destroys it. It takes time away from Cuban internationalist medical End travel restrictions! U.S. out of Guantánamo! 24 TV that she saw areas with homes I’m part time, and we don’t have any lost 400 jobs, and they haven’t been our family and kids. They are taking us workers already in the hardest hit totally destroyed, where five days af- benefits, no vacations or health care. I replacing many workers who are pro- back to the past, before the eight-hour Miami Washington, D.C. moted or quit,” Hopkins said. earthquake zone began setting up Caravan. 9 a.m. assemble at José Martí monument in Caravan. 3 p.m. assemble 4700 block of 14th St. NW. ter the quake no aid or rescue crews especially need the health care.” workday, when we worked ‘sun up to makeshift hospitals and operating had arrived. “People told us they He makes $11.50 an hour, while start- “If someone calls off and the shift Coral Gables. CANADA sun down.’ What’s to stop them from rooms. At the same time, they con- could hear people still alive under the ing pay for production workers in the is short of workers, they force us to do Chicago Vancouver, British Columbia calling every line ‘high demand?’” tinue treating and aiding people across Caravan. 2 p.m. assemble at 106th St and State Line Caravan. 12 noon assemble. 2 p.m. picnic. Call 604- rubble, and all they had were their factory is $19.36, and goes up to almost overtime, which is mandatory,” said The company also wants new hires the country. Some of the volunteers are Road. Rally 3:30 p.m. at Steelworkers Park. 780-4029 for location. hands to try to get them out.” $30. Gustavo isn’t on strike, since the Hamer. “They can make us work up to pay health care deductibles, where “sleeping in tents, like the more than Schenectady, New York Montreal In the absence of any serious govern- part-time department is not union, but to 16 hours. I want to work my eight current workers would continue to 130,000 families who lost everything Caravan. 12 noon assemble at Schenectady Commu- Caravan. 2 p.m. assemble at Métro Plamondon parking ment response to the disaster, a handful he pickets when he’s not working. hours and go home, and have Satur- lot, exit Van Horne and Victoria. get 100% coverage. “We gave up on Aug. 14,” reported Trabajadores, nity College parking lot. of recent graduates from Haiti’s public Tommy Hamer is a mixer who has day and Sunday off.” raises to not pay health insurance the weekly newspaper of the Central New York City UNITED KINGDOM medical school pooled their money for worked here for 17 years. He carried Nabisco wants to set the workday at Caravan. 2 p.m. assemble at State Office Building. Manchester premiums, and now they are using Organization of Cuban Workers. Rally 3 p.m. at Che, Albizu mural at 201 E. 105th St. Sat. Aug. 28, 12 p.m. Public Meeting at The Sports- supplies and set up a clinic in Marceline. over years of seniority from working 12 hours on so-called essential produc- that against us,” Bragg said. For the last 22 years, these medical vol- Dallas man, 57 Mottram Road, Hyde, SK14 7NN More than 100 years of U.S. imperi- 20 years in another Chicago Nabisco tion lines, or lines with high volume. Christine Brown, a packing techni- unteers have collaborated closely with Caravan. 1:30 p.m. assemble at Pan African Connec- Glasgow alist domination and superexploitation plant the bosses closed. “But they control the volume,” Hopkins cian who has worked in the plant for their Haitian colleagues and working tion Bookstore parking lot, 4466 S. Marsalis Ave. Sat. Aug. 28 Caravan. 1 p.m. assemble at Donald Dew- are perpetuating the miserable condi- In 2016, he said, the company said. “They can shift production from 20 years, said, “We’re not fighting to people, including giving classes in the Seattle ar Statue, Buchanan St. tions working people confront in Haiti, stopped investing in the pension plan. another factory to here, and then say that Picket. 11 a.m. corner E. Green Lake Way North and Brighton and Hove get more but to keep what we’ve got. health centers and individual homes to W. Green Lake Way North. Followed by bike and walk ensuring natural disasters rapidly be- Now there’s only a 401(k). they need to run 12-hour shifts. And that See distributors page 8 or Sun. Aug 29 Walk. 11:30 a.m. meet at Voks Railway They are trying to pit the younger raise consciousness about preventive around Green Lake. Terminus, Brighton Marina. come social catastrophes. “The health care plan we have now other factory is left short on work.” visit pathfinderpress.com

6 The Militant September 6, 2021 The Militant September 6, 2021 7 Working class must be vanguard of all the exploited people One of Pathfinder’s Books of the their families and their farms and who Month for August is Workers of the do not hire outside labor. This stratum, World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite! as such, undoubtedly stands to gain by Proceedings and Documents of the Sec- the victory of the proletariat, which will ond Congress of the Communist Inter- fully and immediately bring it (a) deliv- national, 1920 (Vol. 2). Delegates came erance from the necessity of paying the to the congress from 37 countries in Eu- large landowners rent or a share of the rope, Asia, the Americas and Australia. crop; … (b) deliverance from mortgag- This excerpt is from “Preliminary Draft es; (c) deliverance from the numerous Theses on the Agrarian Question,” by forms of oppression by and dependence V.I. Lenin, the central leader of the 1917 on the large landowners (forest lands Russian Revolution and of the Commu- and their use, etc.); (d) immediate aid nist International. Key to the Bolshe- for their farms from the proletarian state viks leading working people to conquer (the use of the agricultural implements power was their Marxist program to and part of the buildings on the large forge an alliance of workers and peas- capitalist farms confiscated by the pro- ants. In his theses, Lenin draws on the letariat and the immediate conversion, lessons of that experience to help guide by the proletarian state, of the rural co- revolutionary parties inspired by the operative societies and agricultural as- Russian Revolution worldwide. Copy- sociations from organizations that un- right © 1991 by Pathfinder Press. Re- der capitalism served above all the rich printed by permission. and middle peasants into organizations that will primarily assist the poor, that Peasants rally in support of Russian Revolution. When Bolshevik Party led the Soviets to take is, proletarians, semiproletarians, small power, they abolished private ownership in land, turned farms over to those who tilled them. Books of peasants, etc.), and many other things. the countryside except in alliance with day) who obtain their livelihood by At the same time the Communist the Communist proletariat, and unless working for hire at capitalist agricultur- Party must clearly realize that during the month they give the latter devoted support in al enterprises. The organization of this the transitional period from capital- its revolutionary struggle to throw off class (political, military, trade union, ism to communism, that is, during the by V.I. Lenin the yoke of the landowners (the large cooperative, cultural, educational, and dictatorship of the proletariat, this stra- 1. Only the urban and industrial pro- landed proprietors) and the bourgeoisie. so on) independently and separately tum, or at all events part of it, will in- letariat, led by the Communist Party, On the other hand, the industrial from other groups of the rural popula- evitably vacillate toward unrestricted can liberate the working masses of the workers cannot accomplish their ep- tion, the conduct of intensive propagan- freedom of trade and the free enjoy- countryside from the yoke of capital och-making mission of emancipating da and agitation among this class, and ment of the rights of private property. and landed proprietorship, from ruin mankind from the yoke of capital and the winning of its support for the sovi- That is because this stratum, which, if and the imperialist wars that will in- from wars if they connect themselves ets and the dictatorship of the proletariat only in a small way, is a seller of arti- evitably break out again and again if to their narrow craft or trade interests constitute the fundamental tasks of the cles of consumption, has been corrupt- the capitalist system remains. There is and smugly restrict themselves to at- Communist parties in all countries. ed by profiteering and by proprietary no salvation for the working masses of taining an improvement in their own Second, the semiproletarians or habits. However, if a firm proletarian conditions. … peasants who till tiny plots of land, policy is pursued, and if the victorious The proletariat is a really revolu- that is, those who obtain their liveli- proletariat deals very resolutely with AUGUST tionary class and acts in a really so- hood partly as wage laborers at agri- the large landowners and the large BOOKS OF THE MONTH cialist manner only when it comes cultural and industrial capitalist enter- peasants, this stratum … will side with out and acts as the vanguard of all the prises and partly by working their own the proletarian revolution. Pathfinder Readers working and exploited people, as their or rented plots of land, which provide 3. Taken together, the three groups Club Specials leader in the struggle for the over- their families only with part of their enumerated above constitute the major- 30% means of subsistence. This group of ity of the rural population in all capital- DISCOUNT throw of the exploiters; this, however, cannot be achieved unless the class the rural working population is very ist countries. That is why the success struggle is carried into the country- numerous in all capitalist countries. … of the proletarian revolution is fully as- Workers side, unless the rural working masses If the work of the Communist Party sured, not only in the cities but in the of the are united about the Communist Party is properly organized, this group will countryside as well. The reverse view World and of the urban proletariat, and unless become its assured supporter, for the is widespread. However, it persists only, Oppressed they are trained by the proletariat. lot of these semiproletarians is a very first, because of the deception systemati- Peoples, 2. The working and exploited hard one and they stand to gain enor- cally practiced by bourgeois science and Unite! people of the countryside, whom the mously and immediately from soviet statistics, which do everything to gloss Proceedings and Documents of the urban proletariat must lead into the government and the dictatorship of over both the gulf that separates the Second Congress struggle or, at all events, win over, are the proletariat. above-mentioned classes in the coun- of the Communist International, 1920 represented in all capitalist countries Third, the small peasantry, that is, the tryside from the exploiters — the land- (Volume 2) by the following classes: small-scale tillers who, either as owners owners and capitalists — and that which $25 Special price $17.50 First, the agricultural proletariat, or as tenants, hold small plots of land separates the semiproletarians and small The Stalin School of Falsification wage laborers (by the year, season, or that enable them to satisfy the needs of peasants from the large peasants. 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When bosses The Taliban sent hundreds of its fighters to the nor, Aug. 25. say they need to boost “productivity,” it means we outskirts of the Panjshir Valley Aug. 23, vowing to will face increasingly dangerous line speeds and crush resistance that erupted against its rule. Marches, rallies other attacks on our lives and limbs. The reactionary Islamist group enforced stifling po- and other actions This is the way the capitalist system works — litical and cultural conditions on working people when planned by the labor class against class. We have to organize to fight to it previously ruled the country. These included im- movement around the defend ourselves and our class. All work can be per- position of Sharia law, public executions, preventing country on or around formed safely for workers, those who live nearby workers from organizing, and stopping women from Sept. 6 to mark Labor Day are an excellent oppor- and in ways that protect the planet. working and girls from going to school. tunity to spread the word about strikes by Alabama We need to use our unions to take more control over After Kabul fell, Mujahid announced the Taliban coal miners, Nabisco workers and others on strike or line speeds, working hours, hiring and over how and won’t seek revenge against its opponents and wants locked out by bosses demanding we give up hard-won what products are made. When we fight, our self-con- to form an “inclusive government.” It has held talks gains. The bosses and their government are attacking fidence and class consciousness grows and we win al- with senior bourgeois opposition figures, including workers to bolster their ability to crush their competi- lies. These battles are a school in preparation for more former President Hamid Karzai. tors and boost profits at our expense. We need to step struggles as the crisis of capitalism deepens. In the wake of its military pullout, Washington up efforts to get the word out about today’s labor bat- It is becoming clearer our unions need to break from is using its vast economic weight to pressure the tles and build solidarity with these struggles. the bosses’ two parties, the Democrats and Republi- Taliban, announcing it is preventing the export of We can bring real help to these battles, strengthen- cans. We need our own political party, a labor party, U.S. dollars to Kabul. The former Afghan govern- ing picket lines and raising money for strike funds. that can lead our class and its allies in the millions to ment was heavily dependent on an inflow of dollars Widening union support — as well as from farmers overturn capitalist rule and take political power into to prop up the country’s currency. and youth— can tip the balance. We need to emulate our own hands. Putting a workers and farmers govern- The Taliban inherits a capitalist economy three the example set by 60 International Longshoremen’s ment in power will provide the most powerful instru- times larger than when it was in power 20 years ago. Association members and other unionists who joined ment possible to fight to sweep away the centurieslong Especially in the countryside, it is one still largely the Aug. 4 rally of striking miners at Warrior Met Coal legacy of racism and all forms of oppression. dependent on the drug trade. Less than half the in Alabama. I attended it and pledged to do more. As workers and farmers in Cuba showed in 1959 population has access to sanitation, and the country Workers at Frito-Lay in Topeka, Kansas, struck and since, with proper leadership working people are remains one of the world’s poorest. Some 3.5 million for three weeks in July. They showed union power capable of carrying through a socialist revolution and people are now internally displaced by the war. can be utilized effectively, winning solidarity and taking control of our own destiny. Join us! Protests against Taliban rule Protesters in a number of cities raised the Afghan national flag Aug. 19, Afghanistan’s independence day, which celebrates the defeat of British imperial All workers have stake in today’s labor struggles forces in 1919. Some tore down white Taliban ban- Continued from front page other things workers need. We cannot allow a sec- ners. Mohammed Salim told Reuters that he saw tacks by the bosses,” the paper quoted Dennison. “My tion of our class to be driven out of the workforce, several people “killed and injured in the stampede co-workers agree we have to stand together and use isolated from fellow workers and demoralized.” and firing by the Taliban,” when anti-Taliban pro- our unions to strengthen each other.” “Our unions need to take control of the organiza- testers took to the streets in Asadabad. Today’s strikes are examples of exactly what is tion of mass vaccination against COVID and all its In Kabul about 200 people gathered before the needed in the face of employers stepping up their drive variants,” Dennison said. “Every worker needs to action was broken up by the Taliban. Protests also for profits off our backs. Bosses across the country are be vaccinated. And the unions should fight to force took place in other provinces. seeking to boost production, deal blows to competitors the government to share patents and vaccines with Nine men were tortured and murdered by Tali- and raise profits. They’re out to cut costs through job toilers worldwide. These steps are the only way ban fighters in a village in Ghazni province in early combinations, speedup and holding down wages. As to stop the ravages of the disease. As on all social July, according to Amnesty International. They be- their rivalries sharpen, attacks on workers will deepen. questions, the unions have to lead.” longed to the Hazara, an ethnic group who practice They hope that millions thrown out of work over Our unions need to fight for a 30-hour workweek a Shiite version of Islam and speak a Persian dia- the last year who are looking to get back into the at 40 hours pay. Whenever the boss wants to cut back lect. The Hazara have long been persecuted in both workforce will raise competition among workers work, our hours must be reduced with no cut in pay to Afghanistan and Pakistan. and hinder working-class solidarity. prevent layoffs while protecting our standard of living. The rulers in Beijing, Tehran and Islamabad, One sign the bosses are moving to tighten their Alongside the effects of widespread unemployment, as well as in Moscow, are seeking to extend their squeeze on workers is a Labor Department report stat- the bosses’ media claim there is nothing we can do influence in Afghanistan. Russian Foreign Minis- ing that worker productivity grew by 4.3% between about rising prices. Both the Wall Street Journal and ter Sergei Lavrov said the governments of Russia, January and March, the highest increase in many the New York Times ran headlines Aug. 18 that told China and Pakistan are offering to serve as media- years. Bosses are putting in more automation and set- readers “don’t panic about inflation.” Price rises that tors alongside Washington with the aim of recon- ting higher production quotas to get out more goods the Federal Reserve insisted were only “transitory” ciling the Taliban and its political opponents. with fewer workers. Amazon is notorious for this. have continued to grow. Prices at the supermarket and Beijing wants stability in Afghanistan for its invest- Many bosses are pushing more pay tiers, to play gas pump are at their highest rates in decades. ments and minerals extraction, including lithium and newly hired workers against those with more experi- The crisis of capitalist production and trade to- rare earths used in the manufacture of computers. ence who often do the same job. The bosses want to day is making all this worse. The price of thermal employ a greater percentage of contract workers to coal shipped out of Newcastle, Australia, used to U.S. imperialism lost the war cut wages and weaken our unions. generate electricity across Asia, has risen 106% The U.S. rulers had long ceased trying to win their this year. Freight rates for container shipping war in Afghanistan before President Joseph Biden an- Unions must lead fight for jobs worldwide rose to their highest level ever in August nounced the U.S. troop withdrawal. The disorganized Our unions need to lead a fight to get the millions — signs inflation is likely to continue. military flight has provoked bitter recriminations from of workers still out of work back on the job. Em- “The capitalist ruling families are unwilling and within both the two main U.S. capitalist parties. ployers threaten strikers with replacement workers unable to hold down prices,” Dennison said. “Work- Washington’s retreat undermines the U.S. rulers’ drawn from the ranks of the unemployed, to try to ers need to fight for cost-of-living clauses in every standing at the head of the world imperialist order, weaken our struggles. contract and for retirees, so that when prices rise, boosts its rivals and makes it harder to demand gov- President Joseph Biden claimed Aug. 19 that he our wages go up to match them 100%.” ernments that stand in its way submit to its dictates. is “delivering real results for American workers” Fighting for what workers need to protect our- As the Socialist Workers Party resolution “Their by creating more jobs than any other president. selves from the impact of the crisis requires organiz- Transformation and Ours” published in New Interna- The fact is 18 months into the pandemic, 5.7 mil- ing unions, using union power on the job and build- tional no. 12 explains, the U.S. rulers’ bombardment of lion fewer workers have jobs than before it began. ing a party that serves the class interests workers Afghanistan and overturn of the Taliban in 2001 was Biden has no jobs program, relying instead on share, not those of the capitalists, as the Democratic aimed at “persuading” governments across the region handing billions to the bosses, who only hire work- and Republican parties have always done. “that continuing to get crosswise with Washington is ers when they can turn a profit, and at the lowest “Workers need to break from the bosses’ parties and not only against their class interests but contrary over wages they can impose. build a labor party,” Dennison said. “This is the road an extended period to their own survival.” “Our unions must lead a fight for jobs,” Denni- to build a fighting working-class party that can take Despite their retreat, the U.S. rulers remain by far son said. “They should mobilize their members to political power out of the hands of the capitalist class, the world’s dominant imperialist power with tens of fight for a federally funded public works program form a workers and farmers government and wield it thousands of military forces at bases across the Mid- to put millions back to work at union-scale wages in the interests of all those who are exploited and op- dle East and massive deployments of bombers, drones, to build houses, hospitals, day care centers and pressed by capital. This is a socialist revolution.” warships, artillery and troops around the globe.

The Militant September 6, 2021 9