The Internationalist No. 43 May-June 2016 50¢ Yet Another Massacre: For a National Strike Against the Criminal Government Mexican Teachers Strike Braves Murderous Repression Quadratín

The Battle of Oaxaca Airport, May 26. After hundreds of teachers blockaded the entrance, Federal Police issued an ultimatum. Teachers refused to move. As cops were preparing to strike, hundreds more teachers came up from behind, encircling them. After a tense stand-off, police were forced to retreat. The following article is translated activists and parents could be the detonator By the current count, according to strikers and their supporters. After pass- from a supplement to Revolución Perma- for an explosion of class struggle around spokesmen for the National Coordinating ing through the barricades at Nochixtlán, nente, newspaper of the Grupo Internacio- the country. The protesters are fighting Committee of Education Workers (CNTE), the police came across ferocious resistance nalista, Mexican section of the League for against the disastrous “educational reform” the toll of that fateful Sunday the 19th in from barricades in Huitzo, and then at the the Fourth International. which seeks to destroy independent Nochixtlán is eight dead, 22 disappeared intersection of Hacienda Blanca. And once JUNE 20 – Mexico has just had its Bloody teacher unionism. For five days they and 94 injured, 45 of them by bullets. The the convoy of buses and pick-up trucks of Sunday. In Russia, the police attack on a defended a barricade on the superhighway Federal Police, who at first denied using the Federal Police passed, the barricades march of workers who only wanted to to Mexico City, managing to stop a firearms, finally had to admit, in the face of were rebuilt. The effect of the repression present a petition to the Tsar sparked the caravan of the Federal Police. Yesterday, photos and videos showing cops firing with has been to further exacerbate the anger of 1905 Revolution. In Mexico of 2016, the the federales took their revenge. But abandon, that it was the uniformed police the population. massacre of Sunday, June 19 in Nochixtlán, instead of frightening people, it had the who shot the activists. Even so, the hail Today tens of thousands filled the Oaxaca against teachers, students, social opposite effect. of bullets and gas did not intimidate the continued on page 11 Photos: Mario Jiménez Leyva/Noticias

On June 12, police evicted protest encampment in front of Oaxaca state Following the massacre at Nochixtlán on June 19, teachers continued to education institute, then pursued striking teachers who set up flaming resist advance of Federal Police in Huitzo and Hacienda Blanca (above). barricades as they retreated to the Zócalo (main square). After cop convoy passed, barricades were rebuilt. Imperialist Offensive Threatens Slaughter Defend Raqqa – Drive U.S./NATO Imperialists Out of Syria and Iraq! MAY 31 – A new stage has opened in the the offensive began: “Splitting off from the

fighting in Syria and Iraq with the launch- Delil Souleiman/Agence France-Presse reporters who flew in with him, Votel then ing of offensives against the Islamic State visited several other undisclosed locations” (I.S.) by U.S. imperialism and its allies. (AP dispatch, 22 May). On May 24 the Syrian Democratic Forces As part of the operation, warplanes (SDF), a military front dominated by the of the U.S.-led “Coalition” dropped leaf- Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), lets on Raqqa saying “This is the time you announced the beginning of a drive on the have been waiting for. It is time to leave de facto capital of the I.S. in Raqqa. The Raqqa” with a cartoon showing fleeing ci- YPG has had a semi-alliance with the U.S. vilians. While a direct attack on the I.S. military, relying on U.S. air strikes since “capital” may or may not be imminent, that the I.S. siege of the Kurdish city of Kobanê is clearly the ultimate aim of the current of- on the Turkish border in late 2014, even as fensive, spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG- Turkey (a member of the NATO military led Syrian Democratic Forces, under the alliance) has continued to attack the Syr- command of U.S. imperialism. According ian Kurdish region. But now the Kurdish to the modus operandi of the Yankee im- militias are directly participating in a mili- perialists, this will likely be accompanied tary operation under U.S. command and to- by horrendous terror bombing (“shock gether with U.S. special forces at the front. U.S. special forces commandos sighted May 26 in village of Fatisah, Syria, and awe”), and the resulting casualties The League for the Fourth Internation- barely 2 kilometers from the front of fighting with the Islamic State. They dismissed as “collateral damage.” With al declared from the outset of U.S. inter- are part of U.S.-led offensive against the I.S. “capital” of Raqqa. Drive the the Pentagon running down its stocks of vention in September 2014 that the imperi- imperialists out of Syria and Iraq! “smart bombs,” they will likely start using alist invaders are by far the greatest threat oppose all sides; additionally there is the machine guns and grenade launchers in the the 500-lb. “dumb bombs,” “bunker bust- to the working people and oppressed, call- right of communal self-defense of all ethnic/ village of Fatisah near the town of Ayn Issa ers,” and other weapons of mass destruc- ing to drive them out of the region and to religious communities threatened with mas- north of the I.S. capital. The U.S. forces were tion in the U.S. arsenal. defeat them with workers action. Today, in sacres; and the Kurdish struggle for self- in a contested area where offensive opera- The current fighting is distant from the face of the U.S.-led assault, we call to determination. In this complex situation, we tions were underway “less than two kilome- Kurdish ethnic regions, and the population of defend Raqqa against the imperialists and noted from the outset that the character of ters from the area under the control of the ji- both Raqqa and Ain Issa (currently occupied the Kurdish and Arab forces serving as the fighting in Syria could change, depend- hadists” (“A chance encounter on the Syrian by the YPG/SDF) is almost entirely Arab. their ground troops. ing on U.S. intervention. And we stressed front,” AFP dispatch, 27 May). Several com- Moreover, according to the web site Raqqa Is As the LFI has pointed out in previous that only the working class throughout the mandos sported shoulder patches of the YPG Being Silently Slaughtered (29 May), which articles, there are several intertwined and region, fighting on the Trotskyist program including, curiously, of the Kurdish women’s is hostile to the I.S. and whose activists have overlapping wars going on simultaneously of permanent revolution, can cut through militia, the YPJ. been murdered by the jihadis, the hundreds in Syria: the U.S./NATO bombing, where the hatreds and oppression fostered by the Videos also show other U.S. person- of thousands of residents of Raqqa see the we call to drive the imperialists out; an in- feuding bourgeois forces. nel in a vehicle loaded with communica- YPG as a force of would-be conquerors, par- ter-communal/sectarian civil war between The current offensive was prepared by tions gear, evidently running the show (“US ticularly following the atrocities it committed pro-imperialist Islamist militias, Al Qaeda a significant increase of U.S. forces in Syria Commandos Are Fighting the Islamic State burning down Arab homes and expelling Ar- Islamists, the Syrian government, the Islam- from the reported 50 support personnel last on the Frontlines in Syria,” Vice News, 27 abs in its conquest of Tel Abyad last year.1 In ic State and now Kurdish militias operating December, deployed at a remote airfield in May). A U.S. military spokesman in Bagh- doing so, it was engaging in the same kind of outside the Kurdish enclaves, in which we the rear, to the dispatch of an additional 250 dad sought to downplay the importance of “ethnic cleansing” as the other forces in the special forces combat this, saying that the U.S. had been conduct- communalist civil war wracking Syria. We troops, ordered by Pres- ing “advise-and-assist operations” with “el- denounced this at the time: ident Obama on April ements” of the SDF for a number of weeks. “The League for the Fourth International

Reuters 24. Now these forces However, the liberal Daily Beast (26 May) has stated that: ‘Proletarian revolution- have been sighted car- web site noted: “The U.S. has said that its aries would defend the Kurdish areas rying out operational forces would not be on the front lines but … against attacks by the Assad regime or the activities at the front. the photos suggest otherwise as U.S. troops Free Syrian Army and certainly against the Islamic State whose victory would On May 26, two days appear to be side-by-side with their local mean wholesale slaughter of Kurds.’ We after the launching of counterparts.” The AFP photographer said the drive against Raqqa, have also reiterated our call for a socialist there were at least 20 American personnel republic of united Kurdistan. At the same a photographer for present, who refused to talk to him. A Syr- time, the LFI has consistently stood for Agence France-Presse ian commander said that American “advis- revolutionary defeatism on all sides in the CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel flew spotted U.S. comman- ers” were “present at all positions along the communal civil wars wracking Iraq and secretly to area near Raqqa, Syria to inspect forces dos in full combat gear front” (New York Times, 26 May). Syria, while supporting the right of self- on eve of offensive. on vehicles with heavy These forces are no more “advisers” defense of threatened communities. As than were the initial combat troops U.S. long as the YPG was defending Kobanê Visit the League for the Fourth International/ president John F. Kennedy sent into Viet- and Rojava (Western Kurdistan) it was Internationalist Group on the Internet nam in the early 1960s. Not only are U.S. exercising this right, but as it expands its http://www.internationalist.org commandos playing a lead role in the mili- sway it has joined the all-sided commu- tary operations against Raqqa, the whole of- nal/sectarian bloodbath.” fensive was prepared by the Pentagon and –“Flashpoint Syria: Russian Interven- The the White House. On May 21, “The head of tion and Imperialist Aggression” (Octo- Internationalist ber 2015), The Internationalist No. 42, A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism U.S. Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, January-February 2016 for the Reforging of the Fourth International met SDF fighters and U.S. special opera- Publication of the Internationalist Group, tions forces in northern Syria … in a rare, continued on page 22 section of the League for the Fourth International unannounced visit to discuss the Raqqa 1 As we noted then: “reports are now surfac- EDITORIAL BOARD: Jan Norden (editor), Fred Bergen, Mark Lazarus, Abram Negrete, offensive” (Wall Street Journal On-Line, ing about Kurdish atrocities against Arabs and Marjorie Salzburg 25 May). Back in January, Brett McGurk, Turkomans in recently conquered areas. Resi- dents of ten villages and towns under the Kurd- The Internationalist (ISSN 1091-2843) is published bimonthly, skipping July-August, by Mundial President Obama’s personal envoy met with Publications, P.O. Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. ish Autonomous Administration were driven Telephone: (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 E-mail: [email protected] leaders of the YPG’s political parent, the from their homes, their property destroyed or Subscriptions: US$10 for five issues. PYD (Democratic Union Party), in Kobanê. confiscated and in some cases their houses were No. 43 1162-M May-June 2016 But here was Centcom commander Votel in- burned and bulldozed (Amnesty International, specting forward positions just days before We Had Nowhere Else to Go, October 2015).” 2 The Internationalist Mass Protests to Shut Down Trump Hate-Fest No to the Democratic and Republican Parties of Deportations, Imperialism and War The following is an Internationalist Group leaflet distributed at the April 14 protest against a fundraising gala for Don- ald Trump in Manhattan. APRIL 14 – Tonight multibillionaire and front-running Republican candidate for president Donald Trump will speak at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City. (This was the first building he built in Manhattan, thanks to a 40-year tax abate-

ment). Earlier today he was to speak in a Internationalist photo Republican Party rally in Patchogue, Long Island, the village where Marcelo Lucero was killed by a racist mob in 2008. In fact, the site of Trump’s speech is a dance hall only steps away from where Marcelo was stabbed to death. Meanwhile, the Democratic adminis- tration of Barack Obama has formally de- ported more than 2.5 million people since coming to office in 2009. The actual num- ber deported is over 4.5 million when you include those thrown out of the U.S. with- out formal removal orders. Among them are over half a million parents of children who were born here and are U.S. citizens. Five million children live in families of un- CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Internationalist Group at April 14 “Shut Down Trump” protest. documented immigrants that face constant He calls Mexicans rapists, a vile smear, certainly a raving psychopath, a grotesque fascist, what would that imply? First of all, danger of losing their parents and caretakers while he was accused of rape by his ex- misogynist, an odious anti-Muslim Latino- you don’t stop fascist movements by sup- should the ICE immigration police strike. wife and has stolen millions. He accuses hating racist and dangerous jingoist. He’s porting bourgeois politicians. How did Ad- Both the partner parties of American Muslims of promoting terrorism, when he all that and a billionaire exploiter to boot. olf Hitler come to power? German Social capitalism sow racist terror and immigrant- supports torture, saying “we have to beat Young people are quite right to protest Democrats voted for General von Hinden- bashing. Whether it’s done by lynch mobs the savages.” His bigoted diatribes, vile at- Trump, and the Internationalist Group and burg in 1932 as president, as a supposed or black-uniformed migra cops, millions tacks on women and gays, and threats and CUNY Internationalist Clubs will come “lesser evil” to stop the Nazis. Then von live in constant fear and without rights. incitement to violence have spurred thou- out today as well. Hindenburg turned around and appointed The record number of deportations by lib- sands to come out with utter justification to Trump seems to consciously mimic Hitler imperial chancellor. eral Democrat Obama has earned him the protest his race-hate rallies. Mussolini, encouraging beating up pro- To stop an actual fascist movement title of “Deporter-in-Chief.” And while Yet many of those protesting Trump testers and talking of possible riots if he’s one must bring out the power of the work- Donald Trump, the bigot with billions who are backing Democratic presidential can- not nominated. But fascism is not a swear ers movement in the streets to smash the wants to wall off Mexico, paid no taxes on didates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clin- word or a synonym for awful or horrific. fascist squads, and to take on the bastions his hotel, low-paid undocumented immi- ton. In Chicago, where anti-racist pro- Fascism is a mass extra-parliamentary of capitalist power that finance the fascists. grants have poured $100 billion into Social testers spiked his March 11 rally (which movement of terror that seeks to destroy Stalinists label everything from militarists Security over the last decade, from which was an outrageous provocation against and atomize the labor movement and do like former Chilean dictator Augusto Pino- they will never see a dime. the mostly non-white students at the Uni- away with parliamentary institutions and chet to racists like Trump “fascist” because Across the country, Trump’s election versity of Illinois campus), many chanted existing parties. U.S. rulers today don’t they have a very different program. They rallies have become an orgy of racism. “Bernie, Bernie.” But the Democrats are need a fascist movement per se, because want to build a “popular front,” that would Black protesters and others are beaten by the governing party of U.S. imperialism, they are not facing a combative workers unite “the people” by chaining the poor, thugs, instigated by the candidate himself. the deadliest terrorist force in the world. movement threatening their class rule. the unemployed and workers to their class Obama has personally While millions are rightly repelled by enemy, the supposed “anti-fascist” sections authorized the murder “Trumpism,” and there are some outright of the bourgeoisie, and thus be a roadblock of thousands of inno- fascists among his supporters, its vile char- to revolution. cent civilians by drone acteristics alone don’t make it fascism. While opposing Trump, the various strikes, which Clinton Donald Trump is in the tradition of many Stalinists as well as social-democratic re- and Sanders support. right-wing demagogues down through his- formists deliberately evade the call for Trump is en- tory. Doctrinal right-wing Republicans, struggle against the Democratic Party. dorsed by the fascist many of them frothing reactionaries them- Why? Because they want to use the term Internationalist photo David Duke and Ku selves, don’t trust Trump because they see “fascism” to frighten people into voting Klux Klans. Trump’s him as a semi-closet liberal, like taking five for “lesser evil” Democrats against the father, it turns out, different positions on abortion in one week. “greater evil” Republicans. Trotskyists, in was a wealthy KKKer. The Republican establishment and corpo- contrast, call for a class mobilization, and The International Ac- rate chiefs are having conniptions because fight for revolutionary working-class poli- tion Center (led by he talks of scaling back NATO (it’s only tics independent from and against all sec- the Workers World talk), and doesn’t embrace “free trade.” tions of the exploiter class. As Marx and Party), which has They call him a populist because they Engels wrote in 1871: “The workers party called a protest today worry that by erratically pandering to some must never be the tag-tail of any bourgeois to “Shut Down Trump of those ground down by economic crisis party.” in NYC,” proclaims, he might embrace policies that threaten If you look at politics through the Internationalist demonstrators chanted, “Not Demo- “No Fascist Move- their own profits. But supposing for a mo- bourgeois prism as if it’s a continuum, crats, Not Republicans, Build a workers party.” ment.” The Donald is ment that Trump and his “movement” were continued on page 6 May-June 2016 3 Stop the Persecution of Black Lives Matter Organizer Jasmine Abdullah! California “Lynching” Conviction Is a Threat to All We reprint below an Internationalist house, in repeating the words from Assata Group leaflet distributed at the June 7 sen- Shakur which have become a well-known tencing hearing for Black Lives Matter or- chant at Black Lives Matter protests: ganizer Jasmine Abdullah. At the hearing, “It is our duty to fight for freedom. where over 300 people came out to support It is our duty to win. her, Jasmine was sentenced to 90 days jail We must love and protect one another. time and three years probation. On June 18 We have nothing to lose but our she was freed on bail, but the persecution chains.” continues: she must return to court next Assata was a class-war prisoner tar- month for hearings on two other cases. geted in the U.S.’s war on black radicals LOS ANGELES – On June 1, 28-year- in the 1970s who escaped and fled to Cuba old Black Lives Matter organizer Jasmine where she was granted asylum. Shakur Abdullah (Richards) was grotesquely must be defended, and the attempts by convicted in near-by Pasadena under a the Obama government to get the Cuban California law that until recently was government to extradite her must be vigor- known as “felony lynching.” This is a ously opposed. blatant case of political persecution in As we have seen time and time again which she faces up to four years in prison. Jasmine Abdullah (Richards) across the country, this latest drive in Cali- At her trial, an entirely non-black jury cops began to cite this incident as justifi- rection to an archaic law. But as Jasmine’s fornia to further repress black activists on accepted the prosecution’s outrageous cation for pursuing their political vendetta case shows, removing the word “lynching” behalf of the capitalist rulers is spearheaded claim that Jasmine’s non-violent effort to against Abdullah. While a host of other ri- while retaining the substance of the law has by a black Democrat: Los Angeles County protect a young black woman from police diculous charges (including “child endan- enabled the capitalist state to more easily ob- District Attorney Jackie Lacy. It’s no acci- brutality was a crime legally equivalent germent”) were dropped, the prosecution tain a felony conviction of any protester who dent either that the mayors of Pasadena and to participating in a KKK lynch mob for falsely branded Jasmine as a “felon” on the “participates” in any way “in the taking by Los Angeles are Democrats, as are the may- the purposes of murdering that woman. bogus charge of attempting to take a person means of a riot of another person from the ors of most large cities in the U.S. as well As Jasmine’s attorney Nana Gyamfi put it from police officers in a supposed “riot” (a lawful custody of a peace officer” – including as the Obama administration in Washington. on the Democracy Now (2 June) TV/radio charge formerly called “attempted lynch- if they were trying to protect that person from But from the outset of the 2014 mass pro- program: ing”) which could mean years in prison, lynching by the police. tests against racist police murder, various “[T]o take this law, that was used depending on the results of the upcoming For us as revolutionary Marxists, as leaders of the Black Lives Matter move- allegedly to protect black people from sentencing, scheduled for June 7 at the well as for any class-conscious worker or ment have sought to “play ball” with the being lynched, and to turn around and Pasadena Courthouse. defender of democratic rights and fighter Democrats. DeRay McKesson, a prominent use this law against a black person who Black Lives Matter Los Angeles chap- against racist repression, removing a victim BLM spokesman on social media in the St. is actually speaking about the lynchings, ter organizer and California State Univer- of police repression from the clutches of Louis area during protests of the cop killing the serial lynchings, that are going on at sity professor Melina Abdullah noted on the capitalist state is no crime. Only those of Michael Brown, ran for mayor of Balti- the hands of police, not just in Pasadena, who would keep black people forcibly seg- more in the Democratic primary this spring. but all over this country, is more than the BLM web site: ironic, it’s disgusting.” “Obviously, the police, District regated at the bottom of society, those who Across the country there has been a Attorney, and entire system are trying to Jasmine was targeted by the capitalist claim that undocumented immigrants have push to draw Black Lives Matter activ- make an example out of Jasmine, using state for being an outspoken activist capa- no rights and who deny workers the right ists into the electoral circus of American this outrageous conviction to intimidate ble of mobilizing outraged black youth in to use their power to fight against exploi- capitalism, and the Democratic Party in other organizers from fighting for an active struggle against racist police terror. tation, can claim it is criminal to assist a particular. Both Hillary Clinton and Ber- end to police terror and other forms of potential victim to be wrested free of the nie Sanders hired BLM activists to co- After participating in a “freedom ride” to state violence against Black people…. It Ferguson, Missouri to protest the 2014 po- armed enforcers of capitalist rule. ordinate “outreach” to anti-racist youth. won’t work.” As Jasmine was hauled off to jail fol- They (along with some reformist leftists) lice murder of Michael Brown, she found- While political persecution, particu- ed a chapter of Black Lives Matter in her lowing the “lynching” verdict, she led her peddle the absurd notion that the police larly of radical black activists, is nothing supporters, who had packed the court- continued on page 21 hometown of Pasadena. There she worked new in racist capitalist America, Jasmine’s to expose the heinous murder of unarmed

conviction sets a new precedent for the Twitter 19-year-old Kendrec McDade by the local criminalization of protest activity, and is police, among other victims of racist cop a threat to all those who would speak out terror. In an on-line video last year, Jas- against injustice. The state is asserting its mine explained: “right” to imprison protesters on felony “[T]here’s been a lot of youth that have (not just misdemeanor) charges for oppos- been killed by the Pasadena police…. Since I was a child, these police have ing police attempts to arrest them or others scared me…. I know their first and last as they exercise their right of free speech. names. I felt like we needed a group out Earlier last year, other protesters had been here that stood up to that injustice.” charged with, but not convicted of, “felo- In August 2015, Jasmine was lead- ny lynching”, such as Sacramento Black ing a protest in Pintoresco Park in Pasa- Lives Matter organizer Maile Hamilton, dena when police moved to arrest a young who was arrested after trying to pull a fel- black woman, unrelated to the protest, low protester away from police. Tiffany who had allegedly not paid for her meal Tran was charged with lynching herself by at a restaurant across the street. The pro- yelling “help” as the police arrested her at testers stood up for the woman in a failed an Occupy protest in Oakland. attempt to protect her from the brutality These cases set off controversy over the they have seen so many of their brothers absurdity of dubbing such actions “lynching,” and sisters face at the hands of the mur- and the charges were dropped. There ensued derous capitalist state. a move to change the law to remove the word No arrests were made of protesters “lynching.” State Senator Holly Mitchell during what was later falsely dubbed a (Democrat, Los Angeles), who authored the Workers power vs. cop terror: ILWU Local 10 shut down Bay Area ports on May “riot.” It was only three days later that the measure, presented it as a progressive cor- Day 2015, marching to Oakland city hall demanding an end to murder by police. Mobilize Labor/Black/Immigrant Power – Only Revolution Can Bring Justice! 4 The Internationalist Unionize Verizon Wireless, Aid Philippines Call Center Workers! Verizon Strike Beats Back Company Assault, But With Big Healthcare Givebacks JUNE 12 – From April 13 to May 27, close The Internationalist Clubs at the City to 40,000 members of the Communication Internationalist photo University of New York, Class Struggle Workers of America (CWA) and the Education Workers (CSEW), and the In- International Brotherhood of Electrical ternationalist Group (IG) were a presence Workers (IBEW) waged a determined on these picket lines in the New York City strike against Verizon Communications area starting on Day One. It was an impor- Inc. This was the largest and most important tant learning experience for young revolu- strike by workers in the U.S. in recent tionaries from CUNY, and their sustained years. The multiracial Verizon workforce presence on the picket line was much showed courage and perseverance, and an commented on by many strikers. One In- enthusiasm for the strike that was palpable ternationalist Club member was told by a at pickets and mass rallies. Workers cop that she would have to move from in expressed a lot of pride for waging the front of a Verizon Wireless store. She re- fight and for the solidarity they maintained fused. The officer cited the injunction. She and built through 45 days on the picket replied that it did not apply to her. When line, which was no easy feat. In New he insisted, she demanded “show me.” Af- York, we also saw how the strike inspired ter going into the store to consult, he came other workers, as trucks and innumerable back out after a few minutes conceding her delivery vans and cars blew their horns point. The strikers appreciated how she while drivers showed clenched fists. stood her ground. “That was a big push for As the strike ground on, the com- us all,” said the picket captain. pany was about to be faced with paying unemployment charges. At the same time, Verizon Beaten Back, But Far Obama had sent in a federal mediator, and Huge rally of 14,000 striking CWA and IBEW Verizon workers floods the From Beaten Labor Secretary Perez was applying pres- streets of Manhattan, April 18. The sharpest edges of the company’s sure. While some had illusions that this service distant parts of the company’s wire- members will be paying higher monthly union-busting assault have been blunted, was aiding the workers, the National La- line network, and significantly slashing the premiums and out-of-pocket [medical] ex- for now, but the settlement is nowhere near bor Relations Board hit the strikers with number of call-center union jobs (in order penses” (Wall Street Journal, 31 May). In what could or should have been won, and injunctions limiting pickets, and then tried to savagely exploit workers in the Philip- fact, CWA/IBEW negotiators had already includes plenty of bad news. It reportedly to stop the boisterous picketing of hotels pines, India and Mexico). The 7% raise the agreed to huge health-care givebacks even stipulates that retirees are to be switched housing scabs. The strikers were sent back company was offering would have been a before the strike. While the summary says over from premium insurance plans to to work without seeing any contract, while pay cut once health care costs and inflation “overall” wage increases will “more than Medicare Advantage plans in order to save scabs were still working. After 45 days on were taken into account. pay for the new costs under the health the company “significant money,” which the line, many felt some relief, while oth- CWA and IBEW union tops are crow- plan,” when inflation is factored in work- these former Verizon workers will have to ers were rightly suspicious – especially in ing that the outcome of the strike was a vic- ers may be treading water at best. cover. Active service workers, particularly light of past sellouts and being sent back tory. Workers are now voting on a “tentative A real union victory, in which substan- those with dependents, may be hit with suddenly with worse than nothing in 2011. agreement” on the basis of a ten-page sum- tial gains were made, would have required thousands of extra dollars per year in pay- The strike came on the heels of the mary. They are slated to get a 10.9% wage a very different strategy and a union leader- ments for medical care, between increased company stonewalling contract nego- increase (compounded) over four years, ship committed to class struggle. An April premiums, co-pays, deductibles and “out- tiations for eight months (while raking and a number of the most egregious com- 25 Internationalist leaflet called to “stop of-pocket maximum” charges. in a cool $1.3 billion in monthly profits). pany demands were beaten back, including the scabs, build mass picket lines no one As for the new call-center jobs, those Among the company’s chief demands for the forcible relocations. Company plans to dares cross” and to unite with the call-center would be in the second tier (with no de- givebacks were big increases to health care shut down call centers were scaled back, workers in Philippines and elsewhere being fined-benefit pensions, which the unions costs, forcible months-long relocations to while 1,300 new unionized call-center jobs paid starvation wages by this profit-gorged gave up in the 2011 sellout contract). More- would be created. But Verizon and busi- company. Moreover, the 15,000 AT&T over, Verizon has gained the right to reduce For the IG leaflet distributed dur- ness analysts are underscoring a big win West workers represented by CWA were the volume of calls to certain call centers, ing the strike, see “Verizon Strike: for the company, that the “unions agreed kept on the job even though their contracts which would then be used to “justify” their A Fight for All Workers” (25 April to shoulder hundreds of millions of dol- had expired. Instead, they should have been closure on the basis of low call volume. In 2016) at www.internationalist.org. lars more in health-care costs” and “union brought out on strike for a joint struggle of addition, the company can now offer buyout phone workers across the country. incentives for workers without union per- The strike offered a glimpse at the pos- mission – another way of slowly but surely sibility of mobilizing working-class power. eliminating the number of union workers Workers picketing outside Verizon Wireless with defined-benefit pensions. stores chanted “What’s disgusting!? Union- The Quality Assurance Review (QAR) busting!” and eagerly adopted our slogan of program, used by management to target “Picket lines mean don’t cross!” As a result and dole out suspensions on the basis of Internationalist photo of the pickets, Wireless stores saw a sharp “productivity,” has been one of the most drop in foot traffic. The few customers who hated weapons in Verizon’s anti-worker entered faced a barrage of whoops and hol- arsenal. Union tops would have workers lers, lambasting them for crossing a picket believe that the QAR is gone, but it is re- line of people who were on strike to main- placed with … a joint operation between tain a decent life for themselves and their management and the union. This gives families. Numerous passers-by expressed the company carte blanche to engage in support for the striking workers, with some the same blatant targeting of workers as businesses even donating free food and under the former QAR, except that since water – daily. As for the scabs, they were the unions are now involved, management greeted by picket line “wake-up” calls every can shift the blame. (Plus it would be much morning outside the hotels housing them … harder than it already is to file grievances until the NLRB injunction banned strikers against these disciplinary measures.) from doing this in mid-May, for being a Verizon backed off on some of its “secondary boycott.” But the union leader- demands, in part because the picketing of ship generally did not try to stop scabs at the Verizon Wireless was more effective than CUNY Internationalist Club students and Class Struggle Education Workers garages and central offices. it expected, and because its management at April 26 Verizon strike rally outside hotel housing scabs. May-June 2016 5 (and other) scabs couldn’t tackle instal- ing sure scabs can scab and workers do not of the CWA need now more than ever is urban poor chained to the system that im- lation, repair and maintenance. But ana- get “out of line” – like shutting down pro- a class-struggle leadership that will not poverishes them. lysts agreed that another important factor duction. be afraid to use the power of the working Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, is run- was the company’s intent to get rid of the Another example of how the cops are class. It means building mass pickets that ning as the “enemy of corporate greed” unionized wireline business altogether and capital’s enforcers was the CWA’s encoun- actually shut down operations. It means and “friend of labor.” Yesterday, Sanders focus on its non-unionized wireless opera- ter with a SWAT team in the Philippines. forming elected mass strike committees put on the colors of the CWA and IBEW tions. A New York Times (30 May) article In an act of international workers solidar- that are recallable at any time, to stop workers striking against Verizon. This pos- quoted one of these analysts: ity, the BPO Industry Employees Network back-room deals and put control of the ture used to be standard fare for any and “‘They needed to end the strike and (BIEN) invited the CWA to the Philippines struggle in the hands of the membership. all Democratic candidates, but it’s been so they bit the bullet,’ said Roger Entner to witness the horrid working conditions It means waging an all-out fight to union- long since they have even made the empty of Recon Analytics. He said he thinks Verizon subjects its Filipino call-center ize Verizon Wireless, and providing real gesture that many on the left see this as the deal ‘reinforced their commitment workers to – getting paid a meager $1.78 and substantial aid to Verizon call-center somehow a step forward. Despite his “so- to basically exiting’ wireline, which per hour, forced overtime and a mandatory workers to unionize from the U.S. to Phil- he called ‘the least profitable, most six-day week. Together with employees ippines, Mexico and India, instead of flag- cialist” pretense, Sanders is a standard- problematic part of the business.’ The from Teletech Nova (a call-center contractor waving appeals about “saving American issue liberal whose job is to refurbish the new contract ‘gives Verizon four years hired by Verizon), BIEN activists, members jobs” from the union tops and Democratic Democratic Party, to attract young people basically to get rid of the unit. Let it be of the May First Labor Movement (Kilu- Party politicians like Sanders. Above all, and working people to vote for their boss- somebody else’s problem.’ Entner said.” sang Mayo Uno, or KMU), and members of it means building a workers party in sharp es. He’s literally channeling speeches by The next day, in a piece for Fierce the UNI Global Union, representatives from struggle against all the capitalist parties Franklin D. Roosevelt, who put together Telecom, a leading telecommunications in- the CWA were confronted by masked police and politicians, to lead the fight for a the political mechanism for subordinating dustry publication, Entner went on: “With the strike now over, Verizon brandishing automatic weapons. The union- workers government, here and around the the unions, African Americans, Latinos n management must wonder if the ists’ crime? Trying to get a statement from world. and the left to U.S. imperialism’s Demo- remaining wireline activities are Verizon about its Filipino operations. cratic Party for generations. worth the distraction it creates on a During the strike, CWA bureaucrats No to Dems... As an economic populist, Sanders’ regular basis. Their answer will almost staged events to showcase Democratic continued from page 3 tradition has been to turn a “color-blind inevitably be ‘no,’ especially because presidential contenders Hillary Clinton there’s always a “greater evil,” thus induc- eye” to issues of racial oppression. So after Verizon seems to have a significantly and especially Bernie Sanders, whom ing workers to vote for the “lesser evil” so stumbling over this issue initially, he has more acrimonious relationship with they endorsed. But Sanders, like Clinton, they never fight in their own interests, and added a BLM coordinator and a toothless its unions than AT&T. A sale of the the political spectrum moves ever further is a bourgeois politician, a supporter of racial justice program. But this will change remaining wireline assets beyond what capitalism. Various left groups are also to the right. Revolutionary Marxists judge nothing, since, as we have stressed, all it needs to operate its wireless backbone pushing this Democratic Party “social- politics by the class line. You are either on across the country, from City Hall to the is the way to go.” ist,” including the International Socialist the side of the exploiters, the capitalists, or White House, “Democrats Are the Bosses Verizon workers faced repeated acts of Organization, which had this to say about on the side of the exploited, the working strike-breaking violence – a company law- Sanders’ “left-wing campaign”: “Hav- people and oppressed. If you’re sitting on of the Racist Killer Cops” (The Interna- yer hit a striker with his Porsche, a drunk ing encouraged members to be active in the fence, or making a pitch for the “pro- tionalist No. 42, January-February 2016). scab struck a striker with his truck, a scab the Sanders campaign and support his gressive” capitalist politician, you’re only Bernie Sanders says he’s for immigra- pulled out a machete on a striker, and a cop anti-corporate themes, the CWA leader- trying to hoodwink people. tion reform with a path to citizenship, and if ran a scab-filled van into a striker’s car while ship prepared the ground politically for So now the “anyone but Trump” cau- Congress won’t cooperate, as president he he was in it. The memory of Gerry Hogan, taking on the bosses” (Socialist Worker, cus in mainstream bourgeois politics has would use his executive powers to the hilt. who was killed when a scab hit him with 3 June). Really? Like hell. As we noted discovered a “lesser evil” even among the So said Barack Obama, and look where it her van during the 1989 strike, was rightly in our April 25 leaflet, Sanders “cites the Republicans, namely Ted Cruz. Actually, got us. Sanders says he will “stop deporta- invoked by union members. Scab and police police (!) as an example of what he con- he is a raving religious fundamentalist and tions.” What such campaign promises are violence is no coincidence. The cops are not siders a ‘socialist institution’.” Chaining ultra-reactionary flat-earther whose earlier worth is shown by Obama’s 2008 pledge to neutral, they are the armed enforcers of workers to the Democratic Party as the claim to fame was to author the shutdown shut down Guantánamo or his hints about capitalist “law and order.” “Just doing their union bureaucracy does is a roadblock to of the federal government in 2013. stopping the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. job” means protecting the bosses’ property, taking on the bosses with real class strug- Hillary Clinton is being billed as Is Sanders a socialist? No way. The most and the whole system of exploitation and gle. In fact, subjugation to the bosses’ par- the voice of experience and “realism.” If oppression. During a strike this means mak- basic starting point of socialist politics is ties and politicians is the No. 1 problem Obama ran on the phony program of “hope” the need for the political independence of and “change” with the slogan “yes, we can,” facing U.S. labor, and the working class against all capitalist par- the key to its many Clinton is running against Sanders essen- ties and politicians. defeats over the past tially on the slogan, “no, we can’t.” (As in: Revolutionary Marxists stand for work- decades. Nice idea, Bernie, but it won’t work.) Her ers action against racist attacks, as when The World Social- surrogates like the war criminal Madeleine ist Web Site (WSWS) Albright (waged war against Yugoslavia, last May Day dock workers shut down ports published articles on imposed Iraq sanctions that killed half a in the San Francisco Bay Area to demand, Photos: Reuters the strike and distrib- million children) and former CIA asset Glo- “Stop Police Terror,” and class-struggle uted leaflets at Verizon ria Steinem are berating young women who unionists in Portland led a “Labor Against pickets. But what they are supporting Bernie Sanders as betray- Racist Police Murder” contingent the same were pushing was anti- ing feminism. Actually this shows how the day. We fight for workers strikes against union propaganda. In feminist idea of all women as being sisters imperialist war, as when ILWU longshore a piece titled “Lessons is opposed to the real struggle for women’s workers shut down every port on the West of the Verizon strike” liberation from capitalist oppression. Coast on May Day 2008 demanding an end (June 2), these fake-left Hillary Clinton is no friend of work- to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to union-bashers claim ing women, and she’s certainly no “sister” defend immigrants’ rights. that unions “are not to the women workers toiling at less than A guiding rule of Trotsky’s Fourth In- working class organi- $5 a day in the Haitian sweatshop she set ternational is: tell the truth to the masses, zations, but arms of up with money stolen from earthquake re- no matter how bitter. The truth is that the corporate management lief funds. Hillary Clinton is no friend of Trumps, and Cruzes, and Clintons and and the state.” They women in Libya who saw their country Sanders all keep the capitalist electoral deliberately equate the reduced to rubble by U.S./NATO bombers shell game running. We fight instead for a sellout labor bureau- in a war she instigated. Hillary Clinton is workers party on a program of intransigent cracy with the unions no friend of the millions of African Ameri- class struggle to put an end to the system themselves. Class- can and Latina women she and husband struggle unionists fight Bill knocked off welfare, or of the millions of endless poverty, racism and war through to drive out the pro- languishing in jail as a result of their 1996 socialist revolution here and everywhere. capitalist bureaucracy omnibus crime bill. As Marx and Engels wrote in the 1848 so that the unions actu- Bill Clinton’s sneering put-down of Communist Manifesto: Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders ally act as powerful de- Black Lives Matter demonstrators protest- “Let the ruling classes tremble at a and Hillary Clinton go to Verizon strike picket lines, fensive organizations ing over those deadly policies was a clear Communistic revolution. The proletarians April 13. The Democratic Party defends the interests of the working class expression of the sinister racism lurking have nothing to lose but their chains. They of Wall Street and capital. We need a class-struggle against capital. behind their photo ops with black Demo- have a world to win.” workers party to fight for a workers government. What the workers cratic politicians, whose job is to keep the Help us win it. n

6 The Internationalist Democrats and Republicans Against Women’s Rights Portland: Class Struggle Picket Slams Right Wing Anti-Abortion Rally By Class Struggle Workers – known for her virulent Portland anti-Semitism and sup-

port of her Holocaust CSWP The following article is reprinted from denier uncle Ted Pike’s the Bridge City Militant No. 2, Winter National Prayer Net- 2016, published by Class Struggle Work- work. Dawes (formerly ers – Portland. The CSWP, an opposition Grant) has several anti- tendency in the Portland, Oregon and Van- Jewish articles pub- couver, Washington labor movement, is po- lished on fascist David litically supported by the Internationalist Duke’s website. Group. As the presentation On Sunday, January 17, a group of inside got underway, 50 union activists picketed a “youth rally” pickets moved to cover held by Oregon Right to Life, an anti- large windows through abortion group that held a day of action which participants could nationally to “mourn” the anniversary of hear their chants and Roe v. Wade and attack women’s right to see their signs. Speak- abortion. With a banner calling on labor ers at our counter-rally to defend abortion rights, Class Struggle highlighted the danger Workers – Portland led a determined picket women face from anti- with members of the Painters, Stagehands, abortion bigots, and Carpenters, Teachers, Teamsters, IWW, pointed out the need for and Laborers unions participating, as well a workers revolution to as members of Black Rose Anarchist Fed- overturn capitalism and eration, Portland Solidarity Network and liberate women. Union militants confront anti-abortion bigots, Portland, OR January 17. many others. The crowd picketed the en- An IWW member addressed the crowd: bloody imperialist war supports restric- struggle workers party to lead the fight for trances to the event, causing delays and “For them, you are a baby factory, an incu- tions on abortion access that make a mock- the emancipation of women, an essential confusion for attendees. bator for the worker of tomorrow, who can ery of the “right” to abortion for poor and part of the struggle for the emancipation of Event organizers and attendees were be exploited by a boss, another body to keep working class women. We need a class the working class. ■ shaken by the unexpected militant opposi- replicating the system of profit, a system tion, as pro-abortion chants drowned out that keeps your boss living large and you Why CSWP Says their Jesus rock and soured their misogy- from getting the services you need…We nist pizza party. They threatened to call need a revolutionary organization.” “Labor: Defend the Clinics!” the police, then tried shoving matches, and A member of Class Struggle Workers Point six of the Class Struggle Work- a hypocritical ploy in their agenda to put when that failed, resorted to juvenile taunts Portland addressed the crowd, saying, “What ers – Portland program states: “Fight sex- the woman in her “place.” And while the as they tried in vain to hide from the noisy does that mean for women when abortion is ism, defend the rights of women. For free, religious bigots truly believe that they are protesters that surrounded the swank Pearl illegal? When there are no clinics? When you high quality 24-hour child care. For full marching under the banner of heaven, the District catering facility. can’t get access? Women die every year from reproductive rights, including free abortion oppression of women is not just a relic of Protesters chanted “Pro-life, your trying to self-terminate pregnancies because on demand as part of a socialized universal biblical times. The drive to put women in name’s a lie, you don’t care if women die” they can’t obtain a safe, legal abortion. We health care system. For labor defense of their place, as incubators and house-slaves, and “Not the church, not the state, women need a society that can collectivize all as- abortion clinics against reactionary terror- comes from the capitalist system. must decide their fate” as anti-abortion fa- pects of housework, of child rearing, in order ists....” And for us, program is not just some It is immensely beneficial to the bosses natics arriving from a rally held earlier in to truly liberate women. But in order to do nice words, but a set of principles for action. to keep half of the working class in that spe- Pioneer Courthouse Square dodged the that we need a working class revolution, an We are an opposition tendency in the cial place, tasked with doing most or all of picket lines covering both entrances to the international revolution.” trade unions, a tendency seeking to change the unpaid work that keeps the labor supply building. An Internationalist Group spokesman the policy of the unions and to replace the cur- coming back to work from day to day and Demonstrators chanted, “Racist, sex- explained, “We’re calling on labor to de- rent union leadership with one committed to from generation to generation. So long as a ist, anti-gay, Christian fascists go away!” fend the right to abortion, to defend the the policy of class struggle. CSWP is not the woman, by reason of a pregnancy that she Organizers of the anti-abortion rally in- clinics, which are under attack by terrorist only left opposition in the labor movement. is not allowed to abort, can be condemned cluded Oregon Right to Life executive elements supported by some of the people But there is no other group in the Portland- against her will to 20 or so years of this sec- director Gayle Atteberry, prominent in the in there.” area unions that is trying to get the unions to ond shift, then you can forget about “equal far right of the local Republican Party, and Union militants intend for the Janu- take a stand on the abortion question. rights.” And the bosses have even got some ORL president Harmony Dawes, well- ary 17 picket to be a beginning for orga- nizing more solid and Most union lefts don’t draw the line in of the workers believing that this is the way numerous labor-cen- the unions on the right to abortion because things ought to be, that this arrangement is tered defense of abor- it’s “divisive,” so in practice these not-so- some kind of “human nature.” tion clinics. Speakers radicals limit themselves to issues of “bread It doesn’t have to be this way: oppres- CSWP at the rally recalled and butter” and “democracy.” Sure, so long sion is not “human nature” but the product the recent terrorist at- as nothing serious is at stake, they will carry of a specific social order, the rule of capi- tacks on a Planned on about all sorts of “social justice.” But in tal. The fight against capitalism – the class Parenthood clinic in pursuit of opportunist alliances and tempo- struggle – is not just about wages and ben- Colorado Springs and rary popularity, they won’t fight the capital- efits. The class struggle includes the fight the firebombing of a ist system and all the oppression it creates for the liberation of women: for the right Pullman, Washington — oppression of women, blacks, immi- of women to control their own bodies, for Planned Parenthood grants, gays and lesbians, etc. In our epoch the socialization of “women’s work,” free last September. CSWP of decaying capitalism, however, if you child care, cooking, cleaning and laundry picket signs called for can’t fight the capitalist system politically services. Likewise, the struggle for black “Free Abortion on De- you can’t win any serious labor struggle. liberation, including of doubly oppressed mand,” while speak- At the January 17 picket, we chanted black women, is part of the class struggle. ers warned that the “Pro-life, your name’s a lie, you don’t care With working-class women standing Democratic Party was if women die.” It is often noted that the at the forefront of the class struggle, lead- It will take nothing short of workers revolution to free no friend of working anti-abortion movement’s professed con- ing together with their male comrades, our women from domestic slavery. women. This party of cern for the “life” of the fetus is simply class will become an unstoppable force. ■ May-June 2016 7 FORWARD TO REFORGE THE IV INTERNATIONAL WORLD PARTY OF SOCIALIST REVOLUTION Italy: Back to Trotskyism By Giulia and Carlo findings of the October 2001 ICC were based on manipulated evidence and there- 11 May 2016 fore cannot be considered valid.” It went Infofoto The authors of this document have further, concluding: since formed the Nucleo Internazionalista “In simplest terms, the question is d’Italia, Italian section of the League for whether Carlo and Giulia were subjected the Fourth International. to a bureaucratic witchhunt. The answer We declare our political solidarity is yes, with the consequences that these with the League for the Fourth Interna- comrades were treated with contempt tional (LFI), which is the continuation and hostility, marked by pulling them of Spartacism before it degenerated, and from their assignments in Italy…. The want to struggle to help reforge the world record demonstrates that Carlo and Gi- party of socialist revolution, the Fourth ulia’s ‘crime’ was their refusal to agree International. With 21 and 27 years in to political conclusions and characteriza- tions insisted on primarily by [the] then the Spartacist tendency respectively, we I.S. [International Secretariat] secretary, were the recognized leaders of the Lega and backed up by other members of the Trotskista d’Italia (LTd’I), Italian section I.S. and IEC [International Executive of the International Communist League Committee], about their political views (ICL), from 1993-1999. This period in- and the work of the LTd’I, which in key cluded the Prodi/Rifondazione Comunista particulars were in fact gross exaggera- (RC) popular-front government, which fell tions or outright falsifications.” Italian trade unionists block train carrying materiel for invasion of Iraq, with RC’s departure in October 1998 (due Yet while the evidence was laid out February 2003. After falsely accusing Italian leadership of boycotting 1999 to the massive desertion of its angry base), in painful detail, the report concluded that strikes against Balkans war, a few years later the ICL dropped the call for as well as the imperialist massacre in Ser- “the damage done to the ICL by the bureau- “hot cargoing” military goods in wartime. bia which provoked large-scale protest and cratic abuse documented in this ICC is irre- that the organization had become bureau- them.” This is the typical type of weaselly resistance in Italy. With the policy of pro- vocable.” This might appear to be an hon- letarian political opposition to all popular est coming to terms, but in fact it served to cratized, but for a time we had a hard time formulation used by a myriad of centrist fronts, based on the program of revolution- continue to cover up the abuse. Although grappling with this. With time, the accu- and reformist groups to call for support ary Trotskyism the LTd’I doubled its size this document was published in an internal mulation of programmatic revisions – with of a bourgeois government, which led to in two and a half years, set up a local in bulletin over 11 years ago, we were never the ICL’s 2010 support for the U.S. imperi- bloody defeats in Chile 1973 and during Naples, had contacts from Puglia to Swit- informed that the charges against us had alist invasion of Haiti being a big one – be- the Spanish Civil War and was the position zerland, put the pseudo-Trotskyists on the been found to be false. It was only after we gan to pull the pieces together. Meanwhile, of the Mensheviks in 1917. The ICL’s de defensive, and was successfully doing the entered into contact with the LFI that we the long-time cadres expelled by the ICL facto call for Grexit (Greek exit from the concrete work to significantly enlarge the learned from them of the “reinvestigation in 1996-97 went on to form the League for euro and the European Union) under bour- organization. of the investigation” and were able to read the Fourth International and have fought geois rule – even though Greece may be Then came the stab in the back from the incriminating bulletin. A striking fact is to build a vanguard in action of the pro- forced to undertake such a step – is hardly the ICL international leadership in 1999 that the techniques used against us were so letariat. We are now joining with them, on a revolutionary program, and could un- which launched a two-year-long witch close to those used in the 1996-97 purge of the program all of us fought for. Over the dercut the fight to unite European workers hunt against us, sent us to New York, liq- ICL cadres who went on to found the In- years, although small, the LFI has grown against capitalist austerity, to replace the uidated the Naples local and completely ternationalist Group and LFI. But the most with the class struggle, while the ICL has Europe of bankers and militarists with a sabotaged the work. The tremendous op- important thing to understand about the withdrawn from the class struggle and red Europe of workers councils, through portunity of significant growth was com- bureaucratic abuse and political coward- begun betraying ever more programmatic socialist revolution continent-wide and be- pletely thrown away. The ICL reprimanded ice is that it was the product of the latter- points of Trotskyism (not only in action or yond. Behind the ICL’s fixation on this is us for not bringing the understanding of the day ICL’s abandonment of the authentic more often non-action, but also formally its belief that such revolution is impossible “new period” after the capitalist counter- Trotskyist revolutionary program that for codified). The main line of the degenera- today. The LFI fights for workers revolu- revolutions in the Soviet Union and East decades we fought for, and for which we tion of the ICL has been capitulation to its tion inside or outside the E.U. European deformed workers states along are again taking up the struggle today. own bourgeoisie and imperialist rulers: In another key conflict of recent years, with the new “qualitative historic regres- –abandoning and betraying the fight to the LFI has correctly insisted that the main ICL Suffers a Qualitative sion in the political consciousness of the oust the police from the trade unions in enemy in Syria and the region is imperi- working class and left internationally” into Historic Regression of Brazil (1996), alism, which must be defeated and driven the section. This was the ICL leadership’s Consciousness –dropping the fight against and even de- out, while warning that any alliance with version of the bourgeois myth of the “death After three decades of upholding the nying the existence of the popular front the U.S./NATO imperialists is suicidal. of communism” that swept most of the left, revolutionary continuity of Trotskyism, in Mexico (1997), Any real blow struck against the imperi- –the social colonialist position of drop- and which we failed to understand. Since the ICL drew defeatist conclusions from alists, including by the utter reactionaries ping the call for independence for Puerto we were forced out, over the following 17 the world historic defeat that was the coun- of the Islamic State, is in the interests of Rico (1998) and the French colonies of years the LTd’I has been a moribund orga- terrevolutionary destruction of the Soviet working people around the world. But the Guadeloupe and Martinique (2009), nization, an empty shell of its former self, fundamental character of the fighting in Union. While that certainly had an impact –dropping the call to defeat one’s own Syria and Iraq continues to be a sectarian lately publishing an issue of Spartaco once on workers’ consciousness, although un- imperialism (post 9/11, 2001), civil war in which Trotskyists oppose all a year or so consisting overwhelmingly of evenly, it is the ICL, as well as other op- –dropping the call for hot-cargoing mili- translations and making no intervention in portunist leftists, that has experienced the tary goods in wartime (2002), sides. The victory of one side or another the class struggle. qualitative historic regression of revolu- –dropping the call for workers strikes in that civil war means a bloodbath of the In 1999-2001 we were subjected to a tionary consciousness it ascribes to the against the war because “it has no reso- conquered people. While the ICL gives political witch hunt culminating in an In- working class. Is it the working class that nance in the working class” (culminat- military support to the I.S. against impe- ternational Control Commission “inves- has decreed that its struggles are no longer ing in 2008), and rialism “and its allies,” the immediate tar- tigation” involving grotesque accusations related to the final goal of socialism? No, –the ICL’s three-month-long support, gets of the I.S.’ holy war are the Shiite, Ya- of faking illness (cancer), making false it is the International Communist League. which it vociferously defended, for the zidi, Christian and Kurdish populations of “charges” against the ICL leadership and For those willing to take the trouble, go brutal U.S. imperialist invasion of Haiti Syria and Iraq. To claim that a victory of hiding political differences. It was a hid- back and read the International Executive (2010). the I.S. against the Kurds, with its inevi- eous frame-up from start to finish. It is not Committee thesis of January 1996. More recently, in Greece (2015), the table bloodbath and return to 8th century just us saying this. A subsequent 2004 ICL We were not the first ones to experi- ICL raised the call for an amorphous “gov- oppressive social norms, would be a blow “ICC Investigation Reopening October ence the consequences of this political de- ernment which will act in the interests of against U.S. imperialism is not only false 2001 ICC Investigation” declared that “the generation of the ICL. We certainly knew the working people and be subordinated to continued on page 20 8 The Internationalist Communism Lives … Just Not in the SL/ICL SL/ICL: Haunted by Revolutionary Trotskyism Joint Statement of the expelled Better-Late-Than-Never Faction and the Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International Zigzagging on fundamental program- tion of the ICL they had continued to abide matic questions, tripping over the class line by party discipline and did not make con- and abandoning key principles of Leninism tact with the IG/LFI. “We are proud autodi- – in short, the centrist degeneration of what dacts who took on the task of researching was once a revolutionary party – doesn’t sit and writing this factional document en- Get well with those who actually want to fight tirely by ourselves,” they wrote. “For the for socialist revolution. But engaging in an SL leadership to assert that this is impos- open and sharp debate with their own com- sible … is to denigrate the intellectual and Your rades who uphold the principles and pro- political capacity of the ICL membership.” gram of authentic Trotskyism which that The ICL leaders’ response has a cer- party once stood for is not in the repertoire tain perverse logic to it: since they have Copy of a leadership that has lost its moorings been spinning around endlessly, swinging and confidence in the revolutionary capac- from one position to its opposite on key ity of the proletariat. programmatic questions and capitulating Now Over the last two decades, in the wake before virtually every major test in the last of the counterrevolutionary destruction of two decades, why should they believe that the Soviet Union and the East European any among their members are capable of bureaucratically deformed workers states, incisive Marxist thought? But perhaps con- the Spartacist League and its International cluding that the pretext for “resignating” Communist League have sought refuge the BLTN Faction was all too transparent, from the class struggle in an increasingly the SL then sent a second letter to the Fac- inward-directed, self-referential world of tion explicitly expelling it for “organiza- their own. At the same time the SL/ICL has tional and political loyalty” to the IG. The revised, and re-revised, one plank after an- parallel to the 1963 expulsion of the lead- other of the Trotskyist revolutionary pro- ers of the Revolutionary Tendency (who gram it once championed. And incapable went on to found the Spartacist League) by of defending its revisionism in the service the degenerating Socialist Workers Party of “pulling their hands out of the boiling for having a “hostile and disloyal attitude” water” of the class struggle, the latter-day was hard to miss. SL/ICL has had to resort to ever cruder Only on April 22 did the International- means to defend the indefensible. ist Group learn of the existence of the Fac- In contrast, the Internationalist Group tion when it first established contact with and League for the Fourth International, the IG five days after its expulsion from the founded by cadres expelled by the SL/ ICL. Read the Declaration of the expelled Better-Late-Than-Never Faction that ICL in 1996-98, have sought to carry the The platform of the BLTN Faction the SL and ICL wouldn’t let their membership discuss. Send US$2 to Mundial Trotskyist program into the struggles of the took the ICL leadership to task for their an- Publications, Box 3321, Church St. Station, New York, NY 10008, USA. working class and oppressed. Despite its ti-Trotskyist revisionism in four key areas: the Stalinist bureaucracy a new exploit- USSR, one of its proudest moments. limited forces, the IG/LFI has made mod- “The Russian Question,” “The Class Line,” ing class, in order not to have to defend After all, on 3 January 1990, the ICL est but significant advances in struggles “The State” and the struggle to “Reforge a the USSR against imperialism. The ICL initiated a united-front demonstration to- ranging from workers strikes against im- Fourth International That Trotsky Would waged the hard fight to defend the gains gether with the Stalinist ruling party, bring- perialist war and workers defense guards Call His Own.” It exposed how the party of the October revolution to the end, only ing out a quarter million people protesting in the strike at the National University of that had uniquely waged a principled and to start whipping itself for doing so just 6 against Nazi defacing of a Soviet war me- Mexico (UNAM), to winning youth and heroic struggle to defend the DDR (East years later. While the ICL leadership acts morial and against capitalist reunification Germany) and Soviet Union responded to immigrant worker cadres to Trotskyism in of Germany. As the Faction Declaration defeat by dumping Trotsky’s analysis of as if this is an unending game of words, struggles for unionization and against de- asked: portations and racist police terror. the dual nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy it is spreading a conception that politically disarms those who would actually fight for “So if you accept the idea that the Stalin- On April 16, the Better-Late-Than- and whitewashing the role of the bourgeoi- ist bureaucracy ‘led’ or was ‘centrally Never (BLTN) Faction of the International sie and its social-democratic agents in the proletarian political revolution in the re- maining deformed workers states, which is responsible’ for counterrevolution, what Communist League (ICL) put forward its capitalist counterrevolution. The new line, does that say about the nature of the crucial to their defense against imperialism Declaration of Faction calling to “Return that “the Stalinists led the counterrevolu- Treptow demonstration?” and counterrevolution. to the Road of Genuine Spartacism” and tion,” was concocted in the course of the The question has been asked before, but ICL members should ask why this is- to “Regroup with the IG/LFI on the Basis 1995-96 fight leading to the expulsion of never answered by the ICL. of Their Revolutionary Continuity!” The the cadres who subsequently founded the sue keeps coming back to haunt their ten- We encourage readers to study the very next day they received a response Internationalist Group, and codified in the dency. First and foremost because, as the Declaration of the Better-Late-Than- from the Spartacist League’s Los Angeles ICL’s 1998 “Declaration of Principles and founder of American Trotskyism, James Never Faction which is available on the local claiming that the document was “self- Some Elements of Program.” P. Cannon said in his 1939 Speech on IG/LFI web site (www.internationalist. evidently composed in close collaboration As the BLTN Faction pointed out, the Russian Question, “Who touches the org). It wades through (with hip boots with the Internationalist Group,” which the ICL cannot even claim originality. It Russian question, touches a revolution.” and a shovel, as Cannon said of polemics was utterly false, and cynically saying “we picked up this line after hearing it again Therefore, he counseled, “Be serious about with Shachtman) the muck of lies, distor- consider your document a statement of res- and again in polemics against the ICL’s it. Don’t play with it.” The ICL also con- tions and obfuscations the ICL leadership ignation and hereby accept it.” work in the DDR by wretched Stalino- tinues to stumble over this cornerstone has thrown out to cover its own betrayals, Comrades Ines and Wright fired off phobes like the misnamed International of Trotskyism because what came to be starting with abandoning and stabbing in a “Letter to All Members of the ICL” re- Bolshevik Tendency and David North & known as the “Norden fight” was really a the back the comrades of the Liga Quarta- futing the lie of collaboration with the IG, Co. (d/b/a the World Socialist Web Site). fight over its own history. To embrace the Internacionalista do Brasil in their unprec- noting that in order to wage a principled The Shachtmanite and Cliffite renegades new line meant to renounce the ICL’s fight edented struggle to remove police from faction fight against the political degenera- from Trotskyism used this line to mislabel against counterrevolution in the DDR and the unions (which the ICL always called May-June 2016 9 Trotskyism they had embraced and thought that the Stalinists led the counterrevolution they were fighting for. As the report on the was “corrected” a long time ago. A more latest conference of the Spartacist League/ cynical ICL leader from Germany flatly U.S. (published in the 22 April issue of refused to give an answer to the question Workers Vanguard) makes clear, the SL is a “Who led the counterrevolution?” chang- Spartakist dying party. Youth Commission “disband- ing the subject after each of the three times ed,” Labor Black Leagues “moribund,” the question was asked of her. WV to be cut back to 8 pages “in cases of The Faction pointed out that this coex- emergency” due to a “paucity of resourc- istence of counterposed positions within the es,” etc. The references to up-and-coming ICL on the nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy youth leaders ring hollow when internally was the result of a pseudo-correction in 2003 the leadership talks of having a Council of and the accompanying diversionary cam- Elders to ensure against political wobbles paign labeling all discussion on this question (not much luck so far). as part of a “false fight,” which the BLTN And how can young militants get a factional declaration exposed as a conscious solid grounding in Marxism in an orga- fraud to prevent a reevaluation of the 1995- nization wracked by cliquism in the lead- 96 fight and expulsions, that represented a ership, unable to orient itself, which will turning point for the post-Soviet ICL. With run against the rocks in any stormy class this level of confusion, the Spartacist ten- struggles? Lamenting that “even those dency could never carry out today the crucial Treptow, January 1990: the ICL initiated a united-front demonstration with the who want to fight see little hope for change intervention, with all its shortcomings, that ruling Stalinist party that mobilized 250,000 against capitalist reunification of and lack any understanding of the central the ICL mounted in 1989-92. That alone is Germany. The ICL’s later claim that the Stalinists "led" the counterrevolution role of the working class in putting an end a guarantee that this badly degenerated party means politically disavowing one of the proudest moments in its history. to capitalism” and “even less understand cannot lead victorious struggles in the future. for but never tried to carry out). The ICL even “more exploited and miserable” than the need for a proletarian vanguard party,” The SL/ICL is dead for revolution, then falsely accused the LQB of suing the black workers. the SL conference concluded that the or- and the sooner those who want to fight union when its comrades were the union The BLTN Faction also took up the ganization’s central task “is to maintain for revolution come to grips with that, the sooner they will be able to make their own leaders who were sued and removed by the issue of walking bosses (foremen who di- the continuity of revolutionary Marx- contribution to the struggle for humanity’s courts. To this day, the ICL repeats the lies rectly represent the shipping bosses) in the ism today, i.e., Trotskyism.” That’s a tall future. Many have put up with years of pull- of pro-police elements who used the power West Coast International Longshore and order for a tendency that flips back and ing their punches in hopes of strategically of the bourgeois state against the Brazilian Warehouse Union (ILWU). The Faction forth on the role of Stalinism, that can’t waging single-issue fights to gradually add Trotskyists. took up the issue as the SL backtracked tell the difference between death squads up to reforming the ICL back to Trotskyism. What was particularly impressive to on its earlier position that walking bosses and workers unions, can’t see an imperi- Some have become demoralized after real- the IG about the Declaration was how the are management and therefore should not alist “humanitarian” invasion for what it izing that even the greatest mental gymnas- comrades independently investigated key be in the union. After reading the materials is, and that has self-consciously exited the tics exerted toward that goal amounted to political differences between the ICL and from the Faction, investigating labor and class struggle. running full speed in a hamster wheel. The the LFI. This included the question of cor- SL archives on the ILWU and speaking It is crucial to understand that the de- recent expulsion of the BLTN Faction dem- poratist “unions” in Mexico which are actu- with former activists in the caucus the SL cline of the SL/ICL is a direct result of its onstrates yet again the resolve of the leader- ally an agency of state control to prevent the had politically supported in the union, the political/programmatic degeneration. The ship to keep internal oppositionists in their rise of genuine workers unions. This heri- IG, which had not studied the question be- proclamation of the supposed qualitative place – i.e. keep quiet or get out. Those who tage of the one-party regime that governed fore, concluded that the BLTN comrades’ degeneration of workers’ consciousness are fed up with the idea that they can only Mexico for seven decades can be difficult position was correct. They upheld the class is the SL/ICL’s embrace of the bourgeois “succeed” through internal self-censorship to grasp for those who have never experi- line against attempts by the SL to obscure false consciousness of the supposed “death and endless cliquist cannibalism, and want enced a system where virtually all social it and promote class collaboration on the of communism,” as a speech by SL spokes- to exert their energy on actually building a institutions were state-controlled. But for docks. This is no small matter in one of man Joseph Seymour makes clear (“Criti- revolutionary party to intervene in the real Mexican workers, and anyone claiming to the most powerful and key unions in the cal Notes on the “Death of Communism” world, don’t belong in the ICL, they belong provide revolutionary leadership, under- United States. and the Ideological Conditions of the Post- in the LFI. standing this issue is literally a life-or-death It was only after hitting a brick wall Soviet World,” in Workers Vanguard, 1 Carrying out our common perspec- question as the corporatist pseudo-unions in these earlier fights that the comrades January 2010). The IG/LFI has opposed tive of revolutionary regroupment on the have murdered hundreds of their own mem- who subsequently formed the Better-Late- this “theoretical” justification for desertion basis of authentic Trotskyism, on May 4 bers in line with their social function of Than-Never Faction began to dig deeper from the class struggle from the start, un- the BTLN Faction and the Internationalist integrating “labor” organizations directly and investigate the possibility that the IG/ derstanding that the period following the Group/League for the Fourth International into the capitalist state apparatus. The Fac- LFI might be right in its analysis of the victory of counterrevolutionary destruc- adopted an Agreement for Common Work, tion established that the current ICL line, degeneration of the ICL. It is well-known tion of the Soviet Union and East Europe- which states in part: treating these labor cops as genuine unions, among members of the ICL that the IG/ an workers states has been a contradictory “Following several days of discussion, LFI has repeatedly been right against their one, in which workers around the globe, flatly contradicts its own published line for and jointly participating in the May and in the heartland of U.S. imperialism, a decade prior to the 1996 expulsions, when party, with the SL/ICL’s shameful support Day march in NYC, the IG/LFI and the Workers Vanguard rightly described Mexi- for the 2010 U.S. invasion of Haiti in the continue to face class battles where revo- Better-Late-Than-Never Faction hereby can corporatist unions as “company unions guise of earthquake relief being only the lutionaries must actively intervene. Only agree to carry out common work aiming on a grand scale.” most egregious example. in the course of struggle can revolution- at an early fusion of our forces on the Similarly, while fighting the popular After so many changes of line, often ary cadre be forged, and only by fighting basis of: front had been the cornerstone of its Mexi- going back and forth on the same question, alongside the workers in struggle can the “–the Document of the First Nation- can section’s work from its inception in and admitted betrayals, it is impossible for revolutionary vanguard demonstrate its ca- al Conference of the Internationalist 1988 until the section’s leaders and youth a thinking SL/ICLer not to harbor nagging pacity to lead its class to victory. Group, ‘The Trotskyist Struggle for In- militants were expelled in the 1996 purges, doubts. But many hesitate to study the As for the Russian Question, which is ternational Socialist Revolution’ (April the latter-day SL/ICL imagines that claim- LFI’s program and record – as the BLTN at the heart of the Declaration of the Bet- 2015); ing that there is not, never has been and Faction boldly and frankly did – because ter-Late-Than-Never Faction, its defense “–the ‘International Perspectives of the cannot be a popular front in Mexico will they fear (rightly, as was just demonstrat- of the Trotskyist position against the ICL’s League for the Fourth International’ help them discredit the LFI. Quite the op- ed) that their membership would be quick- wobbling neo-Shachtmanite revisionism is (April 2015), notably including the sec- posite – by denying reality and their own ly terminated. In an organization which has vital to fight the threat of counterrevolution tions outlining the policy of proletarian past, in the end they can only discredit gone to great lengths to be an alternative in China, Cuba and the other remaining internationalism on Syria, and polemi- cizing against the ICL on this issue; themselves. world for its members in their isolation deformed workers states. Consider the re- “–the ‘Declaration of the Better-Late- Those in the ICL and others reading from intervention in the class struggle, this sponse by SLers to the expelled Faction as Than-Never Faction’ (April 2016) which it distributed its Declaration at May Day in the Faction’s Declaration will be struck is a daunting prospect. powerfully reaffirms the struggle of the also by the fact that the BLTN comrades The Better-Late-Than-Never Faction New York City, where it marched with the IG/LFI to uphold and put into practice began fighting on other issues, nota- Declaration is a challenge to those in the IG/LFI. When confronted by the Faction Bolshevik politics from Germany to bly over crude distortions regarding the SL/ICL who truly want to make a revolu- with the question “Who led the counter- Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere in the pe- so-called “theory” of “white skin privi- tion. What the BLTN comrades discovered revolution in the DDR?” young SL mem- riod since the counterrevolutionary de- lege,” with a leader of the L.A. Spartacist as they dug into one question after another, bers gave contradictory answers. One said struction of the Soviet Union, homeland League incredibly claiming that, because is that the program of the IG/LFI was al- it’s “obvious” from empirical facts that of the October Revolution, which we white workers are the majority in the ready familiar to them in its fundamen- “the Stalinists led the counterrevolution” defended to the end, despite and against U.S., “in the aggregate” white workers are tals – it was the program of revolutionary while another argued that the wrong line continued on page 19 10 The Internationalist “education reform” that consists of penal- under attack. Also in Mexico Teachers... izing teachers for all the ills of this decay- meetings of the STU- continued from page 1 ing capitalist system is being carried out NAM union, members streets from sidewalk to sidewalk in the from Chile to Brazil and inside the United of the Grupo Interna- city of Oaxaca to express their solidarity States. The bourgeoisie is trying to coun- cionalista and CNTE with the teachers, chanting slogans con- teract its declining profit rate by having the teachers called on Revolución Permanente demning the “murderers” and the “repres- entire weight of the world economic crisis the workers to go on sive government.” “Not with bullets, not fall on the shoulders of the working people strike. In doing so, we with machine guns will the people be si- and the urban and rural poor. However, in were able to observe lenced,” they shouted. The mobilization his eagerness to smash the teachers unions the games played recalled the atmosphere of the third mega- that are independent of the state control ex- by the bureaucracy march of 16 June 2006 when the teachers ercised by the SNTE, Peña Nieto’s govern- of STUNAM leader swept away the police of hated Oaxaca ment has made a big mistake. By declar- Agustín Rodríguez governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz after his failed ing that any teacher who is absent for three who publicly talks of attempt to evict the teachers’ encampment. days in a month would lose his or her job, his solidarity with the But the popular rage will go nowhere with- it has created a force of tens of thousands teachers strike but in- out a revolutionary leadership that takes of battle-tested fighters who literally have side the union argues on the fundamental enemy, capitalism, nothing to lose, and thus are prepared to go that going on strike to- and extends the strike to key sectors of the to the limit. gether with the teach- Mexican proletariat. It is essential that the The level of state violence today is ers is impossible. mobilization have an internationalist class comparable to that imposed on 25 Novem- It is clear that the Grupo Internacionalista literature table in striking character, not nationalist such as bourgeois ber 2006, at the end of the Oaxaca rebel- will to struggle and teachers’ encampment in Oaxaca, May 2016 sectors are trying to foist on the movement, lion, with one major difference. Instead of combativeness of the in particular those around the National drowning the uprising in rivers of blood, teachers not only has not diminished but Drawing the Lessons of 2006 Regeneration Movement (MORENA) of today they have led to its intensification. has grown with every attempt by the gov- The 2006 struggle in Oaxaca marked Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly Even bourgeois sectors – leaders of the res- ernment to stop the mobilization. Howev- one of the cruelest class battles in a coun- known by his initials, AMLO, who was taurant and hotel trade, the manager of the er, the political strategy of the CNTE lead- try convulsed by miners and metal workers formerly a leading politician of the long- Guelaguetza folklore festival, large farm- ership has beeen to press for dialogue with strikes and large-scale peasant struggles. governing PRI (Institutional Revolution- ers, church hierarchs – have been fright- the bourgeoisie, going to Gobernación (the We are experiencing today a resurgence of ary Party) and then the PRD (Party of the ened by the scope of the resistance, and interior ministry) and Los Pinos (Mexico’s the teachers insurgency that was begun 37 Democratic Revolution). notably by the massive participation by White House) to beg for someone in au- years ago against the phony trade-union- The strike by the independent teachers parents. They say that this is “worse than thority to grant them an interview. At the ism of the corporatist SNTE (National unions is in a critical phase after the brutal 2006,” and timidly suggest that a “conver- same time, it is seeking an alliance with Union of Education Workers). Today the attack by the bourgeois state. The murder- sation” with the teachers be undertaken in the parliamentary deputies of the bourgeois SNTE is the spearhead of the government ous federal government of Enrique Peña order to restore calm. But however much parties and to divert the struggle onto the attack on the CNTE. Following in the wake Nieto (of the PRI), at the request of the state the leaders of the CNTE call for “dia- sterile path of bourgeois electoral politics, of the Federal Police, it promises to “clean government of Gabino Cué, attacked barri- logue,” as in the teachers mobilization of calling to vote for Morena. To believe in out” Section 22 and impose its Section 59 cades on the state’s highways from the air 2013, this is a trap: the murderers in power the empty rhetoric of supposed support for of scabs and hired assassins. Neverthe- and on the ground. Teachers, parents and are deaf to the strikers’ demands. They will the teachers from AMLO, whose job for less, illusions persist in some sectors of the residents fought back with sticks and stones not give up at the bargaining table what has the big capitalists and their imperialist god- CNTE of an impossible “democratization” against the ferocious attack by the federal not been imposed on them by the force of fathers is to channel struggles into pressur- of this state apparatus dedicated to prevent- police on the night of June 17 in the oil port the workers movement. What’s needed is ing the institutions, is a guarantee of de- ing genuine independent workers unions. of Salina Cruz in the Isthmus of Tehuante- to forge a leadership with the revolution- feat. We already warned in our supplement The strikebreaking by the SNTE in the cur- pec, and then subsequently in the Mixteca ary program and determination to mobilize calling not to vote for Morena or any other rent conflict should make clear the need to region and in the Central Valleys. For the that force in an all-out battle. bourgeois party. break the straitjacket of labor corporatism. bourgeoisie, smashing the teachers’ struggle “It is expected that the repression – so It is also necessary to draw the lessons In the Face of Repression: far administered in doses, in order not to is fundamental to advancing the privatiza- of the experience of 2006, which has en- inflame the ire of a population that still is tion of public education and the destruction Deepen, Broaden and tered the pantheon of heroic defeated strug- on the brink of a social explosion – will of independent unions in the country. For Radicalize the Strike intensify in the wake of the June 5 elec- gles of Mexican history, such as Zapata’s at the workers movement, stopping the blood The Grupo Internacionalista has active- tions. Then the rulers who are seeking the time of the Mexican Revolution, which bath is a question of elementary survival. ly intervened in the teachers strike from the to impose an education “reform” in the weigh so heavily on the consciousness of Mobilizaitons denouncing this attack are start, participating in marches and block- service of capital will go all out.” those fighting against this deadly system urgently needed throughout the country, on ades. We have sold more than 1,000 copies –“Mexican Teachers Strike at a that they seem destined to repeat them, al- the road to a genuine national strike. of Revolución Permanente in Oaxaca alone. Crossroads,” The Internationalist, June ways with the same result. When on 14 Jan- In recent years, the teacher’s struggle We have organized Marxist study groups 2016 uary 2006 the state police attempted to evict has become a matter of life or death. Long outside the headquarters of the CNTE’s And that is exactly what happened. the encampment of Section 22 of the CNTE gone are the ritual teachers demonstrations Section 22 in Oaxaca and in the moving en- What’s needed rather than the popular- in the Zócalo (main square) of the city of in the game of give and take between the campment in Mexico City. We have shown front policy of class collaboration is intran- Oaxaca, the residents of the state capital government and the union leadership, in political films in the same places. We have sigent class struggle. It’s necessary to fight came out in support of the teachers and de- which the pattern of “mobilization-negoti- spoken on Radio Plantón, the teachers’ radio with complete political independence from feated the cops. As the conflict escalated, ation-mobilization” gave the appearance of station, in our program, the “Internationalist all the bourgeois parties and politicians, in- there was talk of a “Oaxaca Commune” producing some results. From the time of Workers Frequency.” We have distributed cluding the PRI, PAN, PRD, MC (Citizens and even dreaming about a communist so- the uprising of 2006 on, the teachers’ strug- thousands of leaflets warning against voting Movement), PT (Labor Party, a satellite ciety in that one state. However, for all the gles have confronted a voracious bourgeoi- for any bourgeois party, including AMLO’s of the PRD), Morena, AMLO, etc. The il- popular combativeness, which was able to sie avid to turn education into a source of Morena. In all this, we have called since the lusions in the pathetic mask of bourgeois push the police and the state apparatus out profit, and thus to eliminate the right of beginning to extend the strike to the entire democracy donned by the present semi- of the city of Oaxaca for over five months, working people for their children to get a education sector nationwide, and to mobi- bonapartist regime of Mexican capitalism the Oaxaca State Trade-Union Front and the free, high quality public education. Today lize key sectors of the industrial proletariat must be shattered. For its part, the ruling Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca the PRI federal government of Peña Nieto in a powerful national strike. Only in this class has made it utterly clear that anyone (APPO) which led the struggle followed a wants to do to the CNTE what the PAN way can we stand up to the state that not who fights against the plans of capital will popular-front policy. (the clerical-rightist National Action Party) only is attacking the teachers but the entire experience the sadistic response of the state. With their narrow reformist outlook, president Felipe Calderón did to the SME workers movement. The long list of massacres, from 1968 and they were unable to extend the teach- (Mexican Electrical Workers Union) in or- Thus our comrades organized brigades 1971 to the fateful night of Iguala of 2014, ers strike not only beyond the borders of der to impose the so-called “labor reform,” of striking teachers to agitate among stu- when the 43 teachers college students of Oaxaca, but even to other areas inside the and later the energy “reform” in the midst dents, workers and faculty of the National Ayotzinapa were disappeared, and now state. By focusing all the will to struggle of his deadly “war against drugs” which University of Mexico (UNAM). We were that of Nochixtlán, register the fact that the shown on hundreds of barricades into bour- cost the lives of over 200,000 people. able to get the Philosophy and Literature Mexican capitalist state is fed by a tribute geois parliamentarism, the leadership of the The struggle is not only national. The School of the UNAM to strike on May 17, of human blood. No political reform or con- teachers and the APPO called for a “punish- “structural reforms” which Mexican gov- helping out with CNTE teachers, mainly stituent assembly within the framework of ment vote” against the PRI and PAN, thus ernments are attempting to implement from Oaxaca, in speaking with striking stu- capitalism can stop the capitalist onslaught channeling the struggle into supporting the have been dictated by world imperialism dents about the need to extend the strike to which is destroying past gains and demo- then candidate of the PRD, López Obrador. and designed by its financial agencies. The the entire education sector, which is today cratic concessions worldwide. Thus instead of fighting to break with the May-June 2016 11 Noticias

Hearing reports of a caravan of 4,000 gendarmes (riot troops) of the Federal Police being dispatched to Oaxaca to repress the teachers, strikers, parents and residents of Nochixtlán, Oaxaca as well as social activists from throughout the Mixteca set up a blockade of over 1,000 people on the superhighway, holding off the police convoy for five days (above), until it was dissolved in the massacre of Sunday, June 19. bourgeoisie, they pave the way to defeat. and the Mixteca region. The former includes steel plant in March of this year arrested five with all the bourgeois parties on a Following the elections, fraudulent as al- strategic facilities for the bourgeoisie, like leaders for protests in 2007. genuine class program and mobilizes the ways, and with the movement politically the refinery at Salina Cruz, which supplies In 2016, as in 2006 and 2013, the tremendous power of the working class disarmed, lacking a policy of class struggle, fuel to practically all the Pacific Coast states. combative teacher unionists organized in nationally against the capitalist state…. came the dark night of November 25 when The blockade of the refinery checkmated the the CNTE have played a leading role in “The ‘democratic’ program has led to the Federal Preventive Police swept through government, and also won sympathy for the heroically confronting the state, defend- a dead-end, because the struggles of the historic center of Oaxaca city and arrest- teachers’ struggle from some oil workers ing public education and nearly 40 years the working people cannot be resolved ed hundreds of activists, putting a full stop who saw how “their” union (the corporatist of independent trade unionism against la- on the basis of bourgeois democracy to the audacious teachers struggle, at a cost STPRM) hasn’t put up the least opposition bor corporatism. But to avoid repeating – which, moreover, is impossible in of 26 compañeros murdered. to the energy “reform” which is threatening the story of those defeats, it is necessary semi-colonial countries like Mexico. Now the situation is more acute. Fol- to cost them their jobs. Also in the Isthmus, to draw the lessons and apply them to the As Trotsky indicated in his perspective lowing the implementation of the educa- health workers have given decisive support current struggle. The movement of 2006 (both a theory and a program) of permanent revolution, today no wing of tion reform, which the CNTE mobilization to the teachers’ struggle. In the Mixteca, the was defeated because it didn’t go beyond the capitalist class is capable of carrying in 2013 was not able to beat down, the educators’ strike has been joined by activists the limits of the state of Oaxaca to become out the tasks which the great bourgeois bourgeoisie figured that by taking away from all over the region, as was seen in the a national strike, nor did it extend to the in- revolutions accomplished in centuries from Section 22 the control of some parts memorial service today in the city of Tlaxi- dustrial proletariat even though at the time past. The agrarian revolution necessary of the state education institute it could un- aco for two of those who were cut down in there were workers strikes in various parts to free poor peasants and Indians from dercut the teachers’ capacity to fight. An- the massacre at Nochixtlán. of the country. In 2013, the CNTE left the their centuries-old poverty; national other mistake. Even without the incentive In 2016, in contrast to 2006, the on- teachers of Guerrero hanging when they liberation from the imperialist yoke; of earning points by participating in pro- slaught against the teachers takes place in a went out on strike against the education and democracy for the exploited and tests, and defying the threats to fire them fertile field for extending the strike to other “reform,” only undertaking national action oppressed, the wage slaves of capital, without severance pay, thousands of edu- key sectors of working people In the last year some months later. And it ended up accept- can only be won through workers cation workers are once again joining en- there have been the explosive struggles of ing the false promises of a “dialogue” with revolution, expropriating the profit- campments, blockades and barricades. The the agricultural workers of San Quintín and the federal and state governments which hungry bourgeoisie and extending to the teachers’ example can also by a catalyst the maquiladora (free trade zone) workers are now brutally attacking them. very heart of the empire, where today for social discontent produced by the fir- in Ciudad Juárez. Today the health workers, The teachers insurgency lacks a rev- more than ten million Mexican workers ing of 30% or more of public sector work- who have shown their support by attending olutionary class leadership. The risk of toil…. We do not look backwards, to the ers, the process of de facto privatization of the wounded on the barricades and calling repeating history lies precisely in that. heritage of Zapata’s peasant nationalism; the health sector, of the massive firing of strikes in solidarity with the teachers, are However, there is a modest but important instead, we seek to be the proletarian Pemex (state oil company) workers and an fighting against a phony “universalization” change: the presence in Oaxaca of a local Bolsheviks of the 21st century. exchange rate that has fallen to 20 pesos to of health insurance will mean slashing the of the Grupo Internacionalista, the result –“State of Siege in Oaxaca, Preparations the dollar, drastically cutting into the pur- right of workers to medical services. The of our intervention in 2006 and later years, in Mexico City.” The Internationalist chasing power of working people. steel workers of section 271 of the semn- and which has shown in practice the way No. 25, January-February 2007 In 2016, in contrast to ten years ago, the corporatist Union of Mine and Metal Work- forward. Drawing the lessons of the strug- Armed with this program, put forward teachers struggle is not limited to the Oaxaca ers in the port of Lázaro Cárdenas, Micho- gle of 2006 we wrote at that time: by the Grupo Internacionalista, Mexican capital and the Valles Centrales region but acán have been subject to harassment by “In order to win this battle, a proletarian section of the League for the Fourth Inter- has extended to the Tehuantepec Isthmus the government, which after a strike in the leadership is required which breaks national, we can open the way to victory. n Mario Jiménez Leyva/Noticias Noticias

On Sunday morning, June 19, the Federal Police took their revenge, brutally attacking the barricades at Nochixtlán. In response, strikers and their supporters set fire to trucks and other vehicles. Cops seeking to “teach a lesson” to the protesters opened fire with live ammunition, killing eight and wounding 94, 45 of them with bullet wounds. Nevertheless, as we go to press the blockade has been reestablished. 12 The Internationalist “Operation Car Wash”: An Attack by the Police and Judiciary Threatening Democratic and Labor Rights Brazil: No to Impeachment! For Workers Mobilization Against the Rightist Bourgeois Offensive No Political Support to the Bourgeois Popular Front Government

Since the beginning of March, Brazil ber of Deputies president Eduardo Cunha has been engulfed in a deep-going po- and Senate president Renan Calheiros (all CUT litical crisis. A million people marched of them PMDB) – to take office. On the in right-wing protests around the country other hand, the barons of the PSDB3 like on March 13 demanding impeachment of Senator José Serra, São Paulo state gover- President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers nor Geraldo Alckmin, former presidential Party (PT). Meanwhile, a runaway “cor- candidate Aécio Neves and even ex-pres- ruption investigation” threatens basic ident Fernando Henrique Cardoso, are democratic rights. In response, a half mil- facing legal charges on scandals like the lion protested in the streets on March 18 “Banestado” scandal4 and the “trensalão” against impeachment, followed by tens of scandal.5 This gang has already been thousands on March 24 and 31. But the kicked out of demonstrations accused of popular-front government continues to being opportunists. push anti-working-class policies in its at- If the federal Supreme Court supports tempt to conciliate the aggressive right an interim government and the Superior wing, and the left is divided between pro- Electoral Court calls new elections, Rede and anti-government blocs. Globo (the right-wing press and TV behe- Subsequently, on May 12 the PT pres- moth) will try to get Marina Silva elected. ident Rousseff was suspended by a vote Legislators of the PT and PSOL6 are al- of the Chamber of Deputies (lower house ready fleeing to her. Since Silva was for- of Brazil’s Congress). The popular-front merly in the PT, they will try to calm the bourgeois government was replaced by a labor federations and set up another form hardline capitalist interim regime headed of class collaboration. At the same time, by former vice president Michel Temer Workers at Ford auto assembly plant in Brazil’s ABC industrial region vote she was the candidate of the evangelical while impeachment proceedings are un- massively to “fight against the coup and in defense of labor rights,” March right wing, maintaining good relations derway in the Senate. 22. But that requires powerful class actions, including factory occupations with agribusiness and the São Paulo bank- The following article, translated and a general strike. The real coup that has to be resisted is the anti-worker ers. In short, the perfect anti-PT candi- from a special supplement of Vanguarda offensive of capital – the budget cuts, privatizations and pension and labor date. And after a transition under Marina, Operária (April 2016) published by our “reforms” being pushed both by the bourgeois right and by the capitalist with Judge Sérgio Moro of Operation Car comrades of the Liga Quarta-Internacio- popular-front government led by the Workers Party of Lula and Dilma. Wash in the forefront, you can see the out- nalista do Brasil, underscores why revo- the police have slipped the leash of civilian state apparatus in order to secure its si- lines of a bonapartist strong state domi- lutionary Marxists call for workers mo- control, ignoring laws, placing themselves necures. Now these rats are jumping ship nated by courts and cops. bilization against impeachment and the above any body elected by popular vote. as they see it going under. If this leads to Be that as it may, the coup against bonapartist threat, and at the same time Today they are attacking Dilma and Lula, a domino effect, other parties support- working people – the deadly “fiscal ad- to use that power against the attacks on tomorrow their targets will be the pensions, ing the government may follow suit. The justment” (budget cuts), the pension and working people by both the feuding bour- wages and jobs of working people – and bourgeois “allies” are abandoning the PT. labor “reforms” – is plowing ahead with geois forces. the organizations of the workers move- What will the PT do? Is it putting forward the wind in its sails, whether under the MARCH 30 – The train is underway, the ment. Make no mistake, democratic and a more radical program in order to mobi- command of the PT or the right, or of a clock is ticking. The countdown to the labor rights are under attack. To defeat this lize its working-class ranks? Not a chance. “technical” government. Therefore, at the showdown over the impeachment of Presi- sinister bonapartist offensive, we need a Lula, now acting as an informal advisor same time that it’s necessary to mobilize dent Dilma Rousseff has begun. The big powerful revolutionary mobilization of the of Dilma, is doing everything possible to the power of the workers movement to business press is howling for the jailing working class. keep some PMDBers on board, and offer- block the road of the bonapartist offen- of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da For the last 13 years, the Workers ing hundreds of positions given up by the sive, we must use this power against the Silva. In the name of fighting corruption, Party (PT – Partido dos Trabalhadores) deserters to the more than 20 smaller rent- anti-worker policies which unite the bour- has governed together with the PCdoB2 “Operação Lava Jato” (Operation Car a-parties in Congress. Those who play by geois forces in conflict, both the right- 1 and with bourgeois parties in a popular Wash) has given the green light to the re- the rules of phony bourgeois “democracy” wing opposition and the popular front front, a class-collaborationist coalition which is still in office. We need class ac- pressive apparatus. The judicial power and will die by the rules of this fixed game, that chains the workers to capitalist sec- 1 The judicial “investigation” of kickbacks on and the PT has made its choice. 3 PSDB – Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, tors, their class enemies. The biggest of contracts of the semi-privatized Petrobras oil For the popular-front government, a “center-right” bourgeois party and main op- the bosses’ parties is the PMDB (Party of company – now mainly owned by Wall Street the departure of the PMDB will probably position in Congress. the Brazilian Democratic Movement), the 4 investors but with the Brazilian state still con- prove fatal. The PT dug its own grave, and Over billions of dollars of tax evasion fun- trolling management – in which politicians of eternal party of government for which the neled through the Bank of the State of Paraná. all major parties received payoffs, mainly to fi- be all and end all is burrowing into the chose the gravedigger. But if Dilma goes 5 Over bid-rigging on contracts for the expan- nance election campaigns. The earliest cases in- down, it will be difficult for the leaders sion of the São Paulo subway. volved transfers of money at a car wash, “Lava 2 PCdoB – Communist Party of Brazil, formerly of the “picaretas” (crooks) in Congress 6 PSOL – Party of Socialism and Liberty, a so- Jato” (jet wash). Maoist, now thoroughly social-democratized. – Vice President Michel Temer, Cham- cial-democratic split-off from the PT. May-June 2016 13 the Chamber of Deputies who will be leading million dollars to come here to speak to the the impeachment process, and who is being National Council of Industry,” he remarked. investigated for his millions stashed away in Lula is speaking like a true Paulo Maluf.7 secret accounts in Switzerland. But Bill Clinton is not the leader of a party

CartaCapital But this chief of the parliamentary which claims to represent the workers. bandits is taking advantage of the party If today Judge Sérgio Moro considers swapping to push a bill to alter the com- himself to be above the other powers, with position of the Ethics Commission in order strong elements of bonapartism, the PT is to get a majority in favor of burying the all to blame and now is itself experiencing procedure that would expel him from the the poisonous effects of its class collabo- Chamber. And since the basis for the origi- ration. The constituent assemblies which nal articles of impeachment is quite weak, produced the Magna Carta of 1988, where if not to say non-existent, the Order of At- Lula played a leading role as the candidate torneys of Brazil (OAB) has just submitted who received the highest number of votes, another bill with different charges. Forget designed within the limits of bourgeois about the alleged “crimes” (of “responsi- democracy a strong public prosecutor’s of- bility,” i.e., the president is not accused of fice supposedly to protect citizens against Rightist mobilization with the FIESP duck calls for exterminating Workers Party. personally doing anything), at bottom this excesses by the state. Now the Car Wash is on the one hand an act of political re- judge is using the practically untouchable tions – not vague “movements,” but con- base from which super-judge Sérgio Moro venge, a clash between two factions of the status of the federal prosecutor’s office to crete measures – such as real, not symbol- directs his Operation Car Wash, the threat bourgeoisie, the traditional right wing and project himself as the supreme arbiter of ic, strikes and plant occupations to sink is unmistakable. Out there in “Moroland” a the popular front. On the other hand, it of- the nation. Moreover, almost the entire ju- the budget cuts, the privatizations and the teacher who dares criticize on social media fers the chance to shatter the PT, a reformist diciary of the country was appointed by the “reforms” ordered by big capital and im- that students dressed in black are calling for workers party – or as Lenin described the popular-front government. The PT didn’t perialism, which is applying in Brazil the a coup d’état is persecuted as a “leftist” and reform the judiciary precisely because it same program as in Greece. And to come “communist” and driven from her school. British Labour Party, a “bourgeois work- ers” party – and thereby weaken worker sought to collaborate with the bourgeoisie, out victorious, all this must be guided by a And at the Pontifical Catholic University of principally over labor cases or those that program of transitional slogans and mea- São Paulo, when a sizeable crowd protested resistance to the economic reforms seek- ing to jack up the profit rate. As a banner could bring a modicum of justice to those sures which prepare the way to socialist a noisy pro-impeachment rally, the Military in front of the FIESP duck said during the down below, yet take decades before a ver- revolution. Police attacked with pepper gas and fired right-wing occupation of the Avenida Pau- dict is rendered. For that reason, our response to the rubber bullets at those opposing the right- lista, “Exterminating the PT: Priceless.” In order to secure its position in gov- ominous judiciary/police offensive amid ist provocation. If in the dying Roman Re- As for the Car Wash “investigation,” ernment, the PT made a bloc with the top the current deep political crisis in Brazil public the rulers sought to silence the plebs Judge Moro assumes messianic airs in rais- companies including Odebrecht, OAS, must be against the bourgeoisie and the by offering them “bread and circuses,” the ing the Public Prosecutor’s Office on high, Camargo Correia, Andrade Gutierrez and labor lieutenants of capital within the decaying Brazilian bourgeoisie wants to placing the judiciary above the Three Pow- other construction contractors which were workers movement. We inscribe on our impose its dictates by offering filet mignon ers of the Republic, far beyond anything founded or gorged themselves during the battle standards: and stroganoff to its people, and bullets for imagined by one of those who thought up military dictatorship. We have here one No to impeachment! their adversaries. For now made of rubber. more proof that the popular-front gov- the separation of powers, Enlightenment For workers mobilization against And if the country goes up in flames over ernments not only allied themselves with philosopher Montesquieu. Intimately aware the bourgeois rightist offensive, no po- impeachment? imperialism, but also with big capital na- of the visceral crisis consuming the other litical support to the bourgeois popular- Concerning that fraud, we are about to tionally, causing resentment to fester ev- two powers of the Republic, the would-be front government! witness the spectacle of a trial of the presi- erywhere among the medium-sized and master judge has shown partiality and ob- Forge a revolutionary workers par- dent, who has not been accused of personal small capitalists and their party represen- stinate ideological intent: the effort to de- ty! Fight for a workers and peasants gov- corruption, by a congress in which 60% of the tatives in Congress. stroy the PT while causing the least possible ernment, the beginning of the socialist deputies and senators – 351 out of 594 of the In truth, the leaders of the PSDB are the damage to the PSDB jumps out before your revolution! members of those august chambers – are un- true fathers and mothers of the “mensalão”,8 eyes. This new Batman with his black cape der investigation for criminal activity, rang- “trensalão” and “petrolão”,9 where the evi- Rightist Bonapartist Offensive has judged with equal emphasis the PT lead- ing from Car Wash and dubious campaign dence and proof against that party are as Against the Popular Front ership and leaders of all the top concerns expenses to homicide. The big business right strong as that which Moro has used to con- with whom it collaborated. The judge of At this moment, the workers, the impov- wing is seeking to grab what it was unable to demn the PT leadership. The scales of Judge Curitiba is able to pull this off this because erished black residents of the favelas (slums) win at the polls: as soon as PTer Dilma began Moro intentionally tilt to one side. Howev- he has the backing of powerful national and and outskirts of the big cities, the students and her second term, the tucano (PSDB) losers er, accusations of corruption are more prob- women, the landless in the countryside and imperialist forces, and the support of these began the marches trying to overthrow her. In lematical for the PT, which arrived in the homeless in the cities cannot remain indiffer- companies’ competitors who want to return the Congressional den of thieves, horse-trad- Palácio do Planalto (Brazil’s White House) ent in the face of an offensive by the most to the feeding trough so that they can savor ing and vote-buying among the 25 parties is with middle-class votes promising “ethics reactionary forces of the country who want the tasty main dishes which the top contrac- so flagrant that they have a “party window,” a in politics.” And the reality is more instru- to throw the exploited and oppressed into ab- tors were able to enjoy instead of having to period of a couple weeks in which legislators mental for the PT governments because it is solute poverty. It is impossible not to see the content themselves with leftovers. can change their party without penalty if they not simply a matter of personal enrichment hand of big business behind the large dem- The charges against Dilma and Lula, get a better offer. In this year’s parliamentary but served as a key means of maintaining onstrations. The Federation of Industries of suffice it to say, are based on absurd pre- auction, some 90 legislators switched par- the popular-front coalition with bourgeois the State of São Paulo (FIESP) has for some texts. The president is accused of transfer- ties. But there remains a minor problem by elements that is the base of its government. time been pushing for impeachment, with its ring money from one state financial agency the name of Eduardo Cunha, the president of As we wrote at the time of the “mensalão” gigantic inflated duck as a complaint against in order to temporarily cover expenses of scandal: the taxes that would result from reintroduc- another agency, and thereby avoid an in- “The innovation of Lula’s govern- ing the CMPF (a tax on financial movements terruption of service: these are the famous ment was to convert the ‘presents’ into by investors and speculators). Now there is “pedaladas” (financial finagling). Govern- a monthly subsidy, in order to ‘rent the an outpouring of statements by business en- ments around the world do this all the time. allied parties’ that the government relied tities, such as the “Communiqué to the Na- The ex-president, on the other hand, is ac- on in Congress, as [former PT treasurer] tion” by the National Confederation of In- cused of being the “true” owner of an apart- Jefferson put it. This was the direct result dustry denouncing “chaos” and demanding ment of 215 square meters in Guarujá, and 7 A notoriously corrupt politician who during of a seaside property in Altibaia which has “reestablishment of governability.” The anti- the military dictatorship was named governor Dilma hard core meets in front of the FIESP pedal boats and which he visits from time of São Paulo and later ran for president with headquarters on the Avenida Paulista in São to time. In both cases he denies being the the junta’s backing, and who in recent years has Paulo where the leaders receive coffee, free owner, with documents in hand, and even if supported Dilma’s popular-front government. Internet and lunch with filet mignon, while the claims were true, they are hardly crimes. 8 The scandal over monthly payoffs to bour- the pawns in the street get beef stroganoff. The other charge, that he was paid hefty geois parties and politicians in Congress, prin- It is also impossible to ignore the osten- sums by the Odebrecht construction firm, cipally to buy their support for the PT-led popu- tatious participation by the militarized police also is not a crime according to bourgeois lar-front government. See “Brazil: Lula Against the Workers – Forge a Revolutionary Workers in the rightist actions. Whether they are Mil- law. But his justification gives stunning Party!” The Internationalist, May 2006, and itary Police with guns, horses and caveirões proof of how the mentality of the “simple “Brazil: The Election Racket of the Bourgeoi- (vans for transporting prisoners) or Federal Vice president (now interim worker” of the past has evolved. “People sie,” The Internationalist No. 38, October-No- Police delegates proclaiming, “I am from president) Michel Temer is all smiles get upset that I charged US$200,000, but it vember 2014. the Republic of Curitiba,” the city that is the watching impeachment vote, May 12. doesn’t bother them that Clinton charges a 9 An earlier name for Operation Car Wash 14 The Internationalist went on to form the Liga Quarta-Inter- tant demonstrations and strikes, such as nacionalista do Brasil in 1996). But after the strikes of the Rio de Janeiro teachers flinching over the subsequent (late 1990s) in 2013 and 2014, and in São Paulo and expulsions, a large part of the DS later Paraná in 2015. found itself outside the PT for disagree- The peasants and indigenous peoples ing with that reform. In the same period, were already and are still being brutally Lula figured out how to gain favor with attacked by the big landowners, who ever Washington. Following the kidnapping of since Lula won the support of orange juice the elected president of Haiti, Father Jean- exporters in his 2002 election campaign Bertrand Aristide, in a coup carried out by have enjoyed privileged access in Brasília. troops of the U.S., France and Canada, the From 2010 on, Dilma gave the PMDB con- PT president sent Brazilian troops to serve trol of the Agriculture Ministry, currently as mercenary forces in imposing an im- being run by the direct representative of

Polícia Militar do Estado de São Paulo perialist occupation on the only country agribusiness, Kátia (“Chainsaw”) Abreu. in the world where a revolution of former As a result, the numbers of expropriations slaves was successful. It was in Haiti that for agrarian reform settlements under the Lula sealed his alliance with imperialism. popular-front governments have been well From then on, the attacks have not below those of Cardoso, and in the last year ceased. The “Bolsa Família” (Family there have been none. The union and labor Stipend) is frequently cited as the great reform is being carried out piece by piece, achievement of the PT government, even and the government has already sent to though it was a continuation of the “Bolsa Congress a series of bills which will undo Escolar” (School Stipend) of Cardoso and decades of gains by the Brazilian working Military Police saluting in front of new armored cars in a gesture of support was a recommendation of Milton Fried- class. Even amid the tumult of recent days, for the pro-impeachment march on Avenida Paulista, São Paulo, March 13. man, the economic advisor of the Pinochet on March 17 Dilma signed the anti-terror- of the government’s lack of a parliamen- today the PSTU (United Socialist Workers dictatorship in Chile and father of neo-lib- ism law to inhibit social protests, above all tary majority, and was part of an effort to Party) – in order to cleanse the party in prep- eralism. Such programs fit right in with the by the working class, which will be used to extend the popular front to include noto- aration for becoming the bourgeois govern- free-market ideology which approves of prohibit demonstrations against the August rious rightist elements such as Antônio ment with a minimum of ideological con- welfare programs “in order to ameliorate Olympics, to suppress mobilizations against Carlos Magalhães [leader of the North- straints. Lula wrote his famous “Letter to the the life of the neediest” in exchange for fare hikes for public transportation, and – eastern landowners], Orestes Quércia and Brazilian People” (June 2002) – which was eliminating the rights of working people, why not? – may even be used in the case of Paulo Maluf, dinosaurs left over from the really addressed to the International Mone- such as public health, pensions and public demonstrations against impeachment. military dictatorship, all of them accused tary Fund and Wall Street bankers, and their education. That is why the United Nations In the favelas and poor districts, the of corruption and under investigation junior partners in the Bovespa (São Paulo has recommended Bolsa Familia for poor killing of poor people and black people by parliamentary commissions (which stock market) – promising to continue the countries. The same could be said of the is increasing. With the National Security were then dismissed, when they reached policies of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (of ProUni (“University for All”) program, Force (FNS) formed by Lula, the popu- agreement with the PT leadership). The the PSDB), with a primary budgetary sur- which has only enriched the sharks of pri- lar front has attacked social protests. The mensalão (fat monthly payoff) was the plus (i.e., before debt payments). vate education while public schools were privatizations, tax breaks and preferences counterpart of the ‘frentão popular’ (the left to decay, from the criminal abandon- for big business continue, as shown by expanded popular front). At the same time as they kicked out ment of the CIEPs (Centers of Integrated the cases of CSN (the privatized National “Corruption is a constant in bourgeois leftist elements from the PT, the architects Education) to the universities. Education Steel Company), Petrobras and Samarco.11 politics. It is the axle grease that makes of the popular front, Stalinist ex-guerrille- 11 the gears of the capitalist state machin- ros José Dirceu and José Genoino, along workers fighting against wage slashing and The giant mining conglomerate was respon- ery function, so that the government of with the clerical left (Frei Betto), sought poverty have led some of the most mili- sible for the 2015 dam break that dumped mil- the day can serve as the executive com- to attract elements of the capitalist par- mittee of the ruling class, meshing the ties to the PT. In the energy sector, for interests of its different factions. It par- example, they recruited Dilma Rousseff, ticularly annoys the ‘proper’ petty bour- who today is mainly known for being an Photos: Julio Cesar Guimaraes/UOL; Sergio Moraes/Reuters geoisie and social-democratic reform- ex-guerrillera but who for 20 years was a ists because it reveals the dirty reality cadre of the PDT,10 a populist bourgeois behind the mythology of the ‘neutrality’ party in the “trabalhista” (labor) tradi- of the state, providing concrete proof of tion led by Leonel Brizola; and Delcídio how this state defends the interests of Amaral, who was a political operator for capital, not of ‘everyone’.” the PSDB in Petrobras and then assumed –“Brazil: Lula Against the Workers – the same role for the PT, and who recently Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party!” submitted a bought confession (delação The Internationalist, May 2006 premiada) in return for lenient treatment Our indictment of Lula, Dilma and the by Judge Moro. Dirceu, who was presi- PT is diametrically opposed to that of the dent of the PT from 1995 until he was suc- bourgeois right: they charge corruption in ceeded by Genoino, dreamt up the “men- order to get rid of a government which was salão” scheme, and after his fall as Lula’s hesitant in imposing anti-worker policies. chief of state founded JD Consultancy in The accusation of class-conscious proletar- order to continue the lucrative work. He ians is that with its “tips” (bribes), the PT probably dreamed of converting the PT bought bourgeois support so that its popu- into a bourgeois party. lar front could attack the workers. Immediately upon assuming office, The Betrayals of Lula and the popular front under Lula’s presidency Dilma’s PT Against the Workers pushed through a “reform” of the pension and In Favor of the Bourgeoisie system, attacking the benefits of public sector workers, and expelled another slice From its beginnings, the PT saw itself of the PT left around the Democracia So- as a parliamentarist party, its feet firmly cialista current. It was leaders of this ten- planted on the capitalist terrain. Even the dency who in 1990 purged the leadership original PT, so beloved of pseudo-Trotsky- of the PT in Volta Redonda who opposed ists today, never declared itself socialist. Its the first Frente Brasil Popular (and who slogan was “perfecting democracy.” The lesson that Lula and his advisors drew from 10 PDT: Democratic Labor Party, a split from his two previous (unsuccessful) presidential the PTB (Brazilian Labor Party) founded by campaigns was to shift his program even Getúlio Vargas, the nationalist strong man who after coming to power in a 1930 coup d’état further to the right in order to reassure the ruled the country until 1945 and was later elect- bourgeoisie of his reliability. They carried ed president in the 1950s. Since Vargas’ time, out purge after purge – the most notable be- populist politics in Brazil have traditionally ad- The National Security Force, created by Lula, represses oil workers and ing of Causa Operária (Workers Cause), to- opted a labourite rhetoric even though the par- other demonstrators protesting in Rio de Janeiro against the auctioning of day the PCO, and Convergência Socialista, ties are solidly bourgeois. the Campo de Libra oil fields, October 2013. May-June 2016 15 The internal and foreign debt are paid on Lula, Dilma and their pals discredited time and to the letter, sucking resources the workers movement: that is, it reflects out of the country. These facts could be the pressure of the cynical bourgeois me- Lesson of History: Trotsky and Lenin multiplied at length, but this is already dia campaign. But this should not keep more than enough proof that ever since us from seeing the capitalist offensive on Kornilov and Kerensky taking office the PT adopted the most behind the mask of the struggle “against Simply rejecting the far-reaching bourgeois plans, including corruption,” which is preparing an attack policies of the right-wing some that even the military dictatorship against the workers, the poor, the youth opposition and of the popu- did not dare undertake. This proves that and all the oppressed. lar-front government while the function of the popular front is not to Currently there are at least 55 bills doing nothing about the carry out reforms, but rather to wear down and constitutional amendments in Con- threatening advance of the the workers movement and demoralize gress which threaten the interests of the judicial and police power working people to the point that the tra- working class: unlimited contracting out – which is the main char- ditional bourgeois parties no longer need of jobs, allowing individual contracts, acteristic of the Brazilian the help of a workers party, even with a preventing fired workers from appeal- conjuncture at this moment pro-capitalist leadership, and can return ing to the labor courts, giving negotiated – would be to abdicate the to the feeding trough in order to directly contracts priority over law, regulating responsibility of defending control the “public” tax receipts. Evident- rather than prohibiting slave labor, etc. If the proletariat and the op- ly, the Brazilian bourgeoisie thinks it has the popular-front government headed by pressed. We are confront- reached that point. Dilma and Lula remains in office, they ing a situation in which the Trotsky, Lenin and Kamenev in 1919. will be pressuring and attacking our rights What Is To Be Done? lessons of the Kerensky-Kornilov clash projected for revolutionary mass ac- on a daily basis as they seek to conciliate in Russia in 1917 are relevant, but with- tion, the most thoroughgoing and the What, then, should be the policy of the right wing and its political partners of out soviets and without a revolutionary boldest revolutionary party stands to revolutionary Marxists in this context of the PMDB, the PP,12 and to defend capi- Marxist party recognized by the masses gain always. The Bolsheviks were in sharp class struggle? tal. But if the bonapartist right wins, they such as the Bolsheviks. the front ranks; they smashed down At bottom what we are experiencing will proceed with the entire weight of the Even though the situation is quite the barriers blocking them from the in Brazil is a variant of the right-wing of- judicial police apparatus behind them. different in many respects, the question Menshevik workers and especially fensive that is taking place pretty much For that very reason we must use our own of how to respond to a deadly threat to the from the Social Revolutionary sol- everywhere in South America and else- class strength to block these executioners. workers is the same. Trotsky explained diers, and carried them along in their where around the globe in the wake of the There are contradictions which revo- the situation in his pamphlet What Next: wake.” defeat of uprisings and defensive workers lutionaries can make use of between the Vital Questions for the German Proletar- Russia at that moment was at war, struggles within traditional frameworks working-class base of the union federa- iat (1932) in the face of the fascist escala- there was a revolutionary situation, the (street demonstrations, one- or two-day tions and bourgeois workers parties on the tion of the Nazis. risks were even greater than in Brazil to- “general strikes,” the rise of bourgeois one hand, and the tops in the popular-front day. But the fundamental lesson, that in “During July and August 1917, Ke- populist politicians and parties) set off government. Even though they are “chapa the face of a mortal threat, one can make rensky, then head of the government, by the capitalist crisis which exploded in branca” (subservient to the regime), the was in fact fulfilling the program of a military bloc, in action, without giving 2007-2008. Today and over the past year, national leadership of the CUT (United any political support to the bloc partner, part of the Brazilian left sought salvation Kornilov, the commander-in-chief of Workers Confederation) is formally op- the army. He reinstated at the front is relevant. However, many pseudo- in the arms of the dying popular front posed to the new pension reform, even military court-martials and the death Trotskyists have deliberately misinter- while another part has lined up with the though in reality it stands in the way of a penalty. He deprived the duly elected preted the policy of Lenin and Trotsky at antediluvian right, and a smaller section genuine mobilization against it. The lead- soviets of all influence upon govern- that moment, claiming that the Bolshe- wants to sit atop the fence in the dispute. ership of the Metal Workers Union of the ment matters; he repressed the peas- viks politically “defended” the Kerensky Despite their differences, all of these ABC Region had the workers in the Ford, ants; he doubled the price of bread government. Quite false. As the League groupings place themselves on the terrain Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and other (under the state trade monopoly of for the Fourth International quoted in of “democratic” struggles within the bour- assembly plants vote a motion pledging to the foodstuffs); he prepared for the 2009 in calling for a military bloc with geois regime. “fight against the coup and in defense of evacuation of revolutionary Petrograd; supporters of Honduran President Zelaya, Most likely there will be no coup, labor rights.” At the same time, it nixes with Kornilov’s consent, he moved up a conservative large landowner, against since with impeachment the right wing struggle, saying “For now, our framework counter-revolutionary troops towards a coup d’état being mounted by Hillary will have obtained its primary goal. But is resistance. Later it will be to advance.” the capital; he promised the Allies to Clinton, Lenin was quite explicit in the meanwhile we are faced with a dangerous All these bureaucrats are sellouts, la- initiate a new attack at the front, etc.” case of Kornilov vs. Kerensky: offensive by the judicial and police pow- bor lieutenants of capital, an obstacle to But at the end of August, Kornilov broke “Our workers and soldiers will fight ers, and the offensive by the entire bour- workers struggle. Workers should reject with Kerensky, “because of the latter’s the counter-revolutionary troops … geoisie against the working people is pro- the call for a truce with the bosses and the vacillation.” not to defend this government … but ceeding at top speed. Its is fundamental to bourgeois government, and instead: “What course did the Bolshevik to independently defend the revolution understand that there is no solution under –Prepare escalating work stoppages, Party take? Not for an instant did it as they pursue their own aim, the aim capitalism to the deep economic crisis factory occupations, blocking of hesitate to conclude a practical alli- of securing victory for the workers, for which gave rise to the Brazilian political highways and intersections, and ance to fight against Kornilov with the poor, for the cause of peace, and not crisis. Only by fighting for workers mo- taking over public buildings (city its jailers – Kerensky, Tseretelli, for the imperialists, for Kerensky…. A bilization leading to socialist revolution halls, etc.) beginning immediately at Dan, etc. Everywhere committees Bolshevik would tell the Mensheviks: can we defeat the attempts to shield capi- the local, regional and national levels, for revolutionary defense were or- ‘We shall fight, of course, but we re- tal against the resistance of the workers by all unions and labor federations to ganized, into which the Bolsheviks fuse to enter into any political alliance who are bearing on their backs the entire quickly arrive at an entered as a minority. This did not whatever with you’.” –“Rumors of a Conspiracy” (August weight of a system that is degenerating –Unlimited general strike to smash hinder the Bolsheviks from assum- 1917) ■ into barbarism, where democratic rights the judiciary/police right-wing threat, ing the leading role: in agreements and the rights of workers and the op- block impeachment by the nest of pressed are giving way to the reactionary corrupt politicians in Congress, councils a platform of demands to be the top managers and opening the offensive. We urgently need a revolution- prevent the budget cuts and sink the achieved by workers action to put an books to workers inspection, to reveal ary proletarian response. privatizations and labor and pension end to contracting out jobs, raise who is profiting from the product of the Today in Brazil Lula and Dilma “reforms”; the minimum wage to above the cost workers toil; and, above all, have heavily attacked the interests of the –Form elected strike and occupation of the basket of basic necessities –For proletarian opposition against working people in defense of the bour- committees, recallable at any time at as calculated by the DIEESE, ban the bourgeois right wing and the geoisie, which their popular-front gov- the factory and industrial area level, layoffs and implement a workweek of bourgeois popular front in power, ernment represents. There is utterly justi- in the schools and universities, the 30 hours without any cut in pay (the no vote for any party participating fied rejection of the PT among important hospitals, banks and stores, followed sliding scale of wages and hours) in in such a political alliance of class order to eliminate unemployment; layers of the youth and proletarian sec- by unifying these committees into collaboration; break with the PT, –Against Operation Car Wash and tors. Thousands feel that Lula betrayed workers councils at the municipal the PCdoB and all the bourgeois the phony investigation of corruption workers parties whose bought-off those who voted for him. One must ac- regional and national levels; formation which in reality seeks the destruction leaders have sacrificed the workers’ knowledge that at least part of this sense of workers defense guards to defend against repression; and privatization of the former state- gains; and forge the nucleus of a of betrayal comes from the belief that owned company, now in the grip of revolutionary workers party on the –Work out in these committees and lions of cubic meters of iron waste and poisoned Wall Street, undertake a strike and basis of the program of permanent water supplies over much of the state of Minas 12 Progressive Party, a right-wing party until re- occupation of all facilities of Petrobras revolution, to fight for a workers and Gerais in the worst environmental disaster in cently headed by Maluf, which includes ultra- and all private oil companies in order peasants government, the start of the Brazilian history.. rightist and militarist elements. to impose workers control, expelling international socialist revolution! ■ 16 The Internationalist World Economic Crisis Behind the Rightist Offensive For Class Struggle Against the Bonapartist Threat in Brazil Translated from Vanguarda Operária of capital. As a result of No. 13, May-June 2016. the crisis, not only indus- In the present acute political crisis trial workers but sectors of educated youth were

which is shaking the country, a string of ex- Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil plosive revelations, shifting parliamentary suddenly thrown into alliances, arbitrary actions by the repressive unemployment. These were the ones who initi- apparatus and huge street mobilizations are ated the 2011 protests in presented in the bourgeois media as a strug- North African countries gle over “corruption.” Yet the latter has been (Tunisia, Egypt), which a a constant in Brazilian capitalist politics few months later crossed for the last century, especially during the the Mediterranean and “democratic” periods. The idea that there is appeared in the “move- a moral “cleansing” underway among the ments of the squares” rulers is an illusion and a pretext. In reality, (the so-called Indigna- there are three main elements of the crisis: dos, or “Outraged”) in first, a political struggle marking the end of Portugal, Spain, Greece the popular-front government that has been and later in Turkey, and in office for the last 13 years; secondly, a subsequently in the Oc- blatant attempt by the judicial and police cupy Wall Street move- organs to free themselves of all civilian con- ment in the United States. trol on the road to an authoritarian regime; In the case of Bra- and third, underlying it all, the consequenc- zil, after a year of an es of the world capitalist economic crisis. abrupt decline in eco- The economic crisis of the capitalist nomic activity followed Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in rightist protest against the popular-front government system which exploded in 2007-2008 is the by an equally rapid re- of Dilma Rousseff at the starting point of the rally in front of the headquarters of the São Paulo deepest since the Great Depression of the covery, that depression State Federation of Industry (FIESP) on the Avenida Paulista, São Paulo, March 13. 1930s. The falling rate of profit on produc- wasn’t immediately felt due to the enormous banks. Meanwhile, the rest of the popula- clear hatred against anything leftist. tive investments led to a series of speculative expansion of raw materials exports to China, tion (including important sectors of the pre- Begun by the traditional conservative “bubbles” which exploded, one after another. which as a deformed workers state with an viously well-off petty bourgeoisie) is suffer- parties calling for the impeachment of Dil- In the imperialist centers, a new depression economy still subject to (bureaucratic) plan- ing unemployment, many have already lost ma, the marches have evolved in an author- (not a cyclical recession) broke out which ning was able to defend itself against the cap- their homes, their retirement savings have itarian direction, with calls on the judges, will take years – probably more than a decade italist economic crisis. But little by little, with gone up in smoke, etc. Due to the submis- the police and military to clean out the dens – to be overcome by the destruction of capi- the declining economic growth in China, the sion of the trade-union leaderships to the of corruption. In turn, this is the “popular” tal (either through bankruptcies or war) and effects of the crisis finally affected Brazil. demands of capital, the workers movement reflection of a sinister bonapartist revolt heavy blows against the working class which This was seen in the explosive street protests either has not put up major resistance (in the brewing in the repressive organs of pow- in combination would restore the profitability in 2013, initiated by students in São Paulo case of the U.S.), or ended up capitulating er against civilian authority. The PT left and the South which later after first initiating defensive protests with- (PT, PCdoB, PCO and smaller groups) extended to broad layers out a perspective of defeating the capitalist has identified the offensive against Presi- of the workers and poor offensive (workers struggles in Europe, or in dent Dilma Rousseff as a “coup.” In itself, throughout the country. Wisconsin in the U.S.). As a result of these impeachment does not signify a break in Now the addition of the defeats there arose a series of bourgeois the bourgeois democratic “order.” The im- steep fall in the price of oil populist electoral movements, like SYRIZA peachment of Fernando Collor (in 1992) has led to the biggest eco- in Greece or the current candidacy of Ber- was not a coup. However, in the last month nomic crisis in decades. nie Sanders in the U.S. But populism can- things have changed: what was latent in the The traditional bourgeoi- not combat the capitalist system, and thus past is now dominating political develop- sie wants to throw the it leads again to defeat, forcing the masses ments. The order for the search, detention blame on the government to swallow the poison of “austerity,” as we and “coercive transfer” of the ex-president Photos: Veja of Dilma Rousseff. The saw with the spectacular about-turn by the to the Congonhas Airport to be interrogat- Workers Party (PT), for its Tsipras government in Athens last year. ed by the Federal Police on March 4 was a part, enlisted Lula to sup- notification on the part of the judicial and posedly return to the gold- Movements Evolving police apparatus that they were placing en years. But no politician to the Far Right themselves above the representative and and no policy can substan- The result of this panorama of defeats executive powers of the state. tially alter the capitalist is the rise of a new wave of reactionary pro- If the repressive organs gain autonomy crisis. Only workers revo- tests, expressed in support for fascist forces in order to effectively dominate a govern- lution offers a way out for (the National Front in France) or violent rac- ment, whether by a coup d’état or behind the the working people. ists (the Trump candidacy in the U.S.). In façade of a “technical” or “transition” gov- Throughout the Brazil, the street protests over the last year ernment, this would be de facto a bonapartist world, the revolts of have the same rightist character, resulting regime, a “state of exception” which is 2010-11 by the youth and from the defeat of the struggles of the “hot anti-democratic, even within the bourgeois other sectors hit by the winter” of 2013 and of the struggles against framework. Not every popular front ends in a crisis have achieved noth- the World Cup (against repression, cutbacks Pinochet-type coup d’état (Chile) or civil war ing. The bankers, who in education, public health, etc.). But the cur- (Spain). The twilight of Léon Blum’s popular unleashed the collapse rent mobilizations have the specific character front in the 1930s was marked by a succes- of the financial markets, of being directed against the dying popular- sion of governments, first of the bourgeois came out ahead thanks front government, and its main force, the sector of the front, the Radical Party, and lat- to the trillions of dollars reformist PT of Lula and Dilma. The big er by increasingly rightist and authoritarian Demonstrators in March 13 rally hail the “Super- which were given to them rightist mobilization of March 13, although governments ending up with the French State Judge” and “national hero” Sérgio Moro as the for free by the imperialist its main slogan was “against corruption” and of Marshal Pétain. As the Popular Front was savior of the nation. governments and central while it came off peacefully, was marked by decaying, despite its attacks on the workers, São Paulo and Goiânia where they expected to receive an enthusiastic them for their “protection”), its acts of soli- and elsewhere there were greeting they were booed as “opportunists” darity with the demonstrators and vice-ver- identical printed banners and “assholes.” When the pair approached sa. On March 13 there was a photo of PMs with a photo of the judge the tent of the Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL ostentatiously saluting on the Avenida Pau- saying, “We Are All Sér- – Free Brazil Movewment), people shouted lista (São Paulo’s main business thorough- gio Moro,” followed by out “you’re thieves, too.” And when instead fare) while showing off their brand-new ar- “Put Lula in Jail.” of climbing atop the sound truck of the MBL mored trucks imported from Israel. There Judge Moro, for his they decided to leave, even then they were was also a video of São Paulo military po- part, issued a declaration accompanied by shouts of “fora” (get out). lice saluting in support of the protests and thanking people for the The same happened with Serra of the PSDB being applauded by the demonstrators. It’s praise, highlighting the and Marta Suplicy (currently of the PMDB, not only the Military Police. Another video close collaboration of the the Party of the Brazilian Democratic Move- of the same march shows representatives Felipe Malavasi/Democratize Federal Police and the ment, the main bourgeois component of the of the Federal Police (PF) speaking from Public Prosecutor’s Of- popular-front coalition government under a platform full of cops on Avenida Pau- Kim Kataguiri of the Movimento Brasil Livre (Free fice, and saying that the Rousseff) during their lightning visits. On the lista, calling for “autonomy” for the PF vis Brazil Movement), an ultra-rightist and racist outfit politicians should listen other hand, the ultra-rightist DEM (“Demo- à vis the government, a slogan which the founded and funded by imperialist right-wingers. to and obey this supposed crats,” continuation of Arena, the political crowd massively took up. On the same oc- “voice of the people.” vehicle of the military junta that ruled Brazil casion, a policewoman explained in detail The March 13 mobili- from 1964 to 1985) is now formally partici- for more than five minutes the content of zations calling for the pating in the leadership of the protests. An- PEC (Draft Constitutional Amendment) impeachment of Dilma other confirmation that the “anti-corruption” 412 which calls for “autonomy [of the po- YouTube and the jailing of Lula commotion is evolving toward the far right lice] to investigate, without limitations, the brought over a million were the many favorable references in inter- corruption in the country.” people into the streets, views with demonstrators about Jair Messias But they not only salute and whip up quite a bit less than the Bolsonaro, the former parachutist congress- the public in support of the anti-Dilma pro- 4 million claimed by the man of the “bancada da bala” (the “bullet tests, they also act against those who oppose organizers, but still a very fraction” of parliament), notorious for his impeachment. Two days before the mega- large number. According praise of the military dictatorship and torture, march in São Paulo, on March 11 according to all reports and videos, and for supporting the rape of congresswom- to a report on Telesur, Military Police armed the demonstrators were en. A typical commentary by a businessman with a machine gun and revolvers invaded an overwhelmingly white, was, “There’s only Bolsonaro, but the Army event supporting Lula in the hall of the Union with very few workers. would be better” (Folha de São Paulo, 14 of Metal Workers of Diadema in the ABC in- Federal Police delegate inciting demonstrators to Datafolha reported, based March). dustrial area. And once again, on the night of demand police “autonomy” from all civilian control. on a survey in Sao Paulo, The MBL, the main organizer of the March 21 at the Pontifical Catholic Univer- the Trotskyists called for workers resistance that almost two thirds (63%) had incomes São Paulo protests, is part of the racist far sity in São Paulo, when several hundred stu- at every step of this downward spiral with- of more than five times the minimum wage: right. It was founded by a group, Students dents made a counter-demonstration against out giving support to any of the parties of this a well-to-do petty bourgeois and bourgeois for Freedom, financed by the Charles Koch a pro-impeachment protest, the PM inter- bourgeois alliance, including the SFIO (So- crowd. Above all, its political purpose had Fund in the United States, which is also ac- vened to protect the rightists. And when the cialist Party) and PCF. little to do with a struggle against “corrup- tive in Venezuela and Ukraine. In the Na- leftist counter-demonstrators began to chant, Beginning in March 2015, the PSDB tion” but was rather aimed at throwing the tional Congress, on March 22, the spokes- “I want to end the Military Police,” the cops (Party of Brazilian Social Democracy) of PT out of the Palácio do Planalto (Brazil’s man for the “Democrats” asked that MBL unleashed tear gas grenades, pepper gas and Geraldo Alckmin, Aécio Neves and José White House) before the next regular elec- coordinator Fernando Holiday speak on rubber bullets against the left-wing students Serra began a series of large-scale mobili- tions in 2018. behalf of the DEM against the celebration (article in Folha de S. Paulo, 22 March). zations around the country in an offensive This is an inter-bourgeois dispute be- of the International Day of Struggle for to bring down the government of Dilma tween the right-wing opposition and the the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Judicial/Police Action: A and the popular front by parliamentary governing popular front. We politically which commemorates the Sharpeville mas- Bonapartist Offensive means. From the beginning, the marches oppose both of the squabbling camps be- sacre in South Africa on 21 March 1960. Operation Car Wash is an investiga- have had a presence of fascist elements, cause there are capitalist forces carrying The MBL representative ripped up a piece tion by the Federal Police which was later who were also present in the 2013 protests out anti-worker policies. The question of of paper with the Hymn of Negritude, say- handed over to the Federal Prosecutor’s without determining the character of those political corruption has always been a battle ing that it “belonged in the trash.” Last year, Office specializing in money launder- mobilizations. However, the March 13 cry of ultra-rightist and fascist forces, as on 15 March 2015, the calls for military ing, dating back to 2009 and whose pub- march showed a notable evolution. In addi- in the famous affaire Stavisky in France in intervention were so insistent and frequent lic phase began in March 2014. From the tion to the Nazi and monarchist elements, the 1930s. At that level, revolutionaries are that the MBL had to pretend to distance it- outset it has been a media production, with among the ordinary demonstrators the mo- mainly interested in revealing the details self from them, and in fact they were less leaks to media eager for a scoop and dra- bilization was one of praise for the “hero” of how capital gets the government to de- frequent this year. Which judge Sérgio Moro, the theatrical director fend its interests, both individually and as doesn’t mean that these of Operação Lava Jato (Operation Car a class. Whether it buys influence whole- scum changed their Wash), as the savior of the nation. There sale, as in the United States with its huge views, only that they were cries of “Super-Moro,” t-shirts with political action committees financed by big know how to disguise the image of Moro, placards proclaiming business, or at a retail level, as in Brazil, or them and that they have a Stills from vídeos of G1 “Moro: Pride of the Nation,” “Pride of Bra- even if the capitalist state finances electoral new savior, Judge Moro zil,” etc. In Brasília there was an enormous campaign costs, these are all are methods (and his armed wing, the banner saying “We Are Sérgio Moro.” In to guarantee that capital controls elections. Federal Police). Even so, We are against the im- on March 13 in Rio there peachment of Dilma not were banners like “Only because the president and a new military interven- her coalition are suppos- tion can reestablish or- Reuters edly more progressive, der, morality and dignity but instead because it is to the Brazilian people.’ above all a settling of ac- Earlier, on March 4, the counts and political ven- day of the temporary geance being pushed by detention of Lula by the reactionary forces whose Federal Police, in the victory would aggravate anti-PT march in São the attacks on democratic Paulo there was a banner and trade-union rights “Federal Police, Pride of of workers and the op- the Nation.” pressed. Beyond that there is A Brazilian Air Force plane waiting outside the The Military Police violently attacked PT supporters Interestingly, when the noteworthy presence Federal Police post at the Congonhas airport who arrived at Lula’s residence in São Bernardo do the PSDB politicians of the Military Police during the “deposition” (interrogation) of Lula. At Campo on the morning of March 4 to protest against Alckmin and Neves ar- (PM) in support of the the same time, rightist supporters of Judge Moro the “coercive transfer” of the ex-president. rived at the demonstration protests (to “monitor” blocked entrance to the PF post. 18 The Internationalist Court upheld the decision and declared Fund demands of all the countries under its the recording and publication of conversa- domination. They want unrestricted powers tions to be illegal, recalling the excesses of in order to smah any working-class resis- police and judges who carried out illegal tance to the “emergency” measures they are bugging of telephones on the pretext that preparing to impose, “to clean up the state it was accidental. But while the justices in and resolve the economic crisis” in the inter- their black robes want to prettify the im- ests of capital. To fight this scourge, what’s age of justice, the bonapartist impulse con- needed is a powerful class struggle, led by a tinues. The wheels of Operation Car Wash revolutionary workers party capable of mo- are spinning at top speed, as is the ma- bilizing the power of the proletariat against neuvering in Congress. The indications of the anti-working-class attacks coming from

Alessandro Buzas/Futura Press preparations for an anti-democratic “strong all wings of the bourgeoisie. n state” are in full view of all, and it will not be prevented by any kind of “democratic” ICL Haunted... struggle which is limited to the bounds of continued from page 10 bourgeois domination. the Stalinist bureaucratic betrayers. In the face of the impeachment proce- “The Faction’s defense of the Trotskyist dure already underway, the popular-front understanding of Stalinism against the government is seeking to give evidence ICL’s zigzagging revisionism upholds Banner in the March 13 pro-impeachment rally in Rio de Janeiro says “Only to the bourgeoisie of its reliability. Trea- the program that is key to proletarian a New Military Intervention Can Reestablish Order, Morality and Dignity to sury Minister nelson barbosa announced political revolution which is integral to the Brazilian People – Federal Police, the Pride of the Nation.” new budgetary amendments, with more the defense of China, Cuba and the other matic made-for-TV police actions. In fact Judge Moro blocking the entrance. The next drastic cutbacks and a wage freeze for remaining bureaucratically deformed it resembles a telenovela (television soap day, March 5, Judge Moro attacked the PT public workers, including a freeze of the workers states against imperialism and opera), already in its 27th installment, protests as “acts of violence.” On March 9, minimum wage. Dilma announced in her counterrevolution.” each one baptized with a dramatic name. São Paulo state prosecutors denounced Lula “breakfast chat” at the beginning of the Among other tasks we agreed to Its 24th installment, called Aletheia, began on the same grounds cited by the Car Wash year in January that she would once again “Work together exploring further opportu- on March 4 at 5:50 a.m. when a caravan judge, and the next day they called for the ex- try to legislate pension “reform.” In Feb- nities to win people from the ICL milieu to of Federal Police vehicles, armed with a president to be placed under preventive arrest ruary, the PT, PMDB and PSDB together authentic Trotskyism.” “search and detention” order authorized by on the basis of their indictment. It’s notable voted in the Senate to approve the bill of James P. Cannon explained factional federal judge Sérgio Moro, entered the ga- that all this occurred after Lula declared that José Serra which would eliminate the re- struggle as “a part of the process of build- rage of the building where Luiz Inácio Lula he would again be a candidate for the presi- quirement for participation by Petrobras in ing the revolutionary party,” as a necessary da Silva lives in São Bernardo do Campo dency in 2018. “Operation Aletheia” was a the oil exploration in the pre-salt layer in “test of leadership.” The revisionist ICL while others secured the perimeter. The ex- political show and a demonstration of repres- the Atlantic, which will mean opening the leadership rightly feared that they might president was taken in “coercive transfer” sive force. huge oil reserve to the imperialist monopo- fail that test, and thus bureaucratically ma- to the Federal Police post at the Congonhas If the temporary detention of Lula on lies. And in March, Dilma signed the new neuvered to avoid it altogether by expel- Airport to “make a deposition” (i.e., to be March 4 was the prior notification, autho- “anti-terrorism” law. Even if the govern- ling the Better-Late-Than-Never Faction interrogated by the police). rizing wiretaps by the Federal Police of ment is paralyzed in the face of the judicia- forthwith. The leadership’s momentary The target was Lula. At the same time conversations between the ex-president ry and the police, we can be sure that they reprieve was secured, however, at the cost 43 other “search and detention” orders were and the current president of the republic, are already preparing to use this draconian of blatantly exposing themselves as just as executed against family members of offi- and then publicizing the March 17 con- measure to smash any protest against cut- much of a strangled party as the degener- cials of the Lula Institute. The accusations, versation these on the grounds of “public backs, reforms and privatizations. ated American SWP. The Revolutionary as we have already indicated, were absurd, interest,” was the announcement by Judge We repeat: the struggle against corrup- Tendency (forerunner of the Spartacist which he countered with documented Moro of the independence and supremacy tion is only a pretext. In Brazil as in Europe League) was right to fight that degenera- proof and in any case are of little import, of the judicial/police apparatus under his and other parts of the world, the rightist and tion, even though it led to their expulsion even according to bourgeois laws. The real command. In just about every capitalist bonapartist offensive is a product of the eco- and meant they needed to start all over and crimes of Lula against the working people state, the actions of the super-judge, his nomic crisis. Its main targets are the exploit- build a new party from scratch. All those are different, and there are many, notably prosecutorial task-force and the police ed and oppressed, and there is no solution still in and around the ICL who are not too of chaining the workers to their capitalist would have led to loud calls to begin a to this crisis in the interest of the workers cynical to open their eyes and see should class enemies through the popular front, process of removal of the judge and for the under capitalism. The rulers in Brazil are heed the battle cry of the BLTN Faction to serve as a sheriff for Yankee imperial- immediate firing of the head of the Federal imposing the same policies as the Euro- and join the fight for genuine Trotskyism. ism in the Caribbean, providing mercenary Police and all those involved in the wire- pean central bankers imposed on the Greek Better late than never! troops for the occupation of Haiti, and then tapping. But Dilma did nothing, because people, and that the International Monetary 13 May 2016 after ending his presidential period, turn- she couldn’t, she has already lost a large ing into a kind of ambassador of the giant part of her control over the machinery of construction contractor Odebrecht, notori- state. Meanwhile, when the government ous for safety violations on its construction announced it was looking for a new direc- The sites and “labor in conditions analogous to tor of the Federal Police, and the new min- Internationalist slavery” in one of its projects in Angola. ister of justice who theoretically controls A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism for the But whether or not the ex-president and PT the PF announced that he would replace leader was guilty of any crime was not what the entire team if there was an informa- Reforging of the Fourth International the judicial and police authorities were in- tion leak (as there was in this case), a judge Publication of the Internationalist Group, terested in. Even though Judge Moro said of the Superior Court of Justice gave him section of the League for the Fourth International later that he “didn’t anticipate guilt” (then 72 hours to produce an explanation. And why so much theater?), the clear objec- when Lula was indicated as chief of staff of Annual subscription US$10 for five issues. tive was to produce the image of “prisoner the presidency, the Federal Supreme Court Lula,” like the giant puppet-balloons of justice Gilmar Mendes, a political operator Name______him in a prison uniform that floated above of the PSDB, suspended the action and sent Address______the March 13 demonstrations. the case to Car Wash judge Moro. However, there are indications that in re- Evidently, the overbearing actions of ______Apt. #_____Tel.(___)______ality the intention went beyond that, to possi- the “Republic of Curitiba” have led to cer- bly arresting him and taking him as a prison- tain worries in the higher levels of power City______State/Province______er to Curitiba (Moro’s set of operations), and in Brasília. Marco Aurélio Mello of the Postal Code/Zip______Country______that the rapid arrival of furious PTers around Federal Supreme Court declared that wire- his house and the presence of hundreds pro- tapping the Palácio do Planalto “harms the Make checks/money orders payable to Mundial Publications and mail to: testing noisily in the airport convinced them Constitution and constitutes an assault on Mundial Publications not to try this. A video of the G1 chain (part national sovereignty.” The justice who is Box 3321, Church Street Station New York, NY 10008 U.S.A. of the Globo Network) shows a Brazilian managing the Car Wash case in the high air force plane ready to receive passengers court instructed Judge Moro to send all rel- Write the Internationalist Group at the above address, or contact: parked just opposite the Federal Police post evant material about investigations involv- Tel (212) 460-0983 Fax (212) 614-8711 at the airport, which according to the jour- ing Lula to the Supreme Court. Two weeks E-mail: [email protected] nalist was totally cut off, with supporters of later, a plenary session of the Supreme May-June 2016 19 872 (June 2006) WV

Italy... replied, “The leaflet Coordinamento Migranti continued from page 8 did not directly attack but shows a callous indifference to the fate Toussaint. Since we of neo-colonial peoples and women. could not point to an Internationalist communists fight alternative leadership for crushing all the Islamist armed gangs of the strike, to do so through workers action, looking centrally would only have weak- to the millions-strong Turkish, Kurdish and ened the strike.” Egyptian proletariats. Militant sectors of So according to the Italian working class engaging in sharp the ICL, to criticize the struggle against imperialist war can play a trade-union bureau- leading role in this respect by defending crats during a strike full citizenship rights for all immigrants weakens the strike! and asylum for all refugees, to be won This is the logic of through workers action and the struggle opportunists every- for socialist revolution on both sides of the where. Yet that leader- Mediterranean. ship sold out the strike The ICL’s abandonment of the revo- which had paralyzed lutionary program has had a direct effect the center of world fi- on the Italian national terrain as well. The nance capital, leading Immigrant workers led by SI Cobas union at Granarolo milk plant in Bologna struck for nine LTd’I now has the position that “after the to a defeat in which months against pay cut and firings. Immigrant workers are a key force for revolution. collapse of the USSR, the working class the ICL with its pro- did not conceive of any alternative to bureaucratic abstentionism was in fact A Program for Revolutionary gear up for another imperialist war in Lib- capitalist society,” and since a real general complicit. Furthermore, the TWU is one Class Struggle ya and elsewhere, like the imperialist mas- strike, not a four- or eight- or 24-hour stop- of the very few unions where the SL has sacre in Libya in 2011. While seeking to The ICL, which claims that Trotsky’s page plus a parade, would pose the ques- supporters, yet it says it “could not point accelerate deportation procedures with the emphasis on the crisis of revolutionary lead- tion of which class rules, and since fake- to an alternative leadership.” This is an fast-track “Dublin III” regulation, the Eu- ership has become outdated, is incapable leftists often call for general strikes as the admission that the ICL has renounced the ropean Union seeks to push out newly ar- of providing such leadership today. Yet as antechamber to a popular front with sec- fight for revolutionary leadership in the riving immigrants (who threaten to throw sharp struggles break out in one country af- trade unions, a conscious policy. In con- themselves into the sea). Meanwhile, the tions of the bourgeoisie, it is wrong to call ter another, from North Africa to Southern trast, every day of the strike the Interna- E.U. is beefing up its Frontex paramilitary for general strikes. To call this scholasti- Europe, in Latin Amercia, Asia and even the tionalist Group, U.S. section of the LFI, immigration police and expanding the la- cism would be a polite understatement. But United States, yet go down to defeat one af- distributed on the picket lines thousands ger, concentration camps for undocument- when the working masses want to struggle ter another, it is clear that the raw material of its daily strike bulletins agitating for ed immigrants, not only the CIE (Centri di against attacks by capital and pressure is for revolutionary struggle is there. As capi- class-struggle action (see The Internation- Identificazione ed Espulsione, the deporta- building from the ranks, and when that talism spirals downward into barbarism, the alist articles at http://www.international- tion camps) but also the CDAs and CARAs pressure is being resisted by the bureau- centrality of reforging an authentic Trotsky- ist.org/nyctransitstriketoc.html). that supposedly are reception centers, but crats terrified of the consequences, revo- ist Fourth International is as crucial as ever. While the ICL betrayed the fight to re- are beset by profiteers and racists. lutionaries should put forward a program We want to contribute to that effort. Trotskyists fight for full citizenship for full-scale mobilization of the working move the police from the unions in Brazil There is a profound crisis of capitalism rights for all immigrants. Amid the anti- class leading to socialist revolution while in 1996, stabbing the comrades in the back mired in world-wide depression, which is immigrant frenzy whipped up by rac- fighting against attempts to divert the anger and siding with the forces of the popular bitterly felt and in front of the eyes of all. ist rightists, some opportunist “far left” into a popular front. Not to do so in these front to slander the struggle, the LFI helped In the case of Italy most youth have little groups, like the Partito Comunista dei circumstances means aiding the reformist continue the fight and fused with the com- present and less future under capitalism. misleaders. rades of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista With two-month and three-month contracts Lavoritori (PCL – Communist Workers A general strike (which the revolution- do Brazil. While the ICL section in Mex- and the exploding use of “vouchers” where Party) of Marco Ferrando and Grisolia, ary syndicalists idealized) and even factory ico remained willfully passive during the you are literally paid by the hour, a “per- limit their program to calling for permesso occupations are not a panacea, as the trag- historic UNAM university strike in 1999- manent contract” is now for three years. di soggiorno (temporary work permits) for ic experience of Italy’s biennio rosso of 2000, the tiny LFI group sparked the for- Many work for free “to have something to immigrants (to be granted by the questura 1919-20 showed. But they can be key steps mation of workers defense guards to pro- put on their CVs” at an endless succession – the police – for limited periods of time) to revolution. To prepare the working class tect the occupation against police attack of degrading job interviews, where the few and an “end to racist laws,” although some to fight to win the battles already under and grew significantly. After intervening in jobs are reserved for those with “friends local sections do raise the call for citizen- way in these cases, it is necessary to put the revolt in southern Mexico (Oaxaca) in in high places.” While a large and ever- ship rights for all. The Partito di Alternati- forward a transitional program of workers 2006 and other battles, the LFI’s Grupo In- increasing sector of pensioners now live va Comunista (PDAC – Party of the Com- action leading to the formation of a work- ternacionalista/Mexico now has four locals in poverty, youth will have no pensions at munist Alternative) of Francesco Ricci ers government based on workers councils, in different cities while the ICL section re- all. While 10% of the population lives in does raise this call in a list of reforms, but the beginning of the socialist revolution. mains stagnant. absolute poverty, the South is abandoned does not link this directly to revolutionary Revolutionaries call for workers defense While the LFI in the U.S. agitated and to sink into ever greater immiseration, action by the working class. For the so- guards, defense of immigrants, elected worked for five years to bring about the desperation and the deindustrialization of cial democrats of the International Work- strike committees that could become work- historic May Day 2008 West Coast port what little is left. ers League (LIT, followers of the late Ar- ers councils, and an all-out general strike, strike against the war, the ICL did nothing If life is hell for men, it’s doubly hell gentine pseudo-Trotsky Nahuel Moreno), along with other transitional demands. But to build it, confining its efforts to sneer- for women who are the real backbone of to which the PDAC belongs, “bringing the key to victory is building the indispens- ing at it after the fact. The LFI later fused “welfare” in this country of the Vatican. down capitalism and constructing a social- able revolutionary workers party, acting with a group of working-class militants in Significantly lower pay and pensions, mas- ist economy” means nationalizations and as a tribune of the oppressed, to lead the Portland in 2012 who had played a key role sive unemployment, absence of availability other measures leaving the capitalist state struggle forward. in a port shutdown there during the brief of abortion services due to the “conscien- intact. Yet the democratic demand for full Acting as a rearguard to the proletariat upsurge of the populist Occupy movement. tious objector” clause (permitting doctors citizenship rights for immigrants has only as workers are pushing forward to fight While the office-bound SL in New York to refuse to perform the procedure), practi- been realized by revolutionary means, in is not new to the ICL, but is typical of its has negligible public presence (perhaps cally forced to say in job interviews that the French Revolution of 1789-92, in the overall retreat from the class struggle. One it’s too “busy” churning out internal bulle- they will never have children, together Paris Commune of 1871 and in the Russian example really caught our attention. In tins about how youth cannot even imagine with daily degradation, are routine parts October Revolution of 1917. December 2005 there was a crucial labor a socialist society today), the IG/LFI has of life for the female majority. Unpayable At every turn, defensive workers showdown in New York City, when the been winning revolutionary cadres among childcare costs and having to take care of struggles and struggles for democratic strategic and powerful TWU subway and immigrant workers organizing the unor- the old and infirm due to the progressive rights cannot be won under decaying capi- transport union went on strike. The Sparta- ganized, winning youth during mass pro- dismantling of the medical system weigh talism. There are great reservoirs of hatred cist League (U.S. section of the ICL) did tests against racist police murders, putting down heavily. And then the bourgeois rul- and bitterness towards this capitalist sys- not call for the strike before it happened out a youth paper, and carrying out highly ers blame women for declining birth rates! tem, on both the European and African and did not criticize the head union bureau- visible dynamic activity. The SL, in con- Thousands of desperate refugees shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and many crat Toussaint during the strike in its leaflet trast, recently announced it was dissolving drown in the Mediterranean, or are left to who hate it desire a revolution. The ultra- directed to the union members. Later, when its youth commission and its Labor Black silently die of cold and disease, incarcer- rightist racist Matteo Salvini is constantly a critical reader questioned this policy in a Leagues. But again, this all goes back to ated and deported back to face likely death. hotly contested in all of Italy. The SI CO- letter published in Workers Vanguard No. program. Meanwhile, Italy and its imperialist allies BAS (the Rank and File Committees Inter- 20 The Internationalist sectorial Union) has carried out numerous of DP and RC), have constantly supported is constantly confirmed, is the very reason demonstrate this power in action through strikes of brutally exploited immigrant popular frontism, which subordinates the the Fourth International was founded in labor-black-immigrant mobilizations. workers (who are also a human bridge workers movement to the bourgeoisie. a period of deep defeats for the working As an example, on May Day 2015 for the fight for proletarian revolution in The present day PCL as well as the PDAC class, and why it must be forged anew as International Longshore and Warehouse their countries of origin) and Italian work- have pushed popular-frontist class collabo- the world party of socialist revolution. Union Local 10 shut down San Francisco ers and has won some partial victories in rationist politics for decades. They only The present ICL is no place for a com- Bay Area docks and marched on Oakland spite of victimizations, threats of deporta- broke with RC in 2006 when it entered the munist. For those in the ICL who may still City Hall at the head of thousands de- tions and all-sided repression. It organized Prodi government and Prodi demanded that want to be communists, we urge you to manding “Stop Police Terror” (see “May a national general strike against imperialist Ferrando and Ricci not be candidates for read and study the literature of the League Day Oakland Port Shutdown Against war including war on working people and the senate. These misleaders all supported for the Fourth International, as we did Racist Cop Terror,” in The International- immigrants here on March 18. But still the anti-Soviet Polish Solidarność of the pope and in doing so recognized the genuinely ist No. 39, April-May 2015). That same working class groans under the straitjacket Wojtyla, Reagan and Thatcher; they deny Trotskyist program we were won to years day, Class Struggle Workers – Portland of a sellout trade-union bureaucracy, which that China is a deformed workers state that ago. Politically, this is a life or death ques- organized a multi-union contingent in the tries to eliminate all internal dissent, from must be unconditionally defended against tion for those who would be communist May Day protests there, marching under the CGIL led by pro-PD (Democratic Par- imperialism and the forces of counterrevo- revolutionaries. Lenin once said that only the banner, “Labor Against Racist Police ty) bureaucrats to the FIOM (metal work- lution, and they sided with the counter- idiots do not study both sides of a contro- Murder.” (The CSWP is a tendency in ers) union of Maurizio Landini. revolutionary CIA-financed student occu- versy. Don’t be an idiot. It is time to go for- Portland, Oregon-area unions that is po- Public workers have had their wages pation movement in Hong Kong in 2014. ward with the LFI. n litically supported by the Internationalist frozen for over six years and are carrying While the PCL committed blatant Group.) As we wrote in The Internation- out a series of strikes and protests. Education class treason by supporting the bour- “Lynching”... alist No. 42: workers and students are fighting against the geois politicians Pisapia in Milan in 2011 continued from page 4 “These are small examples of what cuts in public education and the “reform” and De Magistris in Naples, the PDAC can cease being racist. “But by creating needs to be done, but they point in the which gives the school directors dictatorial calls China “the most barbaric capital- illusions that the police could somehow right direction. The idea that justice could be obtained by pressuring the powers and attacks trade-union gains. There ist country in the history of the world” ‘serve the people’ the result is to divert courts and capitalist politicians to is anger among the ranks of health workers and says “long live the revolution in East struggle into a dead end of attempts to investigate, ‘reform’ or prosecute the over successive cuts, privatizations and in- Europe, which overturned the Stalinist reform the unreformable” (“Bad Apples, racist police on which capital depends creasingly impossible working conditions. dictatorship” (and drove the population Broken Windows, and Other Myths About is a dangerous illusion. We must look ILVA steel workers in Taranto are waging a into desperate poverty and drastically the Police,” The Internationalist, Febru- to using our own class power to put an key fight for their jobs and safety. Students shortened their lifespans). The PDAC ary 2016). end to the bloody lynch law system that and youth repeatedly demonstrate for af- supports the pro-imperialist Islamist The cops – white, black, Latino and has taken so many of our brothers and fordable quality secular education. To unite “rebels” of the Free Syrian Army. These Asian – are the enforcers of racist re- sisters from us.” these struggles, it is necessary to fight for pseudo-Trotskyists are in fact apologists pression that is and has been at the core Most fundamentally, it is vital that communist leadership in the trade unions for counterrevolution, imperialism and of American capitalism since the days of those who would wage an effective fight and workers movement. Italian capitalism. For all those many slavery. And as we have emphasized, from against cop terror understand that this is To overcome the sabotage of the who justifiably feel betrayed by this lot City Hall to the White House, “Democrats part of a system – capitalism – and so trade-union bureaucracy and the division of fake proletarian leaders – not least of Are the Bosses of the Racist Killer Cops” long as society is ruled by the capitalists, of the working class in different unions it which is the ex-PCI, which has been to- (The Internationalist No. 42, January- racist repression and oppression will per- is necessary to fight for the formation of tally transformed into a bourgeois party February 2016). Illusions in the Demo- sist. What’s key is to build a revolution- elected and recallable mass strike commit- headed by the tax collector for the rapa- cratic Party have long been a roadblock ary workers party that acts as the tribune tees or similar organisms that unite differ- cious EU bankers, Renzi – it is neces- standing in the way of a powerful class of the oppressed to rally the population ent sectors of the working class in struggle. sary to draw the lessons. It is necessary struggle against racist oppression. There behind the social power of the working In 1984 the workers councils formed in to forge a Leninist party by engaging in is massive outrage around the U.S. at see- class to smash the capitalist state through the course of an enormous struggle had and mobilizing for the class struggle. We ing over a thousand people, overwhelm- international socialist revolution. Looking the potential to become soviets, the basis fight for: ingly African American and Latino, cut to the example of the Russian Revolution of workers power. But instead of waging –Strikes against imperialist war. Bring down every year by the police. What’s of October 1917 that ripped power out of hard-hitting working-class actions, the pro- down the imperialist E.U. and NATO needed is to break the ties binding labor, the hands of the exploiters and established capitalist PCI (Italian Communist Party), through Europe-wide class struggle lead- African Americans, Latinos, immigrants workers rule, we can open the road to a Democrazia Proletaria and others sold out ing to socialist revolution! and young anti-racist activists to this classless, egalitarian society that can put the powerful movement for a meaningless –Hot-cargoing military goods, like capitalist party responsible for enforcing an end to the nightmare of racist police popular referendum on the scala mobile Italian train workers and antiwar activists ruling-class “law and order.” terror once and for all. n (“sliding-scale” cost-of-living adjustment). did outside of Vicenza in February 2003 Southern Califor- League for the Fourth International The historically politically advanced when they stopped a NATO war train. nia has always been rife and militant proletariat in Italy has gone –Integrated workers defense guards to with racist police and LFI, Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY through two revolutionary situations and teach the racist lynch mobs a well-deserved state terror, from the rac- 10008, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] numerous powerful upheavals and re- lesson. Down with racist Fortress Europe! ist attacks known as the Internationalist Group/U.S. volts. But it has been constantly betrayed Full citizenship rights for all immigrants “Zoot Suit riots” in 1943 Internationalist Group, Box 3321, Church Street by its leadership. Following Italy’s de- and refugees! in which sailors and Ma- Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. feat in World War I, in September 1920 at –Organize the unorganized and fight rines assaulted Latinos, E-mail: [email protected] the culmination of a two-year virtual civ- for full trade-union wages for all, equal pay to the 1970 murder of New York Tel. (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 il war, the proletariat occupied the fac- for equal work! Reuben Salazar by Los Portland Tel. (971) 282-7903 tories, had control of much of the coun- –Down with the “conscientious objec- Angeles County sher- tryside and there were massive revolts in tor” clause! Free abortion on demand and iffs, to the 1991 rac- Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil ist attack by LAPD on the army. The failure of any wing of the free quality health care for all! Brazil: write to Caixa Postal 084027, CEP 27251-740, Italian Socialist Party (PSI) to even try to –Drastically reduce the work week Rodney King, to the Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil take state power was paid for with over at full pay to provide employment for all. 2015 police murder of Rio de Janeiro: write to Caixa Postal 3982, CEP two decades of fascism. Solidarity strikes across national borders a homeless man known 20001-974, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil Again at the end of World War II, are urgently needed. as Africa on L.A.’s Skid E-mail: [email protected] proletarian revolt, centered in Turin, was –For a socialist united states of Eu- Row. At the same time, decisive in bringing down the fascists. rope! For the rebirth of the Fourth Interna- from the ports of Los LIVI/Deutschland The PCI, with its Stalinist class-collabo- tional, world party of socialist revolution! Angeles-Long Beach to Germany: write to Postfach 80 97 21, 21007 Hamburg, rationist theory of “socialism in one coun- Proletarian power will not come from the L.A. garment district, Germany try” and popular-front program, sold out bourgeois parliamentarism. The key ques- the Southern California Nucleo Internazionalista d’Italia the revolutionary situation of 1943-48. tion is revolutionary leadership. There workers movement with Italy: write to Anna Chiaraluce, Casella Postale N. 6, its heavily immigrant la- With the svolta di Salerno (Salerno turn) is no “more human” capitalism. Either a 06070 Ellera Umbra (PG), Italy executed by Palmiro Togliatti under direct Bolshevik party leads the proletariat to bor force has the power orders of Stalin, the PCI disarmed the par- victory or we face complete barbarism that to shut down produc- Grupo Internacionalista/México tisans and worked to prop up the Christian is already descending upon us. As Trotsky tion in response to rac- México: write to Apartado Postal 12-201, Admón. ist police terror. But it Democrats and Vatican. wrote at the founding of the Fourth Inter- Postal Obrero Mundial, CP 03001, México D.F, México must become aware of Since then the PCI, Democrazia Pro- national in 1938, “the crisis of humanity E-mail: [email protected] letaria, later Rifondazione Comunista, is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary its power to wage a suc- Tel. Mexico City: 55-3154-7361; Guadalajara: 33-1752- cessful struggle against and their utterly fake “Trotskyist” tails leadership.” This thesis, now declared 6643; Oaxaca: 951-129-2086; Tijuana: 664-112-5423 (sometimes inside and sometimes outside outdated by the ICL although its validity this system. We seek to May-June 2016 21 Today, again, we denounce any al- fight has taken on sectarian overtones.” priísta de Peña Nieto quiere repetir con la Defend Raqqa... liance with the imperialists, the biggest Of course, U.S. claims to oppose inflaming CNTE lo que hizo el presidente panista Fe- continued from page 2 mass murderers of all, while continuing to religious sentiments are utterly hypocritical, lipe Calderón al SME para imponer la lla- The current military campaign repre- defend the Kurdish areas against attacks as the Yankee imperialists installed the Shiite mada “reforma laboral”, y luego la energé- sents a further shift. While the YPG opera- by Turkey, the Syrian government, the so- Islamists in power when they invaded Iraq tica, en medio de su nefasta “guerra contra tions last year were aimed at linking up the called Free Syrian Army and other Islamist in 2003 and have propped up that virulently las drogas”, que ha cobrado la vida de más Kurdish cantons to form its autonomous militias and against the Islamic State, sectarian regime ever since. Meanwhile, de 200 mil personas. area of Rojava, including committing atroc- whose response to any military setback in northern Iraq, under the control of the La lucha no es meramente nacional. ities against the Arab population, the SDF is invariably to launch indiscriminate ter- Kurdish regional government, U.S. forces are Las “reformas estructurales” que buscan offensive this year is an integral part of an ror attacks against the population. In fact, preparing for an eventual attack on Mosul, an implementar los gobiernos mexicanos han imperialist military operation. The League the YPG recently staged pre-dawn raids to overwhelmingly Arab city. While attacks by sido dictadas por el imperialismo mundial for the Fourth International has from the round up young men who are seeking to the I.S. on American forces there, like the one y diseñadas por sus institutos financieros. start called for the defeat of the imperial- avoid being cannon fodder for the assault on a U.S. base in Makhmour last March, are La “reforma educativa” que consiste en ists and to drive them from the region, as on Raqqa, who feared the blowback of an a blow against imperialism, a full-scale U.S.- culpar al magisterio de todos los males de well as declaring any blows against imperi- offensive against the Islamic State. As one led assault on this largest population center este capitalismo decadente está siendo im- alist intervention and domination, even by commented, “I.S. will take revenge on the controlled by the Islamic State, may be a plementada desde Chile y Brasil hasta las ultra-reactionary forces such as the I.S., to SDF and the YPG by bombing Kurdish ways off. But when it does, it will be just as entrañas de los Estado Unidos. La burgue- be in the interests of the working class and areas and killing Kurds wherever they see bloody and sectarian as the one on Falluja. sía busca amortiguar la caída en sus tasas oppressed peoples of the world. But it is them…. The Kurds have no need for this The battle of Falluja is already seeing de ganancia, haciendo que todo el peso de now necessary to go beyond that and call battle. If our young men are thrown into sectarian slaughter of many of the 50,000 or la crisis económica mundial recaiga sobre for defense of Raqqa against the attack by this fight, the results will be disastrous” more Sunni Arab residents. The Times ar- los hombros de los trabajadores y los po- imperialism and allied forces including the (Syria:Direct dispatch, 24 May). ticle quoted Aws al-Khafaji, the head of the bres del campo y la ciudad. Sin embargo, Kurdish-led YPG/SDF. Contrary to the latter-day Spartacist Abu Fadhil al-Abbas militia, from a widely en su afán de aplastar al magisterio inde- This includes defense against bombing tendency (the International Communist viewed video: “There are no patriots, no real pendiente del control estatal ejercido a by Russian forces in Syria reportedly seek- League), the Islamic State, which claims religious people in Falluja. It’s our chance to través del corporativista SNTE, el gobierno ing to join the U.S.-led “anti-terrorist coali- Marxists have a fantastical “military side clear Iraq by eradicating the cancer of Fal- peñanetista ha cometido un error garrafal: tion” in the assault on Raqqa, as Kremlin with ISIS when it targets the imperialists luja.” Another source quoted from the same al declarar que todo maestro que falte tres strong man Putin has wanted to do all along and their proxies” (Workers Vanguard, 31 video: “There are no civilians in Fallujah, días en un mes pierde su puesto, ha creado (though with little success), and against Syr- October 2014), we repeat, as we have said there is a tumor [that] should be removed una fuerza de decenas de miles de aguer- ian government forces as they “join the race before, that even under U.S./NATO attack, from Iraq, those are infidels and must be ex- ridos luchadores que literalmente no tienen to Raqqa” (Al Masdar News, 31 May). If this the Islamic State “is not seeking to unite terminated.” But what is the response of the nada que perder y que, por lo tanto, están assault is successful, the result would be to the oppressed masses of Iraq and Syria to Islamic State? According to an article in the dispuestos a ir por todo. solidify domination of the region and of the throw off the imperialist yoke. The imme- London Guardian (31 May): El nivel de violencia estatal hoy es “Isis [another acronym for the I.S.] Near East by U.S. imperialism (along with diate targets of the I.S. ‘holy war’ are the comparable al que se impuso el 25 de no- responded to the offensive by dispatching its Turkish Islamist and Arab monarchist al- Kurdish, Shiite, Yazidi, Syrian and Iraqi viembre de 2006, pero con una diferencia suicide bombers in and around Baghdad. lies). Hillary Clinton will applaud, liberal Christian populations, as these Sunni ji- Three attacks targeted the populous significativa. En vez de ahogar el levanta- populist Bernie Sanders (who supports the hadis seek to impose the oppressive social Sadr City suburb and the Shaab miento en un río de sangre, ahora han pro- air war on the I.S., and Obama’s murderous norms of an 8th-century nomadic tribal so- neighbourhood, as well as the area of vocado su intensificación. Incluso sectores drone strikes) will approve, while the re- ciety on modern urban secularized popu- Tarmiya north of the capital, killing more burgueses – directivos del sector restauran- formists tailing him will be complicit. And lations” (“For Workers Action to Defeat than 20 people in the largely Shia districts. tero y hotelero, el gerente de la Guelaguet- it will be very bad for the Kurds. Barack Obama’s Iraq/Syria War,” October Isis claimed responsibility for the attacks za, barzonistas, jerarcas eclesiásticos – se At the outset of U.S. intervention in 2014). Internationalist communists stand in statements circulated online.” han asustado por la amplitud de la resis- Syria in 2014, we called to “Defend the for defense of the Arab cities controlled Against this all-sided sectarian slaughter, tencia, notablemente por la participación Kurds, Defeat U.S./NATO Imperialism!” by the I.S., whose population is threatened Trotskyists call for defeat of the attackers masiva de los padres de familia. Dicen We warned against the YPG’s attempts to with massacre by the “human rights” im- and defend Falluja’s right to communal que esto es “peor que en 2006” y sugieren ally with imperialism, saying: “the U.S. perialists and allied forces, even as we call self-defense while not diminishing one bit tímidamente entablar “pláticas” con los and European imperialists will never ac- for bringing down the jihadist caliphate our opposition to the I.S. docentes para restablecer la calma. Pero cept Kurdish independence, or even real which along with all the Islamist gangs is More than anywhere else on the planet, por mucho que los dirigentes de la CNTE autonomy in northern Syria…. That would a mortal threat not only workers revolution in the Middle East today it is only by fight- reclaman el “diálogo”, como en el 2013, threaten the Ottoman ambitions of the Is- but to the democratic rights of all, particu- ing for internationalist workers revolution, éste es una trampa: los asesinos en el poder lamist Erdoğan and the Turkish nationalism larly religious and ethnic minorities. to drive out and defeat imperialism as well están sordos ante sus reclamos. No cederán of the [Turkish] army. And NATO Turkey In the fighting that continues through- as to uphold democratic rights and smash all en la mesa de negociación lo que no se les is a linchpin for Western imperialist domi- out most of Syria between competing com- the bourgeois regimes and feuding Islamists, haya impuesto con la fuerza del movimien- 2 nation of the Middle East.” Again in early munalist and sectarian forces, proletarian militarists and Zionists, that it will be pos- to obrero. Lo que se necesita es forjar una 2015, we stated that, “While defending the revolutionaries have no side, including sible to unite the exploited and oppressed dirección con el programa revolucionario y Syrian Kurds, Assyrians and other minori- where the I.S. clashes with Syrian govern- of the myriad ethnic/religious communities, la determinación requerida para movilizar ties under attack by the Islamic State, we ment forces or the competing Islamist mi- peoples and nations. That means fighting esta fuerza en una lucha frontal. have warned against any alliance with im- litias, whether of the al Nusra Front (Al for a socialist federation that can make this perialism, which would use them as pawns, Qaeda), Ahrar al-Sham or those that call crossroads of civilizations flourish in all its Ante la represión urge 3 to be discarded when convenient.” If there themselves the Free Syrian Army, who are diversity. As everywhere, the key is forging profundizar, extender y is any doubt on this, the U.S. State Depart- supported by much of the left even as they a revolutionary leadership, and that is the radicalizar la huelga ment spokesman made it clear in a May 23 sell their services to the imperialists. task the League for the Fourth International El Grupo Internacionalista ha interve- press briefing: The situation in Iraq, meanwhile, is seeks to resolve. n nido activamente en la huelga magisterial “We obviously are in close dialogue with not the same as in Syria. The International desde el inicio, participando activamente Turkey. We understand their concerns New York Times (30 May) reported: regarding Kurdish forces in northern Huelga nacional... en marchas y bloqueos. Desde el inicio de “American commandos are on the front Syria. And we’ve also made it clear to sigue de la página 24 la huelga hemos vendido, tan sólo en Oa- lines in Syria in a new push toward the these Kurdish forces as well that they La lucha magisterial ha cobrado en xaca, más de mil ejemplares de Revolución Islamic State’s de facto capital in Raqqa, should not seek to create autonomous, los últimos años un carácter de vida o Permanente. Hemos organizado círculos but in Iraq it is an entirely different semi-autonomous zones, that they muerte. Lejos quedaron las manifestacio- de estudio marxistas frente a la sede de la story…. should not seek to retain the territory nes rituales del magisterio en el juego de Sección XXII y en el plantón movedizo en “The United States has thousands of that they liberate….” estira y afloja entre el gobierno y la diri- la Ciudad de México. Hemos proyectado military personnel in Iraq and has Spelling it out, he said the CENTCOM películas políticas en los mismos lugares. trained Iraqi security forces for nearly gencia sindical en donde el esquema de commander’s visit to the region two days Hablamos por Radio Plantón en nuestro two years, yet is largely on the sidelines “movilización-negociación-movilización” earlier was “not to imply any kind of programa “Frecuencia Obrera Internacio- in the battle to retake Falluja…. [I]t daba la apariencia de proporcionar episódi- recognition of their sovereignty or whatever.” worries that an assault on the city could cos resultados. Desde el levantamiento de nalista”. Hemos repartido miles de volan- 2006 en adelante, las luchas magisteriales tes en los que llamamos a no votar por nin- 2 backfire – inflaming the same sectarian “For Workers Action to Defeat Barack han enfrentado la rapacidad de una burgue- gún partido burgués, incluyendo el Morena Obama’s Iraq/Syria War” (October 2014), in sentiments that have allowed the Islamic de AMLO. Desde el principio hemos lla- The Internationalist No. 38, November-Decem- State to flourish there. sía unida, ávida de convertir la enseñanza ber 2014. “Already, as the army and militiamen en una fuente de lucro, determinada a elim- mado por la extensión de la huelga a todo 3 “International Perspectives of the League for battled last week in outlying areas, inar el derecho de los trabajadores a que el sector educativo del país y por movilizar the Fourth International” (April 2015), in The taking some villages and the center of sus hijos reciban una educación de calidad, a sectores clave del proletariado industrial Internationalist No. 40, Summer 2015. the city of Karma, to the northeast, the pública y gratuita. Hoy el gobierno federal en una poderosa huelga nacional. Sólo así 22 The Internationalist y políticos burgueses: seguían una política frentepopulista. el magisterio, luchan contra una falsa “uni- PRI, PAN, PRD, MC, Con su estrecha visión reformista, versalización” del seguro, que implicaría PT, Morena, AMLO, fueron incapaces de extender la huelga recortar los derechos de los trabajadores a etc. Se debe hacer añi- magisterial no sólo más allá de los límites servicios médicos. Los acereros de la Sec- cos las ilusiones en la de Oaxaca, sino incluso a otros sectores al ción 271 del semicorporativista Sindicato pobre máscara de de- interior del estado. Al dirigir todo el ímpe- de Trabajadores Mineros y Metalúrgicos mocracia burguesa con tu de lucha demostrado en cientos de ba- en el puerto de Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoa- que se presenta el régi- rricadas hacia el parlamentarismo burgués, cán han estado bajo acoso del gobierno, Revolución Permanente men semibonapartista las direcciones del magisterio y la APPO que luego de un paro en la siderúrgica en actual del capitalismo llamaron a dar un voto de castigo al PRI y marzo de este año detuvo a cinco dirigen- mexicano. Por su par- PAN encauzando la lucha al apoyo al en- tes por protestas realizadas en 2007. te, la clase dominante tonces candidato del PRD, Andrés Manuel En 2016, al igual que 2006 y 2013, ha dejado bien claro López Obrador. Así, en vez de luchar por el combativo magisterio organizado en que todo aquel que romper con la burguesía, allanaron el cami- la CNTE ha tomado el papel protagónico Círculo de estudios marxista del Grupo Internacionalista luche en contra de los no para la derrota. Luego de las elecciones, al enfrentar heroicamente al estado para en Oaxaca, el 31 de mayo. designios del capital como siempre fraudulentas, y desarmado defender la educación pública y cerca de enfrentará la respuesta políticamente el movimiento por carecer 40 años de sindicalismo independiente en podremos hacerle frente al estado que ata- sádica del estado. La larga lista de masa- de una política de lucha de clases, vino la contra del corporativismo sindical. Pero ca no sólo al magisterio sino a todo el mo- cres, de 1968 y 1971 a la fatídica noche negra noche del 25 de noviembre, cuando para evitar repetir la historia de aquellas vimiento obrero. de Iguala de 2014, en la que fueron des- la Policía Federal Preventiva barrió el cen- derrotas, es necesario sacar las lecciones y Es con esta perspectiva que nuestros aparecidos los 43 estudiantes normalistas tro histórico de Oaxaca y detuvo a cientos aplicarlas a la lucha actual. El movimiento camaradas han organizado brigadas con los de Ayotzinapa, y ahora la de Nochixtlán, de activistas, poniendo un punto final a la de 2006 fue derrotado porque no salió del maestros en huelga para ir a agitar entre estu- da constancia de que el estado capitalista atrevida lucha magisterial a un costo de 26 marco del estado de Oaxaca en una huelga diantes, trabajadores y académicos de la Uni- mexicano se alimenta con un constante compañeros asesinados. nacional, ni logró extenderse hacia el pro- versidad Nacional. Fue así como logramos tributo de sangre humana. Hace falta una Ahora, la situación se presenta con letariado industrial, a pesar de que en aquel que la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la revolución socialista internacional para li- mayor agudeza aún. Tras la implementa- entonces había huelgas obreras en varias UNAM parara labores el día 17 de mayo, con berarse de la mano muerta de esta burgue- ción de la reforma educativa, que no logró partes del país. En 2013, la CNTE dejó la asistencia de maestros de la CNTE, princi- sía agonizante. Ninguna reforma política, derribar la movilización de la CNTE en aislados a los maestros de Guerrero cuan- palmente del estado de Oaxaca, que hablaron ninguna asamblea constituyente dentro del 2013, la burguesía pensó que al quitarle do estallaron su lucha contra la “reforma” con los estudiantes en paro sobre la extensión marco burgués, podrán detener la embes- a la Sección XXII el control de algunas educativa, sólo activándose a nivel nacio- de la huelga a todo el sector educativo que tida del capitalismo, que a nivel mundial instancias del IEEPO, podría menguar la nal meses después. Además, terminó acep- hoy está bajo ataque. También en las asam- está aniquilando las viejas conquistas y capacidad del magisterio. Otro error. Sin tando las falsas promesas de un “diálogo” bleas sindicales del STUNAM, militantes concesiones democráticas. la premisa de obtener puntos por movili- con el gobierno federal y con los gobiernos del Grupo Internacionalista y maestros de la Sacar las lecciones de 2006 zación a la que se asiste, y desafiando las estatales, que ahora los atacan brutalmente. CNTE llamaron a que los trabajadores de la A la insurgencia magisterial le hace La lucha de 2006 en Oaxaca marcó una amenazas de ser despedidos sin cesantía, Universidad Nacional se fueran a huelga. Ahí falta una dirección clasista y revolucionaria. de las más cruentas batallas de clase en me- miles de trabajadores de la educación, de se pudo observar los juegos de la burocracia El riesgo de que la historia se repita radica dio de un país convulsionado por huelgas nueva cuenta, hacen plantones, bloqueos frentepopulista de Agustín Rodríguez, quien justamente en la ausencia de una dirección mineras, metalúrgicas y luchas campesinas y barricadas. El ejemplo del magisterio públicamente habla de su solidaridad con la tal. Con todo, hay un cambio modesto pero de gran envergadura. Estamos viviendo el puede ser también el catalizador de un huelga del magisterio, pero al interior del importante: la presencia en Oaxaca de un resurgimiento de la insurgencia magisterial descontento social producto del despido gremio argumenta sobre la imposibilidad de comité local del Grupo Internacionalista, iniciada hace 37 años contra el falso sindi- del 30 por ciento o más de los empleados irse a una huelga conjunta con los maestros. formado gracias a nuestra intervención en calismo del corporativista Sindicato Nacio- públicos, del proceso de privatización de Es evidente que el ánimo de lucha y 2006 y años posteriores, y que ha mostrado nal de Trabajadores de la Educación. Hoy en facto de la salud, del despido masivo de los combatividad de maestras y maestros no en los hechos el camino a seguir. Sacando día el SNTE es la punta de lanza del ataque trabajadores de Pemex y del dólar a 20 pe- sólo no ha disminuido, sino que se ha ac- las lecciones de la lucha de 2006, escribi- gubernamental en contra de la CNTE. En sos que reduce vertiginosamente el poder recentado ante cada intento del gobierno mos hace diez años lo siguiente: la estela de la Policía Federal, promete “sa- adquisitivo de los trabajadores. por detener la movilización. Sin embargo, En 2016, a diferencia de hace diez “Para ganar esta batalla, es necesaria una la estrategia política de la dirección de la near” la Sección XXII e imponer su Sección dirección proletaria que, sobre la base 59 de esquiroles y sicarios. No obstante, años, el conflicto magisterial no se circuns- CNTE ha sido la de presionar para conse- cribe a la capital oaxaqueña y la región de de un programa genuinamente clasista, todavía persisten ilusiones en sectores de la rompa con todos los partidos burgueses guir un “diálogo” con la burguesía, acu- Valles Centrales, sino que se ha extendido CNTE en una imposible “democratización” y movilice a nivel nacional la enorme diendo a Gobernación y a Los Pinos para a las regiones del Istmo de Tehuantepec y rogar que alguna autoridad les conceda una de este aparato estatal dedicado a impedir fuerza de la clase obrera contra el estado un auténtico sindicalismo obrero independi- la Mixteca. En la primera se encuentran capitalista.... entrevista. Asimismo, esta dirección busca instalaciones estratégicas para la burgue- una alianza con los diputados de los parti- ente. El esquirolaje del SNTE en el actual “[E]l programa ‘democrático’ ha con- conflicto debería hacer patente la necesidad sía, como la refinería de Salina Cruz, que ducido a un callejón sin salida, porque dos burgueses y desviar la lucha hacia el prácticamente abastece de combustible a camino estéril del juego electoral burgués, de hacer jirones la camisa de fuerza del cor- las luchas de los trabajadores no pueden todos los estados del litoral del Pacífico. resolverse con la democracia burguesa llamando a votar por Morena. Confiar en la porativismo laboral. El bloqueo de la refinería puso en jaque al – imposible por lo demás en la época verborrea vacía de supuesto apoyo al mag- También hay que sacar las lecciones gobierno, y también ha ganado la simpatía imperialista en países semicoloniales isterio de AMLO, cuya tarea al servicio de de la experiencia de 2006, que ha entrado en el panteón de heroicas luchas derrota- a la resistencia magisterial de parte de pe- como México. Como señaló Trotsky los grandes empresarios y sus amos imperi- das de la historia mexicana que, como el troleros que han visto cómo su “sindicato” con su perspectiva – teoría y programa alistas consiste en canalizar las luchas para zapatismo en la época de la Revolución (el corporativista STPRM) no ha puesto la a la vez – de la revolución permanente, presionar hacia los marcos institucionales Mexicana, tanto pesan sobre la concien- menor oposición a la “reforma” energéti- hoy ningún ala de la clase capitalista burgueses, es una garantía para la derrota. cia de los que luchan contra este sistema ca que amenaza con costarles sus trabajos. es capaz de realizar las tareas de las Como decíamos en nuestro suplemento mortífero que parece que estarían conde- En el Istmo también, los trabajadores de la grandes revoluciones burguesas de si- que llamaba a no votar por Morena ni por glos pasados. La revolución agraria, nados a repetirlas, siempre con el mis- salud han dado un respaldo decidido a la cualquier otro partido de la burguesía: necesaria para liberar a los campesinos mo resultado. Cuando el 14 de junio de lucha de los profesores. En la Mixteca, la “Se anticipa que la represión –dosifica- y los indígenas pobres de su miseria 2006 la policía estatal intentó desalojar el huelga de los educadores ha contado con da hasta ahora para no desatar la ira de secular; la liberación nacional del yugo la participación de activistas de toda la re- la población que se encuentra todavía al plantón de la Sección XXII de la CNTE del imperialismo; y la democracia para gión, como se vio en el homenaje de hoy borde del estallido social– se intensifica- en el Zócalo de la ciudad de Oaxaca, los los explotados y oprimidos, los escla- rá luego de las elecciones del 5 de junio. residentes de la capital oaxaqueña salier- en Tlaxiaco a dos de los caídos de la masa- vos asalariados, sólo pueden conquis- Entonces los gobernantes que buscan on a apoyar al magisterio y derrotaron a la cre de Nochixtlán. tarse mediante la revolución obrera…. imponer una ‘reforma’ educativa en be- policía. A medida que el conflicto se fue En 2016, a diferencia del 2006, la em- No miramos hacia atrás, a la herencia neficio del capital van a ir por todo.” intensificando, se comenzó a hablar sobre bestida contra el magisterio encuentra un del nacionalismo campesino zapatista; –-“La huelga magisterial en la encrucija- una “Comuna Oaxaca” e incluso a soñar campo fértil para poder extender la huelga fijamos como nuestra meta ser los bol- da”, suplemento de El Internacionalista, sobre una sociedad comunista en este solo hacia otros sectores clave de los trabajado- cheviques proletarios del siglo XXI.” 2 de junio de 2016 estado. Sin embargo, con toda la combat- res. En el último año se han dado las explo- –El Internacionalista N° 7, diciembre de Y así fue. ividad popular, que logró expulsar a la sivas luchas de los jornaleros de San Quin- 2006 Lo que hace falta en lugar de la po- policía y el aparato estatal de la ciudad tín y las de los trabajadores y trabajadoras Armados con este programa, el que lítica frentepopulista de colaboración de de Oaxaca durante más de cinco meses, el de la maquila de Ciudad Juárez. Hoy los defiende el Grupo Internacionalista, sec- clases es la intransigente lucha de clases. Frente de Sindicatos del Estado de Oaxa- trabajadores de salud, que han mostrado su ción mexicana de la Liga por la IV Inter- Hay que luchar con plena independencia ca y la Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos apoyo auxiliando a los heridos en las barri- nacional, sí podemos abrir el camino a la política con respecto de todos los partidos de Oaxaca (APPO), que dirigían la lucha, cadas y estallando paros en solidaridad con victoria. n May-June 2016 23 El Internacionalista mayo-junio de 2016 Tras la masacre: ¿qué camino para la insurgencia magisterial? Ampliar la resistencia en las barricadas a una verdadera México: ¡Huelga nacional contra el gobierno criminal! Quadratín

La Batalla del Aeropuerto de Oaxaca, el 26 de mayo. Luego de que cientos de maestros bloqueaorn la entrada, la Policía Federal les dió un ultimatum. Los docentes rehusaron moverse. Cuando los federales se alistaron para golpear llegaron otros cientos de profesores en resfuerzo, encapsulando a la policía. Después de varias horas de enfrentamiento los federales se vieron obligados a dar la retirada. 20 de JUNIO – México acaba de vivir su contra la nefasta “reforma educativa” que Trabajadores de la Educación, es de ocho sectores clave del proletariado mexicano. Domingo Sangriento. En Rusia en 1905, el busca destruir el sindicalismo magisterial muertos, 22 desaparecidos y 94 heridos, Es imprescindible que la movilización ataque policíaco contra un desfile de traba- independiente. Durante cinco días mantu- 45 de ellos de bala. La PF, que al principio revista un carácter proletario e interna- jadores que sólo querían presentar un pliego vieron una barricada en la supercarretera a negó haber usado armas de fuego, ante las cionalista, y no nacionalista, como el que de peticiones al zar fue la chispa que en- México que logró detener a una caravana fotos y los videos que mostraban a los fe- están intentando imprimirle al movimiento cendió la Revolución de 1905. En México de la Policía Federal. Ayer la PF cobró su derales disparando a mansalva con pistolas sectores burgueses, en particular los que en 2016, la matanza del domingo 19 de ju- venganza. Pero en lugar de atemorizar a la y rifles automáticos, finalmente tuvo que se encuentran alrededor del Movimiento nio en Nochixtlán, Oaxaca contra maestros, gente, consiguió el efecto contrario. admitir que los uniformados fueron los que de Regeneración Nacional (Morena) del estudiantes, activistas sociales y padres de Por lo pronto el saldo de la fatídica ma- balearon a los activistas. Aún así, la lluvia ex priísta y ex perredista Andrés Manuel familia podría detonar una explosión de lu- ñana del domingo 19 en Nochixtlán, según de balas y gases no intimidó a los huelguis- López Obrador, lo mismo que la propia di- cha de clases en todo el país. Están luchando voceros de la Coordinadora Nacional de tas ni a sus partidarios. Después de pasar rección de la CNTE. las barricadas de Nochixtlán, los federales La huelga del magisterio independien- se toparon con una resistencia feroz en las te mexicano se encuentra en una fase crítica barricadas de Huitzo, y luego en el cruce- luego del ataque brutal del estado burgués. ro de Hacienda Blanca. Y una vez que el El asesino gobierno federal de Enrique convoy de autobuses y camionetas de la Peña Nieto, a petición del gobierno estatal PF pasó, las barricadas fueron nuevamente de Gabino Cué, ha atacado por aire y tierra montadas. El efecto de la represión ha sido las decenas de barricadas instaladas en las el de crispar aún más a la población. carreteras del estado. Maestros, padres de Hoy, decenas de miles llenaron las familia y colonos combatieron con palos y piedras el feroz ataque de los federales

Mario Jiménez Leyva/Noticias calles de Oaxaca de Juárez de lado a lado para expresar su solidaridad con los men- durante toda la noche del 17 de junio en tores, coreando consignas sentenciando el puerto petrolero de Salina Cruz en el a los “asesinos” y al “gobierno represor”. Istmo y luego en la Mixteca y Valles Cen- “Ni con balas, ni metralla, al pueblo se le trales. Para la burguesía, aplastar la lucha calla”, gritaban. La movilización recordaba del magisterio es una cuestión primordial el ambiente de la tercera megamarcha del para poder avanzar en la privatización de la 16 de junio de 2006, cuando el magisterio educación pública y en la aniquilación del arrasó con la policía del odiado Ulises Ruiz sindicalismo independiente en el país. Para Ortiz después de su fallido intento de desa- el movimiento obrero, detener el baño de lojar al plantón magisterial. Pero la rabia sangre es una cuestión de elemental super- popular no llevará a nada sin una dirección vivencia. Urgen movilizaciones de repudio revolucionaria que la conduzca a librar la en todo el país en rumbo a una verdadera ¡Asesinos! Y no sólo los que apretaron el gatillo, sino también sus mandos batalla en contra del enemigo fundamental, huelga nacional. y sus jefes políticos Peña Nieto, Cué y Nuño. el capitalismo, y que extienda la huelga a sigue en la página 22