No 177 Summer 2001 40p Newspaper of the Spartacist League

Labour's victory means racist • rampage, war on unions '.

The 7 June general election returned Blair's New Labour to office with their huge parliamentary majority intact. But they are hated by millions of workers, youth and minorities. For most of the population the election was mind-numb­ ingly boring - the outcome was a fore­ gone conclusion and both Labour and Tories promised the same thing. Not surprisingly, the turnout was the lowest Local government since 1918. We gave critical support to and health workers Arthur ScargiII's Socialist Labour Party oppose Blair's (SLP) who ran against Blair's anti-work­ privatisation ing class New Labour and we used the plans, but union opportunity to engage SLP members and bureaucrats are others with our Marxist programme for tied to Labour. international workers revolution. Our campaign found a resonance among work­ 2: ers and youth who were often horrified to ,2 ~> learn that Socialist Alliance's "anti-La­ t: bour': .farllpaign was subqrdjnate. to get~ ting Labour elected. pursued by Blair. ''No vote to Labour: imperialist butchers!" Labour are so right-wing that bourgeois For four years Labour has been waging Today's Asian youth are the descend­ and "No vote to Socialist Alliance, lack­ nationalist parties such as the Scottish unremitting attacks on the poor and the ants of inunigrants recruited during labour eys of Labour!" Ditto for their partners in National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cyrnru in oppressed. Their record includes: priva­ shortages but when the capitalists shut the the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP). The Wales, as well as the Liberal Democrats, tisations, hundreds of thousands of job factories and can no longer make profit SNSSP did not oppose the election of are able to pose as a "left" alterna­ losses; a bigoted witch hunt against "sex from these workers they are dumped on Labour. On the contrary, in the vast ma­ tive - the latter just won the seat formerly offenders" and a huge assault on civil lib­ the scrapheap and subjected to racist jority of constituencies there was no SA held by Labour "left" Tony Benn. The SA erties. They eagerly participated in the and SSP go with the flow of national bombing of Serbia in 1999; now they chauvinism on each terrain: the SA is a plan to send additional troops to the Bal­ convergence of Labourite organisations kans and to Northern Ireland. We say: based in England, dominated by the SWP British troops out now! and incorporating Workers Power, the The bourgeois political establishment Alliance for Workers Liberty and Social­ and media were near unanimous in sup­ . terror. The multiethnic workers movement candidate and in these areas the Socialist ist Outlook. The SSP is an equally reform­ port of Blair's re-election, saluting the job must take up the fight against racist terror, Workers Party (SWP) said vote Labour. ist party created by Scottish Militant La­ bour who until the early 1990s were part he has done so far. The deeply~ivided linked to a struggle for jobs for all through Their line was: "vote Socialist where you Tories ran almost exclusively on xenopho­ a shorter working week with no loss in can, vote Labour where you must" of the English-chauvinist Labour Party but bia and were trounced at the polls. Labour pay, under a leadership that fights for (International SOCialism, Spring 2001). today tail the SNP. The Socialist. Alliance demonstrated their fealty to British impe­ matched the Tories, both in racist policies what we need, not what capitalism can We were pleased to give critical sup­ and demagogy. This culminated in a huge afford. rialism by consciously removing the call port to the SLP. Unlike the wretched for British troops out of Northern Ireland escalation of racist terror and an omi­ In Northern Ireland the election results Socialist Alliance, the SLP opposed vot­ nously high level of electoral support for showed a growing communalist polarisa­ from their election leaflets and from their ing for Labour and ran against Labour website. Dave Nellist, SA chairman and the fascist British National Party (BNP). tion. David Trimble's Ulster Unionists "lefts" such as Jeremy Corbyn and against lost to Ian Paisley's more hardline DUP, leading light in Peter Taaffe's Socialist In Oldham they polled 11,643 votes Socialist Alliance. We seek to break the - almost 16 per cent - and got signifi­ while among Catholics Sinn Fein gained Party (SP), pointedly refused to call for it working class from Labourism and to win at the press conference which launched the cant support in nearby Burnley. Asian at the expense of the "moderate" Social them to our revolutionary programme. As areas in both towns have suffered fascist Democratic and Labour Party. A wave of SA's campaign. This is not new - the SP the Spartacist LeagueiBritain statement of (like the SWP and AWL) never call for provocations and police occupation. We Loyalist attacks on Catholic school chil­ 14 May (reprinted page 4) said: issued a leaflet (reprinted on page 3) dren in Belfast broke out in June. This British troops out of Northern Ireland. calling for mobilising the social power of prefigures the annual violent onslaught "The key question is what kind of party against Catholics during the Orange and programme does the working class The fight against racist terror the working class to defend the Asian need to represent its interests and those of community in Oldham. We call for trade "marching season". From the outset, we all the oppressed - minorities, women, Laying bare their parliamentary reform­ union/minority mobilisations to stop have opposed the "peace" fraud and gays and youth - in the struggle against ist framework, the Socialist Alliance re­ fascist provocations and fight for full warned that any imperialist deal would capitalism. We seek to build a party which sponded to the racist terror in Oldham citizenship rights for all immigrants as necessarily be at the expense of the op­ is proletarian, revolutionary and interna­ with the slogan: "Don't vote Nazi". They pressed Catholic minority and contrary to tionalist, modelled on the Bolshevik Party part of the fight for workers revolution. of Lenin and Trotsky which led the great chose not to stand in Oldham, so this the interests of working-class Protestants. meant vote Labour. This is gross. Fascists Unemployment levels in these and other We call for British troops out of Northern October Revolution of 1917. former industrial towns in northern Eng­ "The SLP, which raises many supportable are genocidal race-terrorists whose "poli­ Ireland now and fight for workers revolu­ demands, at bottom is nothing but a party cies" are the firebomb and the lynch rope. land are phenomenal, which makes them tion on both sides of the Irish border and a breeding ground for fascism. Britain is ofnosta1gia: 'Clause IV socialists' looking They cannot be stopped by electoralism; both sides of the Irish Sea. to a Labourite past, not a socialist future." increasingly divided along ethnic lines as moreover Labour's racist administration well as geographically. The north/south ExemplifYing our critical support to the has emboldened them. The urgent ques­ divide - the bloated City of London and For a revolutionary workers SLP, on 19 May we issued a supplemen­ tion in Oldham was how to defend the partyl south east versus Scotland, Wales and the tary statement saying no vote to one SLP embattled Asian community but the slo­ north of England - has been exacerbated New Labour is despised by workers candidate - Gordon Potts - who is a gan "Don't vote Nazi" was not directed at by economic destruction and anti-work­ and minorities but many simply do not see probation officer and thus part of the the victims of racist terror, it was an ap- ing class attacks begun by Thatcher and an alternative. We said loud and clear: capitalist state's apparatus of repression. continued on page 4 I Lethal cop violence. against leftist protesters in Sweden

We print below a 16 June statement of the leL.

The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) vehemently pro­ tests the brutal attack by Swedish po­ lice - shooting into crowds and savaging Goteborg, demonstrators with attack dogs - during 15 June: the European Union (EU) summit in Protester G6teborg! We demand the immediate critically release of all arrested protesters! wounded by This is the fIrst time in memory that riot police cops in any West European country have gun-fire. fIred live ammunition at demonstrators. One. young protester was critically wounded and may die. Those bullets that . struck anarchist youth were aimed at the protests the all-sided effort to eliminate European Union to the workers of Europe. minister and current EU president, stated, working class of Europe, which increas­ jobs and social services. The shootings in To a man, the social-democratic heads "The EU is the only counterweight against ingly is combatting' through strikes and G6teborg were a deadly message by the of state gathered in GOteborg saluted the the raw game of market forces and the cop attack and denounced the young pro­ world domination of the U.S.A." testers. Taking hypocrisy to new heights, The ICL solidarizes with the protests British Labour prime minister Tony Blair against imperialist warmonger Bush. Lenin on bourgeois democracy denounced the "thuggery" of the protest­ However, workers and youth must be won While parliamentary election campaigns ers. German Social Democratic chancellor to the consciousness that the main enemy provide revolutionaries with heightened Gerhard SchrOder railed, "We have to is at home - their own ruling class! The opportunities to intervene with our pursue these rioters with all the might of counterrevolutionary destruction of the programme, we understand that bourgeois the law." Their law is to protect their Soviet workers state has ushered in sharp­ (parliamentary) democracy disguises the capitalist order and their whole system of ened competition among these imperialist reality ofthe domination ofthe exploiters exploitation and injustice. powers for markets and spheres of exploi­ over the exploited and oppressed. Our The mask is off-this is the real face tation which is driving the world toward goal, as stated in a document written by of "social Europe." After this, who can nuclear war. Already we have seen, in the believe the lies pushed by the labor mis­ NATO onslaught against Serbia (and the TROTSKY Bolshevik leader VI Lenin for the founding LENIN of the Communist International, is a leaders and reformist leftists who peddle continuing occupation of the Balkans), the proletarian revolution which expropriates illusions in this gang of murderers and fIrst war on European soil since 1945. the capitalist class and establishes a government ofdemocratically elected workers thieves? The blood on the streets of The youthful anarchist protesters who councils (soviets), a transition to a world communist society in which there will be no GOteborg reveals what the masses of the lashed out against the symbols of capital­ classes and no state. semicolonial world and ethnic minorities ist exploitation in GOteborg have their in the imperialist metropolises experience hearts in the right place. We understand In explaining the class nature of bourgeois civilization, bourgeois democracy; and the all the time. Now it is increasingly becom­ all too clearly such acts of outrage and bourgeois parliamentary system, all socialists have expressed the idea formulated with ing the norm for cop assaults on "anti­ frustration against this brutal system. All the greatest scientifIc precision by Marx and Engels, namely, that the most democratic globalization" protesters. With interna­ our sympathies are with the self-sacri­ bourgeois republic is no more than a machine for the suppression of the working class tional economic recession looming, what's fIcing protesters, even though we do not by the bougeoisie .... There is not a single revolutionary, not a single Marxist among necessary is to mobilize the labor move­ share the same political perspective. A those now shouting against dictatorship and for democracy who has not sworn and vowed ment in defense of its own class interests single isolated hero cannot replace the to the workers that he accepts this basic truth of socialism. But now, when the and the interests of all of the oppressed mass struggle. revolutionary proletariat is in a fIghting mood and taking action to destroy this machine against the rapacious capitalist rulers. of oppression and to establish proletarian dictatorship, these traitors to socialism claim We revolutionary Marxists seek to The bloody attack on anarchist youth mobilize the power of the multiethnic that the bourgeoisie have granted the working people "pure democracy," have abandoned came only a day after U.S. president resistance, and are prepared to yield to the majority of the working people. They assert proletariat in class struggle, not just to George Bush visited GOteborg to push his protest the capitalist system but to eradi­ that in a democratic republic there is not and never has been any such thing as a state crazed plans for nuclear first strike capa­ cate it. We fight to forge the Leninist machine for the oppression of labor by capital .... bility through a "national missile de- vanguard parties needed to lead the Only the soviet organization of the state can really effect the immediate breakup and . fense." The Bush visit underlined the total destruction of the old, i.e., bourgeois, bureaucratic and judicial machinery, which has working class to sweep away the capital­ growing divisions between U.S. imperial­ ist exploiters and their state and to build been, and has inevitably had to be, retained under capItalism even in the most democratic ism and its would-be EU imperialist ri­ republics, and which is ... the greatest obstacle to the practical implementation of a workers state and an egalitarian so­ vals. Goran Persson, the Swedish prime cialist society.• democracy for the workers and the working people generally. The Paris Commune took the.first epoch-making step along this path. The soviet system has taken the secon~. - VI Lenin, "Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat" (March 1919) JUST OUT! ~~PARTACJStJ~ 11 ___ . _"I = Spartacist (English Edition) "'_.·.i.y·. WORKERS HAHl1fIER ~ AiT~Crllll(lI~c~~: No 56 ...• .••.•. .... 8erm.n' "2~.~,<>;: For a federation of workers republics in the British Isles I ···andtheCQmintem·,:·.. · Spring 2001 .•...... ,...~.:.:... ..•< .. :.)" :.?' For a Socialist United States of Europel 64 pages, £1 J Published by the Central Committee of the Spartacist League, British section of the I > ...... 4 International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). . Spartacist is sent to I .···Trot$l(yandtflff.. .: EDITOR: Jo Watt all Workers Hammer RUSSIan Left OPposlt'Qn PRODUCTION MANAGER: Kate Kelsey ..... -'" ...... subscribers. CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mick Connor Suaan AdMI., '_~"""_I 1CL ...... ProIMt~ ... WorIIIa.nt:

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Spartacist Publications, PO Box 1041, London NW53EU Make cheques payable/mail to: " ...... "' .. ... E-mail: [email protected] Spartacist Publications Subscriptions: £3 for 1 year; Europe outside Britain & Ireland £4; overseas airmail £7 and PO Box 1041 [WOllU tIIe~nch Rm,"'] Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. London NW5-3EU The closing date for news in this issue is 30 June. . Printed by Cherwell Valley Lithographic Ltd (TU). ISSN 0267·6721

2 WORKERS HAMMER Labour rules lor racist imperialism: we need workers rule!

We reprint below a Spartacist League youth organised to defend themselves and leaflet published in response to fascist and riot police moved in to quell the angry cop terror against the Asian community in protests. Scenes of blazing police vans Oldham. There has since been an escala­ illuminated the reality of British capitalism tion of deadly racist attacks across the and highlighted the despair of Asian youth country. In nearby Burnley, fascist provo­ in a racist dead-end town who have been cations, including an attack on an Asian pushed beyond the limit of their endurance. taxi-driver by hammer-wielding thugs, We say: Drop the charges against all sparked a cop siege of the Asian commu­ arrested Asian youth! nity. Shahid Malik, a member of Labour's Urgently needed is trade-union centred National Executive, was beaten uncon­ protest against the police occupation of scious by the mcist police. Ominously, the the Asian community. This means draw­ British National Party polled more than ing in the power of the urban working 15,000 votes in Oldham and Burnley. class of the Manchester area so that be­ On 4 June, the inquest opened in Tel­ sieged minority youth in this enclave of ford, Shropshire, into the death of Errol Oldham, a run~own former mill town, are McGowan, a black man found hanged in not left to go it alone against the organised July 1999. He was on a Combat 18 hit list violence of the state, its cops, courts and and the family had been subjected to a prisons. Odd Anderson/AFP series of racist attacks and death threats Tony Blair said "we give 100% support Oldham: Riot cops move in to suppress Asian youth defending themselves from thugs associated with this fascist to the police on the law and order issue against fascist provocations. terror group. Six months later, his nephew bloody partition- of India, we look to the Jason McGowan was found hanged from railings near his home. Shortly before the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Trotsky inquest opened a prominent member of the which led the 1917 Russian October Rev­ McGowan Family Campaign, Johny El­ olution. The question of how to fight racist liot, was also found hanged in Telford. His terror is a clear example of the difference wife has gone into hiding fearing for her­ self and their daughter. between our programme and that of the SLP. For its part, the SLP is standing as The lynching of black people is the its candidate in Newcastle one Gordon calling card of the Ku Klux Klan. Race on race relations" and sanctimoniously devastation and de-industrialisation in . Potts - a probation officer and therefore . terrorists are growing in the climate cre­ condemned the "white extremists" for places like Oldham. The provocations of ated by Labour ministers, particularly a cop, part of the capitalist state. This is a racism (Guardian, 29 May). This is rich. these extra-parliamentary .gangs can and crystallis~d expression of the SLP' s previous home secretary Jack Straw, in Labour's relentless anti-immigrant, anti­ must be met by the mobilisation of the parliamentary reformism. No amount of their relentless attacks on the rights of asylum campaigns have fanned the flames social power of the workers movement "socialist" MPs in parliament, no amount immigrants and asylum seekers: these of racism and given the green light to the acting at the head of all the oppressed. We of tinkering with the worst excesses of the murders are the direct result. fascist vermin. We demand full citizenship call for mass union/minority mobilisations state or whitewash "inquiries" can get to rights for all immigrants! For the right of to crush the fascists! It is not only the duty the root of racial oppression: the capitalist For five weeks the black and Asian asylum! Under Labour and Tories alike the of the workers movement but in its imme­ system. We say: No vote to Gordon Potts! population in Oldham have been subjected capitalist system of production for profit diate and direct interest to take such ac­ Cops and prison guards do not belong in to repeated provocations by the National has resulted in massive de-industrialisation tion. The political obstacle to such mobi­ the workers movement! Front (NF) and British National Party in towns like Oldham, perpetuating the lisations is the Labourite trade union The situation facing racial minorities in (BNP) fascists. For Asians and blacks, conditions which provide a fertile breeding Saturdays have become known as "no-go ground for the NF and BNP. days" or "National Front days" in the town No-one should have illusions that vot­ centre. On Saturday, 26 May, fascist gangs ing Labour will be any kind of barrier to attacked Asian homes: a pregnant Asian the growth of fascism. The Spartacist woman had a brick thrown through her League says: No vote to Labour- im­ window; racist scum jumped on a parked perialist butchers! This is a necessary part car while an Asian woman and child were of the political struggle to break the inside, smashing the windscreen. Asian working class from Labourism and to forge a multi-ethnic revolutionary party. Labour rules for mcist British imperialism; they are the bloody bombers of Serbia and Iraq and overseers of British army repression in Northern Ireland. We also say: no vote to the Socialist Alliance, servile lackeys of Blair & Co. The Socialist Alliance parlia­ mentary cretins held an election rally in Brixton three nights after Oldham erupted without even solidarising with the embat­ tled Asian youth in five presentations from the platform. Socialist Worker (2 June) Super/New York Time. Shop-front in Oldham defaced with racist graffiti. Minority youth face future of no harps on about the fact the "Cops let Nazi jobs and growing racist attacks. thugs rampage in Oldham", as if they might be expected to act differently. The bureaucracy -loyal to the capitalist sys­ Oldham-mcist attacks, police terror, no cops - the armed fist of the bosses' tem, preaching the inviolability of its state jobs, grinding poverty and appalling so­ state - are not "neutral", but defenders of and implacably hostile to such independ­ cial conditions - illustrates the vicious the fascist scum and enforcers of the daily ent mobilisations of the working class. and irmtional workings of British capital­ mcism and deprivation meted out to minor­ We are giving critical support to the ism. During labour shortages immigrant ities. Socialist Worker concludes: "Don't Socialist Labour Party (SLP) whose cam­ workers are brought in to do the lowest Vote Nazi". Such calls to repudiate the paign draws a class line, albeit crudely, paid and dirtiest jobs; when no longer fascists (and the Tories) at the polls are against Blair's anti-working-class New needed they are discarded. In Oldham, typical of reformist schemes to push La­ Labour. They are standing against La­ Pakistani, Bangladeshi and black Carib­ bour as a "lesser evil" and a way to "fight bour, including the so-called "lefts", and bean workers once worked in the textile the right". refusing to call for a vote to Labour else­ mills, but as in Bradford and elsewhere Fascists are race-terrorists whose ulti­ where. But we"counterpose our revolution­ they have been pushed out of the mate target is the destruction of the entire ary programme to the SLP's programme workforce by the devastation of manufac­ Andrew Fox workers movement. As the Nazis were in which is Old Labour parliamentary re­ turing industry. Unemployment levels for Doreen McGowan holding picture of Germany, so too the British fascists are formism - a programme which has al­ the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communi­ her son Jason, found hanged in kept in reserve as the capitalists' "dogs of ways served British imperialism. While ties are as high as 25 per cent and most of Telford after fighting to discover the war" to be unleashed in times of extreme the SLP harks back to the 1945 Labour this generation of youth, particularly mi- truth about his uncle Errol's death. social crisis. They feed off the economic government which presided over the continued on page 9

SUMMER 2001 3 plus-public ownership scheme, which again subordinates the operation of public transport to the overall dictates of the capitalist system. Livingstone has hired Bob Kiley, a notorious union-buster and Vote Socialist Labour Party, former CIA operative to run the city trans­ port system. Workers are currently en­ gaged in one-day strikes over safety. Bob Crow, the chief rail union bureaucrat who against New Labour! was long a prominent SLP stalwart, has done his utmost to channel workers' anger into support for Livingstone/Kiley. Tube MAY 14 - In the general election the Irish Sea. We fight for an end to the op­ and through parliament. The SLP harks workers were infuriated when Crow called Spartacist League says no vote to Labour, pression of the Catholic minority in the back to the supposed "good old days" of off a recent strike. which promises only to carry out more of North and oppose the imperialist-brokered Clement Attlee's post-World War II La­ Our programme is for expropriation of the same racist, anti-working-class poli­ "peace" fraud which is' necessarily at the bour government which nationalised huge transport without compensation to the cies they have dished out over the past expense of the oppressed Catholic minor­ swathes of British industry in what capitalist bosses as part of the struggle four years, and we say no vote to the So­ ity and won't do any good for working­ amounted to an enormous capitalist bail­ for a workers government and the estab­ cialist Alliance whose campaign is subor­ class Protestants either. We say: Troops out of failing enterprises. These compa­ lishment of a planned economy. Expro­ dinate to getting Labour re-elected. We out now! For a workers republic in Ireland nies were then subsidised by working priate private rail and bus - no compen­ urge a vote for the Socialist Labour Party as part of a voluntary federation of work­ people through high taxes and low wages sation! Urban transportation ought to be (SLP) which is running an independent ers republics in the British Isles! while the former owners were given exor­ free - rip out the ticket barriers! Such a working-class campaign that draws a class The SLP raises some demands which bitant rates of compensation. Attlee's programme is incompatible with the per­ line, however crudely, against the Labour we fully support, not least the call for the Labour government were imperialist spective of Scargill's SLP. We fight for a Party. Unlike the misnamed Socialist abolition of the monarchy and the House butchers who presided over the bloody powerful industrial union embracing rail, Alliance the SLP refuses to call for a vote of Lords and the right of self-determina­ partition of India and crushed the Commu­ Underground and bus workers. Workers to Labour and is willing to stand against tion for Scotland and Wales. They also nists in the Greek Civil War. must rely on their own strength and must so-called Labour "lefts" such as Jeremy call for free abortion on demand and for The Blair government's mania for be mobilised independent of the capitalists Corbyn .. Labour has whipped up a racist rebuilding health and public services, privatisation exceeds even that of and their state. The unions Ileed a class­ frenzy which is inciting deadly attacks on including re-nationalisation of rail and Thatcher - the air traffic control system struggle leadership, not sell-outs like Bob the minority population. Blair's brutal public utilities such as gas, water and and the London Tube are on the list. We Crow. The only way to get a safe, reliable crackdown on the fuel protesters was a electricity. These demands speak to the oppose privatisations, which always mean transport system that also meets the needs measure of his commitment to enforcing felt anger of working people against the attacks on unions, jobs and working con­ of the workers in the industry is by the capitalist austerity. From the war on Ser­ crimes of the capitalist system. ditions, throwing safety to the wind. But overthrow of capitalism through the sei­ bia to the British Army siege of Catholic The key question is what kind of party for revolutionaries, the answer is not a zure of power by the proletariat. areas in Northern Ireland to the ongoing and programme does the working class return to the bad old days of British Rail The SLP's opposition to imports of bombing of Iraq, the Labour government need to represent its interests and those of ala the SLP, or Ken Livingstone's bonds- continued on page 9 are imperialist butchers. all the oppressed - minorities, women, We refused to call for a vote to Ken gays and youth - in the struggle against Livingstone - a zealous supporter of the capitalism. We seek to build a party which bombing of Serbia - when· he ran for is proletarian, revolutionary and interna­ mayor of London; needless to say the tionalist, modelled on the Bolshevik Party NQ~Qti~QGQ,glg8:Qltl!qllllgllltijlgQigQI' Socialist Alliance backed him. This month of Lenin and Trotsky which led the great Livingstone and Blair unleashed thou­ October Revolution of 1917. 19 May - We learned today that the The SLP is running a supportable sands of cops on May Day protesters in The SLP, which raises many support­ SLP is standing one Gordon Potts, a campaign drawing a class line against London. The Spartacist League says: able demands, at bottom is nothing but a Probation Service tutor and activist in Blair's anti-working-class New Labour. Defend the May Day protesters! Drop all party of nostalgia: "Clause IV socialists" the National Association of Probation The Spartacist League is giving critical the charges! looking to a Labourite past, not a socialist In contrast to the Socialist Alliance, the future. "Clause IV", which promised Officers cop "union", as candidate for support to the SLP. But at the same SLP forthrightly calls for British troops "common-ownership'\·-wtle··written into Newcastle upon Tyne Central. Probation time, standing Mr Potts is a crystallised out of Northern Ireland. The SLP calls for Labour's constitution at a time when officers, like police and prison guards, expression of the SLP's "Clause IV" a united Ireland. We oppose the forcible workers were electrified by the impact of are part of the capitalist state - the parliamentary reformism, which is based reunification of Ireland which would mean the Bolshevik Revolution. The myths bosses' "bodies of armed men" for the on the deadly illusion that the capitalist reversing the existing terms of oppression. about "common ownership" were con­ preservation of capitalist property, state, its parliament, cops, probation The only just solution is one in which the cocted deliberately to dupe workers into exploitation and oppression. They do not officers, etc, are "neutral" and can be rule of capital is overthrown on both sides believing that "socialism" could be belong in the workers movement! We used by the working class to achieve of the Irish border and both sides of the achieved without a workers revolution, say: No vote to Gordon Potts! socialism ..

Our critical support met contradictory until 1991-92. We fought for uncondi­ The fake-Trotskyist outfits all joined Election ... responses. Some SLP branches were split tional military defence of the Soviet Union with their own capitalist rulers in fighting down the middle over whether to accept and the deformed workers states of East­ for the destruction of the Soviet Union and (Continued from page 1) our offer to canvass for their candidates. ern Europe against imperialism and capi­ the Eastern European deformed workers peal to potential BNP voters! Socialist Two London branches - Islington North talist restoration. This is also our states and today refuse to defend China Worker (16 June) scandalously gave sym­ and Hornsey/Wood Green -rejected, programme today for the remaining de­ against imperialism. Within the SLP, the pathetic interviews to BNP supporters, saying they wanted "full support" not formed workers states - China, Cuba, dominant force on the Russian question is supposedly attempting to win the argu­ "critical support". But in the spirit of the North Korea and Vietnam. We call for the Indian Workers Association (lWA) ment "with people who voted for the BNP united front we used our own leaflet and proletarian political revolution against the which regards China as a "socialist" coun­ that we need black, white and Asian unity made placards calling for votes to the two Stalinist bureaucratic caste, whose concili­ try and opposes counterrevolution but has to figb,t for better living conditions for SLP candidates there - Steve Cook and ation of imperialism and "market reforms" no programme to prevent it. According to eveIY0ne". The article pretends that: "The Ella Rule. Rule belongs to the Stalin.­ weaken the planned economy and increase the IWA, the problems in the USSR began majority of people who voted for the Na­ worshipping wing of the SLP and is vehe­ the danger of counterrevolution. continued on page 8 zis are not hardcore racists. Some fell for mently anti-Trotsky. Our comrades joked the idea that voting BNP was a protest that the placard for her should read: "Vote for Stalinist MisRule!". By contrast vote." In other words these "softcore" Manchester SLP members welcomed our racists are "lapsed" Labour voters whom Spartacist comrades. We helped distribute SLP the SWP seeks to win back into the (old. (English edition) election leaflets door-to-door and they expressed their appreciation by publishing Critical support in action a photograph of the canvassing team on No55 Arthur Scargill had a field day making their website. In most areas the SLP did Autumn 1999 fun of the Socialist Alliance - for their little or no campaigning and thus were 56 pages, £1 support to Blair, their constant whining able to tap into only a fraction of working­ "'" ...... ~.... I.ott ...... about the SLP "splitting the left vote" and class anger against Blair. Spartacist is sent to all -...... their appeals to the SLP to join the Alli­ Many members of the SLP come from Ic::...~t:::::~~~: ...... II ance. At a 4 June SLP meeting in London, a Stalinist background and some got their Workers Hammer subscribers .:;u.~=:.o~~ ____ ...... there was laughter as he banged the table first introduction to genuine Trotskyism in ~~~~ 00 ...... saying the groups who now form SA have the campaign. We Trotskyists uniquely in the past wanted to join the SLP, but fought against counterrevolution in the Make cheques payable/send to: ;:;;:.~~"--I ..• they also wanted to continue supporting USSR. In August 1991 we sought to mo­ Spartacist Publications New Labour: "You're almost like an bilise Soviet workers to defend and pre­ PO Box 1041 unrequited lover" he shouted, "we don't serve the gains of the October 1917 revo­ London NW5 3EU want you.... For Christ's sake get it lution which had been betrayed by decades through your heads." of Stalinist misrule, but not overthrown

4 WORKERS HAMMER ------!_I----- Ireland's "neutrality" is a lie

DUBLIN - On 7 June the Irish govern­ colonial ambitions of the multi-nations." ment held a referendum on the Nice - undated Socialist Alliance fact sheet Treaty, which lays the groundwork for the Likewise, the ATGWU claimed that the expansion of the EU to Eastern Europe Nice Treaty would mean "opening up the and for the establishment of a European possibility of Irish military participation Rapid Reaction Force. Although nearly in conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and two thirds of the electorate didn't vote, the Eastern Europe" (Irish Times, 8 May). referendum was defeated by 54 per cent. These statements bury the role of Irish The Dublin Spartacist Group advocated a troops who have been deployed around the No vote and welcome the outcome which world as part of UN "peace-keeping" was a slap in the face to the government missions for decades to defend the inter­ and means that the Nice Treaty cannot be ests of the imperialists and those of the ratified by the EU until it is approved in a Irish bourgeoisie. Currently hundreds of future referendum in Ireland. We revolu­ Irish troops are stationed in the Balkans, tionary proletarian internationalists op­ Lebanon and East Timor where the pre­ pose the European Union as an imperialist tence of Ireland's "neutrality" is used to trade bloc, which is a vehicle for co-opera­ cover up the fact that they are in fact part tion among the European capitalists to of the imperialist troops. We demand: attack workers and minorities and to com­ BritisMrish and all imperialist troops out pete against their imperialist rivals in the of the Balkans, East Timor and the Near US and Japan. East! Smash NATO through workers Fortress Europe has meant a tightening revolution! For workers in Ireland, the main enenw Conor O'Clery of immigration controls and "Fortress East Timor: Irish soldiers form part of imperialist occupation forces. Ireland" is a racist nightmare for those is the Irish capitalist class. The Irish bour­ immigrants who manage to get here. Over geoisie attacks the workers and oppressed the past year, Irish immigration cops have at home and lines up with one or another counterrevolution. abortion rights. At the time the Dublin been stationed in French ports to intercept imperialist power because that is where The SWP and Socialist Party claim to Spartacist Youth Group fought for a class­ potential asylum seekers and immigrants, their class interests lie. Ireland's "neutral­ oppose the "militarisation" of Europe, but centred struggle for free abortion on de­ resulting in a 95 per cent drop in the num­ ity" has always been a nationalist myth. they supported the re-election of Blair's mand. While the potential to wage such a ber of claims for asylum in Rosslare port. There was nothing neutral about Ireland's British Labour government which only fight was palpable, the fake-left groups For full citizenship rights for all immi­ attitude towards NATO's anti-Soviet Cold two years ago was the most belligerent consciously tailored their demands to "con­ grants! For the right of asylum! War. This policy was laid out for the first bomber of Serbia. Likewise the Socialist stitutional" reform. Irish UN delegation: "Ireland was to do Partx is opposed to the basic demand for To wrest the right to free abortion on Those who voted against the treaty did what she could to preserve Christian civili­ the withdrawal of British troops from demand means to take on the combined so for various reasons: out offear that the sation and to support wherever she could Northern Ireland, and while the SWP power of the church and the clericalist expansion of the EU would mean fewer those powers primarily charged with the raises this call in Ireland, they don't in state. Without a perspective to struggle for subsidies for Ireland, to defend Ireland's defence of 'the free world' against commu­ Britain ~whe.m~ts!·LabeuH-irnpe­ proletarian state power, the reformists "neutrality" and from reactionary opposi­ nism" (Ireland Since the Famine, FSL rialist "peace" deal is a lie, British troops concentrated on subminimal tinkering. tion to abortion (which the treaty does not Lyons [1971]). Today the imperialists out now! . Their major campaign was the "Repeal the include). It is a feature of referendums that target the Chinese deformed workers state. Far-right clerical nationalists opposed 8th Amendment Campaign" which we you can't distinguish your No vote from While an EU military arm could potentially the Nice Treaty: the No to Nice Campaign described as the "Keep Abortion Illegal those in opposition for quite different be a competitor of NATO, the European headed by former High Court judge Rory Campaign" since it didn't touch the 1861 reasons - in this case including clericalist and US imperialists have a common inter­ O'Hanlon was run from the offices of the Offences Against the Person Act which and nationalist reactionary forces. est in fomenting capitalist counterrevolu­ Youth Defence anti-abortion bigots. These firmly prohibits abortion. The right to The Labour Party and most of the trade tion in China. Thus the current issue of groups oppose the "liberalisation" of abortion is a necessary part of the fight union bureaucracy joined the government NATO Review states, "Asia, too, is an area Ireland which they blame on Ireland's against women's oppression. For the in calling for a Yes vote on the Nice about which Americans and Europeans integration into the EU. But Ireland re­ separation of church and state! For free Treaty. The ATGWU and the reformist must learn to think in unison.... This is mains a deeply reactionary clericalist state abortion on demand! left like the Socialist Party and the newly­ especially the case with respect to China" where abortion is banned by the constitu­ The only way to liberate the working launched Socialist Alliance (which in­ (quoted in the Phoenix, 8 June). For their tion in all cases except where the woman's class, women and all the oppressed is cludes the Socialist Workers Party [SWP] part, the reformists, who joined with their life is threatened (but in practice not even through socialist revolution. The DSG and the USec's Socialist Democracy) own bourgeoisie in cheering the restoration available then). The main parties, includ­ fights to build a Leninist vanguard party called to vote against the treaty. These of capitalism in the Soviet Union and ing Labour, refuse to touch this explosive in Ireland necessary to lead such a revolu­ groups opposed the treaty from a left­ Eastern Europe, today oppose defending social issue. tion. For an Irish workers republic in a nationalist perspective of defending Irish China against the imperialists. We stand There have been no substantive changes federation of workers republics in the "neutrality". This was also the stance of for the unconditional military defence of to the law although there were tremendous British Isles, part of a Socialist United Sinn Fein, the Green Party and sundry China against imperialism and internal social struggles in the early 1990s around States of Europe! _ bourgeois pacifists and liberals such as the Peace and Neutrality Alliance. The Socialist Alliance campaigned under the slogan "NO to a corporate Eu­ rope, NO to a military Europe" and stated:

"All this means that Irish neutrality is fin­ ished. Irish neutrality was often inconsist­ ent and used as a cover to hide how Irish foreign policy was aligned with the US. "Yet the Nice Treaty goes much further and dispenses with any obstacles to Irish soldiers joining a Euro army to protect the

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Sygma Workers Hammer Dublin: 1992 protest against High Court anti-abortion ruling (left). Spartacists fight for free abortion on demand.

SUMMER,2001 5 Prosecutors, press try to bury new evidence of innocence

The Philadelphia district attorney's made to allow illegal activity including office, with the aid ofa shameless black­ prostitution, _gambling, drugs without out by the capitalist media outside prosecution in the center city area." Philly, is doing everything in its power Beverly went on to state that police to make sure that dramatic new evidence officers were present in the vicinity of Mumia Abu-Jamal's innocence will when Faulkner was shot on 9 December never be heard in court - or anywhere 1981. "I was not worried about the po­ else. On 4 May, Jamal's new legal team lice being there since I believed that filed affidavits that blew to bits the since I was hired by the mob to shoot frame-up that railroaded him to death and kill Faulkner, any police officers on Mumia Abu-Jamal row for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia the scene would be there to help me." during interview with policeman Daniel Faulkner. The affida­ The prosecution and its local media Workers Vanguard vits included the sworn confession of mouthpieces claim it is "ridiculous" that from death row, 1996. Arnold Beverly in 1999 that he shot Beverly could have been hired by cops Faulkner and that "Jamal had nothing to or the mob to kill Faulkner. Although lie do with the shooting." In his own affida­ detector tests are certainly not foolproof, vit, Mumia says categorically, "I did not they are routinely used by police and shoot Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. I government agencies and are admissible Workers Vanguard had nothing to do with the killing of in many courts. It is notable that the Officer Faulkner. I am innocent." prosecution is attempting to discredit than three FBI investigations, and police told the medical examiner's office that In new papers filed on 29 May, Beverly as an inveterate liar with the brass were hysterical about the possibil- . Jamal was shot by "arriving police Murnia's attorneys point out, "It is a rare claim that he failed two lie detector tests. ity of informants. Among the targets reinforcements". But at the trial, the habeas petitioner who is able to come But like every prosecution fabrication were James Carlini, head of homicide; prosecution claimed Jamal was shot by before the United States District Court that preceded it, this new lie was blown John DeBenedetto, Chief of the Central Faulkner in self-defence. with a full blown confession from the away on 29 May when Murnia's lawyers Division where Faulkner worked; and A centre-piece of the prosecution's true perpetrator of the offense of which submitted Beverly's actual polygraph Inspector Alphonse Giordano, the senior case in 1982 was the claim that Jamal the Petitioner was convicted and which reports. According to an affidavit of cop at the scene of Faulkner's shooting. yelled out a "confession" when he was proves that the Petitioner is innocent." polygraph expert Dr Charles Honts, he Thefederal probes ultimately led to the taken to the hospital for treatment of his But the prosecutors and the capitalist administered two lie detector tests in convictions of over two dozen cops, near-fatal gunshot wound. The supposed rulers they represent could not care less 1999 and concluded Beverly was being including DeBenedetto and Giordano. "confession" was only raised by cops about Murnia's innocence. They want to truthful each time. The only time Carlifti· was..an-l1nindicteti-eo-oonspira­ two months after that night. The cop execute Jamal because they see in this Beverly was being deceptive was when tor .. After testifying against DeBene­ assigned to guard Jamal from the time of black journalist, MOVE supporter and he denied being the one who shot Faulk­ detto, one FBI informant was gunned his arrest to his treatment at the hospital former Black Panther Party spokesman ner. Honts also concluded that an earlier down and an ex-cop linked to Giordano filed an official report at the time stating, a symbol of defiant opposition to their test performed by another examiner was was named as a suspect in the murder. "During this time, the negro male made system of racist repression. They want to "irremediably flawed and withoui'proba­ Now Beverly's account of Faulkner's no comments." In his affidavit, Mumia execute Jamal in order to send a chilling tive value". killing has been backed up by the states emphatically, "Because of the message to all those who challenge cop Yet while trying to dismiss Beverly as "Straight Scoop" columnist in the Phila­ blood in my lungs it was difficult to delphia New Observer (16 May), who speak, and impossible to holler. I never reported: "I heard this very, same story confessed to anything because I had over a month before the local media nothing to confess to." released it. The sad tale came from a cop In another statement submitted on 4 who works a downtown detail." May, Temple University professor and Beverly's account was also buttressed journalist Linn Washington tells how a by the affidavit filed on 4 May of hospital worker and another reporter told Jamal's brother, Billy Cook, who re­ him when 'he visited the hospital that ported that his partner, Kenneth "Poppi" "police were beating Mr. Abu-Jamal in Freeman, was a passenger in Cook's the ER". A veteran police reporter, VW when it was pulled over by Faulk­ Washington describes being shocked by ner the night of the shooting. While Billy the "total lack of police" when he visited was looking in the back of the car for his the shooting scene less than five hours owner's registration, Freeman got out of after the shooting, saying it brought to the VW, shots were fired and then Free­ mind other instances of "police destruc­ man was gone. "Later Poppi talked tion ofa crime scene", the most memo­ about a plan to kill Faulkner," Cook rable being after the 1978 cop siege of said. "He told me that he was armed on the MOVE Powelton Village house. that night and participated in the shoot­ When one cop was killed by police ing." Cook's friend Arnold Howard crossfire, the cops razed the house to testified at Jamal's 1995 Post-Conviction cover their tracks. Nine MOVE members Relief (PCRA) hearing that he had were framed up and convicted for the loaned Freeman his driver's licence the murder.

Workers Vanguard night of the killing; that licence was In the 29 May papers, Jamal's attor­ Revolutionary Contingent at 12 May Jamal rally in San Francisco. Mobilise trade found on Faulkner's body. Howard also neys advised Federal District Court union/minority power to fight for Mumia's freedoml reported that Freeman said he'd been judge William Yohn that they will be present at the scene of the shooting. filing a new post-conviction relief peti­ terror in the ghettos, who stand up for a liar, the DA has sought a blanket ruling Indeed, Beverly's account is corrobo­ tion in the Pennsylvania state courts with labour's rights on the picket lines, who knocking his confession out of court and rated in numerous ways. Beverly asserts new evidence of ineffective legal coun­ protest US imperialist mass murder barring Jamal's attorneys from taking that he and another man were hired to sel at the earlier PCRA appeal and sub­ abroad. Jamal's case symbolises what Beverly's oral deposition-a simple but shoot Faulkner; no less than five wit­ sequently. This is based in part on the the death penalty - and the whole appa­ essential step to preserve his testimony, nesses during Murnia's 1982 trial and fact that Beverly's confession was sup­ ratus of capitalist state repression - is given that Beverly is a marked man to subsequent post-conviction hearings said pressed for nearly two years by Jamal's all about. the forces who hired him to kill Faulk­ they saw one or more black males flee former legal team of Leonard Weinglass Beverly confessed that he had been ner. If they really believed Beverly was the scene of the shooting. Beverly says and Dan Williams and that Williams "hired, along with another guy, and paid lying, the prosecutors would want the that he shot Faulkner and then "Jamal authored a treacherous, recently pub­ to shoot and kill Faulkner" because opportunity of cross-examination af­ was shot shortly after -that by a lished "inside account" of the case titled Faulkner reportedly "was a problem for forded by a deposition. uniformed police officer who arrived on Executing Justice, after which he and the mob and corrupt policemen because At the time Faulkner was shot, Phila­ the scene." After debriefing the cops on Weinglass were fired by Murnia. It was he interfered with the -graft and payoffs delphia cops were the subject of no less the scene that night, homicide officers the suppression of Beverly's confession

6 WORKERS HAMMER From Labourite reformism to Trotskyism: "Why I left the SWP to join the International Communist League"

We reprint below an abridged letter to but still I stayed a member, and felt that the Spartacist League dated 21 January the important thing was that most of the 2001. members were committed to genuine After even only a short time being a class struggle. member of the SWP I had felt that their It was around this time that I had failure to defend the gains of the revolu­ again met members of the SL, and tion in the former USSR, Cuba, China stayed in contact. I was starting to read and other workers states seemed strange not only literature like Workers Hammer for a revolutionary organisation. It was and Workers Vanguard, but books by very hard for me to believe that the col­ Lenin (The State and Revolution, The lapse of the USSR had been only a Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade change from one form of capitalism to Kautsky and "Left-wing" Communism, another. What had happened had been a an infantile disorder) and Trotsky (The very real disaster for millions of work­ Revolution Betrayed, In Defence of • ers, surely the Revolution of 1917 had Marxism and Lessons of October) that I meant some sort of social gain in Rus­ had never been encouraged to read by sia? I had at the time felt that the posi­ the SWP. My political consciousness tion of the SWP was incorrect, but my started to take a massive leap. More and faith in the intentions of the other mem­ more I was starting to see that the poli­ bers had led me to read nothing into it. tics of the Cliffites were totally com­ Later, I acquired literature from the patible with Labourite reformism. Noth­ Spartacist League, which exposed the ing was said or done that even started to "theory" of state capitalism (and others) split the working class from Labourism, January 1992: lel protest in New York as Yeltsin visited his Wall Street masters. as a cover for capitUlation to Cold War always the Party's literature was written We fought against capitalist counterrevolution in USSR, SWP cheered it. anti-Soviet pressure from the ruling class with the patronising assumption that any in the capitalist nations. I now under­ revolutionary message was somehow far resignation was only a matter of time. I of the socialism that Lenin fought stood the reasons for this opportunist too advanced for workers. This kind of came to a turning point when it became for - internal political revolution, not position, I didn't agree with it, but I was thinking was clearly an adaptation to clear that not only did they have no capitalist restoration, still convinced that I was in a party with only the most backward consciousness. revolutionary aspirations, but this party Revolutionaries in the tradition of the genuinely revolutionary intentions. The arguments that I was having were was actually an active barrier to proletar­ Bolsheviks work to expose the mis-lead­ It wasn't very long before another now coming to dominate local meetings ian revolution. Every moment that I (and ers of the class - the bourgeois workers issue came up that aroused my suspi­ and I had made it clear that I was not many other potentially revolutionary parties and the trade union tops who tie cions. For a revolutionary party, the happy about asking people to vote La­ yoUng members) had spent campaigning the workers to them, and the fake revolu­ SWP seemed remarkably keen to in­ bour. The Central Committee were put­ on their programme only served to post­ tionaries who turn the efforts of the most volve themselves with elections centred ting out a lot of left sounding rhetoric pone the dictatorship of the proletariat. I militant sections of the class away from around the Socialist Alliances. When I about building a Leninist party, but this submittesj a letter resignin~ from these effective class struggle at the most critical questioned this, I was told of the impor­ had absolutely nothing to do with what renegades.frOni·~-Fourthlntemarroriil, times. tance of using elections as a platform for Lenin had said in the books that I had explaining my intention to enter joining The task of a Leninist party is to fight , revolutionary propaganda. This made now been reading. discussions with the ICL. relentlessly to split the proletariat from sense to me, but where was this revolu­ The Spartacists seemed very different. It is my intention to fight for the au­ the organisations that bind them to par­ tionary propaganda? The demands being I could see that this was an organisation thentic communism of Marx, Lenin and liamentary social democracy, to lead the made were entirely reformist (these were of professional revolutionaries who were Trotsky, working to build a vanguard class in international revolutionary strug­ explained to me as being "transitional committed to the programme that the party of the working class, one that is gle against the bourgeoisie and its organs demands"). I was not convinced; excep­ Bolsheviks had fought for. This was truly international, never taking the side of class rule. Only by taking state power tional importance was being put on re­ totally unlike the SWP and other left of capitalism against the workers states or can the dictatorship of the proletariat be turning the Labour candidates and I groups I had met who put very little claiming to be in some "third camp" (the established and extended. The SLIICL is argued against this at the meetings, say­ importance on organisational discipline. third camp is the camp of the bourgeoi­ the only organisation that fights pro­ ing that any campaign should be separate The Cliffites hadn't even been con­ sie!), True communists defend the work­ grammatically' and effectively for the from a call to vote Labour. This was the cerned that I didn't believe instate cap­ ers states and the social gains that they aims of the Bolshevik revolution. time· that I first began to question the italism (as long as I didn't conclude that represent, but at the same time point to Yours fraternally direction of the leadership of the SWP, they had a Labourite programme)! My the only way to return them to the course J Palmer

and Billy Cook's corroborating state­ 'justice" system. Thus, they have raised ORDER NOW! ment that prompted Partisan Defense calls like "New Trial for Mumia" and A SpartaCist Pamphlet $1 Committee staff counsel Rachel Wolk­ "The Evidence Must Be Heard". Now lIaek Hlstorr . enstein and Jonathan Piper, another that conclusive new evidence of Jamal's allff"'e Class Struggle attorney associated with the PDC, to innocence has surfaced, they abet the -"""--_...... Nt. 16 ____ resign from Jamal's legal team two years bourgeois press blackout by ignoring or ago. Cook says in his affidavit, "Rachel greatly downplaying Beverly's confes­ 'SoUlh African Workers BarrIe wanted me to testify but Leonard didn't." sion. As Jamal said in a statement to the O-An3rthaill RUle In the 14 years since the Spartacist 12 May defence rallies in Philly and San League and PDC first took up Jamal's Francisco, "Many of you have said that fight, we have brought his case to mil­ you don't believe in the system, yet, in lions of trade unionists, students and your hearts you refuse to let it go." De­ minorities worldwide through publicity spite detailed presentations of the new and labour-centred, united-front protest evidence by Jamal's attorneys at these :::,:,:.o..W-~.f ='='=~""'==- :::.":!:.""'. actions. We pointed to Jamal's frame-up rallies, in their coverage of the demon­ __ en... .. _ . to expose the true nature of the capitalist strations Revolutionary Worker (27 ~::.- ~~=:-.. ;';:;;:::"_":" '· ="'::...... ~ ::....':-~- state as a machinery of organised vio­ May) said not a word about the Beverly ~III"II I ~~::::_._.~_.~ ~_._~~:::;::.-:::. • u I • "-c.... q ...... lence against the working class and the confession and Workers World (24 May) = oppressed. While advocating that every devoted all of one sentence to it. Neither ~~Co8o:t13nGPO.""'Y""".NYlo"e possible legal avenue be pursued on his even bothered to quote Mumia's own - behalf, we place all our faith in the mo­ statement. bilisation of the social power of labour at Mass protest centred on the social Black History and the Class S~ruggle the head of black people and all the power of the multiracial labour move­ oppressed to win his freedom, and no ment is not only urgently needed to free free with a yearly subscription to Workers Vanguard and Mumia but would strike a blow against reliance on the "justice" of the capitalist , Workers Hammer (£8.00) or 75 pence each. courts. the whole capitalist frame-up system. In contrast, the reformists who have Free Mumia now! Abolish the racist taken up Jamal's cause have demobilised death penalty! Order from/make cheques payable to: those who want to fight for his freedom Reprinted from Workers Vanguard Spartacist Publications, PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU by pushing illusions in the capitalist no 760, 8 June 2001.

SUMMER 2001 7 We publish below edited excerpts from pie are bored into supporting thl; Socialist given "ex"-Tory Woodward a safe seat. a report by a comrade on a Socialist Alliance" (Paul Holborow of the Socialist For these Labourites this is "shameful", Alliance (SA) election rally in Brixton, Workers Party [SWP], chair of meeting). "shocking", etc. In fact, one speaker said London on 29 May. "A vote for the SA is not a wasted vote that this was the proof that Labour has because all votes will send a signal to contempt for the working class. It was an incredible achievement of a New Labour" (SWP Socialist Alliance Our comrade got to intervene. He meeting for the parliamentary cretins of candidate Teresa Bennett). "The Socialist started by saying: You wouldn't know the Socialist Alliance. They held a meet­ Alliance has picked up what the Labour from the speakers that Oldham is on fire. ing in a young and black area of London Party has thrown away - the red flag" He was prompted by the chair to ask a at a time when Oldham is under police (SA candidate Brian Kelly). question, so he replied: "Oh, you want it siege due to fascist provocations and they Former Labour Party "left" Liz Davies to be like Prime Minister's questions. drew nearly 100 old white people and assured us that despite leaving the Labour Okay, does the speaker not agree that the mentioned Oldham precisely once in the Party NEC [National Executive Commit­ situation in Oldham illustrates well what presentations. Oh, and what did they say tee] and joining the SA she has had no Lenin said of the capitalist state and the about Oldham: "It would be nice to have Damascene conversion, she still has the utter bankruptcy of Labourite parliamen­ a candidate there, what with everything same politics. She listed what she didn't tary reformism?" He also got out that we SWP aims to corral youth and work­ that's going on there with the BNP." like about this government and then went are voting SLP, but not for [probation ers into fold of Labour. Wouldn't that just have the cops shaking on to say that there are some good things officer Gordon] Potts. And he said that the in their boots! this government has done. To quote Liz, SA is for a Labour government by telling combating fascism and police brutality. Here are a selection of words that did "A vote to SA will make it harder for people to vote for Labour in other constit­ The SA opposes the fascists." SWPer Rob not pass the lips of any of the speakers: Blair to say he has a mandate for uencies. The mooing and braying had Hoveman said: "It is not true that we are working class, Scargill, the SLP, British privatisations" and - the best one reached such a level at this point you'd for a vote to Labour - we do not have a imperialism, revolution, strikes, Northern - "Socialist Alliance is a home for the think a MAFF [Agriculture Ministry] position. I myself would maybe look to Ireland, Garvaghy Road [site of Loyal­ tens of thousands who voted for Labour in inspector was on his way into the meeting. Labour if I didn't have an SA candidate to istlRUC sieges against Northern Ireland 1997 and have a sour taste in their In response to our intervention, Kelly vote for, but that is just personal." Catholics]. Or to paint the picture another mouth." According to the SA, their main stated: "We give unequivocal support to Hoveman is only the national organiser of way, here are a selection of quotes: "Peo- battle zone is St Helens, where Blair has Asian youth in Oldham and all those the Socialist Alliance, after all!

Election •• ~ (Continued from page 4) with Kruschev, Stalin's successor, thus they say that in 1991 "the once-mighty Soviet Union itself collapsed, as a culmi­ nation of three decades of Kruschevite revisionist betrayal of, and departure from, the principles of Marxism-Leninism ... " (Lalkar, January/February 2000). A politi­ cal counterrevolution occurred in the USSR in 1923-24 when a privileged bu­ " reaucratic layer led by Stalin usurped .1, l r i .\~T':C""r ,,', political power and then embraced Stalin's <,,,~ {>,:,If;

.> ~< 't\,\\.t nationalist dogma of "socialism in one _l>~" country". This was a qualitative political break from the internationalism of the ';;; , " Bolsheviks and was used to alibi gross be­ \ trayals of the proletariat internationally Workers Hammer photos Spartacist comrades with SLP candidate Ron Sinclair canvassing in Manchester (left). We also campaigned for Steve Cook such as selling out the British general and Ella Rule in London. strike in 1926 and the Chinese revolution ofl925-27. Stalin and his heirs destroyed in the same old way begs the question: advanced layers of the class into the most working-class struggle is a ghost from the the revolutionary consciousness of the So­ what kind of party does the proletariat backward ones; hence such parties are past. Scargililed the NUM in a heroic and viet proletariat and ultimately delivered the need to represent their interests, independ­ inevitably chauvinist, based on the domi­ militant class battle against the full might ently of the capitalists. What's vital is not nant ethnic grouping and tied to the de­ of the capitalist state but could not win on degenerated workers state to imperialism. fence of the imperialist interests of its own simply an organisational but a political ruling class." the merits of trade union militancy alone. For revolutionary leadership of break from Labourism - the programme - Workers Hammer no 158, Septemberl We fought to extend the strike to other the unions which ties the working class to their ex­ October 1997 unions, calling for rail and the dockers to ploiters. We believe the working class strike with the miners and to shut down Labour's privatisation plans have been needs a revolutionary internationalist Key sectors of the proletariat are will­ the country. Ourperspective is one offight­ met by strikes in the Post Office and Lon­ party. This will be built through struggle, ing to resist Labour's attacks through ing for working-class power; Scargill' s class struggle, but the union bureaucracy don Underground. Workers in the public not least in the unions to oust the sell-out perspective was a Labour government. is tied to Labour. Sensing the anger sector are also threatening to break the bureaucrats and to forge the unions as The tasks facing the unions today are against Labour among union members, Sir unions' hjstoric link to Labour by with­ fighting organisations of the working class similar to those described by Leon Trotsky holding their donations. The issue is being on the basis of a revolutionary programme. ' Ken Jackson, head of the engineering in "Trade unions in the epoch of imperial­ union, has called for a ban on strikes in debated within the ranks of several major The reformist Socialist Party uses the ist decay" (1940) : the public sector and TUC General Secre­ unions: the RMT and ASLEF rail unions, slogan "free the funds"; however they tary John Monks, fearing that Labour's "the trade unions in the present epoch Unison (health and local government uphold the principle that the unions arrogance will provoke a confrontation cannot simply be the organs of democracy workers - the largest union in the coun­ should fund a political party. They are as they were in the epoch of free capitalism with the unions, warned Labour politi­ try), the CWU postal workers union and wedded to the Labourite model of a re­ and they cannot any longer remain politi­ cians: the Fire Brigades Union, who pay several formist party to which trade union mem­ cally neutral, that is, limit themselves to million pounds to Labour each year. "1 could not believe it. I say to them 'Look serving the daily needs Of the working bers affiliate en bloc. Labourites regard class. They cannot any longer be anarchis­ Glenn Kelly, a supporter of the Socialist the existence of such a party as the natural at the lessons of history. Look at 1978-79, Party, aptly described the process as when there was such a confrontation and it tic, i.e. ignore the decisive influence of the order of things, indeed the SLP copied this state on the life of people and classes. They "feeding the hand that bites us" (Inde­ structure. This organisational arrangement was an electoral disaster for Labour and can no longer be reformist, because the trade unionism'. We still walk with those pendent, 22 June). Blair is also threaten­ objective conditions leave no room for any befits a reformist party but is antithetical ghosts of20 years ago." ing to sever Labour's link to the unions serious and lasting reforms. The trade to building a proletarian revolutionary - Times, 13 June and to refashion Labour from a bourgeois­ party, which must be a party of the most unions of our time can either serve as workers party into an open bourgeois The ghosts haunting the trade union secondary instruments of imperialist capi­ class-conscious elements of the working talism for the subordination and disciplin­ party along the lines of the Democrats in class capable of translating the historic bureaucrats are previous class battles, most importantly the miners strike of ing of workers and for obstructing the the US. By 1998, donations to Labour interests of the proletariat into a fight for revolution, or, on the contrary, the trade 1984-85. The problem was that this from big business equalled the contribu­ socialist revolution. As we wrote: not unions can become the instruments of the tion paid by the trade unions. mighty class confrontation took place, but revolutionary movement of the proletariat. " Actions to stop union dues being "A Leninist vanguard party is counter­ that the miners were isolated, stabbed in posed to Karl Kautsky's conception of the poured into the coffers of New Labour are the back and sold out by the TUC and 'party of the whole class', of which the Down with protectionist poison certainly supportable. However, the recog­ Labour Party and its organisational setup is Labour Party misleaders. We seek to im­ nition that the relationship between La­ a particular example. A party 'of the whole part the lessons of that battle to British Among the fundamental disagreements bour and the unions can no longer go on class' necessarily submerges the most workers today, and to combat the lie that between a revolutionary and a reformist

8 WORKE,R~ tlANlMI;R , outlook, the issue of protectionism is a pie that it's time, not to work with child sharp difference we have with Scargill' s labour producing coal, but to overthrow SLP. Intervening at an SLP election rally their own system and establish a socialist system of society in their country." in London on 4 June, a Spartacist comrade challenged Scargill, citing his nationalist Invoking internationalism and the fight rant at a meeting in Leicester: for socialism abroad, Scargill sounds worlds away from the German-bashing "You were very upset about French water chauvinism of the union bureaucrats who and Gennan car manufacturing, etc. We organised the Rover demonstration in differ there because we are not for national chauvinism - 'British jobs for British April 2000, but his line boils down to workers' or 'American jobs for American shared support for import controls to "pro­ workers' or 'Gennan jobs for Gennan work­ tect" British jobs. The notion that this ers'. What's necessary is for international would constitute a blow against child struggle across borders for jobs for all, labour and poverty in underdeveloped which requires a fight to overthrow the countries is absurd. Imperialist powers are capitalist system." deadly enemies of workers in the Third World; their world market starves the Scargill replied: oppressed masses, creating and deepening "Let me make it absolutely clear to you, we the abject poverty which forces desperate are in favour of import controls and we're families to send their children out to work in favour of controlling our own economy for a pittance instead of going to school. and we're in favour under a socialist soci­ Belfast: RUC block access to Catholic school in the Ardoyne area after wave of ety of imposing import controls. I'll tell you Workers revolution in Britain will indeed Loyalist attacks in June. . why. I don't want to see a situation ever strike a huge blow against impenalism in again where the Third World in Africa has the Third World, but proletarian revolu­ sion - army, police, jails, judiciary - to which cannot defend the British working its agricultural industry destroyed by the tion is not the SLP's goal or progranune. protect its profits, the socialisation of the class from the effects of the world market. dumping policies of the European Union Instead its perspective is Labour's means of production can only be realised It diverts the working class from struggle and its Common Agricultural Policy. "Clause IV" which referred to "common through revolutionary class struggle cul­ for full employment and higher living That's why import controls would have minating in the seizure of working-class standards across national boundaries into saved millions of lives. Don't preach to me ownership" of the means of production, about internationalism. I know about inter­ under capitalism. power. The SLP's model for "common competition against foreign capital and nationalism. Internationalism is best prac­ Since the bourgeoisie will not willingly ownership" is the nationalisation pro­ against workers in other countries in alli­ tised by defending our own class here and submit to being expropriated and has at its gramme of the post-World War II Labour ance with their "own" bourgeoisie. What's that those workers abroad see by our exarn- disposal the apparatus of state repres-. government. Labour was swept to power needed is international socialist economic then by a proletariat anxious for a payback planning for human need and an for the sacrifices and privations of the international division oflabour, but capi­ war. But Labour's nationalisations of talism is based on production for private coal, steel and rail were a giant state bail­ profit and on the nation state, which are out of the most inefficient and failing fetters to the further development of the industries, nonetheless vital to the capital­ productive forces. In order to realise ist economy as a whole, in order to make profits the capitalists must have markets British industry more competitive. Na­ for their products but these can only be tionalisations by the capitalist state meant obtained at the expense of their rivals, so massive handouts to the bosses and bleak inevitably the imperialist powers come . a¥sterity for the working class. At the end into open conflict Import controls lead to of World War II, the Stalinists and social trade wars, which lead to shooting wars democrats in Europe had to work hard to and the final tariff negotiators are the prevent the kind of working-class upheav­ generals. als that followed World War I. The possi­ Only socialist revolution on a world bitity~to mobilise the pro1etari3tin scale can prevent the outbreak of renewed a revolutionary struggle to expropriate the inter-imperialist war and barbarism. In bourgeoisie and set up a workers govern­ Britain, the Spartacist League fights to ment to implement a planned economy. break workers from Labourism, for the This would have pitted the proletariat perspective of a new October Revolution. against the Labour government whose For a federation of workers republics in Birmingham, April 2000: Union bureaucrats organised an outpouring of bailout schemes saved British capitalism. the British Isles! For a Socialist United poisonous anti-German chauvinism over redundancies at Rover plant. Protectionism is a reactionary utopia States of Europe! _

politician was ... Ken Livingstone. The tional Programme by Leon Trotsky Vote SLP ... miners strike took militant trade-union Racism ... (1938) which asserts that the right to (Continued from page 4) struggle as far as possible; it was sabo­ (Continuedfrom page 3) employment is the only serious right left taged by the Labour Party and TUC to the worker in a society based on coal and oil is protectionist poison which tops. But Scargill remained tied to the norities, have no hope of ever fmding a exploitation, that workers' rights are fuels national chauvinism and racism; it Labour Party and the miners union decent job. determined in struggle and that: "If capi­ dovetails with calls to protect British fought alone. We sought to extend the Both under Labour and Tories, the talism is incapable of satisfYing the de­ industry at the expense of its rivals by strike to other unions, calling for miners, capitalist system has looted and devas­ mands inevitably arising from the calami­ nationalising British coal and manufac­ railworkers and dockers to shut down the tated the wealth of this country - which ties generated by itself, then le~ it perish." turing industry. Rivalry between imperi­ country. was built by the sweat of the working The bitter 1984-85 miners strike alist powers has intensified in the wake Capitalist counterrevolution in the class "at home" and the exploitation of the showed the basis for multi-ethnic ofcounterrevolution which destroyed the Soviet Union and the Eastern European colonial masses abroad. Racist divide and unity - black, Asian, Irish and other former Soviet Union; this rivalry leads to deformed workers states was a catastro­ rule, practised in the colonies for centu­ minorities rallied behind the miners who trade wars which lead to shooting wars. phe for working people there and inter­ ries, is used to weaken the working class, fought a tremendous battle against The logic of this kind of corrosive na­ nationally. US and British imperialism scapegoating immigrants and minorities Thatcher and against the might of the tionalism in the workers movement was are preparing the ground for war against for the capitalists' economic crises. state. It was betrayed by Labour and trade shown at the April 2000 Rover demon­ the People's Republic of China. The Oldham is not unique; former industrial union leaders who left the miners isolated. stration organised by union bureaucrats SLP manifesto "condemns the use of areas of Scotland, South Wales and the Arthur Scargill, today the leader of the in the car industry which was an out­ economic and political blockades or north of England have been laid waste. In SLP, led the militant miners in as hard pouring of nationalist flag-waving. We sanctions which are used by interna­ some areas, three generations have been fought a battle as possible under capital­ fight for: Full citizenship rights for all tional capitalism against countries­ without jobs, and the looming economic ism. But he was wedded to the Labour immigrants! Trade-union/minority mobi­ such as Cuba - that challenge the very recession promises worse to come. The Party, when a perspective for power was lisations to crush the fascists! What's basis of capitalism". We call for the organised workers movement must wage desperately needed. The establishment of needed is a fight across national borders unconditional military defence of Cuba, a class battle, including linking up with workers rule and a planned, collectivised for jobs for all, as part of the struggle to as well as the Chinese, Vietnamese and the unemployed, ina fight for jobs! And economy with a five-year plan or two is sweep away capitalist rule. North Korean deformed workers states in the car plants of the West Midlands, the only way to overcome the devastation The SLP manifesto refers to the min­ against imperialist attack and capitalist Luton and Dagenham; in the railway and of capitalism in Britain. ers strike of 1984-85, which was led by restoration. We Trotskyists fight for transport system in every major city, in There is a way forward: the struggle to ScargiU and was one of the greatest class proletarian political revolution to oust London Underground as well as every forge a revolutionary, internationalist, battles Britain has ever seen. We the Stalinist bureaucracies. The over­ hospital in the country, blacks and Asians proletarian party which acts as the tribune Trotskyists draw the lessons from it for throw of capitalism in the imperialist are an integral part of the workforce. A of all the oppressed. Such a party would the British proletariat. On the eve of the heartlands is the best way to defend the militant battle for a shorter working week bring together the advanced workers and strike, Gerry Healy's Workers Revolu­ existing workers states and to go forward with no loss in pay, for union control of angry youth in the fight to overthrow this tionary Party set up Scargill for a witch to a world socialist society. For a federa­ hiring and union-run job training requires rotting, racist system once and for all, the hunt over his correct statement that Pol­ tion of workers republics in the British a workers leadership that fights for what fight for workers state power. This is ish SolidarnoSC was anti-socialist. And it Isles! For a Socialist United States of we need, not what capitalism can afford. what 'we in the Spartacist League stand is notable that Healy's favourite Labour Europe! _ Our perspective is based on the Transi- for: join us!_

SUMMER 2001 9 East, ultimately hinges on the timely forg­ also conditioned Arafat's acceptance of units remain unoccupied. Zionists ... ing of Leninist vanguard parties based on the ignominious 1993 Rabin-Arafat Both Sharon and Arafat claim to sup­ (Continued from page 12) the programme of proletarian inter­ accord which gave the PLO a handful of port the recently released Mitchell Re­ nationalism. trappings of sovereignty while signifi­ port, which calls on the Palestinians to to crawl home, dying hours later; the cantly strengthening Israel's position. end the violence and on the Israelis to next day, Arab wheat fields near Bethle­ 1993 "peace" accord: recipe for Palestinian police trained and overseen end expansion of settlements. It is an hem were burned down as Israeli troops disaster by the CIA and Israeli security forces indication of how far things have shifted looked on; then eight Palestinians wer~ The immediate backdrop to" the omi- would carry out the day-to-day policing to the disfavour of the Palestinians that beaten bloody near Hebron and, a day nous situation currently facing the Pales­ of the subjugated Palestinian masses the issue in debate is no longer whether after that, settlers opened fire on houses tinians lies in the counterrevolutionary while all Israeli settlements remained in such enclaves of murderous Zionist fa­ in an Arab village near Ramallah. destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991- place pending an indefinite "final status" natics should exist but whether they 92. Though the bureaucratically degen­ agreement. The PLO, echoed by the should continue to grow. And Israel Far from cowing the Palestinian popu­ erated workers state under Stalin was Zionist "peace camp", hailed the 1993 categorically rejects any constraint on lace, escalating Zionist terror has fuelled among the first countries to extend dip­ accord as a first step towards Palestinian settlement expansion. Israeli Jews should growing defiance, bringing to mind the lomatic recognition to the Zionist state, statehood. Rather, as we wrote at the imagine how they would feel surrounded heroic fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto in hoping to secure an ally against British time, this deal did "not offer even the by militarised Palestinian settlements 1943. It has also provoked the sort of imperialism, in subsequent decades the most deformed expression of self-deter­ linked by roads open only to Arabs! We frustration and desperation that has led USSR tilted towards the Arab bourgeois mination" and instead placed "the PLO's demand removal ofall anti-Arab fortifi­ growing numbers of Palestinian youth to regimes and petty-bourgeois nationalist seal on the national oppression of the cations in the Occupied Territories - the enlist as "martyrs" for Islamic Jihad and movements like the PLO. The availabil­ long-suffering Palestinian Arab masses" settlements and the apartheid highway Hamas. We condemn indiscriminate terror ity of Soviet military, diplomatic and ("Israel-PLO Deal for Palestinian network! attacks, like that in Tel Aviv and a bomb­ financial support allowed such national­ Ghetto", Workers Vanguard no 583, 10 ing at a shopping mall in Netanya two ists a certain degree of latitude in rhetori­ September 1993). Zionism and "ethnic cleansing" weeks ago, which are directed not against cally confronting US imperialism. the Zionist state's armed forces or its The accord laid the basis for further Today, the rhetoric of "negotiation" fascistic settler auxiliaries but against all In 1973, the Arab regimes launched an devastating the economy of the Occu­ has given way to denunciations of Arafat Jews. Such attacks are in keeping with the oil boycott - whose main effect was to pied Territories. Gaza's GNP plummeted as "a leader of terror". The Israeli mili- vile anti-Semitic - and anti-woman­ aims of Hamas, which was initially built up with wrect aid from the Israeli govern­ ment as a counter-weight to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In seek­ ing to create an Islamic regime in the Occupied Territories, the fundamentalists mirror the fascistic religious Jewish reac­ tionaries who strive for a fully fledged Old Testament theocracy in Israel. In the lat­ ter's eyes as well, the Russian immigrant youth who were partying in Tel 'Aviv on the Sabbath are "infidels"; indeed, three of the dead were initially denied burials in municipal cemeteries because they wore children of mixed marriages. Though the Zionist butchers have the whip hand, the Near East provides ample evidence of the genocidal logic of all nationalism, including the secular ver­ 'Ai> sion espoused by petty-bourgeois Pales­ While Israeli troops rampage through Occupied Territories, fascistic settler auxilia­ tinian nationalists, who have also en­ ries ,c,!!rY out...R09r.QmsJ!~t P~lestinians. gaged in indiscriminate terror.' What Reuters drive~ the bloody cycle of Zionist repres­ enrich their coffers and those of the Seven by 37 per cent between 1992 and 1996. tary has assassinated over 30 middle­ sion and Palestinian defiance is the root Sisters oil monopolies - nominally tar,.. Even before the start of the recent upris­ level PLO leaders in its campaign of cause of this conflict: two peoples lay geting US support for Israel. But in the ing, average national income in the Oc- ' "selective elimination" in the last eight claim to the same land. There can be no face of a "nightmare scenario" that "ever cupied Territories, at $1500, was little months. While the Zionists and their equitable resolution to the' conflicting bigger attacks on Israelis, ever bigger more than half what it was before the American backers hypocritically scream national claims of the Palestinian Arab reprisals against the Palestinians ... could "peace process" and less than one-tenth for the Palestinian Authority to "end the and Hebrew-speaking peoples under lead to the mass exodus of Palestinian that in Israel. The export of agricultural violence", Israel's rulers are deliberately capitalism. The Zionist state was created refugees across borders once again", a produce to Israel and Jordan was sharply stoking spontaneous outpourings by through the expulsion of some 700,000 recent meeting of foreign ministers of curtailed as was, more importantly, the killing those Palestinian nationalist cadre Arabs in 1948, "The Catastrophe" (AI Islamic countries in the oil-rich Gulf state number of Palestinians allowed into they could hope to use to quell the anger Nakba) commemorated to this day by of Qatar offered nothing more than ap­ Israel as day labourers, a crucial source on the streets. Palestinians. Countless imperialist-in­ peals to the US "to exert pressure on of income for the Occupied Territories. Only months after Arafat rejected spired "peace plans" since, far from Israel to accept a balanced peace" (BBC Intent on ending any reliance on Pales­ Israel's "last, best" offer for a final set­ opening up any vista of liberation for the News, 27 May). tinian labour in agriculture and construc­ tlement last summer, Barak gave Sharon Palestinians, have'served only to deepen In early 1990, when Israel was not tion, the Israeli capitalists have brought a green light to stage his provocative their subjugation under the Zionist jack­ toeing the American line, George Bush in tens of thousands of migrant workers, "visit" to the Muslim holy site Haram al­ boot. Sr threatened to cut US military aid. And legal and "illegal", from Thailand and Sharif (the Temple Mount to Israelis), The Palestinians cannot prevail in a . later that year, Washington wamed Israel other countries. triggering the predictable outburst of military conflict with the Israeli jugger­ to stay out of the impending war with In the aftermath of the 1993 accord, anger among Palestinians. More funda­ naut. And if threatened militarily by their Iraq as the American imperialists suc­ more or less sporadic "security closures" mentally, what led to the uprising was Arab neighbours, the Zionist madmen cessfully sought to include the other • became virtually permanent, denying the despair among the Palestinian masses would be quite capable of unleashing their Arab regimes in their "coalition" against passage not only to workers but to stu­ that the 1993 accord had resulted only in arsenal of nuclear weapons. The only way Saddam Hussein. But with the Soviet . dents attending universities in Jerusalem deeper misery and national humiliation. to ultimately prevent yet more catastro­ Union gone, the Arab bourgeois regimes and the West Bank and to desperate Meanwhile, the Hebrew-speaking popu­ phes on the scale of 1948 - and to realise have far less leverage in pressuring the patients needing operations in Israeli lation, which had been promised "peace the national rights of the Palestinians US. The New York Times (4 June) de­ hospitals. Israel erected an electrified through security", realised that they had without denying those of the Hebrew­ scribes how the Bush administration has barbed wire fence at the Gaza border neither. speaking people -lies in workers revolu­ resisted pressure, "particularly from the crossing and began the construction of a The Zionist "peace camp" has essen­ tions to smash all the capitalist regimes in Arab world, to raise its diplomatic series of fortified "bypass roads" con­ tially collapsed, utterly silent in the face the region. The fate of the Palestinian visibility" in the Near East. necting Israeli settlements, which in­ of ever more murderous terror against people, and of all the peoples of the Near The destruction of the Soviet Union volved further expropriations of Arab the Palestinians. Many Israelis consider land and farms. While the PLO envis­ the settlements a running sore, and polls aged an end to the settlements as a result indicate that a majority would favour Contact addresses of the "autonomy" deal, the number of curtailment of settlement construction if settlers has in fact doubled, climbing to it led to peace - and few but the most Spartacist League/Britain over 200,000, among them impoverished fanatical, mainly American Zionists, PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU. Tel: 020 7281 5504 Russian Jews who were assigned housing would now voluntarily move to the Oc­ in the Occupied Territories. In response cupied Territories. But the hardening of Dublin Spartacist Group to the demand that East Jerusalem be­ a chauvinist consensus against the Pales­ PO Box 2944, Dublin 1. Tel: 01 855 8409 come the capital of a future Palestinian tinians was clearly reflected in the over­ International Communist League state, the Zionists have "created facts on whelming vote last February for Sharon, Box 7429 GPO, New York, New York 10116, USA the ground", razing Arab homes and who was widely reviled as a fanatical expanding Jewish-only housing, even extremist in the wake of his 1982 inva­ though thousands of newly built housing sion of Lebanon even by large sections

10 WORKERS HAMMER of the Zionist establishment. When the Arab states have gone to war The Labor Party readily accepted with Israel-in 1948, 1967 and 1973 Sharon's invitation to join a "national - it was not to defend the Palestinians. unity" government, and vaunted "peace" While Marxists gave military support to Nobelist Shimon Peres now serves as Egypt against an invasion by imperialist foreign minister in this war government. Britain and France Goined by Israel) in Peres was an admirer of the French 1956, we called for revolutionary defeat­ colons in Algeria and an architect of ism against both capitalist Israel and the Israel's alliance with the former apart­ capitaiist Arab states in the other wars. heid regime in South Africa, which in­ The Arab rulers' occasional diatribes volved the development of nuclear against Zionism are meant to divert the weapons for the Afrikaner rulers, who anger of the toiling masses they exploit later got the weapons out of South Africa and oppress. And the anti-Semitism to ensure they would not fall into the peddled by the Arab nationalists and hands of the ANC when it took power. Islamic reactionaries serves only to drive "Mr Dove" Peres would better be called the Hebrew-speaking proletariat deeper "Mr Settlement". As Israeli civillibertar­ Times into the arms of its chauvinist rulers. ian Israel Shahak noted in his publica­ Mass demonstration in Baghdad, July 1958. Revolutionary upsurge brought Zionist chauvinism today permeates tion From the Hebrew Press (July 1996), powerful Iraqi proletariat to the brink of power. the vast bulk of the Hebrew-speaking it was Peres who began the construction working class, which also benefits from of settlements in heavily populated Pal­ detailed as follows in the statement: "It partners got wind of it and voted him an artificially high standard of living. estinian areas when he was minister of will be necessary to find some tllace for down. Twenty years later, Ben-Gurion's But that relatively privileged bubble in defence in Rabin's 1974-77 government. resettlement outside the State of Israel successors did conquer the West Bank, the backward Near East would quickly Working with Peres at the time was Yigal (perhaps to the east of the Jordan) if the • and it is hardly inconceivable that the burst should the US imperj.alists ever Allon, who authored the so-called Allon Palestinian population of the territories Israeli occupation forces could today decide that Israel is more of an albatross Plan that prefigured the current dismem­ does not curb its rate of increase." The perpetrate massacres on the scale of than an asset. And even today, the huge berment of the Palestinian people in the document also calls for the forcible those in 1948. Sephardic Jewish population is largely Occupied Territories. In the early 1970s, repatriation ofa section ofIsrael's Arab impoverished and subjected to discrimi­ Allon smuggled weapons to fascistic population near the West Bank to a For a socialist federation of the nation in housing and education by the Gush Emunim leader Moshe Levinger to future Palestinian bantustan. "Asked if Near Eastl Ashkenazi (European-derived) elite. help him set up a tiny settler enclave in the shift to Palestinian jurisdiction will The only salvation for the Palestinian Israel is a capitalist society fundamen­ the centre ofHebron, which has meant an be imposed on Israeli Arabs living near people lies through proletarian revolu­ tally riven by conflicting class interests ongoing state of siege against the city's the Green Line, despite their known tion and a socialist federation of the between exploiter and exploited. He­ 100,000 Arab residents. objections, Arad answers: 'In a demo­ Near East. Illusions in the "good of­ brew-speaking workers would do well to On the right wing of Sharon's cabinet cratic state, it is the majority that deter­ fices" of US or British imperialism, consider that more Jews were killed by are the likes of Tourism Minister mines where the national borders lie' ". other imperialist powers or the United the greed of Israeli capitalists in last Rehavam Zeevi, leader of the National Implementation of such schemes Nations are suicidal. The US has armed week's collapse of a wedding hall in Union, which openly calls for the would doubtless fan imperialist fears of Israel to the hilt. The Bush administra­ Jerusalem than died in the Tel Aviv "transfer" - mass expulsion - of all "destabilisation" throughout the Near tion has dispensed with even the patina terror bombing. Palestinians from Gaza and the West East. Discredited autocratic regimes in of evenhandedness under which its The murderous drive against the Pal­ Bank. Serving as minister of infrastruc­ Egypt and elsewhere could well face Democratic predecessor pursued an anti­ estinians poses the alternatives point­ ture is Avigdor Lieberman, who vowed in popular upheaval and challenges from Palestinian "Pax Americana". For their blank to the Hebrew-speaking proletar­ February that a Sharon government Islamic fundamentalists and other propo­ part, the European Union imperialists, iat: either embark on revolutionary would not hesitate to fire missiles at nents of "holy war". But it is fully in competing for influence in the Arab struggle against their exploiters or the Egypt's Aswan Dam "if, for example, keeping with the Zionist drive for a countries, have imposed token sanctions Israeli bourgeoisie will increasingly Egypt moves troops into the Sinai", "Greater Israel". As the open "trans­ against agricultural exports from Israeli move towards a Nazi-like "final solu­ which is Egyptian territory! Lieberman ferist" Zeevi proudly declares, he fol­ se..tt'em~~~_A-1 the .s'!Il!~time... Qermany tion" of the "Palestinian question". If the calls for stripping Arab members of the lows in the footsteps of "Labor Zionist" has played' a prominent role alongside Israeli Jewish proletariat is to pursue its Knesset (parliament) ofcitizenship. Such founding fathers like David Ben-Gurion, the US .in pushing Arafat to bow to class interests against its own bourgeoi­ ~ not confined to settler fanatics who raised the banner of "conquest of Israel's latest dictates. But. all of the sie, it must champion the defence of the and a harumn-~extreme rightists in the land". Ben-Gurion presided over the capitalist powers are adamantly opposed Palestinian people. seemingly marginal cabinet po5itions. 1948 "cleansing" of 700,000 Arab men, to genuine self-determination for the No matter how bloody the repression In March, President Moshe Katsav women and children, which was not a Palestinians - or the Kurds, carved up meted out by Israel's rulers, it will not staged an official ceremony to publicise "by-product" of the war with the Arab and oppressed by Turkey, Iran, Iraq and and cannot end the underlying national the release of a statement titled "The states, as the Zionists assert, but was Syria - for fear it would plunge the antagonisms which have helped make Balance of National Strength and Secu­ rather a planned and deliberate terror region into even greater turmoil. And the the Near East a cockpit for war through­ rity in Israel: Policy Directions", which campaign, including a series of well­ United Nations exists to serve the impe­ out the past century. If the Zionist mad­ was produced by a conference of 300 publicised massacres. rialist powers. It was the 1947 UN parti­ men are not. to ultimately unleash their "leading figures" described by Ha 'aretz Months after the end of the so-called tion that paved the way for the 1948 nuclear arsenal and engulf the whole of (23 March) as "the core ofIsrael's politi­ War of Independence, in September catastrophe, and it was a UN expedition­ the region in a holocaust, the Hebrew­ cal and defense establishment". This 1948 Ben-Gurion ordered the army to ary force that disarmed the PLO fighters speaking proletariat must join with Arab conference smacked of the 1935 Nurem­ launch an operation "for the conquest of in Lebanon in 1982 on the eve of the workers, in sweeping away the entire berg conference that promulgated the the entire West Bank", according to an Zionist massacre. rotting edifice of capitalist class rule in Third Reich's "racial laws"! Israeli military cornmander at the time The Arab bourgeois regimes have the Near East. Only"then can the right of Sneering that "the Palestinians have (Ha 'aretz, 18 April 1994). When Ben­ neither the military wherewithal nor the national self-determination for both the made a decision that they want the high­ Gurion asked Allon how many Arabs interest to come to the defence of the Hebrew-speaking and the· Palestinian est rate of natural population growth in would escape from the occupying forces, Palestinians against the Zionist terrorists. Arab people be assured. the world, but they don't have the means he was told: "As many as you decide." In recent days, the Egyptian regime of A workers revolution in one of the to support it," conference chairman Uzi Ben-Gurion was forced to scuttle the Hosni Mubarak, the second-largest re­ Arab countries, proclaiming the interna­ Arad proposes a "humanitarian solution" plan at the last minute when his coalition cipient of US fmancial aid next to Israel, tionalist unity of all the working people, has talked of a military response if Israel would have an enormous impact on the attacks Palestinian Authority targets Hebrew-speaking workers ofIsrael. But (which it has been doing for months). if Arab, Persian and Kurdish workers are WORKERS ll/ULMER The Israeli Air Force launched a massive to break the chains of exploitation and Marxist newspaper of the Spartacist League war exercise yesterday, and a military oppression, they must be won to a relent­ statement last month warning the Arab less struggle to extirpate the influence of o 1-year subscription to Workers Hammer for £3.00 includes regimes against taking advantage of the the Islamic fundamentalists who now Spartacist, organ of the International Communist League Palestinian uprising gloated: "Syria does pose as the enemies of Zionism and (Fourth Internationalist) (Overseas subscriptions: Airmail £7.00; Europe outside Britain & Ireland £4.00) not want a war with Israel and the air imperialism. We look to the legacy of force's strike against a Syrian radar the Iranian proletariat that struggled for o 1-year subscription to Workers Hammer PLUS 22 issues of Workers station just outside of Beirut in April left power in 1953, of the Iraqi workers who Vanguard, Marxist fortnightly of the Spartacist LeaguelUS for £8.00. a deep impression on Damascus, which sought to make a socialist revolution five Subscription includes Spartacist, organ of the International saw it as just the start of what Israel can years later. To seize on such opportuni­ Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) and Black History do." Israel's nuclear arsenal is now ties when they arise, and lead them to and the Class Struggle larger than Britain's, and no one takes victory, requires above all the construc­ Name ______seriously the occasional military bluster tion of,internationalist workers parties, against Israel from Cairo or Damascus. sections of a reforged Fourth Interna­ Address ______From the Black September massacre tional, in opposition to Zionism, Arab of some 10,000 Palestinians in Jordan in . nationalism and all variants of religious Postcode Telephone ______1970 to the expUlsion of200,OOO Pales­ fundamentalism. Defend the Palestinian

177 tinian migrants by the Kuwaiti emirate in people! For a socialist federation ofthe Make cheques payable/post to: Spartacist Publications, PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU 1991, the Arab rulers have proven them­ Near East! selves no less hostile to the Palestinian Adapted from Workers Vanguard people than the Israeli bourgeoisie itself. no 760, 8 June 2001.

SUMMER, 2001 11 ~s· Defend the Palestinian people! Zionist butchers escalate war on Palestinians

JUNE 4 - Defence of the Palestinian people against the capitalist rulers of Zionist Israel is posed with utmost ur­ gency for working people and minorities around the world. The use of US-sup­ plied F -16 fighter bombers to blast Pal­ estinian Authority (P A) sites two weeks ago was a bloody statement of intent by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Responding to pressure from the US in the wake of the F-16 assault, Sharon cynically announced a "limited cease-fire", during which the Israeli military proceeded to kill nearly a dozen more Palestinians and invade supposedly "autonomous" areas of the Occupied Territories, demolishing homes and destroying farms. Now, even that sham cease-fire has come to a shattering end, as the Zionist rulers plot retribution for the reprehensible bombing at a crowded Tel Aviv dance club Friday night. Faced with the threat of "a very se­ vere air strike" by Israel, which now officially declares the Palestinian Au­ thority to be a "terrorist organisation", PA president Yasir Arafat bowed to US and Israeli ultimatums to impose a cease-fire on Palestinians and round up CastelnuovolNY Times supposed "terrorists". But as one Pales­ Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza razed by Israeli army in April. tinian militant in Rarnallah said, "Arafat gave orders many months ago to stop talk of an imminent "apocalypse" against Aviv bombing, former prime minister began in late 1987, with "force, might, shooting, but it's not up to Arafat." the Palestinians. In the US, rabid Zionist Benjamin Netanyahu demanded military beatings to break bones", in the words of While the Israelis are holding back for William Safire screams in his column in strikes against "radio, television, media, then defence minister Yitzhak Rabin of the moment, largely to placate their the New York Times (4 June), "Let transportation, gas, and weapons re­ the thoroughly bourgeois Labor Party. American patrons, one security official Sharon Be Sharon." This is a barely serves, and the PA's economic infra­ But lethal military terror has been the described this as "a stay of execution for veiled call for a replay of Sharon's 1982 structure," railing: "We have not yet norm from the very start of the current thePA". massacre of some 2000 Palestinians in used I per cent of the power of the IDF Intifada, beginning with the deployment As the military tightened its strangula­ the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in [military]. If Arafat continues the terror of missile-firing helicopter gunships and tion of the besieged Arab ghettos in the Lebanon. we will make sure that his terrorist re­ the massacre of Israeli Arab "citizens" West Bank and Gaza, a frenzied mob Israel's rulers have made it clear that gime will collapse. It is to this end that a by Sharon's Labor predecessor, Ehud screaming "Death to the Arabs!" sur­ they will stop at nothing to suppress the unity government was formed" (Ob­ Barak. Where over 1000 Palestinians rounded a Tel Aviv mosque, and Israelis Palestinian masses. Even before the Tel server, 3 June). were killed in the course of three years After eight months of Palestinian in the earlier uprising, more than 500 • defiance and an escalating war of terror have been murdered in the past eight by the Israeli military and its "settler" months alone, many of them young auxiliaries, the ultra-chauvinist Zionist children shQt through the head and chest. rulers could well be moving towards a Some 1500 others have been left para­ blood-bath of catastrophic proportions. lysed from bullet wounds, with upwards Powerful international protest, including of 15,000 injured overall. This amounts by the large number of workers of Near to a casualty rate of one of every 200 Eastern descent who are integrated into Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. key sectors of French industry, is vitally Palestinian towns and villages have necessary. It is particularly crucial for been subjected to a starvation blockade, the multiracial working class and all the cut off not only by a network of "strate­ oppressed in the US, Britain and interna­ gic highways" but now also with tionally to demand: Defend the Palestin­ trenches and blockades, increasingly resembling the Jewish ghettos of Nazi­ ian people! All Israeli troops and settlers out ofthe Occupied Territories! All US, occupied Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, British and other imperialist forces out largely unreported in the US and British media, fascistic settlers have staged of the Near East! pogromist rampages on a near-daily basis. To take just a few incidents in the The genocidal logic of four days beginning 10 May: an 18-year­ nationalism old student in Gaza was so badly mauled Funeral march for 11-year-old Palestinian boy shot in the head by Israeli Israel's rulers responded to an earlier by attack dogs that it took him a full day troops. Zionist terror has fuelled Palestinian defiance. Palestinian uprising, the Intifada that continued on page 10

12 SUMMER 2001