The Internationalist No. 63 April-June 2021 50¢ George Floyd’s Murderer Convicted, Police Impunity Remains One Year After George Floyd, Racist Killer Cops Keep Killing MINNEAPOLIS/, May ing “looters,” but in the first hundred 25 – On the first anniversary of the cold- days of the administration of Democrat blooded by killer Joe Biden, more than 650 people died in cop Derek Chauvin, it is clear to all that, Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times police actions. The fact that one badge- despite the massive protests against rac- toting killer was convicted of murder ist police brutality that swept the country, changes nothing. there has been no change in the treatment Meanwhile, we are hearing a lot of of black people at the hands of the enforc- earnest talk of police “reforms,” of “de- ers of “law and order.” Nor, for that mat- escalation” and “anti-bias” training, of ter, was there any change after the origi- changing rules on use of deadly force, nal Black Lives Matters protests in 2014 improving police-community relations following the police murders of Michael and the like. The Democratic House of Brown, Eric Garner, Laquan McDonald, Representatives has passed a “George Tamir Rice and many others; or after the Floyd Justice in Policing Act” (no Re- murder of Freddie Gray and Sandra Bland publicans voted for it, and it is going in 2015, or the murder of Philando Castile nowhere in the Senate) with a few re- in 2016, or . . . Year in and year out, wan- forms, like “incentivizing banning of ton police killing of African Americans, chokeholds,” banning no-knock war- Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Ameri- rants in federal drug cases and lifting cans, as well as hundreds of white work- “” for police. But ing people goes on and on. for all the BS about “transparency” and The grisly death toll tells the story. “accountability,” and the bill’s pious Already, in the first four months of 2021, “Justice for Daunte Wright” on the street in front of the memorial for George calls to “empower our communities to 700 people died in encounters with police Floyd in Minneapolis, April 12. Amid the trial of killer cop Derek Chauvin, reimagine public safety in an equitable in the U.S., almost six a day, the same rate racist police terror never stopped. and just way,” none of this will make a as last year when over 2,200 were killed During the seven-week trial of Derek Chicago, shot down with his hands raised the difference. The appeals to “defund” and (well above the 2000-2019 yearly aver- Chauvin, as the whole country was on pins day trial testimony began. All-round racist even “abolish the police” are gone. To- age of 1,400 deaths caused by police).1 and needles awaiting the outcome, 179 were president Donald Trump incited police kill- day, the front-runners in the New York 1 https://fatalencounters.org/. killed, including 13-year-old Adam Toledo in ings with his incendiary rhetoric about shoot- continued on page 10 Biden, Sanders, Democrats Arm Zionist Butchers Defend the Palestinians Against Israeli War For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution! MAY 18 – The storming of the al Aqsa ing units have been destroyed, including 76 Mosque in Jerusalem by hundreds of Is- high-rise apartment buildings. Schools and Hosam Salem for The New Yorkfor The Salem Hosam Times raeli police on Monday, May 10 was the hospitals have been hit by ’s precision opening shot of renewed Zionist war on the bombs and a news media tower was deliber- Palestinian Arab people. While the imperi- ately destroyed. The United Nations reports alist media talk of military conflict between that at least 58,000 residents of the narrow Israel and Hamas, the Islamist governing have been displaced from their party in the besieged enclave of Gaza, the homes, with 47,000 of them crammed into reality is a one-sided slaughter of Palestin- U.N. schools. ians by the Israeli war machine. The death Added to this is the terror unleashed by toll tells the story: over 220 Arabs killed so Zionist-fascist vigilantes against Palestin- far, more than 60 of them children, com- ians in Israeli cities of mixed Arab and Jew- pared to 6 Israeli Jewish civilians dead. ish population. In the occupied , In addition, due to Israeli bombing Israeli military forces have fired on protest electrical power lines have been knocked demonstrations while ultra-rightist settlers out while fuel for the sole power plant is have attacked Palestinians. The rightist Is- running out and blackouts in Gaza are up to raeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 16 hours a day. At least 800,000 people are who launched the war in order to stay in of- without access to fresh water and sewage is fice, and the military that is pounding Gaza Destroyed buildings in Beit Hanoun, Gaza, after May 14 Israeli air strike. spilling into the streets. More than 700 hous- continued on page 6 Israel is targeting residential areas, leaving tens of thousands homeless. Pickets Shut Down Job Sites Daily Portland Painters Gearing Up: Now’s the Time – Strike to Win! By Class Struggle Workers – estimated 120 members Portland of over a dozen other Facebook unions had honored the PORTLAND, OR, June 21 – Members of strike picket line, giv- the International Union of Painters and Al- ing up a day’s wages lied Trades (IUPAT) Local 10 in Portland, to show solidarity with Oregon, deemed “essential workers,” kept the union brothers and construction booming as they worked all sisters….” through the COVID-19 pandemic. Mean- When painters while, their bosses in the Signatory Paint- from Seigner and Co. ing Contractors Organization (SPCO) took who picketed at Chris- in $20 million in Paycheck Protection Pro- tensen Oil Co. were gram “loans” which they may never have targeted for retaliation to pay back. Yet even as they are flush with after their courageous cash, contractors are offering a “raise” so four-day picket and low (25¢/hour, less than 1% for a journey- shutdown at the jobsite, man painter) that it would amount to pen- Local 10 put out an “all nies a week. This is also supposed to cover out” call to Seigner increased health insurance costs, and along Getting ready: 70 members of IUPAT Local 10 picketing at Christensen Oil on June 14. employees, and dozens with the rising cost of living this would showed up to picket the contractor. The behind closed doors (the bosses know what’s tion by the construction trades and all of amount to a pay cut. largest job under that contractor, 50 miles being negotiated, the workers are kept in the Northwest Oregon/Southwest Washington But the painters are not giving in to away in Salem, was shut down as all of dark), painters should demand a large raise – labor. We need to make those solidarity the SPCO contractors’ bullying tactics. their employees chose to aid the picket at no less than 15%, and even that would only resolutions count. On May 24, ballots of Local 10 members Seigner. One picketer was struck by the car begin to catch up. Portland is home to some of the larg- were counted and 95% voted to authorize of a Seigner founder as he bullied his way There have now been weeks of prepa- est construction projects in North America a strike. It would be the first painters strike in to the gate, but the pickets persevered. rations. It’s high time to spread the pickets today. A solid painters strike here would in over 40 years in the Portland area. As After discussion, a second picket was sent to the bigger job sites (Intel, Nike, airport) send a message to corona profit-bloated the results of the vote became official, the to Christensen, the job site where the work- and strike all SPCO sites, while elected conglomerates around the country: labor is Northwest Oregon Labor council unani- ers had been retaliated against, and again delegates from the shop teams need to ready to fight. To win, all jobs under the mously adopted a solidarity resolution the job was shut down. make the strike committee a reality to take master area agreement must be shut down. brought by IATSE (stage hands) Local 28 Class-struggle militants in Local 10 their place in leading this battle that will The watchword is: one out, all out – picket in support of a painters strike. And since have called for organizing strike prepa- require a full mobilization of the union lines mean don’t cross, period! We make they may be a little out of practice, painters ration teams at all affected shops, for an membership – and effective solidarity ac- that stick and we can win. n have been gearing up for the strike with a elected strike committee to organize and series of unfair labor practice (ULP) pick- direct strike activities, and for massive ets that have successfully shut down or picket lines that can effectively shut job Right-Wing Recall Campaign greatly reduced work at several job sites sites down. Solidarity across union and across the metropolitan area. trade lines has already been key to shutting Dubbed the “summer of chaos,” the Targets Kshama Sawant down individual jobs and such solidarity pickets kicked off on May 21 at McDaniel Seattle city council member Kshama of Donald Trump) and Sawant’s 2019 op- must be repeated en masse for the strike High School, followed on May 28 and June Sawant, a supporter of Socialist Alternative, ponent, Egan Orion, leader of the Broadway to be successful. As the labor adage goes, 1 at a downtown apartment project, and on is facing a recall campaign fueled by right- Business Improvement Area. “An injury to one is an injury to all!” The June 4 at an office remodeling. Then on wing forces. The recall grew out of a call by We are opposed to the reactionary construction trades in Portland are seeing June 7, 9, 10 and 11 at Christensen Oil; on Seattle’s Democratic mayor Jenny Durkan recall campaign, while making clear the the truth of this fundamental principle play June 10 at a remodeling of a house owned last June (2020) to investigate the council counterposition between our commu- out before their eyes. by Reed College; on June 14 at a wholesale member after Sawant had demanded Dukan’s nist standpoint and the politics upheld by In a previous contract battle, under pres- food warehouse, and on June 18 at Sieg- resignation or impeachment for unleashing Sawant and SAlt. It should be clear that sure from the ranks, a binding arbitration ner and Co. (one of the biggest contractors police brutality against anti-racist demon- none of the infractions she is charged with clause was eliminated. But for the right to in the SPCO) and Christensen Oil. These strators. The mayor charged Sawant with us- are reprehensible from the standpoint of the strike to be effective, labor’s power must be have been the biggest painters pickets seen ing her office to promote the “Tax Amazon” working class. The recall is clearly a reac- used. Painters’ pay has been lagging for years in Portland since the 1970s, and other con- campaign; supporting demonstrations at the tion to the CHAZ occupation which greatly – partly because they haven’t struck for four struction trades locals have respected the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) that angered Republican Trump, the police and decades – and the $2.62 raise last year has lines. Northwest Labor Press (2 June) re- occupied several blocks in Sawant’s district; the Democratic Party establishment of Se- still left them as one of the lowest-paid of the ported that at McDaniel High School, “an letting demonstrators into City Hall during attle and Washington state. However, as we construction trades. As bargaining continues COVID lockdowns, and leading protesters noted last summer, while the occupation to Durkan’s home, which was supposedly se- was hailed by virtually the entire opportun- Visit the League for the Fourth International/ cret “because of her law enforcement back- ist left, “The arch-reformist Socialist Alter- Internationalist Group on the Internet ground” (Seattle Times, 28 June 2020). native (SAlt) had a little trouble with this, http://www.internationalist.org The recall process was kicked off with as its city council member Kshama Sawant the filing of a petition last August based on had voted for and vociferously supported the mayor’s complaints. Petition sponsors Police Chief Carmen Best” (“‘Abolish the The Internationalist are now collecting signatures and if they Police’ Under Capitalism?” The Interna- A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism gather a little over 10,000 signatures (a tionalist No. 60, May-July 2020). for the Reforging of the Fourth International quarter of the votes cast in the 2019 election From the time of her initial election Publication of the Internationalist Group, when Sawant was reelected by a narrow in 2013, we have noted that SAlt’s social- section of the League for the Fourth International margin) in District 3, a yes/no vote on her democratic program is no “alternative” EDITORIAL BOARD: Jan Norden (editor), Fred Bergen, Julius Drago (production), Mark Lazarus, removal would be held, possibly in the No- at all to the Democratic Party, and in fact Tristán Mirabal (pamphlets), Abram Negrete, Marjorie Salzburg, Jay Wood, Ines Young vember general election. If Sawant is oust- Sawant was backed by top Democrats (see The Internationalist (ISSN 1091-2843) is published 5 times a year by Mundial ed, the city council would select a replace- “‘Socialist’ Elected in Seattle on Platform Publications, P.O. Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. Telephone: (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 E-mail: [email protected] ment to finish her term. The recall campaign of Liberal/Populist Reforms,” The Interna- Subscriptions: US$10 for five issues. is being pushed by real estate interests in tionalist No. 36, January-February 2014). No. 63 April-June 2021 particular, notably billionaire property de- Her call for a $15/hour minimum wage veloper Martin Selig (a prominent backer (which SAlt made its signature campaign) 2 The Internationalist Oppose G7/NATO Imperialist War Drive Against China, Russia CUNY Union Denounces U.S. Anti-China Drive On May 13, the Delegate Assembly mainstream media is inflaming impe- of the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), rialist, xenophobic, racist, and misog- the union representing 30,000 faculty and ynist ideologies, triggering violence staff at the City University of New York against Chinese, Chinese-American (CUNY), passed a resolution to oppose “the and Asian communities at home, such steady build-up to war with China by the as the March 16, 2021 shooting of US government.” Proposed by the PSC’s six Asian women in Atlanta, and the International Committee, a long-standing more than 3,700 incidents of violence, official body of the union, it passed bya discrimination, and violations of Andrew Parsons/No. 10 Downing Street wide margin, overcoming opposition from civil rights against Asian Americans the top leadership. We print the resolution reported since the beginning of the in full below. That it was passed at the larg- COVID-19 pandemic, some of which est urban public university in the U.S. is a directly impact CUNY students, Group of 7 imperialist leaders in Cornwall, Britain, joined U.S. president Biden significant and important event – one that workers and the broader community;1 in demonizing China over COVID origins. But who contained the virus? has been met with almost universal silence Whereas, anti-Chinese racism has long in both the big-business and “left” press. roots in the U.S., including the 1882 In back-to-back summit meetings in maneuvers on Russia’s own territory and mod- Over the years and despite diver- Chinese Exclusion Act and the exploi- mid-June, imperialist leaders of the Group ernizing its nuclear arsenal (in response to the gent viewpoints, Class Struggle Educa- tation of Chinese workers who built the of 7, meeting in Cornwall, England, and the U.S. doing the same) to interfering in foreign tion Workers (CSEW) activists in the PSC transcontinental railroad, the current North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries through proxies. This is pretty rich have worked with International Commit- demonization of China serves as a dis- meeting in Brussels, Belgium, issued a pair coming from the war mongers who still have tee members on a number of issues, going traction from the coronavirus pandem- of sabre-rattling communiqués demonizing occupation troops in Afghanistan, 20 years af- back to the successful campaign to spike the ic and weakening economy at home; China and denouncing Russia. The New ter invading that Central Asian country. sinister “Homeland Security” course at Whereas, US military spending is ex- York Times (14 June) noted the “distinctly The imperialist miliitary alliance de- CUNY’s Borough of Commu- panding at the expense of funding Cold War overtones” of the confabs. manded that Russia get out of Crimea, whose nity College (see “‘Fatherland Security’ Hits education, healthcare, housing, and The G7 (Britain, Canada, France, Ger- ethnic Russian population voted to join the CUNY,” Revolution No. 2, October 2004) other essential social needs;2 many, Italy, Japan, ) went after Russian federation, and stop aiding eastern and PSC actions in solidarity with teachers Whereas, a Cold War with China harms Beijing for cracking down on anti-China ri- Ukrainian rebels fighting against the fascist in Oaxaca, Mexico. Though not involved in students, researchers and educators oters in Hong Kong, echoed Washington’s and Ukrainian nationalist forces that have producing the China resolution, the CSEW in China and the U.S. by erecting Big Lie about supposed “genocide” against tried to conquer the region for the last seven backed it and highlighted the importance for barriers to international academic Uighurs and took up the U.S. call for an “in- years. These demands are fostered by the the entire labor movement of this step. collaboration and exchange; vestigation” of the origins of the coronavi- superannuated Cold Warriors that infest the At the Delegate Assembly (DA), a Whereas, the PSC, in solidarity with inter- rus. As we have shown in detail, the 2019 Biden administration. Victoria Nuland, who CSEW spokesman called on fellow del- national workers traumatized by US Hong Kong rioters were financed and ad- as a top aide of Hillary Clinton coordinated egates to vote “yes,” noting that Demo- wars and military occupation of their vised by Washington, and the World Uyghur U.S. intervention with Ukrainian fascists, is cratic president Joe Biden (whose elec- homelands, has consistently declared Congress is a creature of U.S. agencies. now back as a top State Department official. tion was supported by the PSC together its resolute support for anti-war cam- As for Donald Trump’s “Wuhan lab We repeatedly warned that Biden’s elec- with the rest of the union movement) is paigns, and successfully brought anti- leak” conspiracy theory, now embraced by tion would bring U.S. war moves against Chi- rapidly escalating U.S. imperialism’s anti- war resolutions for adoption by our his successor Joe Biden, there is no evidence na, one of the few areas of “bipartisan” agree- China war drive, which threatens hu- affiliates NYSUT and the AFT; for this at all (only rampant “suspicions”). Its ment between Republicans and Democrats. manity with World War III. With Israel Whereas, we are still learning that ‘cold’ purpose is to cover up the fact that capitalist Today in Washington, the new administra- launching its renewed war on the Pales- and ‘hot’ wars leave wounds that nev- countries worldwide were unable to protect tion is pitching all its initiatives, from educa- tinian people the day before the DA, he er heal and permanent scars on peo- their populations from the COVID-19 pan- tion to the infrastructure bill, with anti-China also called on the union to stand forth- ples, nations, and even landscapes; demic, and in fact aided its spread, leading rhetoric. And as the New York Times (29 May) rightly with the Palestinian people. Therefore be it resolved, that the PSC op- to almost 4 million deaths, while the Chinese wrote of the Biden budget: “The Pentagon At the June DA, after a fight over poses and rejects the steady build-up bureaucratically deformed workers state, with pivots to a possible war with China.” the content of a “Resolution in Support to war with China by the US govern- its socialized planned economy, was able to While much of the left parrots imperi- of the Palestinian People,” it was passed. ment, and declares that as anti-war US contain the deadly virus in a matter of weeks. alist anti-China war propaganda, Trotskyists While containing many “Whereases” and trade unionists and educators it is our While the G7 high-handedly ordered call to defend the deformed workers state standard liberal phrases, it does state that duty to join in solidarity with Chinese Moscow to stop its supposedly “destabiliz- against the threat of imperialist aggression “the PSC-CUNY condemns the massa- fellow-workers, educators and schol- ing behaviour,” the next day in Brussels, the and internal counterrevolution, while fight- cre of Palestinians by the Israeli state.” It ars to oppose US military spending NATO communiqué was positively frothing, ing to replace the nationalist Stalinist bu- will be crucial to defend the union in the for a Cold War in China, which leads denouncing now-capitalist Russia 62 times. reaucracy with an internationalist leadership face of the inevitable attempts to whip up to further racism at home; and The charges range from carrying out military n fighting for world socialist revolution. new witch hunts by an unholy alliance of Be it further resolved, that the PSC will bring rightists, Zionists, China-bashers, anti- this resolution forward for consider- is also supported by many bourgeois fig- ulations must be broken.” We call to build Palestinian and anti-Asian racists. ation by our state affiliate NYSUT, our ures, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. a multiethnic revolutionary workers party national affiliate the AFT, and other Sawant embraced Democratic senator that fights against all the capitalist parties labor bodies, so as to build a move- Bernie Sanders and hailed the election of and politicians. Their pseudo-socialist pre- No Cold War with China ment among US teachers and unionists five members of Democratic Socialists of tenses aside, SAlt and Sawant instead chain Whereas, US belligerence towards Chi- against a Cold War with China. n America (DSA) to Congress as Democrats. workers and the oppressed to this imperi- na is growing in what some call a 1 This past March, Sawant announced she alist party of war, poverty and racism. For Cold War with China; Yeung, R., Yellow Horse, A., Popovic, T., Lim, R., Stop AAPI Hate National Report, was joining the DSA, which is functionally those who would like to investigate this vi- Whereas, we have learned from the “war February 28, 2021 [online] https://caasf.org/ part of the Democratic Party. Many SAlt tal issue, we recommend reading the Inter- on terror” that wars “abroad” often stop-aapi-hate/. Accessed March 19, 2021. supporters have done likewise. nationalist Group pamphlet, Left Reformists translate into wars at “home”, with [Footnotes from original resolution. – Ed.] The Internationalist Group has under- in Existential Crisis (June 2019), at www. the violent targeting of racialized 2 See https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/29/ lined that “the Democrats are the key stra- internationalist.org, with documents of mil- communities; the-real-danger-of-the-pentagons-new-indo- tegic enemy whose stranglehold on labor, itants who broke from SAlt to take up the Whereas, incessant China-bashing by the pacific-plan/ black and immigrant organizations and pop- fight for authentic Trotskyism.n

April-June 2021 3 May 29: Lula 2022 Campaign and the “Broad Front” in the Streets, The Bourgeoisie in Deep Trouble Over COVID Catastrophe Brazil: “Bolsonaro Out” Is Not Enough Fight for a Workers and Peasants Government! for a third term in 2018.3 Vaccines For All – Now his release opens For Workers Control Agence France-Presse the way for his candida- of Public Health! cy for 2022, since Lula was always at the top of Forge a Leninist-Trotskyist the electoral preferences Revolutionary Party in the polls. It’s a turn of events The following article is translated that reflects the shifting from a June 18 supplement to Vanguarda interests of the bour- Operária, newspaper of the Liga Quarta- geoisie, which has been Internacionalista do Brasil. shaken by the COVID Despite the COVID-19 pandemic that crisis. And not just in has catastrophically increased the number Brazil. The charges of victims, now close to half a million dead, against the leader of demonstrations against the bonapartist the Workers Party were government of Jair Bolsonaro were held part of “Operation Lava on Saturday, May 29 in more than 200 cit- Jato” (Operation Car ies and 20 state capitals and the Federal Wash), in which Judge District (Brasília). Those protests brought Sérgio Moro headed out more than 100,000 demonstrators cen- the “anti-corruption” tered on the call for the impeachment of the Indigenous protesters in Brasília call for “Bolsonaro Out!” in massive demonstrations on offensive of U.S. im- pandemic president with the slogan “Fora June 19 which brought out an estimated 750,000 protesters in over 350 cities nationwide. perialism aiming at Bolsonaro!” (Bolsonaro out). Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) in the context of president, and in particular to call for his privatization of the state-owned petroleum Endless posters, banners and flags called the COVID-19 Parliamentary Commission impeachment by the Congress that in 2016 company Petrobras. The Democratic ad- for acceleration of the vaccination campaign of Inquiry (CPI) led by the old fox, Sena- ousted President Dilma Rousseff. In order ministration of Barack Obama (with Joe against COVID-19 in Brazil. Many also tor Renan Calheiros. Now the labor federa- that the racist general Hamilton Mourão (the Biden as vice-president) thought that it no demanded raising emergency aid to R$600 tions, which were silent on May 29, along vice president) occupy the presidential chair? longer needed the services of the PT, which (US$117) a month. Other demands included with the two popular fronts have called for Or, if he too is impeached, new elections for had governed the country since 2002 in the defense of educational institutions, targeted a “Bolsonaro Out” day of protest on June this den of thieves and murderers that legal- framework of a coalition with bourgeois by brutal cuts in the federal budget, and an 19, with the same insipid program. ized slave labor?2 No, what we need is class parties, a “popular front. “ end to police violence. The emblematic case On the streets on May 29, the mood struggle to overthrow this rotting system. In fact, Lula has always placed him- of this plague was the massacre in the Jaca- was different. Aiming to get even, the “Bol- Whether it is Bolsonaro’s federal self at the service of the bourgeoisie. It was rezinho favela (slum) in Rio de Janeiro on sonaro Out” demonstrators hit the streets government, the state governments of the in 1989 that for the first time he formed the May 6, where 28 people and one police of- to contest the domination of the so-called right-wing “opposition” or the popular Brazil Popular Front with the long-since ficer were killed by police bullets. “bolsominions” (Bolsonaro minions). But front, all the capitalist governments have social-democratized Communist Party of The euphoric crowds that took to the what the CPI masks is that the coronavirus failed to protect the population from the Brazil (PCdoB) and the bourgeois Brazil- streets on May 29, far larger than the num- pandemic is just one of the crises of capi- deadly plague and the unemployment that ian Socialist Party (PSB). (The following bers of Bolsonaro supporters who paraded talism. We can see how the bourgeoisie has has resulted. This is in stark contrast with year the leaders pf the PT leaders in Volta on May 1 at Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana been profiting greatly from this pandemic, tthe Chinese workers state which, while Redonda, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, beach, surprised not only the bonapartist first by brutally driving down the value of bureaucratically deformed, with its planned were expelled for refusing to support a government (of a military/police charac- labor power. In Brazil, one of the worst min- economy was able to contain the virus. The popular front in the “Steel City.” In 1996, ter) of Bolsonaro but also the organizers imum wages in the world was cut in half, as experience of the coronavirus pandemic they formed the Liga Quarta-Internaciona- of the Brazil Popular Front and the People emergency aid of R$600 has now dropped proves that capitalism means death for mil- lista do Brasil, section of the League for the Without Fear Front. Everyone thought that to R$300. It’s an outrage, and it will be hard lions around the world. We must fight for a Fourth International.) At that time (1989- the terror caused by the pandemic carnage, to contain the fury of the mobilized masses. workers and peasants government, as part 1992), as a consequence of the imperialist- and the fear of losing their jobs, would in- Not since Bolsonaro’s inauguration, and of an international socialist revolution. led counterrevolution that destroyed the tensify the #ficaemcasa (stay at home) ap- more precisely since the “#EleNão” (Not “Bolsonaro Out” Reflects the 3 See “Brazil Elections: For Workers Action peals. It didn’t turn out that way. Him) protest of 29 September 2018, have Against the Election Fraud and the Militarist 1 Needs of a Bourgeoisie in The popular-frontist left just wanted a demonstrations of such size been seen. How- Danger,” in The Internationalist No. 53, Sep- bland, amorphous movement. Nothing too ever, as was the case then, it’s not enough to Deep Trouble tember-Octobeer 2018. radical that would scare off the right-wing demand the removal of the COVID death On March 8, the Federal Supreme Court continued on page 21 “opposition” to Bolsonaro. Anything at all 1 See “Brazil Elections: For Workers Action (STF) approved the ruling by Justice Edson radical could get in the way of building the Against the Election Fraud and the Militarist Fachin, which nullified the rigged trial of for- “Broad Front” that is forming with the ap- Danger,” The Internationalist No. 53, Septem- mer president Lula. After being imprisoned peals and coaxing from Lula (ex-president ber-October 2018. for 580 days, the former metal workers lead- er and two-time president for the Workers Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT) is now free and can again run for the Palácio do Planalto (Brazil’s White House). The 2016 indictment and his arrest two years later were intended to prevent him from being elected

Folha de S. Paulo 2 The 2017 “Labor Reform” declared that rural workers could be paid “in wages or reumunera- tion of any kind.” An accompanying bill speci- fied that this “remuneration” could be food and housing, including in barracks. The govern- ment then cut the budget of the Labor Ministry agency investigating slave labor in half. Under On June 12, Brazil’s bonapartist president Jair Bolsonaro (center) led Bolsonaro, the Labor Ministry was abolished The June 29 protests took place on ominous motorcycle cavalcade in São Paulo organized by shooting and altogether, along with the National Commission the day the toll of COVID-19 dead in cycle clubs and members of the “bullet caucus” of pro-police legislators. for the Erradication of Slave Labor. Brazil officially passed 500,000. 4 The Internationalist Smash the Fascist Networks Through Worker/Immigrant Action Germany: The “Neukölln Complex” State Apparatus Complicit with Fascists

The following article is translated The unsolved cases continue to multi- from Permanente Revolution No. 5 (Spring ply. When Heinz Ostermann, owner of the Frank Metzger / apabiz 2021), the newspaper of the Internation- bookstore Leporello, joined the initiative alistische Gruppe, German section of the of Neuköllner Buchläden gegen Recht- League for the Fourth International. spopulismus und Rassismus (Neukölln The “Neukölln Complex” ominously Bookstores Against Right-Wing Populism reveals the entanglement of the state ap- and Racism) in 2016, he immediately be- paratus of political, judicial and police came a victim of fascist attacks, in 2016, with Nazi fascists. This phenomenon, 2017 and 2018. First, stones were thrown of which there are an untold number of at his bookstore and then there were two examples nationally, can be seen in this arson attacks on his car, the last right in district of Berlin as only one facet of a front of his apartment. comprehensive network, of systematic The arson attack on Ostermann’s car cooperation of the state with fascist and in February 2018 took place on the same fascistic forces. night as the arson attack on the car of Fe- Neukölln is a district under siege, both rat Kocak, a leading member of Die Linke by the coronavirus and by the bourgeois in Neukölln. There are no results in the state, which in Berlin is administered by investigation, and the investigation re- the “red-red-green” coalition of the Social April 2016 demonstration on the anniversary of the death of Burak Bektaş. garding the stone throwing was closed Democratic Party (SPD), Left Party (Die police and prosecutors more than a decade cally puts forward. The fascist networks at the beginning of 2019, along with the Linke) and Greens,1 especially by its racist to bring charges in December 2020 against are carefully protected with the lone per- investigation regarding many others who crusade against alleged immigrant “clans” two notoriously fascist gangsters in the petrator theory. Zielezinski was granted had been targeted. Why this is so is obvi- and against shisha bars (hookah lounges). series of arson attacks. Since the indict- mitigating circumstances due to alcohol- ous: there was and is no interest in getting And this state repression has always had its ment was not accompanied by any new ism and got off with a prison sentence of investigative results. fascist outriders, although officially classi- revelations about their crimes, it looked 11 years and 7 months. His milieu was Special Commissions, Special fied only as “right-wing extremists.” very much like a hasty attempt to “close” not investigated. Since 2010, Neukölln has repeatedly this politically tangled case. By the end of During the trial proceedings on the Investigators: Letting Off Steam been a focal point of fascist activities and January, both were again at large. murder of Luke Holland, it emerged that In fact, the Neukölln complex reach- murders, including the assassination of in the course of the investigation into es deep into the political apparatus of “Breakdowns” in the Burak Bektaş in April 2012, presumed to the case of Burak Bektaş, a statement the capitalist state, even among the re- be the work of a fascist, and the murder Investigation of Fascist Violence was made by an apparently anonymous formist “bourgeois workers parties” who of Luke Holland by fascist Rolf Zielezin- From the beginning, there were end- witness at the end of 2013 that a possible support the state. SPD Interior Senator ski in September 2015. In addition, since less “breakdowns” in the investigation of perpetrator was Rolf Z., who in 2006 had Andreas Geisel opposed the establish- 2016, coinciding with the rise of Alterna- the perpetrators and various revelations already shown the witness his gun and ment of a parliamentary investigative tive for Germany (AfD), there has been indicating direct cooperation of police asked for ammunition. “In addition, Z. committee which was called for by parts an ongoing series of fascist arson attacks, and prosecutors with the fascists. While had [the witness] drive him to the vicinity of Die Linke. Instead, Geisel continued assaults on immigrants, death threats in the murder of Luke Holland, law en- of the crime scene in order to meet his to rely on the police Special Commission against journalists, trade unionists, left- forcement authorities could not deny brother there ‘to shoot up’ the area. This (Soko) “Focus”, which he created under ists, anti-fascists and women, as well as that Zielezinski was the perpetrator, due information had already been given to the pressure at the beginning of 2019. This attacks on their centers. to the obvious facts of the case which police by the whistleblower in 2006.”3 was essentially composed of LKA offi- As of February 2020, 72 crimes, in- took place on the open street with a shot- Although there were clear indications cers, including the State Security Depart- cluding 23 cases of arson, were officially gun, in front of too many witnesses, his of right-wing extremist backgrounds in ment LKA-5 (political police, state-level attributed to the “right-wing extremist equally obvious racist and fascist mind- the two murder cases, no further investi- equivalent of the American FBI), whose camp” since 2016. A few months later, Ta- set was simply ignored by the court when gations were carried out in this direction. head has himself recently come under gesspiegel (7 July 2020) reported: “Since assessing the motive for the crime and in Similarly with the arson series. “There is suspicion of being close to the Nazis. In September 2019, investigative authorities not pursuing further investigations into probably no other case about which so any case, the Soko was only intended to registered a total of 130 right-wing crimes his fascist connections. According to much is known and yet there is not a sin- let off steam. in Neukölln, according to Senate [city gov- the judge, the possibility that this was gle investigative result,” commented Kar- So what did this special commission ernment] administration data.” That would a racist crime could not be established, in Wüst of the Basta group in the Tagess- accomplish? After complaints by plain- be three crimes per week. However, the although Zielezinski had made homo- piegel (21 December 2019). It is “simply tiffs over the lack of investigative results, left-wing research group Acoabo (“Anti- phobic and racist comments about gays incomprehensible why so many mishaps it was claimed that the Soko had deci- faschistische Computeraktion Berlin”) has and non-German speakers in his former would accumulate, unless there are con- phered encrypted “enemies lists” with listed 242 violent acts and other cases of ag- local pub immediately before his crime, nections between LKA (state criminal the names of over 500 people. These were gression in the district from January 2016 and Luke Holland spoke English. Phil investigation department) officials and stored on the computers of Sebastian T., to June 2020, as well as 293 incidents of Holland, Luke’s father, exclaimed at an right-wing extremists,” she added. the former NPD4 chairman of the Neu- pasting up or scrawling Nazi propaganda. April 2017 memorial meeting: “We are The Basta group has been protesting kölln district, who had been jailed sev- Yet the “hard core” of the Neukölln Nazi dismayed how the judge in Luke’s case, every Thursday since May 2019, togeth- eral times, including for grievous bodily scene is said to consist of only 15 people. could claim Zielezinski was not a Nazi. er with victims and supporters of those harm, and who had long been under sus- Despite multiple indications and clues He had so many illegal weapons, Nazi targeted in right-wing attacks, in front picion; and Tilo P., a former member of pointing to a few prime suspects, it took memorabilia, Adolf Hitler busts in his of the State Attorney’s Office in Berlin the AfD leadership known since 2003 for apartment, equipment to make ammuni- against obvious Nazi connections in the involvement in violent Nazi attacks. It is 1 The SPD is the traditional social-democratic tion, and yet the judge claims he was not LKA, and calling for the rightist terror suspected that names on the enemies lists party in Germany, which for decades joined a Nazi. That is a complete whitewash!”2 attacks to be investigated. Right-wing had been known for a long time but the in administering the imperialist West German Officially, therefore, this was not a police officers there make no secret of continued on page 19 state; Die Linke, or Left Party, includes rem- fascist, political murder, and the authori- nants of the former Stalinist ruling party of East their racist and pro-fascist sentiments: 4 The National Democratic Party, the largest neo- Germany, a bureaucratically deformed work- ties were thus not compelled to investi- “Raising the right arm for the Hitler sa- Nazi fascist outfit. An effort to ban the NPD in ers state, who with the capitalist reunification gate Zielezinski’s fascist environment lute, after all, hurts no one, and besides, 2003 failed on the grounds that the Verfassungss- of Germany transformed themselves into “left” and dig up his criminal connections. We crime comes almost exclusively from chutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitu- social democrats; the Greens are a bourgeois see here the paradigm of the “lone-wolf refugees,” said one of the police officers tion, Germany’s FBI) had so many agents and party. Together the three parties have a major- perpetrator” which the state systemati- at the LKA offices. informers in the party, including at high levels, ity in the Berlin state parliament and constitute who had written much of the incriminating mate- the Senate, the executive body which governs 2 From: https://berlin-gegen-nazis.de/Veranstal- 3 From: https://rechtsaussen.berlin/2020/09/luke- rial and practically controlled the party in some Germany’s capital city. tung/gedenken-an-luke-holland/. holland-wird-in-neukoelln-ermordet/. states (notably Nordrhein-Westfallen). April-June 2021 5 With two nations – Palestinian Arabs and Netanyahu wanted this war, he want- the Hebrew-speaking people – inhabiting ed the chaos it set off, it had the effect he the same narrow strip of land, the only sought, and he’s now on a murder mission way to achieve equitable access to vital in Gaza. This slaughter is being carried out resources (such as water) is in an Arab- by the military led by the defense minister, Hebrew Palestinian workers state, as part retired general Benny Gantz, the supposed- of a region-wide socialist federation of the ly “moderate” Zionist candidate for prime Near East, with the powerful Egyptian and minister in the 2020 and March 2021 elec- Turkish working classes as the anchor. tions. Gantz is a war criminal who as chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces ordered Electoral Ploy Leads to the terror-bombing of Gaza in the 2014 Zionist Mass Murder war, killing over 2,200 Palestinians. So The current one-sided war being all wings of the Zionists have their hands Hosam Salem for The New York Times Hosam Salem for The New York waged against the Palestinian Arabs began dripping with Arab blood. Netanyahu also with a cynical provocation. The liberal me- wanted the pogroms being carried out by dia are wringing their hands about a situa- Zionist religious fanatics and settlers in tion that has “gotten out of hand,” that is Israeli cities with mixed Arab and Jew- supposedly being driven by “extremists” ish populations, particularly Haifa, Acre, on both sides, Hamas on the one hand, Ne- Jaffa, Ramla and Lod, or more properly tanyahu on the other. Nonsense. The war Lydda, its name before the 1948 massacre Palestinians carrying the bodies of children killed in May 16 Israeli raid in Gaza. was deliberately set off by the Israeli prime when Zionists killed hundreds and drove The next day, 42 people were killed in Gaza air strikes, 10 of them children. minister, who is on trial for corruption and out thousands of Arabs in the Lydda Death In the face of the new outbreak of the after the last election has not been able to March. Now, ultra-rightist Zionists are out Zionist War... unending Zionist war, the Internationalist form a new coalition government, yet is to “finish the job.” continued from page 1 Group and League for the Fourth Internation- still running things as head of a “caretaker” “Ethnic Cleansing” of Arabs residential areas with artillery and bombs, al call to defend the oppressed Palestinian government. Netanyahu decided on an old Would Be Cataclysmic vow to continue until they are finished with people against their oppressors, in the first in- trick: launch a war and then people will their lengthy target list. Yet the Zionists stance the Israeli militarists and pogromists, have to rally ’round the leadership. Spe- For many decades, these cities have have failed to break Palestinian resistance. backed up by U.S. and European imperial- cifically, he got his “public security” min- had between one-sixth and one-third Arab The horrific images – of apartment ism. We call to defend Gaza, the new War- ister, Amir Ohana, a Netanyahu flunkey, to population, with and Arabs often liv- buildings flattened by bombs, of a father saw Ghetto, against the Israeli mass murder- launch a series of unprovoked attacks on ing in the same neighborhoods and even the staring at his dead children in a morgue, of ers; to break the Israeli-Egyptian siege that Palestinians. It began on the first night of same buildings. Many Jews in those cities an Arab being lynched by Jewish pogrom- has turned this barren land of refugees into Ramadan, April 13, when police invaded were proud of living with Arabs. However, ists – have set off protests of tens of thou- an open-air prison, to be bombed to smither- the al Aqsa mosque and cut off the speak- in recent years, rightist Zionists have sought sands worldwide. In Europe, imperialist eens every few years; and to drive the Israeli ers broadcasting evening prayers. to ghettoize the Arab residents and drown rulers have tried to smear protesters as an- army and all Zionist settlers out of occupied Shortly after, the police banned gath- them out in a flood of new Jewish residents ti-Semites, breaking up and banning dem- Palestinian territory. erings at the Damascus Gate where Arab of these cities, particularly Lydda. Since May onstrations against the Zionist bloodbath. In this war, we understand that the youth gather in the evening during Rama- 11, hundreds of Zionist-fascist thugs, many In the United States, Democratic president launching of rockets from Gaza is a des- dan. This led to nightly clashes between of them armed, have been marching through Joe Biden has emphatically backed Israeli perate attempt to stand up to and retaliate young Palestinian men and the police. On the mixed cities threatening and mercilessly military action against “terrorist groups in against the Israeli attackers, while we give April 21, several hundred members of a beating Arab residents, some of which has Gaza,” when the real terrorists are the Is- no political support to the Islamist1 forces Zionist-fascist group, Lehava, marched been caught on videotape. These are po- raeli military and Zionist lynch mobs ram- who are mortal enemies of communism, through central Jerusalem chanting groms, like those carried out by the tsarist paging in the streets. from Iran and Syria to Palestine (where “Death to Arabs” and attacking Palestin- Black Hundreds who attacked Jewish quar- A White House readout of a May 17 Hamas was first sponsored by Israel). Yet ian passers-by. While this was going on, ters in Russia before the Revolution, or racist the fact is that in this one-sided war, Pal- lynch mobs in the Jim Crow South in the U.S. call with Netanyahu says that Biden “ex- Palestinians were demonstrating daily in 2 pressed his support for a cease-fire,” but estinians are massively outgunned by the the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East At least three different fascist organizations are involved, some of them offshoots of Meir added that the two “discussed progress Israeli military. The Zionist citadel will not Jerusalem, where settlers have been trying Kahane’s party, which was banned. in Israel’s military operations” in Gaza. be brought down by homemade rockets – to evict Arab families, with a court deci- Kahane was the founder of the ultra-right ter- Meanwhile, the administration informed that will take revolutionary class struggle sion due on May 10. Police regularly beat rorist Jewish Defense League in New York. the U.S. Congress that it has approved the inside Israel, and internationally. demonstrators, including a Jewish member Netanyahu is angling for a coalition sale of $735 million in precision-guided With the imperialists near unanimous of the who is part of the predomi- with these fascists, who repeatedly as- weapons to Israel. Against all those who in backing Israel, and opportunist left- nantly Arab . Jerusalem deputy saulted Arabs in East Jerusalem in April. called to put the Biden regime in office, ists tailing after Palestinian nationalism mayor Aryeh King, a leader of the ultra- In Lod, the pretext was “riots” by Arab don’t forget how, yet again, the Democratic and Islamism, the LFI uniquely stands for Zionist settlers, declared that, “of course,” youth enraged by the attack on al Aqsa and Party of U.S. imperialism has provided the proletarian internationalism. We urgently the evictions were part of a strategy to the torching of synagogues provocatively weapons Israel uses to rain death on the call for labor action against the Zionist/ insert “layers of Jews” into East Jerusa- placed in Arab neighborhoods. Netanya- Palestinian people, like those U.S.-built imperialist war on Palestinians, including lem. In other words, “ethnic cleansing” by hu claimed that Jews were the victims of F-16 jets that are terror-bombing Gaza. boycotting Israeli air and sea cargo. Ital- pushing Arabs out. “lynchers” and vowed to use an “iron fist” In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, ian dock workers in the port of Livorno Then, on Friday, May 7, police at- to crush the Arabs, while defense minister youth are rising up, and as the destruction declared that they would not handle Is- tacked a group of worshippers at the al Gantz declared a state of emergency and of Gaza goes on relentlessly, there is talk of raeli military cargo. Now the International Aqsa mosque, using stun grenades, tear gas locked down the city. The public security a third intifada, or uprising, following the Dockworkers Council has called on port and rubber bullets inside the prayer hall of minister Ohana, a fascistic settler, specifi- rebellions of 1987-1993, and from 2000- workers to refuse to handle war materiel the third-holiest site of Islam, injuring over cally endorsed the armed ultra-rightist vig- 2004 (the latter triggered by the butcher bound for Israel. This should be imple- 200 as youths fought back. And on May 10, ilantes roaming the streets. What is taking ’s invasion of the al Aqsa mented immediately by port unions in the when rightist and fascist Zionists provoca- place inside Israel is state-sponsored, Zion- compound by 1,000 police). Today a “gen- U.S. (ILA and ILWU) and worldwide. tively march through the Muslim Quarter In calling to stop Zionist “ethnic ist-fascist terror against the Arab popula- eral strike and day of action” was called by of the Old City heading to the Temple cleansing” from 1948 on and to defend the tion. The mobs are thirsting to drive out the Arab labor and community groups in Israel Mount (also the location of the al Aqsa Palestinians’ right to return, we empha- Arab population and implement longstand- for all of historic Palestine to protest the mosque) on “Jerusalem Day,” celebrating size that this requires common struggle by ing plans of ultra-rightists, Netanyahu’s attacks on Gaza and on Palestinians in East the seizure of Arab East Jerusalem in the Arab and Jewish working people leading right-wing Likud as well as some “moder- Jerusalem and Israel. Hundreds of thou- 1967 war, only at the very last minute did to Arab-Hebrew workers revolution. Pal- ate” Zionists, to formally annex much of sands stopped work, shutting down work- police reroute the march. At the same time, estine is a case of interpenetrated peoples. the West Bank to Israel. sites, stores and other businesses, both hundreds of police raided the mosque for This is in line with the grotesque Middle 1 Islamism, or political Islam, is a doctrine hold- in Israel and the West Bank, where there the second time in three days, on the pre- East “peace plan” of Donald Trump, unveiled ing that Islamic law (sharia) should govern soci- were clashes with the Israeli military. Initi- text that Muslims were stockpiling stones last year, which sought to push hundreds of ated by the High Follow-Up Committee of ety. For Islamists there is no separation of mosque (to protect al Aqsa from attack by the po- and state. While there are different Islamist cur- thousands of West Bank Arabs into Jordan and Palestinians in Israel, led by Mohammad lice and the rightists). This produced a toll rents, and sharp differences between Islamists of lop off Arab-majority regions around Umm Barakeh, a former member of the Knesset the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, all call for of over 330 wounded, sending 250 to the (parliament) for the leftist party, a theocratic, inherently undemocratic regime in hospital. It was crystal clear that this would 2 These include Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), the action’s endorsers extended even to the which religious doctrine and authority are su- set off massive protests by Arabs and the Lehava (Flame) and the religious Zionist Tkuma discredited Palestinian Authority. preme, and thus are inherently anti-democratic. launching of missiles by Hamas. movements.

6 The Internationalist Al-Fahm in northern Israel.3 This area was back to Britain after independence. Note formerly a stronghold of the Palestinian Com- that in Algeria the French colonists, known munist Party, which gave rise to the Israeli CP as pieds noirs, were 10% of the population; Internationalist photo () . A portrait of Lenin once hung in the in British Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the city hall of Nazareth, where the CP held the white settlers were about 8% of the popula- mayoralty for decades until 2014. The Zionist tion. In comparison, the Hebrew-speaking racists seek to get rid of these Arabs as well. Jewish population constitutes about three- The mixed population cities are in the center quarters of Israel’s population.5 of coastal Israel, which is why Lydda was a Although the establishment of Israel particular target of massacres and “popula- was a colonial project, facilitated by Brit- tion transfer” in 1948 (led by Yigal Allon and ish imperialism after the 1917 Balfour Yitzhak Rabin, members of the Palmach mili- Declaration, Israel is not a colony – it is tia linked to the self-styled “Marxist-Zionist” a regional power and a bellicose imperial- Mapam party). Lod, 14 miles from , ist client, particularly of U.S. imperialism. is the site of Israel’s international airport and Were full-scale war to break out, while astride the highway to Jerusalem. many might take off for South Florida, So it is possible that there will be a overall the Israeli Jewish population isn’t push to drive out the Arabs from Lod/ going anywhere. No real program for de- Internationalists at L.A. protest against Israeli war on Palestinians, May 15. Lydda, but if so it would be a cataclysm. feating Zionism can be based on such il- onists aren’t mainly interested in super- mane society could tolerate. But it is impor- It would certainly go hand in hand with the lusions. The Hebrew-speaking population exploiting Palestinian labor, but instead tant that they be brought to justice by the drive to expel Arab residents of the Sheikh must be split, along class lines. would like to expel the Arabs altogether. Hebrew-speaking working class and revo- Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Israel is also not an “apartheid state” That is why we have written about the lutionaries, as part of putting an end to the Such a racist purge would not just be an like South Africa, another favorite com- danger of a Zionist “final solution,” de- endless cycle of nationalist slaughter. action by the fascist lynch mobs – “eth- parison. Liberals and reformists interpret scribing Gaza and the West Bank enclaves The situation facing the embattled nic cleansing” almost always requires the “apartheid” to mean very repressive or envisioned by the annexation plans as gi- Palestinian Arab people today is grim, as backing of the armed force of a state pow- very racist, as in the recent (27 April) re- ant concentration camps for Palestinians. it has been for the past three-quarters of a er. And it would almost certainly be met port by Human Rights Watch, “A Thresh- It should not be forgotten that the Zionists century of Zionist ascendance, and before with bitter resistance, for everyone remem- old Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the – both “Labor” Zionists like David Ben that British colonialism and the Ottoman bers that the Arabs that the Zionists forced Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.”6 It Gurion and the “Revisionist” Zionists led empire. But not all Israeli Jews want to out in 1948, in order to establish the state is understandable that outrage against the by Ze’ev Jabotinsky – cooperated with the live forever in a garrison state, and plenty of Israel, were never to return.4 So if they horrendous crimes of Israel against the Pal- Hitler regime and opposed the 1943 War- are opposed to the fascist settlers and ul- launch a serious attempt at driving out the estinian people would lead some activists saw Ghetto Uprising.7 The “solution” that tra-rightist religious zealots now maraud- Arabs today, it would likely be a bloodbath to reach for an evocative comparison. But Netanyahu and Kahane’s heirs yearn for is ing in the streets. Leon Trotsky long ago of massive proportions, provoking an ex- rather than describing the material reality much closer to Nazi Germany than apart- warned that the Zionist enterprise would plosive reaction throughout the Near East of the Zionist state, this term is an expres- heid South Africa and could ultimately be be a death trap for Jews. There are fault and the world. One can imagine the impact sion of liberal despair. genocidal, literally. As we wrote in 2014: lines in Israeli society, but it will take a in , where Palestinians and ultra- It’s also connected to a program, in the “In rejecting the characterization of Is- huge shock to break the Zionist ham- Orthodox Jews live in adjacent areas of case of Israel, like South Africa, of “BDS” – rael proper as a ‘colonial-settler state’ or merlock. The only road to liberation lies Bay Ridge and Borough Park. that is, “boycott, divestment and sanctions.” ‘apartheid state,’ we in no way dimin- through united class struggle by work- But refusing to buy Sabra brand hummus ish the monstrous nature of the Zionist The Nature of ers and the oppressed, both in Palestine, will not stop the war on Palestinian Arabs, crimes. On the contrary, what Israeli rul- throughout the region and internationally. Zionist Oppression any more than boycotting Krugerrand coins ers are prepared to do to the Palestinians Labor actions against the Israeli milita- Revolutionary Marxists oppose the led to the fall of South African apartheid. is potentially much worse than what the rists, even if mainly symbolic at this point, very existence of a “Jewish state,” just as And who exactly is supposed to divest and Rhodesian or South African racists did.” can point the way. Revolutionary workers –“Defend Gaza and the Palestinian People we oppose the “Islamic Republic” of Iran sanction? This is a call on capitalist multina- struggles to bring down the Arab bour- – For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution!” or self-designated Christian states like Fran- tionals and U.S. imperialism, which is guilty geois rulers, particularly in Egypt and (July 2014), in The Internationalist No. co’s Spain, all of which are inherently un- of far greater crimes against oppressed peo- 38, October-November 2014 Turkey, would shake the Zionist entity. democratic. We defend the oppressed Pales- ples than even the kill-crazed Zionists. And What will result from the current barbaric In Europe, where the rulers lyingly tinian people against the Zionist oppressors. anyone who thinks the Pentagon will stop war on the Palestinians? Yet another cease- label any and all opposition to Israel anti- But what is to become of the two peoples buying Israeli software for its computers or fire? The Palestinians will still be caught in a Semitic, the fight against Zionist militarism now occupying historical Palestine? Pales- stop hiring Israeli mercenaries to train its Zionist vise. Regional war, mass “population is against the bourgeoisies and social demo- tinian nationalists chant, “From the River to paramilitary death squads in Latin America transfer” as the Zionist founders euphemisti- crats. In the United States, where even the the Sea, Palestine will be free!” Various left is dreaming. cally called it? To all these terrible outcomes, most left-posing Democrats go no further groups, after long tailing Yasir Arafat’s Pal- But, beyond its programmatic impli- the answer must be to fight forArab-Hebrew than criticizing unconditional U.S. aid to the estine Liberation Organization and its sup- cations, the term is not historically accu- workers revolution. This path is difficult, but Zionist butchers (and Bernie Sanders has port for a “two-state solution,” have lately rate. As Marxists we understand that the it is the only real way out. regularly voted to send millions to finance taken up the call for a “one-state solution” apartheid regime did not just consist of the Iron Dome anti-missile system and other in a “democratic secular Palestine.” legal measures such as passbooks, but is a Smash Zionism and parts of the Israeli war machine),8 a fight to For liberals and leftists, these pro- particular brand of capitalist wage slavery Imperialism with International stop all U.S. aid to Israel, and to break with grams are democratic illusions, while many based on super-exploitation of black Afri- Socialist Revolution the Democrats and all capitalist parties Palestinian nationalists and Islamists, hav- can workers forcibly segregated in town- would have an impact. Without the backing The ceaseless attacks on the Palestinian ing endured decades of Zionist torture and ships and “bantustans.” And in apartheid of its imperialist overlords, Israel is a very population will eventually lead to an explo- murder, dream of simply kicking Israeli South Africa, whites were about 15% of small country in an Arab sea. But ultimately, sion. It is vital that the Zionist fortress be Jews out. Today there are approximately the population. One can say that the Israe- victory over Zionism and imperialism (and breached from within. Israel, after all, has 6.8 million Jews and 6.8 million Arabs in li-occupied West Bank is subject to apart- the other imperialist clients and bourgeois hundreds of nuclear weapons, and a lead- historic Palestine (plus millions more Pal- heid-like rule, where the Palestinian Arab satrapies throughout the area) can only ership crazy enough to use them, against estinian refugees who were pushed into population is carved up into little cantons, come about through international socialist Iran or anyone else. Until a few years ago, other countries, including Jordan, Lebanon and some Israeli employers wring super- revolution. The League for the Fourth In- recruits to the Israeli tank corps were taken and elsewhere). But under capitalism, the profits from the super-exploited labor of ternational seeks to forge the nucleus of the to the top of the Masada escarpment in the stronger power will prevail, and today that their Arab workers. But in Israel itself, the Leninist-Trotskyist communist party that is Judaean Desert to swear their oath of alle- power is the Zionists, so that one state or Arab and Hebrew-speaking population is indispensable to lead that revolution. n giance. That is where close to 1,000 Zealots two, Palestinian Arabs lose. still interpenetrated, and the hardline Zi- were said to have committed mass suicide Many on the left refer to Israel as a 5 Opposing the Zionist claim that Israel is 8 The Vermont senator and Democratic prima- when surrounded by Roman legions in the “colonial-settler state,” as if it were some “the state of the Jewish people,” revolution- ry candidate for president who calls himself a kind of colony of a country that the Israeli ary Trotskyists use the term “Hebrew-speaking year 74. That was the end of the Zealots, but “democratic socialist” says he is “pro-Israel” Jews could go back to if things got rough, people” to refer to the population that became today their self-styled heirs have their fin- and joined his Senate colleagues last year in like the Algerian colonists who went to the dominant nation in Israel with the formation ger on the nuclear trigger. There is a whole giving unanimous consent – twice! – to appro- France, or the Rhodesian whites who went of the Zionist state. layer of the Israeli ruling stratum of some priating $3.3 billion to Israel under the “Foreign 6 HRW is an imperialist agency that has typi- thousands of pathological killers that no hu- Military Financing Program.” Today Sanders 3 See “No to Trump/Israel West Bank Annexation cally produced war propaganda about human only calls for Biden to take a “hard look” at Plan!” The Internationalist No. 58, Winter 2020. rights abuses by regimes or movements that 7 See “Zionism,. Imperialism and Anti-Semi- Israel’s use of U.S. military aid, to “consider” 4 See “1948: The Year of the Naqba (Catastro- U.S. rulers oppose or want to overthrow, al- tism” and “Zionist Complicity in the Destruction reducing it and making it conditional on good phe)” in The Internationalist No. 9 (special is- though occasionally (as now) it may be out of of Hungarian Jewry” and other articles in The behavior. This is in stark contrast to the demand sue on Palestine), January-February 2001. step with the powers that be in Washington. Internationalist No. 9, January-February 2001. that all aid be cut off immediately. April-June 2021 7 Adam Toledo, Anthony Alvarez and So Many Others Chicago Cops’ Killing Machine Grinds On CHICAGO, April 19 – In the early Washington in 2000 was justified. morning hours of Monday, March In the summer of 2018, as 29, Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old Lightfoot was campaigning for Shafkat Anowar / AP Shafkat Anowar middle-school student, was mur- mayor against Emanuel, police dered by a police officer who was killed Maurice Granton in June chasing him down an alley in the and Harith “Snoop” Augustus in overwhelmingly Latino, largely July. Ganton was shot in the back Mexican, neighborhood of La Vil- while trying to scale a fence, Au- lita, or Little Village, on Chicago’s gustus was a neighborhood barber Southwest Side. The cop yelled, described as having “character- “Stop right f—king now!” As the istics of an armed person” (what- teenager slowed down, his pursuer ever that means), as if that justified screamed, “Hands, show me your shooting him. We said “having a f—king hands!” Adam stopped, firearm is aright ,” but liberal lead- turned with his hands up, empty, and ers held “anti-violence” marches in a split second the cop shot him in to push gun control, taking the heat the chest, killing him. The Chicago off the CPD.2 That fall, the trial of Police Department claimed that the killer cop Jason Van Dyke for the shooting of Toledo occurred in an slaying of Laquan McDonald riv- “armed confrontation.” It took the Demonstrators in Chicago’s Loop on April 14 protest the police killing of 13-year-old Adam eted the city. Van Dyke beat the Chicago Police Department (CPD) Toledo. The next day body-cam footage was released showing that Adam had his hands up, first-degree murder rap, and was two days to inform his mother that empty, when he was shot to death. only convicted of second-degree cops had killed her son. on April 2. Two weeks later, the CPD still a “Community Safety Oversight Board,” murder and 16 counts of aggravat- The incident was set off by an automat- hadn’t explained why cops were chasing which would mean getting activists to col- ed battery with a firearm, one for each bullet ed gunfire locator, ShotSpotter, which report- him, nor have they released the body-cam laborate in racist repression. he pumped into McDonald. He got less than ed shots fired “at approximately 2:36 a.m.” video, as the family is calling for. As pro- As the Internationalist Group and seven years behind bars. at a location in Little Village (press confer- testers demand an end to the endless po- Revolutionary Internationalist Youth have So, when the video of George Floyd’s ence of CPD superintendent David Brown, lice murder spree, the only response from insisted throughout, only revolution can murder went viral in May 2020, Chicago April 5). This technology, in use in 90 cities Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been vague talk bring justice! was primed to erupt. In March and April across the U.S., uses sensors placed on roof- of setting guidelines on foot chases, which the city was reeling from the COVID-19 The Weaponization of tops and light poles around what the police are involved in one-third of all Chicago pandemic. The governor proclaimed a consider “high crime areas” – i.e., African police shootings, and complaining of “way Infrastructure statewide disaster order on March 9, and American and Latino neighborhoods – and too many guns on our streets” – by which Chicago, one of the most rigidly segre- a shelter-in-place order went into effect on sends automatic alerts with GPS info to po- she doesn’t mean cops with Glocks. Yet the gated cities in the country, has also been one March 21. Gatherings of 50 or more people lice in the area. Two police cruising the area crime here is police gunning down people of the most ruthlessly policed going back to were banned, later tightened to ten people. got the notification “at 2:37” The( Intercept, for supposedly having guns. the days of the Haymarket massacre of May But when news of Floyd’s killing under 13 April) and within a minute were at the On April 16, the day after the video was 1886. Amid a general strike for the eight- the knee of a Minneapolis cop hit, thou- location where they spotted two young men released revealing that Adam Toledo didn’t hour day, police shot four workers while sands spontaneously went into the streets and chased them down an alley. At 2:38:40, have a gun when he was shot – contradicting breaking up a demonstration protesting the of Chicago to protest in anguish and rage, according to the body-cam footage, police police and prosecutor lies – thousands came cop killing of six strikers the previous day, as did hundreds of thousands around the officer Eric Stillman shot and killed Adam out to protest in the Logan Square neighbor- and then railroaded anarchist workers lead- U.S. And there they were met with armed Toledo. The app activated, and less than hood where Mayor Lightfoot lives. The city ers to the gallows. In 1968, Mayor Richard battalions of cops with truncheons, shields three minutes later, a white cop had executed prepared by flooding downtown with police, J. Daley unleashed the CPD in a cop riot and full riot gear. On May 29, police were a 13-year-old Latino boy. The CPD today is stationing salt trucks around CPD headquar- against anti-war demonstrators outside the instructed to “no longer use force to dis- an automated racist murder machine. ters and raising the Lake Shore Drive bridge Democratic National Convention, as police perse large gatherings,” but use force they That machine serves to enforce the (for “maintenance”), while businesses along pushed protesters through plate-glass win- did, with a vengeance. “law and order” of the capitalist rulers, and Michigan Avenue were boarding up. The dows, beat them bloody and arrested hun- Over 1,000 people were arrested be- it is fueled by lies. After the CPD spokes- demo itself was surrounded by police cars, dreds. More recently, Mayor Rahm Eman- tween the nights of May 30 and 31, many man’s March 29 claim that Adam was shot with drones and helicopters overhead. These uel (Barack Obama’s former chief of staff) assaulted by cops and tear-gassed, as the “in an armed confrontation,” the Cook were part of contingency plans for a massive covered up the 2014 cop murder of Laquan mayor rolled out a 9 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew. County state’s attorney declared on April response by police using hundreds of city McDonald1 and other police killings, while A parking ban was instituted downtown as 10 that he “has a gun in his right hand” be- “assets” (heavy trucks) with National Guard operating a secret jail in Homan Square. City Hall plotted a calculated, brutal re- fore the police officer shot. But the cop’s on standby in preparation for the jury verdict After 43 years under “Boss” Daley and sponse. The mayor said then that “she was bodycam video released on April 15 clear- in the Minneapolis , his son Richard M. and eight years under not considering asking Gov. J.B. Pritzker ly showed Adam with his hands raised, and the killer cop who murdered George Floyd. high-handed “King Rahm,” the Chicago Po- to mobilize the National Guard to assist the no gun. As Adeena Weiss Ortiz, an attorney The demands of the protests included lice Department has long been synonymous Chicago Police Department.” But when the for the Toledo family, said at a press con- calls for justice for Adam Toledo and An- with racist cop brutality. In 2019, Chicago- brutal May 30 police assault on protesters ference, “If you’re shooting an unarmed thony Alvarez, “no justice, no peace,” il- ans elected Lightfoot, who has long posed failed to intimidate, on May 31, Lightfoot child with his arms in the air, it’s an assas- lusory calls to “abolish the police” (which as a police “reformer,” as mayor. After a announced that the governor, at her re- sination.” Meanwhile, knowing the video under capitalism, if anyone took this se- stint as assistant U.S. district attorney, she quest, “has ordered a contingent of the Na- contradicted their story, the police tried to riously, would just mean putting in some was head of the CPD’s Office of Profes- tional Guard to maintain a limited presence smear the seventh grader as a gang-banger, other “public safety” repressive force) sional Standards in 2002-04. Later, under to support our police department.” Chicago since “The area where Adam was shot is and the standard liberal/reformist refrain Emanuel she was head of the Chicago Po- was flooded with hundreds of National considered to be a Latin Kings stronghold” since last summer to “.” lice Board (2015), dealing with disciplinary Guard and hundreds more state police. (Chicago Sun-Times, 16 April). As we explained last summer (“Abolish actions, then led a The mask of the supposedly “progressive” Adam was one of seven people shot the Police” Under Capitalism?” The In- Task Force (2016), and in 2017 was back on mayor was being ripped off. by Chicago police in the space of a month. ternationalist No. 60, May-July 2020), in the Police Board. Her actual role in all this Riding on Chicago Transit Authority The latest was Anthony Alvarez, age 22, reality these demands aim at luring anti- has been to cover up for the (Democratic) (CTA) you could spot the Humvees from father of a two-year-old daughter, who racist protesters into supporting the budget mayors and police chiefs, including ruling the elevated train tracks – that is, on those that the cop execution of 17-year-old Robert worked as a machine operator at a meat maneuvers of Democratic politicians. To 2 See “Chicago: Democrat-Led Cops Continue factory in Franklin Park. Alvarez, too, was top it off, various “progressive” Dems and 1 See “Chicago: ‘16 Shots, 400 days’,” The In- Racist Killing Spree,” The Internationalist, Au- shot to death by police after a foot chase, pseudo-socialists are now pushing a bill for ternationalist, January 2016. gust 2018. For Workers Action Against Racist Repression!

8 The Internationalist Getty Images

Police body-cam footage of Adam Toledo with his hands in the air, the Bridges over the Chicago River were raised by Mayor Lightfoot last summer, instant before he was shot dead. “kettling” protesters in the Loop: on May 30-31 over 1,000 were arrested. lines where you could even get close, as tect businesses and reassure residents. ningly unprepared for the possibility that running from one situation to another, the city abruptly halted mass transit. Be- But it was the image of the bridges being large numbers of people would surge into lacking coordination and communication.” fore the weekend was out, bemoaning the raised that offered the clearest symbol of the streets” (New York Times, 21 March), Body-cams captured some of the “looting” and continued protests, Lightfoot Chicago’s divisions.” An article in The their complaints were of inadequate crowd most egregious incidents. In one case, a issued an indefinite curfew (the first time Appeal (13 November 2020), “Chicago’s control training, equipment that was lack- transport wagon arrives at a jail and the since 1968, when it was ordered by Boss Mayor Turns City’s Infrastructure into ing or defective, faulty intelligence, etc. cops exit: “After one of the arrestees be- Daley after the assassination of Martin Weapons Against Protesters,” noted: “The The Times wrote that “police also did not gins banging on the wagon from within, Luther King). The Metra commuter rail shutdowns left many feeling that Mayor understand how angry people were,” a a transport officer opens the back door to system cut off service to downtown. In Lightfoot was more concerned about pro- stunning statement, but false: cops under- find a female arrestee lying face-down on the evening, the CTA suspended its entire tecting downtown businesses and some of stood the anger directed at them, and treat- the floor. The CPD member comments, bus and rail system, effectively bringing the city’s wealthiest residents than the po- ed protesters as enemies to be suppressed. ‘chick’s having a seizure, I guess’ and fur- the city to a halt. Most dramatically, the lice violence that brought people out to the Even when reports criticized aggressive ther notes that she appears to be breathing nearly two dozen bridges over the Chicago streets.” police tactics, as in the New York State At- and that there is nothing to be done. The River, which serves as a moat around the Well, yes. But this has always been the torney General’s did, their point was not member then closes the door of the trans- downtown Loop, were suddenly raised to case in Segregation City, U.S.A. By treat- that these violated demonstrators’ rights, port vehicle with the occupants still inside, trap protesters inside. Lightfoot announced ing this as more of the same, these articles but rather that “excessive enforcement … without rendering aid.” In another case: “A that people had “35 minutes” to clear the miss the fact that the pattern of racist re- contributed to heightened tensions,” i.e., CPD member is also captured recounting streets, which she termed “ample notice.” pression is shifting, as the capitalist state they were counterproductive. “The reviews to fellow officers how the member made As we wrote at the time: power exhibits increasingly bonapartist did not examine protesters’ complaints of an arrestee cry by telling the arrestee that “It was black Democrat Chicago mayor traits of strengthened military/police pow- racial bias in policing,” the Times noted la- they would be raped in jail given their thin Lori Lightfoot who that same day carried ers. This is a function of the growing in- conically. physical stature. In the same video, after a out kettling on a vast scale by raising the equality and increasingly sharp class polar- The capitalist rulers are worried radio call related to a car pursuit, an officer bridges connecting the downtown Loop ization in the 21st century United States, that they aren’t prepared to dominate the can be heard telling other officers that CPD to the rest of the city and cutting off ‘El’ and is reflected in the militarization of streets, and from Democratic mayors like should just shoot the tires out and shoot the trains so that trapped demonstrators local police and the resort to police-state Lori Lightfoot to Democratic president occupants of the vehicle in the head.” could not escape, while police arrested measures, like massive “kettling” to quell Biden in the White House, they intend to This cop riot and violence against hundreds and threw them into COVID- unrest by “those at the bottom.” In this rectify this. Thus, in Los Angeles the re- protesters was clearly instigated from infested jails. drive to a “strong state” amid putrefying ported complaints were that not enough above. The report notes that on May 29, –“Trump and Democrats Stage Ominous capitalism, it is not the Trump Republicans police were trained on how to fire rubber the “rhetoric and stakes were heightened Trial Run for Martial Law,” The Interna- hobnobbing with fascistic and outright fas- bullets into crowds, that there were not when then-President Donald Trump deliv- tionalist No. 60, May-July 2020 cist forces who are in the forefront, but the enough buses to transport arrested dem- ered an ultimatum to Minneapolis protest- Then it happened again, in August, Democrats, who look to and rely on the onstrators, and that there was no planning ers and suggested that the military could with the police shooting of Latrell Allen in Pentagon, National Guard and local police. for “field jails.” In Chicago, the complaints use armed force to suppress riots,” tweet- Englewood, a poor area in South Chicago were not against mass arrests, but that the ing “When the looting starts, the shoot- “Chaos and Confusion” and that is 94% black. A witness said, “He was cops didn’t have enough mass arrest kits ing starts.” The next day six people were crying, asking the officer – he had his hands Racist Repression and that the zip-ties were decayed or bro- shot and one killed, possibly by vigilantes, up, like ‘Why you keep shooting me?’” In the wake of the unprecedented mass ken. In discussing “chaos and confusion in amid the Chicago protests. And Trump The cops’ body cameras were turned off. protests last summer, by early this year vo- the command staff,” the report lamented: had an ally on the spot. According to the Witnesses denied that Allen had a gun, but luminous reports had been issued by in- “Missing reports and videos may limit or report, that same night the CPD chief and the police tore up his family’s household spectors general, special commissions and preclude prosecution of some arrestees” Mayor Lightfoot discussed the possibility looking for one anyway (CBS 2 Chicago risk-management companies on the police (Report on Chicago’s Response to George of raising the downtown bridges “to limit News, 10 August 2020). While Latrell was response in cities across the country. Back Floyd Protests and Unrest, 18 February). the number of protesters able to access lying in a hospital bed, he was charged in 1968, the Kerner Commission Report While there was evidently plenty of Trump International Hotel and Tower.” with attempted murder. In two days of furi- (of the National Advisory Commission chaos and confusion at the top, the Chicago Department of Transportation officials ob- ous protests, hundreds were arrested as the on Civil Disorders) on the upheavals that report documents a full-scale police riot, in jected that the “safety of protesters might CPD unleashed a barrage of pepper spray. swept northern U.S. cities from 1964 to which thousands of cops flooded into the be at risk if bridges were raised with people And as cops chased the crowd in the Loop 1967 cited white racism as the detonator, Loop, where demonstrators were kettled on them.” But the bridges were brutally south on Michigan Avenue, once more the famously concluding: “Our nation is mov- and trapped, beaten, tear-gassed and mass- cleared as cop beat, punched and kicked mayor raised the bridges, this time to cut ing toward two societies, one black, one arrested. There was “widespread non-com- demonstrators. off protesters from marching north to the white, separate and unequal.” That official pliance with CPD’s policy requiring use of Altogether, a total of 3,775 arrests affluent Gold Coast and Magnificent Mile observation changed nothing, of course. BWCs” (body-cams), the report says, and were made in the week of protest, but shopping area. But the reports on the 2020 protests against also “insufficient supervision of officers,” only about a third had any documentation The weaponizing of the bridges, and racist police brutality are quite different: legalese for open season for police brutal- at all. Typically, a district commander in- the CTA, was the most arresting symbol a cross between military after-action and ity. Cops “deployed to the field directly” structed officers to just “take your hand- of Lightfoot’s particular brand of rac- lessons-learned reports. Their prime, and rather than from their stations, and indeed, cuffs out and put them on somebody.” As ist repression. A ProPublica (14 August often exclusive, concern has been that po- “many CPD members from across the city a result, many protesters were released 2020) article, “In Lori Lightfoot’s Chi- lice couldn’t contain the protests. self-deployed …. without specific assign- without charges or later had the charges cago, Bridges Have Become Barricades,” Thus, while “the reports are a damning ments or clear direction” from an on-site dropped. But the point of the round-up said: “The move was among a number of indictment of police forces that were poor- commander. Some squads went marauding and mass arrests was to get demonstra- measures the mayor announced to pro- ly trained, heavily militarized and stun- through the Loop playing “whack-a-mole, tors off the streets. And while she may

April-June 2021 9 not have the clout of a Boss Daley or ment” NGOs and the like) to become Bottom line: the police are the central – waited for the verdict with bated breath. King Rahm, Mayor Lori Lightfoot is very complicit in the racist repression of those enforcers of the systematic oppression of Millions outraged at the police lynching of much the boss of the sadistic, racist CPD. communities. In all the U.S., nowhere African Americans, Latinos, Native Ameri- George Floyd wondered if Chauvin would If there was confusion and chaos at the have such “oversight” bodies made the cans, immigrants and other oppressed peo- be yet one more in the endless chain of top last time around, the tight-knit local slightest dent in the unrelenting police ple that is built into the structure of U.S. killer cops who, while guilty as hell, are let ruling class and the Democratic machine murder machine, least of all in Minne- capitalism, and which is reflected in the rac- off or given just a slap on the wrist. that runs the city in the interest of capital apolis, which has had a civilian review ism that permeates this society founded on On April 20, the jury’s verdict was read: is going to ensure that next time around board since 1990. Some measures – like genocide and chattel slavery. As the banner “guilty on all charges,” including second- the repression is much more thorough. No junking the “qualified immunity” from of the Internationalist Group and Revolu- degree murder. This may have prevented a more Mr. Nice Guy. civil suits that police enjoy, or making tionary Internationalist Youth that we car- repeat of last summer’s huge and sustained For Workers Strikes Against discipline and complaint records public ried last Juneteenth declared, “The Police protests, but the pandemic of racist police – could have some marginal effect. But Can’t Be ‘Reformed’.” It was true yes- murder is far from over. With “shoot ’em in Racist Cop Terror “anti-racist training,” “duty to intervene” terday, it’s true today: only revolution can the leg” Biden and the Democrats in office, Racist repression is S.O.P. for Chi- laws against excessive use of force by bring justice – for Adam Toledo and Antho- the guilty verdict, plus enough “stimulus” cago police: it’s what they do, day in fellow police (Minneapolis has one, yet ny Alvarez, for Daunte Wright and George money to spread around to community and day out, year after year. That hasn’t it didn’t stop killer cop Chauvin), etc., Floyd, for Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland activists and NGOs, the bourgeoisie just changed one iota, no matter which Demo- are empty PR gimmicks, as repression is and all the victims of racist killer cops. n hopes it can keep things from exploding. crat is in the mayor’s chair (and a Repub- the function of the police. As testimony was about to begin in the lican would be no different). In Chicago, “Democratize the police,” “disarm the George Floyd... Chauvin trial, police departments around black people are 22 times more likely than police,” “abolish the police,” “community continued from page 1 the country erected barricades to prepare for whites to be killed by cops, by far the big- control of the police,” as many demonstra- City Democratic mayoral primary, and in the popular outrage sure to follow anything gest racial disparity in police killing of tors have called for? Not possible under capi- elections from coast to coast, are demand- other than a guilty verdict. Extra cops were all major U.S. cities (FiveThirtyEight, 4 talism. But that doesn’t mean nothing can be ing more cops. put on standby in Chicago, Los Angeles, February). And the cops get away with it done in the here and now about the plague of Racist police brutality is not a mat- New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, because they enjoy near-total impunity racist police murders. On the contrary, the In- ter of a few “bad apples,” or even a barrel Atlanta and elsewhere. Washington, D.C. from legal or other consequences. In one ternationalist Group calls for powerful work- full. It’s not just about “police culture” and mayor Muriel Bowser got the army to send study, of 28,500 citizen complaints filed ers mobilization and strike action against the “” when it comes to 250 troops to patrol the streets of the capi- against CPD officers from 2011 to 2015, racist repression. If the next time Chi cops “testilying” for fellow cops in court. Police tal. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker deployed in 97% of the cases there was no punish- kill someone, transit workers shut down the L impunity is built into the system, and that state troopers and 125 National Guard ment. One of the main people responsible and all CTA transit; if teachers, students and system is racist American capitalism. That troops to supplement cops in Chicago. In for that was Lori Lightfoot as she headed staff walk out of the schools with the support is true even with black cops, black police Minneapolis, cement barricades and barbed police disciplinary panels. of parents; if workers throughout “the city chiefs, black mayors and black presidents, wire blanketed downtown since jury selec- In her 2018-19 election campaign, that works” stop work and go on strike, that because the laws themselves, the political tion began in March. Operation “Safety one of Lightfoot’s top planks was for a would have an impact. And if the cops keep system and the whole economic and social Net” mobilized over 3,000 National Guard civilian oversight commission for the po- it up, shut the city down! structure are racist. Under this system, black soldiers and hundreds of backup cops from lice. But like her promise of an elected Can it happen? Look at what hap- people are 2.6 times as likely to be killed other states, making military outposts and school board, after being elected mayor pened on Juneteenth (June 19) of last by police as whites (in Chicago 22 times as armored vehicles a common sight. she dropped that. For the past several 2 year, when the International Longshore likely), and Latinos 1.5 times as likely. At The show trial of Derek Chauvin was years there have been competing propos- and Warehouse Union (ILWU) shut down the same time, a majority of those killed by a spectacle made for the age of coronavi- als for a civilian review board, one put 3 every port on the U.S. West Coast against police are non-Hispanic whites. While rac- rus. The wall-to-wall media coverage (de- forward by the Grassroots Alliance for police brutality and systemic racism. As ism is key to the picture, it’s not just about spite only two journalists being allowed Police Accountability and the other by the the giant cranes stood idle, their booms race, but also class: it is overwhelmingly in the courtroom at once) was designed to Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Po- up, 30,000 protesters streamed through the poor and working people whose lives are sell the story line that the criminal “justice” litical Repression pushing a Civilian Po- snuffed out by kill-crazed cops.4 lice Accountability Council. These have port of Oakland. That is the power of labor. system works, and this trial will prove it. We need to see it in Chicago. And for that The charade of police “reform” won’t The murderer was certainly the personi- now been combined as the Empowering change a thing in this country founded Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) to happen, someone has to fight for it. fication of evil: in the video, Chauvin’s Since, as we have written and the on black slavery and genocide of Native smug demeanor reeked of impunity as he ordinance, which the mayor opposes. She Americans. Today police ride herd on mil- says she will put forward her own propos- history of Chicago shows, Democrats kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck for 9 are the bosses of the racist killer cops, lions of people forced into desperation by minutes and 29 seconds, his victim pinned al, but has yet to do so. The ECPS plan poverty wages, housing segregation and calls for a referendum in 2022 on whether what’s posed in the fight against racist to the ground and handcuffed, unable to re- repression is the need to oppose all the rent-gouging, inadequate and discrimina- sist. With the stakes so high, some kind of to form 22 district councils to work with tory health care and all the other social CPD district commanders and select a capitalist parties and politicians. Elect- guilty verdict was virtually ensured. A ver- ing some social democrats to the city pathologies of the decaying profit system. dict of “not guilty” or a hung jury, unable Community Commission (subject to may- The police “serve and protect” the interests oral and city council approval) to decide council doesn’t change a damn thing, to reach a unanimous decision, would have as shown by the DSA Democratic al- of capital. To put an end to the systemic sparked new conflagrations. The ruling on CPD policy and possibly to select or racism they enforce, the only solution is dermen in Chicago like Byron Sigcho- class could visualize the headline, “Minne- remove Police Board members and the socialist revolution. To see why, you only Lopez or Socialist Alternative’s Kshama apolis Is Burning, Again,” all too vividly. CPD superintendent. have to look at liberal Minneapolis, Minne- Sawant (now also DSA) in Seattle. The The trial began with a lengthy jury The ECPS is being pushed in par- sota, where almost every police “reform” Internationalist Group calls to break selection. In the end, six white, four black ticular by the caucus of six aldermen who in the book was already tried before killer with the Democrats (and Republicans, and two mixed-race jurors were selected. are supporters of Democratic Socialists of cop Chauvin squeezed the life out George and Greens) to undertake the struggle to The proportion of African Americans was America (DSA), all but one elected on the Floyd with a knee to the neck. Democratic Party ticket. In reality, no ordi- forge a revolutionary workers party, a much higher than the 17% black popula- nance or council will change the basic func- party that would lead a struggle together A Carefully Choreographed Trial tion of Hennepin County, even as black po- tion of the police. As Karl Marx, Friedrich with all the oppressed to overthrow the During the weeks of jury selection and tential jurors were rejected at a higher rate Engels and V.I. Lenin insisted, the police system of capitalist wage slavery. trial testimony, the bourgeois media gave a than others. It was hard to find black peo- (along with the military) are the “special Today even a Joe Biden – who led play-by-play account. Every TV channel in ple who haven’t been negatively affected bodies of armed men” who along with their the fight in Congress against desegregat- the Twin Cities became Court TV, the New by police discrimination in their lives. But adjuncts – the courts and prisons – serve to ing schools by busing and authored the York Times posted minute-by-minute live both defense and prosecution understood uphold the power and property of the ruling infamous 1994 crime bill that led to the updates of the testimony. Chauvin’s stone- that a verdict delivered by a jury with Afri- class, acting as “an instrument of exploita- incarceration of millions – can demagogi- faced apparition haunted the court room. can Americans underrepresented could set tion of wage-labor by capital” (Lenin, State cally claim to oppose systemic racism and The city – and indeed the entire country off a firestorm. They all remembered the and Revolution [1917]). The state power call to “root out” racial disparities in the Third Precinct going up in flames as thou- increasingly stands above society, and the criminal “justice” system. But the roots 2 https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/. sands cheered. idea that the capitalist exploiters would al- of rampant police brutality go far deeper 3 https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/peo- Once the testimony got underway, low representatives of the exploited to de- than training or racist cop culture. Wanton ple-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/. the first week was focused on those who 4 cide how its repressive apparatus is wielded killing by the police and mass incarcera- A 2015 study of the fatalencounters.org data witnessed the murder of George Floyd last is the purest “democratic” illusion. tion were the rulers’ answer to the limited base showed that almost all (95%) of police- May. This included 18-year-old Darnella caused deaths occur in neighborhoods with less Moreover, in practice, if any of the gains of the civil rights movement of the Frazier, who filmed the famous video of than $100,000 median family incomes (the me- variants of supposed “community con- 1960s, building up these mechanisms to dian income of neighborhoods where 441 police Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck. Frazier trol” of the police were enacted, it would keep black people under the heel of the killings occurred was $53,000). See https://www. had acted incredibly cool-headedly and mean recruiting members of oppressed bosses, just as Jim Crow segregation re- alternet.org/2015/07/95-police-killings-2015-oc- bravely: she walked her cousin into the populations (community “empower- placed the end of slavery. curred-neighborhoods-incomes-under-100000/. store, out of harm’s way, then came back 10 The Internationalist to film at a discreet distance. She said she cratic Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party attorney feels awful she didn’t intervene to save general Keith Ellison, hoping that some Floyd’s life, but there is no way she could identity politics will keep the lid on. Agence France-Presse have with four cops all joining in the mur- But a few “black faces in high places” der – and it was her video that sent mil- does not change the system, and all of these lions of people into the streets to protest. are part of the capitalist police apparatus. What a country: where parents of black The Attorney General is the state’s “top children have “the conversation,” telling cop,” as now vice president Kamala Harris young men not to run from cops, no sudden described herself when she was the Cali- moves, when stopped driving to keep their fornia AG (her specialty was keeping peo- hands at the “10 and 2” position on the ple in prison despite proof of innocence). steering wheel – and a 17-year-old knows In the state’s closing argument, another of the protocol about filming a police murder the prosecutors defended the “noble pro- in progress. fession” of policing, and emphasized that Today, is hailed as a “this is not an anti-police prosecution … hero, which she totally is. Ramsey Orta, it’s a pro-police prosecution.” By parading who filmed the NYPD chokehold murder “good” cops before the jury, the state is try- of Eric Garner in 2014, was not so lucky. In ing to send the message that the problem is retribution for his courageous act, he was “bad cops” like Chauvin, not the police as viciously pursued by the cops and sent to a whole and the system of exploitation and prison for four years on weapons charges Riot police outside Brooklyn Center, Minn., police headquarters screaming rampant inequality they exist to defend. (he was only released last year). at demonstrators protesting cop murder of Daunte Wright, April 13. The “law enforcement community” (forces During the testimony, it was revealed calling only seven witnesses in two days. With the guilty verdict, the bourgeoi- of repression) closed ranks and gave up that Chauvin had at least 18 prior com- It didn’t call on Chauvin to testify, since sie, its politicians and media breathed a one of their guard dogs, in order to reduce plaints on his record. One of his defense everyone knew that the city could blow the collective sigh of relief. The Minneapo- the heat on the rest. lawyers’ ploys was to claim that Floyd had minute he opened his mouth. The prosecu- lis Star Tribune (20 April) proclaimed it The Myth of Police Reform supposedly died of drug-induced cardiac tion, in turn, didn’t highlight the fact that “A Verdict That Must Change America.” Last summer, we wrote that, “In Min- arrest. Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, Chauvin had used neck or head restraints From the White House, President Biden neapolis, virtually every one of the police testified about her and his addiction to opi- on seven prior occasions, including when declared the trial outcome “a giant step ‘reforms’ that have been bandied about oids. But the medical evidence showed he kicked an intoxicated man in the gut and forward in the march toward justice in in the U.S. have been tried, and failed” only small amounts in his system, and applied neck restraint until the man fell un- America.” Speaking for Wall Street, Ja- (“To Uproot Racist Oppression: Socialist the doctor who treated Floyd at the Hen- conscious – but was only disciplined once. mie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Revolution,” The Internationalist No. 60, nepin County Medical Center testified that No wonder the murderer acted like he said “justice was served” (CNBC, 21 May-July 2020). That included the liberal- Floyd’s cause of death was “asphyxia,” could get away with it. But with Floyd’s April). Yet in the 24 hours following the utopian call to “abolish the police.” Two with complicating factors of “law enforce- death, even Chauvin knew that he had to Chauvin verdict, police killed six people weeks after George Floyd was murdered, ment subdual, restraint and neck compres- take the fall for the team (“law enforce- across the country, including 16-year-old a veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis sion.” Another expert testified that a knee ment”), and the system. He had agreed to Ma’Khia Bryant, shot dead by a police city council (which is entirely Democratic to the neck for nine minutes could kill plead guilty to third-degree murder (a less- officer in Columbus, Ohio, and Andrew except for a lone Green) got up on a stage anyone, and that Floyd showed no signs of er charge), but this was rejected last June Brown, killed by cops in Elizabeth City, at Powderhorn Park to announce that they drug overdose. by Trump’s attorney general William Barr, North Carolina. Now body-cam footage were going to “dismantle” the city’s police The best Chauvin’s cynical defense who worried that it would look lenient and shows Brown was pulling away from the department. Instead, they kicked the hot team could do to bolster their case was to inflame protesters. cops, not driving toward them, disproving button issue to the voters, putting forward bring in David Fowler, former chief medi- But right in the middle of the trial, on their claim of “imminent danger.” a ballot measure to replace the police with cal examiner for the state of Maryland, April 11, Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old A downtown Minneapolis demonstra- a “Department of Community Safety and who claimed that hypertension and carbon black man, was murdered by police in the tion of more than 500 people on the eve- Violence Prevention” – which, of course, monoxide from the cop car exhaust could Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center, ning of April 20, after the Chauvin verdict would still be a police agency, just with a have been a contributing factor. He was by a cop who “mistakenly” shot him with was announced, was largely celebratory. different name. At the vacant gas station near where the forced to admit under cross-examination her gun instead of her taser, after stopping But even this didn’t make it to a vote, murder took place, which has served as that he had not seen any data suggesting him for expired license plates and an air as the city councilors then sent the ballot freshener hanging from the rearview mir- a meeting point for demonstrations, the carbon monoxide poisoning played a role. initiative to a judge-appointed Minneapo- Fowler himself is the defendant in a fed- ror (see “Fury Over Cop Killing of Daunte words “Justice Served” were added to the lis Charter Commission, which in August Wright” on the “Revolutionaries in the “Justice for George Floyd” sign, But ev- eral civil rights lawsuit for violating foren- asked for an additional 90 days to consider Class Struggle” blog). Police violently eryone knows the conviction of one killer sic pathology principles in attempting to the measure. This ensured that it would not repressed protests with rubber bullets and cop won’t stop racist police murder. In lo- cover up police responsibility for the death be on the ballot in November. The obscure tear gas. And on April 15, release of the cal opinion polls, over 90% supported the of 19-year-old Anton Black, killed by a commission has no power to veto such a body-cam footage of the cop who shot guilty verdict, but only a bare majority of cop in Greensboro, Maryland in 2018. The measure, but it did serve as a convenient Adam Toledo to death revealed that the both black and white respondents said it defense also tried to blame an “aggressive device to block it. So what started out as 13-year-old had his hands up. This recalled gave them more confidence in the criminal crowd” that was demanding that Chauvin a supposedly radical change to the Minne- the murder of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in justice system. For now, the Democrats are stop kneeling on Floyd, suggesting that apolis police became by December a pal- 2014 by a Cleveland, Ohio cop. Authorities praising the black police chief Arradondo, this could have “distracted” the killer. try $8 million budget cut (less than 5% of worried that protests against the upsurge of the black prosecutor Jerry Blackwell (a pri- The prosecution portrayed Chauvin the total MPD budget). Still, some Demo- police violence could derail the well-cho- vate lawyer who has represented 3M, Gen- as a rogue cop who violated proper police crats tried to spin this as a win. Ilhan Omar reographed Chauvin trial. eral Mills and Walmart) and black Demo- procedure. Minneapolis Police Depart- (DFL), the U.S. Representative for Min- ment (MPD) officials, trainers and other nesota’s 5th Congressional District and a “experts” lined up to denounce his conduct member of the Democratic “Squad” that Twitter/Caty Wagner and show that he is a very “bad apple.” has been the target of vicious right-wing Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arra- hate propaganda and death threats, tweeted dondo criticized Chauvin for kneeling on that the budget cut constituted “transfor- the neck of a man who was restrained – but mative change.” Hardly. did not say that this is unacceptable in all In the talk of dismantling the police, circumstances. The head of MPD training Camden, New Jersey, was often cited as in 2020 criticized Chauvin’s “improvised an example. In 2012, that city disbanded position.” Chauvin’s immediate supervisor its police force, but then replaced it with when he killed Floyd also testified against county police. Far from ending racist police him. A professor at the University of South repression, the number of cops patrolling Carolina said Chauvin’s restraint of Floyd the city shot up from 268 to 418. Closer to was neither “appropriate” nor “reason- home in Minnesota, the Brooklyn Center able.” Rarely has the police establishment and Brooklyn Park police were hailed as turned so uniformly against one of its own. a “police reform model” by the Star Tri- They were acutely aware of what a wrong bune (3 August 2020). Since 2005, those verdict could bring. “Veto-proof” majority of Minneapolis city council announced on 7 June police departments had a “Joint Commu- So was the defense, which rested after 2020 it would “dismantle” the police department. Result: zero. nity Police Partnership,” which produced April-June 2021 11 arrested protesters to jail, as did Transport Workers Union Local 100 in , with the backing of their union lead- ers. In the Twin Cities, members of several unions also came out to protest the killings of George Floyd last summer, Philando Castille in 2016 and Jamar Clark in 2015.

Internationalist photo But far more is needed. The next time killer cops strike, unions should shut down the whole metro transit system along with flagship stores of the Minneapolis-based Target and Best Buy chains, plus manufac- turing facilities like Medtronics in Brook- lyn Center and Fridley, and the 3M Cottage Grove. The point is to hit the capitalists where it hurts. The Democratic Party would have us believe, as Nancy Pelosi grotesquely said after the Chauvin verdict was announced, Internationalists at Juneteenth NYC march against racist police terror, 19 June 2020. that George Floyd “sacrificed his life for justice.” Yet the conviction of one mur- an “embedded community liaison” and a lion; Minneapolis, $22.3 million) and their comply with ruling-class dictates. As a dering police officer does not alter the sys- “Multicultural Advisory Committee” in frequency, many city governments include result, police repression becomes one tem of racist repression that is integral to each. But no “partnership,” liaison or ad- anticipated amounts in their annual bud- of the most naked forms through which American capitalism. In reality, just over visory committee prevented the murder of gets. Smaller jurisdictions get insurance capitalism subordinates human rights to 1% of killer cops are ever charged (140 Daunte Wright by a Brooklyn Center cop, coverage, like the village of St. Anthony, the demands of private property.” out of a total of 13,000 police who have or stopped police from shooting at protest- MN whose $6 million settlement with the –Farrell Dobbs, Teamster Rebellion (1972) killed civilians since 2005); fewer still are ers with rubber bullets and tear gassing family of Philando Castile came from the Minneapolis cops were just as brutal convicted. Repression is what the police hundreds protesting this murder. Minnesota League of Cities. The families then as today. On 20 July 1934, “Bloody do, it can’t be reformed away. In fact, the Last June, as the city and country deserve every cent they can get – and far Friday,” 67 people were wounded when repressive apparatus has expanded, along were engulfed with protests, Minneapo- more – but the killer cops pay zero, and for police armed with riot guns fired on strik- with the prison system, and become in- lis Public Schools voted unanimously to the cities that employ them it’s just a “cost ing workers. Two were killed, Teamster creasingly militarized as decaying capi- end its relationship with the MPD, which of doing business.” Henry Ness and an unemployed strike talism produces millions of unemployed took the form of 14 “school resource of- Efforts at police “reform” and “over- supporter, John Belor. In the face of people and poverty-stricken communities, ficers” (SROs) stationed in public high sight” are inevitably futile, just as cutting mounting police/military repression and while the middle class is hollowed out and schools (see “Minneapolis Public Schools the cops’ budget (grandly called “defund- legal maneuvers, the Trotskyist leadership the tiny layer of mega-capitalists grows Give Cops the Boot,” in The Internation- ing” the police) is ineffectual and disman- fought back with mass labor action. And more aggressive. alist No. 60, May-June 2020). At the time, tling/disbanding/abolishing the police is they won the strike. Last year, massive protests against rac- we warned that “replacing the MPD with an illusion. The reason why comes down But eventually the Minneapolis ist police brutality were further stoked by in- private security guards or simply another to the basic Marxist truth that the very Teamster leaders were ousted by the na- dignation against Trump, whose racist com- police department will mean back to busi- purpose of the police is to act as enforc- tional union tops, working hand-in-glove ments and threats to use the military fueled ness as usual.” Just a month later, Min- er of the interests of the capitalist class, with the Democratic administration of the fires of outrage. Now the Democrats are neapolis Public Schools began hiring defending its property and wealth, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and along with in, but the police murder machine grinds on. “private safety support specialists” many upholding its rule over society. As Fried- Socialist Workers Party leaders were im- To stop it will take nothing less than a revolu- of whom were ex-cops. As we wrote then, rich Engels wrote in The Family, Private prisoned for their revolutionary opposi- tion to the imperialist World War II. If tion to sweep away the capitalist system, and such private cops must be opposed just as Property and the State (1886), the capi- today police strikebreaking is less promi- with it, its murderous thugs in blue. As the much as the SROs, as part of a larger fight talist state consists of special bodies of nent than cop attacks on antiracist mobi- Internationalist Group/Revolutionary Inter- for teacher-student-parent-worker con- “armed men but also of material adjuncts, lizations, it is because the pro-capitalist nationalist Youth banner that we carried last trol of the schools. prisons, and institutions of coercion of all union officialdom rarely calls strikes, and Juneteenth proclaimed, “The Police Can’t Across the country there have been a kinds” who serve the economically and when it does it meekly obeys injunctions Be ‘Reformed’,” and “Democrats Are the number of state laws and city ordinances politically dominant class in “holding and prohibitions of effective labor action Bosses of Racist Killer Cops.” It’s necessary passed for police “reform” and “over- down and exploiting the oppressed class.” (mass picketing, flying squads, sit-down for labor, black people, Latinos, immigrants sight” since George Floyd’s murder (140 Lenin spelled out in The State and Revo- strikes), ensuring defeat or at best a stand- and all the oppressed to break with the Dem- by one count). This includes mandating lution (1917), written on the eve of the off, rather than defying the bosses’ anti- ocratic Party and get started on building the use of body cameras, restricting choke- Bolshevik Revolution, that “A standing labor legal arsenal. revolutionary workers party that we urgently holds, limiting no-knock warrants, open- army and police are the chief instruments Last summer, bus drivers of Amal- need to put an end to the unending plague of ing police disciplinary records to public of state power.” As we wrote during the gamated Transit Union Local 1005 in Min- scrutiny and eliminating “qualified -im protests last year: racist police repression. Black liberation neapolis refused police orders to transport n munity” of police from civil suits. But “And since racial oppression is intrinsic through socialist revolution! none of those measures have made a bit of to U.S. capitalism, the liberal/reformist difference in the systematic racism of the formulas actually mean that the imag- police, any more than enacting “civilian ined ‘peace officers,’ ‘community police,’ control boards” did in the past. Moreover, ‘public safety agents’ or whatever they attempts to cut police budgets have nearly are called, would in fact be maintaining Internationalist photo all failed, or been overturned. Instead, racist, capitalist ‘law and order’.” –“‘Abolish the Police’ Under Capital- various state legislatures have enacted ism?” The Internationalist No. 60 “back the blue” laws to criminalize pro- The function of the police as the test. In Iowa, “rioting” was made a felo- armed fist of the capitalist state was seen ny, blocking streets can lead to a year in concretely in the 1934 Teamsters strike jail and defacing a statue is now a crime, that made Minneapolis a union town. In while drivers who hit and injure protesters his classic account, Farrell Dobbs, one of were given immunity from civil liability. the Trotskyist leaders of the strike, aptly Even calls to do away with qualified describes the nature of the police: immunity for police, a centerpiece of the “Under capitalism the main police func- Congressional Democrats’ policing “re- tion is to break strikes and to repress oth- form” bill, would have little impact. Where er forms of protest against the policies cops have been sued for excessive force, of the ruling class. Any civic usefulness wrongful death and other misconduct, they other forms of police activity may have, almost never pay a penny – the municipal- like controlling traffic and summoning ity, county or state foots the bill. Given the ambulances, is strictly incidental to the amounts involved ($1.1 billion since 2015 primary repressive function. Personal for suits involving NYPD officers; Chica- inclinations of individual cops do not al- Internationalists in march to New York’s Manhattan Bridge protesting the go, $253 million; Los Angeles, $238 mil- ter this basic role of the police. All must police murder of Daunte Wright, April 12. 12 The Internationalist For Workers Control of Safety – End Poverty Wages – Expropriate For-Profit Chains Nursing Home COVID Horror Show: Health Care Workers Held Hostage JUNE 7 – For the last three weeks, some demic in some of the most deadly conditions 6,100 unionized healthcare workers in Con- in the U.S. Since March, unionized work- necticut nursing homes and group homes Brad Horrigan / Hartford Courant ers have been on the job without a contract. have been preparing to strike. The main de- Most of the staff have been struggling to mands of Service Employees International keep above water on poverty wages of $12 Union (SEIU) District 1199NE are for rais- to $15 an hour and no or unaffordable health ing the horrendously low pay for their dan- insurance. They faced a massive shortage of gerous work to $20 an hour; for affordable personal protective equipment (PPE) such health insurance, paid sick leave and child- as gloves, masks and gowns that work- care; and for increasing Medicaid funding by ers had to either reuse and/or share among taxing the rich. As the initial nursing home each other. Many CNAs have overwhelm- strike deadline on May 14 loomed, Demo- ing workloads of 15 or more residents each, cratic governor Ned Lamont outrageously which includes waking, dressing, toileting called up the National Guard to act as strike- and feeding residents, and completing piles breakers, to move patients out of struck facil- of paperwork. Staff shortages are rampant. ities. Meanwhile, the long-term care facilities Nationally, 70% of the U.S.’ 15,400 sought to contract “replacement workers” nursing homes are operated by for-profit – i.e., scabs. Last-minute deals with the gov- companies; in Connecticut the rate is even ernor averted that walkout and a subsequent higher, with 83% for-profit and only 17% strike deadline for group homes on June 4. non-profits, with over half part of - acor But as of this writing, the facility owners porate chain. Yet 85% of their financing have yet to sign on the dotted line. comes from government Medicaid and So far, details of the tentative agree- programs. The nursing home in- ments are sparse. Newspaper headlines Connecticut nursing home workers of SEIU District 1199NE outside Department dustry has long been notorious for short- declared that “Nursing home workers will of Public Health in Hartford, April 8, demanding Long-Term Care Workers Bill changing patient care and worker pay, a earn at least $20 per hour” while articles of Rights including $20/hr. minimum wage, affordable health care. “business model” of “neglect for profit.” declared that the deal “lifts the wages of that even purports to be a “living wage” in ties died.1 This was murder, a monstrous Early in the pandemic, when outside the certified nursing assistants to $20 per hour,” Connecticut would have to at least double crime fueled by the profit system that discards New York City epicenter the large majority and that “Licensed practical nurses would nursing home workers’ wages and provide those it cannot exploit profitably, warehous- of COVID deaths were in nursing homes, earn an hourly minimum of $30” (Hartford fully paid quality health care for workers ing seniors in jam-packed quarters with woe- the New York Times (22 April) called them Courant, 14 May). But that does not square and their families with no deductibles, “co- fully inadequate staffing, and then infected “deadly petri dishes for the worst pandem- with the reference to a 4.5% raise in 2022, pays” or other scams. Residential healthcare them with a deadly disease by bringing back ic in generations.” Many of those deaths a 6.2% raise the next year and no raises in workers are in an unusually strong position COVID patients in order to save the hospitals were profit-driven. Nearly half of residents the following two years, which would only right now to fight for a fundamental change from collapse. The entire labor movement of for-profit homes lived in facilities with bring pay for CNAs up from $16.25 to $18 in their intolerable situation. As billions of and its allies, including students and defend- substandard staffing levels, compared to by 2025. Moreover, 1199NE president Rob dollars are being lavished on bailing out ers of black and immigrant rights, in Con- less than a quarter in government or non- profit facilities. And as data from Connect- Baril later said that the nursing home deal whole industries, the horrors of the pandem- necticut and elsewhere, should come to the icut shows (see below), homes with staff would create “a pathway to $20 an hour ic, as death stalked the corridors of nursing aid of those who toil in this dangerous and shortages had almost five times as many minimum,” and that a June 3 deal for group homes, are fresh in everyone’s mind. A mili- sleazy industry. The cause of these terribly deaths as those without staff shortages. homes achieved “substantial progress to- tant strike could win. That such a struggle overworked and underpaid workers – 92% Recently, many homes have been ward our goals for a $20 minimum wage,” is not taking place today is an indictment of them women, a majority black, Latina and snapped up by private equity firms (whose and other benefits. If the advertised $20/hr. of the labor bureaucracy that plays by the Asian, many of them immigrants – is a fight finances are not public) which have used minimum was not achieved, this amounts bosses’ rules and chains workers to the capi- for all working people. them as a cash cow, to be milked for every to a sellout of the union membership. talist Democratic Party. Nursing Homes and Capitalism: last dollar. As thousands died weekly last Even $20 per hour is a poverty wage, Almost one-third of all deaths from “Neglect for Profit” year, a New York Times (25 April 2020) ar- and nothing has been specified about health COVID-19 over the last year were of resi- ticle, “Push for Profits Left Nursing Homes insurance, which even at that pay rate dents in long-term care facilities. At least Long-term care (LTC) workers in Con- Struggling to Provide Care,” reported: “Pri- would certainly not be affordable. Anything 1,800 healthcare workers in these facili- necticut, both in nursing homes and group homes for adults vate equity firms and other investors first and youths with gravitated to nursing homes more than a decade ago, betting that aging baby boom- developmental dif- Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty Images ficulties, include ers would create demand irrespective of registered nurses, economic cycles and counting on a steady licensed practical stream of Medicare and Medicaid reim- nurses, certified bursements.” A study published last year of nursing assistants nursing homes nationwide, including 1,674 and staff. They taken over by private equity firms with have been working “high-powered for-profit incentives,” found right through the that due to staffing cutbacks “private equity COVID-19 pan- ownership increases short-term mortality by 10%, which implies about 21,000 lives lost 1 An investigation by due to private equity ownership” over the the London Guard- 2 ian (8 April 2021), period of 2000-2017. “Lost on the front- There are endless horror stories of the line,” found that of ravages of COVID in nursing homes and the more than 3,000 how this is related to the ownership of the healthcare workers industry. There was the case of the Ando- who died of COVID, a big majority, 1,814 2 A. Gupta, et al., “Does Private Equity Invest- (58%), worked in ment in Healthcare Benefit Patients? Evidence nursing and residen- from Nursing Homes,” Social Science Research Ambulance workers prepare to transport body at Andover Subacute nursing home where 84 died. tial care facilities. Network, November 2020. April-June 2021 13 at Yale Law School, for SEIU District 1199NE. Both studies arrive at a key con- clusion: high rates of infection and death were the result of chronically understaffed facilities with “severely underpaid” work- ers. One of the main reasons for the rapid spread of coronavirus infections in nurs- ing homes is that patients were sent back to LTC facilities when discharged from hospitals after being diagnosed with CO- VID-19. Unlike New York (and other states that copied it), which officially - or dered this, there was no such order in Con- necticut. Yet it occurred anyway because of financial incentives, as residential care

Graphic from report by Yale Law School Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic facilities are reimbursed by Medicaid and At height of COVID second wave, Connecticut nursing homes with staff Medicare at far higher rates for short-term shortages had vastly higher mortality rates than those with no shortage. rehabilitation patients coming from hos- pitals than for long-term residents. While ver Subacute & Rehabilitation complex tenants and reselling the property to a luxu- Connecticut readied field hospitals, they in Sussex County, New Jersey, where an ry condo developer for a $72 million profit. were never used, and a couple of COVID- anonymous tip led to the discovery of 17 Such financial skullduggery makes for only facilities sat mostly empty. Accord- bodies crammed into a tiny on-site morgue scandal headlines, but the reasons for the ing to the September 2020 Mathematica in April 2020; the death toll later rose to nursing homes’ COVID disaster go much study, “Early planning and response efforts 84. The complex is owned by nursing deeper than asset stripping by private eq- focused on hospital capacity, with nursing home slumlord Chaim Scheinbaum, whose uity speculators and service cuts by for- homes viewed primarily as a backstop to Alliance Health Care chain also owns three profit chains. Overall, 31% of all COVID alleviate high demand for acute care beds.” other facilities where according to Times deaths in the United States are from long- I.e., they were dumping grounds. data there were an additional 90 deaths term care facilities, although they account The high death toll reflects the -cha from COVID-19. But Alliance only leases for only 4% of cases nationwide – mean- otic conditions in the industry, where many the Andover buildings from a Chicago- ing those nursing home residents who con- facilities are constantly on the brink of “In all honesty, the only time staffing wasn’t area investor, William Rothner, who has a tracted the disease were eight times more financial ruin, as well as turmoil among horrible was during the pandemic … only stake in more than 60 nursing homes, and likely to die. Over 184,000 people who public health authorities. On March 5, the because half our people died. That’s the only whose companies charge millions in rent in lost their lives, or 12% of the 1.5 million day the first COVID case in Connecticut reason staffing was halfway okay. Half of the addition to supplying ventilators. residents in these homes. In Connecticut, was announced, the deputy commissioner residents passed away due to COVID-19.” Another of the LTC chains is Genesis the percentage of COVID deaths account- in charge of coronavirus response resigned Nationally, one in ten LTC residents who Healthcare, the largest nursing home opera- ed for by residents of LTC homes is even complaining of racial discrimination. Eight fell ill with the disease died; in the hardest- tor in the U.S. with more than 357 homes, higher: 4,361 died of the disease, amount- hit facilities in Connecticut (Riverside, 60 4 weeks later, the commissioner of the De- that is also No. 1 in Connecticut, where it ing to 53% of total statewide deaths. Both partment of Public Health was fired by dead; Shady Knoll, 55 dead; Arden House, has 19 facilities. Genesis was bought out in for-profit companies and non-profit social Governor Lamont, after being invisible 54 dead) it was one in three. 2007 by private equity firms led by Forma- service agencies are guilty of negligence for most of the period. Lamont then es- The workers themselves were also tion Capital in Atlanta, which loaded it up and mismanagement with the complicity sentially privatized the state’s pandemic hard-hit. According to data submitted to with debt. When it returned to public mar- of the bourgeois state, which foots most response, handing planning over to a task the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid kets in 2014, Genesis was “paying more of the bills. They all uphold the interests force led by the Boston Consulting Group. Services (CMS), at least 3,400 workers in than $750 million a year on interest, rent, of capital, for which residential-care resi- At the same time, he issued an executive Connecticut LTC facilities either tested and transaction fees related to the constant dents are only dollar signs. order (as did New York and other states) positive or were assumed to have contracted cash-juggling” to keep the company afloat.3 Health Care Workers: Hailed granting nursing homes “immunity from COVID-19. District 1199NE reports that up Now the Welltower real estate trust unload- civil liability even when facilities are ‘un- to 4,000 of its 7,000 members working in ed Genesis, whose share price has plum- as Heroes, Abandoned on the able to provide the level or manner of care health care were infected with the corona- meted, in exchange for cash investments of Front Lines that otherwise would have been required in virus or had COVID-like symptoms. Ac- $86 million to pay off Welltower. The new Although the scandalous conditions the absence of the COVID-19 pandemic.” cording to the Yale study, as workers had no private equity operation, ReGen Healthcare, that have turned many nursing homes into But the crucial element was the nursing sick leave, they often “[ed] their is led by one Joel Landau, infamous for buy- death traps are national in scope, this cri- and group home workers themselves, over- own symptoms” because calling out was ing up and another NYC sis has been more closely investigated in worked and underpaid on the front lines of considered “abandonment” by administra- nursing home, CABS, kicking out elderly Connecticut with at least two major stud- the battle against the coronavirus. The Yale tors. When ill employees were able to take 3 ies of deaths in long-term care facilities: Maureen Tkacik, “Despite Pandemic Carnage, study found that there was “a significant as- off, they were allotted only seven days so Predatory Nursing Home Financiers Keep A Study of the COVID-19 Outbreak and sociation between staff shortages and risk of that when they returned to work, there was a Thriving,” The American Prospect, 14 April. Response in Connecticut Long-Term Care COVID-19 infection and deaths among res- more than likely chance they were still con- Facilities (September tagious. Staff testing was either non-exis- 2020) by the public idents” because “staffing levels correspond tent, unreliable or results were delayed, and policy research com- directly to quality of care.” Based on data often “administrators withheld information pany Mathematica, reported to the federal Centers for Medicare about positive [resident] tests in a facility.” advised by the Uni- and Medicaid Services (CMS), the study For a long time, there was no data at versity of Connecti- showed that facilities “with at least one staff all on the number of infections and deaths cut Center on Aging, shortage reached a peak of resident deaths from COVID among long-term care work- commissioned by the over 4 times higher than homes without ers because they weren’t required to be state government; any reported shortage.” At the peak of the tested and no count was kept of those who and “We Were Aban- winter 2020-21 second wave, facilities with were, even though known COVID cases doned”: How Con- staff shortages had five times as many cases necticut Failed Nurs- as those with normal staffing levels. Work- had to be reported to the DPH. Financial Brad Horrigan / Hartford Courant ing Home Workers ers were overwhelmed and there weren’t incentives were offered to keep workers on and Residents During enough to work the units. the clock, including “bonuses, hazard pay, the COVID-19 Pan- One nurse described workloads of up to and providing meals during shifts,” but ac- demic (May 2020), 14 residents at a time, “which is really dif- cording to the Mathematica study “nursing by the Worker and ficult because you have to get them up, get homes tied many of the financial incentives Immigrant Rights them dressed, toilet them, exercise them, feed to on-time arrival. Staff expressed frustra- Advocacy Clinic them lunch, toilet them again after lunch, put tions with these requirements because pub- Connecticut governor Ned Lamont announces them down again, and then you have your lic transportation was limited at the height 4 See https://www. extension of state of emergency at Genesis Healthcare paperwork.” The understaffing was chronic, of the outbreak, and many staff had care- facility, 20 April 2020. Genesis is a prime example of nytimes.com/interac- tive/2020/us/coronavi- both before and during the COVID crisis. giving responsibilities at home that might private equity milking long-term care facilities for rus-nursing-homes.html The horror of the situation was reflected in have occasionally made them a few min- profits while residents die. (as of 1 June 2021). the candid observation of another worker, utes late to work. Staff also reported bo- 14 The Internationalist Health saying the facility had “over 50 symp- fight for a workers government. tomatic patients scattered through the build- This is also the case when it comes to ing and almost no gowns,” and a day later care for the elderly. Under the production- asked to transfer patients to the hospital at the for-profit system, those who are no longer of Javits Center or the U.S. Navy hospital ship, an age where their labor can produce value he got a reply with an attachment on how to and be exploited by the owners of capital are preserve PPE and was told that the empty simply a burden, a “social overhead” cost to Center and ship were only for hospital over- be minimized. Those whose families can af- flow patients. Two weeks later, 55 Cobble ford it are housed in luxurious “assisted liv- SEIU District 1199 Hill residents were dead of COVID.6 ing” communities, while those that can’t de- As pressure mounted on Cuomo to ex- pend on relatives or go onto Medicaid. But to plain why the death totals were undercount- get on Medicaid their assets can be no more ed, his top aide, Melissa DeRosa, let the cat than $2,000, so if they can’t deed over their out of the bag during a private videoconfer- houses to their kids, the nursing homes will ence call with state Democratic leaders. She quickly eat up their meagre savings by charg- apologized on behalf of the administration ing thousands of dollars a month. Thus these for “inconveniencing” the legislators, say- centers care only for poor and working-class ing that the actual numbers were purpose- or pauperized middle-class residents. There, fully obscured to keep Donald Trump from depending on the owners, they are isolated “tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing from society, get rationed care and often (par- Connecticut nursing home workers ready to strike. The overwhelming homes,” because the real death toll “would ticularly in private equity owned centers) are 7 majority of long-term care workers are women, most black, Latina and Asian. be used against us.” Cuomo evidently fig- drugged up on anti-psychotic medications to nuses or hazard pay were available only close-up care to one of the most vulnerable ured the top Democrats would keep this keep them “manageable.” during a short period (even though the pan- populations, 2,000 “essential” workers were hush hush, but some of them had their own It doesn’t have to be this way, of demic lasted for months).” rewarded by being laid off or their hours cut bone to pick with the high-handed governor. course. Bills such as SB 1030 to require Grotesquely, some administrators (and by half or more. Why? Because the huge When it was later revealed that, at the same greatly increased nursing and attendant the bourgeois press) blamed staff working number of residents’ deaths meant a reduced time that his administration was covering care hours per resident (and maintaining at more than one location for the spread of need for labor! up the nursing home death toll, he had also a sufficient stockpile of PPE) should be the virus. As one certified nursing assis- “As nursing home residents die and the gotten a book deal for over $5 million for passed, and fully funded at top union wag- tant (CNA) nurse who worked 32 hours a facilities see far fewer short-term resi- a vanity tome on how great he supposedly es as this would require hiring thousands week at one facility and 24 hours a week dents… homes are left with more empty did in fighting the coronavirus, it only added more workers. The capitalist predators at another told the Yale researchers, “If we beds. Weakened by revenue loss and fuel to the get-Cuomo bonfire. who feed on the elderly and have been buy- Cuomo’s fallback was that his order have a decent paycheck, then we wouldn’t added expenses associated with the pan- ing up long-term care homes in order to get was in line with guidance from the federal have to do that.” With a median hourly demic, nursing homes in Connecticut on the government gravy train like defense are now resorting to widespread layoffs Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wage of $16.19, CNAs have no choice but contractors are parasites – they should be and reductions in employee hours.” (CDC). That much is true, but all it meant to work more than one job to keep a roof driven out. Revolutionary socialists would –“Hundreds of nursing home workers was that around the country Democratic over their head and food on the table for call for expropriation without compensa- are laid off as financial crisis hits the governors were working in tandem with their families. But instead of doubling or tion of the LTC chains and slumlords. But facilities,” CT Mirror, 31 August 2020 Republican Trump’s CDC to push “stabi- tripling wages, administrators tried to limit control of nursing homes by the same capi- So whether facilities are private or “pub- lized” COVID patients out of hospitals. As the number of shifts, making the situation talist government which has been short- lic,” for-profit or non-profit, amid a deadly the bourgeois media were lauding Cuomo’s worse. The reality is that the close-contact changing Medicaid for decades is no solu- public health crisis vital decisions are made handling of the coronavirus pandemic, we work provided by CNAs and other staff tion. The Internationalist Group calls for according to financial criteria not patient pointed out that China, with its collectiv- was key to keeping residents alive, even control of scheduling, hiring and safety in need. Capital rules. ized economy, managed to build emergency as it endangered the workers. CNAs “pro- every facility by union-led workers com- hospitals in days and with rigorous quaran- vide 80% to 90% of direct care” in nursing Capitalist Control of mittees independent of management. tines corralled the virus, while in New York homes, yet the pay is so low and pressures Health Care Is a Disaster Over the decades, social theorists have “the way … medical authorities managed to so great that there is a 50% annual turnover developed various models for a range of In New York this January, Governor avoid a complete breakdown of the hospi- rate. different settings providing services and Andrew Cuomo’s nursing home scandal tal system was by sending large numbers of When it came to PPE, workers were needed medical care for older people so that epitomized the lengths the capitalist order coronavirus-positive people back out into they can still be part of a multifaceted com- often left without. Staff had to share gowns will go to save their own political hides: the community instead of isolating and hos- munity rather than being segregated off. In when entering COVID-19 positive resident send nursing home residents to their death- pitalizing them!” (“A Tale of Two Cities: rooms and were told to “continue wearing beds and cover it up. Cuomo came under Wuhan – New York,” The Internationalist Scandinavian countries, most senior care single-use protective Tyvek suits for ‘nu- fire issuing his March 2020 directive- or No. 59, March-April 2020). is through municipal services in their own merous days’,” even at facilities that had dering nursing homes to accept COVID-19 homes. There have been “garden communi- ample supplies. Some had to wear garbage positive patients unless they declared they For Workers Control of Safety – ties” such as Tapiola in Finland, sponsored bags, held together with duct tape, which were unprepared to handle them. Up to late Fight for Socialized Medicine by the trade unions, with mixed housing, in- caused a stir in the press. Yet DPH leaders January 2021, the Cuomo administration While coronavirus-denier Trump was cluding in high-rise apartments with older grotesquely claimed this was “by choice”! was reporting 8,711 nursing home deaths. cynically counting on “herd immunity” residents on the ground floor for easier ac- Single-use disposable gloves were routinely But then NY attorney general Letitia James to set in after enough COVID deaths, the cess, and so they are not surrounded only cleaned with hand sanitizer for reuse and issued a report saying this undercounted Democrats only sought to “flatten the by older people. But under capitalism, such N95 masks were not properly fitted. One nursing home deaths “by approximately curve” of infections, to spread them out so models will only be experimental and few CNA was told at the start of the pandemic to 50 percent,” mainly by not counting those that the hospitals (which had been down- in number, for a simple reason: they are not remove her disposable mask because it was who died in hospitals. NY health commis- sized and closed in the name of efficiency) profitable, any more than decent housing or “sending the wrong message,” and admin- sioner Howard Zucker then discovered weren’t overwhelmed. Both figured on health care for working people is. istrators “threatened to write people up if another 4,000 nursing home residents large numbers of deaths while awaiting a Whether it is taking the necessary mea- they refused to remove their masks.” In ad- dead. (The toll has since climbed to over vaccine. Neither seriously tried to stop the sures to keep a deadly disease from unleash- dition, workers reported that administrators 15,000.) Cuomo replied, “But who cares = spread of the virus. The COVID disaster ing a holocaust, as has happened with the “hid the reality of the employees’ appalling 33 [percent], 28 [percent] – died in the hos- was a bipartisan affair and an indictment COVID-19 pandemic, or providing humane 5 working conditions from the government pital, died in a nursing home? They died.” of the entire capitalist medical system. The care for those who require special services, during inspections.” Well, it turned out quite a few people liberal/reformist elixir of “single-payer” this is only possible in a system in which Mounting infection control violations cared, including Cuomo’s numerous po- medical insurance would not have changed production is to fill social needs rather than flew under the radar with only 34 citations litical enemies. Last July, Zucker used the the outcome. As Marxists and communists, to produce private profits. Then necessary for COVID-related incidents in Connecticut low count to blame “thousands” of nursing the Internationalist Group calls for social- measures to deal with a public health emer- from March 2020 to February 2021. And workers for infecting the patients. Cuomo’s ized medicine to provide high quality gency will not lead to economic catastro- although fines could range up to $10,000 next line of defense was to say that the nurs- free health care for all. That will require phe. And in that setting, the socialized ser- per incident, the average was $2,885, a slap ing homes said they were prepared to accept breaking with the Democratic Party and vices and care needed by the elderly will not on the wrist. At Riverside Health and Re- the patients. Yet on 8 April 2020, when the all capitalist parties and politicians, and be a burden on society but an opportunity habilitation, where 80 residents died from director of the Cobble Hill Health Center in building a revolutionary workers party to for creative efforts to enable all to enjoy the Brooklyn emailed the state Department of COVID-19, there were zero fines for CO- 6 New York Post, 24 April 2020. fruits of collective labor according to their VID-related violations. Moreover, in July- 5 “Cuomo callously addresses COIVD nursing 7 “Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa admits they hid needs. It will take a socialist revolution to August 2020, after months of putting their home report: ‘Who cares!’” New York Post, 29 nursing home data so feds wouldn’t find out,” get there, and that is the task the Internation- lives on the line providing direct, in-person, January. New York Post, 11 February. alist Group has undertaken. n April-June 2021 15 Understaffing, Overwork, Super-Exploitation and Abuse – It All Goes Together The Pandemic in Connecticut Group Homes: Not Just the Virus, It’s the Capitalist System

By Nathan a norm than an exception. And with the

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a SEIU District 1199NE low wages we make in our profession, devastating event, killing millions world- many healthcare workers, especially wide, over half a million in the United those with children, have to work over- States alone. But it is not simply the coro- time and long hours just in order to make navirus itself which has wrought these ends meet. This ultimately has a detri- horrific effects upon the world. The cha- mental effect on both the clients we care otic and criminal mismanagement of the for and the staff ourselves. pandemic by the ruling class has hugely An overworked and exhausted multiplied the damage, from haphazard healthcare worker is much more likely lockdowns in the capitalist countries, to to make mistakes on the job, sometimes misinformation based on science denial mistakes which have dire or even fatal regarding safety precautions, to exclusion consequences. I have seen clients not of millions of immigrants and others from receiving important medication due to the emergency aid dished out to those the fact that the person administering rendered jobless by the layoffs. The con- said medication was doing so on the sequences of the pandemic have rendered 14th, 15th and in some cases 20th hour naked the destructive nature of a society Connecticut long-term care workers had to use garbage bags as gowns for of their double shift. It is unreasonable whose rulers are driven by the profit mo- lack of adequate PPE. and unsafe to expect people to work such tive rather than fulfilling human needs. the houses run by the company I worked break, many issues plagued group homes, long hours, often seven days a week, As a worker in the healthcare in- for had four individuals living in it before nursing homes and other long-term care and perform their jobs safely and cor- dustry, I witnessed the effects of this one of them became infected with the virus. facilities. A particular problem was the rectly all the time. Yet the bosses see it sinister system first-hand. I worked in Two weeks later, all but one of the people chronic understaffing. It’s not because of as a solution to the understaffing which a unionized long-term care facility in living in that home had died of the disease. the often-repeated lie that “no one wants plagues these facilities. To them, it only Connecticut. These facilities serve in- When the news of this tragedy reached to do this kind of work,” rather it was key becomes a problem when people end up dividuals who require support in their me, I was at first horrified, but that horror to the “business model” of the private and hospitalized, in which case all blame, in activities of daily living, from shower- turned to anger. Three people had been cut public corporations which run these fa- my experience, is placed on the health- ing to toileting, dressing themselves, down by a brutal illness due to the misman- cilities. Wages for workers in group homes care worker, and not on the management and so on. Most of the individuals liv- agement of the bosses. This was not just a and nursing homes are criminally low, de- which put them into that situation in the ing in these homes have multiple, co- phantom lurking in the shadows, this was a spite the demanding nature of the work. first place. morbid disorders and disabilities, many real threat to the lives of some of the most Group home employees, myself in- Another key aspect of the exploita- of which affect either their respiratory vulnerable people in our society. cluded, are regularly expected to perform tion of healthcare workers is race and or immune systems, and in many cases The criminal negligence of the com- duties that used to be the domain of nurses, racial oppression. A majority of the staff both. Therefore, I and my fellow work- panies made clear that the bosses were in- such as delivering medications, commu- in group homes are black Americans, ers immediately understood that our capable of taking the proper measures to nicating with doctors, checking and cor- Jamaicans, Haitians, other West Indi- clients, whose lives and well-being we ensure everyone’s safety. Their main con- recting doctor’s orders, operating feeding ans and other immigrants from African cared for deeply, were at an extremely cern was money, and only when the threat tubes, and transcribing doctors’ orders into countries like Ghana, Nigeria and the high risk for not only contracting this of the pandemic posed a risk to that money medication administration records. Despite Ivory Coast. This means that the strug- virus, but dying from it. did they exhibit any care at all; even then the fact that much of our work is nurses’ gle of healthcare workers is indivisibly This understanding, intuitive to us it was the bare minimum needed to avoid a work, we have never been paid to reflect bound up with the struggle for black workers, was not at all apparent to the serious loss of profit. When you have a so- this fact. As it stands now, wages for group liberation against this racist, capitalist management of the company, which ciety as a whole operating on this principle, home employees range between $13 and system, and with the struggle for immi- was criminally slow to introduce safety the result is a disaster waiting to happen. $16 an hour. Without even minimally ad- grants rights. The long history of racist precautions, such as temperature checks So it happened. And the experience of the equate pay, it is inevitable that turnover exploitation and brutality against black of all staff coming on shift, mandatory COVID-19 disaster has not changed that at rates among group home staff is so high. people in the United States has meant mask-wearing in all the homes, thor- all. Just look at the chaotic vaccine distri- Not only are we expected to perform that millions of black people are forced oughly cleaning the house several times bution, which is still very partial instead of work that in any other circumstance re- into low-wage jobs, due to exclusion a day, or even ending community out- universal as it should be. quires at least an undergraduate degree, from high-quality education, the ab- ings for the disabled individuals that we Another instance of barbarity exhib- we are held liable for mistakes made in sence of supportive societal structures, served. When they did introduce these ited by management during this time was our duties to the same degree that nurses and many other factors. life-saving measures, they did little to their refusal to provide hazard pay of any are, with our errors tracked directly by the The same is true of immigrants, accommodate workers who did contract kind until May 2020, well after the first state. This creates a high-stress environ- who are frequently forced to accept the virus and thereby could not work, as wave had begun and receded. We won haz- ment which only exacerbates the emotion- whatever jobs they can find, despite any doing so would put the lives of our cli- ard pay only after struggling against the ally and physically grueling task of per- educational background they may have ents in mortal danger. bosses, forcing them to concede. Then we forming personal care, often for clients in their countries of origin. Since anti- Thus the company required workers had to fight again in July, not only against who deal with serious behavioral issues black racism is baked into the DNA of to use our own paid-time-off (PTO) if the companies at which we worked, but that can range from self-harm, violence American capitalism, as is the super- we caught COVID-19. This meant that against the state departments which pro- against staff and their fellow housemates, exploitation of immigrant workers, this any of us taking the necessary action of vide the majority of funding to such or- and even sexual aggression. The bosses system will not provide solutions. You quarantining ourselves to protect others ganizations. The state was planning on figure they can get away with paying only have to look at China or Cuba to would have to pay for it ourselves. The doing away with the meager hazard pay at healthcare workers just above the mini- see how a workers state – even if bu- union bureaucracy made a half-hearted the end of July, but by protesting at the of- mum wage. That’s how they make their reaucratically deformed – with a col- attempt to force the companies to pay fices of the various departments, we were money. That’s how exploitation works, lectivized planned economy not deter- workers sick from COVID-19 sepa- able to extend it until September. These unless we fight to put a stop to it. mined by profit can mobilize resources rately from their normal PTO. But this gains, small as they are, show the pow- Along with chronic understaffing and to effectively prevent a natural disaster failed miserably, despite strong rank er that we the workers have against our low pay goes overwork. Management – like a deadly disease – from turn- and file support from the workers in the bosses. Appeals to morality won’t cut it, places incredible pressure on healthcare ing into a social catastrophe. Only the union. It failed because it wasn’t backed we need militant union action, up to and workers to work far beyond a 40-hour working class, through the act of in- up with action. including strikes with picket lines that no week. My coworkers and I were frequently ternational socialist revolution and the The dangers of having workers who one crosses. pushed to pick up extra shifts on our days establishment of workers states across cannot afford to call in sick if they have These problems did not start with the off, or to work two shifts in a row, making the globe, can end the barbarity we have COVID-19 are not hypothetical. One of COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to this out- long hours and little time to rest more of experienced. That’s our job. n

16 The Internationalist Cover-Up for SL Boycott of Protests Against Racist Police Terror Spartacist League’s Lockdown Lunacy JUNE 3 – For the past eleven months, the SL at mass marches that were where over 1,000 workers got COVID? moribund Spartacist League/International attacked by police for violating Were they stronger because there was no Communist League (SL/ICL) has maintained curfews and bans. lockdown there, because they had to come a sepulchral silence, save for a single pro for- When the first protests over to work with little or no personal protective ma statement by the SL’s Workers Vanguard the murder of George Floyd by equipment? Let the ICL try selling its latest on the November 2020 elections to say noth- a Minneapolis cop broke out a deranged revelations in Sioux Falls, SD. ing much had happened during their absence year ago, they were almost every- The ICL statement parrots the com- (no mention of the coronavirus pandemic, the where illegal. The Internationalist plaint of the bourgeois media and politi- massive marches against police brutality or Group, Revolutionary Internation- cians – first from Trump and Republi- the words “George Floyd”). But now there’s alist Youth, Class Struggle Educa- cans, then embraced by the Democrats been a second croak from the crypt, in the tion Workers and Trabajadores after Biden took office – that “the -teach form of a Spartacist leaflet (19 April) titled Internacionales Clasistas joined ers unions have fought for governments to “Down with the Lockdowns!” This is a truly hundreds of thousands of others in keep schools shut,” saying this was a “re- bizarre piece of propaganda, at several levels. defying the bans on gatherings and fusal to fight for safe schools.” Actually, In the face of the COVID-19 pandem- protests. As we remarked to SL in New York the teachers union agreed to ic, it categorically declares: supporters at the May Day march school opening plans after threatening to “The bourgeoisie’s lockdowns are a re- in New York City this month, strike if safety measures were not taken. actionary public health measure. Work- And the Internationalist Group – which “Look around you. Of all the peo- Group along with several other tenden- ers must oppose them! Lockdowns may the ICL statement falsely claims “em- ple here, you are probably the only ones who cies of having “embraced the lockdowns, well temporarily slow the spread of in- braced the lockdowns” – along with Class obeyed the protest bans. And you still have betraying the proletariat.” But since a few fections, but they weaken the fighting Struggle Education Workers called to “Use not mentioned George Floyd anywhere.” An lines earlier it admitted that it “accepted” ability of the working class.” Union Power to Reopen Schools Safely,” SLer responded, “I’m hearing that a lot. Why the lockdowns as “necessary,” it is saying So the ICL admits that lockdowns and for “the formation of union-led teach- is that so important?” It wasn’t important to that the ICL also “betrayed.” So let’s see “may” slow the rate of infection, but only to er-parent-student-worker committees at protest? Not for the SL. The Internationalists, if we got this straight: from March 2020 dismiss this. Does it recommend any pub- every school to inspect and sign off on in contrast, intervened heavily combatting il- through 18 April 2021, for over a year, the lic health measures to deal with the deadly 2 reopening plans, and to see that they are lusions in the Democratic Party. ICL betrayed the proletariat (again), yet it coronavirus – selective quarantines, emer- rigorously followed afterwards.”6 Strikes and union organizing stopped? still fancies itself the revolutionary van- gency hospitals and isolation facilities for This brings us to the fictitious program When an SL supporter on May Day claimed guard! In part what’s going on here is that those who have contracted the disease or are that the ICL supposedly puts forward “to de- that lockdowns prevented class struggle, an these ex-Trotskyists are trying to cheapen in danger of infection, anything at all? Noth- fend the health and livelihoods of the work- IG activist responded, “What about packing- what it means to betray, pretending that ev- ing. Nor does it even mention that worldwide ing class,” including the call “For Union house workers who walked out, what about eryone does it, so what’s the big deal. But over 3 million people have died of COV- Control of Safety!” Where did they ever Amazon workers, what about Yakima?” The boycotting the massive protests against ID-19. Frankly, these poseurs who besmirch call for this in the U.S., or anywhere – save women workers in the fruit packinghouses racist police murder, as the SL did, was a the name of communism and the Fourth In- a mention in a leaflet by their Italian group in Yakima, Washington struck for health betrayal, whatever its excuse. ternational don’t give a damn. Like so much (never translated) in response to an article by and safety protections and hazard pay dur- And then there are the facts, which like of what they say they are for or against these our comrades of the Nucleo Internazionalista ing a lockdown in the West Coast epicenter the horrendous COVID death toll have little days – until the next wild line change – it’s all d’Italia which demanded, “Trade-union and of coronavirus infection. Supporters of the meaning for these latter-day Know Nothings. just words to them. In contrast, public health worker safety committees must shut down IG and Class Struggle Workers – Portland For the record, the lockdowns were hardly an measures against this modern plague are of production in the case of unsafe working violated state travel bans to go to the strike expression of “national unity,” as they were enormous concern to the working class. conditions.”7 In contrast to the SL/ICL, the lines to support them. Bans and lockdowns ordered in emergency decrees and were met At one level, these are the ravings Internationalist Group and supporters in the didn’t stop the class struggle. But the SL/ with considerable opposition from reaction- of an outfit that has gone off the deep end. unions from early in the pandemic widely ICL “accepted” them. And how convenient ary forces (that the SL/ICL is now sidling up The degeneration of the once-revolutionary promoted the crucial demands raised in the it is for them to denounce quarantines now to). More importantly, the ICL’s claim that Spartacist League and its affiliates has led it call by Class Struggle Workers – Portland that they have been vaccinated. workers were “weakened” by the lockdowns to take refuge in its own “alternate reality.” (18 March 2020) “For Workers Action in The ICL “repudiates” its acceptance is made doubly absurd by the fact that for the As one former SLer, today a supporter of the Coronavirus Crisis.”8 This included the call of the lockdowns, and now pleads guilty to vast majority of the proletariat, there never Internationalist Group, commented: “Yikes! to form “health and safety committees, to be capitulating to “national unity” appeals. It was a lockdown. In the United States, transit What has happened to the SL? As I read their elected at every workplace, both union and wouldn’t be the first time, on both counts, workers and truckers, rail and dock work- article, I couldn’t help but think of our WV capitulating and repudiating. In the after- unrepresented, to ensure that all safety mea- 1 ers, auto and metal workers, hospital and headline, ‘The Politics of Crazy’” about “the sures are being enforced for all workers, and math of the 11 September 2001 attacks on sanitation workers, meatpacking and poul- decomposition of the hopelessly bizarre resi- that all necessary equipment is available.” the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, try plant workers, grocery and deli workers, due of the New Left radicalization. Who is Not only did we make specific demands, we when U.S. rulers were making fevered delivery and agricultural workers – all were now writing this stuff for the SL? It reads like fought for them with New England Teamster pitches for national unity as they invaded kept on the job, in highly unsafe conditions. a sophomoric parody, an anti-Marxist ‘mod- UPS workers,9 in Los Angeles transit,10 with Afghanistan, the ICL dropped its call for The same was true in Europe and elsewhere. est proposal’ by a confederacy of dunces, a Yakima fruit packers.11 the defeat of U.S. imperialism, while slan- Those who worked remotely during lock- programmatic flyover of political reality.” The IG also issued a leaflet and 12- dering the IG as “anti-American” for our downs were overwhelmingly white-collar That captures it pretty well. page special supplement in May 2020 on refusal to abandon this fundamental Lenin- petty-bourgeois sectors. Back in the real world, the SL/ICL’s 3 New York City transit, where 120 active- ist position against imperialist war. And The ICL’s portrayal of “labor mislead- statement is a disingenuous attempt to ex- duty members (and 40 retirees) of Transport then in 2010, the SL/ICL vociferously sup- ers play[ing] a key role in enforcing the cuse its boycott of the massive protests ported the U.S. invasion of Haiti, buying lockdowns” is another fiction. In fact, as 6 See Class Struggle Education Workers/UFT, against racist police terror last summer. into the claim that this was “humanitarian “Gatherings, protests, travel, strikes, union we documented, in Michigan plants, the “Chaotic Reopening of NYC Schools: This Is aid,” only to, months later, “repudiate” this What Mayoral Control Looks Like,” in The In- organizing: all have been restricted or United Auto Workers tops only called on “capitulation to U.S. imperialism” and ad- ternationalist No. 62, January-March 2021; and banned,” they write. A little later we learn: the companies to shut plants after local mit that our denunciation of their “social- unions walked out at plants where COVID CSEW, “A Class-Struggle Program to Reopen “For the last year, the position of the ICL 4 New York City Schools Safely,” reprinted in imperialist” betrayal was correct. cases had been reported. Packinghouse was to accept the lockdowns as necessary. Later on in its unhinged tract on lock- The Internationalist No. 61. workers were directed to stay on the job 7 We repudiate this position. It was a capitula- downs, the ICL accuses the Internationalist See “Coronavirus Pandemic Ravages Italy, tion to the ‘national unity’ rallying cry that by a presidential order under the Defense Overwhelms Capitalist Medical System,” The all classes should support the lockdowns be- 2 See “SL Silence = Capitulation to the Demo- Production Act, yet despite wildcat walk- Internationalist No. 59. 8 cause they save lives.” So the SL “accepted” crats,” The Internationalist No. 61, September- outs by workers the UFCW and RWDSU See “CSWP Calls for Workers Action in Coro- and evidently obeyed the lockdowns – yet October 2020. union leaders did not call to shut down navirus Crisis,” The Internationalist No. 59. 3 See “ICL Refuses to Call for Defeat of U.S. 9 See “No Safety, No Work!” The International- we and millions of people in the United manifestly unsafe meatpacking and poul- Imperialism, ‘Anti-American’ Baits the Inter- try plants.5 And what about workers at the ist No. 59. States did not. We certainly didn’t see the 10 nationalist Group,” The Internationalist No. 12, Smithfield packing plant in South Dakota See “L.A. Transit Workers Facing Deadly 1 The front-page article in Workers Vanguard Fall 2001. Conditions – It’s Up to Us to Fight for Health No. 78 (26 September 1975). At the time WV 4 See “Open Letter from the Internationalist 5 See “As the COVID-19 Pandemic Rages, & Safety Now!” in The Internationalist No. 59. was the voice of revolutionary Trotskyism, Group to the Spartacist League and ICL,” The Workers Fight for Health and Safety,” The In- 11 See “Victory to Yakima Packinghouse Strik- which The Internationalist continues today. Internationalist No. 31, Summer 2010. ternationalist No. 59, March-April 2020. ers!” The Internationalist, May 2020. April-June 2021 17 Workers Union Local 100 died of COVID, calling for workers control of NYC transit, with detailed demands that class-struggle trade unionists should put forward to pro- On the “Spartacist Penny Saver” Sheet tect bus drivers, track and shop workers who – but they also had 12 By R. Titta were particularly hard hit. We also called massive food de- for round-the-clock subway service to be re- I picked up the leaflet [the ICL liveries, emergen- stored, and adequate shelter provided for the “Down with the Lockdowns” statement] cy hospitals, mask John TennielIllustration: homeless.13 What did SL supporters do about announcing the repudiation of their line wearing, oxygen, any demands for safety during that time, we on the COVID-19 response, and studied anti-viral medi- would like to know. The fundamental fact is it. That is one weird little subculture. cations (what? that the phony “program” put forward in the If I were the editor of the “Spartacist” 1 there are anti-viral ICL’s statement against lockdowns is a total penny saver sheet , I would forbid the use medications?), of exclamation marks. Because if you say fraud. They never fought for any of these de- and, eventually one thing, and then a bit later say the op- mands. Again, it’s all just words – after the vaccines – though posite, and denounce yourself for saying fact, motivated by the latest round of their the Chinese vacci- the first thing, and then denounce everyone own endless internal crises and convulsions. nation program is else for taking the position that you took The SL/ICL’s ex post facto “program” proceeding at a re- before – well, the silliness of it all is only seeks to put a “working-class” gloss on its laxed pace because emphasized by the exclamation marks. sharp turn to the right in recent years as in the whole coun- But that is a small matter. The larger it has increasingly oriented to chauvinist try (where there is truth, noticed by all, is that while the Sparta- forces. This was particularly evident in its frequent testing), cist Penny Saver Sheet (SPS) is denounc- support for British exit from the European it has been more Union (“Brexit”) fueled by virulent immi- ing the lockdown as a bourgeois measure to than one year since grant-bashing,14 and later when the ICL’s freeze the class struggle, outside there has 2,000 active cases “Brexit Now!” line echoed right-wing Tory been a mini-strike wave in the U.S. and – were recorded. prime minister Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit much more significant – a massive coast-to- SPS is virtual- Done!” campaign slogan.15 It is also seen coast rebellion against the relentless murder ly silent on China. in the ICL’s opposition to calls for asylum by the police of black and brown people. And on something for refugees from imperialist devastation, in As other comrades saw at a glance, the else too. What the Near East or Latin America.16 Now the SPS does not mention the name of George Mad Hatter in SL/ICL wonderland. lockdowns are they Spartacist “Lockdowns” leaflet argues that Floyd. The social tension that existed in talking about? In Britain, perhaps? In the labor/left support for lockdowns “has ceded this country around the recent verdict was tals. Those dying in hospitals of “comor- the ground to the far right, allowing sinister unprecedented in recent years. Everyone U.S. the lockdowns were not lockdowns at bidities” (heart or lung conditions) are not reactionaries and outright fascists to posture knew that if that jury did not return a guilty all – relatively lax strictures were in place. counted, though these patients would have as defenders of democratic rights and cham- verdict the country would explode in mass In Brazil, lockdowns in Rio and São Paolo lived if they didn’t have COVID. More im- pions of the ruined petty bourgeoisie.” rioting. Everyone except the SPS. So that is were also lax, but were widely defied any- portant, poor people (80% of India’s 1.35 So here is the pseudo-Trotskyist ICL the plainest evidence that the old group has way. Why? Because poor people had to go billion people) don’t make it to hospitals. vying with the likes of the fascistic militias thoroughly unhinged itself from reality. to work to find enough to eat. Many did not They die in their beds, on the street, in a that staged an armed assault on the Michi- Aside from completely ignoring the succeed, true, and starvation is on the rise ditch, wherever. The death count, conse- gan state capitol to protest lockdowns. black question today (hard to get my head in Brazil. But deciding between catching the quently, is almost inestimable, but many Moreover, those protests were explicitly to around that), the SPS has nothing useful to virus and having enough to eat becomes the experts believe it to be above 1 million. keep capitalism going and profits flowing. say about the pandemic or China. There is awful calculus. Most defy bans and look for Closer to home, in U.S. factories and It is not alone. The decrepit remains of the an odd sentence stuck in on China, and that work. Thousands are dying of COVID-19 packing plants, as we know, hundreds of Socialist Workers Party (SWP) have lately is it. On the pandemic and China, the In- every day. The death count in Brazil is now thousands of workers have been forced to championed “‘deplorable’ workers” (ironi- ternationalist has made all the points. “De- 465,000 (deemed low by most experts). work without vaccines or protective equip- cally taking up Democrat Hillary Clinton’s veloping” China (4,600 deaths) showed the And now there is the catastrophe of ment and the COVID-19 rates there, along sneer about Trump supporters). For ex- “developed” world (almost 600,000 deaths India. There, the SPS program was put with mortality rates, are very high. So re- ample, the SWP’s Militant (2 June 2017) in the U.S.) how it is done. Only a planned into effect by the Modi government. They ally, what lockdown is SPS talking about denounced the “breaking up of meetings” economy, in the absence of capitalist con- wanted people out in the streets, going to that workers should break, to “get back to of fascists and racists, alibiing this with trol, could have achieved such a feat. In Chi- political rallies (and religious festivals). Of work”? What world do they live in? criticisms of “middle-class left and liberal na, since April 19, 2020 four people have course, the political content of those ral- In the end, though, I think these people groups” that “increasingly blame work- died of COVID-19. That is the number 4, in lies is Hindu-nationalist, but the result is are off their nut. They seem to be saying ers – most of whom they consider igno- one year, in a country of 1.4 billion people. the same: a COVID-19 storm, with most that they, themselves, recently capitulated rant, racist, xenophobic and dangerous.” In About the lockdowns, China had them, experts saying that the actual infection rate to class collaboration and calls for national Portland, Oregon, where in June 2017 the first in Wuhan (population: 10 million), and death count – which is underreported unity. (I can believe it.) And like a crazy IG and CSWP brought out some 300 union then, eventually, in Hubei province (50 in most capitalist countries – is false by de- person they are standing up and objecting, supporters to stop a provocation by the Pa- million people). And they were pretty strict sign in India. The death count in India is vehemently, to everything that was just 17 triot Prayer fascists, the SWP was selling 1 Flyers or small publications with ads for items 330,000, but that is the number of patients said – though they were the ones, they tell to and discussing with the fascist/racist pro- for sale by local businesses. pronounced dead of COVID-19 in hospi- us, who said it. n vocateurs (The Militant, 19 June 2017). The Internationalist has exposed the liberal/reformist myth that dismisses all supporter (and former SLer) in Los Angeles lunacy we quoted at the beginning: white workers who voted for Donald Trump where the SL/ICL stood on China’s use of “This abstract mess of an article doesn’t 12 See “MTA Bosses’ Coronavirus Disaster: For 18 even make sense as an apology for the Workers Control of NYC Transit!” The Interna- as racists, noting (among other things) massive lockdowns that contained the coro- tionalist, May 2020. that many of them had voted for Obama, navirus outbreak in Wuhan, an SL supporter SL’s abstention from the Black-led pro- 13 See “Shutting Down 24/7 Service Is No An- in many cases twice. But that is very dif- said they did not have a position. So much tests against racist police repression. In- swer to NYC Subway Crisis,” The Internation- ferent from contending on the same “anti- for the ICL’s empty “defense” of China. In stead, they have adopted the slogan of alist No. 60, May-July 2020. lockdown” capitalist political terrain as pro- contrast, the IG and LFI have underlined how the fascistic militias – ‘liberate Michi- 14 See “ICL: The Main Enemy Is in Brussels,” Trump racists, as the Trumpified SWP does, the Chinese workers state, despite being bu- gan,’ liberate the working class from ra- The Internationalist No. 44, Summer 2016. with the ex-Trotskyist ICL tagging along reaucratically deformed, was able to marshal tional public health measures. 15 See “Some History Ex-Trotskyists Would Like behind. Moreover, by the time that the ICL resources of a collectivized economy to treat “I really don’t understand how the SL be- to Keep Hidden,” The Internationalist No. 59. came so alienated from reality so fast…. 16 called to “Reopen the Economy” and for the infected and stop the spread of the deadly See “Strange Encounters with the ICL,” The 19 I can’t believe that the SL I was a part of Internationalist No. 44; and “Spartacist League “increased production,” this was the com- virus. We have also warned of the mounting mon program of the entire bourgeoisie. It imperialist threat of war and counterrevolu- would have simply absented itself from vs. Refugees,” The Internationalist No. 47, the massive street protests against racist March-April 2017. all gets “curiouser and curiouser,” as Lewis tion from both Republican Trump and Dem- police terror and shut down its press in the 17 See “Portland Labor Mobilizes to Stop Fas- Carroll quipped in Alice in Wonderland (see ocrat Biden, whom the reformist left worked face of a public health crisis that dispro- cist Provocation,” The Internationalist No. 48, the trenchant comment by R. Titta on the so hard to put in the White House. portionately ravaged the working class. May-June 2017. In addition, about 1,000 an- ICL’s strange evolution above). We will leave the last word to the IG Crazy may be a generous characteriza- tifa protesters came out, while a roughly equal One final thing: when asked by an IG supporter, ex-SLer and CSEW member tion of the current SL. More grim, maybe number of liberals and reformist leftists lined whose comments on the ICL’s lockdown up behind police lines at City Hall while the 18 See “The Myth of a ‘White Working Class’,” the SL has just given up. What a waste of SWP was hobnobbing with the fascists and pro- The Internationalist No. 46, January-February 19 See “A Tale Of Two Cities: Wuhan – New Trotskyist cadre who once dedicated their Trump racists. 2017. York,” The Internationalist No. 59. lives to revolutionary socialism.” n 18 The Internationalist part of the Berlin city-state government Germany... since 2016, called for a parliamentary continued from page 5 investigation committee (PUA). But the individuals targeted were not informed. In Greens, as the third component of the

November 2019, the Berlin prosecutor’s ruling coalition, called for a special in- Photos: Morris Pudwell; Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg office filed charges in 14 cases against Se- vestigator instead of a PUA, ostensibly bastian T. and Tilo P., but not for arson and because a PUA would work sluggishly. A 5 death threats. Now, due to the decision of special investigator, as in the Amri case, the bourgeois justice system, the two are would put things in order, i.e., sweep the walking free again. state’s dirt under the rug and drag out the Another example is the Berlin state investigation endlessly. parliamentary deputy Anne Helm from So it happened that after Fokus’s final Die Linke, who was on this enemies report, in order to further muddy the waters, list, whose mailbox was blown up at the Geisel appointed two more “independent” end of 2013 in an attempted break-in, special investigators. One of them, Her- and whose personal mail had been in- bert Diemer, was the lead prosecutor in the tercepted. The police only investigated case of Beate Zschäpe, the last surviving for property damage, without results. Or member of the NSU, or at least that part of 6 the fascist arson attack in February 2018 it that has been officially uncovered. That against Kocak, also a member of parlia- trial and the endless investigations in sev- ment for Die Linke, whose car was com- eral German states that accompanied it were pletely destroyed. Although Sebastian prime examples of how to uncover nothing T. and Tilo P. were investigated in this important about the networks of the fascist case, there were no results here either. underground and their connections to the The Soko Focus also stated in its report police and intelligence services. that there were nine other crimes that It was therefore hardly surprising that could be attributed to the series of right- Geisel’s special investigators presented an interim report in February 2021 that basi- wing attacks. Almost all of those targeted cally exonerated the police. What matters to were either repeated victims of attacks or the Greens, as well as to Geisel and his SPD, were anti-fascist activists. These obvious is to prevent the unvarnished truth from connections were simply ignored in the coming to light – the state should retain con- original investigation. trol over what is and is not published. The Compare this with what happened with special investigators only pointed out the a series of arson attacks between 2009 and obvious: that a large part of the population On 19 June 2020, a delivery van outside the Konditorei Damaskus bakery 2011 against luxury cars, behind which in of Neukölln has no trust in the police. Die in the Berlin district of Neukölln was firebombed and the shop window several instances there was an apolitical Linke is offering to restore this trust with its defaced with a swastika. frustrated 27-year-old unemployed man. endless demands for toothless parliamen- increasingly slipping away. Meanwhile, for an independent commission of inquiry. Last After his confession, the then Berlin state tary committees of inquiry. those targeted, leftists, women, trade union- summer, when the murder of George Floyd interior minister Ehrhart Körting (SPD) ists, journalists and all potential victims of by a police officer in the U.S. also sparked justified targeting prosecution of leftists as “In Neukölln, the Population the fascists, it is a matter of life and death: protests in Germany, RIO wrote: “There perpetrators. The State Security Depart- Is Losing Confidence in the “Our problem is that we don’t know whether needs to be a consistent investigation of all ment, which was responsible for politically Rule of Law” we can trust the police officers on our door- cases and deaths” resulting from police use motivated acts, was given responsibility for What is motivating the rulers was step or not,” said Ferat Kocak from personal of force and also of fascist violence “by in- investigating arson against expensive ve- summed up in the words of the spokesman experience after he and his family became dependent commissions of inquiry” (Klasse hicles because the Senate did not want to be for the public prosecutor’s office, Martin targets of the fascist arson attacks, and as an gegen Klasse, 13 June 2020). Now it has ex- accused of being “blind in the left eye.” In Steltner: “In Neukölln, the population is activist in the campaign to clarify the series panded the demand: “We need independent 2009, a left-wing 21-year-old woman spent losing confidence in the rule of law. All the of attacks (Tagesspiegel, 17 February 2020). commissions of inquiry, elected by migrant five months in pre-trial detention as a result more so when the police were finally able Trust in the police, or not? We Marxists have organizations and trade unions” (Klasse ge- of this hunt for leftists, which cost the Ber- to solve some crimes, but then most were lin Senate several million euros a month for long given the answer to this question. The gen Klasse, 2 March 2021). not punished after all” (Tagesspiegel, 19 special police nighttime operations. She had state and its organs are the repressive appa- The title of the latter article is “Series February 2020). Concern about trust in the to fight through three long trials before her ratus of the bourgeoisie. They protect the fas- of Attacks in Neukölln: Police Will Not state and its institutions was also the driv- innocence was established in 2011. cists in order to keep them ready for the mo- Help Us.” In the summer, RIO opined that ing force behind the transfer of two pros- ment when their services become urgently “the state is not an honest broker” (“Right- One reason for the lack of results in ecutors suspected of sympathizing with the the attacks over the last few years came to necessary for the ruling class. Wing Terror in Neukölln,” Klasse gegen Nazis. Attorney General Margarete Kop- At the same time, Die Linke (Left Klasse, 6 July 2020). In the fall, it wrote: light in the summer of 2020. In June, it be- pers justified the transfer: “There must not came known that a police chief inspector Party), as a government party of the “red- “Neo-Nazi structures in the NRW police. be even the slightest doubt that we do not red-green” popular front that administers Not an #Isolated case. No Trust in the had passed on details of the investigation to prosecute criminal offenses from the right- an AfD chat group. Then in August it came Berlin today, is involved in the racist re- State” (Klasse gegen Klasse, 16 Septem- wing extremist milieu, that we do not do so pression of immigrants, in the destruction ber 2020). All of these formulations, in one out that the previous head of the State Se- with sufficient intensity, or do so only slug- curity crimes department, Matthias Fenner, of left-wing housing programs while bol- way or another, rest on the mistaken no- gishly” (Die Welt, August 19, 2020). As if to stering the profits of speculators and- car tion that the bourgeois state is some kind was said to have signaled to Tilo P. himself mock her own words, both prosecutors then tels, and in general in the systematic and of third force, one that admittedly “can’t be that there was nothing to fear from his side. received a clean bill of health from her, and massive expansion of the state repressive trusted,” that “won’t help,” and that won’t “The prosecution is on our side. He is an were merely transferred to another post. apparatus. The sorry state of the Left Party mediate “honestly,” but that should be AfD voter,” Tilo P. boasted as early as March The bourgeoisie and its executive organs is linked to the fact that, due to its govern- pressured. And this is exactly what these 2017 (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 6 August 2020). are worried that the legitimacy of their rule is This statement was uncovered by the law- mental responsibility, it makes common pseudo-Trotskyists did when they wrote 5 yer of one of the victims; it was ignored by The case of Anis Amri, the Islamist truck driv- cause with the perpetrators and opposes after the [February 2020] mass murder in both the police and various prosecutors. Not er who killed eleven people in the Berlin Christ- the struggle for truly independent working- Hanau: “The government must be forced to mas market in December 2016. The Berlin state coincidentally, Fenner was the driving force class action. And this miserable condition take certain measures: disarm the fascists attorney’s office had had engaged in cover-ups extends to the smaller left groupings in and and their associations, dissolve the Office behind the mass arrest of 100 demonstrators to justify the fact that it had stopped tapping his who peacefully blocked a reactionary anti- phone four months before the murderous attack. around Die Linke. Characteristic of this is for the Protection of the Constitution...” abortion march in Berlin in September 2019. 6 NSU affair: The National Socialist Union, a the Revolutionäre Internationalistische Or- (Klasse gegen Klasse, 26 February 2020). When the first results of this Soko Nazi terror network, was implicated in at least ganisation (RIO), internationally linked to These are fatal reformist illusions in the were released in a report in the spring of nine murders of immigrants, the murder of a po- the misnamed Trotskyist Fraction. capitalist state, hallmarks of the politics of 2020, SPD Interior Senator Geisel im- licewoman, bombings in Cologne in 2001 and So after years of turning a blind eye to class collaboration. While they look to the mediately declared it a classified matter. 2004, and more than a dozen bank robberies. the fascist contamination of the Berlin police, state to disarm the fascist gangs, the state is After it was uncovered in late 2011, a scandal The report was presented to the mem- the SPD resorts to an investigation by an in- much more likely to disarm the workers or- broke out when it was revealed that the NSU was bers of the Interior Committee on short infiltrated by German (and possibly U.S.) intel- house special commission; the Greens want a ganizations, as Salvador Allende’s Chilean notice and only behind the closed doors ligence agencies, which had undercover agents special investigator (and get one); Die Linke Popular Front did in 1973, paving the way of a high security room, without minutes present during some of the murders. It is sus- calls for a parliamentary investigative com- for the victory of the Pinochet coup. The idea being taken. Die Linke, which has been pected that not all of the network was rolled up. mittee, to no avail. For its part, RIO wants that the police, military, secret services and April-June 2021 19 surprise! –that For Worker/Immigrant Defense office staff download personal data to pass on the state power is on the Road to Revolution to Nazi perpetrators. riddled with fas- It is not only about “right-wing extremist All these demands to investigate what cist and fascistic structures” in the police, which obviously ex- has already been proven – that the state ap- elements and their ist, but about the fact that the whole repressive paratus is shot through with Nazis – are an accomplices, what apparatus (police, military, secret services, appeal to the state to undertake a purge of then? Our task as state attorneys) – the core of the bourgeois the state apparatus of fascists. In the early revolutionaries state – is in a protection racket with fascists. 1930s, the Social Democrats cried, “Staat, is not to lure the One can also see in Neukölln the cooperation greif zu!” (State, act fast). Leon Trotsky

Permanente Revolution masses into the of the AfD – and not only of its völkisch (Ger- polemicized against this slogan several dead end of an im- man nationalist) and fascist “Flugel” (wing)8 times. In his article, “Bourgeois Democ- possible “denazi- – with Nazis of the NPD, from the very top in racy and the Struggle Against Fascism” fication” or even the Criminal Investigation Department down (January 1936), the Bolshevik revolution- “democratization” to the precinct level and on the street. This is ary stressed that the bourgeois politicians of the bourgeois all the more important because both the bour- “never would eradicate fascism, or even state, but to lead geois media and politicians and the reformist totally isolate it, because it serves the state them to hard class left label the AfD with the trivializing label in keeping its real enemy, the proletariat, at struggle on the road of “right-wing populists” (in juxtaposition bay; at most the state will keep it in check. to revolution. The to “left-wing populists” like Wagenknecht’s Therefore, the demand for the state to dis- Internationalist- Aufstehen (rise up) movement?).9 Rather, the solve and disarm the fascist gangs (the ische Gruppe says: fact that there is a division of labor between German Social Democrats cried, ‘State, The police can- the fascistic AfD and outright fascists is con- act fast,’) and voting for similar measures not be reformed. firmed here in the district. is thoroughly reactionary.” RIO, take heed! Police officers are One also sees how anti-communist and Instead of looking to the state, Trotsky not “workers in xenophobic terror are linked. Everything in- repeatedly stressed the need for a united uniform” but the dicates that it is the same fascists who carry defense by the working class against the The IG at a protest outside the Neukölln borough hall, armed organ of the out arson attacks against left-wing politi- fascist thugs. In 1930, after the Nazis’ first February 2020. Signs say: “Instead of Illusions in Bans – ruling class. Police cians and smash shop windows of Arab ca- electoral success, he wrote that Communists Stop the Nazis with Worker/Immigrant Mobiliization” and out of the DGB fes. Both are incited by the police through should “call for the defense of those mate- “SPD/Left Party Administer Capitalism – For a Multi- (German Union raids against shisha bars and bans on left- rial and moral positions which the working Ethnic Revolutionary Workers Party.” Federation)! ist demos. Nazi hounding of Jews contin- class has managed to win in the German judiciary would allow trade unionists, leftists, The call for “independent committees ues, and is compounded with constant ag- state,” i.e., “workers political organizations, migrants and targeted people access in order of inquiry” is a trademark of the “Trotsky- gression against immigrants and people of trade unions, newspapers, printing plants, to “disclose all files” is pure idiocy, as is the ist Faction,” which they repeat all over the Middle Eastern and African descent. The clubs, libraries,” and “in every factory, in demand for the dissolution of the political po- world. Currently they are calling for an “in- German nationalist hysteria spreads simul- every working-class neighborhood and dis- lice, or the police itself, within the framework dependent investigation into the right-wing taneously with – and as a consequence of trict” (“The Turn of the Comintern and the of capitalism. Moreover, the “democratic” violence” of January 6, when a racist mob – the decay of rotting capitalism based on Situation in Germany”). Today, in besieged bourgeois “constitutional state” is ultimately attacked the U.S. Capitol. This investiga- the nation-state. The imperialist alliance of Neukölln, this means fighting for full citi- a much greater danger to the working people tion “must be democratically led, by inde- the European Union cannot overcome this, zenship rights for all immigrants, and for and the oppressed than the so far relatively pendent lawyers, anti-fascist organizations as the fiasco of the struggle against COVID joint worker/immigrant defense to mobi- small fascist gangs, whose danger rests pre- and labor groups. They must have access to proves. Only the struggle for a Socialist lize working-class power against the fas- cisely on their connections with the state. what the state knows...” (Left Voice, 13 Feb- United States of Europe offers a way out. cists and their official protectors. No, it is not about isolated cases, nor ruary). How they intend to bring about this The capitalist class and its state keep the The bourgeoisie has shown itself un- only about “structures” within the state ap- nonsense goes unmentioned. Such slogans, fascists on standby to unleash them as a spear- willing to even apply the cosmetics for the paratus: it is about the state itself. As much like their favorite demand for a “constituent head for racist divisions among the oppressed democratic masquerade of its increasingly as RIO may stress the “independent” char- assembly” everywhere and always, consti- and the working class, and to crush burgeon- undisguised dictatorship. Part of it thinks acter of its dream commission, and that it tute a “democratic” stagist program. Today ing resistance to their economic and social that an all-too intimate close-up look at the should be based on “mobilization”, its pur- they justify themselves by claiming that the austerity plans, their imperialist wars to divide ugly grimace of their dictatorship might be pose is to exert pressure on the state “from masses are too immature for the final strug- up world markets, and over spheres of exploi- too scary; another part has long been work- the outside”, instead of taking to the streets gle. But such “truth commissions” can only tation within the country. At the same time, the ing to return to the days when any mas- against the capitalist state and its organs of be realized at the moment when an over- popular-front policies of the reformists, who querade was dispensed with. As we have oppression. And when such idealized com- throw is possible, and then they serve only look to the bourgeois state for their salvation, repeatedly pointed out, the rulers are aware, missions of inquiry “reveal” the fact – big to distract from the struggle for revolution. serve to divert the masses from class struggle. and not only in Germany, that they need a As Trotsky noted in the 1938 Transitional beefed-up state with bonapartist features to Program, “‘People’s Fronts’ on the one hand prepare for the foreseeable unrest of work- – fascism on the other: these are the last po- ing people and the oppressed in decaying litical resources of imperialism in the struggle capitalism, whose descent into barbarism The against the proletarian revolution.” Internationalist has become increasingly evident in the spot- Pressuring the bourgeois state for pro- light of the coronavirus pandemic. A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism for the tection against the Nazis disarms the work- What we can observe in Neukölln is ing class; appeals to the state for a ban on Reforging of the Fourth International the pervasive networking of fascists and the Nazis further strengthen the oppressive the bourgeois state apparatus. At the federal Publication of the Internationalist Group, state apparatus – harsher laws and bans level, we see many examples – Nazis and section of the League for the Fourth International will be put into use primarily to persecute “preppers”7 with death lists in the KSK (spe- leftists, immigrants and the entire work- cial forces commandos) and other federal Annual subscription US$10 for five issues. ing class. The Internationalistische Gruppe military units; NSU connections with the po- fights instead for worker/immigrant mo- Name______lice in the state of Hesse; Hitler images and bilizations. The struggle against the fas- swastika symbols in Nordrhein-Westfallen Address______cists requires a revolutionary, multi-ethnic police chat groups; fascist infiltration of the workers party to lead the fight for socialist Office for the Protection of the Constitution ______Apt. #_____Tel.(___)______revolution, which alone is capable of elimi- – of what in Neukölln is shown to be perva- nating the brown plague once and for all. ■ City______State/Province______sive at the local level. The Berlin police have Postal Code/Zip______Country______always been stuffed with Nazis, it was a hot- 8 The openly Nazi wing of the AfD, headed by bed of fascist Republikaner in the mid-’80s. Björn Höcke in the eastern German state of Make checks/money orders payable to Mundial Publications and mail to: Police officers regularly cover up for Nazis Thüringen. Mundial Publications as they do their dirty work, LKA investiga- 9 In 2018, Left Party Bundestag deputy Sara Wa- Box 3321, Church Street Station tors block investigations, Verfassungsschutz genknecht cofounded the Aufstehen movement, New York, NY 10008 U.S.A. officers leak internal information to suspects, modeled on Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France In- soumise (France Unbowed), on a nationalist pro- Write the Internationalist Group at the above address, or contact: 7 Fascistic right-wingers who are preparing for gram of “left” populism to compete for voters with Tel (212) 460-0983 Fax (212) 614-8711 “Day X” when, in the midst of apocalyptic so- the AfD. The latter, however, is not simply “right- E-mail: [email protected] cial collapse, they aim to wipe out all those on wing populist” but a fascistic party with close ties to their enemies lists, i.e., leftists, immigrants, etc. Nazi fascists, as this article details at the local level. 20 The Internationalist this system of exploitation and oppression. Brazil... We have not forgotten that the previ- ous popular-front governments initiated

continued from page 4 New York Times Soviet Union and the bureaucratically de- many of these attacks on workers – and also formed workers states of Eastern Europe, the extreme militarization of the country, U.S. rulers proclaimed a “New World Or- with the formation of the National Security der,” inaugurated with a bloodbath in Iraq Force by Lula and military occupation of (the 1991 Gulf War) with a toll of more the favelas of Rio at the time of the World than 100,000 dead. Cup (2014) and the Olympics (2016) by Ten years later, in 2002, Lula again ran Dilma. But the PT failed to impose most of for president heading a new popular front, the anti-worker “reforms.” That’s why the this time with the Liberal Party of textile bourgeoisie ordered her impeachment and 7 entrepreneur José Alencar. As proof of his his arrest. Now freed, Lula advocates the submission to the dictates of Washington, privatization of Eletrobras and Caixa Eco- the PT leader wrote a Letter to the Brazilian nomica Federal, by converting them into People (in reality to Wall Street investors) mixed capital companies, like Petrobras. in which he promised to pay the foreign Simultaneously he is seeking to collabo- debt. He then served as sheriff in the Carib- rate with the “coup plotters,” from Rodrigo bean for the U.S. government by occupying Maia to Eduardo Paes. And in this he is the black republic of Haiti (with Brazilian accompanied by the former spokesmen of soldiers in U.N. blue helmets). When the Mass burial site for victims of COVID-19 in Manaus, Brazil. The Amazon city the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), bourgeoisie needed to pull him out of the was the hardest-hit in the country, with an estimated 76% of the population Guilherme Boulos and Marcelo Freixo. game, Lula accepted his arrest, limiting “re- infected with the coronavirus by last December. Then a third wave of the We now know with an abundance of sistance” to legal defense. And now that the pandemic hit, and thousands more died there. So much for Bolsonaro’s evidence that none of the left forces, much bourgeoisie needs his services again, he is claim that “herd immunity” would stop the pandemic. less the PT, nor the union leaderships have offering himself as the candidate of a “broad PT leaders to public execration. Its pallid tional salvation movement, like Diretas Já,6 the slightest intention of breaking bour- front” with those that only yesterday he de- reforms vanished like ice cream in the sun. to eject Bolsonaro by impeachment. geois institutionality. On the contrary, nounced as “coup plotters.” Under the Bolsonaro government, the price But there will not be a second edition they all are looking to the 2022 elections. The “New Order” withered and died in of gasoline and fuel in general, including of Diretas Já. At the time (1984), the move- While in the streets people are shouting the devastating crisis of 2007-2008, but the cooking gas, skyrocketed, pushing the over- ment in favor of democratic elections for the “Bolsonaro Out,” the left is moving in PT remained. The capitalist governments all cost of living into the clouds. Millions presidency of the republic crystallized op- the other direction and trying to build a broad front, a new version of the popular of the PT-led popular front served impe- of people were left jobless, homeless and position to the military dictatorship. It gave front. As the pieces begin to move on the rialism and the national bourgeoisie by landless. As if all this were not enough, un- rise to large rallies of hundreds of thousands electoral chessboard, the PT and PCdoB stifling protests from below, just as other employment produced millions of starving of demonstrators and managed to subordi- are calling on the PSDB, MDB, PSB and populist governments of the “pink wave” people and a mountain of dead, devoured nate the militant metal workers’ unions to a PSD and others from the center and even in South America did, or Syriza in Greece. like flies by COVID-19, which was crimi- bourgeois leadership (of the Brazilian Dem- the extreme right (DEM) to join the horse- With leftist rhetoric, many applied “neolib- nally denied by Bolsonaro. Now it is re- ocratic Movement). In this way it prevented trading.8 The PSOL, which is a small eral” policies as previous governments did. vealed in the CPI, which hundreds of thou- the struggle to bring down the dictatorship break-off from the PT, calls for “unity of Soon the “popular” regimes were replaced sands are following live on Senate TV, that from leading to a revolution. However, the by rightists, in Brazil by the would-be the denialist government was offered, but the left” with a “ongoing dialogue round- current crisis is much deeper – it precedes table,” and the PCO,9 with its one-note Bonaparte Bolsonaro. With Donald Trump refused to buy, 70 million doses of vaccines the pandemic and the Bolsonaro govern- 7 See “Brazil: No to Impeachment – For Work- in the White House, the retired captain against COVID-19 from the Pfizer pharma- ment. The onslaught of privatization, mili- ers Mobilization Against the Rightist Bourgeois rules with generals and admirals nostalgic ceutical company. tarization and attacks on workers cannot be for the military dictatorship. Together with But Bolsonaro’s management of the CO- Offensive – No Political Support to the Bour- solved by “democratic” reforms within the geois Popular Front Government,” in The Inter- Congress, they approved almost all the an- VID crisis has been so chaotic that the Brazil- bourgeois regime. nationalist No. 43, May-June 2016. ti-worker “reforms” that PT governments ian bourgeoisie has had enough of the comic The current process of privatizing the 8 PSDB: Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, see were unable to impose. opera bonapartist who is impeding economic state-owned power company Eletrobras, footnote 4. MDB: Brazilian Democratic Move- recovery and may provoke an explosion of However, the hard core of the bour- the largest electricity generating company ment (formerly PMDB), heir to the opposition popular protest. May 29 indicates that the geoisie, the centrão (the “broad center” of in Latin America, as well as the prepara- party tolerated by the military dictatorship, which the traditional right-wing parties) led by the masses are beginning to overcome fear, is based on civil servants and provides the main tions to hand over Petrobras to imperialist PSDB,4 was defeated four times in a row by and consider the virus less deadly than the bourgeois component (and greatest recipient of investors, is not simply a policy choice by the PT and its Brazil Popular Front. Recall government. The ruling class again needs a bribes) in popular-front governments. PSB: Bra- Bolsonaro and his minister of the econo- that the PT and its administrations did noth- guarantor of the capitalist order, which could zilian Socialist Party, a bourgeois party whose my, the Chicago boy Paulo Guedes, a dis- main leader for many years was the cacique ing more than give a left gloss to the “so- be the Lula 22 candidacy. As Leon Trotsky, ciple of the father of neoliberalism Milton (political boss) of the Northeast, Miguel Arraes; cial” programs of FHC and his gang. The Lenin’s partner in the 1917 October Revolu- Friedman and admirer of the Pinochet mili- a component of almost all popular-front govern- Bolsa Família,5 for example, is a program tion and founder of the Red Army, wrote in tary dictatorship in Chile (which Friedman ments. PSD: Social Democratic Party, composed that didn’t even originate in the PSDB; it the Transitional Program (the founding docu- advised). The privatizations, together with mainly of defectors from other parties, until re- was the intellectual brainchild of the Ameri- ment of the Fourth International), “‘People’s cently aligned with Bolsonaro. DEM: Democrats, “reforms” to social security, public health, can ultra-right-wing economist, the neolib- Fronts’ on the one hand – fascism on the formerly the Liberal Front Party, successor to eral Milton Friedman, according to whom other: these are the last political resources of education and labor laws, are a reflection ARENA (Aliança Renovadora Nacional), the of- one should give the hungry something to eat imperialism in the struggle against the pro- of decaying capitalism and falling profit ficial party of the military dictatorship. 9 while slashing programs that entitled work- letarian revolution.” The capitalist hard core rates. They are a matter of the survival of Partido da Causa Operária, Workers Cause Par- 6 Direct Vote Now, a mass movement against ty, which in the distant past originated in the ten- ing people in general to certain rights. Since feels it must act preemptively, and soon. the military dictatorship of 1964-1985. dency of Argentine “Trotskyist” Jorge Altamira. the right wing failed to win by the vote, the COVID Parliamentary Inquiry, owners of Brazilian capital had Rousseff re- moved, Lula imprisoned and beginning in Just Another Maneuver – 2014 they launched a “Fora PT!” (PT Out) Fight for Revolution! Getty Images campaign in the mass media, led by the The new soap opera that has the popu- Globo TV Network. To finish the job, they lation mesmerized is the COVID-19 CPI. It plucked Bolsonaro from the catacombs. only gives proof of what everyone already For seven years now, the Brazil Popu- knew, although there are always new revela- lar Front and its components have faced tions. The rapporteur Calheiros is undoubt- one brutal attack after another, subjecting edly the master of political maneuvering, with a graduate degree in juggling. As presi- 4 Party of Brazilian Social Democracy, the main conservative party, of former Brazilian presi- dent of the Senate at the time of Rousseff’s dent Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC). impeachment, after holding back as long as 5 Family Stipend, a social welfare program that he could, when finance capital said it had provides small monthly payments (currently av- had enough of Lula and Rousseff’s PT, Cal- eraging US$50/month) to the poorest families. heiros did not hesitate to strike the right It was the PT’s expansion of the Bolsa Escolar blow at the right time and place. Now, in the (School Stipend) of Henrique Cardoso, and was pandemic hour, he is trying to build a na- financed by slashing health care and pension On May 29, as the pandemic raged, 100,000 marched in 200 cities around Brazil programs. (above, Rio de Janeiro) demanding “Bolsonaro Out!” and “Vaccines for All.” April-June 2021 21 song, shouts “Lula presidente.” What Trotskyist Fraction in almost every country the search for institutionality through the does this all add up to if not the formation and at all times. However, such an assem- CPI of COVID-19, and a discourse on mo- Palestinos... of a bourgeois broad front? bly would be a bourgeois institution, being rality. Recall that before he came up with sigue de la página 24 Within the PSOL, a multitude of inter- held within the framework of the capital- the plan for the PT to join the neoliberal en contra de los atacantes israelíes, aunque nal currents have already indicated that they ist state. Such was the National Constitu- rich man’s club, Lula said that in Con- no damos ningún apoyo político a las fuer- would vote for Lula in 2022, either in the ent Assembly of 1987-88 in Brazil, “im- gress “there are more than 300 picaretas” zas islamistas,1 que son enemigas mortales first round or the second round of voting, or posed by the mobilization” of “Diretas (crooks). Clearly he was right about that. del comunismo, desde Irán y Siria hasta they want him to put together a “single left já.” Trotskyist revolutionaries would have But one point he really screwed up on: Palestina (donde Hamas fue originalmen- front.” A smaller current, Esquerda Marxis- intervened in this mobilization against the capitalism itself, anywhere in the world, te patrocinada por Israel). Sin embargo, el ta (EM – Marxist Left),10 has positioned dictatorship, even advocating the slogan of is the main generator and source of cor- hecho es que los palestinos tienen un défi- itself to the left and mildly criticizes Lula a revolutionary constituent assembly, but ruption. Whether the PT, PSDB, DEM or cit masivo de armamentos frente al ejército (for not showing up on May 29), but insists, with the main call to fight for a revolution- MDB are the managers of the bourgeois israelí. El baluarte sionista no será derriba- like all the other currents, on the slogan of ary workers and peasants government. state, they cannot survive without main- do mediante cohetes caseros. Lo que hace “Bolsonaro Out.” It brags that it was “the Even if one adds a mention of “moving taining this rotten system. We can only end falta es una lucha de clases revolucionaria first organization in the country in 2019 to towards a government of the working people corruption if we put an end to capitalism! dentro de Israel, y a escala internacional. raise the slogan Fora Bolsonaro, against all that breaks with capitalism,” what the MRT After months of paralysis due to the ter- Con un respaldo imperialista casi uná- the left-wing organizations that were trying proposes is a stageist scheme, in which the ror spread among the masses by the terrible nime a favor de Israel y con izquierdistas to boycott it.” However, today “Fora Bolso- first stage would be the constituent assembly COVID-19 deaths, it is quite possible that oportunistas que se ponen a la cola del na- naro” is the cry of almost the entire left and (democracy).13 As for the “government of the there will be an awakening of the fighting cionalismo palestino y del islamismo, la even large sectors of the bourgeoisie. working people” (as the PT calls its bourgeois spirit of the masses. We will soon see. How- LIVI es única en luchar sobre la base del EM insisted for a long time that “Bolso- popular-front governments), these would-be ever, in order to be able to break the infernal internacionalismo proletario. Llamamos naro Out” should be the only slogan, without Trotskyists do not insist that this government cycle of military/police-type regimes and urgentemente a favor de acciones obreras additives, that “Only the working class and can only be based on organs of workers power corrupt bourgeois democracies, to get out of en contra de la guerra sionista/imperialis- the youth can consistently lead the struggle for – soviets. For Trotsky, on the contrary, “The the nightmare of the COVID pandemic and ta contra los palestinos, incluido el boicot ‘Fora Bolsonaro’.” But now that the slogan slogan, ‘workers and peasants government,’ is the pandemic of police terror, it is essential de cargamentos marítimos o aéreos israe- has “taken the streets,” EM switched gears thus acceptable to us only in the sense that it to break the “Bolsonaro Out” framework líes. Trabajadores portuarios italianos en and is now calling for “Down with Bolsonaro! had in 1917 with the Bolsheviks,” that is, as in order to attack the roots of these capital- Livorno declararon que no embarcarían ni For a Workers Government Without Bosses or “a popular designation for the already estab- ist plagues, by fighting for a revolutionary desembarcarían cargamento israelí. Ahora Generals!” However, even as reworded and lished dictatorship of the proletariat” (Tran- workers and peasants government. el Consejo Internacional de Estibadores ha “putting an accent on the second part” of the sitional Program). Furthermore, the idea that On this path, authentic Trotskyists call llamado a los trabajadores portuarios a no slogan, these would-be Trotskyists march with the expropriation of the bourgeoisie would be for a series of transitional demands that point tocar pertrechos de guerra destinados a Is- banners of “Bolsonaro Out,” the slogan of all resolved in an assembly that “discusses the to socialist revolution. In the municipal elec- rael. Los sindicatos portuarios en EE.UU. the popular-frontists, which opens the gate to major problems of the country” with represen- tions of November 2020, the Liga Quarta- (ILA e ILWU) y de todo el mundo deben another bourgeois government. tatives of the PSDB or DEM is absurd. Internacionalista do Brasil, section of the implementar inmediatamente esta medida. A bit to the left of Esquerda Marxista’s In the more than half a century since the League for the Fourth International, the Class Al llamar a poner alto a la “limpieza shame-faced popular-frontists, is another Cuban Revolution, the bourgeois rulers of Struggle Committee, and the Union of the étnica” que se ha realizado desde 1948 y current that claims to be Trotskyist, the Mov- Brazil have alternated in power between mil- Working Class of Southern Rio de Janeiro a defender el derecho de los palestinos a imiento Revolucionário de Trabalhadores itary dictatorship and democracy by popular State launched a Workers Power Candidacy regresar¸ enfatizamos que esto exige una (MRT, Revolutionary Workers Movement11), vote. With the end of the USSR, imperialist Against Capitalist Rule,17 which demanded: lucha común de los trabajadores árabes y with its “virtual newspaper” Esquerda Diário capitalism imagines itself the master of the ● Against the contempt for the lives of judíos que desemboque en una revolución (Left Daily), which is now calling for the world and financial capital wages its Game workers and the poor in the midst of the CO- obrera árabe-hebrea. Palestina es un caso slogan “Bolsonaro, Mourão and the Military of Thrones-like infighting with abandon. Im- VID-19 pandemic: free, rapid COVID-19 de pueblos interpenetrados. Con dos na- Out.” The MRT criticizes the “group of par- perialism has multiple masks. Now it adorns tests for all. Today we add vaccines for all, ciones –árabes palestinos y hablantes de la ties that present themselves as left alterna- itself with the woman’s face of a Margaret now. Also: immediate expansion of the pub- lengua hebrea– que habitan la misma es- tives to the PT (PSOL, PSTU, PCB, UP and Thatcher or Angela Merkel, now with the lic health care system to provide high-quality trecha franja territorial, la única manera de PCO) 12for centering their politics around black face of Obama or the whacked-out hospital care to all the sick, under workers conseguir un acceso equitativo a los recur- the impeachment of Bolsonaro.” It also criti- Trump, or the swashbuckling Captain Bol- control and led by medical professionals. sos vitales (como el agua) se encuentra en cizes the different components of the PSOL sonaro. Capitalism wages both hot and cold ● Against poverty wages and insuffi- un estado obrero palestino árabe-hebreo, for their orientation to a broad front around wars. Recall World Wars I and II, and we cient welfare grants: a huge increase in parte de una federación socialista del Me- Lula. However, the MRT does not criticize cannot rule out that a dynamic may already the minimum wage (to more than R$ 4,200 dio Oriente, que tenga como anclaje a las the popular-frontism of the reformist PT and be underway pointing to a World War III, monthly) and a sliding scale of wages ad- poderosas clases obreras egipcia y turca.... PSOL left as such. Instead, it proposes other this time primarily targeting the deformed justed by inflation. kinds of fronts, and above all, its “alternative” workers state of China. As necessary, the ● Against the constant killings of the La naturaleza de program is always (bourgeois) “democratic.” capitalists when in trouble dress up as de- population (particularly those with black la opresión sionista The MRT calls, “against the policy of mocracy, military dictatorship, popular front, skin) by the police and the militias: Mili- Los marxistas revolucionarios nos opo- adaptation of the left to the coup political or as bonapartists with militias and pastors.14 tary Police, Military Firefighters, all nemos a la existencia misma de un “estado regime,” for “the policy of a Free and Sov- Whatever: anything goes! armed agencies out of the slum districts, judío”, del mismo modo en que nos opone- ereign Constituent Assembly, imposed by We recall the “Ficha Limpa”15 (Clean and police of all kinds out of the unions. mos a la “República Islámica” de Irán o a mobilization, which will discuss the major Record) campaign, which the PT em- ● Against attempts to destroy public ed- estados que se autodenominan cristianos, problems of the country.” The constitu- braced, ending up being the main one ucation: control of the schools by councils como la España de Franco, por ser todos ent assembly is the favorite slogan of the devoured by it, via the Lava Jato Opera- of teachers, students, parents and school inherentemente antidemocráticos. Defende- 16 10 Internationally affiliated with the Internation- tion. Today we observe in the pseudo-left workers, under union leadership. mos al oprimido pueblo palestino en contra ● Against privatizations: full state own- de los opresores sionistas. ¿Pero qué va a al Marxist Tendency of Alan Wood. 13 11 Internationally affiliated with the “Trotskyist See “The Electoralist Campaigns of the Brazil- ership of the oil and energy industry and pasar con los dos pueblos que ahora ocu- Faction”; in 2015 it sought to join the PSOL but ian Left,” in The Internationalist No. 53. the imposition by the workers of workers pan la Palestina histórica? Los nacionalis- 14 Bolsonaro and his family have close ties to was turned down. control of production, to sell gas to the tas palestinos corean “Desde el río hasta el drug-trafficking “militias” in the Rio slums and 12 PSTU: United Socialist Workers Party, of the population at R$1 per liter. mar, Palestina será libre”. Varios grupos de LIT (International Workers League), the main with powerful evangelical pastors. 15 ● Against the harassment of the su- izquierda, después de estar a la cola duran- tendency of followers of the late Argentine pseu- The 2010 “Ficha Limpa” law calls for judicial panels to rule on the eligibility of all candidates perexploited immigrant population: full te mucho tiempo de la Organización para do-Trotskyist Nahuel Moreno. PCB: Brazilian la Liberación de Palestina de Yasir Arafat y Communist Party, a traditioinal Stalinist party. to run for office based on whether they have citizenship rights for all immigrants, and been found guilty of corruption, even if their UP: Popular Unity, a reference to Salvador Al- against all Brazilian participation in im- su apoyo a una “solución de dos estados”, lende’s Chilean popular front of the 1970s. cases are still in the courts. This law (supported perialist aggressions and occupations recientemente han retomado el llamado a by the PT and PSOL and praised by the MRT (Haiti, Bolivia, Venezuela) that cause the favor de la “solución de un estado” en una CORRECTION as a “popular conquest”) was used to bar Lula flow of refugees. from running in the 2018 elections. 1 El islamismo, o islam político, es una doc- Above all, the main task is the struggle It has been brought to our atten- 16 Operation Car Wash, the judicial investigation trina que sostiene que la ley islámica (sharia) tion that the reference in our last issue to of kickbacks on contracts of Petrobras, the semi- to forge the nucleus of the Leninist and debe gobernar la sociedad. Para los islamistas demonstrations of support to the union privatized Brazilian oil company which Wall Trotskyist revolutionary workers party no hay separación entre la mezquita y el estado. organizing drive at Amazon in Bessemer, Street has heavily invested in; the earliest cases that must be built to lead the working class Aunque hay diversas corrientes islamistas, así Alabama being initiated by the Workers involved payoffs at a car wash. The Lava Jato task and all the oppressed. n como fuerte diferencias entre islamistas de las World Party was inaccurate. The solidarity force was headed by the judge Sérgio Moro, who ramas sunita y chiita del Islam, todas llaman 17 demos on February 20 were in response to then expanded its targets to include ex-president See “Brazil: Workers Power Candidacy por un régimen teocrático, intrínsicamente no a call by the Southern Workers Assembly. Lula, whom he convicted on bogus corruption Against Capitalist Rule,” in The International- democrático caracterizado por la supremacía de charges unrelated to the original investigation. ist No. 61, September-October 2020. la doctrina y la autoridad religiosas. 22 The Internationalist “Palestina democrática y laica”. la guerra contra los árabes palestinos, como en las tenazas sionistas. ¿Una guerra regio- de los gobernantes etiquetan de manera Para liberales e izquierdistas, estos tampoco el boicot de las monedas Kruge- nal, “transferencias de población” en masa, mentirosa toda oposición a Israel como programas son ilusiones democráticas, rrand llevó a la caída del apartheid sudafrica- como los sionistas fundadores eufemística- antisemita, la lucha contra el militarismo mientras que muchos nacionalistas e isla- no. Además, ¿quién se supone exactamente mente las llamaron? Para todos estos terri- sionista es una lucha contra las burgue- mistas palestinos, que han sufrido décadas que va a desinvertir y a imponer sanciones? bles resultados, la respuesta debe consistir sías y los socialdemócratas. En Estados de tortura y muerte, sueñan simplemente Éste es un llamado a las multinacionales en luchar por una revolución obrera ára- unidos, donde hasta los demócratas que con echar a los judíos israelíes de ahí. Hoy capitalistas y al imperialismo norteameri- be-hebrea. Esta vía es difícil, pero es la posan como más izquierdistas no van hay aproximadamente 6.8 millones de ju- cano, que es culpable de crímenes mucho única verdadera salida. más allá de criticar la ayuda incondicio- díos y 6.8 millones de árabes en la Pales- mayores, aún incluso que los asesinos sio- nal de EE.UU. a los carniceros sionistas Aplastar el sionismo y el tina histórica (más millones de refugiados nistas, en contra de pueblos oprimidos. Por (y Bernie Sanders ha votado regularmen- palestinos adicionales que fueron expul- añadidura, quienquiera que piense que el imperialismo con la revolución te a favor de enviar millones de dólares sados a otros países, incluidos Jordania, Pentágono dejará de comprar software is- socialista internacional para financiar el Domo de Hierro del sis- Líbano y otros). Pero bajo el capitalismo, raelí para sus computadoras, o que cesará de Los incesantes ataques contra la po- tema antimisiles y otros componentes de la potencia mayor va a prevalecer, y esa contratar mercenarios israelíes para entrenar blación palestina terminarán desembocan- la máquina de guerra israelí),5 una lucha potencia hoy en día es la de los sionistas, sus escuadrones de la muerte paramilitares do en una explosión. Es vital que la forta- para poner alto a toda ayuda norteame- de modo que ya sea con uno o con dos es- en América Latina, está soñando. leza sionista sea destruida desde adentro. ricana a Israel, y para romper con los tados, los árabes perderán. Sin embargo, más allá de sus impli- Israel, después de todo, tiene cientos de ar- demócratas y el resto de los partidos Muchos en la izquierda se refieren a caciones programáticas, el término no es mas nucleares y una dirección lo suficien- capitalistas tendría un impacto. Sin el Israel como un “estado colonial”, como si históricamente adecuado. Como marxistas temente loca como para usarlas, en contra respaldo de sus jefes supremos imperia- fuera una suerte de colonia de un país al entendemos que el régimen del apartheid de Irán o de cualquier otro país. Hasta hace listas, Israel es un país muy pequeño en que los judíos israelíes pudieran regresar si no sólo consiste en una serie de medidas pocos años, los reclutas del cuerpo blinda- un mar árabe. Pero a final de cuentas, la las cosas se ponen difíciles, como los co- legales como los pasaportes internos, sino do eran llevados a la cima de la montaña victoria sobre el sionismo y el imperia- lonos argelinos que regresaron a Francia, que es una forma especial de esclavitud de Masada en el desierto de Judea para lismo (y los otros clientes de los impe- o los blancos de Rodesia que regresaron asalariada capitalista que se basa en la su- declamar su juramento de fidelidad. Ese es rialistas y satrapías burguesas en toda la a Inglaterra tras la independencia. Nótese perexplotación de los trabajadores negros el sitio en el que supuestamente un millar región) sólo puede conseguirse mediante que en Argelia los colonos franceses, co- africanos segregados por la fuerza en pue- de zelotes se habrían suicidado en masa una revolución socialista internacional. nocidos como pieds noirs, representaban el blos y “bantustanes”. Además, en la Sud- cuando fueron rodeados por legiones ro- La Liga por la IV Internacional busca 10 por ciento de la población; en la Rode- áfrica del apartheid, los blancos eran alre- manas en el año 74. Ese fue el final de los forjar el núcleo del partido comunista sia británica (ahora Zimbabue), los colonos dedor del 15 por ciento de la población. Se zelotes, pero hoy sus autodesignados here- leninista-trotskista que es indispensable blancos eran el 8 por ciento de la pobla- puede decir que la Cisjordania ocupada por deros tienen el dedo en el gatillo nuclear. para dirigir dicha revolución. n ción. En contraste, la población judía de Israel está sometida a un dominio semejan- Hay toda una capa del estrato gobernante 5 El senador de Vermont y candidato en las pri- habla hebrea constituye cerca de tres cuar- te al del apartheid, en el que la población israelí compuesto por unos miles de ase- 2 marias demócratas para la presidencia que se tas partes de la población de Israel. árabe palestina está dividida en pequeños sinos patológicos que ninguna sociedad autodenomina como un “socialista democráti- Aunque el establecimiento de Israel sí cantones, en tanto que algunos patrones is- humana podría tolerar. Es importante, sin co”, dice que es “pro Israel” y se unió a sus fue un proyecto colonial, facilitado por el raelíes se hacen de superganancias a partir embargo, que sean llevados ante la justicia colegas del Senado el año pasado para dar un- imperialismo británico tras la Declaración de la superexplotación de la mano de obra por la clase obrera y los revolucionarios de ánime consentimiento –¡dos veces!– a la ap- de Balfour de 1917, Israel no es una colo- de sus trabajadores árabes. Pero en Israel habla hebrea, como parte del proceso que ropiación de 3.3 miles de millones de dólares nia: es una potencia regional y un belicoso mismo, las poblaciones árabe y de habla pondrá fin al interminable ciclo de matan- para Israel bajo el “Programa d Financiamiento cliente del imperialismo, particularmente hebrea siguen interpenetradas y los sionis- zas nacionalistas. Militar Extranjero”. Hoy Sanders sólo llama a Biden para que “eche un vistazo” al uso que del norteamericano. De desencadenarse una tas de línea dura no se interesan fundamen- La situación que enfrenta hoy la ase- hace Israel de la ayuda militar norteamericana guerra a gran escala, aunque muchos po- talmente en sobreexplotar a los trabajado- diada población árabe palestina es nefasta, para que “considere” reducirla y condicionarla drían despegar con destino al sur de la Flo- res palestinos, sino que en cambio querrían como ha sido a lo largo de las últimas tres al buen comportamiento. Esto contrasta consid- rida, la mayor parte de la población judía de expulsar de plano a los árabes. cuartas partes del siglo de ascenso sionis- erablemente con la demanda de que se la corte Israel no tiene ningún lugar al cual volver. Esta es la razón por la que hemos escri- ta, y antes de colonialismo británico y de inmediatamente. Ningún programa real para la derrota del to acerca del peligro de una “solución final” dominio bajo el imperio sionismo puede basarse en semejantes en- sionista, y hemos descrito los enclaves de otomano. Pero no todos League for the Fourth International gaños. La población de habla hebrea debe Gaza y Cisjordania avizorados por los pla- los judíos israelíes quie- escindirse a lo largo de líneas de clase. nes de anexión como gigantescos campos de ren vivir para siempre LFI, Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY Tampoco es el caso que Israel sea un concentración para los palestinos. No debe en un estado guarnición, 10008, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] “estado apartheid” como Sudáfrica, según olvidarse que los sionistas –tanto sionistas y muchos se oponen a Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil otra comparación popular. Liberales y re- “laboristas” como David Ben Gurión y los los colonos fascistas y formistas interpretan el “apartheid” como sionistas “revisionistas” dirigidos por Ze’ev a los fanáticos religio- Brazil: write to Caixa Postal 084027, CEP 27251-740, sinónimo de algo muy represivo o muy Jabotinsky– cooperaron con el régimen de sos ultraderechistas que Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil racista, como el reciente informe (27 de Hitler y se opusieron al Levantamiento del ahora acechan en las ca- Rio de Janeiro: write to Caixa Postal 3982, CEP abril) de Human Rights Watch, “Traspa- Gueto de Varsovia.4 La “solución” que Ne- lles. Hace mucho León 20001-974, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil sado el umbral: las autoridades israelíes y tanyahu y los herederos de Kahane añoran Trotsky advirtió que el E-mail: [email protected] 3 los crímenes de apartheid y persecución”. es mucho más parecida a la Alemania nazi empeño sionista sería Internationalistische Gruppe/Deutschland Es comprensible que la ira provocada por que al apartheid sudafricano y podría ser una trampa mortal para los horrendos crímenes de Israel contra el a final de cuentas, literalmente genocida. los judíos. Hay líneas de Germany: write to Postfach 80 97 21, 21007 Hamburg, pueblo palestino lleve a algunos activistas Como escribimos en 2014: quiebre en la sociedad Germany a buscar comparaciones evocativas. Pero “Al rechazar la caracterización de Is- israelí, pero hará falta E-mail: [email protected] en lugar de describir la realidad material rael como un ‘estado colonial’ o ‘es- un choque de grandes di- Nucleo Internazionalista d’Italia del estado sionista, este término sirve para tado apartheid’, de ninguna manera mensiones para romper expresar desesperanza liberal. disminuimos la monstruosa naturaleza el candado sionista. La Italy: write to Anna Chiaraluce, C.P. N. 78, Ufficio También está relacionado con un pro- de los crímenes sionistas. Al contrario, única vía para la libera- Postale San Sisto, 06132 Perugia (PG), Italy E-mail: [email protected] grama, en el caso de Israel, como en Sud- lo que los gobernantes israelíes están ción radica en la lucha listos para hacer a los palestinos es po- áfrica, del “BDS”, es decir, “boicot, desin- clasista unida de los tra- Grupo Internacionalista/México tencialmente mucho peor que lo que los versión y sanciones”. Rehusarse a comprar bajadores y oprimidos, racistas de Rodesia o Sudáfrica llegaron humus de la marca Sabra no pondrá fin a tanto en Palestina, como México: write to Apartado Postal 12-201, Admón. a hacer”. Postal Obrero Mundial, CP 03001, México D.F, México en el resto de la región 2 Al oponernos a la pretensión sionista de que Is- –“Defend Gaza and the Palestinian Peo- E-mail: [email protected] rael es “el estado del pueblo judío”, los trotskis- ple – For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revo- y a escala internacional. Acciones obreras en Tel. Mexico City: 55-3154-7361; Guadalajara: 33-1752- tas revolucionarios hablamos de la “población lution” (julio de 2014) en The Interna- 6643; Oaxaca: 951-185-6815 de habla hebrea” para referirnos a la población tionalist, No. 38, octubre-noviembre de contra de los militaristas que se ha convertido en la nación dominante en 2014 israelíes pueden señalar Internationalist Group/U.S. Israel con la formación del estado sionista. ¿Qué va a resultar de la bárbara guerra la vía. Luchas obreras 3 Internationalist Group, Box 3321, Church Street HRW es una agencia imperialista que típi- actual contra los palestinos? ¿Otro cese al revolucionarias para de- camente produce propaganda bélica acerca de Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. fuego? Los palestinos seguirán atrapados rribar a los gobernantes violaciones a los derechos humanos a manos de burgueses árabes, par- E-mail: [email protected] regímenes o movimientos a los que los gober- 4 Véanse nuestros artículos “Zionism, Imperial- ticularmente en Egipto New York Tel. (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 nantes norteamericanos se oponen o pretenden ism and Anti-Semitism” y “Zionist Complicity Los Angeles Tel. (323) 984-8590 derribar, aunque ocasionalmente (como ahora) in the Destruction of Hungarian Jewry” y otros y Turquía, sacudirían la puede no marchar al paso de los designios de artículos en The Internationalist No. 9, enero- entidad sionista. New England Tel. (617) 213-5010 los gobernantes en Washington. febrero de 2001. En Europa, en don- Pacific Northwest Tel. (503) 303-8278

April-June 2021 23 El Internacionalista abril-junio de 2021 Biden, Sanders, demócratas pertrechan a los carniceros sionistas ¡Defender a los palestinos contra la guerra de Israel! ¡Por una revolución obrera árabe-hebrea!

Publicamos a continuación una ver- Gaza. Entretanto, el gobierno de EE.UU. sión abreviada de la declaración de la Liga informó al Congreso que ha aprobado la por la IV Internacional. El texto completo venta a Israel de 735 millones de dólares está disponible en www.internationalist.org. en armas de precisión teledirigidas. En 18 de MAYO – La toma por asalto de contra de todos aquellos que llamaron a Foto: Reuters la mezquita de al Aqsa en Jerusalén por favor de poner en funciones una adminis- cientos de policías israelíes el lunes, 10 de tración de Biden, no hay que olvidar que, mayo, marcó el primer disparo de la renova- una vez más, el Partido Demócrata del da guerra sionista en contra del pueblo árabe imperialismo norteamericano ha pertre- palestino. Aunque los medios imperialistas chado a Israel con el armamento que em- hablan de un conflicto entre Israel y Hamas, plea para hacer llover muerte sobre la po- el partido islamista gobernante en el asedia- blación palestina, como esos aviones caza do enclave de Gaza, la realidad es que se F-16 construidos en EE.UU. que ahora trata de una matanza unilateral de palestinos están bombardeando Gaza para desatar el a manos de la maquinaria bélica israelí. El terror entre la población. saldo mortal da cuenta de lo ocurrido: has- En Cisjordania, ocupada por Israel, ta el momento, más de 220 árabes han sido la juventud se levanta y, mientras la des- asesinados, de los cuales más de 60 eran ni- trucción de Gaza prosigue sin descanso, ños, en comparación con los 6 civiles judíos se habla de una tercera intifada, o levan- israelíes muertos. tamiento, tras las rebeliones de 1987-1983 Además, debido a los bombardeos, lí- y 2000-2004 (esta última en respuesta a la neas de transmisión de electricidad han sido invasión del complejo de al Aqsa por el derribadas, mientras que la única planta carnicero Ariel Sharon con un millar de po- generadora de electricidad está a punto de Rescatistas buscan víctimas del bombardeo aéreo israelí de un bloque licías). Para el día de hoy se convocó una quedarse sin combustible y los apagones residencial en Gaza, el 16 de mayo. “huelga general y jornada de acción” por en Gaza duran hasta 16 horas diarias. Al A esto se suma el terror desatado por jetivos. No obstante, los sionistas no han parte de los sindicatos y grupos comunita- menos 800 mil personas se encuentran sin bandas de linchadores sionistas-fascistas logrado quebrar la voluntad de resistir de rios árabes en Israel para que en toda la Pa- acceso a agua potable y las aguas negras se en contra de palestinos en ciudades israe- los palestinos. lestina histórica se proteste en contra de los desbordan en las calles. Más de 700 uni- líes en las que hay poblaciones árabes y Las horripilantes imágenes –de edifi- ataques contra Gaza y contra los palestinos dades habitacionales han sido destruidas, judías entremezcladas. En Cisjordania, cios de departamentos derribados por las en Jerusalén Oriental e Israel. Cientos de incluidos 76 edificios de departamentos. fuerzas militares israelíes han abierto fue- bombas, de un padre mirando a sus hijos miles pararon labores, cerrando fábricas, Escuelas y hospitales han sido alcanzados go en contra de manifestaciones de protes- muertos en la morgue, de un árabe lincha- tiendas y otras empresas, tanto en Israel por las bombas de precisión israelíes y una ta, mientras que colonos ultraderechistas do por pogromistas judíos– han encendi- como en Cisjordania, donde ha habido torre de oficinas de medios noticiosos fue han atacado a palestinos. El derechista pri- do protestas de decenas de miles en todo choques con el ejército israelí. Convocada deliberadamente destruida. Las Naciones mer ministro israelí Benjamín Netanyahu, el mundo. En Europa, los gobernantes originalmente por el Alto Comité de Segui- Unidas informan que al menos 58 mil re- quien inició la guerra para mantenerse en imperialistas han intentado vilipendiar a miento de los Palestinos en Israel, dirigido sidentes de la estrecha Franja de Gaza han el puesto, así como el ejército que está des- los manifestantes con la calumnia de que por Mohammad Barakeh, exmiembro del sido desplazados de sus hogares, de los truyendo áreas residenciales en Gaza con son antisemitas, dispersando y prohibien- Knesset (parlamento) en representación cuales unos 47 mil se encuentran hacina- artillería y bombardeos, promete proseguir do manifestaciones en contra del baño de del partido izquierdista Hadash, esta jorna- dos en escuelas de la ONU. hasta que terminen con su larga lista de ob- sangre sionista. En Estados Unidos, el pre- da concitó el respaldo hasta de la desacre- sidente demócrata Joe ditada Autoridad Palestina. Biden ha respaldado Frente a este nuevo episodio de la in- enfáticamente la acción terminable guerra sionista, el Grupo Inter- militar israelí en contra nacionalista y la Liga por la IV Internacio- de “grupos terroristas nal llaman a defender al oprimido pueblo en Gaza”, cuando los palestino en contra de sus opresores, en verdaderos terroristas primer lugar los militaristas y pogromistas son el ejército israelí y israelíes, respaldados por los imperialis- las muchedumbres de mos norteamericano y europeos. Llama- linchadores sionistas mos a defender a Gaza, el nuevo Gueto de

Foto: Revolución Permanente que asolan las calles. Varsovia, en contra de los asesinos en masa Un resumen de la israelíes; a romper el sitio israelí-egipcio Casa Blanca de una que ha convertido esta árida tierra de refu- llamada entre el presi- giados en una prisión al aire libre, lista para dente norteamericano ser bombardeada hasta hacerla añicos cada y Netanyahu dice que pocos años; y a expulsar al ejército israelí Biden “expresó su apo- y a todos los colonos sionistas de los terri- yo a un cese al fuego”, torios palestinos ocupados pero añadió que ambos En esta guerra, entendemos que el lan- “discutieron el progre- zamiento de cohetes desde Gaza es un in- El Grupo Internacionalista, sección mexicana de la LIVI, protesta en la Ciudad de México el so de las operaciones tento desesperado de resistir y de responder 15 de mayo contra la guerra de Israel en contra de los palestinos. militares israelíes” en sigue en la página 22