No 176 Spring 2001 40p Newspaper of the Spartacist League

.;:;:;::::::::::::::.: .... No vote to Labour: imperialist butchers!

For four years the Labour government has proven to be an effective instrument for administering British imperialism. As

in the rest of Europe, social democrats Economist have spearheaded the dismantling of the "welfare state"; Blair, Jospin, Schroder destroy by neglect the legitimacy of the etc have been serving their imperialist Government that's been elected" (Times, masters well, dishing out all-round at­ 23 March). tacks on the working class and whipping Enter the Socialist Alliance (SA) up racist hysteria. With the Tories in which claims it marks "the most serious disarray, Blair's New Labour is again the socialist challenge to the Labour Party in preferred party of government for the more than a generation". The SA is ruling class. dominated by the reformist Socialist Following capitalist counterrevolution Workers Party (SWP) with other fake­ in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Trotskyist outfits in tow Sllch as Workers Europe, which wreaked economic and Power, the Alliance for Workers Liberty, social devastation, rivalries between the Socialist Outlook and the Socialist Party. imperialist powers have sharpened. With One look at its election programme, the world capitalist economies teetering Peter Macdiarmid which from start to fmish is pure reform­ on the brink of a major recession, passed draconian legislation to enforce tests were initiated by petty-bourgeois ist drivel such as "Tax the rich to rebuild rivalries will escalate over the long­ all of the above. Meanwhile, economic farmers and hauliers, we called for a the welfare state", purely within the sought-after prize - the restoration of depression and the attendant growth in tanker drivers strike which could have confines of capitalism and within the capitalism in China. Labour was the unemployment create a breeding ground transformed the massively popular pro­ shores of Britain, makes clear that their most bellicose of the NATO govern­ for fascism. Labour and Tory politicians tests into a mighty class battle against goal is to pressure Labour to reform ments during the Balkans War, which have whipped up racism to the point the hated Labour government. More capitalism. We say: No vote to the So­ had nothing to do with protecting the where the Council of Europe berated recently, the multiethnic workforce of cialist Alliance! Despite their pretensions Kosovo Albanians and everything to do them for creating a "xenophobic and London Underground has staged one­ to being a socialist alternative, they are with establishing a NATO imperialist intolerant" climate and murderous at­ day strikes against privatisation which not opposed to New Labour. The SWP's presence in the region. Labour joins with tacks against blacks, Asians and other brought the city to a standstill. line in areas where the SA do not have a US imperialism in bombing Iraq; like­ minorities are commonplace. Outra­ Blair wants to remodel Labour as an candidate (ie the vast majority of seats) wise Blair supports Bush's military geously, Britain's Chinese population openly bourgeois party along the lines of is: "Our approach in the coming election machinations against the Chinese de- has been scapegoated by the government the Democratic Party. Its support among should be 'vote Socialist where you can, . formed workers state, including "Star for the foot-and-mouth epidemic . workers has fallen dramatically and the vote Labour where you must' " (Interna­ Wars" missile defence. We say: Defend However, there are clear signs that the Labour "left" is defunct. Tony Benn, tional Socialism, Spring 2001). The So­ China against imperialist attack! working class across Europe has had leader of the Labour "left" for decades, cialist Alliance are pimps for Tony Blair, The infrastructure of British capitalist enough. The current wave of class strug­ now retiring, is worried that in the midst seeking to channel the heartfelt anger of society is crumbling: it is unsafe to eat gles in France is a clear example and in of aftger and disaffection among work­ workers, youth and minorities back into the food and dangerous to travel on the Britain last year's fuel blockade put the ers, youth and minorities, illusions in the rotten mould ofparliamentary poli­ trains. Labour's record includes British widely despised Labour government on parliamentarism have been eroded. As a tics and to refurbish Labour's image. Army rampage in Northern Ireland; the ropes. We supported the blockades parting shot to parliament (in addition to We also say no vote to the Scottish privatisation schemes for the health and the demand for lower fuel prices, saying "I love the place") he said: "The Socialist Party (SSP) who have joined service, London Underground and air which is in the direct interest of workers, real danger to democracy is not that forces with the Socialist Alliance to form traffic control; mass sackings and plant while by and large the pro-Labour "left" someone will bum Buckingham Palace a Britain-wide campaign. While the closures; tuition fees for students. In quaked in fear of this protest against and run up the Red Flag but people SA's campaign is restricted to England anticipation of resistance they have "their" government. Although the pro- won't vote. If people don't vote they continued on page 2 expropriate the capitalist class and begin mean by revolution. There are revolu­ adorning the statue of Winston Churchill Labour ... the implementation of a collectivised and tions going on - there's a revolution in . with a mohican hairdo, which sent Tory (Continued from page 1) rationally planned economy could not be education, the Internet revolution, a and Labour politicians ballistic. The more compelling. The issues which shopping revolution - we want to see denizens of the Socialist Alliance were and Wales, the SSP intends to stand in propel workers and youth into strug­ society reorganised, we want to revolu­ otherwise engaged, electioneering for all 72 Scottish constituencies. Together gle - racism, de-industrialisation, impe­ tionise society"! These latter-day Labour Ken Livingstone who, true to form, fully the SA and SSP will present candidates rialist bombing, increasing poverty­ "lefts" act1,1ally manage to make "Old backed the massive police operation in roughly 25 per cent of all Westminster cannot be resolved within the framework Labour" parliamentarians look flaming mobilised against the demonstrators. seats. The SSP is a thoroughly refonnist, of capitalism, nor within the confmes of pink! Polly Toynbee aptly captured the And today, although the SWP goes abso­ parliamentarist party, identical in most Britain itself. Our perspective is ali inter­ measure ofthese housetrained Labourites lutely ga-ga over demonstrations against respects to the components of the Social­ national one. We seek to mobilise work­ when she wrote that their "real aim is to so-called "globalisation" in Seattle, ist Alliance except that where the ers in a fight for their class interests, shift Labour policies" (Guardian, 2 Washington, Prague, Nice and Genova, English-based groups capitulate to La­ transcending national boundaries. This March). London's MayDay 2000 doesn't rate a bour, the SSP adapts to the bourgeois means mobilising' the working class in The Socialist Alliance's gross capitu­ mention, because it was anti-Labour. Scottish National Party, who have been opposition to all forms of Labourism. lation to their own bourgeoisie is crystal The SWP's purpose in orienting towards steadily gaining ground at the expense of At the press conference launching the clear: consciously removing any hint of "anti-capitalist" mobilisations is to sink Labour in Scotland. Socialist Alliance election campaign on opposition to British troops in Northern their parIiamentarist Labourite hooks We said no vote to Labour in 1997, I March we asked a few questions which Ireland; refusing to oppose the bombing into radical youth. Their Labourism does unlike all the groups who now form the embarrassed the assembled "socialists". of Serbia, the biggest military conflagra- not sit well with many youth who cer- Socialist Alliance. And again we say: No Noting that the call for withdrawal of vote to Labour, imperialist butchers! The British troops from Northern Ireland and Spartacist LeaguelBritain, section of the from the Balkans had appeared in an International Communist League, fights earlier draft programme but had disap­ for the construction of an internationalist peared from the version distributed to the revolutionary party to lead a revolution bourgeois press, our comrade asked if which will overthrow the archaic this was because it was controversial "United" Kingdom, dominated by south­ within the Alliance, or just not consid­ DOWN WITH ern England finance capital and served ered important. SA chairman Dave by "Her Majesty's" parliament. The Nellist of the Socialist Party refused to 'I\RIHjH/li5 strategic task of revolutionaries is to answer, even when pressed by Guardian break the working class politically from journalist Polly Toynbee, saying the MtUIAU5T the grip of Labour and from all illusions issue had not been decided. Needless to Ufai{ Sft1£IM:; in obtaining a better deal through parlia­ say their "priority policies for the general ment. Throughout the last century these election" do not mention British troops, if lRAU! illusions, particularly when passed off as or Ireland. And as for Serbia, it's a case "socialist" policies by Labour "lefts", of "don't mention the war". have fettered the working class in every When asked if their brand of "social­ decisive confrontation with the British ism" can be achieved without a revolu­ ruling class. tion, Nellist tried to dodge the question, Workers Hammer The case for workers revolution to then sputtered: "it depends what you February 20: Spartacus Youth Group campus protest as US/Britain bomb Iraq. tion in Europe since W orId War II; they tainly didn't join the SWP to find them­ also refuse to defend China against im­ selves telling workers to vote for Blair, The fight for the dictatorship of perialism. For revolutionary internation­ and even outright bourgeois parties such the proletariat v parliamentarism alists, opposition to one's "own" bour­ as the Greens. A letter writer in Socialist geoisie is mandatory. During NATO's Worker (17 March) spoke for many The Second Congress ofthe Communist war against Serbia ICL sections fought when he said: "Personally, you would International addressed the task ofbuild­ for the defeat of imperialism through have to hold a gun to my head to make ing parties of a fundamentally different workers revolution and for' defence of me vote for the miserable anti working type than those ofthe Second International Serbia. Today we demand: All imperial­ class show.er going under the name of which meant breaking from Social Demo­ ist troops out of the Balkans! We fight 'New Labour'." cracy. The Congress affirmed the need/Qr for unconditional military defence of The Socialist Party, although en­ parties to participate in parliament as an China, a deformed workers state, against sconced in the SA, has a different line TROTSKY auxiliary to their revolutionary activity. It LENIN imperialist attack and against internal than the SWP, saying "it would be also set out its opposition to parlia- counterrevolution, and for proletarian wrong to conclude ... that socialists mentarism in the theses below. political revolution to oust the Stalinist should call on workers to vote Labour in L Parliamentarism as a state system has become a "democratic" form of rule for bureaucracy, who are paving the way for areas where no socialist candidates are the bourgeoisie. At a certain stage in its development it needs the fiction of a popular imperialist-backed capitalist restoration. standing" (Socialism Today, April 2001). Sounds good, but this is contradicted by governing body that outwardly appears to be an organization of "the popular will," Opposition to British imperialism in standing outside the classes, but in essence'is a machine wielded by ruling capital for Ireland is a key test for leftists in Britain. their call for a vote to the Socialist Alli­ ance,which is dominllted by groups who oppression and subjugation .... 'We stand with Karl Marx who insisted uphold the "eleventh commandment" of 4. Bourgeois parliaments, among the most important organizations of the bourgeois that the English working class must state machine, cannot as such be taken over permanently, just as the proletariat cannot oppose the chauvinism against Ireland , the British left: thou shalt vote Labour to keep the Tories out. The Socialist Party's possibly take over the bourgeois state. The proletariat's task is to break up the which the English ruling class uses to aim is to harness the discontent against bourgeoisie's state machine and to destroy it, and with it parliamentary institutions, maintain its rule. In 1870 he wrote that whether republican or constitutional-monarchist .... the "ordinary English worker" "feels Labour into a ''new mass workers party". 6. Thus, communism rejects parliamentarism as a form of the future society. It himself a member of the ruling nation They say: "to put pressure on Labour rejects it as a form of dictatorship by the proletarian class. It rejects the possibility of and so turns himself into a tool of the and give working-class people a real taking over parliaments on a permanent basis; its goal is to destroy parliamentarism. aristocrats and capitalists of his country choice, a new socialist alternative must Therefore it is possible to speak only of using bourgeois state institutions for the against Ireland, thus strengthening their be built, to challenge big-business power purpose of destroying them. The question can be posed in this sense and in this sen!le • domination over himself'. The chauvin­ and begin a socialist redistribution of wealth towards working-class people" alone. ism Marx identified is exactly what the .Socialist Alliance panders to today. We (Socialist, 29 September 2000). - Second Congress of the COl111l1unist International, 1920 demand British troops out of Northern Ireland now, and oppose Labour's impe­ Tube workers must fight rialist "peace" fraud which is premised Livingstone and labourl on the British troops remaining in place. The Socialist Alliance's central cam­ It has led to mass Orange mobilisations paign slogan is "Stop privatisation WORKERS HAMMER and increased violence against the - bring rail back into public owner­ ~ oppressed Catholics, deepening the ship". Renationalisation of the deadly sectarian divide between Protestant and For a federation of workers republics in the British Islesl dangerous pnvatised railways is rational Catholic workers. We fight for an Irish For a Socialist United States of Europel even from the perspective of the bour­ workers republic as part of a federation geoisie, as shown by an article in the Published by the Central Committee of the Spartaclst League. British section of the of workers republics in the British Isles. Intemational Communist League (Fourth Intemationalist), Independent (4 December 2000): "The The SA's election campaign is to the capitalist case for renationalising the EDITOR: Jo Watt right of many sections of society, espe­ railways". Contrary to Labourite myth, PRODUCTION MANAGER: Kate Kelsey cially those workers and minorities who CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mick Connor this is not a socialist measure. National­ are seething with anger against New ised industry and transport under capital­ Labour and wouldn't dream of casting a Spartaclst Publications, PO Box 1041. London NW5 3EU ism is not run in the interests of working E-mail: [email protected] vote for them. The SA's nefarious role people, but to enable the capitalists to Subscriptions: £3 for 1 year; Europe outside Britain & lraland £4; overseas airmail £7 was demonstrated last year in .London increase their profits. The SA backed when anarchist-influenced MayDay 0pInIpn1 expressed In signed articles do not nec:euarily e>cpnIIS \he editortal viewpoint. Livingstone for mayor on the grounds The dosing date for _In \hle ...... ts 15 April, 2000 demonstrators had fun with certain PrInted by CherweI Valey UIhogrephlc Ltd (TV), ISSN 0267-8721 hideous symbols of patriotism, famously continued on page 8

2 WORKERS HAMMER On 19 February, three days after Brit­ trates what British "justice" and democ­ troops out of Northern Ireland now" youth. The same goes for Ken Living­ ish aircraft terror bombed Baghdad, racy is all about - the capitalist state is (Workers Hammer no 164, Septem­ stone who backed police repression Labour's new ''Terrorism'' Act came into the repressive apparatus which defends ber/October 1998). against the protesters. Police-state meas­ force. Within a month, 21 political or­ the private property and rule of the The Terrorism Act targets immigrant ures are being put in place this year - a ganisations had been banned and more bourgeoisie against the working class organisations in the first instance but this building used by anarchists has been can be added at any time. The proscribed and oppressed. is the thin end ofthe wedge. Ultimately it raided and the Kurdish and Turkish list targets the main organisations in­ At the meeting, Louise Christian, is aimed at all opponents of British impe­ organisations, who form the core of volved in the defence of refugees. parliamentary candidate for the Labourite rialism, the entire workers movement and London's traditional May Day demon­ Among the groups added to the Irish Socialist Alliance, said the Act' was the left. In a specific attack on political stration, have been outlawed. groups previously outlawed are: the "completely contrary to the tradition we organisations, it redefines ''terrorism'' to The competing nationalisms of the Turkish leftist Revolutionary People's have in this country". This is hog­ mean not the actions of a group but its various groups involved in opposing the Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) and wash - Britain's "anti-terrorism" laws the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), the served as a model for the repressive ~ Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Apartheid regime in South Africa. Many ~ J: (LTIE), the Basque nl}tionalist group of the speakers expressed surprise that ETA, the Greek 17 November Revolu­ such vicious attacks were being dished j tionary Organisation, the 200,OOO-strong out by a Labour government. Far from International Sikh Youth Federation as surprising, Labour rules for racist British well as numerous Kashmiri, Palestinian, imperialism! Christian's comments cover Egyptian and other Islamic groups. At a up the history of Labour governments in Spartacists meeting of the listed organisations held particular. The post-World War II Labour oppose in the House of Lords on 27 March a government presided over the bloody Terrorism Act at 24 March Kurdish speaker described the Catch-22 partition of India and crushed the Com­ London situation Kurdish asylum seekers will munists in the Greek civil war; Labour demonstration find themselves in. At present they are sent troops to Northern Ireland in 1969, in defence of routinely asked if they are supporters of leading to the Bloody Sunday massacre. asylum the.PKK and if not, they are told there is This Act is a more draconian replace­ seekers. no threat of persecution in Turkey and ment for the notorious Prevention of refused asylum. Now, if they say yes Terrorism Act (PTA) which was insti­ they wi\l be admitting to a criminal of­ tuted by a Labour government in 1974 to fence and will be refused asylum. target Irish nationalists. Thousands of This Labour g~vernment has commit­ Irish republicans and other opponents of ideology. It is an offence to belong to a Act is an obvious barrier to a united ted heinous crimes at home and British imperialism were swept up by the proscribed organisation, to provide it with campaign against it. Proletarian interna­ abroad - from the bombing of Serbia PTA. The Blair government seized on money or property, to display its em­ tionalism is the only basis on which to and Iraq to drumming up anti-immigrant the Omagh bombing atrocity by the Real blems, to speak from the same platform or fight against the machinations of the racism. The British state itself is an inter­ IRA as a pretext for further repression in to be present at a meeting with a member British state and its Labour government. national force for terrorism - it carried August 1998. As we wrote at the time: of a banned organisation. The govern­ The Spartacist League fights for full out colonial massacres in Ireland; Asia "It is in the direct and absolute interest of mentis particularly vengeful towards citizenship rightsfor all immigrants. We and Africa - yet it brands political or­ the working class in Britain to mobilise organisations who took part in MayDay seek to forge a multiethnic revolutionary ganisations from the Indian subcontinent against Labour's repfctssion, against the 2000, in whi,ch Turkish and Kurdish workers party to sweep away the capital­ and Ireland· as "terrorists". This illus- imperialist 'pelice" fraud and for British workers joined with "anti-capitalist" ist system of racism and exploitation.•

been a dagger aimed at the People's Re­ in North Yorkshire and the listening post Defend China ... public from the time Chiang Kai-shek's at Menwith Hill near Harrogate. The Blair Nationalist forces fled there in 1949. (Continued from page 12) Labour government has indicated that it The US has over 100,000 military will support the US National Missile Bush) and his power-crazed foreign policy personnel in the Asia-Pacific region, in­ Defence system by agreeing to the use of wonks, Washington changed its tune, cluding 47,000 troops in Japan and these installations. As a junior partner of expressing "regret" for the downing of the 37,000 in South Korea. The US has in­ the US, British imperialism seeks a share Chinese pilot and seeking to negotiate an creased spy flights against China and of the spoils of any capitalist restoration end to the crisis. The US has acquiesced North Korea. US plans for a "theater in China. Today a fifth-rate imperialist to the fact that the Chinese military has missile defense" system in Asia are aimed power, the British ruling class once ruled been carefully examining the EP-3E, the squarely against China's missile capacity over parts of China as colonial overseers most advanced spy plane in the Navy's and target North Korea as well. Last year, until as recently as 1997 in the case of arsenal. This is an intelligence bonanza the US conducted more than 50 joint Hong Kong. The racist arrogance towards for China, which it should share with the militaty exercises. with Japan, Australia, the Chinese population that characterised Vietnamese, North Korean and Cuban South Korea, the Philippines and others, British rule in Hong Kong was exhibited deformed workers states. a number unequalled since the fall of the again recently by the Labour government's Invoking "intemationallaw", W ashing­ Soviet Union. The US recently sealed a attempted scapegoating of Chinese people ton initially thundered that the EP-3E deal with Singapore for use of a deep-draft for the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Already sitting on a Hainan runway was sovereign navy pier, the second such facility open to fuming over increased racist attacks US territoty off-limits to Chinese military US aircraft carriers in South-East Asia against the Chinese community, on 8 personnel and proclaimed its inalienable since the close of the American na~al base April around 1000 people joined an angry "right" to carry out intrusive mili­ at Subic Bay in the Philippines in 1992. demonstration which marched from Lon­ tary/espionage missions right off China's The new pier is located at the mouth of the don's Chinatown to the offices of the coastline. Puncturing this imperialist M_rsMarine strategically important Malacca Strait, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and hypocrisy, Chinese ambassador Yang US threat to supply Aegis guided through which Persian Gulf oil shipments Food to protest this outrage. missile destroyers to Taiwan targets pass to Japan. A domestic reflection of increased Jiechi said on the PBS-TV Lehrer News China's missile systems. Hour (4 April): "If America had wit­ Bush's warmongering schemes are American belligerence towards China was nessed such kinds of reconnaissance been virtually covered up in the American dependent upon the use of US facilities in the racist frame-up of Los Alamos scien­ flights up and down its coast, so close to press, the Guardian (24 March) wrote of Britain - the radar station at Fylingdales continued on page 4 its airspace ... if you lose your airman, and "Washington's decision to turn more ofits you lose your aircraft, I think the response guns and missiles towards China", now would be very different." "International deemed to be "the principal threat to law" notwithstanding, when the US got American global dominance". In the last hold of a Soviet MIG-25 in 1976, it years of the Clinton administration, the picked the plane apart and sent it back US began a significant shift of its military Marxists and the struggle for Irish independence 1916-1923 two months later in shipping crates. forces to the Asia-Pacific region. The backdrop to the spy plane provoca­ Immediately before the US provocation British .imperialist divide-and-rule, Irish nationalism and tion is a shift in US policy towards "an era over the South China Sea, a Pentagon Labour betrayals of the working class led to partition! of direct confrontation with China", as team visited Taiwan to put together a list outlined in a policy review by Bush de­ of weaponty for this US-sponsored capi­ Saturday 28 April 1.30 pm, Smyth's Pub, 12 Fairview Road, Dublin 3 fence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. China talist state, including advanced Ae­ For more info contact DSG, PO Box 2944, Dublin 1. Tel: 01 8558409 has now been declared Enemy No 1. Re­ gis-equipped destroyers which could take porting on the Pentagon review, which has out Chinese missile systems. Taiwan has

SPRING 2001 3 Pacific War between the US and Japan Defend China ... was fought. (Continued/rom page 3) Beijing bureaucracy tist Wen Ho Lee. As we wrote in '''Chi­ on a tight-rope nese Spy' Hysteria Whips Up Anti-Asian Racism" (Workers Vanguard no 719,17 While the regime of Chinese president September 1999): Jiang Zemin has scrambled to strike a deal with the US, the arrogance of "Even if Lee had, with purpose or not, America's imperialist rulers provoked given military secrets to the People's Re­ public of China, this is no crime from the outrage among broad sectors of the Chi­ standpoint of the international working nese populace. "Of course, they will have class. . .. Our Wlconditional military de­ to apologise in full," said one Beijing fense of China and the other remaining resident quoted in the Financial Times (7 deformed worlcers states - Vietnam, Cuba April) who continued, "If we let them and North Korea - against imperialism push us around once, it will happen the and internal coWlterrevolution necessarily whole time just like when China was includes defense of the right of ~ese states to amass and test nuclear weapons and to weak." The article noted that this was "an obtain them by whatever means almost ubiquitous sentiment". necessary. " Chinese war heroes hailed by North Koreans celebrating 1953 cease-fire in The Beijing regime has banned any Korean War. PLA entry into war was crucial in defeating US/British imperialist public protest on the mainland against the China last month announced an increase onslaught against North Korea and defending Chine~e Revolution. of 18 per cent in military expenditures for US provocation, rejecting permission for this year, although its military budget is State Colin Powell, architect of the massa- that kept the major capitalist powers demonstrations requested by more than 50 still only a fraction of the Pentagon's. cre of tens of thousands of Iraqis in the united under US leadership. Seizing on university and college groups. This is in China has purchased from Russia four 1991 Persian Gulf War, comes across as Bush's rebuff to North Korea, the Euro- good part because the regime does not Sovremenny guided missile destroyers, a "voice of moderation". Many are veter- pean Union (EU) has moved to set up want to upset the trade deals that are four Kilo-class submarines which are ans of the Reagan administration's diplomatic relations with the North. The integral to its programme of "market re­ reputed to be as quiet as the most modern Contragate schemes and bloody terror chilling of Washington's relations with forms". Above all, the bureaucracy fears that any protest against the imperialist US sub~, SU-27 fighters and advanced operations against leftist insurg~ts in MoscOw has prompted the EU to missiles. The purpOse of the EP-3E spy Latin America. While taking aim at annoimce a "strategic partnership" with provocation could draw in the combative flight was to monitor the Sovremenny China, they are also increasingly provoca- Putin's Russia. Washington has bluntly and disgruntled working class. Even when the regime allowed protests against the destroyers and subs and to test Chinese air tive towards North Korea, capitalist Rus~ opposed creation of a European "rapid defences. • sia and even their European allies. This reaction" force outside of US-dominated bombing of the Chinese embassy in Bel­ In a 1987 exercise, a US guided missile was exemplified by the recent wholesale NATO. On the eve of German chancellor grade during the 1999 NATO war against cruiser sailed right into Soviet territorial expulsion of 50 Russian diplomats and Gerhard SchrOder's visit, Bush provoca- Serbia, it reportedly banned factory contin­ waters near a top-secret naval base on the the ultimatum to South Korea's Kim Dae tively announced that the US was rejecting gents from joining them. The bureaucracy the Kyoto environmental accord favoured lives in dread of the spectre of the 1989 by the Europeans, leading 'to a storm of Tiananmen upheaval, when the entry of the criticism from the EU. working class into the student protests marked an incipient political revolution. Growing tensions between the US and On 5 April, police in Beijing arrested Japan were underscored in February with four men attempting to protest outside the the reckless sinking of a Japanese fishing US embassy. One of the placards they vessel by an American submarine near carried read: "We Don't Want U.S. Dol­ Hawaii, touching off a furor in Japan inten­ lars, We Want Dignity". But the Jiang sified by the callous US reaction. Recently, regime does want US dollars, and German the US flouted a 40-year-old agreement by D-marks and Japanese yen. "As the sailing a nuclear aircraft carrier into a spyplane standoffhas unfolded", observed Japanese port without bothering to ask the Financial Times, "national outrage permission. This has all touched off re­ has grown, and criticism of national lead­ newed opposition to American military ers for being 'too soft' on the US has bases in Japan, particularly in Okinawa beCome a common refrain." There are with its concentration of American troops, increasing strains inside the bureaucracy as well as demands long pushed by itself between pro-Western elements and right-wing nationalist forces to bolster those, particularly in the military, who Japan's military. want to maintain a harder line against US The mounting tensions between the US aggression. and its imperialist rivals highlight the "Great Power" Chinese nationalism inherent Competition for control of the cannot repulse the drive for imperialist London, 8 April: Chinese community demonstrate against racism in Blair's world's markets, sources of raw materials subjugation, but would serve only to bind Britain. Spartacist placards include: Defend the Chinese deformed workers and cheap labour among the imperialist the Chinese proletariat to the bourgeoisie state against imperialism and internal counterrevolutionl powers. These tensions will only be ac­ that was driven out ofthe country in 1949. centuated as the world economic recession We explained in "China on the Brink: Kamchatka Peninsula in the Soviet Far Jung to halt negotiations with the North. deepens. As was demonstrated in World i Workers Political Revolution or Capitalist East. Such "games", dubbed "Chicken of Speaking for the virulent China-bashing Wars I and II, such competition can ulti­ Enslavement?" (Spartacist [English lan­ the Sea", were intended to trigger defen­ wing ofthe Democratic Party, New Jersey mately only be resolved through war, in guage edition] no 53, Summer 1997): sive actions and communications to be ' Senator R~bert Torricelli is now mooting this case one that would threaten the nu­ "As an ideology emanating from capital­ observed and analysed. In 1983, US intel­ the recall of the US ambassador to China clear annihilation of humanity. In the ism's emergence from feudal society, ligence had the civilian Korean Air Lines as long as the EP-3E crew is held there. interim, the capitalist· rulers use such nationalism is a/alse consciousness for the Flight 007 fly over Kamchatka while P-3 Arguing that the US should be trying to tensions to foster national chauvinism and Chinese proletariat. It is, however, the proper ideology of the Hong Kong capital­ spy planes (the forerunner of the EP-3E) play Russia, China and North Korea off to divert the attention of the workers from growing unemployment and immiseration. ists and nascent mainland Chinese bour­ monitored Soviet defences. This imperial­ against each other, conservative strategist geoisie. Nationalism was a major political ist provocation cost the lives of more than Edward Luttwak pointed to the recent . Recaptwing China for capitalist exploi­ force in the coWlterrevolutionary wave that 200 innocent passengers, as KAL 007 • American provocations against all three in tation is currently the big "prize" for the swept over the former USSR and East was shot down by Soviet forces who mis­ a Los Angeles Times (28 March) column competing imperialist powers. This would Europe - both the nationalism of the took it for a US military incursion into . titled "Foreign Policy Crew Is Smashing be a historic defeat for the workers and all minority peoples, fostered for decades by Soviet airspace. With their finger on the the Crockery". Luttwak continued, "What oppressed peoples of the world, and the U.S. State Department and CIA, and the chauvinism of the ruling caste, which nuclear trigger, the leaders of US imperi­ cannot be explained in the context of a would trigger an even more furious scram­ helped spin off elements who looked to alism constantly threatened the world with rational foreign policy is that all three ble among the major capitalist powers to capitalist rule as the road to great-power incineration in pursuit of their war drive things were done at once." A front-page carve up the spoils. It was largely over the status .... Nationalism is already playing a aimed at the destruction of the Soviet article in the Wall Street Journal (4 April), "right" to exploit China that the 1941-45 similar role in China." degenerated workers state. one oftile most hawkish bourgeois mouth­ pieces, took aim against "Beijing-bashing hard-liners" on behalf ofthe "pro-business Imperialist rivalries increase camp" in the administration, noting that Contact addresses In a front-page column in the Milano "China is a lucrative market and manufac­ Spartacist League/Britain daily Co"itre della Sera last week, It­ turing site". PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU. Tel: 020 7281 5504 aly's former ambassador to the US de­ While the former Reaganites who ad­ scribed Bush as "a young president who vise Bush Jr may revel in memories of Dublin Spartacist Group rules the world, but is only truly knowl­ Reagan's crusade against the Soviet "evil PO Box 2944, Dublin 1. Tel: 01 8558409 edgeable about Texas". The Bush admin­ empire", the world is not the same as it istration is a truly scary gang, so packed was in the 1980s. The destruction of the International CommlJnist League with Christian fundamentalists and Soviet· Union and Eastern European de­ Box 7429 GPO, New York, New York 10116, USA right-wing militarists that Secretary of formed workers states removed the glue

4 WORKERS HAMMER This is crystal clear in the bureaucracy's the name of "peaceful coexistence", the a government based on workers democ­ capitalist countries, who are already facing . offer to the bourgeoisie in Taiwan to Mao regime laid the basis for the policies racy and led by a Leninist-Trotskyist massive lay-offs before a recession has reunite on the basis of"one country, two pursued by the current bureaucracy. party, a centrally planned economy would even taken hold, on top of years of wage systems". We call for revolutionary re­ Mao's heirs have increasingly opened optimise economic growth while eradicat­ cuts, givebacks and the eradication of unification, through socialist revolution the country to imperialist penetration. This ing the extremes of rich and poor so evi­ social benefits. in Taiwan and proletarian political revo­ has been met with massive proletarian dent in China today. The state monopoly In the United States, the AFL-CIO lution on the mainland. resistance, with tens of thousands of offoreign trade should be utilised to pro­ labour bureaucracy has simultaneously The Chinese population is deeply con­ strikes and workers' protests every year. mote imports and exports on the world presided over the destruction of hard-won scious of its history of oppression by Reflecting the brittle and contradictory market, taking full advantage of the inter­ union jobs and benefits and promoted US Western and Japanese imperialism, and of nature of the bureaucracy, Chinese pre­ national division of labour. We oppose imperialism's attacks on the working class the long record ofUS military belligerence mier Zlw Rongji, who has spearheaded the the opening of China to the World Trade internationally. The AFL-CIO tops are in against the 1949 Revolution. Ending the deepening of"market refonns", announced Organisation (WTO) nQt because we the vanguard of anti-Communist China­ era of imperialist subjugation exemplified last week a campaign against corruption favour Maoist economic autaIky but be­ bashing. This is most virulently expressed by the Opium Wars and the carving up of and other fonns of "commercial excess". cause it would further undennine the by Teamsters president James Hoffa Jr, China by the colonial powers took the In addition, the Financial Times (5 April) monopoly of foreign trade and the collecti­ who issued a 3 April statement following overthrow of the corrupt comprador bour­ reports, "The official People's· Daily vised economy. the landing of the US spy plane at Hainan geoisie by the Chinese Communist Party newspaper carried an opinion piece last Competition between the imperialists ranting that "Communist China continues (CCP) and People's Liberation Anny in month excoriating capitalism and glob­ for markets would provide such a revolu­ to violate international law at each turn." 1949, creating a bureaucratically de­ alisation for the wealth imbalances that it tionary regime a certain room for rna- Railing against "slave labour" in China, funned workers state. The defence of this workers state can only be carried forward on the basis of proletarian international­ ism - against both imperialist aggression I and internal counterrevolution - seeking i to mobilise the working people of South 1 Left: Migrant Korea, Japan, the US and the rest of the workers outside capitalist world for socialist revolution. Shanghai railway What Leon Trotsky, co-leader with VI station. Right: Anti" Lenin of the Russian October Revolution US protesters of 1917, wrote about the Soviet Union in arrested in Beijing the "Manifesto of the Fourth International on 5 April. Stalinist on the Imperialist War and the Proletarian regime fears that protests could World Revolution" in May 1940 applies touch off explosion wjth full acuteness to the Chinese de­ by disgruntled fonned workers state today: proletariat. "The Fourth International can defend the USSR only by the methods of revolution­ ary class struggle .... "We flatly reject the theory of socialism in one country, that brain child of ignorant and reactionary Stalinism. Only the world promotes. Such sentiments have rarely, if noeuvre. The Soviet workers state under the labour tops promote the virtues of the revolution can save the USSR for social­ ever, received such a prominent airing Lenin and Trotsky, erected through the free market. But it won't be so easy to sell ism. But the world revolution carries with over the past three years." October Revolution of 1917, took advan­ capitalist "democracy" to workers in Chi­ it the inescapable blotting out of the Krem­ The Stalinist bureaucracy is not a pos~ tage of such rivalries to strike trade and na, many of whom have already experi­ lin oligarchy." sessing class but a parasitic caste. Resting military deals with Germany and other enced the miseries of free-market exploita­ on proletarian property fonns, the bureau­ capitiilist countries. But for the revolution­ tion in the "Special Economic Zones" and ary-internationalist Bolsheviks, the aim other areas of capitalist penetration cre­ Mao's alliance with US cracy simultaneously acts as a transmis­ imperiali$t11 sion belt for the pressures of the capitalist was to buy time until the victory of prole- ated by Beijing's "market refonns". Join­ world market on the· debmed workers 1ariaR revoIuti

SPRING 2001 ~ An internationalist.! • salute to our comrade Susan Adams

Comrades, friends and family came Voltaire's earnest wish that 'the last together at memorial gatherings of the king ... be strangled with the entrails of the International Communist League in the last priest' may be sincere and even justi­ San Francisco Bay Area, New York and fied, such a 'war against god' does not transcend petty-bourgeois idealism. Reli­ Paris on the weekend of March 3-4 to gion will disappear only when the society honour our comrade Susan Adams. A which creates the need for it is destroyed." leader of our international party for nearly 30 years, Susan died at her home To her chagrin, her understanding did in Jersey City on 6 February after a not-all at once-release the grip that two-year struggle with cancer. Susan's a Catholic upbringing had on her own family held a memorial meeting in Los psychology. This was a lifelong effort. Angeles on 10 February. Other ICL Sue well understood that religion also tributes took place internationally. served as an instrument for the oppres­ One measure of the impact Susan had sion of women. She was a thoughtful, on our party and its fight for an interna­ fervent partisan of women's liberation, tional communist society is the outpour­ understanding that it will come about ing ofletters and remembrances by ICL only as a result of socialist revolution. It members around the globe, as well as by is fitting that a last contribution of hers is former members, friends and sym­ the wonderful talk on "Women and the pathisers and even political oppqnents. A French Revolution". This was a several speaker at the Bay Area memorial said, years' labour of love for Sue. In 1994, "Susan was somebody you could trust. she wrote ofthis work to a fellow mem­ She was upright and forthright. And ber of the W&R editorial board: "At a because she was quite bright, she was time when the bourgeoisies of the world very powerful. Everybody who has attack the Enlightenment, it has been known her was strongly touched ,by her." quite literally a real pleasure to read of It was in the Bay Area that Susan the hope in rationality and human prog­ spent her first formative years as a com­ ress of this period." munist cadre in 1971-73. Much of the Susan's liberal arts education actually rest of her life was divided between did include a good dose of science and work in our New York centre and in math, but in these and technical matters Paris as a leader of the Ligue Trotskyste in general she always set;med at a bit of a loss. What did stick was an appetite for and our broader work in Europe, for Spartaclst many years in collaboration with her and range of knowledge of literature­ former husband, William, now an ex­ 1948-2001 especially European literature - which member. was wonderfully intertwined with her Before the memorial meeting in Paris, ~ understanding of European history. This comrades marched to the Pere Lachaise was the foundation upon which she cemetery, where they laid a wreath at the developed as an exceptional Marxist wall which commemorates the thousands Paris organised by the reformist Lutte Helene Brosius: A few weeks ago, at intellectual. of proletarian fighters butchered by the Ouvriere group: "I remember very clear- the end of a tough day of doctors and It was the '60s, and like thousands of bourgeoisie following the suppression of lyone day a cadre ofLutte Ouvriere had decisions, Susan looked up and said to kids she was turning hard against the the 1871 Paris Commune. Wreaths were died and there was nothing in their paper me: "After all, I've done everything I manifest injustices of racist American also laid at Leon Trotsky's gravestone in about her. Susan was disgusted by this wanted to do in my life." And as much imperialism. At UC San Diego she threw Coyoacan, Mexico, at Karl Marx's grave and she let them have it: 'You don't as it made me want to hold her and not herself into New Left politics and the in London's Highgate Cemetery, at die even bury your dead, you don't honour let her go, I also knew that what she said new SDS chapter. But unlike many New monument to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl your dead' ." had truth to it. Susan was a Marxist Leftists, she started to study. She de­ voured Marx and Lenin and was drawn Liebknecht in Berlin and in a grove of Our comrades are a precious resource, revolutionary to her bones, single-mind- redwoods in the Bay Area where the the bearers of the Marxist programme for edly driven to build a revolutionary' to the pro-working-class wing of SDS ' ashes of our comrade Toni Randell had the liberation of humanity. In saluting proletarian party, to reforge the Fourth led by the Maoist Progressive Labor been buried after her death in 1982. One Susan's lifetime of struggle as a commu- International. She wanted simply to be a Party. She actually managed to graduate, Bay Area comrade explained, "It's a nist leader, we seek also to educate and communist. And that she was - until despite an arrest that year for sitting in at tradition in the communist movement to train a new generation of revolutionary her last breath. the chancellor's office-and she went commemorate a special occasion by fighters, a task to which she devoted Susan's father, Angelo Adams- off to Stony Brook on Long Island for laying a 'Meath on the grave of someone much of her energy. • Ange - came from Greece at age four graduate school. It seems that no sooner had she arrived there than she broke who has made a key contribution to the We publish below excerpts from and made a good life here. He wanted to from PL and started working with Spar­ struggle against capitalist reaction." remarks at the New York memorial by have the best for his family - Betty and tacist in the Revolutionary Marxist Cau­ One comrade at the New York memo- , Susan's long-time friend Helene Brosius., the five kids. Sue was the oldest, then cusofSDS. rial who had been a member of our Brit­ Eibhlin McDonald of the Spartacist Mark, Joni, Tom and Marian, who have I wouldn't say she was too smart for ish section in the 1980s recalled an inci-' LeaguelBritain spoke in Paris and at all come today. The break with her fam- PL - because they had some intelligent dent at the annual political rete near Karl Marx's grave. ily was difficult all the way around and people. Nor is it exactly true, as her it didn't even begin to heal until much mentor in PL evidently told her when later. she was leaving, that she "always read Sue's rejection of Catholicism was too many books". I think it was that she conscious, vehement and finally politi­ really considered and absorbed what she cal. She wrote an exceptional article for read. In her application for SL member­ our journal Women and Revolution ship she wrote that she was drawn to our called "The Cult of the Virgin Mary" in "consistency with the principles of 1977, at the time of "born again" presi­ Marx, Lenin and Trotsky" as opposed to dent Jimmy Carter's election victory. the "at times reactionary Stalinoid poli­ "Marxists find contemporary religion", tics ofPL". she wrote, "an odious thing." Her New Left origins poked through from time to time. Her father, Ange, the "We understand, however, that what successful banker, was being prosecuted Spartakist sustains religious affiliation in the scien­ East Berlin, 14 January 1990: Susan (at left) with Spartakist contingent at tific age is not so much intellectual con­ in the early '70s. Sue was in a real quan­ demonstration honouring Karl Llebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg during viction as social oppression. Thus, while dary - support her father, the class incipient political revolution. the anti-clerical spirit which animates enemy? As she put it, Jim "kicked my

6 WORKERS HAMMER ass, so to speak". Her memory was that eat in McDonald's every night rather he said something like: "What's wrong than have an American woman leading with you, girl? That's your father. Can't their section). For the next ten years, she you see he's being prosecuted for things was our central cadre in Europe. In that everyone does and probably because 1989-90, she played a leading role when he's Greek. Get yourself out there to his the International poured its energies and trial before it's over." She did. She was resources into the potential political always grateful for Jim's advice. revolution in East Germany. Only three months after joining the In 1992, just weeks after a gut­ Spartacist youth group in 1971, Susan wrenching fight with the French leader­ had a chance to display the courage ship, which of course included her, at an which turned out to be so characteristic international conference, Susan took on of her. We had been bloodily ejected one of the most important and difficult assignments there has ever been in our L TF protests from an anti-Vietnam War conference of anti-gay NPAC, led by the Socialist Workers organisation - the work ofreimplanting exclusion of Party. As comrade AI Nelson described Bolshevism in the land of October, our AIDS activist it recently, "It was the most protracted Moscow Station. Our comrade Martha group ACT UP violence I have ever witnessed in the Phillips had been murdered in Moscow from June 1992 workers movement. Seymour had his earlier that year. Moscow was a dizzying Lutte Ouvriere nose broken; I had bald spots on my whirlwind of archival, opponents, cam­ Fete. L TF was head where tufts of hair had been tom pus, labour and educational work. A itself excluded . for defending out." The next day, Susan volunteered to prime achievement of Moscow Station ACT UP. be a mole, to elude the massive SWP was the publication of Trotsky's The goon squad stationed there to exclude Third International After Lenin in Rus­ known or suspected "disrupters" and to sian and its distribution. In 1995, she report back what was being said in the returned to the centre in New York after aftermath of this savage exclusion. AI a 20-year absence from the country, and wrote: "We met a couple of blocks away took on a full range of duties in the lead­ long working relationship with Jim Rob­ she ran into French parochialism, an and discussed her assignment and its ing committees of the International and ertson, a personal and political tie as enduring weakness of the French left, dangers. I remember being extremely the American section. formative and consequential as any in including the so-called Trotskyists, she impres.sed with how calm and deter­ Sue's life is a thread running through her life. wielded the weapon of founding Ameri­ mined and ~rave she was." the history of our party. In the mid-'70s, Sue found her assignment to interna­ can Trotskyist leader James P Cannon. The summer of '71 Susan moved to Sue forged a powerful national youth tional work in Europe in 1976 a tremen­ In 1983, she was delighted to succeed the Bay Area, which is where I first met leadership. But after the heady days of dous challenge-terrifying and exhila-. in bringing out a speech by Cannon upon her. I was pleased to endorse her appli­ the New Left, the mid-'70s slumped rating at the same time. From a '76 letter his return from a quite unrewarding cation for membership in the SL in De­ pretty fast into quiescence. Coming out tome: assignment in France in 1939. This was cember 1971. And when I left for New of the '60s, Sue had an appreciation, at a two-edged sword in the struggle times surely tinged with moralism, for "France is very exciting and interesting York the following summer there was no these days. I can't help it, I like it when against our political opponents and for question in my mind that Susan was the the value of that kind of struggle. In a the whole world seems political and the our French section. The fact alone of comrade to take over as Bay Area organ­ 1975 national report, she 'deplored the issues are urgently enough felt by people publishing Cannon was a polemic iser, though there were other comrades callowness of the recruits, their "lack of that they stand around in knots and argue against the deeply held belief on the who had more experience than she did. depth which comes from the binocular and scream at each other-into the night." French left that nothing useful could In the next years, as new opportunities vision of having once been Maoists br It was, as she wrote, "the classical time derive from America. Susan wrote in the arose for the party, Susan was the clear Stalinists or even New Leftists. Trots­ of swimming against the stream. . .. The introduction to the Cannon pamphlet: choice for one difficult and critical as­ kyism seems self-evident to too many of popular front is on the road to power "Given the program, the construction of signment after another. S4e taught, ex­ our .young comrades ~,~-9JllIl1i~nt~o throBgho thtelections; drawing everyone being a revolutionary has meant for them the leading cadres is the key to the con­ pected and .inspired the utmost profes­ else in its wake." struction of revolutionary parties; and the sionalism. She was uncommonly able at . commitment to going to meetings, read­ former requires an even higher degree of locating and resisting the poison of sub­ ing books, debating opponents and giv- Susan was of course a bit of a worka­ consciousness and a more deliberate de­ jectivity in herself and other comrades. ing up dope. As wretched as the New holic, diligent and sometimes earnest to sign than the latter." But perhaps most valuable was her un­ Left was, one understood that becoming a fault, though she learned to measure that a bit. Languages really did not come Cadre development and particular atten­ bending drive for programmatic clarity. a radical 'meant risking jail, fights with tion to the youth was a hallmark of her Not that she was immune to the ambient the cops, etc (or at least risking suspen­ easily to her. She developed a fine com­ mand of French. But her ear wasn't very work, on which she brought to bear her pressures in her political work, but she sion from schooJ!). And as rotten and wide-ranging intellectual storehouse. was fearless in her determination to misleading as were the ideologies of good so her pronunciation was poor, which was an obstacle when dealing You'd often find her using lessons she'd arrive at and deepen the party's under­ Che, Cleaver and Malcolm X, becoming learned - or wrestled with - when she standing of them. Even when - and part ofa movement of which they were with snobs. She started intensive study as soon as she got there, and ten years gave advice to others. maybe especially when - there was a the heroes involved a level of commit­ She went as our rep to a five-day disaster that she'd been party to. ment which our young comrades have later she was still working on her French. Later she studied German and, academic conference on Trotsky in Thus, more often than not, Sue was not had to consider." A good dose of Wuppertal, Germany just after the disas­ sent to the front lines of our party work. political education was needed, she when she went to Moscow, she studied Russian four to five hours a day at the trous 1990 EastGerman elections which After just over a year in the party, in concluded, and "some good and hard ushered in counterrevolution there. All February 1973, she was picked to be political fights this year". beginning despite the manic pace of the political work there. the big-shot Trotskyist pretenders were founding organiser of the Detroit branch. In this period, Susan worked on the there - from Mandel and Broue to Unfortunately, it was the eve of an eco­ article "Rape and Bourgeois Justice", a Sue had an impressive mastery of the Michel Pablo. To their horror, she al­ nomic downturn and the collapse of the polemic against the liberal, New Left basic Marxist texts - Marx, Engels, ways introduced herself as a professional auto industry in Detroit. But that local and feminist views of capitalist class Lenin, Trotsky, Cannon - and a prodi­ revolutionary. There was a group of was a major step for our organisation. In injustice. "Rape and Bourgeois Justice" gious memory for what she read. She Gorbachevite Soviet academics who summer '74, she came to New York to still stands as a guiding statement for us also knew our press and internal docu­ were poking their heads up out of the head up the national youth organisation, on the intersection of sex, race and class mC?nts thoroughly. She used the literature glasnost opening. Everyone worth any­ the Spartacus Youth League, which was in this capitalist society. Collaboration like a precision instrument, pulling out thing was talking about the 1923-24 growing rapidly and, with many difficul­ on this article further cemented a life- exactly the right tool for the job. When period of the Soviet Union, which we ties, taking on independent organisa­ also were critically examining in Ught of tional reality for the first time. some new documentation that had In 1976, she was off to Europe as an emerged from the Soviet archives. Broue international rep. France, the world had just published his Trotsky biogra­ centre of the ostensibly Trotskyist or­ phy, which we were reviewing. ganisations, was the jumping-off point She wrote a wonderful report, and you for our European work and, other than could tell how charmingly and fruitfully Australia, our first international foot­ she worked over the lot of them. Some hold. The job required constant travel of those pretentious academics must around Europe, wide knowledge of the have walked away from a nice lunch left and workers movement throughout only to look down and see the knife in the area, vigilance for opportunities, their stomachs. She drove Mandel into a patience and care in cadre development. sputtering frenzy, at a lunch in front of a After spending a year in New York in bevy of fawning young social democrats, '78-79 as our international secretary, it over his uncritical printing of an article was off to Europe again, this time as a in praise of the Estonian Forest Brothers, central leader of the French section (to Baltic fascists who fought with the Nazi the surprise of our French comrades, a Paris forum in late 1984, part of L TF-sponsored fundraising tour by striking Wehrmacht against the Red Army. few of whom would have preferred to British miners including Paul Brewin (centre). continued on page 9

SPRING 2001 7 bureaucrats, was key to stifling militant must oppose Scottish and Welsh nation­ alternative ''budget'' which proposed that Labour ... class struggles that threatened the capi- alism and fight for voluntary integration police wages "will be frozen"! (Continuedfrom page 2) talist order. . with the proletariat of England. Workers An undated Socialist Alliance leaflet from Scotland, Ireland and Wales have that be opposed privatisation ofthe Tube; Pleading with the Labour government entitled ''The anti-racist alternative at the to nationalise British industries to help historically been among the most mili­ he has hired ex-CIA spymaster Bob general election" states that it "stands for Kiley, renowned as a union-buster in the them compete with their rivals is tant within the British workers move­ grassroots democratic control of the necessarily a capitulation to social chau­ New York subway system in the 1980s, ment and there is a basis - much to the police, and a crackdown on individual vinism and "little England" nationalism. to run London Underground. Kiley op­ benefit of the English working class, in and institutional racism". This is the The call to "save our jobs" plays into the posed Labour's irrational proposal to fact - for common class struggle. , same reformist crap that sows deadly split the Tube among several private hands of the bosses, fuelling racist The CWI's position on Northern illusions in the capitalist state. Racism is divide-and-rule of the working class. companies and initially proposed instead Ireland - which historically has been endemic to capitalist society and to the to sell bonds to finance investment, This was most graphically seen at the pro-British Army and pro-Loyalist­ cops who enforce its rule and nothing April 2000 Rover demonstration, heavily which was supported by the Tories. was disputed in the SSP split. Peter short of a workers revolution will ulti­ 'built for by the SWP and supported by We say: Workers must mobilise to Hadden of the Irish Socialist Party ar- mately bring an end to this. We call for the Socialist Alliance. Our: press told the smash Labour's privatisation as well as Livingstone and Kiley's union-busting truth: this was It Union Jack-waving orgy of British chauvinism. We counterposed schemes! (See "Livingstone hires uhion­ a call for ~ class-struggle fight for jobs buster, CIA bigwig Kiley to run Tube", across national boundaries which would WorlcenHammerno 175, Winter 2000- 2001.) Both Labour's plan and Living­ challenge the capitalist system. Such a stone's scheme meanliigher fares and fight requ~es a complete break from social democracy. fleecing Tube workers. Privatisation has certainly meant worsened safety condi­ tions on the railways. However, British The SSP: tailing Scottish Rail and the Tube have been deathtraps: nationalism' remember the Clapham Junction crash on The Scottish Socialist P~'s pro­ the nationalised railways and the horren­ gramme is unadulterated reformism, dous fire in Kings Cross Underground. A centred on the call for a "Scottish Ser­ genuinely safe, free and well-planned vice Tax". They make no bones ab.out transport system which meets the needs the fact they are not for revolution. The of the population at large and the workers SSP's leading lights such as Tommy in the industry cannot be achieved under Sheridan now style themselves the Inter­ capitalism. Our programme is coun­ national Socialist Movement (ISM), David Rose terposed to both union-busting, insane which declared from the outset: "We do March 1: Socialist Alliance chairman Dave Nellist hosts press conference privatisations and to "good old-fash­ not set ourselves up as 'the revolutionary launching their election campaign. ioned" Labourite nationalisations. party'" (frontline, March 2001). The In The Transitional Progamme, Leon ISM split from Peter Taaffe's Committee gued that "troops should be withdrawn" full citizenship rights for all immigrants Trotsky explained that within the context for a Workers International (CWI), to but also upheld the "right" of Orange­ and we seek to mobilise the power of the of the struggle for the "political over­ which the Socialist Parties in Ireland and men to march in Catholic areas, saying: working class'to fight back against rac­ throw of the bourgeoisie and liquidation England are affiliated. ''Not withstanding that the Orange Order ist, anti-immigrant terror and defeat is a reactionary sectarian organisation we fascist provocations. Unlike the fake left, of its economic domination", the de­ The SSP sees the coming election as mand for the expropriation of certain key do not deny its right to march" (CWI who with liberal, moralistic and conde­ a prelude to the Scottish Assembly elec­ Members Bulletin, May 2000). The ISM scending platitudes intone that "refugees industries like rail is counterposed to tions in two years time. Aspiring to hold "the muddle-headed reformist slogan of rejected this, mindful that they need to are welcome here", we recognise that the balance of power in Edinburgh, the win a substantial vote from the Catholic immigrants are not simply victims of 'nationalization'" which accepts the SSP have made repeated noises about framework of capitalism. What's needed working class in the west of Scot­ racism but an integral part of the prole­ coalition deals with the bourgeois SNP land - traditionally a Labour Party tariat. The struggle to emancipate work­ is class struggle to defend working con­ and. thl:l Greens. They declaim that "at ditions which, rather than being chan­ heartland. The SSP election manifesto ers from capitalist exploitation can only this stage, there is no significant support does call for ''The demilitarisation of go forward if the organised workers nelled into pathetic reformist schemes within the SSP for the idea of entering a Northern Ireland" which is a nod in the movement takes up the fight against all for nationalisation, must be linked to a future coalition government with the direction of calling for troops out but this forms of oppression, which points to the struggle for the expropriation of the SNP". They are clearly not opposed on would be conditional on the IRA need to break from Labour. bourgeoisie through the seizure of power principle to coalition with the SNP, "decomissioning" their weapons. by the working class. going on to say: "On the other hand" that However the SSP certainly have not The crisis of proletarian doesn't mean that the SSP should refuse "Old Labour" national given up the "UVF connection". The leadership to collaborate with the SNP and others same issue of their newspaper which chauvinism on specific policies that could potentially The SWP's John Rees (International published their election manifesto also Socialism, Spring 2001) presents the Workers are outraged by the planned advance the interests of the working bragged that they "contributed to break­ closures of the Dagenham and Luton car class or further the cause of an independ­ Socialist Alliance as something of a ing down sectarian barriers" in the west "united front" between "socialists" and plants which threaten the livelihoods of . ent socialist Scotland (frontline, March of Scotland, by hosting the Ulster Volun­ entire communities. As it lunges from 200 1). Their blather about an independ­ disillusioned New Labour members. He teer Force - Loyalist paramilitary kill­ rehashes the time-worn argument that one crisis to the next, the capitalist sys­ ent "socialist" Scotland, boils down to a ers-alongside Sinn Fein! In their own tem treats workers as expendable and coalition government with the SNP in a the way to "detach" workers from La­ words: "In November 1999, on the bour is always to vote Labour. He even leaves them to rot on the scrap heap of capitalist Scotland. The SSP espouses 'weekend of a Celtic-Rangers clash, the i invokes Lenin's name, asserting that unemployment "benefits". Not surpris­ standard popular-front coalitionism Scottish Socialist Party organised a ma­ ingly, the "maximum programme" put which revolutionaries reject on principle. Labour is "as Lenin described it, a 'cap­ jor public event, Socialism 2000, at italist workers' party' ", then goes on: forward by the fake left is the Old La­ It cannot advance the interests of the which Sinn Fein shared a platform with bour policy of nationalisation, to "save working class, rather it ties the working the Progressive Unionist Party - which "The challenge for socialists is to act on British jobs". They often hark back to class to bourgeois parties which are its has links to the UVF - for the first time this contradiction in a way that appeals to the 1945 Labour government of Clement open enemies. ever in Scotland" (Scottish Socialist the class consciousness which encourages workers to support Labour rather than the Attlee which nationalised large sections In England, the oppressor nation, the Voice, 16 February). The SWP partici­ duty of the revolutionary party is to' Tories in order to detach them from their of British industry. The nationalisations pated in this noxious event and gave it allegiance to the Labour Party. Asserting of the post-World War II period mobilise workers in opposition to Eng­ their seal of approval. that they and their party are the same as amounted to a giant capitalist bailout of • lish chauvinism and to champion the the party of William Hague, Michael failing industries which was critical to right of self-determination for Scotland No illusions In the racist Portillo and Ann Widdecombe is not the the stabilisation of British capitalism and Wales up to and including independ­ capitalist state best way to do this. It is far better to ex­ and, with the collusion of the trade union ence. In Scotland and Wales the party plain that, while we will always support British parliamentary democracy is the party of the trade unions against the nothing but the dictatorship ofthe capital­ open and unashamed party of the bosses, ist class over the exploited and oppressed. we want to build a real socialist alterna­ As VI Lenin, leader of the 1917 Russian tive to both." Revolution wrote in The State and Revo­ Lenin did describe Labour as a ''bour­ lution: "To decide once every few years geois workers party". However in 1920 which member of the ruling class is to he corrected the view today expressed by repress and crush the people through Rees that Labour is the party of the trade parliament - this is the real essence of unions. In fact it is the party of the trade bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in union bureaucracy. Lenin argued that parliamentary-constitutional monarchies, the composition of the Labour Party but also in the most democratic repub­ alone does not determine its charac­ lics." The state is not neutral but is the ter - this depends on its leadership and instrument for the repression of one class political programme: "Regarded from by another; its core is made up of armed this, the only correct point of view, the

Evening Standard bodies of men, eg the prisons, cops and Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois MayDay 2000: Churchill decorated. courts. Betraying deep-seated reformism party, because, although made up of Livingstone praised cop rampage. Socialist Worker (10 March) produced an workers, it is led by reactionaries, and

8 WORKERS HAMMER gether, but I wouldn't have traded this troops entered Afghanistan. The SLiB discovered in an old bulletin. In 1976, Salute ... for anything." dismissed this development, saying they 28-year-old Susan is sent on assignment in Genova, Italy for the International (Continued from page 7) I have to add one story here from a were "still Third Campists at heart". long-time sympathiser in Germany be­ Susan was furious. She wrote in block Secretariat. A group of three guys had She was also our reporter at the trial cause it so captures a part of Sue. This capitals, "WHERE IS THE MAJOR broken to the left and professed agree­ of Nazi SS butcher Klaus Barbie in Ly­ was in the mid-'70s: "She also had a fine ARTICLE IN SPARTACIST BRITAIN ment with the Spartacist tendency. But ons in 1987. We printed her reporter's low-key sense of humour: I remember a COMMENTING ON THIS??" things were not moving forward. Susan notebook in Workers Vanguard and Le female comrade asking Susan where she She also had guts when confronting wrote a report which said they should get Bolchevik. In one sentence, Sue summed got her clothes (since Susan could be the chauvinism of the opponents. The into one city, write some polemics and up the politics of the trial: elegant in anything), and Susan an­ most spectacular example was against do political work, otherwise they would swered 'Salvation Army'. When the LO in 1992 at the rete. They excluded just spin wheels and concoct theories "Barbie's smiling grimace is a smile of comrade expressed surprise, Susan ACT UP; we defended them and LO about our party's deviations. This plain contempt: he can beat the French state court simply by following its own rules, shrugged and smiled and said, 'Well, threatened to exclude us. We did a stun­ speaking offended the leader, I suppose since he is willing to say the equivalent of Parisian Salvation Army.' " ning protest outside the big tent where because it was not "high Trotskyism". what French rulers have believed for more Susan wished to be cremated. Trotsky the annual LO-LCR debate takes place. Of course, Susan had to comment on the than a century: better Hitler than a work­ wrote in Problems of Everyday Life, We juSt quietly appeared out of nowhere Catholic church. She wrote: "Italian ers commune (soviet) in Paris." cremation is "a powerful weapon ... for and stood there with signs denouncing society is so odd - so many priests Susan is rightly widely admired for anti-church and anti-religious propa­ LO's homophobia and anti-communism. walking around as if they belonged in her persistence in fighting for program­ ganda". So it was, as Franyois pointed Susan made sure the LTF played an public made me edgy." The leader of matic precision. The purpose was always out, her last act of propaganda. Person­ active part in the British miners strike of this group went ballistic. He described to get it right - not to win an argu­ ally, I fmd a fitting conclusion in Trots­ 1984-85. Dominique came to London her report as "asinine", "light-minded", ment-because the party's line really ky's description of his friend and and gave a great forum (attended by "coarse" and "insensitive". He was so matters. She sparked a rich internal comrade-in-arms Adolf Joffe: • striking miners) on our struggle against retrograde he assumed this young, beau­ tiful woman, an American to boot, must discussion in late '96 about the slogan "Joffe was a man of great intellectual the Mitterrand popular front. Miners "US bases out of Japan", which was ardor, very genial in all personal relations, came to France to raise money. Paul be an airhead. She was a cultured com­ raised in our Japanese propaganda pro­ and unswervingly loyal to the cause.[ ... ] Brewin loves to talk about working with munist. His problem was he wanted to testing the US bombing of Iraq. After a The personal bravery of this very sick French comrades during the strike. vote for workers parties in the popular couple of months of political exchanges man was really magnificent. [ ... ] He was When I told him about Susan's death, he front. internationally, we arrived at a much a good speaker, thoughtful and earnest in recalled his visit here imd' said those Susan was one of the finest cadre of appeal. and he showed the same qualities were "hard times, but good times". He our International. Although she never more nuanced and precise appreciation as a writer. In everything he did, he paid of. how most effectively to express our the most exacting attention to detail- a says he learned for the first time what a wanted to give up, she was proud of opposiqon to the US imperialist military quality that not many revolutionaries Stalinist is when CGT goons chased him what she accomplished in her life. The in" various contexts in this post-Soviet have.[ ... ] For a great many years I was off ''their turf" in Rouen where he was . best we can do is carry on with the most world. bound to him more closely than anyone collecting mon~y. important project in her life which was After the French section succumbed else. His loyalty to friendship as well as to My favourite Susan story is one I building and strengthening the party. to multiple pressures in '92, especially principle was unequaled." the collapse of Stalinism, she never stopped trying to sort out what had gone Eibblin McDonald: My tribute to Com­ SUSAN ADAMS MEMORIAL COLLECTION wrong. When she returned to 'France in rade Susan is based on her role as repre­ The Prometheus Research Library is honouring our comrade Susan Adams by sentative of the International Secretariat '95 to help get the section straight creating a special collection as a tribute to her lifelong commitment to fight for around the big strikes there, she was able in Europe, which is how I first knew her. women's liberation through socialist revolution. The PRL, central reference to lead again, having herself worked One of her qualities was her training for through a lot of the prior history and combat with opponents. She made sure archive of the Spartacist League of the US, is.seeking contributions to expand gained a measure of understanding. our intervention at the Lutte Ouvriere its holdings of archival and current materials of the Marxist and workers Susan and Franyois were a remarkable Fete every year was an international movement related to the woman question, particularly its international aspects. love match. When she got ill, Susan effort and she. help.t;d prepare all Qf us. Th!s spec~~1 m7morial. coll.ectio!! will enable our comrades and visiting called bini her "great hero". He treate4 She was superb at finding contradictions researchers to pursue further study in this area of great importance to Marxists. her with unfailing tenderness. In '95 she of the opponents and exploiting them. Those who wish to contribute may make cheques payable to Spartacist, wrote to her cousin Cathy about her The first example I remember was in earmarked "Susan Adams Memorial Fund" on the back of the cheque. Post to: coming marriage: "Who knows what the 1980. Workers Power had moved to the PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU. future holds, or how long we'll be to- left on the Russian question as the Soviet

the worst kind of reactionaries at that, state. Soviet Russia, the only society When we applied the tactic of critical League fought with all our might against who act quite in the spirit of the bour­ ever ruled by workers councils, emerged support we made clear that it did not counterrevolution in the ex-USSR and geoisie. It is an organisation of the bour­ as a result of the October 1917 Revolu­ translate into any kind of promise of Eastern Europe. Our programme was for geoisie, which exists to systematically tion led by the Bolsheviks which de­ ongoing support. Since then they have unconditional military defence of the dupe the workers with the aid of the stroyed the power of the capitalist class, been responsible for abject betrayals of former USSR against imperialist attack British Noskes and Scheidemanns [Ger­ expropriated its property and ruthlessly workers in rail and the Tube by SLP and internal counterrevolution and for man Social Democrats at whose behest suppressed attempts to restore the capi­ union bureaucrats such as Bob Crow in proletarian political revolution to oust revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg talist order. British dockers refused to the RMT. To date the SLP has not pro­ the Stalinist-bureaucratic caste, which and Karl Liebknecht were murdered]" load arms to aid the enemies of Soviet duced a platform for the election. wrested political control from the work­ (quoted in The Second Congress of the Russia, and the "Hands off Russia" The success of the working class ing class in 1923-24. Despite its degen­ Communist International, 1977). campaign was successful in its immedi­ depends on its organisation and con­ eration under Stalinism the USSR re­ Lenin's pamphlet "Left-Wing" Com­ ate aim. The British proletariat also sciousness, ie on revolutionary leader­ mained a workers state until its final munism - an Infantile Disorder was wanted a system similar to the Soviet ship. The revolutionary party is the in­ undoing in 1991-92. Today we apply the written to help develop tactics for com­ system, which they understood to be dispensable weapon for victory and its same programme to the deformed work­ munists to intervene into reformist par­ superior to capitalism, but they were job is to bring revolutionary conscious­ ers states of China, Cuba, North Korea ties, to split them and win workers to the duped by false promises of "common ness to the working class. The need to and Vietnam. Our position flows from communist parties. He advocated critical ownership" enshrined in Clause IV of break all illusions in Labour is one of the the class character of these states embod­ support for Labour at the time, in "the Labour's constitution, which turned out main lessons of the heroic 1984-85 min­ ied in the collectivised property forms same way as the rope supports a hanged to mean nationalised industry under ers strike, one of the major class battles established by the revolutions which man". The parliamentary cretins of the capitalism. of the British proletariat. Although the overturned capitalism. British "left" latch onto this as "proof" Leninist tactics towards reformist miners fought militantly against the Labour are gearing up for a major that Lenin would automatically advocate parties are designed to exacerbate the forces of the capitalist state, they were confrontation to which end they are a vote to Labour at all times. This is contradiction they embody - having a betrayed by the treachery of the Labour augmenting the powers of state repres­ absurd, but it flows from the fact that working-class base but a capitalist pro­ leaders and the union bureaucracy, while sion. During Labour's second term wider they stand in the tradition of the Labour­ gramme. From this perspective we gave miners leader Arthur Scargill remained layers of workers and youth will be ite reactionaries Lenin was so scathing critical support to Arthur Scargill's So­ tied to the Labour Party. We seek to propelled into struggle against the capi­ about. And the Labour Party today, cialist Labour Party (SLP) in the last instil the lessons of that strike into talist system. The working class is the while still a bourgeois workers party, is general election where, unlike the major­ workers' consciousness so they can go force which has the power and the direct certainly not pretending to be on the side ity of the pseudo-Trotskyists, the SLP forward to victories. interest in defeating the attacks of the of workers as it was in 1920. did not call for a vote to Labour where The national reformism of the SA and Labour government. We seek to build a The Labour Party had yet to take hold they did not have a candidate. The SLP's the SSP reflects decades of ideological party to lead the working class in social­ of the reins of capitalism and their emergence as a split from Labour in prostration before the British ruling ist revolution to overthrow the system of treacherous nature was not so clear to the 1996 provided an opening in the Labour class. Th$' constituent groups long ago class exploitation, national oppression, working class. Moreover although the monolith; their candidates standing in signed an anti-Communist loyalty oath racism and war. The ICL is dedicated to majority of British workers were mem­ opposition to Labour provided an oppor­ to social democracy when they re­ reforging the Fourth International, party bers of the Labour Party they were at the tunity for revolutionaries to intervene to nounced defence of the former Soviet of world socialist revolution, through same time campaigning in their hundreds win workers to a revolutionary pro­ Union, to the point of supporting intransigent opposition to the social­ of thousands to stop Britain's military gramme in opposition to the SLP's per­ Yeltsin's counterrevolution. We Trots­ democratic parties and their fake-left intervention against the infant workers spective which is Old Labour reformism. kyists of the International Communist apologists. Join us! •

SPRING 2001 9 Defense Donald Rumsfeld portraying of an Austrian archduke by a Serb na­ "ethnic cleansing", the largest single act Balkans ... China "as the principal threat to Ameri­ tionalist. of "ethnic cleansing" in the course of the (Continued from page 12) can global dominance" and writes of The only time nationalist hostilities in. recent Balkan wars was the expulsion of "Washington's decision to turn more of this region abated was during the exist­ some 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina imperialists through workers revolution· its guns and missiles towards China". ence of the multinational Socialist Fed­ region of Croatia in 1995, an atrocity and for military defence of Serbia. That The Bush administration talks of supply­ eral Republic of Yugoslavia, born out of carried out in collusion with the US. .war had nothing to do with defence of ing Taiwan with destroyers with ad­ World War II with the victory of Josip Until now, Macedonia had been rela­ the Kosovo Albanians. It was aimed vanced Aegis radar systems, while push­ Broz Tito's Communist Partisans over tively immune from the nationalist fratri­ from the start at asserting US dominance ing full speed ahead with plans for its the oceupying Nazi Wehrmacht as well cide, lauded by the imperialist media for in Europe and realising longstanding "star wars" missile defence, intended as the Croatian fascist Ustasha and Ser­ its pro-Western "multi ethnic" regime, plans to insert a substantial NATO mili­ chiefly to neutralise China's nucl~ar bian royalist Chetniks. But the victory of which includes the Democratic Party for tary presence in Serbia. We denounced arsenal. Imperialist-backed counterrevo­ Tito's Stalinists resulted in a workers Albanians. In fact, the present coalition the predatory "peace" dictated by the lution, destroying the remaining social state bureaucratically deformed from its government, which replaced the ex-Sta­ world's bloodiest mass murderers, who gains of the 1949 Revolution, would inception, with the working class denied linist Social-Democratic Alliance in wreaked more destruction on Yugoslavja spell enormous hardship for China's political power. The 1945 Yugoslav 1998, is headed by extremist Macedonian than had Hitler's Nazis in World War II, nationalists whose namesake, the Mace­ declaring in Workers Hammer no 169 ~ donian Internal Revolutionary Organ­ (July/August 1999): ization, was a tool of the Bulgarian far "This imperialist conquest is' a blow not right in the years before World War II. only to the people of Serbia and through­ Ethnic Albanians constitute at least a out the Balkans but to working people and quarter to a third of the popUlation - the the oppressed the world over. It will place exact figure is itself a point of political the Kosovars - Serbs, Gypsies and Alba­ controversy, with the recent fighting nians alike - under the direct thumb of April 1999: the imperialists, exacerbating national 'NATO bombin·g erupting just before a planned census in hatreds in the region. It will fuel the ra­ of refugee. April-but are largely excluded from pacity of the imperialist powers at home convoy in government positions, the police and the and abroad. It will sharpen the conflicting Kosovo killed army. Use of Albanian is heavily circum­ appetites of the major capitalist powers, 82 Albanians. scribed, and the regime suppressed an accelerating the drive to an even bloodier Albanian-language university established war in the future." in Tetovo a few years ago. The influx of Kosovo was turned into aNATO pro­ some 200,000 Albanian refugees from tectorate, divided into British, French, Kosovo, many fleeing NATO bombing, German, Italian and American zones of workers and poor and would fuel poten­ constitution guaranteed formal equality provoked a fire storm of opposition. tially cataclysmic rivalry between the for all the South Slav peoples, and the occupation, with the US calling the shots The Macedonian UCK claims that it as supreme overlord of NATO. Beneath US and Japan over the spoils. Itis in the relative national harmony achieved direct interest of the international prole­ under proletarian state power and a col­ is not fighting for secession. In fact, the the seeming amity among the imperialist UCK has long had the aim of a "Greater occupiers lie very different interests. tariat to fight for the unconditional mili­ lectivised economy stands in stark con­ tary defence of China against imperialist trast to the communalist bloodletting of Albania", including parts of northwest­ Germany is intent on reasserting its em Greece. And Greece has long had traditional sphere of influence, espe­ attack and internal counterrevolution. the past decade. But bureaucratic misrule designs Oft Macedonia. When Macedo­ cially in the northern Balkans; the and the nationalist deformations inherent Counterrevolution fuels in the Stalinist dogma of ''.socialism in nia declared independence in 1992, the D-mark is now the main currency in Greek bourgeoisie demanded that the Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans. nationalist wars one country" were counterposed to a lasting, equitable resolution of the .na­ country call itself Skopje, the name of Britain's ambitions were made clear by In the wake of the destruction of the the capital city, and screamed, "Mace­ the bizarre ceremony staged last week in tional question. Soviet Union in 1991-92, conflicting doni~ is Greece!" Troops were mobilised London's Claridge's Hotel, as Crown appetites among the major capitalist A socialist federation of the Balkans for a possible invasion and a three-year Prince Alexander was granted Serbian powers have increasingly come to the. necessarily had to extend to Romania, economic embargo was imposed. Bou.r­ citizenship in the suite where he was fore. We have frequently observed that Bulgaria, Albania and Greece, with its geois hostility towards the Macedonians born in 1945, a prelude to re-establishing the outline of the international political substantial Macedonian and Albanian in Greece, who are denied language the monarchy. That suite was designated sitQation following capitalist counterrev­ minorities. Intent on continuing his rights and suffer systematic discrimina­ "Yugoslav territory" the day he was born . olution in the homeland of the 1917 wartime alliance with British imperial­ tion, is fuelled by the disproportionate in order to ensure his claim to the (abol­ Bolshevik Revolution increasingly re- ; ism after 1945, Stalin allowed the Greek role they played in the Communist-led ished) Serbian throne! France likewise sembles that before the first inter-impetj- . Communists to be crushed by British forces in the Greek Civil War. has historic appetites in Serbia, and Italy alist world war in 1914-18. That the tiny imperialism and domestic reaction in the in Albania, while Russia has reverted to state of Macedonia is today under an Civil War, ensuring the continued rule of In "The National Question in Yugo- its prerevolutionary posture as "big international spotlight is a telling indica­ the chauvinist Greek bourgeoisie. Fi­ slavia", we wrote: brother" of the Slavic peoples. tion of this. nally, Tito's split with Stalin in 1948 put "Marxists should, of course, recognize the The renewed flare-up in the Balkans , Lord Owen, a one-time Labour Party an end to plans for federating Yugosla­ rights of the Albanian people of Kosovo comes as the US flaunts an increasingly leader, recently called for a ''present-day via with Bulgaria and Romania, which and western Macedonia to fuse with Alba­ bellicose foreign policy. The wholesale nia. The border in this region was estab­ equivalent of the 1878 Congress of Ber­ had pro-Moscow regimes. lished by military conquests of the Serb expulsion of some 50 Russian diplomats .Iin, with pre-agreed boundary changes Under central planning, economic bourgeoisie in 1913 and in no way reflects from the US last week is the most pro­ endorsed by the major powers" (New differences between backward regions the national borders of Albania." vocative action of this sort since the York Times, 25 March). That congres.s and more industrialised areas like Slove­ height of the Reagan administration's created the statelets that made up the nia and Croatia were somewhat amelio­ Our defence of the right of self-determi­ Cold War offensive against the Soviet Balkan peninsula in the years before rated through the favourable allocation nation of the Albanians in Kosovo, Mac­ Union in the 1980s. Simultaneously, the World War I, separated by artificial ofinvestrnent and other resources. Tito'~ edonia and Greece in no way implies Bush administration provocatively boundaries, cutting through the many introduction of ' 'market socialism" in the political support to the reactionary na­ hosted a representative of the Chechen peoples of the region, in order to suit the 1960s reinforced regional disparities and tionalism of the UCK, which has shown separatists brutally suppressed by Russia Great Powers - chiefly Britain, tsarist fuelled a resurgence of nationalism, itselfno less proficient at bloody "ethnic as "terrorists". Russia, Bismarck's Germany and Habs­ paving the way for a fracturing of the cleansing" than the Serb chauvinists. Tensions between Washington and its burg Austria. This period marked the Stalinist bureaucracy after Tito's death Under the protection of its NATO impe­ Western "'European "allies" have also ascendancy of the modem imperialist , in 1980. In our article "The National rialist patrons, the UCK has forced tens grown more strident. Today's New York epoch, what Bolshevik leader VI Lenin QUestion in Yugoslavia" (Workers Van­ of thousands of Serbs and Roma (Gyp­ Times headlines, "Europe and Bush: later called the "highest stage of capi­ guard nos 106 and 110, 23 April and 21 sies) from their homes through pogrom­ Early Storm Clouds to Watch". The talism", defined by the increasing conp May 1976), we wamed: "The conditions ist massacres, most recently bombing a Europeans oppose American plans for a centration of monopolies, the dominance are being accumulated for a bloody civil busload of Serbian civilians in February. "star wars" anti-missile system and the of banking and finance capital over war in Yugoslavia, and, given the re­ Moreover, in the 1999 war the ques­ US denounces European plans to build a industry and the scramble by a handful gional economic differences, one which tion of Albanian self-determination was ''rapid reaction force" as a counterweight of big capitalist countries to grab colo­ may be cloaked in the form of a 'nation­ subordinated to military defence of Ser­ to NATO. Reflecting its own imperialist nies, markets and spheres of exploitation alliberation'struggle." bia against British/USINA TO forces, appetites in the oil-rich Near East, from each other. The Balkans was a This is precisely what happened as which likewise implied not an iota of France recently ca,me out openly against major cockpit for these conflicting impe­ Stalinism collapsed in Eastern Europe political support to the Serb-chauvinist the US-dictated UN embargo of Iraq, as rialist appetites. and the Soviet Union. Slovenia and Milosevic regime in Belgrade. With has Russia. Within the European Union The immediate precipitant of the Croatia seceded from the Yugoslav Kosovo now a NATO protectorate, there itself, virtually everything from the in­ Balkan Wars of 1912-13 was a revolt by federation and restored capitalism in can be no independent struggle for the flux of asylum-seekers to the recent the Albanians ofKosovo, whose capture 1991, igniting an ethnic civil war be­ national rights of ethnic Albanians or outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease of Skopje, now the capital of Macedonia, tween Serbs and Croats which destroyed any other national minority in the region serves as a pretext for tightening borders destabilised the central Balkans. Amid the Yugoslav deformed workers state. which does not first and foremost seek to and fomenting national chauvinism. And the disintegration of Ottoman Turkey This was instigated by German imperial­ expel the imperialist "peacekeepers". At such tensions among the major capitalist and Austrian encroachment, the Balkan ism, fresh from its counterrevolutionary the same time, we noted in our article at powers are bound to deepen as an inter­ statelets went to war with Turkey - and annexation of the DDR (East Germany). the end of the war: "The question of national recession takes hold. then with each other-in a mad frenzy Washington then pressed Bosnia to militaIy defence of the Kosovo separa­ Washington's main target is the bu­ to seize territory. Macedonia was carved declare its independence, instigating· an tists against NATO forces might well be reaucratically deformed workers state of up among Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece. even bloodier intercommunill slaughter. posed in the event of armed clashes if China. The Guardian (24 March) reports This was a prelude to World War I, While the imperialists (and their "left" the imperialist occupation troops move a new policy review by Secretary of which was triggered by the assassination lapdogs) vilified Milosevic's Serbia for to disarm the UCK" (Workers Hammer

10 WORKERS HAMMER no 169, July/August 1999). We fight for Under the impact of a major war in lutioonaire, echoed the anti-American Bush administration and NATO have a socialist federation of the Balkans Europe involving the imperialist powers, nationalism of the French bourgeoisie, gone out of their way to paint the through proletarian revolution against all we were presented with the spectacle of promoting the UN or the Organisation guerrillas in the hills of Macedonia as the capitalist regimes of the region. Down erstwhile "revolutionaries" and "anti­ for Security and Cooperation in Europe •Albanian extremists', a far different with the imperialist occupation ofKos­ imperialists" joining pro-NATO war (OSCE) as an alternative to NATO. description than the portrayal ofKosovo ovo! All BritishlUSIUNINATO forces out rallies. Indeed, it was the liberals and fake Daniel Bensaid, a prominent French Albanians in 1999 as a persecuted mi­ ofthe Balkans now! socialists who most loudly and assidu­ USee leader, co-signed a statement call­ nority needing help." Now that the UCK ously promoted the lie that what was at ing for a "multinational police force" in is being discarded by its imperialist Fake lefts sell imperialism's lies issue was the plight of the Kosovo Alba­ Kosovo ''under the auspices of the patrons, the opportunists find themselves nians. Their ideological prostration be­ OSCE to enforce a transitional accord" in a quandary. Reflecting the European In his 1910 article "The Balkan Ques­ fore the capitalist rulers over Kosovo (Rouge, I April 1999). With the British governments' harder line against the tion and Social Democracy", Leon Trots­ reflected their many years of support to SWP immersed in an "antiwar" coalition UCK, the British Socialist Worker (10 ky, who worked as a journalist in the Western imperialism against the Soviet with "little England" anti-American March) writes: "These Albanian guer­ region during the Balkan Wars, wrote: Union in the name of "democracy" and Labour "left" Tony Benn, SWP spokes­ rilla campaigns have been allowed to "The Social Democratic parties of Bul­ "human rights". Their lodestar is not the man Alex Callinicos likewise signed the flourish in part because they operate in garia and Serbia, the most mature repre­ interests of the international proletariat pro-OSCE appeal. And while the SWP zones for which the US is responsible." sentatives of the labor movement in the but bourgeois "public opinion". Amid capitulated to Beonite Labourism, the Meanwhile, the American Socialist Balkans, are fighting tirelessly on two "ethnic cleansing" on all sides, the fake American ISO bent to the prevailing Worker (16 March) has a different tilt: fionts: against their own dynastic-chauvin­ lefts consistently lined up behind which­ pressure of "human rights imperialism". "NATO even plans to allow the Serb-run ist cliques and against the imperialist ever nationality Western imperialism Idiotically whining that "NATO bombs Yugoslav Army to enter a three-mile plans of tsarism and the Europe of the momentarily favoured - and always stock exchanges" (The Balkan Wars against NATO's chief nemesis, ~ 1912-13). With the outbreak of World Milosevic's Serbia. ~ War I, the Serbian Social Democrats and As the US and Britain promoted the ~ Fake socialists the Bulgarian "Narrow" Socialists (Tes­ Bosnian Muslim regime in 1993, WP ~ promoted war aims nyaki) joined Lenin's Bolsheviks in hard dutifully chimed in, "Solidarity with !Ii of NATO imperlfllists, proletarian-internationalist opposition to Bosnian Muslims!"WP joined with the championiong "poor the imperialist slaughter. Lenin's princi­ USee in a campaign for "Workers Aid to little Kosovo". At pled stand in 1914 was the precondition Bosnia", which openly collaborated with May 1999 London for the victory of the Bolshevik-led work­ imperialist "peacekeeping" forces, and demonstration, ers revolution in 1917, which pointed the baldly refused to defend the Bosnian Workers Power way out of imperialist war to the proletar­ Serbs against NATO's bombing cam­ banner read: "Stop !at internationally. paign with the line that "each side's NATO's bombing I . In May 1919, the Tesnyaki constituted strategic goals are reactionary" (5 Sep­ Independence for !hemselves as the Communist Party of tember 1995 statement). For its part, the Kosova!" Bulgaria. As Joseph Rothschild noted in ISO claimed to oppose imperialist inter­ his The Communist Party of Bulgaria: vention in Serbia but chastised the impe­ Origins and Developmeni 1883-1936 rialists for not doing enough to oust ·buffer zone on the border of Kosovo in (1959), their adherence to the new Com­ Milosevic from power, writing: "Oppo­ won't bring peace", the ISO argued for self-determination for Kosovo and ech­ order to attack the same Albanian guer­ munist International brought into it a party sition parties have called on the West to rillas that the U.S. supported during the very much in· the Bolshevik. mould, the take a tough line, but have come away oed the lie that the issue was the plight of the Albanian refugees, pleading in 1999 war." "only mass party, other than the Bolshevik disappointed" (Socialist Worker, 6 De­ Opportunism is nationally defined. one, ofa truly 'Russian' complexion". At cember 1996). Socialist Worker (7 May 1999): "Money Foreshadowing the recent open split its founding congress, the Bulgarian party for Refugees, Not for War!" When the West's attentions shifted to between the two groups, the ISO and proclaimed that-the independence of the Kosovo in 1999, the NATO "socialists" S\vP traded accusations of capitulation Balkan peOples could only be assured by "Albanian liberation" meets followed suit, invigorated by the fact in the aftermath of the war. According to the establishment of a Balkan Federation "Serbian revolution" that the social-democratic parties they a document by Callinicos justifying the of Soviet Socialist Republics. supported were now inpower in much-of flaving tllile(tthe imperialist-backed Albanian nationalists in Kosovo, the split, the ISO took the SWP to task for Theclirrent crop of counterfeit Western Europe. They raised a clamour same groups were soon tailing the impe­ not denouncing "illusions in the United "Marxists" and "Trotskyists" stand in for "independence for Kosovo" and rialist-backed Serb chauvinist Vojislav Nations as an alternative to NATO" and the tradition not of the Bolsheviks and championed the UCK. which boasted of Kostunica in the so-called "Serbian for ignoring the question of Kosovo Bulgarian "Narrows" but of the German spotting targets for NATO bombing revolution" that ousted Milosevic, which self-determination ("The Anti-Capitalist Social Democracy - denounced by sorties. In a statement distributed at a 30 as we noted in a headline at the time was Movement and the Revolutionary Left", Lenin as "social-imperialist" - which March 1999 public meeting in London, "Made in the U.S.A." (Workers Van­ 7 March). voted for imperialist war credits and WP claimed to "support the Serbian guard no 744, 20 October 2000). In a 10 National differences in opportunist mobilised the workers as cannon fodder forces' self-defence against NATO October 2000 posting on its Web site, appetites can only intensify as rivalries for the capitalist rulers. The reformist attack" but "not in Kosova which they WP enthused over "a mighty popular among the major capitalist powers them­ and centrist "socialists" - from the have no right to occupy" - ie not on the revolution", fatuously claiming that Ko­ selves intensify. For the common start­ Cliffite Socialist Workers Party (SWP) principal battlefield. Tailing behind stunica "has not offered himself as an ing point for reformists and centrists is in Britain and International Socialist Blair's Labour Party, which was the open tool of Nato". Compelled to ac­ utter prostration before their "own" Organization (ISO) in the US to Alain most belligerent government in the war knowledge the well-documented ties of rulers, generally refracted through the Krivine's United Secretariat (USec) and against Serbia, WP was in fact one of the the anti-Milosevic opposition forces to social-democratic labour bureaucracies. Workers Power (WP) - promoted the most vociferous promoters of NATO's Western imperialism, the ISO's Interna­ Their role as drummer boys for imperial­ war aims and propaganda of the imperi­ UCK puppets, marching alongside tional Socialist Review (December 2000- ism in the Balkans portends a larger alist rulers in 1999 while declaiming NATO flags in a "Workers Aid for January 2001) nonetheless concluded capitulation with the inevitable outbreak against the NATO bombing. Their only Kosova" demonstration in London and that "it is neither the cause nor the driving of a new inter-imperialist war - inevita­ difference lay in which of the divergent co-sponsoring a London public meeting force of the revolt". And the British So­ ble if the proletariat does not seize imperialist forces they tailed - the whose main speaker was a rabidly pro­ cialist Worker (24 March) declares even power first. strongly pro-NATO Clinton and Blair NATO Albanian nationalist. now: "Hundreds ofthousands of people Writing in 1908, Trotsky scathingly governments or the French Socialists Across the channel, the French USec in Serbia took to the streets and brought denounced the Russian liberals who and British Labour "lefts", etc. group, the Ligue Communiste Revo- down Milosevic, no thanks to NATO." called on the tsarist autocracy to inter­ To be sure, Kostunica did not openly vene in the Balkans: embrace NATO. He is, if anything, even "Poles and Ukrainians, Byelorussians and more rabidly chauvinist than Milosevic, Jews, ,Annenians and Georgians, Slavs JJ70HKEHS HAlJIlJIEH staging a photo-op with Serb chauvinist and non-Slavs - we all wade up to our Marxist newspaper of the Spartacist League paramilitary killers in Kosovo in 1998 knees in blood that is shed every day by the tsarist gang. And the liberals call upon o 1-year subscription to Workers Hammer for £3.00 includes and supporting Radovan Karadzic's this government, the most guilty of them Spartacist, organ of the International Communist League extreme nationalist party in last Novem­ all, to free the Serbs from the grip of (Fourth Internationalist) ber's Bosnian election. But Kostunica's Austria .... (Overseas subscriptions: Airmail £7.00; Europe outside Britain & Ireland £4.00) election victory was bought and paid for "We shall render our best service to the by the US and other NATO powers, Serbs of Bosnia, as to all oppressed peo­ o 1-year subscription to Workers Hammer PLUS 22 issues of Workers especially Germany, which openly fund­ ples.in general, when we dash the crown from the head of Nicholas II." Vanguard, Marxist fortnightly of the Spartacist League/US for £8.00. ed and braintrusted the opposition par­ Subscription includes Spartacist, organ of the International ties and blackmailed the population with Trotsky'S revolutionary internationalist Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) and Black History threats of continued economic sanctions politics led him to join with Lenin's and the Class Struggle if they didn't vote the right way. One of Bolsheviks in 1917 and organise the Name ______the chief recipients of imperialist lar­ October Revolution. And we commu­ gesse was'the Otpor student group, a nists of the Spartacist LeaguelBritain Address ______favourite of Western leftists, whose will render our best service to all the omnipresent clenched-fist signs and oppressed peoples of the world through Postcode Telephone ------,'.....11 "Gotov Je" (He's finished) stickers were the forging of a multiethnic revolution­ paid for by the US. ary workers party to overthrow blood­ Make cheques payable/post to: Spartaclst Publications, PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU With Milosevic ousted, as the New drenched British imperialism through York Times (19 March) observed, "The workers revolution. _

SPRING 2001 11 .' . -" . ~ ., '" ~. . . ' \ ~ ,'~

; us spy plane provocation

the People's Republic of China, aimed at furthering the capitalists' goal of smash­ ing the 1949 Chinese Revolution and reimposing the yoke of imperialist exploi­ tation on China's working masses. As proletarian internationalists in the heart­ land of world imperialism, the Spartacist League/US declares. its class solidarity with the Chinese proletariat and the Chi­ nese workers state, however bureaucrati­ . ...:! cally deformed. We salute Wang Wei, the pilot who is presumed dead after defending his country against imperialist espionage and provocation. With all the arrogance that comes of being the self-proclaimed "world's only superpower", US imperialism thought it Courageous Chinese pilOt Wang Wei. Provocation by US spy plane is part of calculated escalation by American imperialism could dictate terms of submission to against Chinese deformed workers state. . China. President Bush imperiously de­ manded the immediate return of the EP-3E plane and its crew, while the chauvinist American media smeared the downed Chinese pilot as a "cowboy" who didn't know what he was doing and got what was coming. But unlike the small, de­ Defend China! fenceless countries over which America's rulers regularly ride roughshod, China We print below an article adapted lowing a climb down by the Bush admin­ week-and Beijing's account is a lot does not fall. into the category of a "rogue from Workers Vanguard no 756, 13 April istration. more plausible than Washington's-the state" - because it has nuclear weapons. 2001. Since the article was written, the US spy plane provocation was no acci­ When Beijing refiised-t:Q.simply kow­ crew of the American plane have been APRIL 10- Whatever happened in the dent. It was part of a deliberate, calculated tow to the diktat of "Xiao Bushi" (Little released by the Chinese authorities fol- skies above China's Hainan Island last escalation of US military pressure against continued on page 3

Albanian minorities in Greece and Tur­ key's posture as patron of the Balkan All British/UN/NATO troops out now! Muslim peoples, the UCK's efforts for a "Greater Albania" could easily pull these historic enemies - and NATO part­ Balkans tangle ners - into a full-scale war.

In Bosnia, which remains occupied by upwards of 20,000 troops under United Nations auspices, the nationalist Croat Democratic Union threatens to secede and bring down the "multi ethnic, de­ mocratic" house of cards set up by the US-imposed Dayton Accord in 1995, reviving the spectre of renewed ethnic slaughter among Bosnian Muslims, Balkan cauldron boiling: Macedonian police fire on Albanian Croats and Serbs. separatist positions outside Tetovo (above). Albanian commandos Serbia, anointed a "democracy" by on the march along Serbian border. the masters of Wall Street, Frankfurt and The following article is reprinted from domination against the former Serbian (Kosovo occupation force) tank convoy· the City of London in the wake of Milo­ Workers Vanguard no 755, 30 March regime of Slobodan Milosevic, the im­ and a thousand troops moved into the sevic's ouster last autumn, has chafed 2001. Since then, Slobodan Milosevic perialists now find the UCK pushing the town of Tetovo amid heavy fighting under repeated raids by a local UCK has been a"ested in Serbia at the behest region towards renewed intercommunal between Macedonian troops and UCK offshoot into the imperialist-imposed of the Americans who are pushing for conflict. "West Is Alarmed as Warfare irregulars. Earlier this month, a US-led "ground safety" zone along its southern him to be tried in the UN "war crimes Grows in Balkans Again", read a head­ KFOR unit engaged in a firefigbt with border with Kosovo. NATO has now tribunal" in The Hague. line in the New York Times (17 March). UCK commandos on the Kosovo border. invited Serbian military forces back into The former Yugoslav republic of Responding to European calls for more this area. MARCH 26 - Less than two years after Macedonia, which provided a platform "robust" action against the Albanian While opportunist leftists tailed be­ the US-led NATO onslaught against for NATO's war against Serbia, is em­ separatists, US secretary of state Colin hind their respective capitalist govern­ Serbia, the Balkans powder keg threat­ broiled in a potential civil war with the Powell now promises to help augment ments in beating the war drums for ens to explode in the imperialists' faces. National Liberation Army, which claims the Macedonian regime's "military "poor little Kosovo" two years ago, the Having used the struggle of the ethnic to be distinct from the Kosovo guerrillas capabilities" and support its "efforts to International Communist League fought Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army but whose Albanian initials are also bolster a democratic, multiethnic state". for the defeat of the British/USINATO (UCK) as a pretext for their war of . UCK. On 21 March, a German KFOR Given substantial Macedonian Slav and continued on page 10 12 SPRING 2001