The Internationalist No. 49 September-October 2017 50¢ Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants! For Worker/Immigrant Action to Stop Deportations From Day One, Donald 400-500%, and would continue Trump has been waging a re- to carry out immigration arrests lentless war on immigrants. Af- Internationalist photo around courts and schools (where ter launching his campaign for the I.C.E. agents have been lurk- president by demonizing Mexi- ing, despite supposedly being off- cans as drug dealers, criminals limits along with hospitals and and rapists, he smeared Muslims places of worship). as terrorists. On taking office, The U.S. has become de- his first act was to issue a ban on portation nation. But it’s not refugees, immigrants and visitors just since Republican immigrant- from Middle Eastern countries. basher-in-chief Trump took over. Despite huge protests at the air- Democrat Barack Obama be- ports and court rulings against his came known as deporter-in-chief blatantly discriminatory action, by expelling a record number the racist in the White House is- of immigrants – over 8 million sued a new Muslim ban at the when you include those stopped end of September. Earlier in the near the border. The “well-oiled month he decreed the end of the deportation machine” he hand- Deferred Action for Childhood ed over to his successor is now Arrivals (DACA) program, lift- going into high gear. Under ing the temporary hold on depor- Trump’s executive orders, all 15 tation of almost 800,000 young million or more undocumented immigrants. And in January, the immigrants in the U.S. are poten- Department of Homeland Securi- tially at risk. In early October, the ty (DHS) may end the Temporary White House sent a document to On May 1, Internationalist Group and Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas joined unionized Protected Status (TPS) of almost Congress outlining 39 measures immigrant workers in New York who marched with signs calling to “strike against deportations.” 60,000 Haitians. for intensifying repression of Meanwhile, the Immigration and Cus- most 100,000 undocumented immigrants, some 28,000 people torn away from their immigrants inside the U.S., including hir- toms Enforcement (I.C.E.) police have been up 43% over the same period last year. The families just because of their immigration ing 15,000 more Border Patrol and I.C.E. terrorizing immigrant communities across DHS claims it “targets criminals,” but the status. Now I.C.E. acting director Thomas agents. In fact, Democrats in Congress the country. In the first seven months of number detained who have no criminal re- Homan has declared that the agency plans voted for many of these measures as part Trump’s administration they detained al- cord at all has almost doubled over 2016, to increase factory and restaurant raids by continued on page 10 The Central Enemy Is the Capitalist State The Fascist Threat, And How to Fight It Suddenly in mid-August, millions blame “violence on many sides,” saying

across the country and around the world Edu Bayer for the New York Times not a word about racism. What else would were shocked into awareness of the in- one expect from the white supremacist in festation of outright fascists in the Unit- the White House? ed States. People were horrified as they When Trump’s refusal to condemn watched video footage of the dramatic white supremacists set off a chorus of murder of Heather Heyer (and the injur- complaints from Democrats and especially ing of 19 others) by a Nazi who plowed his Republicans, an anonymous White House car into a crowd of anti-racist protesters in spokesman declared that “of course” he Charlottesville, Virginia. For many it was condemned “white supremacists, K.K.K., a wakeup call, making it crystal clear that neo-Nazi and all extremist groups.” That such racist killers pose a significant and lasted barely two days before Trump was growing threat. The liberal bourgeois me- not just putting an equal sign between rac- dia, as well, were jolted by the sight of hun- ists and anti-racists, but declaring the swas- dreds of action-ready white supremacists, tika-sporting, race-hate-spouting fascists many of them heavily armed, in a Nazi-style to include some “very fine people” and night march with blazing torches chanting denouncing the violence of the “Alt-Left.” Hitlerite slogans like “Blood and soil” (Blut But, significantly, he was soon joined by und Boden) and openly anti-Semitic appeals the Washington Post (the voice of Ama- (“Jews will not replace us”). zon), The Atlantic and other liberals, who The assorted Ku Klux Klans, paramili- Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12: anti-racist demonstrators face off with denounced antifa (anti-fascist) groups as tary fascist militias, Alt-Right fascist “fight helmeted white supremacists and Nazis thirsting for blood. just as bad as the fascists. The aim of this groups,” champions of the Confederate proliferated under the cover of the Repub- suit) declared that they were “going to grotesque equation of wannabe genocidal slavocracy, worshippers of the Third Reich lican regime of Donald Trump. There were fulfill the promises of Donald Trump” to murders with those who seek to stop the and bizarrely costumed Internet publicity the usual Trump election posters and red “take our country back.” So unsurprisingly Nazi-fascists in their tracks was to call for hounds that banded together in the Char- “MAGA” (Make America Great Again) Trump’s reaction to the horrific murder of more police repression. lottesville “Unite the Right” march have caps. Kluxer David Duke (Mr. Klan in a Heather Heyer in Charlottesville was to continued on page 2 and military resources of the bourgeois

Fascist Threat... Chad Simmons dictatorship, together with their parlia- continued from page 1 mentary screens, no longer suffice to We must start by calling the fascists hold society in a state of equilibrium by their right names. Liberals seek to – the turn of the fascist regime arrives. make them seem harmless – “verharm- Through the fascist agency, capitalism losen” in German (as in portraying the sets in motion the masses of the crazed “identitarian” Aryan supremacists as only petty bourgeoisie and the bands of de- concerned with preserving cultural iden- classed and demoralized lumpenprole- tity), “dédiaboliser” in French (painting tariat – all the countless human beings the fascist National Front as mere popu- whom finance capital itself has brought lists). In the U.S., along with accepting as to desperation and frenzy.” good coin their cynical pose as champions –“What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat” (1932) of free speech, the media regularly refers After quoting Trotsky’s analysis of to these Confederacy lovers as “white na- tionalists,” making a parallel to black na- victorious fascism, which uses the methods tionalists. The would-be führer of the Alt- of civil war to annihilate the workers’ Right, Richard Spencer, claims to seek a organizations, we stressed: “This scenario is not a description of what “White Ethno-State,” a racist conception is happening in the United States today. in itself. In reality, he is a white suprema- What is happening is plenty dangerous, cist and millionaire Mississippi plantation a drive toward increasing bonapartism, owner1 who yearns for the days of Jim Behind the fascists is the capitalist state. Police protected racist rally in Portland, June 4. Labor mobilization brought out some 300 unionists and supporters. that is military/police rule. Moreover, the Crow segregation. ominous expansion of police powers has For opponents of racist reaction and enforcers stand behind (and often with) Spencer) traveled to New York City been promoted by the Democratic ad- defenders of the oppressed, the poor and their auxiliaries in white sheets and where he killed Timothy Caughman ministrations of Bill Clinton and Barack working people, the issue is starkly posed: brown shirts. That power is the organized with a sword. Obama no less than by the Republican how to defeat these deadly white suprem- working class, and the Internationalist • On May 21, Sean Urbanski (a member Bushes. It is the product of decaying acists. Liberal Democrats usually tell Group has repeatedly called for work- of the Facebook group, Alt-Reich: Na- capitalism which increasingly discards people to ignore the fascists, and rely on ers mobilization and defense guards to tion) stabbed to death African Ameri- its ‘democratic’ trappings.” the police. But the cops are by far the big- CRUSH the fascist threat. Now, before can student Richard Collins III at the –“Donald Trump, the ‘Alt-Right’ and gest, most organized force of racist kill- it grows stronger. University of Maryland’s College Fascism” ers around, and as the enforcers of capi- Park campus where the fascist Van- What Is Fascism? However, we added: “But while neither talist “law and order,” they are often in guard America has been recruiting. Trump nor Bannon are fascists, actual league with and defend the fascists. Vari- The fascists have been growing for • On May 26, Jeremy Christian (who fascists are crawling out of their holes and ous groups that claim to be socialist but some time, often claiming to defend free had attended a “free speech” rally looking forward to the Trump years.” And in reality seek to reform the (unreform- speech, a pretext that the liberals buy into. draped in a Nazi flag) murdered in an article written the day after Trump’s able) capitalist system call to bring out The would-be nightriders and stormtroop- Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and election, we warned: large numbers in alliance with the liberals ers are not trying to convince people of Ricky John Best on a Portland, Ore- “As violent racist and outright fascist for “peaceful protests” that seek to pre- their “ideas,” much less win a popularity gon street car when they came to the forces are emboldened by Trump’s vic- vent protesters from directly confronting contest – they want to instill fear in those aid of two young black women he was tory, Muslims and Middle Eastern im- the fascists to put a stop to their deadly who would be their victims. Their rallies berating with anti-Muslim slurs. migrants in particular may be singled provocations. That losing “strategy” like- are provocations to lynchings and racist • And on August 12, James Fields (who out for attack. Class-conscious militants wise lets the Nazis and Kluxers stage their pogroms, as their Black Hundreds fore- was earlier photographed march- should begin the work now of building bloody provocations, recruit and grow. bears carried out, attacking Jewish ghettos ing with Vanguard America carrying workers defense guards, based on the Some militant anti-fascists (“antifa”) in Russia before they were put out of busi- its shield with crossed fasci, the Ro- mass organizations of the working class call for taking on the fascists wherever ness by the Bolshevik October Revolution, man symbol adopted by Mussolini) and oppressed, to counter this threat.” they show their faces. This horrifies the exactly 100 years ago. They are mortal slammed his car into a crowd of an- –“Post-Traumatic Election Shock: To liberals and reformist pseudo-socialists enemies of the working people and every ti-fascists in Charlottesville, killing Defeat Trump … And the Democrats, who denounce such “violence.” We de- oppressed group. For those who foolishly Heather Heyer. Fight for Workers Revolution” (10 No- fend antifa against the state repression believe “it can’t happen here,” we’ve got For months beforehand, videos had circu- vember 2016), in The Internationalist that these denunciations set them up for. news: it’s beginning to happen, although lated on right-wing web sites including the No. 46, January-February 2017 But in doing so, we point out that endless on a relatively limited scale. Charlottes- Daily Caller and Fox Nation promoting the The Fascists and ville was hardly the first recent case of inconclusive fights, or pepper-spraying tactic of driving cars into crowds of anti- the Capitalist State them isn’t enough to stop the fascist men- murder by fascists. racist protesters. ace. And the serious fascist outfits have • In June 2015, Dylann Storm Roof (a In the aftermath of the election of a We have been careful to distinguish made it clear that they’re not relying on fan of the Daily Stormer web site) viciously racist, sexist and xenophobic between proto-fascist self-promoters and their fists. What’s needed to actuallystop slaughtered nine African Americans in right-wing billionaire, the pseudo-pop- actual fascists, while countering the liberal 2 the fascists, not just show moral indigna- a Charleston, South Carolina church. ulist Donald Trump, a lot of liberals and (and reformist pseudo-socialist) refrain tion, is to bring out a superior power. A • On March 22, James Harris Jackson a number of leftists started referring to that shutting down such dangerous pro- power strong enough to go up against the (a subscriber to the Cybernazi chan- Trump and his then chief advisor, Steve vocateurs with mass action would violate capitalist state, whose blue-uniformed nel and that of the National Policy Bannon, as “fascists.” The International- “free speech.” We noted that a Milo Yian- Institute and Radix journal of Richard nopoulos poses a very real danger to those 1 See report by the Center for Investigative Re- ist wrote that one should not throw around he seeks to victimize, such as undocu- porting, “White nationalist gets his money from 2 See “Charleston Massacre and Cop Terror: It’s such terms loosely, as an epithet meaning cotton fields – and the government,” Reveal, 17 Racist American Capitalism,” The Internation- “very bad” or “very repressive.” A Latin mented immigrants or transsexual people, March. alist No. 40, Summer 2015. American military dictatorship is not the whether by state repression or individual same as Hitler’s Germany or Mussolini’s assault (or both). (See our article, “Milo Visit the League for the Fourth International/ Italy. We noted that Stalinists in particular Yiannopoulos, ‘Free Speech’ and the As- Internationalist Group on the Internet often used the term in order to justify an sault on Universities,” The Internationalist http://www.internationalist.org “anti-fascist popular front,” as Stalin and No. 47, March-April 2017; and also the re- his henchmen did in the 1930s, chaining cent Revolutionary Internationalist Youth workers to an alliance with a supposed leaflet, “Dangerous Provocateurs: Milo Yi- The Internationalist “anti-fascist” wing of the bourgeoisie, and annopoulos and His Fascist Entourage.”) A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism thus blocking the necessary revolutionary Moreover, proto-fascists and crypto-fas- for the Reforging of the Fourth International struggle against fascism. cists are frequently mixed in together with Publication of the Internationalist Group, In an article on “Donald Trump, the the Nazis, Kluxers and militias, as in the section of the League for the Fourth International ‘Alt-Right’ and Fascism” (The Internation- “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville. EDITORIAL BOARD: Jan Norden (editor), Fred Bergen, Mark Lazarus, Abram Negrete, alist No. 46, January-February 2017) we We have also put our calls for workers Marjorie Salzburg, Ines Young quoted Leon Trotsky, co-leader together action against the fascists into practice. A The Internationalist (ISSN 1091-2843) is published bimonthly, skipping July-August, by Mundial with Lenin of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolu- week after Trump’s election, members of Publications, P.O. Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. Telephone: (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 E-mail: [email protected] tion and founder of the Fourth International, Class Struggle Workers – Portland (CSWP, Subscriptions: US$10 for five issues. who wrote in 1932 of the rise of the German fraternally allied with the International- No. 49 1162-M September-October 2017 Nazis and their Italian predecessors: ist Group) sparked a motion which was “At the moment that the ‘normal’ police continued on page 7 2 The Internationalist AUGUST 12 – BREAKING NEWS! Donald Trump is a liar. A Big Liar. Okay, so it’s not news. It is a given of Trump and Crazed Liberals on the Warpath Korea Central News Agency contemporary political culture that Trump lies about pretty much everything great and small. Trump’s lies have garnered a whole industry of online lying lists at Politifact and other fact-chasing organizations. But Defend North Korea! when it comes to lies, size matters, par- ticularly as concerns the lies that serve as pretexts to launch wars. Those lies kill mil- lions, and almost every imperialist slaugh- ter begins with them. Now we are seeing the Big Lie in action over Korea, and while Democrats may be getting nervous about the megalomaniac Republican president with his finger on the nuclear trigger, lib- erals have been promoting warmongering Big Lies about Korea, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam and elsewhere for decades. But first the smaller lies: Donald Trump tells lies to puff up his fragile and aggrieved ego. Those lies often take the form: “It was the greatest ______(fill in the blank: speech, victory, witch hunt, crowd, execu- tive order, etc.) in history.” Everything he does is the greatest in history, because he Simultaneous multiple launch of North Korean missiles, March 2017. demonstrably doesn’t know anything about history. He said that Andrew Jackson (U.S. president between 1829 and 1837, died in Lies, Dumb Lies, and 1845) could have avoided the Civil War (1861-65). He heard that Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) “is doing a good job.” Trump is a fitting heir to the 19th Imperialist Whoppers century anti-immigrant racists known as the “ Know Nothing” movement. have driven down wages for U.S. workers, in Palm Beach, and suddenly Trump was war. Or one of biggest whoppers of all – the Trump lied about getting a phone call it is in the service of an intensified racist deemed to be acting “presidential.” 1964 Gulf of Tonkin fake “incident” which from the leader of the Boy Scouts saying dragnet by the I.C.E. immigration cops. The deadliest imperialist lies are often provided the pretext for bombing North his speech to the Jamboree was the “greatest These are lies that the working class must bipartisan. Consider the lie by Republican Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution ever” delivered to them. That’s where he told take seriously and combat. president George Bush II about Iraq’s non- was approved by a near-unanimous U.S. the Scouts about his pal who sold his business existent “weapons of mass destruction.” Congress and supported by a jingoist press Bipartisan Big Lies in the and partied bigly on his yacht. The White Colin Powell held up phony photos to jus- which didn’t ask for evidence and supported House had to admit there was no phone call, Service of Imperialist War tify the invasion and occupation that killed the war until the U.S. started to lose. and Scouts leaders apologized for Trump’s Trump’s near constant lying has driv- perhaps as many as a million Iraqis, includ- Adolf Hitler staged a phony attack on partisan diatribe. He lies about things that are en liberals crazy just as it has delighted and ing at least twice as many civilians as sol- German soldiers in Danzig (Gdansk) as the demonstrably false, that people can easily see congealed his tribe of ever-loyal nativists. diers due to the destruction of waterworks excuse to launch his invasion of Poland with their own eyes, like bragging that his in- Liberals are embarrassed to the core by and food supplies that caused the spread of in 1939, and his propagandist Josef Goe- auguration crowd was bigger than Obama’s. the vulgar narcissist who disgraces their infectious diseases and malnutrition. That bbels was the consummate practitioner of That time he even lied gratuitously about the exalted idea of the imperial presidency. murderous lie was pushed by the liberal the Big Lie. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf weather, saying the sun was shining as peo- They cringe at the saccharine testimonials media, particularly the New York Times that that “the broad masses of a nation” are eas- ple opened their umbrellas. at cabinet meetings. They act as if this is acted as a state media propaganda outlet. ily corruptible because “in the primitive And he lies as he contradicts himself. the first time a liar has been discovered in And before Bush, hundreds of thousands simplicity of their minds they more ready These lies usually take the form: “I have the Oval Office. Pundits in the liberal me- more Iraqis, particularly children, were fall for the big lie than the small lie, since always said…______(fill in the blank: I dia sanctimoniously agonize over Trump’s killed due to lethal sanctions imposed by the they themselves often tell small lies in little was against the Iraq war, let Obamacare im- ungrammatical tweets, and claim that Democratic administration of Bill Clinton. matters” but “would not believe that oth- plode, I am a champion of gay rights, etc.) “truth itself” has become lost in the Trump Consider Democrat Obama’s lie that ers could have the impudence to distort Sometimes he contradicts himself in the regime. As if their newspapers and talking his secret CIA drone “targeted killing” the truth so infamously.” Yet the history of same sentence. Trump also lies to set up and heads represented truth. In fact, the “free (assassination) program was “surgical,” “democratic” U.S. imperialism is replete denigrate political opponents and critics on but responsible press” is constantly serv- carefully avoiding civilian casualties as with Big Lies often used to deceive and his extensive enemies list. Such are the dumb ing up disinformation and outright false- the U.S. flew more than a thousand drone mobilize a war-reluctant population. lies that reflect the style of the reality TV per- hoods in the interests of the capitalist rul- strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and sona, media-obsessed Donald Trump who ers. They’re just different lies, reflecting at Afghanistan. How many were killed? Gov- Trump Lies and Threatens to back when he was in the celebrity-branding most different policies and different sec- ernment estimates are in the thousands, Lay Waste to North Korea business would call media outlets pretend- tors of the same ruling class. human rights groups say it is many more. So far Trump’s lies have not yet pro- ing to be a P.R. person lathering compliments Most of Trump’s lies are dumb if not And how about Ronald Reagan’s lies that duced the level of lethality of such historic on none other than Donald Trump. Explain- pathological. But the lies that matter most enabled the Iran-Contra deals for provid- imperialist whoppers. Yet. But the presi- ing those lies is best left to psychiatrists and are the strategic ones that U.S. imperialism ing arms to drug-trafficking death squads dent and his circle of financial oligarchs Trump’s hapless apologists. cooks up regularly to justify its oppressive in Central America, supposedly to spread and militarists are busily fabricating the But his Big Lies have more seri- policies and drive the population into war. “democracy” at gunpoint? Or the lie that lies that could push the U.S. into a first- ous real world-consequences. Trump was And here liberal Democrats and conserva- the anti-Soviet mujahedeen in Afghanistan, strike war on North Korea. If Trump does catapulted into his candidacy on the rac- tive Republicans have equally blood-stained armed by the CIA under Democrat Jimmy attack, the way will have been paved by ist “birther” lie that Barack Obama was hands. U.S. presidents new to the office of- Carter and continuing under Republican the bipartisan War Party, including Con- ineligible for the presidency because he ten start out by invading some country, like Reagan, were “freedom fighters”? gressional Democrats and Republicans, was supposedly born in Kenya. When liberal Democrat John F. Kennedy with the Of course, there are many other histori- the chiefs of the Pentagon and spy agen- Trump says that three million people vot- Bay of Pigs (1961) and Vietnam. So when cal whoppers like “Remember the Maine!” cies, and the mainstream media, led by the ed illegally for Hillary Clinton, he is not Trump launched an attack against Syria (the U.S. warship which blew up in Havana Democrats in their anti-Russian frenzy. merely lying to assuage his ego for los- back in April based on the lie spread by the harbor) that served to justify the 1898 U.S. Against these warmongers, it is the duty of ing the popular vote. This lie has led to a liberal media that Syrian president Bashar invasion of Cuba and Puerto Rico. Don’t all class-conscious workers and opponents commission of far-right zealots aiming to al-Assad had used chemical weapons “on forget Woodrow Wilson’s vow to “make the of imperialism to stand with North Korea disenfranchise blacks and Latinos. When his own people,” all the Democrats ap- world safe for democracy” to justify U.S. and its right to nuclear, or any other kind Trump says that Mexican immigrants are plauded. Launch cruise missiles while eat- entry into the imperialist World War I after of weapons to defend itself against the im- criminals and rapists and that immigrants ing chocolate cake at his Mar-a-Lago resort he vowed as a candidate to stay out of the perialist behemoth. September-October 2017 3 a hypocritical liberal media.

Senator John McCain calls Kim Internationalist photo a “crazy fat kid” who is getting ready to bomb Denver or Los Angeles. Looking for a nucle- ar-deranged ruler? Try closer to home. Only one govern- ment has rained down nuclear death on a defenseless civilian

Keystone/Getty Images population, incinerating some 250,000 and poisoning thou- sands more in generations then still unborn: the United States. The lie about Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that it saved lives As Trump escalated threats of military action by shortening the war. In truth against North Korea, Internationalist Clubs at the its aim was to send a ruthless City University of New York held an emergency warning to the Soviet Union speakout against imperialist war, April 21. to stay out. And now, on the anniversary istence” with the imperialists, the Stalinist of the A-bombing of Japan, Trump echoes bureaucrats in Beijing prize stability. Why President Truman’s threat of “a rain of ruin should they believe Trump’s empty threats? from the air, the like of which has never Unless they aren’t empty. Elderly woman with grandchild views wreckage of their home, in aftermath been seen on this earth.” Trump’s latest is a twitter message of U.S. air raid on Pyongyang, ca. 1950. Today South Korean militarists The Kim dynasty and their supporters proclaiming, John Wayne style, that the threaten to incinerate the North Korean capital again. are nationalist bureaucrats atop a workers U.S. military is “locked and loaded,” ready for action against North Korea if Kim At the outset of the 1990s, the trium- White House. Yet a more coherent admin- state who seek to build an isolated “socialist “utters” an “overt threat.” Many Demo- phant bourgeoisie trumpeted the “death of istration would more effectively implement state” in the North. If they are delusional, crats are now calling Trump’s bluster “ir- communism” upon the fall of the Soviet his reactionary policies. it is in thinking that rapacious U.S. impe- responsible” or worse, saying his verbal Union: the first workers state in history, On Korea, Trump tweeted on January rialism might tolerate a live-and-let-live brinksmanship could set off an actual nu- born of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, 2 that the North would not be allowed to relation, if only they hang tough. But as Lenin and Trotsky warned, and the fall of clear holocaust. But back in April when the undermined and betrayed by the Stalinist develop an intercontinental ballistic missile the USSR tragically demonstrated, social- loose-lipped Republican president began bureaucracy, destroyed by imperialist-led that could reach the United States (“won’t ism cannot be built in a single country, not his escalating threats, the liberal Demo- counterrevolution. Liberals, conservatives happen”). But on July 28, Pyongyang loft- even one as enormous as the Soviet Union cratic senator who calls himself a social- and their social-democratic camp follow- ed an ICBM whose range may extend to (or China today), much less in half a coun- ist, Bernie Sanders, declared that Trump ers cheered, working people the world the U.S. East Coast.1 Then in April when try on the front lines with imperialism. To is “doing the right thing” to get China to over suffered the consequences. But today Trump escalated his threats to thwart a pos- achieve a revolutionary reunification of Ko- blackmail North Korea. Bernie said “North the left-over Cold Warriors, with Hillary sible North Korean nuclear test (the only rea, Trotskyists fight for a political revolu- Korea is a real danger to this world and we Clinton at the head, still vituperate against activity spotted at the test site was a vol- tion in the North to replace the conservative must do everything we can … to get them the Kremlin, and the bureaucratically de- leyball game), he said he had dispatched ultra-Stalinist bureaucracy with internation- to stop their nuclear program.”3 Another formed North Korean workers state is a an “armada” heading toward the Korean alist soviet democracy, and for socialist rev- lie. The United States is the prime danger prime target. Handing over the presidency, peninsula. Except the U.S. fleet was head- olution in the South to overthrow capitalism to the world, and North Korea’s nukes are Democrat Obama told Republican Trump ing in the opposite direction, toward Aus- and drive out the imperialists. key to deterring a U.S. attack. to put North Korea at the top of his priori- tralia. So either Trump didn’t know what The 1,800 deployed nuclear warheads the Pentagon (“my military”) was doing, North Korean leaders certainly re- ties list. And so he has. in the Pentagon’s arsenal (plus another or it was all a bluff, and one which would member what happened to the truly ir- Trump’s most dangerous lies are 4,000 stockpiled) are a far cry from the M-1 almost inevitably unravel, so that next time rational Muammar Qaddafi, who made a not about who talked to Russia when carbines Trump fooled around when he was no one would believe his threats. Either deal with the U.S. to give up his nuclear and about what regarding the 2016 elec- at military academy. So if liberals are now way a disaster for the “credibility” of U.S. material. Soon after, Libya was attacked by tion, for which Democrats accuse him of getting nervous about Trump’s bellicose imperialism. NATO, killing Qaddafi and destroying the “treason.” Trump’s whoppers include the country. And the population remembers the threats, what are they doing about it? Ear- assertion that the U.S. military was “hol- Remember Nagasaki, devastation of the Korean War, when mad lier, 64 Democratic legislators sent a letter lowed out” (although the U.S. war budget Remember Vietnam bomber General Curtis LeMay boasted about a “pre-emptive” military attack, say- is bigger than that of China, Russia and The bipartisan Big Lie holds that that “we [the U.S.] killed off … 20 percent ing that “a move to launch attacks, or de- the next five countries combined) and that of the population” and “burned down ev- clare war, on a nuclear-armed state such as Washington must go on the warpath to Washington only seeks to counter a mad ruler who issues threats to the U.S., failing ery town in North Korea and South Korea, North Korea” would require a Congressio- enforce its hegemony. With this rationale, 2 to mention that North Korean statements too.” General Douglas MacArthur, hailed nal debate. Fat chance of that. More down- the War Party voted almost unanimously by Trump as a hero, wanted to drop atom to-earth, they called on Secretary of State to sanction and provoke North Korea and refer to the response to a U.S. attack. Mean- while, the U.S. military conducts provoca- bombs along the Chinese border, saying Rex Tillerson to rein in his bombastic boss. Russia. Now they spread the truly danger- tive maneuvers in South Korea to simulate it would win the war in ten days. Truman Tillerson says not to worry, that “Americans ous Big Lie that North Korea has nothing “decapitating” (murdering) the North Ko- fired the unhinged general but bought the should sleep well at night” and “have no to fear from the U.S. military. Nonsense. rean leadership, along with B-52 and B1-B lie that the U.S. could push up to the Yalu concerns about this particular rhetoric of the If Kim Jong Un ever agreed to give up overflights from Guam (which in South River with impunity. But then China en- last few days.” But even U.S. imperialist al- the North’s nuclear deterrent, imperialist Korean propaganda videos are depicted as tered the war and inflicted the U.S.’ worst- lies aren’t sleeping easily. “contingency” plans for counterrevolu- dropping bombs on Pyongyang). We hear ever battlefield defeat. Some of the president’s far-right advi- tion and a new Korean War would imme- crazed, perilous talk about the prospect of Trump has repeatedly boasted “I want sors are adding fuel to the rhetorical fire. diately go live. millions being killed and the chances of to be unpredictable.” Some have suggested White House advisor Sebastian Gorka, Trump the president mimics the Trump survival after a nuclear war, about nuclear that he is borrowing Nixon’s “madman the- a member of a Hungarian fascistic or- the real estate mogul and Trump the reality first strikes being “on the table,” while the ory,” to force Kim to the bargaining table. der and favorite Trump surrogate on Fox TV celebrity. His M.O. is to look tough and impulsive Trump talks of loosing “fire and But North Korea has repeatedly made clear News, dismissed Tillerson’s comments. intimidate. But he’s having trouble when fury…the likes of which this world has it will never give up its nukes, nor should Gorka compared the present crisis over people aren’t cowed by his bully-boy tac- never seen before.” Watching TV news is it. Perhaps Trump is trying to get China North Korea to the 1962 showdown over tics. He couldn’t browbeat Republican sena- like overhearing plans in the war room in to tighten the screws on North Korea and Soviet missiles in Cuba, which brought the tors into passing his repeal of Obamacare by Dr. Strangelove. sponsor talks, as it did after Bush II included world to the brink of nuclear war. (Revolu- threatening to cut off funds to Alaska, and Trump is joined in this lie about be- North Korea in his “axis of evil” along with tionaries unconditionally supported Cuba’s he’s having trouble bellowing “you’re fired” nign U.S. intentions toward North Korea Iran and Iraq, and then invaded the latter right to have nukes for self-defense against to his racist attorney general Jeff Sessions. by Democrats and Republicans, aided by in 2003. China’s agreement at the U.N. to Yankee imperialism.) But in the faction- So now liberals are coming to the defense stiffer sanctions on the North is certainly a ridden Trump White House, it is reportedly 1 of the immigrant-bashing top cop in their But with a nuclear warheadn only as far as treacherous stab in the back against its fel- the coterie of generals favored by the liber- Anchorage, Alaska (or Seattle Washington or call for anti-Trump “resistance,” and they low deformed workers state. Yet for all their als who are the hard-liners, labeling “North Portland, Oregon, with a smaller payload). See are lionizing his claque of generals (Kelly Theodore Postol, Markus Schiller and Robert illusions in an impossible “peaceful coex- Korea a pre-eminent threat that requires a as chief of staff, McMaster as national secu- Schumucker, “North Korea’s ‘not quite’ ICBM 2 See “U.S. War on North Korea Never Ended,” continued on page 6 rity chief, Mattis at the Pentagon) in hopes can’t hit the lower 48 states,” Bulletin of the The Internationalist No. 32, January-February 3 “Sanders: Trump on right track with North of “disciplining” the dysfunctional Trump Atomic Scientists (11 August). 2011. Korea,” CNN, 28 April. 4 The Internationalist “This Is a Union Town, Labor Shut the Fascists Down!” Fascists Forced to Flee San Francisco – A Significant Victory Statement of the sion. Not only the fascists, but also the Internationalist Group cops and their Democratic Party bosses are well aware that going up against this SAN FRANCISCO, August 26 – Fascists

heavily black powerhouse of Bay Area la- Internationalist photo who planned a deadly provocation in this bor is quite a different matter than attack- center of union power were dealt a humili- ing loosely organized protesters drawn ating defeat today as they were forced to largely from student and middle-class sec- call off their rally in a federal park near tors. Outraged longshore workers have the Golden Gate Bridge, then cancel a fall- power to paralyze shipping, cost the bosses back “press conference” and high-tail it millions, and crush fascist and racist terror out of town. This was a significant victory groups in a way they would not soon for- for all who are determined to take action get. The need for this has been repeatedly against the fascists. The need to prevent shown on the waterfront in the recent pe- their violent provocations was written in riod when racist slurs and hanging nooses blood in Charlottesville, Virginia. Key to – a threat of lynching – have been left at running off the fascists was the move by the SSA terminal in the Port of Oakland. International Longshore and Warehouse After the murderous fascist August 9 Union Local 10 to shut down the port and attack in Charlottesville, outrage swept the march to stop the fascist “Patriot Prayer” country. In Boston, some 40,000 poured rally. (See “ILWU Local 10 Moves to into the streets to protest the white su- Stop the Fascists in San Francisco,”on this premacists and Nazis. As a result, dozens page.) Galvanized by this decision of the of Muslim-bashing rallies were called off. city’s most powerful and historically mili- When Joey Gibson’s fascist road show After cancellation of the fascist rally was announced, longshore workers tant union, thousands of determined anti- cancelled its San Francisco rally after the gathered at 6 a.m. at their union hall in front of the ILWU Local 10 banner fascists planned to join the dockers in driv- ILWU voted to use its power to stop it, calling to “Stop Fascist Terror.” They were joined by a delegation from ing the fascists out. if the longshore union had taken the next Painters Local 10 from Portland, Oregon. Facing this prospect, “Patriot Prayer” step to bring out the membership in a mass riod. Both in San Francisco and across the would have let the planned provocation leader Joey Gibson announced yesterday labor-led victory march, it would have re- Bay in Berkeley, Democratic politicians go forward. Instead, longshore and other afternoon that the rally scheduled for Crissy ally driven home the lesson. Yet the dock and their cohorts in the union bureaucracy workers made it clear that the fascists bet- Field was cancelled. Instead, Gibson de- workers’ move to make short shrift of the have sought to channel opposition and ter stay away from the waterfront or any- clared, they would hold a “press confer- fascist provocation inspired many. Among revulsion into diversionary events aimed where else in SF. But the fascist danger ence” at Alamo Square Park, closer to the them was a contingent of SF electrical at preventing mass struggle to stop the has not disappeared. It is backed up by the downtown area. But as anti-fascists orga- workers which gathered at the IBEW Lo- fascists. These events call on all and sun- far more powerful repressive apparatus of nized to converge on that location, city au- cal 6 hall and together with the Portland dry to “unite against hate” far from where the capitalist state, presided over in almost thorities hastily set up heavy-duty fencing Painters, as well as Internationalist sup- the fascists intend to rally. Signing on to every big city by Democratic mayors. A around the park to keep them out. Gibson porters, marched to Alamo Square, chant- love-ins for class-collaboration like the crucial task in the next period is the prepa- then abruptly called off the “press confer- ing: “This is a union town, labor shut the one called in Berkeley on August 27 are ration of disciplined, organized workers ence” as well. Instead, thousands of coun- fascists down” and “Up with the workers, not only a long list of Democratic Party defense guards in labor strongholds. Capi- ter-demonstrators filled the streets right in down with the fascists.” organizations but the bulk of the reform- talism breeds racist and fascist terror. This front of where he had vowed to hold it. With The perspective of mobilizing work- ist left, from the Democratic Socialists understanding is a first step to doing some- chants and speeches, the crowd celebrated ing-class power in defense of all the op- of America, Socialist Alternative and the thing real and effective about it. Class- the defeat of the fascists’ plans, then headed pressed poses the need for a class-struggle International Socialist Organization to conscious action mobilizing the workers’ to the largely Latino Mission District, ap- leadership of the unions and a revolution- smaller groupings. power to defeat this deadly system and its plauded by onlookers during the two-and-a- ary workers party. Far from abstract, this If such diversions for class collabora- fascist attack dogs is vital to clearing the half mile march. Internationalist comrades has been starkly shown in the recent pe- tion had prevailed in San Francisco, they road to ending it once and for all. ■ raised the chant, “Joey Gibson ran away – Fascist thugs, not your day,” which was picked up by many of the marchers. Longshore Workers: Shut It Down! At the impromptu rally at Alamo Square, the last speaker was a representative of a delegation from Painters union (IUPAT) ILWU Local 10 Moves to Stop the Local 10, which had come down from Port- land, Oregon. Their union played a central role in the Portland Labor Against the Fas- Fascists in San Francisco cists mobilization against the Patriot Prayer We print below excerpts from the In- groups have repeatedly targeted the Bay Area KPFK interviewed Local 10 President Ed racist/fascist rally held there on June 4. The ternationalist Group leaflet distributed in in recent months. Now they have announced Ferris and long-time longshore militant Jack speaker read out the Painters’ message of the Bay Area during the days leading up to a weekend of potentially deadly provocations Heyman, who spoke about the importance of solidarity to ILWU Local 10, which con- the threatened fascist provocation. For the on August 26-27. The fascist “Patriot Prayer” working-class mobilization to stop the fas- cluded: “If you use your power as workers full text, see www.internationalist.org. outfit that has staged such events in Portland, cists in the union stronghold of the Bay Area. to take action against the fascists on August SAN FRANCISCO, August 18 – At last Oregon and Seattle, Washington has called a The ILWU Local 10 motion states that, 26th, that will be a call to action of workers night’s meeting of International Longshore rally for Saturday, August 26 at Crissy Field “far from a matter of ‘free speech’, the racist and oppressed people throughout this coun- and Warehouse Union Local 10, an urgent in San Francisco. The following day, several and fascist provocations are a deadly men- try. Today, more than ever, workers need motion for labor mobilization to “Stop the fascist groups are calling a “No to Marxism ace as shown in Portland on May 26 when solidarity. It would be a proud day for us Fascists in San Francisco” was passed. The in America” rally in Martin Luther King a Nazi murdered two men and almost killed to send representatives, and stand shoulder dock workers, who have a long history of Park in Berkeley. Some of those involved in a third for defending two young African to shoulder with you in the struggle.” Early port shutdowns against racism, war and the Charlottesville Nazi march are reported American women he was menacing.” It un- that morning, the Portland Painters joined police terror, aim to prevent a repeat of last among those planning to attend one or both derlined that “our sisters and brothers in the longshoremen at the ILWU hall, where the week’s murderous Nazi/white supremacist of these fascist rallies. Portland labor movement answered racist dock workers held aloft a huge banner read- attack in Charlottesville, Virginia. By using Today, Los Angeles KPFK radio broad- terror with the power of workers solidarity, ing “STOP FASCIST TERROR.” the power of independent working-class cast a feature on the planned longshore work- mobilizing members of 14 unions against This gave a glimpse of the potential action to stop the fascists, they can point ers action, noting that “Local 10 of the ILWU the fascist/racist rally there on June 4.” power of this workforce and its union the way for all labor and the oppressed at has moved to walk out and march, and they The motion emphasized that, “ILWU which have repeatedly shut down the ports this critical moment. are calling on labor and community to join Local 10 has a long and proud history of against police terror, war and racist repres- White-supremacist and other fascist them to stop the fascists.” Later in the show, continued on page 11 September-October 2017 5 Solidarity with Charlottesville Anti-Fascist Protesters – Honor Heather Heyer! Labor/Black/Immigrant Mobilization to Smash Fascist Terror – Statement of the Build Workers Defense Guards! Obama beefing up the I.C.E. immigration Internationalist Group police and deporting well over five mil- lion immigrants, Wall Street warmonger Joshua Roberts/Reuters AUGUST 14 – The racist terror bred in the Clinton vowing more of the same and Ber- bone of American capitalism struck again nie Sanders rounding up votes for Hillary. this weekend, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Around the country, Democratic mayors Local activist Heather Heyer was mur- are the bosses of the armed fist of the big- dered and at least 35 people were treated gest and most powerful force of racist for injuries, 19 of them hospitalized, as terror, the American capitalist state. The Ohio Nazi James Alex Fields deliberately drumbeat of racist police terror continues rammed his car into a crowd. Fields went unabated, as more names are added each to Charlottesville to join swarms of Klan, week to those of Philando Castile, Freddie Nazi and other fascists and white suprema- Gray, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, and cists at a “Unite the Right” rally called so many others. by Charlottesville “alt-right” spokesman While KKK and Nazi terrorists parade James Kessler and built by fascist leader with assault rifles and automatic pistols, Richard Spencer. liberals preach gun control, which would The fascists said they were marching to disarm black people. Gun-control laws “save” a statue of Robert E. Lee. This vile took off in the late 1960s to stop the Black symbol of the slave-owners’ “Lost Cause” Panthers and empower the racist police. has been revered by racist scum ever since We defend the right of black self-defense, 180,000 black slaves joined the Union army particularly in the face of the escalation and turned the tide in the Civil War, crushing of lynch-murders. Meanwhile, the Demo- the Confederacy in the “Second American crats’ recipe for “resisting” Trump is to Revolution.” The statue was slated to be re- Anti-fascist protesters confront Nazis in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12. whip up hysteria over a “Russian menace” moved after the city council voted 3-2 in April racist provocations and attacks that have Oregon labor militants pointed the way while calling for attacks on Syria. And to sell (!) it, following the outcry after white escalated since Donald Trump’s election. with the June 4 Portland Labor Against the don’t forget it was Obama who counseled supremacist Dylann Roof gunned down nine This has included the murder of Afri- Fascists mobilization, which brought out Trump to go after North Korea. African American churchgoers in Charleston, can American student Richard Collins several hundred workers, including mem- Now the Democrats – with the neo- South Carolina two years ago. As he did last by an alt-right fascist at the University bers of 14 unions, against the fascist/racist Confederate attorney general Jeff Sessions May, fascist leader Richard Spencer headed a of Maryland on May 20, which has been provocation there. and other Republicans getting in on the mob of hundreds on August 11 marching with rightly called a lynching; the murder Alt-right forces are reportedly target- show – have pressured Trump to be “more flaming torches in imitation of the German of two men and near-murder of a third ing New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and forceful” in ritually criticizing alt-right and Nazis, while yelling racist, anti-immigrant and by a Nazi in Portland, Oregon, on May several other cities for provocations this fascist groups. So the immigrant-bashing anti-Semitic slogans. 26; fascist/racist rallies in Portland on coming weekend. Union stalwarts who president reads out some rote phrases like Large numbers of anti-racist protest- June 4 and New York City on June 10; spent weeks on the Verizon strike picket “racism is evil” and denounces “hate” – ers came out the next day to courageously the bombing of a mosque in Blooming- lines two years ago have expressed burn- while continuing to stoke racist terror with stand up against the fascists and white su- ton, Minnesota on August 5; and many ing anger against Nazis’ threats to bring every move, first and foremost threaten- premacists – many of them heavily armed others. The weekend prior to the August their race-terror to NYC. Currently, the ing to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea. – while cops stood by watching the racists 11-12 fascist rally in Charlottesville the strike of 1,800 Spectrum workers is in its The Internationalist Group calls to defend attack. Among those injured, according to “Patriot Prayer” fascist outfit viciously fifth month, solidarity actions with the im- North Korea against U.S. imperialism! activists’ reports, were members of Antifa beat counterprotesters in Portland. migrant workers fighting union-busting at As IG signs have stated in protests over the groups, Black Lives Matter, Democratic It is urgently necessary to mobilize la- B&H Photo continue, and TWU transit past days, “Fascists: Toxic Product of Im- Socialists of America, Industrial Workers bor/black/immi-grant power, in alliance workers (along with just about everyone perialism.” Bolshevik revolutionary Leon of the World, the International Socialist with all those targeted by racist and fascist who works in the city), are living through Trotsky emphasized that to fight fascism, Organization and others. The Internation- terror, to smash the fascist provocations. the “summer from hell.” The potential for it is necessary to fight imperialism, which alist Group says: Honor Heather Hayer! Crucial to this is the disciplined, organized mass mobilization bringing out the power can only be overthrown through interna- tional socialist revolution. Solidarity with the anti-fascist protest- preparation of workers defense guards of the workers and oppressed is right here. Liberals and reformists who look to ers in Charlottesville! Drop any charges based on the power of the labor movement But to do that, this power must be un- Democratic politicians – whether Virginia against them immediately! and the multiracial working class that chained from its subjugation to the boss- governor McAuliffe, Charlottesville may- The Charlottesville events are the makes everything run and can bring every- es’ politicians and parties. Who paved or Michael Signer, or NYC mayor Bill de latest in a series of deadly fascist and thing to a stop in this country. Portland, the way for Trump? The Democrats, with Blasio on up to Bernie Sanders et al. – put forward a strategy for defeat. McAuliffe You Can’t Fight Trump with Democrats and Signer are the bosses of the cops in Charlottesville who pepper-sprayed anti- fascist protesters as the Nazis carried out president declared on the campaign stump naked aggression in North Korea with their terror, while de Blasio is the boss of North Korea... that he would “bomb the shit out of” ad- little or no response from their target, as the cops who murdered Eric Garner, Akai continued from page 4 versaries, and also “I love war.” (This is Trump did with his missile strike on Syr- tough response,” while the ultra-rightists Gurley and others. Every historical strug- from the “chicken hawk” who, like oth- ia. But U.S. war moves could easily cre- around Steve Bannon argue to “not give gle against fascism underlines that to de- er right-wing warmongers starting with ate a situation where North Korea would more prominence” to Kim (New York feat this deadly menace, we must mobilize George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, did ev- Times, 10 August). have no choice but to respond militarily. our own class power independent of all erything to stay out of the Vietnam War.) Many “experts” worry about “stum- As the bipartisan War Party builds up for wings of the capitalist rulers. Trump has also questioned that if nuclear bling into war unintentionally,” recall- a showdown and possible first-strike at- Many people are alarmed, frightened, weapons are not to be used, “Then why ing how World War I broke out. South tack in Korea, internationalist workers outraged, indignant – looking for a way are we making them?”4 Koreans report fear that Trump could and opponents of imperialist war must to fight effectively against racist terror It is entirely possible that the cur- “recklessly if unintentionally trigger the stand ready to take to the streets to op- “at home” and U.S. imperialism’s endless rent gang in control of the White House Second Korean War.” But it could also be pose the plans of U.S. imperialism and wars, and threat of nuclear war, abroad. and the Pentagon are so deluded that intentional. Trump used the same “locked defend North Korea (and China, the There is a way: Fight to mobilize labor/ they imagine that they can get away with and loaded” phrase to describe his dinner U.S.’ main target). That starts by shoot- black immigrant power – Build workers party decision to launch a cruise missile 4 “With ‘fire and fury,’ Trump revives fears ing down the dangerous Big Lies that are defense guards – Break with the Demo- attack on Syria. And along with his praise about his possession of nuclear codes,” Wash- coming from the White House and every crats and build a workers party to fight for of General MacArthur in Korea, the U.S. ington Post, 9 August. quarter of capitalist media. ■ international socialist revolution. n

6 The Internationalist NurPhoto via Getty Images crowds of counter-protesters (#shuttle_ser- Fascist Threat... vice_information chat thread); advice from continued from page 2 organizer Jason Kessler about bringing adopted by Painters Union (IUPAT) Lo- “MAGA” caps and “triggering” antifa to cal 10 calling for “mobilizing against the provoke a confrontation portrayed as an at- clear and present danger that the provo- tack on Trump supporters; what kinds of cations of racist and fascist organizations knives and automatic weapons could be pose to us all.” Similar motions were then brought; a dress code (body armor, shields, passed by six other area unions. When the okay, full KKK regalia no), etc. In an au- locally based fascist Patriot Prayer group dio file of a planning meeting, answering announced a “Trump free speech rally” for “what if” anti-racist protesters try to drown June 4, the CSWP initiated the Portland out the white supremacists, a response Labor Against the Fascists mobilization was “well then they get attacked by right that brought out some 300 unionists and wing death squads.” The fascist organiz- supporters from at least 14 area unions, the ers stated that they had reason to believe first significant labor anti-fascist action in the Charlottesville police would be coop- decades. erative. And in fact, videos show the police In a lead article in our last issue standing aside to let the fascists leave after (“Portland Labor Mobilizes to Stop Fas- attacking anti-racists. cist Provocation,” The Internationalist A telling sequel which shows how No. 48, May-June 2017), we highlighted Capitalist “justice” at work: DeAndre Harris (on ground) beaten by fascists the system of racist repression works con- this important action. It stated, referring in parking garage in Charlottesville, August 12. Victim Harris is charged cerns DeAndre Harris, the 20-year-old to previous articles: “We noted that in with wounding one of the attackers, while the club-wielding racists go free. black man who was shown on video being the U.S. today, there is not a mass fas- while continuing its lynchings of African Afghanistan in 2001, to fight its former savagely beaten by the Alt-Rightists in a cist movement, since the ruling class Americans took aim at the influx of im- anti-Soviet allies, a war/occupation that Charlottesville parking garage on August does not feel immediately threatened migrants. continues 16 years later. Add in the 2003 12. Harris suffered a spinal injury and head by a radicalized working class, mainly The United States today has been invasion and occupation of Iraq, and now laceration requiring ten stitches. Internet due to the sabotage of struggles by the mired in an economic crisis since 2007- war in Syria. The result of this has been sleuths have been pouring over video im- pro-capitalist bureaucratic misleaders of 08 – a depression rather than a cyclical a whole layer of ex-military profession- ages of fascist rallies to identify the as- labor.” A comrade wrote in to correctly recession – which despite rosy talk of a als, many of them virulently anti-Muslim, sailants, tracking down three, who have observe that, while true, “this is partial “recovery” (for profits!) has not reduced itching to put their deadly skills to use “at been arrested. The Charlottesville police, and one-sided,” pointing in particular to the level of unemployment from the fig- home.” Add to this current and former po- meanwhile, have come up with nothing. “the million-strong KKK of the Twen- ure of 23 million that it hit in 2009. Of- lice who are incensed at the Black Lives But on October 11, Harris, the victim, was ties, which flourished after the defeat ficial statistics hide this stark fact by sim- Matter movement. charged with unlawful wounding of one of the post-WWI labor upsurge and at a ply eliminating from the workforce all Today in the U.S. there is a continu- of the attackers, Harold Ray Crews, the time at which trade unions and working- those out of work for over two years, a ing economic crisis and ongoing politi- head of the North Carolina chapter of the class struggle were in retreat.” gimmick introduced by Bill Clinton. But cal paralysis in Washington, even with League of the South. A local magistrate The comrade also noted: “Further, these “non-people” vote, and many (par- Republican/right-wing control of the issued a warrant on Crews’ say-so, with- and this is a separate, but closely related ticularly the ruined middle class) voted White House, both houses of Congress out any evidence whatsoever (Washington question, fascism does not always come for Donald Trump. This fact is also re- and the Supreme Court. Both capital- Post, 11 October). to power to head off incipient proletar- flected in various forms of social pathol- ist parties are stoking “anti-terrorist” In short, to fight the fascists it is ian revolution.” These points are par- ogy, from the opioid crisis that has taken hysteria, as the U.S. has had a quarter necessary to understand their relation- ticularly relevant in the current context. a particular toll on unemployed workers, century of unrelenting imperialist war, ship to the capitalist state. Marxists do While fascism involves the threat and the mounting death rates in areas of eco- waged by a professional army and mili- not seek to conflate the cops and courts often the reality of violence against those nomic devastation (life expectancy in tary “contractors” (mercenaries). Add with the Nazis and Klan, but as capital- perceived as a danger to a particular cap- West Virginia is 10 years below the na- in mass unrest over the endless mur- ism rots from within, they are increas- italist regime (such as KKK attacks on tional average) to the growth of fascist ders by the racist police (over 1,100 a ingly intertwined. Fascist marches are demonstrators protesting Jim Crow seg- groups. year killed by cops) and you have one not exercises of free speech but provo- regation), that is not in contradiction to Another key element in the prolifera- toxic culture medium. This gives rise cations to promote lynch mobs, death having mass fascist parties in elections tion of fascist and proto-fascist groups is to a notable feature of the current crop squads and government repression. (such as the National Front in France). the fact that the United States has been at of fascists, namely that they are acting They seek to terrorize vulnerable popu- There can also be particular varieties, war continuously ever since the counter- in large part as auxiliaries to the po- lations and bring down the force of the such as the clerical fascists with their revolutionary destruction of the Soviet lice. This is not a new phenomenon: in capitalist state against those who oppose virulent anti-Semitism in Austria and Union at the turn of the 1990s: Iraq (1991), the 1960s, Southern sheriffs beat civil their racist, anti-communist terror. Left Croatia in the 1930s and ’40s, as well Serbia (1994), Iraq again (1998), Serbia rights marchers in the day and became unchecked, they would annihilate the as Father Coughlin in the U.S. The fas- again (1999). Then after having spon- KKK death squads at night. But it has workers movement and unleash racist cists’ targets can shift, as shown by the sored Islamist mujahedin in Afghanistan been particularly pronounced recently. genocide, as their forebears did in Italy example of the Klan in the 1920s, which in the 1980s, post 9/11 the U.S. invaded This was dramatically shown in the and Germany. They must be stopped by preparations for Charlottesville. While mass mobilizations of the multi-racial the media and politicians professed sur- working class to crush them in the egg prise, it was prepared by two previous before they can carry out their program fascist provocations there (in May and of mass murder. Charlottesville was July). In the days leading up to the Au- only a foretaste. gust events, the ultra-right organizers Today the struggle must be to bring were discussing their deadly intentions out the power of the workers movement, over the Internet. The media collective and to begin the effort to build workers Unicorn Riot received from an anony- defense guards, as Trotsky advocated in Internationalist photo mous source chat logs of the conversa- the 1930s. And as Trotsky emphasized, tions from the chat platform Discord in its terminal decay, decaying capital- connected with “Unite the Right.” Par- ism breeds the fascist provocateurs and ticipants included such fascist outfits as killers it would use to annihilate the Vanguard America, Identity Evropa, the workers movement, even as it promotes Traditionalist Workers Party, League of “popular fronts” to hold the workers the South, Anti-Communist Action as back from revolutionary action. Last- well as a number of followers of the In- ing victory over the fascists can only be ternet Nazi Daily Stormer.3 achieved through international socialist In these logs, there is talk of embed- revolution. To accomplish that requires ding screws in flagpoles to use as stab- the leadership of a revolutionary work- bing weapons (“impaling people is always ers party built on the program of authen- the best”); messages urging driving into tic Trotskyism, that tells the truth to the 3 These are presently available at: https://www. masses and calls them to action when Internationalists at protest against Muslim-bashing “anti-sharia” rally, New unicornriot.ninja/2017/charlottesville-violence- the hour strikes. To stop the fascists, that York, June 10. Labor defend all those targeted by racist terror. planned-discord-servers-unicorn-riot-reports/ hour is now, before it’s too late. n September-October 2017 7 Lessons of Portland, Bay Area: How Opportunists Undercut the Struggle Workers Power Can Crush the Fascists strategy to fight the cratic Socialist Alternative (SAlt), deadly danger posed by Socialist Action and Democratic A the fascists must take (Party) Socialists of America account of their role in “trig- (DSA), the Maoist Revolution- gering” state repression. We are ary Communist Party (via its not only dealing with the several RefuseFascism.org front group), thousand organized neo-Nazis the Communist Party USA and and Klansmen, who are plenty “dozens of unions, student and dangerous, or a few masked community groups.” It was a typi- buffoons waving sticks, but cal popular-front event tying labor the more powerful and sinister and the left to Democratic Party forces arrayed behind them. The liberals, in this case including liberal tactic of ignoring these the East Bay Young Democrats, violent racists while relying on Berkeley Democratic Club, Cal June 4 Portland Labor Against the Fascists mobilization brought out hundreds. the police and demonizing antifa Berkeley Democrats, etc. militants only intensifies the danger. The had even begun.3 This victory should be a organizing, and a contentious planning To accomplish its sleight-of-hand, the pseudo-socialists who organize diversion- clarion call to labor and opponents of rac- meeting four days before the event. Most ISO tries to disguise the nature and location ary parades far from the sites of the fas- ism and fascism everywhere. importantly, Local 10 president Ed Ferris of the “Rally Against Hate.” In an article cist provocations are aiding the govern- Workers mobilization is key to stop- got cold feet, issued a statement saying purporting to criticize the media and Demo- ment in trying to prevent mass action that ping the racist terrorists in their tracks. members could choose what event to go to, cratic politicians for denouncing antifa “vi- could actually drive the fascists off the That requires painstaking preparation, and and joined the Democrats’ call on the feds olence” in Berkeley, it claims that the rally streets. Militant workers action is urgent- the relentless exposure of the bourgeois to cancel the permit. was held “on the edge of the UC campus ly needed to bring to bear the power of liberals and opportunist leftists who stand However, the day before the event, in downtown Berkeley, near the far-right the proletariat against these provocateurs in the way of effective antifascist action. Gibson called off his rally saying that he rally site, but not directly adjacent” (“Who who would act as a battering ram for the In the San Francisco Bay Area in “felt like it was going to be a huge riot,” was the real threat in Berkeley?” Socialist bourgeoisie to destroy the unions and all late August, the counterposed strategies specifically citing counterprotesters. He Worker, 7 September). However, the Face- those who fight against oppression. They were thrown into sharp relief when fascist called a press conference for Alamo Square book page for the event put it differently, can and must be stopped. groups called a weekend of rallies amid the Park, but as antifascist demonstrators mo- with liberal claptrap about how it’s “time to This call for workers action is not outrage over the murder in Charlottesville. bilized to gather there, he cancelled that as get together, to celebrate our differences in some abstract or unrealizable pipedream. On Saturday, August 26, Joey Gibson of well. On Saturday close to Crissy Field, solidarity, and peacefully speak out against It has begun to be carried out, first in Port- Patriot Prayer called a “Freedom Rally” IG supporters met a group of workers 1 the hateful currents in American society. land, Oregon and now in the San Fran- at Crissy Field in San Francisco near the from IBEW (International Brotherhood of We’re meeting near UC Berkeley campus, cisco Bay Area. As always, the key is the Golden Gate Bridge. The next day a “No to Electrical Workers) Local 6 who had also blocks away and on the other side of the intervention of class-struggle militants. Marxism in America” rally was called by been inspired by ILWU Local 10’s resolu- downtown, for a peaceful rally to speak to In Portland, preparations for labor action Alt-Rightist Amber Cummings at Martin tion. Together with a contingent of paint- each other about the world we want.” against the fascists go back to the motion Luther King Park next to Berkeley’s Old ers from IUPAT Local 10 who had trav- The ISO also tries to make out that that was approved by Local 10 of the Paint- City Hall. In both cases, liberal Democratic eled from Portland to join the antifascist the anti-hate rally was counterposed to ers Union (IUPAT) last November as racist politicians moved to ban the rallies, then mobilization, IG comrades later joined the Berkeley mayor Jesse Arreguin, who got attacks multiplied in the aftermath of the ended up promoting “peaceful” events to- IBEW Local 6 activists at their union hall the city council to pass an emergency or- election of Donald Trump. The motion to gether with various human rights groups and marched as a small labor contingent dinance allowing the police to regulate “Mobilize Labor to Stop the KKK” was and labor bureaucrats to promote “love” to Alamo Square where they were joined demonstrations in the downtown area. But put forward by members of Class Struggle over “hate,” and above all to avoid “con- by members of the ILWU-affiliated Inland after earlier telling people to stay off the Workers – Portland.2 This inspired six oth- frontation.” But others were determined to Boatmen’s Union. They were cheered as streets, Arreguin ended up printing 20,000 er area unions to pass similar resolutions. stop the provocations. In the end, both fas- they arrived, and after some speeches – “Berkeley Stands United Against Hate” As a result, when a fascist/racist rally was cist events were called off. the last being greetings from the Portland posters and issuing an August 23 state- announced for June 4, the groundwork had The first and key event was the Satur- painters – over a thousand protesters held a been laid for the Portland Labor Against day Patriot Prayer rally in San Francisco. ment urging people to go to the Bay Area victory march to the Mission District. the Fascists mobilization which brought Democratic politicians including House Rally Against Hate, among other events. In San Francisco, a reformist left coali- out several hundred unionists from 14 area of Representatives minority leader Nancy The ISO also neglects to mention that tion, which had planned to join the ILWU unions in the first significant labor action Pelosi and SF mayor Ed Lee tried to get there was another antifascist rally, called march on Crissy Field and then went to Al- against the fascists in decades. the federal Park Service to cancel the rally by SURJ (Standing Up for Racial Justice), In the Bay Area, the announcement permit, as the Portland, Oregon mayor also amo Square after Patriot Prayer canceled, that met at a site closer to MLK Park and of a rally on August 26 by some of the tried leading up to June 4. In the face of adopted the name “San Francisco Against which from the outset said it would march same fascists who staged the provocation the feds’ refusal, the mayor called a “San Hate,” mimicking the mayor’s event. This to the fascists’ announced meeting place. in Portland led Local 10 of the Interna- Francisco Stands United Against Hate” liberal terminology is a deliberate attempt That march drew several thousand, while tional Warehouse and Longshore Union rally at City Hall on Friday (endorsed by to obscure the need for sharp class struggle others, including antifa and By Any Means (ILWU) to likewise pass a “Motion to Stop the SF Labor Council). A Saturday march against the fascists. Even Donald Trump Necessary, went directly to the Park. the Fascists in San Francisco.” The union was called by “San Francisco Peacefully could denounce “hate” in his “both sides to The only reason that the reformist/lib- vowed to shut down the port and “march to Unites Against White Nationalists” at the blame” whitewash of the fascists. Across eral “Rally Against Hate” ended up getting stop the racist, fascist intimidation.” This Civic Center, far from the scheduled fascist the Bay in Berkeley on Sunday, August anywhere near the fascists’ meeting place call to action was directly inspired by the event. But those events hardly fazed Gib- 27, the reformists went a step further and is that with their elaborate regulations and Portland mobilization, and IUPAT Local son’s “patriots.” Both would have let the themselves organized a stay-away-from- barriers the campus and city police effec- 10 sent a message of solidarity to ILWU racist/fascist rally go ahead unimpeded. the-fascists event under the name of “Bay tively pushed it out of the UC Crescent Local 10. Other unionists and leftists, gal- What tipped the balance was the deci- Area Rally Against Hate.” But despite Lawn and into the street. Then around noon vanized by this call by the most powerful sion by ILWU Local 10 to call for labor their best efforts, a big chunk of the crowd “a part of the rally began marching toward and historically militant union in the area, mobilization to “Stop the Fascists in San didn’t want to stay away and marched to City Hall,” as the ISO delicately put it. mobilized to follow the ILWU into battle. Francisco” (see page 5). This became the the fascists’ rally site, only to find that the As for the fascists, after Cummings called The fascists, seeing the balance of forces rallying point for leftists and union mili- handful who showed up had already been off the “No to Marxism” rally, handfuls arrayed against them in this union town, tants vowing to stop the fascist provoca- run off by several hundred antifa militants. showed up anyway, including Joey Gibson. felt compelled to run away before the fight tion. The Internationalist Group publicized In the aftermath, the International So- The police set up barricades, but when a this significant motion and comrades trav- cialist Organization (ISO) has tried to credit force of several hundred masked-up antifa 1 See “Portland Labor Mobilizes to Stop Fascist eled to the Bay Area to help build for an the “Rally Against Hate,” which it played a activists arrived, the cops suddenly stood Provocation,” in The Internationalist No. 48, action by the most powerful and historical- large part in organizing, with the departure down. But when antifa activists spotted May-June 2017. 2 See “Portland Union Calls to Mobilize Against ly militant union in the area to shut down of the fascists, claiming “Bay Area resis- Gibson and began to chase him, he literally the Ku Klux Klan and Other Racist Forces,” in the fascists. But there were difficulties in tance scares away the alt-reich” (Socialist ran to the cops, asking them to “arrest” him The Internationalist No. 46, January-February 3 See “Fascists Forced to Flee San Francisco – A Worker, 28 August). Other co-sponsors of in order to get out of there. The police later 2017. Significant Victory,” on page 5 of this issue. the anti-hate rally include the social-demo- classified this as a “rescue.” 8 The Internationalist Also present at Sunday’s social-dem- Jamal.” The SL’s response was to deride ocratic/liberal stay-away–from-the-fascists Internationalist photo the union action as nothing more than an rally in Berkeley was the Spartacist League extended lunch break. It later admitted that (SL) and its Partisan Defense Commit- its response had been sectarian. tee, which had a contingent with banners Then when on May Day 2008, the against the Democratic Party and calling ILWU again shut down all 27 West Coast for labor/black mobilization to stop the fas- ports calling to stop the war in Iraq and cists. The SL had earlier greeted the ILWU Afghanistan, the SL dismissed this as a Local 10 motion, saying it would join the flag-waving social-patriotic cover for the union in fielding its own contingent on Sat- Democratic Party and U.S. imperialism. urday in San Francisco. However, no such It quoted the words of the ILWU Inter- Spartacist contingent was to be seen at national president who had opposed the Crissy Field or Alamo Square. walkout, and when he couldn’t stop it, In its article on the Bay Area events tried to sabotage and then distort it. The (Workers Vanguard, 8 September), the SL SL blithely ignored the fact that the mo- goes on at length denouncing the “Cynical tion calling for this first-ever strike by Charlatans of the Internationalist Group” U.S. workers against a U.S. imperialist for supposedly helping union bureaucrats war explicitly denounced the Democrats “perpetrate” a “fraud.” It additionally takes for failing to stop the war. aim at Jack Heyman, a retired longshore- Portland Painters and IG with IBEW Local 6 members on August 26. Nor has the SL even mentioned the Portland Labor Against the Fascists June man who drafted the “Motion to Stop the Interesting account. What’s missing a contingent at the reformist/liberal don’t- 4 mobilization, initiated by Class Struggle Fascists in San Francisco” and who has ini- in this picture? Nothing about the Sparta- confront-the-fascists rally in Berkeley. Workers – Portland, which is fraternally tiated and helped lead militant actions by cist League. Why? Because the SL wasn’t The SL is fixated on denouncing allied with the IG. In reality, the SL’s lat- Local 10 against racist attacks and police there, while the IG was. Heyman for the same reason he is con- est hit piece in Workers Vanguard is its terror for decades. The report takes us to task for “claim- stantly attacked by the ILWU Interna- desperate attempt at a response to the So what was our supposed “crime”? ing a great victory by the ILWU” while the tional tops: because he has over and Portland workers’ groundbreaking action, Publishing a photo of ILWU longshore- WV article denounces us as “shamelessly over sparked and played a leading role grasping at straws to excuse its own ab- men, along with the IUPAT delegation and cynical” for writing in our leaflet that the in the class-struggle actions by Local 10 stention. There’s a method here, beyond other supporters, gathered in the ILWU hall ILWU’s call to march to stop the fascists that the union bureaucracy has sought to the transparent sectarianism. In each case, in front of a union banner saying “Stop the was key to forcing the fascists to flee, and sabotage and that SL supporters in the the Spartacist League takes the betrayal or Fascists” to celebrate the fact that the fascists that this was a significant victory. Yet ear- union have boycotted and bad-mouthed. sabotage or demobilization by the bureau- had been forced into canceling their rally, lier on in its article, the SL writes: “It is a The SL obsessively attacks Jack Heyman cracy as an excuse to attack the militants and second, putting out a leaflet on Saturday victory that the fascists had to call off their because he is the mirror in which its own who fought for class-struggle action. night which was distributed in Berkeley at SF rally and press conference.” abstentionism is reflected. And when the chips are down, when the different antifascist protests on Sunday, So according to WV it was a victory To justify this shameful policy, the se- they’re going up against the power of August 27 proclaiming “Fascists Forced to after all. What led to that? The preceding rial prevaricators of the latter-day Spartacist the capitalist state, these self-proclaimed Flee San Francisco – A Significant Victory.” League have had to repeatedly lie about, paragraphs call Gibson’s whining about “revolutionaries” collapse. That’s what The ILWUers “had gone to the hall for distort or be silent about actions initiated the Democratic city officials whipping up happened in Brazil in 1996, and that’s what work, not to march against the fascists,” by or participated in by the Internationalist “tons of extremists” against him an “inven- happened on the Oakland docks in 2002, wrote WV. The WV article disappears a Group and the League for the Fourth Inter- tion.” They note that over 1,000 protesters when the feds threatened to militarize the national, of which the IG is the U.S. section fundamental fact: the fascist event had al- marched to Alamo Square to confront the port (during the buildup for the Iraq war) in (and which the SL never mentions). ready been called off the day before. In our fascists. That’s who Gibson was afraid of. order to ram through a take-back contract. WV has never written a word about the leaflet we wrote that the longshore union And who were they? These were same pro- The Spartacist League’s response was to statewide work stoppage by teachers in Rio should have “taken the next step to bring testers who had called to march behind the shamefully drop the call for “hot-cargoing” de Janeiro in April 1999 demanding free- out the membership in a mass labor-led banner of the ILWU. war materiel because it was too dangerous, dom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Sparked by victory march.” But the reality is that the The reality is that the fascist provoca- while the Internationalist Group was on the our comrades of the Liga Quarta-Interna- union leadership called off the march for tion was stopped, that was a victory, and docks daily during the lockout agitating to cionalista do Brasil, this was the first labor the same reason the SL didn’t show up with the ILWU’s call to action was key. Our stop war cargo. The SL later excused vot- strike ever to demand Mumia be freed. In- its promised contingent: Gibson had can- leaflet told the truth, the SL denies it in or- ing for the sellout contract as well.5 stead, the SL slandered the Brazilian com- celled. The fact is that the SL joined with der to justify their inaction. The fact that the union misleaders fail to rades, who uniquely fought to oust mu- the ILWU tops in demobilizing. As for the denunciation of retired Lo- mobilize, that they support the Democratic nicipal guardas (police) from a municipal The Spartacist League has made much cal 10 militant Jack Heyman, a recurring Party, that they push through sellout contracts workers union. The SL claimed they had of a supposed qualitative “retrogression obsession for the SL, WV writes: “The only only underscores the need to build a class- sued the union in the bosses’ courts, which of consciousness” of the working class, call to action ever issued to the Local 10 struggle opposition in the unions, which the is absolutely false. The exact opposite is in order to justify the SL’s flight from the membership was signed by Heyman and Internationalist Group does and the Sparta- the case: LQB supporters were the union class struggle. Blinded by its “theory” of an active longshoreman, who called them- cist League does not – even where they have leadership, who were sued by pro-police abstentionism, the SL can’t fathom that the selves ‘Longshore Workers to Stop the supporters in the union, as in the ILWU. elements whose lies the SL has peddled heavily black unionists of Local 10 who Fascists.” This is a “crime”? So when the In fact, the SL regularly supports the ever since.4 had voted unanimously to stop the fas- union leadership fails to take steps to carry On 24 April 1999, the day after the ILWU bureaucracy, as it did in 2011 when cists would want to celebrate the fact that out the motion – not the first time that has Brazilian teachers’ work stoppage and in the International sabotaged the struggle to the would-be lynchers had been prevented happened – union members who seek to coordination with it, the ILWU (on a mo- stop a scab grain terminal in Longview, from mobilizing for racist terror in their mobilize the ranks are denounced as “serv- tion by the same Jack Heyman) shut down Washington. The SL defended the bureau- city, and that they had played a key role ing as the bureaucracy’s handmaiden”! every port on the West Coast for eight cratic goons who busted up a solidarity in this. To label that and the whole effort As for the SL’s claim that Heyman hours demanding freedom for Mumia. meeting in Seattle with five ILWUers on toward a labor mobilization a fraud speaks covered for the union president’s support The union marched in San Francisco at the the stage. The IG, in contrast, intervened volumes about the actual retrogression of for the Democratic politicians’ attempt to 6 head of 25,000 people chanting “An injury actively to support that key class struggle. consciousness of these ex-Trotskyists. get the fascist rally banned, the leaflet said to one is an injury to all, Free Mumia Abu- But one of the most revealing facts Just look at the accompanying report emphatically that “pleas for Trump’s De- 4 about the August 26-27 Bay Area struggle by an IBEW member, a supporter of the partment of the Interior to deny a permit The SL and its misnamed International Com- against the fascists is how the opportun- munist League abandoned the Brazilian com- SL. He writes that after meeting up with for Crissy Field are a diversion. Any bans, rades in 1996 precisely when they were under ists joined hands. In their different ways, the Internationalist Group on Saturday especially in a port city, could be used attack by pro-police elements who brought cops with different arguments, but ending up in morning, “Later in the day we marched against workers fighting for their rights.” into the union meeting, saying they had to “take the same place (the mayor-endorsed stay- with the IG and members of the Painters The real fraud is the Spartacist their hands out of the boiling water,” quit their away-from-the-fascists rally against hate), Union in Portland chanting about the need League’s claim to be for labor/black mo- elected union posts and leave town. And then the reformist social democrats and centrist for labor action to smash the fascists and bilization to stop the fascists. The SL’s the SL/ICL smeared the black Trotskyist mili- ex-Trotskyists both undermine the fight to for the unity of the workers of the world. whole flimflam is a cover for the fact that tants as “dangerous hustlers” and actively tried mobilize the power of the working class to We chanted up with the workers and down it didn’t lift a finger to try to bring out the to sabotage their defense campaign when po- crush the fascists. n lice raided their office demanding lists of their with the fascists as we joined those that had ranks of labor, not then or any time in the 5 members. For documentation, see our dossiers See our article “SL: Hard to Starboard,” come out to try and confront the alt-right at last few months. It didn’t even bother to on Class Struggle and Repression in Volta Re- in The Internationalist No. 15, January- Alamo Square. The crowd was excited to attend the union-called planning meeting. donda, Brazil (February 1997) and Responses February 2003. see an organized contingent of labor, even It didn’t show up at Crissy Field or Alamo to ICL Smear Campaign Against Brazilian 6 See “SL’s Wrong Lessons of Longview,” in relatively small and unofficial.” Square. Its only action that weekend was Trotskyists (May 2010). The Internationalist supplement, March 2012. September-October 2017 9 that hasn’t stopped la migra. As Hurricane Deportations... Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle Harvey approached in late August and continued from page 1 residents were urged to leave coastal areas, of Obama’s failed 2013 immigration “re- the Border Patrol refused to close highway form” bill. checkpoints north of the Rio Grande Val- But although detentions and detention ley, effectively trapping undocumented orders have sharply increased, actual “re- residents of Brownsville, Harlingen and movals” have fallen. This is partly because other South Texas cities. And then at the of smaller numbers of border crossers but end of October, Border Patrol agents also due to congestion in the administra- stopped an ambulance at 2 a.m. carrying tive immigration courts. There is a backlog a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy as of 600,000 cases and an average two-year she was being transferred from a medical wait. With more immigration arrests, the center in Laredo to a specialized hospital in number of people held in the I.C.E. labyrinth Corpus Christi for a gall bladder operation. of detention centers (concentration camps), Armed agents waited outside her room un- mostly private prisons run by corporations til she was released and then detained her, like GEO, is mushrooming. The government all because she arrived in the U.S. without is planning a major increase in immigration papers when she was 3 months old.1 jails, expanding the daily count of detainees California, meanwhile, recently enact- from 41,000 to 48,000, and I.C.E. says it has ed a statewide “sanctuary” law, to the great secured 33,000 more slots in city and county Immigrant youth protest Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi over failed annoyance of I.C.E. acting director Homan, jails and state prisons where it can warehouse deal with Trump to “protect” DACA receipients by sacrificing their parents. who announced that “As a result, I.C.E. is immigrants. In those cases, the agency is to Trump.” They added, “Democrats are not old Holocaust survivor, in opposition to a forced to dedicate more resources to con- threatening to break up families, separating the resistance of Trump. We are” (Huffpost, bill in the Michigan state legislature which duct at-large arrests in these communities.” mothers from their children. 18 September). would ban cities from enacting policies In a nationwide round-up in late September Daily there are new atrocities. The ad- For immigrants, the United States is limiting cooperation with I.C.E. Lichtman targeting “sanctuary cities” in particular, ministration went all out to stop a 17-year- now a police state. Arbitrarily picked up said, “My family members were picked during which it arrested almost 500 immi- old woman detained in Texas from having in their homes, at their workplaces, outside up in the streets of Paris in the very same grants, I.C.E. reported it had detained 167 an abortion. Only an emergency hearing by courthouses or on the street, often by plain- way that I.C.E. people are deputizing local people in and around Los Angeles. Yet the a full federal court was able to stop this act clothes I.C.E. cops in unmarked cars, im- police and picking [undocumented immi- “sanctuary state” law does not apply to any- of gratuitous cruelty. And in Oregon, I.C.E. migrants must be wary as they would be in grants] up in the streets.” He said that the one convicted of any of 800 (!) offenses, cops were captured on a video uploaded some authoritarian regime. As Trump stokes French police, “deputized by the Nazis,” and it won’t stop I.C.E. agents from entering to Facebook as they barged into a home in xenophobia (fear and hatred of foreigners), kept lists of Jews in Paris: jails. In signing the law California governor Beaverton where without a warrant they and particularly since the constitutional “including Jewish children, including Jerry Brown said it was “important to note arrested a house painter they “thought” rights being trampled on apply to everyone children on my street, who were picked what the bill does not do,” namely it “does was “illegal.” (As public outrage grew, the in the U.S., not just citizens, the threat to all up and went to the gas chambers while I not prevent or prohibit” I.C.E. or the DHS worker was released.) Two weeks earlier, represented by this unbridled exercise of was fortunate to be in hiding…. I see a lot “from doing their own work in any way” agents stopped a Latino U.S. citizen outside police power should be obvious. Yet even of parallels to what is going on in cities (Los Angeles Times, 6 October). Exactly. the nearby Washington County courthouse as fear stalks the land, there has also been like Ann Arbor and Pontiac, where I.C.E. It’s also important to note that the “sanc- – a blatant case of racial profiling. Being defiance.But beware, we are dealing with a is coming in and with the help of the local tuary city” ordinances were enacted against in the country without authorization is not regime that has no compunction about rip- police are picking up immigrants.” the “Secure Communities” program of the itself classed as a crime, but as they step ping up rights: protest alone will not stop –Huffington Post, 9 June Obama administration. For all their empty up “collateral” detentions, I.C.E. agents in them. What is crucial is to bring to bear the In “sanctuary cities” local authorities talk of “immigration reform,” the Democrats Oregon and around the U.S. are grossly vio- power of a force that can stymie the depor- typically say they will not honor I.C.E. “de- in office transformed this from a tiny pilot lating the Fourth Amendment prohibition of tation machine – the working class. tainer” requests to hold undocumented im- project into a giant nationwide immigrant- unreasonable search and seizure. Above all, the struggle for immigrant migrants arrested on other charges after they catching dragnet leading to the deportation A sizeable majority of the public does rights must be waged politically, understand- are supposed to be released. But even where of hundreds of thousands of people living in not support Trump’s heavy-handed crack- ing that both parties of capital, Democrats and such blatantly unconstitutional cooperation the U.S. And in defending “sanctuary cities” down on immigrants. In a recent Washing- Republicans, as well as minor-league capital- with I.C.E. is ostensibly refused, it often hap- against the Trump regime’s attack we have ton Post-ABC News poll, 62% disapproved ist politicians and parties like the Greens are pens anyway. In New York City, mayor Bill repeatedly denounced the criminal action of of Trump’s handling of immigration, and enemies of immigrants, the oppressed and de Blasio has sought to calm immigrants’ Democratic city governments which day- 62% opposed his proposal to build a wall working people. Talk of “immigration re- fears, saying “This is your city. Your city in and day-out work hand-in-glove with la along the Mexican border. Barely a third form” in this imperialist epoch of decaying will stand by you. Your city will protect you” migra in persecuting immigrants. supported his hard-line anti-immigrant capitalism will always be a fraud. Just look at (Daily News, 21 March). Not so. What hap- policies. Moreover, a whopping 86% were where full citizenship rights for everyone has pens, as the Daily News (2 April) headlined, For Worker/Immigrant in favor of letting young undocumented actually been won: in the French Revolution is that the “NYPD alerts feds to Criminal Mobilization to Stop Raids immigrants who fill the requirements for of 1789, the Paris Commune of 1871 and, Court appearances of immigrants facing de- and Deportations DACA stay in the country. Yet as part of a exactly a century ago, the Russian October portation despite ‘sanctuary’ vow.” Plus there In defending young immigrants in the purported deal to extend legal status (but no Revolution of 1917. are some 170 offenses for which NYC will DACA program or opposing deportations, “path to citizenship”) for so-called “Dream- illegally hold immigrants for I.C.E. Skirmishing Over a vital question is: how? ers,” Democratic Congressional leaders Much of the fireworks over “sanctu- Most social-democratic and other self- Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi agreed “Sanctuary Cities” ary cities” has been focused on two states, styled socialist groups whose aim is to re- in principle to intensified “border security” A focal point of the skirmishing be- Texas and California. In Texas, the Repub- form capitalism basically look to pressuring and compulsory use of the e-Verify program tween Republicans and Democrats over lican state legislature and governor rammed the government. The International Socialist used to fire undocumented workers. But immigration has been so-called “sanctuary through a law last spring, Senate Bill 4 (SB Organization (ISO) calls to “revitalize the then Trump upped his demands. cities.” These are the roughly 400 locali- 4), ordering cities and counties to cooperate fighting movement that stopped mass crimi- Even before the failed agreement was ties (mostly counties) that have to varying with I.C.E. and authorizing local and state nalization of the undocumented in 2006 with announced, we warned: “The Democrats degrees limited cooperation by local police police to question anyone about their immi- its incredible ‘mega-marches’ and that won would try to get immigrant youth to accept with the immigration cops. The Trump gration status. This “show me your papers” DACA in 2012 by relentlessly pressuring such a deal and throw their own parents, administration has threatened to cut off law (as in Nazi Germany or apartheid South politicians of both parties, including Barack families and friends under the bus. We say, federal funds to “sanctuary” jurisdictions. Africa), like Arizona’s notorious racist SB Obama as he campaigned for re-election” Hell no! We demand full citizenship rights The reason it is so exercised about this is 1070, would lead to rampant racial profil- (Socialist Worker, 7 September). Yet Obama for all immigrants!” (“Beware of Trump/ that the federal government has only about ing. During the debate on SB 4, a Repub- offered DACA in order to deflect criticism Democrat Deal, Defend DACA and All Im- 6,000 agents in its snatch squads, hardly lican legislator, Matt Rinaldi got annoyed over his failure to enact any immigration migrants,” Revolution, 7 September). Many enough to deport millions of undocument- with the hundreds of largely Latino protest- “reform,” despite his campaign promises. DACA recipients weren’t fooled. At a Sep- ed immigrants. So Washington wants to ers chanting in the gallery and called I.C.E., And we warned from the start it could be tember 18 Bay Area press conference by rely on local cops to do the arresting, for thus assuming many were undocumented. easily canceled by the next president, after Pelosi, activists from the California Immi- traffic violations for instance, and then Rinaldi also threatened on the floor to shoot undocumented youth and their parents had grant Youth Justice Alliance interrupted her, I.C.E. would just drop by to pick up the Democratic representative Poncho Nevárez supplied the feds with detailed information chanting “We are not your bargaining chip.” supposed “criminal aliens.” (Texas Observer, 29 May). on where to find them. They denounced the House minority leader, The monstrosity of police collabora- The Texas law is currently on hold due 1 See the article by Class Struggle Education saying: “Democrats created an out-of-con- tion in deportations was highlighted by the to a federal court ruling that its key provi- Workers, “The Crime of Medical Deportations,” trol deportation machine and handed it over testimony of René Lichtman, a 79-year- sions violate the Fourth Amendment. But The Internationalist No. 47, March-April 2017. 10 The Internationalist The ISO is always out to build one Trump’s inauguration, I.C.E. agents arrest- Workers – Portland – have undertaken largest, ILWU longshoremen walked off “mass movement” or another, joining with ed Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos in Phoenix, initiatives to support immigrant workers the job in protest. “Container trucks were liberals on a program of class collaboration Arizona. A mother of two who had been against deportations. In New York, CSEW backed up all around the port and on Inter- with Democrats or some other capitalist in the U.S. since the age of 14, Garcia’s members have fought for and initiated im- state 880,” reported the East Bay Times (26 party or politician. But pressuring the rac- deportation was prepared by the Obama migrant defense committees in schools May). Longshore workers’ anger against ist Trump, whose campaign was built on administration, which initially arrested and hospitals, as have the Internationalist the current fascist and white-supremacist vilifying immigrants? This can only create her in 2008 in a workplace raid. But while Clubs at the City University. In Portland, provocations provocations will likely have dangerous illusions that lead to demoral- virulent anti-immigrant racism is rampant the CSWP has sparked union participa- a similar result but on a larger scale. ization when they are dashed. Yet foster- in Arizona, scores of immigrants and their tion in protests outside I.C.E. offices and Since the election of Donald Trump, ing illusions is what these social democrats supporters courageously blocked an I.C.E. in communities such as Woodburn hit by the Internationalist Group has called for are all about. A follow-up article on DACA van for hours seeking to stop the deporta- I.C.E. raids on farm workers. and helped organize labor/black immigrant calls for “Protection for all” – not full citi- tion of Guadalupe (see “All Out on May These are only small beginnings. As mobilization to stop fascist and racist ter- zenship rights, but simply “protection.” Day! Strike In Defense of Immigrants and the racist deportation machine goes into ror. The June 4 Portland labor mobiliza- Meaning what? Under temporary protec- All Workers,” The Internationalist No. 47, overdrive, with factory raids and street ar- tion was an important first step, the first tion programs the recipients still have no March-April 2017). rests in immigrant neighborhoods, there is a significant workers action against fascists real democratic rights and not even a “path Then on May 30 in New York City, tremendous potential for mass action to stop in decades. Longshore workers shutting to citizenship.” Putting all undocumented as I.C.E. agents attempted to arrest Har- the I.C.E. body snatchers. A successful ac- down the port and leading a mass march immigrants into the limbo that DACA and dat Sampat, an immigrant from the South tion anywhere in the country could spark an to sweep away the fascist provocation on TPS recipients now occupy is no solution. American country of Guyana, in the heav- enormous response from the millions who August 26 is now the task of the hour. This And, of course, there is no mention of capi- ily Guyanese immigrant neighborhood of not only oppose but despise Trump and his can point the way for workers action from talism, socialism or revolution, of course. Richmond Hill in Queens, NY, dozens of I.C.E. cops. But it is necessary to publicize coast to coast after decades of attacks on The centrist Spartacist League (SL), neighbors poured into the street to block and spread the example, to organize it and the working class. which puts on “revolutionary” airs, recent- the arrest. Sampat’s wife parked her car in above all what’s key is for labor to use its Millions of people are outraged by ly published a front-page article headlined front of the I.C.E. vehicles to prevent them muscle in powerful class action of Latinos, the fascist murder in Charlottesville. Mil- “No Deportations!” (Workers Vanguard, 22 from moving. The standoff lasted until the African Americans, immigrants and stu- lions are disgusted by Donald Trump’s September). Nice sentiment. So how is this NYPD came to I.C.E.’s aid, forcing Sam- dents. That can only be accomplished by open praise of the fascists. But it’s not just to be accomplished? While routinely call- pat’s wife to move her car and the crowd to simultaneously fighting against the stran- Trump. The Democratic Party was founded ing for citizenship rights for immigrants, disperse. Despite New York’s claim to be glehold of the capitalist parties, notably the as the political arm of the slavocracy, be- beyond general calls for “militant class a “sanctuary city” and Mayor de Blasio’s Democrats, who built up the sinister depor- coming, after the Civil War, the party of the struggle” and “world socialist revolution,” claims the police don’t carry out immigra- tation police force and now stand in the way Klan and Jim Crow. nowhere does it put forward any concrete tion tasks, in this and other cases NYC of effective action to stop it. Liberal Berkeley mayor Jesse Ar- program for what a struggle for “no depor- cops are acting as auxiliaries for I.C.E. Immigrant workers are treated as dis- reguín is telling everyone to “stay away” tations” should consist of. Neither does the Recently, on October 11, immigrants posable labor without rights, to be hired by from the fascist rally there – including the SL have anything to say to the thousands of rights activists outside the I.C.E. offices in the millions as low-wage workers when opponents of fascist terror who rightly protesters in Texas who have demonstrated Portland, Oregon blocked a van transport- the economy is booming, and then thrown want to make sure the fascist terror carried against SB 4 outlawing sanctuary cities. ing detained immigrants to the Northwest back over the border when it goes bust. out in Charlottesville is not repeated in the Earlier this year, the SL published a Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. Just that happened in 1954, in the econom- Bay Area. House Democratic leader Nancy smear against the Internationalist Group They managed to hold up the transport for ic downturn after the end of the fighting Pelosi, in turn, has called on the National for calling to defend sanctuary cities, which several hours, their arms locked together in the Korean War, as more than a million Parks Service, which administers Crissy it dismissed as nothing but a “scam.” The with “sleeping dragons” (a device made of Mexican workers were deported in “Oper- Field, to “reevaluate” the permit it granted fact that these minimal constraints can be pipe, plastic, chicken wire, duct tape and ation Wetback.” In the 1990s, the mass mi- to the “Patriot Prayer” rally. This appeal is hugely important to immigrants facing the chains). While sawing these off, the Port- gration from Mexico was the direct result not just a diversion from mass protest but a federal I.C.E./D.H.S./BP juggernaut is of no land cops put hoods over the protesters’ of the North American Free Trade Agree- trap, as it could easily be used against anti- concern to them. For our response to this, heads that recall those used in torturing de- ment (NAFTA), negotiated by Democrat fascist demonstrators. In fact, both Repub- and the slander that we didn’t denounce the tainees at the U.S.’ notorious Abu Ghraib Bill Clinton, which effectively destroyed licans and Democrats – who under Obama Democrats, as well as to the SL’s refusal prison in Iraq. The brave action of the ac- Mexican agriculture, forcing millions of deported more than 5 million immigrants, to call for asylum for refugees, dismissing tivists dramatized the abomination of mass peasants to emigrate to the North. Today waged endless war abroad and ramped up them as “displaced persons” with no rights, deportations, now carried out in unmarked class-conscious workers in the U.S., Can- police repression “at home” – fear inde- see “Spartacist League vs. Refugees,” The white vans and buses instead of in box ada and Mexico should join to bring down pendent mobilization of the working class. Internationalist No. 47, March-April 2017. cars, like the Nazis did with Jews in World NAFTA through joint class struggle. Liberals and reformist pseudo-social- The Internationalist Group has long War II. Nonetheless, such actions are basi- Any victory we achieve may be partial ists, for their part, have sought to organize called to mobilize the power of labor to cally symbolic. and temporary. The lasting impact of the tame protests “against hate” far away from stop immigration raids and deportations. The Trump regime won’t be moved struggle must be to raise the consciousness the fascists in order to avoid confrontation. Our very first article, distributed to an Oc- by symbolism or protest. What’s needed to and will to fight of the workers and the op- The answer to the fascist threat is not to ig- tober 1996 immigrants rights rally in Wash- thwart the deportations is to mobilize the pressed against the monstrous capitalist nore it, or endless inconclusive skirmishes, but to mobilize workers action to stop the ington, D.C., called for “union-led mobili- power of the workers movement in mass edifice built on wage slavery, and that of action to immobilize the “immigrant re- doubly oppressed immigrant workers in fascists, linking up with the rest of labor zation, bringing out contingents from the moval” system, and ultimately to paralyze particular. A successful fight to stop depor- and opponents of racist terror. The Bay black ghettos and Latino barrios in a solid capitalism. On May Day this year, union- tations and achieve full rights for every- Area longshore workers have taken the show of force the next time there are big ized immigrant workers at B&H Photo and one – a simple democratic right – requires lead, and it is vital to make the August 26 INS factory raids.” We pointed to the labor Video and their supporters demonstrated building a revolutionary workers party on mobilization a resounding success. action by Latino truckers who drove from outside the store in Midtown Manhattan a program of militant class struggle leading That can open a path for all the ex- the L.A./Long Beach port to ring Los An- with signs in English and Spanish calling to international socialist revolution. That ploited and oppressed, at a time when large geles city hall with their rigs to protest the to “Strike Against Deportations,” “Defy is our key task today. n numbers of people are seeing the threat that anti-immigrant Prop 187. (“Mobilize the ICE,” “Strike for Black and Brown Lives,” the irrational and bankrupt system of capi- Working Class to Smash Anti-Immigrant “Strike for Immigrants’ Rights,” “Strike talism poses here and around the world. In Offensive!” The Internationalist No. 1, ILWU Local 10... for Women’s Rights,” or more simply, continued from page 5 recent days and weeks, the International- January-February 1997). On the day after “Chinga la migra” (Screw ICE). Work- standing up against racism, fascism and ist Group has highlighted calls for labor/ Trump’s election last November, we wrote: ers at the two B&H warehouses slated for bigotry and using our union power to do so; black/immigrant mobilizations to smash “If the new regime seeks to reinstitute on May Day 2015 we shut down Bay Area raids in the urban centers, there should closure walked out that May 1. Earlier, on racist terror; for the disciplined, organized ports and marched followed by thousands be workers mobilizations to prevent February 16, workers throughout B&H preparation of workers defense guards to deportations, including blocking them struck in solidarity with the “Day Without to Oscar Grant Plaza demanding an end stop the kind of fascist attacks seen in Port- by flooding the area with defenders of Immigrants.” to police terror against African Americans land and Charlottesville; and for the work- immigrant rights.” Such actions send a powerful message, and others,” and that “the San Francisco ers movement to unchain its power from –“Post-Traumatic Election Shock: To one that should be picked up by the entire Bay Area is a union stronghold and we will the Democrats and all bosses’ parties by Defeat Trump … And the Democrats, workers movement. The Internationalist not allow labor-hating white supremacists forging a class-struggle workers party. Fight for Workers Revolution” (10 Group has been actively involved in sup- to bring their lynch mob terror here.” At this time a big step forward for the November 2016), The Internationalist porting the B&H workers’ struggle from In fact, nooses – a threat of lynching – whole working class can be taken by the No. 46, January-February 2017 the start, and the transitional organiza- were found on a series of occasions earlier Bay Area longshore workers, by shutting Today, immigrants have several times tions fraternally allied with the IG – Class this year at the SSA Marine terminal in the down the port and leading a mass march acted to oppose the ICE raids. They must Struggle Education Workers, Trabajadores Port of Oakland in California. On the morn- that brings out the power of labor and op- not stand alone. Internacionales Clasistas (Class Struggle ing of May 25, when a noose was found ponents of racist terror to stop the fascists In early February, just days after International Workers) and Class Struggle at the terminal, which is one of the port’s on August 26. n September-October 2017 11 Defend the Right to Self-Determination and Independence! Mobilize Labor’s Power Against Spanish Police/Military Occupation! Mass Resistance to Police Repression in Catalonia OCTOBER 4 – Sunday was “D-Day” in Cata- for the future. “Today lonia. For the last three weeks, the population there was no referendum of the northeastern region of Spain was pre- on self-determination Ferran Nadeu/El Periódico paring for a “self-determination referendum” in Catalonia,” declared on October 1, called by the Catalan regional Rajoy in his Franco- government, the Generalitat, to vote on the style pronunciamiento. question of independence from the Spanish As for the images of state. And for the last three weeks the Spanish club-wielding police government in Madrid was daily escalating beating elderly women threats and repression, declaring the referen- in the head, Rajoy said: dum illegal and vowing to do “whatever is “We did what we had necessary” to prevent people from voting. On to do” against the “per- the night before the vote, tens of thousands of petrators” whose peace- people in Barcelona and around Catalonia oc- ful defiance amounted cupied more than 1,100 schools designated as to a “coup against the polling places, many in sleeping bags outside law-based State.” The the gates in the rain, in order to block the thou- orgy of violence against sands of Guardia Civil and National Police defenseless voters un- from sealing them off to stop the vote. leashed by the authori- The showdown began at daybreak. tarian Spanish regime Occupiers had been ordered to vacate the made a genuine refer- premises by 6 a.m. Nobody left. Ballot endum on independence Police charge voters outside IES Ramon Llull secondary school. Barcelona, 1 October 2017. boxes started arriving from where they impossible. But they did not stop people and its henchmen – in particular the de- lonia while not advocating separation from had been hidden in closets and storage from voting. Late on Sunday, the Generalitat spicable leadership of the Socialist Party Spain, which could seriously undercut the rooms, basements and attics, to prevent announced that more than 2.2 million people (PSOE), enforcers of capitalist austerity potential for united struggle of the working the police from seizing them. Ballots had had cast ballots, 42% of the electorate, and and repression – but also against the capi- class throughout the peninsula. We defend- been printed again after the Guardia Civil 90% voted for independence. talist would-be masters of an independent ed the holding of the October 1 referendum seized more than 3.5 million in raids on “Fracture Consummated” headlined Catalonia. That is the task of the hour. against the Spanish government’s attempt to printing plants. By 7 a.m., the police of La Vanguardia (2 October), the leading The League for the Fourth International suppress it, while saying we would cast a the autonomous regional government, the daily paper in Barcelona which speaks for has upheld the right to self-determination blank ballot. But, as we noted, in the face Mossos d’Esquadra, began showing up, the “mainstream” Catalan bourgeoisie. The (i.e., the right to independence) for Cata- continued on page 16 but after noting the size of the crowds, they “unbreakable unity of Spain” had effectively left. Soon, however, the more than 10,000 been fractured, but Catalonia itself is deeply For International Workers Solidarity! paramilitary police that had been brought divided. Some 40% of registered voters had in from elsewhere in Spain began barg- cast ballots for independence, which corre- ing into schools and seizing ballot boxes. sponds to figures that serious opinion polls New York Protest Against But that was not enough for the cops. They have repeatedly shown. Those opposed to were out to terrorize and humiliate the independence overwhelmingly did not vote. Repression in Catalonia populace that was defying the orders of We have explained that opposition to sepa- the Madrid government, courts, police and ration from Spain is strongest in the (largely army by the simple act of voting. Spanish-speaking) working-class areas Internationalist photo Earlier, after some 40,000 people in of Catalonia (see our article, “Defend the Barcelona surrounded offices of the Gener- Right to Self-Determination and Indepen- alitat, trapping the notorious Guardia Civil dence for Catalonia,” The Internationalist, inside as it was carrying out a raid on Sep- September 2017). At the same time, more tember 20, Spanish prime minister Mariano than 2 million people braved violence by Rajoy declared in truly Orwellian fashion the Spanish state in order to vote on inde- that “disobedience is a totalitarian act.” It pendence, and tens of thousands, many of was in character: Rajoy’s party, the Partido them young people, actively participated in Popular (PP), is the political heir of the de- defending the polling places, an experience cades-long dictatorship of Francisco Fran- they will never forget. co. So on October 1, his cops were going Rajoy’s brutal onslaught has stoked to root out disobedience. Police in riot gear fear. “Moderate” independence supporters stormed the schools. Millions around the are calling on the Generalitat to step back world watched videos showing black-clad, from the brink and call new elections to masked police brutally yanking elderly re- prove its “legitimacy.” For militants, de- Internationalist demonstrators outside Spanish government office in New tirees out of lines where they were waiting fiant opposition to the brutal crackdown York City protest repression in Catalonia, October 6. to vote. They would snatch someone at ran- by the authoritarian Madrid government NEW YORK, October 6 – An emergency “The Internationalist Group and dom from the crowds of hundreds and beat doesn’t necessarily equal support for in- protest was held here today to denounce Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas them bloody. The Generalitat reported 893 dependence under the bourgeois Catalan police repression against voters in the ref- (Class Struggle International Workers) are calling an urgent protest to denounce people injured by the police on Sunday. nationalist movement and its right-wing, erendum on independence for Catalonia the brutal police attack on the October 1 As the day ended, the Spanish prime anti-working-class leadership. It could last Sunday, October 1. Demonstrators called for defense of the right to self-de- referendum on independence in Catalonia. minister went on TV to make an “institution- also fuel revolutionary struggle against Almost 900 people were injured as termination (the right to independence) al declaration” proclaiming victory. A Pyrrhic capitalism, the fundamental source of the thousands of riot police brought in from 1 victory, perhaps, with heavy consequences suffering of working people, immigrants for Catalonia, for workers unity through- elsewhere in Spain dragged retirees out of and youth in Catalonia and all of Spain. out the Spanish state and for international 1 After “winning” his battle against the Roman voters lines to beat them bloody. It was a Army in 280 BC while suffering heavy casual- But that requires building an international- workers solidarity actions. throwback to the days of the dictatorship ties, King Pyrrhus of the Greek state of Epirus ist leadership of the working class to wage The text of the leaflet distributed at of Francisco Franco, and a clear attempt reportedly said, “One more victory like that and a class-struggle battle first and foremost the protest outside the Spanish government to intimidate and humiliate the population I’ll come back to Epirus alone.” against the neo-Francoist Rajoy regime tourist office in Midtown Manhattan read: continued on page 17

12 The Internationalist Against the Francoist Assault: Defend the Right to Self-Determination and Independence for Catalonia Translated from Revolu- ist) Susana Díaz – the vast majori- ción Permanente, the newspaper ty of the Catalans, more than 80%, of the Grupo Internacionalista, insist on their right to decide. Thus Mexican section of the League El País the current showdown is focused for the Fourth International. on resistance to the attack by the BARCELONA/MEXICO CITY, Spanish-centralist government September 29 – The countdown against the population of Catalo- is coming to its end. Less than nia as a whole. And Marxists say 48 hours before the beginning that this task falls not only to the of the October 1st referendum Catalans but also is incumbent on (known in Spain as “1-O”), activ- the working people and defenders ists and parents have been mo- of democratic rights throughout bilizing all around Catalonia to Spain, and around the world. protect the schools which have In the face of this ominous been selected as polling places situation, revolutionaries and class- where people will respond “yes” conscious workers must take a or “no” to a single question: “Do side. Against the police assault by you want Catalonia to become an Rajoy and his accomplices it is independent state in the form of necessary to mobilize to defend a republic?” Carles Puigdemont, the right of self-determination president of the Generalitat, the and independence for Catalonia. government of the autonomous Moreover, it’s necessary to sup- region of Catalonia, announced port the holding of a binding today that the preparations for referendum on the question and voting are ready. But the central Thousands went into the streets in Barcelona on September 20 to protest against the resist any attempt by the Spanish government of the Spanish state invasion by the Guardia Civil and National Police who raided offices of the Generalitat, the government to prevent it. Against led by Mariano Rajoy, a political government of the Catalan autonomous region. any attempt to unleash massive re- heir of the dictatorship of Fran- pression in Catalonia, the working cisco Franco, is threatening a Resist Attempts to Prevent the October 1 Referendum! class in the whole of Spain must massive police operation to pre- mobilize with strikes and occupa- vent the carrying out of the inde- Forward to a Workers General Strike in All of Spain! tions, including an open-ended, pendence referendum. active general strike. Some minor- As the hours pass, tension For a Federation of Workers Republics in the Iberian ity union federations have called is mounting. Over the last three for a “general strike” on October weeks, the Madrid government, Peninsula, Part of a Socialist United States of Europe! 3, which in actuality appears to be the Constitutional Court and the more like what in Latin America is National Police have set in motion a large- tic tone of these events. Given the determi- predecessors Artur Mas and Jordi Pujol) are called a “paro cívico” (civic work stoppage) scale repressive operation. Only hours after nation of the Catalan govern (the regional rightists who are profoundly hostile to the in a popular front with pro-independence the Generalitat issued the decree calling the government) and of independence backers workers. Meanwhile, the opposition to the sectors of the bourgeoisie. Proletarian mili- referendum – in a fast-track parliamentary to go ahead with the referendum, the effort independence movement is particularly no- tants should agitate to turn the fight against procedure lasting a single day and ending by the neo-Francoist Spanish government table in areas of Catalonia that are home to repression into a class-struggle action by the close to midnight on September 6 – the to maintain the “sacred unity” of Spain at Spanish-speaking workers and immigrants. entire Spanish workers movement. Constitutional Court issued a ruling prohib- all costs could backfire. Add to this the dra- What is true is that currently the inde- The workers struggle cannot be limited iting the vote from being carried out. The ma around the Catalan police, the Mossos pendentistas are the most mobilized. How- to defending Catalonia’s right to self-deter- Rajoy government then immediately resort- d’Esquadra, which Rajoy is trying to place ever, and particularly given the authoritarian mination. The bourgeois politicians of the ed to censorship of the media, confiscation under the orders of a colonel of the Guardia blows struck by Rajoy (whom the Catalan Barcelona govern are just as “neo-liberal” of printed material for the referendum and Civil (who is No. 3 in the Interior Ministry). president aptly described as a “guardian of as those of the government in the Moncloa blocking the bank accounts of the Gener- The commander of the Mossos, Josep Lluis Franco’s tomb”) and his Popular Party (PP) Palace in Madrid. They have voted for the alitat, a veiled way of cancelling the already Trapero, temporarily refused to follow the – backed up by the Socialist Party of auster- capitalist austerity laws put forward by Ra- threadbare Catalan autonomy.1 Then, in an repressive orders, saying this would damage ity and repression, led by Pedro Sánchez and joy, and in the Catalan Generalitat they have explosion of repression, on September 20 the “prestige” of his force. But finally, out the furiously españolista (Spanish central- imposed the same policies. They are just as Madrid authorities proceeded to arrest 14 of- of respect for “the law,” Trapero ended by ficials of the Catalan government, carry out promising to evict people from the schools Susana Vera/Reuters searches of a dozen of its offices, cordon off early on Sunday, although saying it would the headquarters of the pro-independence be done “without violence.” party CUP (Popular Unity Candidacy) and In the international press, and particu- send 7,000 members of the National Police larly in social media, the impression is given to Catalonia, all with the mission of prevent- that support for independence is practically ing the 1-O referendum from taking place. unanimous in Catalonia, or at least among In addition, in a crudely choreographed the “popular classes.” A correspondent for media op, Civil Guards and National Police Revolución Permanente was in Barcelona from Huelva, Santander, Cádiz and Granada for a week and we can state that this is far heading to Catalonia were given a send-off from the case. The population of the au- by small groups of rightists shouting, “Go tonomous region (in which less than one- after them!” But the government may have third speak Catalan as their first language) ended up shooting itself in the foot, given is deeply divided. Even the detailed opin- the sparse attendance and markedly fascis- ion surveys carried out by the Generalitat show that only a minority – around 40% 1 Under the 1978 constitution (which proclaims the “indivisibility” of the Spanish state), the – of those interviewed want to have an in- country is divided into 17 “regions and nation- dependent state, separated from Spain. The alities” which have a limited degree of autono- nationalist movement is dominated by the my and self-government, although considerably Catalan bourgeoisie. In addition, its main Some 40,000 people gathered in the center of Barcelona September 20 to less than a state in the United States. leaders (not only Puigdemont but also his protest the Guardia Civil’s raids, filling Plaza Catalunya until well into the night. September-October 2017 13 much or even more submissive to the dictates independence while 58% oppose it. Many of the European central bankers who have city governments in the region, as well as in condemned the working people of Greece to Toni Albir/EPA Lleida, Tarragona, Mataró and other cities, poverty. (The slogan of the bourgeois pro-in- are controlled by the PSC, which is hostile dependence movement is to make Catalonia to independence. In fact, a very large part “a new state of Europe.”) Puigdemont, Mas, of the working class of Catalonia comes Pujol and the likes are enemies of the work- from Andalucía and other regions of Spain, ing class. In order to beat back the attacks of or from North Africa, Ecuador, the Domin- the repressive apparatus of the Spanish state, ican Republic and other Latin American what’s needed is a mobilization of the power countries. Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO.), of the working class, including with occupa- the largest labor federation, reports that in tions of factories and industrial zones, on the a survey only 40% of its members in Catal- basis of class independence in order to po- onia want an independent state, while 43% litically fight those who aspire to become the want a state in a federal Spain, and 13% new masters of Catalonia. prefer it to be an autonomous community. All this points to a socialist revolu- What is the explanation for this? The tion extending throughout the Iberian relative lack of support for independence Peninsula and the rest of the continent, to among these sectors doesn’t reflect disdain sweep away once and for all the European for Catalans, and much less support to the Union, that imperialist, anti-working-class neo-Francoist españolistas. To be clear, and anti-immigrant cartel which sees itself The president of the Generalitat, the rightist Carles Puigdemont, together Catalonia is a nation with its own language, as a Fortress Europe. The key to making with Josep Lluis Trapero, commander of the Mossos d’Esquadra, inspects culture, economy, history and territory, and this a reality is building a revolutionary police of the autonomous Catalan region in dress uniform during the diada like any nation it has the right to form an leadership of the working class, a genuine (march celebrating Catalonia’s national day), 11 September 2017. independent state. However, the Catalan Leninist-Trotskyist party fighting for a red measures were intensified. On the streets there were hundreds of region of the Spanish state is by no means a Europe of workers councils. Enter the Guardia Civil, which carried Catalan independence flags (the estelada, homogenous nation. A linguistic survey by the Generalitat reports that Catalan is the The October 1 Referendum out so many massacres before, during and whose design is similar to the Cuban and first language of only 30% of the popula- On September 6, the Catalan parlia- after the Civil War of 1936-39; which dur- Puerto Rican independence flags) flying. ing the following three and a half decades of The crowd chanted over and over, “Votarem! tion – less than a third – while Castillian ment approved at breakneck speed a Law for Spanish is for 55%. Add to this more than the Binding Self-Determination Referendum the Francoist dictatorship enforced the pro- Votarem!” (we’re going to vote). You could hibition of the Catalan language; and which also hear “Catalunya antifeixista” (Catalo- a million immigrants, representing 15% of for the Independence of Catalonia and an the total population, only a tiny portion of after the so-called “transition” of 1975-78 nia is anti-fascist) and “Occupation troops accompanying Law for the Legal Transfer whom speak Catalan. Many workers who has continued to sow terror in Euskadi (the get out!” They were noticeably concerned of Powers. They stipulate that independence speak Spanish, Arabic or Romanian feel Basque Country) and against immigrants in to keep an appearance of respectability. A shall be declared two days after the victory that their rights could be limited if, for ex- Ceuta (a Spanish-held enclave in Morocco). young man was berated for carrying a flag of a “Yes” vote in the 1-O referendum. The ample, Catalan is made the only language Police patrols barged into printing plants of the POUM (Workers Party of Marxist two laws were approved with the 72 votes for public affairs. And that is precisely looking for propaganda and ballots for the Unification) from Civil War days because it of the parties that make up the Junts pel Sí what the pro-independence parties call for. referendum, confiscating millions of piec- had a hammer and sickle. In contrast, along (JxSí, Together for Yes) coalition – whose When our correspondent was in the in- es of paper. The Catalan public television with the Catalan nationalist estaladas there main components are the traditional repre- dustrial town of El Prat de Llobregat, speak- channel, TV3, was banned from even men- were flags of the European Union. In the sentatives of the Catalan bourgeoisie, name- ing with union members of the CC.OO., one 2 tioning the October 1 vote. Some people afternoon people began gathering outside ly the liberal Catalan Democratic Party of of them remarked that for him (born in Cata- pasting up posters for the referendum were the nearby headquarters of the CUP, where Europe (PDeCAT, formerly Convergència i lonia) and for his father (from Andalucía), arrested. In Valencia, Madrid and through- masked police agents were waiting for a Unió) and Esquerra Republicana (ERC, Re- Catalan is the “language of the bosses.” In out the country public meetings in support judicial warrant in order to proceed with a publican Left) along with their petty-bour- reality, that is true for many. This worker told of the Catalan referendum were banned. search. Although the crowd outside the CUP geois partners of the CUP. The 11 consellers us that when he visited an office of the auton- On September 15, police evicted a meet- offices was smaller, it seemed more inclined (members of the Catalan parliament) of the omous regional government for some matters ing that was underway in Gasteiz/Victoria, to resist. “This occurred under Franco,” they CSQEP (Catalunya Sí Que Es Pot, Catalo- relating to his pension, the official only spoke nia Is Possible, linked to the populist Span- the capital of the Basque region. Taken to- shouted. But CUP leaders labeled anyone gether with the measures preventing the Catalan to him, refusing to speak in Spanish, ish party Podemos), the Greens and Izquier- suggesting that the vastly outnumbered cops making it hard for him to understand. This da Unida (the United Left) abstained, while Generalitat from paying public employees, should be driven out a provocateur. obviously we are barely a step away from corresponds to the law for “linguistic nor- the 52 consellers of the Catalan branches of The intensification of the repression malization,” which seeks to force everyone to the Spanish-centralist parties – the Francoist applying Article 155 of the Spanish Consti- from Madrid brought into the streets many tution, which would suspend any remnant speak Catalan. Also, according to Law 1 of PP, the ultra-rightist Citizens party (C’s), people who defend the democratic right of 1998, the “language of instruction and learn- and the Catalan Socialist Party – boycotted of regional autonomy for Catalonia. the Catalans to hold a referendum of self- During our stay in Barcelona, on Sep- ing” must be Catalan only. However, the re- the session, calling it illegal. determination – el dret a decider (the right ality is quite different because many parents From that moment on, the entire judi- tember 20 the day broke with the character- to decide) – but wouldn’t necessarily vote for istic sound of police helicopters hovering want their children to learn Spanish, Catalan cial, police and military apparatus inherited independence. This is a crucial distinction, and English. The census mentioned above from the Francoist dictatorship went into overhead to keep watch on the streets. News which at a distance may seem a very fine spread of the arrest of 14 mid-level func- reports that among youth, almost all are tri- action. On September 7, the Constitution- point, but one which in Catalonia is very clear lingual. But Catalan nationalists continue to al Court suspended the laws approved in tionaries of the Generalitat, including one of to all. According to the Baròmetre d’Opinió the main collaborators of its vice president, seek to impose Catalan as the sole language Barcelona the night before, declaring them Política published by the Generalitat, in its of instruction in education. unconstitutional for “breaking the unity of Oriol Junqueras of the ERC. On the pretext most recent survey (the second in 2017) only of searching for proof of the “diversion” The impulse for independence comes Spain.” At the same time, the Court warned a minority of 41% of those surveyed are for above all from powerful sectors of the Catalan mayors that they were prohibited of public resources in order to organize Catalonia becoming an independent state, the referendum, National Police occupied well-to-do Catalan bourgeoisie. It’s not from participating in organizing the Oc- and only 39% said they would vote for inde- like some national liberation movement in tober 1 referendum, and hauled into court several offices of the Generalitat. Early on, pendence in a referendum, whereas 49% are hundreds of people gathered in front of the a semi-colonial country. The main com- 712 of them who had stated their intent to against declaring independence. Given more Economics Ministry on the main avenue of plaint of the Catalan bourgeoisie, repeated participate. Meanwhile, the national pros- options, only 34% favored independence – Rambla Catalunya, where a search opera- by the independence movement, is the so- ecutor in Madrid initiated a legal action barely one-third of the population – while tion was underway. The crowd kept grow- called “espoli fiscal” (fiscal plundering) of against the Generalitat as a whole. The 31% were in favor of an autonomous com- ing to the point where, as night fell, the Catalonia by the Spanish state. “ESPANYA initial response of the population to these munity within Spain, and another 22% would media reported the presence of some 40,000 ENS ROBA!” (Spain is robbing us) they threats was the march on September 11, the like a state in a federal Spain. people. When the Generalitat reported the scream. But, what does this “theft” and “fis- Catalan national day commemorating the Doubtless, some of those who re- “tumultuous” nature of the crowd, the Rajoy cal plundering” consist of? It is the differ- disappearance of the Principality of Catal- ject independence do so because they are government pounced in this to justify order- ence between the amount of money paid by onia due to defeat in 1714 in the War of the nostalgic for Francoism. But within the ing the dispatch of another 3,000 police, to Catalonia into the national treasury and the Spanish Succession. In this Diada pel Sí population of Catalonia, the division over support the 4,000 that had been brought in money received from Madrid. If it wasn’t (national day for a “yes” to independence), independence coincides in large part with a earlier.3 Now Madrid is complaining that for this deficit, they argue, “We could be up to a million people filled the streets of class difference. Rejection of the indepen- their cops were trapped for hours. one of the richest states in Europe.” The Barcelona. The next day, the repressive dence movement is particularly widespread “deficit” is due in large part to the invest- 2 In Europe, “liberal” parties are generally 3 By October 1 over 10,000 police from these in the industrial region of Baix Llobregat, ments and official expenses in the more hard right-wing proponents of “free market” paramilitary units had been brought into Cata- with its huge concentration of Spanish- impoverished regions of the Spanish state, capitalism. lonia to stop the vote. speaking workers, where only 29% support continued on page 16 14 The Internationalist The Left in Catalonia and Independence Today, as in the 1930s and ’70s, the aid of the pseudo- movement is not determined by the eco-

the left groups in Catalonia that falsely socialists) it became Samuel YorkAranda/New Times nomic position they occupy but rather by claim to be socialist capitulate before the instrument for im- their adherence to the popular-national one or another bourgeois formation. posing the dictates of project of an independent Catalonia.” A case in point is that of the group the Frankfurt bankers Oof! A lot of words to explain, al- Lliuta Internacionalista (LI, International- and the Brussels bu- though they don’t say so clearly, that this ist Struggle), the section of the Internation- reaucrats. Already the is a bourgeois nationalist movement. As a al Unity of Workers (UIT) tendency, one CUP has been the in- result, they correctly note that “these evi- wing of the followers of the late Argentine dispensable partner in dent limitations prevent us from speak- pseudo-Trotskyist Nahuel Moreno. Its slo- the bosses’ co-govern- ing of the independence movement as a gan is “1-O, sí o sí” (October 1, One Way ment of the PDeCAT socially revolutionary movement, since it or Another), and on that basis they justify (Catalan Democratic doesn’t question the material foundations voting in favor of independence under Party of Europe) and of capitalism.” But why should it? The the Generalitat headed by the right-wing the ERC (Catalan Re- leaders of this movement are the leaders capitalist politician Carles Puigdemont. publican Left) in the of the traditional parties of the Catalan According to these opportunists, a victory Junts pel Sí (JxSí, To- bourgeoisie! Despite this, the Anticapi- for a “Yes” vote would make it possible gether for Yes) coali- talistas pose the need to join the move- to establish a “Republic of the Working tion, playing the role of ment (as they did with the Indignados in People” (República dels i de les treballad- a loyal stooge cover- 20112), in order to bring in “the world of ores). A “Republic of the working people” ing its left flank. This labor and social movements” to “produce is a formula with a history. Can it be an is how its supposedly a ‘constituent’ force.” So the Catalan accident that LI is repeating here the self- socialist components procès should lead to a constituent assem- description of the Second Spanish Repub- have been integrated bly in Catalonia, and in the other regions lic, whose 1931 Constitution defined it as into the mechanisms of of the Spanish state, “which would con- a “Republic of the working people of all bourgeois politics. test the neoliberal ‘constituent’ agenda of classes”? In any case, the slogan of Lliuta Another group The image of the chief of police of the Catalonia the Junts pel Sí.” In other words, “our” Internacionalista is not a revolutionary call which calls itself Marx- autonomous region, Josep Lluis Trapero, with the constituent assembly versus theirs. As to overthrow capitalist rule, but instead a ist is Izquierda Revolu- quote: “Okay, very well. So, goodbye.” Trapero said clear as a barrel of (unrefined) oil. call for a bourgeois republic in Catalonia, cionaria (IR, the Revo- these words when a foreign correspondent left a press Finally there is the local group of in the image of and similar to that which lutionary Left), which conference because it was conducted partly in Catalan. the Fracción Trotskista (FT, Trotskyist came about following the fall of the Primo after breaking with the They are now repeated as an Adiós to Spain. Be careful Faction), the Corriente Revoluciona- de Rivera dictatorship in 1931. International Marxist of nationalist movements that have police chiefs as ria de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras (CRT, This is further demonstrated by the Tendency (IMT) led by their heroes. Revolutionary Workers Tendency), today fact that Lliuta Internacionalist (LI) is part Alan Woods recently affiliated with Peter Militant tendency is to give a labourite present only as Izquierda Diario on the of the Popular Unity Coalition (CUP, the Taaffe’s Committee for a Workers Interna- tone to their class-collaborationist politics. Internet, which published an article “Five petty-bourgeois leftist pro-independence tional (CWI). In a leaflet distributed during The group of Woods’ IMT in Spain, Lu- Reasons Why Workers Should Support coalition), as is the section of the main the occupation of the main building of the cha de Clases (Class Struggle), published Catalonia’s Right to Decide” (29 Septem- Morenoite organization, the International University of Barcelona on September 23, a declaration today (September 29) call- ber), explaining that it was necessary to Workers League (LIT), Corrent Roig its Catalan group, Esquerra Revolucionaria, ing on workers to participate massively in fight for a “generous democracy.” Might (Red Tendency). In the Spanish-centralist called for “the right to self-determination, for the “general strike” called for October 3, that be the same as the “loving republic” media, the CUP is often presented as an a socialist Catalonia.” However, at the same without mentioning its “civic,” multiclass called for by Andrés Manuel López Ob- “anti-system” and even “socialist” force, time it calls for a vote in federal elections for character of support to Puigdemont’s capi- rador in Mexico together with his mega- and supposedly the one truly responsible the bourgeois populists of Podemos, and in talist government. They also call to “Ex- capitalist buddy Carlos Slim, which was 3 for the independence process. Despite Catalonia for its local branch, Podem, which tend the Committees for the Defense of the also supported by the FT? They sum up certain “socialist” rhetoric, there is noth- today controls the Barcelona city govern- Referendum,” which are led by Òmnium by calling to “impose by means of mo- ing revolutionary about the CUP. It is not ment in the person of the mayor Ada Colau. Cultural and the Catalan National Assem- bilizations, strikes, self-organization and opposed to capitalism, but to “crony capi- IR/ER is pressuring the CUP to “put a stop bly, the extraparliamentary support groups struggle, constituent processes … which talism,” as former CUP parliamentary to the policy of class collaboration,” ignor- of the PDeCAT. What they don’t do is call would take power out of the hands of deputy David Fernàndez put it. Accord- ing the fact that it is precisely its support to for a struggle for workers revolution which the entrepreneurs of the IBEX35” – i.e., ing to Quim Arrufat, a member of the Na- the government of Puigdemont’s PDeCAT would expropriate the capitalists, overthrow only from Spain’s top 35 companies, not tional Secretariat of the CUP, its imagined which gives the CUP political relevance. the capitalist state (including in Catalonia) capitalism – “with the perspective of gov- republic would be based on diversity, on Particularly illustrative is IR/ER’s and install a federation of workers republics ernments of the working people.” What a the right to decide; it would be feminist, conception of a “socialist republic.” Ac- of the Iberian Peninsula on the road to so- gratifying “perspective”! As in the case built on “sovereign solidarity.” “And in a of the Mandelites, these neo-Morenoites cording to them, such a republic “would in- cialist revolution throughout Europe. society devastated by voracious markets, who call for constituent assemblies here, scribe in its constitution the nationalization To complete this panorama of the main which know no limit or brake,” it would there and everywhere seek to disguise of the banks and big monopolies under the groups in Catalonia and the Spanish State be “the republic of the people and their with a lot of verbiage their social-demo- democratic control of the working people, who call themselves Trotskyist, Viento Sur, welfare.”1 In other words, a capitalist cratic brand of stagist policies. while guaranteeing the creation of mil- the magazine of the Anticapitalistas – the Catalunya with a few touches of a (now In the rest of the world, virtually the lions of jobs with decent wages, with high- current organizational incarnation of those impossible) welfare state. whole of the opportunist left is trying quality education and public health care, coming out of the tendency of the late Er- In this sense, the Popular Unity to hop aboard the train of the indepen- with the right to housing for all, through a nest Mandel (whose heirs call themselves Candidacy bears remarkable similarities dentista movement, including the Inter- system of accessible public housing” – all the International Committee of the Fourth to SYRIZA in Greece at the beginning national Communist League (Spartacist without overthrowing the capitalist state. of this decade: a populist coalition of International) – published on September 28 tendency), which in its own terminal the petty-bourgeois left which proposes This social-democratic pipedream reflects a dossier dedicated to the October 1 refer- process has fervently embraced a bour- to modify the anti-working-class auster- their origins in the Militant tendency led by endum. As always enthusing over anything geois nationalist perspective toward ity policies (but which doesn’t question Woods and Taaffe in the Labour Party in that moves, the Anticapitalistas are trying Catalonia, Quebec and in multinational the system of bourgeois property), and Britain. Another legacy is the illusion that to find a way to join the procès indepen- countries (France, Belgium) in general. which includes in its ranks organizations police are “workers in uniform,” when in dentista, both in Catalonia and in the rest But that particular and peculiar story re- which falsely proclaim themselves so- reality they are the armed fist of the bour- of Spain. The article “Class, Hegemony quires separate treatment. n cialists. We already know the outcome. geoisie. This anti-Marxist conception is and the Catalan Independence Movement” Within a few years, SYRIZA turned particularly dangerous in Catalonia today, recognizes that “we are in the presence of 2 See “Rebellion of the Outraged,” The In- into a bourgeois party, and finally (with where the Mossos d’Esquadra (the police a multiclass movement, in which there are ternationalist No. 33, Summer 2011. 1 “The Potentialities of a New Republic” [in of the Catalan autonomous region) and workers, small property owners, govern- 3 See “Defeat the Union-Busting Attack Catalan], in the collection of articles, Referèn- their chief, Major Trapero, are praised as ment officials, politicians, professionals, on Mexican Teachers,” The International- dum 2017: La clau que obre el pany [Refer- heroes by Catalan nationalists. small and mid-size entrepreneurs, etc., but ist, August 2015. The Mexican FT section is endum 2017: The Key That Opens the Lock]. A particular trait of the heirs of the whose relationship with the independence the MTS (Socialist Workers Movement).

September-October 2017 15 Catalonia... Mass Defiance... continued from page 14 continued from page 12 from Galicia to Andalucía. Thus the Catalan of massive repression unleashed by Rajoy, bourgeoisie is seeking independence in or- the place of revolutionary Marxists, those der not to have to pay for the Southern poor. who stand on the Bolshevik program of V.I. This is not that different from the Lega Nord Lenin and Leon Trotsky, is in the streets de- (Northern League) in Italy, which with slo- fending the right to self-determination and gans like “ROMA LADRONA” (Rome the opposing police repression alongside those Thief) seeks to free itself from subsidizing calling for Catalan independence, even as the southern regions (and which strongly we fight for workers revolution. And we supports independence for Catalonia). underline that to actually defeat the blood- Obviously not all backers of indepen- thirsty latter-day Francoists and their mil- dence for Catalonia support this bourgeois itary-police apparatus requires mobilizing program. However, this is a nationalist the social and economic power of the work- movement led by the richest bourgeoisie in ing class throughout Spain. Spain. Far from being a colony, if Catalonia What Next for Catalonia – achieves independence it will be a second- tier imperialist country. Of the three biggest And for Spain? Spanish banks, the two largest are of Basque The outcome of October 1 poses a dif- ficult situation for the Catalan independen- capital (Banco Santander and BBVA) and Workers uprising during the Barcelona May Days, 1937. the third is Catalan (CaixaBank), as is the tistas: they do not have the military force fifth-largest (Banc Sabadell). The first two struggle of the decade in Europe. sipate the working-class militancy, which to stand up to the Spanish state – unlike the have a very strong position in Latin Amer- Spain is a country in whose history was expressed in common actions by the Iraqi Kurdish leaders with their peshmerga ica. Santander and the BBVA, as good im- the Socialist and Communist parties have multinational and multiethnic proletariat, army funded, trained, armed and advised perialist banks, are also heavily involved played a prominent, and fateful, role. Af- the Eurocommunists of the PCE and their by the imperialists, who held their indepen- in military industry, as are CaixaBank and ter the founding of the Second Republic Catalan branch, the PSUC, supported na- dence referendum a week earlier. Carles Banc Sabadell. And the Generalitat itself in 1931, a revolutionary period opened in tionalist policies in Catalonia. From subor- Puigdemont, the president of the Catalan has subsidized a number of the 35 compa- which the working class at various points dination to the bourgeois Republic in the Generalitat, and his predecessor Artur Mas, nies in Catalonia that make weapons. One was in a situation where it could contend 1930s they now passed over to defense of a together with the rest of the bourgeois Junts of those subsidized is Expal, of the Maxam for power. On 18 July 1936, the coup d’état monarchy in which the regional autonomy pel Sí (JxSí, Together for Yes) coalition have group, whose Turkish subsidiary manufac- headed by Francisco Franco took place statutes served to embellish the regime of looked to the European Union (EU) for sup- tured explosives to be used by the “rebels” against the government of the Popular reformed Francoism. port. Having won the “war of images” with armed and financed by the imperialists in Front, a coalition in which the leaders of So once again, the reformists betrayed scenes of bloody cop attacks in Barcelona Syria, as Vice News (14 March 2016) re- the reformist workers parties – the PSOE the working class. And as in the 1930s, all over TV and social media, Puigdemont ported. and PCE – chained the workers to capital- they were aided by the new centrists, pseu- appealed to EU leaders for support in me- As revolutionary Marxists, we judge ist politicians (whom Trotsky referred to do-Trotskyist organizations (like the Liga diating. But although it made a routine con- democratic questions from the class stand- as “the shadow of the bourgeoisie”) such Comunista Revolucionaria and the Liga demnation of “violence” and a lukewarm point of the proletariat. Concerning the as the Catalan Lluis Companys. The initial Comunista de España) who only sought to appeal for “dialogue,” the EU backed the question posed in the 1-O referendum, yes failure of the coup in the face of workers reestablish a Generalitat “in the service of Spanish government and unequivocally or no to the independence of Catalonia, we mobilization opened a revolutionary situ- the working people,” just as Nin and the stated (again) that an independent Catalonia would be in favor of going to the polls, but ation as the workers in the major cities, POUM sought to do 40 years earlier. would be “outside” the European Union, to cast a blank ballot. Still, massive repres- above all in Barcelona, organized work- The working class in Catalonia contin- which could cripple it economically. sion by Rajoy and his PP in order to pre- ers militias and imposed workers control ues to form an integral part of the working The population, meanwhile, continues vent the holding of the referendum could in various branches of industry in order to class of the Spanish state. This is shown to be mobilized. In two towns north of Bar- radically change matters. By denying the resist Franco’s bonapartist assault. over and over in the common actions that celona, popular opposition led to the Guardia elemental right of the population of Cata- The policy of the popular front subordi- its different components have waged with Civil being run out of local hotels. Yesterday lonia to decide their own fate, these crazed nated the tremendous power of a mobilized the other regions of Spain. An important re- (October 3), a civic “aturada de país” (coun- “ex” Francoists could provoke a clash in working class to the capitalist policies of cent case is that of the struggles of education trywide work stoppage) to protest the police which there are only two sides. In that case, Companys, Manuel Azaña and other lead- workers against Rajoy’s anti-education law rampage was called by a popular front, the and particularly if it comes to a physical ers of the bourgeois Republic. By blocking (the Lomce), which slashed as much as 30% Taula per la Democracia (Platform for De- confrontation, the duty of revolutionaries socialist revolution, they opened the way of the budget in this sector. Also extremely mocracy), including the three main labor is to stand with those fighting for the rights for the victory of Franco. The responsibil- important is the constant struggle of long- federations (CC.OO., UGT and USOC) and of the Catalans and for independence, but ity for this defeat falls on the Socialists led shore workers throughout the peninsula, a number of independent unions along with at the same time seeking to mobilize the by Largo Caballero and particularly on resisting anti-union policies imposed jointly employers associations, NGOs (“non-gov- working class in the struggle for power the Stalinists, who with their Republican by Rajoy and Puigdemont in the service of ernmental organizations”) and the Catalan against the big bourgeoisie both of the Guards dissolved the workers militias (as the European Union. In fact, the Barcelona National Assembly and Òmnium Cultural, Spanish state and of Catalonia. you can see in the magnificent film by Ken dock workers gave an example of what can extraparliamentary support groups of the Loach, Land and Freedom) and drowned be done to defeat the onslaught by Rajoy capitalist JxSí government. Government of- Forge a Leninist-Trotskyist the insurrectionary proletariat in blood in by last week refusing to load or unload the fices were closed (by the Catalan govern- Workers Party! the May Days (Els Fets de Maig) in Barce- cruise ships housing thousands of police. ment), downtown Barcelona was jammed The key is in fighting for the complete lona in 1937. But responsibility also falls Actions such as this should be extend- and huge marches were estimated at 300,000 class independence of the proletariat from in particular on the anarchists of the CNT, ed and deepened. The working class should people at noon and 700,000 in the evening. the Iberian bourgeoisie and its various na- who participated in the Popular Front gov- mobilize its enormous power throughout the The world-famous Barcelona Football tional sectors. This depends above all on the ernment and played a terrible role in demo- Spanish state in order to defeat the repressive Club (Barça) shut down in solidarity. At the working class having its own revolutionary bilizing the workers uprising in Barcelona, assault which is a threat to all. This could same time a “general strike” called by sev- workers party, based on defending the inter- and on the centrists of the POUM, who put on the agenda the issue of which class eral smaller labor federations stopped public nationalist program of V.I. Lenin and Leon signed the Popular Front pact in the 1936 shall rule. The struggle in Catalonia against transportation for most of the day, while dock Trotsky, who led the October Revolution of elections and whose leader Andreu Nin en- the neo-Francoist regime could make bour- workers shut down the port. 1917. That heritage was later betrayed by tered the Generalitat government of Cata- geois Europe shake, but only on the condi- As the marches dispersed, thousands the usurpers of the nationalist bureaucracy lonia as minister of justice. tion that it is converted from a bourgeois of the more leftist sectors headed to the headed by Stalin, who in rejecting the pro- The Spanish left today are the heirs of nationalist movement into a struggle of the downtown National Police HQ, laying gram of international socialist revolution the popular-frontists who preserved bour- working class against capitalism. And that siege to the barracks for hours. Finally, sought to ally with sectors of the bourgeoi- geois domination in the 1930s, and who requires forging a revolutionary, Leninist around 9:30 p.m., the cops piled into their sie. The Stalinist program of class collabo- did so again following the death of Franco and Trotskyist workers party in the heat vans and took off to avoid being trapped ration prepared the road for the capitalist when large-scale workers mobilizations of the battle. This is the indispensible in- all night. As this was happening, King Fe- counterrevolution, which under the blows opened new opportunities for socialist strument in order to turn into reality what lipe VI went on TV with an unprecedented of imperialism finally destroyed the Soviet revolution throughout the Spanish state. In was prevented by the Popular Front in the speech backing the Rajoy government to Union, the first workers state in history, dur- the elections to the Cortes (parliament) in 1930s: a socialist revolution that crosses the the hilt, declaring that the Catalan authori- ing 1989-92. The same policy guided the 1978, the workers parties – the Unified So- Pyrenees to shake the entire Old Continent, ties have been “breaching the constitution Spanish Communist Party (PCE) during cialist Party of Catalunya (PSUC) and the and the world. For an Iberian federation and the autonomy statute” by “illegally” the 1930s Civil War, strangling proletarian PSC – together won an overwhelming 80% of workers republics, as part of a socialist seeking independence, that the crown was revolution in what was the biggest class of the votes in Catalonia. In order to dis- united states of Europe! n committed to the “unity” of Spain, includ-

16 The Internationalist Internationalistische Gruppe Founded German Section of the League for the Fourth International On 20 August 2017, the Internation- ing (ex nihilo) but must be built on the po- suddenly discovered that the consciousness current struggles can be seen. While a ma- alistische Gruppe, German section of the litical and programmatic basis of revolution- of the proletariat had suffered a “qualitative jority of the left tailed after the swindler League for the Fourth International, was ary Marxism, i.e., Trotskyism. The founding regression” worldwide. The expelled ICL Alexis Tsipras in Greece and joined in his founded in Berlin. Together with represen- document of Leon Trotsky’s Fourth Inter- cadres did not become demoralized, but in- [July 2015] referendum maneuver, the LFI tatives of the international leadership, Ger- national, the Transitional Program, declared stead formed the League for the Fourth In- cut through the cynical games of the Greek man supporters of the LFI discussed per- that conditions are ripe for revolution (in a ternational (with sections in Brazil, Mexico government. In opposition to the social de- spectives and tasks of the new organization capitalist system that has long since lost any and the United States), in order to carry for- molition plans of both the Frankfurt bankers and drew up its founding statement (printed progressive character and continuously sub- ward the Trotskyist program of international and the bourgeois-populist SYRIZA gov- below). After having published a first issue jects the world to economic crises and wars), socialist revolution. ernment, the LFI called to occupy compa- of Permanente Revolution as the German- that the crisis of humanity is reduced to the In subsequent years, the ICL has revised nies, ports, hospitals, etc. In the U.S., our language newspaper of the LFI in June crisis of revolutionary leadership, i.e., the one Trotskyist position after another until in comrades fight in the unions for workers (see The Internationalist No. 48, May-June construction of revolutionary parties around 2010 it supported the U.S. invasion of Haiti, mobilizations to stop the fascists. Thus, for 2017), we have added a German page of the the world. Every conceivable variety of ex- as a supposed rescue mission after the earth- example, in Portland (Oregon), where on LFI web site. Trotskyist revisionism has dismissed this the- quake. Some months later, the ICL itself had June 4 hundreds of trade-unionists and sup- sis as outdated, thereby abjuring the possibil- to renounce this self-described “social-impe- porters from at least 14 unions mobilized One hundred years after the Russian ity of proletarian revolution as well. rialist betrayal.” Later, the increasingly so- together against a racist/fascist provocation. October Revolution, we hereby declare the This is particularly noticeable with cial-chauvinist position of the ICL leadership In Germany, the overwhelming ma- founding of the Internationalistische Gruppe, the International Communist League (in on the refugee crisis – refusing to take up the jority of the left subordinates itself to the German section of the League for the Fourth Germany, the Spartakist-Arbeiterpartei call for asylum for Syrian refugees, among social-democratic Left Party (either directly International, as the nucleus of the urgently [SpAD, Spartacist Workers Party]), which others – led to an outbreak of internal fights. as part of the membership, or as an external needed revolutionary internationalist work- for three decades upheld the program of The founding of the Internationalistische pressure group), which joins in administer- ers party. We undertake this step amid a con- Trotskyism. However, following the de- Gruppe in Germany, as well as of our sister ing the capitalist state at the state level. This tinuing economic crisis encompassing the struction of the Soviet Union and the East section, the Nucleo Internazionalista d’Italia includes supporting attacks on the unions as entire capitalist world with no end in sight. European deformed workers states during last year, goes back to this betrayal, as well well as racist deportations. In order to stop This crisis is particularly acute in Europe, 1989-92, which constituted a world-historic as to the expulsion of the Better-Late-Than- the deportations of refugees, to prevent the where its consequences are felt by the op- defeat of the proletariat, the ICL fell into ab- Never Faction from the Spartacist League/ constant Nazi provocations or to beat back pressed and working people from Britain to ject defeatism, succumbing to the wave of U.S. in early 2016. All these comrades, vet- the huge low-wage sector, it is necessary to Greece. Along with endless imperialist wars bourgeois triumphalism over the supposed eran cadres of the ICL, have now joined the mobilize the social power of the working and the resulting refugee crisis, the upshot “death of communism.” In Germany, where League for the Fourth International because class. This can only be led by an authentic has been the revival of right-wing populist the ICL uniquely fought consistently against it stands for the genuine Trotskyist program Bolshevik party that politically combats the and fascist forces, but also the reappearance capitalist reunification and counterrevolu- that they joined the ICL to carry out. Togeth- reformism and protectionism of the social- of old-school reformists like Jeremy Corbyn tion, this turn away from a revolutionary er we seek to intervene in the struggles of the democratic labor misleaders and counter- in the Labour Party, who however are unable perspective was particularly acutely felt, workers and the oppressed in order to link poses to them the perspective a socialist to save the rotting capitalist system. leading to a sharp internal fight in 1995. them to the struggle for socialist revolution united states of Europe. The International- The deteriorating situation urgently calls Together with a series of expulsions of – in contrast to the pseudo-Trotskyists who istische Gruppe sets as its task the building out for a revolutionary leadership, not least veteran cadres internationally, and as part of seek to divert social and class struggles into of the nucleus of this party, in the struggle in the heart of German imperialism, the po- this struggle and justification for its flight the bourgeois parliamentary dead end. for the reforging of the Fourth International, litical and economic center of Europe. Such from the class struggle into abstentionism, Everywhere the need for Leninist- world party of socialist revolution. a leadership cannot simply arise out of noth- the restructured “new leadership” of the ICL Trotskyist parties to expand and deepen Berlin, 20 August 2017

vote and immediately proceed to a UDI. these vile social democrats, Rajoy’s minor- forces and powerful program to resolve the The stage is set for a showdown, in which ity government would fall. In Catalonia, the crisis of revolutionary leadership. That is the the first act may be implementing Article 155 CC.OO. and UGT unions joined the call for a task facing the League for the Fourth Inter- of the Spanish Constitution, suspending the popular-front “civic work stoppage” but op- national today, when Catalonia is, as it was Catalan statute of autonomy. Court cases are posed the call for a general strike. The union eight decades ago, a key battlefield. n

Naucher Global also being prepared against Puigdemont and bureaucrats made sure that key factories did the entire Catalan government for “disobedi- not walk out, notably the SEAT auto plants, NYC Protest... ence” and against the Catalan police chief where there was only a five-minute stop- continued from page 12 for “sedition,” which could lead to their ar- page at noon. If the brutal police assault on of this restive region who dared to defy rest. This afternoon it was announced that the the population leads to a growth of support the neo-Francoist Spanish government. Madrid government’s contract for the cruise for the Catalan nationalists – whose capitalist Two days later (on October 3) there was ships housing Civil Guards and National Po- program offers only the dead end of passive a work stoppage throughout Catalonia lice in the harbor has been extended, that two resistance – rather than mobilizing workers’ as hundreds of thousands marched to Navy frigates will arrive in the Catalan capi- power to drive out the occupation forces, it denounce the vicious repression. tal on October 10, and that several convoys will centrally be because of the betrayal by “We are calling for International of army logistical units have been deployed the pro-capitalist labor fakers. Workers Solidarity Against Police Repression in Catalonia and to Defend to a base next to Barcelona, “in case, when In Catalonia and Spain today – as in Catalonia’s Right to Self-Determination Dockers shut down port of Barcelona the moment arrives, the Armed Forces and struggles around the globe in recent years, and to Independence, while fighting for on October 3 to protest brutal police Security Corps of the State need to use the from Greece to Mexico, from South Africa the United Action by the Working Class attack on October 1 referendum. military facility” (El Confidencial, 4 Oc- to South America, in Ukraine and the Middle Throughout the Spanish State against ing Catalonia, and calling on the “legiti- tober). A military occupation of the region East and even in the imperialist colossus of the repression. The urgency of the mate powers of the State to ensure order.” may be in the offing. Maintaining it over a the United States – the excruciating need is protest is heightened as the government This bloodcurdling speech underlines the lengthy period, seeking to discipline a restive to forge a revolutionary leadership, a workers appears to be preparing to cancel need for workers revolution to sweep away population with sheer terror, is another mat- party built on the internationalist program of Catalonia’s regional autonomy and the monarchy. Instead, Puigdemont again ter. Heavy-handed repression backfired and Lenin and Trotsky. Much of the left in Cata- impose direct rule from Madrid through appealed for European mediation, while didn’t stop the voting on October 1. lonia has tailed after the bourgeois nationalist a military/police occupation (army units repeating that the Generalitat would pro- The focus will then be on the working independence movement, just as they habitu- are already being brought in).” ceed with a unilateral declaration of inde- class, for what counts is not images but raw ally chase every new “movement” with little Other signs carried by protesters in- pendence (UDI) “in a matter of days.” This power – and the key is leadership. The PSOE regard to its actual politics. The opportun- cluded: “Guardia Civil and National Po- afternoon, the petty-bourgeois leftist Popu- has played a despicable role throughout, de- ists hope to gain popularity, but with such a lice, Out of Catalonia!” “It’s Time to Bury lar Unity Candidacy (CUP), without whose fending the neo-Francoist PP government’s tailist policy they can never lead a real class Francoism Now! For Workers Revolu- votes in the Catalan parlament the right- ban on the self-determination referendum, struggle, much less a revolution. The Fourth tion in the Entire Iberian Peninsula!” and wing capitalist JxSí government would praising the Guardia Civil and National Po- International was formed in 1938 in the “Down with the Monarchy! For an Iberian fall, demanded a plenary session on Mon- lice and denouncing those who oppose these shadow of huge defeats and in the midst of Federation of Workers Republics, in a So- day, October 9, to hear the results of the uniformed terrorists. Without the support of the Spanish Civil War. It sought with its tiny cialist United States of Europe!” n September-October 2017 17 Revolutionary Internationalist

Below we print an excerpted version nization (ISO), Workers World Party and its split the Party for Socialism and Liberation, of the founding declaration of the Inter- Internationalist photo nationalist Group’s newly-formed youth YouthYouth FoundedFounded Bob Avakian’s cultish Maoist Revolution- section, the Revolutionary Internationalist ary Communist Party, Socialist Action, and Youth, adopted at its founding meeting on many others. Key to the development of 13 August 2017. The RIY will serve as a Internationalist recruits in this period was transitional organization for radical youth the struggle against the rightward-moving eager to fight for socialist revolution in the centrist politics of the Spartacist League, process of becoming Marxist cadre. Genu- which, demoralized by the destruction of inely revolutionary youth organizations, go- the USSR, had abandoned Trotskyism and ing back to Karl Liebknecht’s International now raged hysterically against the Interna- Union of Socialist Youth, helped develop tionalist Group for upholding the call to de- tomorrow’s revolutionary leadership, pro- feat U.S. imperialism and carry out workers viding a means for youth to develop their strikes against the war. organizational and political skills. As part As Revolutionary Internationalist of the IG/LFI’s fight to reforge the Fourth Youth comrades learned in our study of International, the founding of the RIY repre- the history of Marxist youth organizations, sents a significant step forward. Along with Internationalist contingent at New York City May Day 2015 march. from their inception the struggle against Class Struggle Education Workers, Class the wars and occupations of Afghanistan contributed to significant shifts in a country imperialist militarism has been a crucial Struggle Workers – Portland and Traba- and Iraq by Bush II, and continued under where virulent anti-communism was once part of their work. This was reflected in jadores Internacionales Clasistas (Class Barack Obama. This imperialist offensive the norm and even “socialism” was long the formative years of the CUNY Interna- Struggle International Workers), the RIY has been mirrored on the domestic front considered a dirty word. A 2016 Harvard tionalist Clubs, which waged a successful will develop a new layer of Marxist fighters with a dramatic escalation of repressive Institute of Politics poll found that 51% of campaign to drive military recruiters out that will strengthen the common movement measures. The police and other repressive people aged 18-29 now say they “do not of Bronx Community College where they for socialist revolution, of which the IG/LFI forces of the bourgeois state murder black support” capitalism, and 33% say they “sup- sought to prey on the predominantly immi- seeks to be the vanguard party. and Latino people with impunity, terrorize port socialism.” While what this means is grant, black and Latino student population. immigrant workers with deportations (over doubtless ill-defined for most, these figures Our successful campaign to spike a sinister Founding Declaration 5.5 million under Democrat Obama), and do represent a growing desire among youth “Homeland Security” course at CUNY’s of the Revolutionary herd scabs against striking workers. for an alternative to the chaos, violence and Borough of Manhattan Community Col- An entire generation of youth has increasing destructiveness of capitalism in lege further cemented the Clubs’ reputation Internationalist Youth grown up witnessing the continual wars and the age of imperialist decay. as effective Marxist organizers. We are founding the Revolutionary ongoing economic crisis of the capitalist or- This accumulated experience proved Development of Internationalist Youth as the youth section der. After the Democrats paved the way for invaluable when Internationalist youth ac- of the Internationalist Group, U.S. section President Donald Trump, he has even fur- Internationalist Youth Work tivists faced the challenge of organizing of the League for the Fourth International. ther ramped up anti-immigrant migra arrests After the Internationalist Group’s protests against the CUNY administration’s One hundred years after the 1917 Octo- and now threatens to unleash “fire and fury foundation in 1996, it won an important provocative political decision to hire former ber Revolution, the RIY will be a training like the world has never seen” on North Ko- layer of immigrant worker activists, but ini- general David Petraeus, ex-commander of ground for young revolutionaries, as part rea. Large numbers of youth express disillu- tial efforts at systematic youth work faced the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and former CIA of the common movement of the IG/LFI, sionment with the state of U.S. society and many obstacles. This began to change with chief, to teach an “honors” course (on eth- to carry through to victory the genuine are seeking an alternative. With numerous the largely successful Internationalist- ics!) in the Fall of 2013. The Internationalist communist program of Marx, Lenin and youth organizations that claim to be leftist initiated campaign in Fall 2001 to defeat Clubs launched a campaign of protest and Trotsky. To resolve the crisis of revolution- channeling radical-minded youth back into the “war purge” undertaken by the admin- exposure that led to the establishment of the ary leadership described in Trotsky’s Tran- bourgeois politics, there is an urgent need istration of the City University of New united-front Ad Hoc Committee Against the sitional Program, it is crucial to win youth for an authentic Leninist-Trotskyist youth York, which sought to drive thousands of Militarization of CUNY, which carried out to the fight to reforge the Fourth Interna- organization, based on the program of world undocumented students out of CUNY by protests demanding “War Criminal Petrae- tional, world party of socialist revolution. socialist revolution. massively increasing their tuition, as part us, Out of CUNY Now!” Throughout the The 1989-1992 counterrevolutionary Many young people active today of the “post-9/11” anti-immigrant witch course of this struggle, which faced brutal destruction of the bureaucratically degen- were galvanized by the election of Barack hunt and preparation for the Afghanistan police repression, activists attracted to the erated Soviet workers state and East Eu- Obama in 2008, having bought into the war. (See Internationalist pamphlet Defend Internationalist Clubs learned valuable les- ropean deformed workers states reestab- illusion of “Hope and Change” that he Immigrant Students! Stop CUNY’s “War sons about state repression and the nature lished capitalist rule throughout the region campaigned on. Instead of “Hope and Purge”! [2001].) The CUNY Internation- of academic institutions as training grounds and was a world-historic defeat for the Change” there was unrelenting war, priva- alist Clubs were born from this campaign working class. The so-called “New World tion and racist terror under Wall Street’s and in September 2003 began publishing Order,” declared by president George hand-picked Democrats. The high-profile their newspaper, Revolution – which will H.W. Bush in 1990 on behalf of the U.S. murders of Oscar Grant by Oakland cops, now be the political organ of both the In- bourgeoisie, was an assertion of imperial- Trayvon Martin by racist vigilante George ternationalist Clubs and the RIY. ist might that led to the First and Second Zimmerman, Michael Brown by police in Swimming against the stream, Inter- Gulf Wars, the bombing of Yugoslavia Ferguson, Missouri, Freddie Gray by the nationalist youth activists combated any and Iraq (by Democrat Bill Clinton), and Baltimore PD, Eric Garner by the NYPD, support to the Democrats, the party of Hiro- and countless others highlighted that the shima, the Bay of Pigs and the Vietnam war; system is racist to its very core, including and fought for the Leninist principle of de- with a black president at its helm. feat of “one’s own” imperialist ruling class The world capitalist economic crisis and defense of the semi-colonial countries of 2008 that continues today flung millions oppressed by imperialism. This included of people into desperate conditions. Young promoting the IG’s call for workers strikes people, many with college degrees, struggle against the war; dismissed by the opportun- to make ends meet by working multiple ist left at the time, it proved key to the May part-time, low-paying jobs and are saddled Day 2008 longshore workers strike that with unpayable college debt. Meanwhile the shut down all 29 West Coast ports in protest capitalist government spared no expense in against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. keeping the parasitic financial institutions The fight to put the revolutionary-inter- The story of the November 2001 responsible for the crisis afloat – to the tune nationalist program into practice meant in- united-front protest, initiated by the of trillions of dollars. As the working class tensive political struggle against a panoply Internationalist Group, against the and poor took the brunt of the damage, the of social-patriotic and popular-front groups attempt to drive immigrant students glorified thieves on Wall Street got golden pushing class collaboration with hoped-for out of CUNY as part of the “war ef- parachute severance packages and millions “antiwar” sectors of the bourgeoisie. This fort” after 9/11. As a result of the mo- of dollars in bonuses and raises. included the various “antiwar” fronts pro- bilization, the exclusionary tuition Karl Marx The economic crisis in particular has moted by the International Socialist Orga- increase was largely rolled back. 18 The Internationalist for future state and corporate functionaries. reformist outfits. form of “special” or double (and triple) CUNY’s violent repression against Internationalist photo As radicaliz- oppression. As Lenin stressed in What Is Petraeus protests followed the notorious ing young people To be Done? (1902), the workers party police attack on students protesting tuition sought to identify can be genuinely revolutionary only if it hikes in 2011. Together with the administra- the roots of rac- serves as the “tribune” or champion of all tion’s attempts to ram through an “expres- ist repression, the the oppressed, carrying out special work to sive conduct” policy to stop student protest, Marxist program combat special oppression, and making the this highlighted the importance of our de- for black libera- fight against it the cause of the entire pro- mands to abolish the administration and tion through so- letariat – the class whose “radical chains” Board of Trustees and establish democrati- cialist revolution can only be destroyed through emancipa- cally elected student-teacher-worker com- has been front tion of all the oppressed. mittees to run the schools, which are linked and center in our One of the strongest points of the In- to our call for open admissions with no tu- work. Students at- ternationalist Clubs has been the develop- ition and living stipends so students from tending their first ment of a multiracial core of young com- working-class and poor families can afford demonstrations, munist women activists. This is partly the to study. For these demands to be met, the seeing with their product of our many activities centered on power of the multiracial working class must own eyes how the the Marxist program for women’s libera- be brought into the fight, together with mas- police were “serv- tion, including intensive study group series sive mobilization by students, faculty and ing and protect- and forums, presenting the historical mate- campus workers, and immigrant, African ing” racist capital- rialist analysis of women’s subjugation in American and other key sectors with a vital ism under the first the family. This can be overcome only by interest in defending public education for African American creating social institutions freeing women their daughters and sons, from kindergar- president, would from age-old domestic servitude, a key as- ten through college. Public education is often go straight pect of the overall program of socialism a crossroads of class and race in capital- from the protests going back even before Marx and Engels. ist America; here too the fight to unchain to our 16-session To carry out this task requires overthrow- workers power from all bourgeois parties, “Marxism and ing the capitalist system and building a so- and build a revolutionary workers party CUNY Internationalist Clubs speak-out against racist Black Liberation” ciety based on human needs, not profit. that can champion the cause of all the op- police terror, 30 August 2016. study group. The As Trump sought to impose his vile anti- pressed, is key to the Trotskyist program. imperialism is not giving enough support experiences of the day helped illustrate the Muslim and anti-refugee ban, and anti-immi- Marxism vs. the to “democratic” forces in Syria (cut-throat Marxist program to mobilize workers power grant attacks multiplied, our youth comrades Opportunist Left jihadists) and Ukraine (outright fascists). in the revolutionary fight to uproot the ma- were heavily involved in the massive airport terial basis of oppression. Our revolutionary protests and street demonstrations, putting Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign Proletarian Revolution and working-class politics have contrasted sharp- forward the Internationalist call to mobi- set off a frenzied race by the opportunist left the Struggle Against Special ly with reformist “identity politics” which lize the working class while warning that to determine who would be the best at build- Oppression serve as a glue for “unity” with Democratic “you can’t fight Trump with Democrats.” At ing illusions in this bourgeois politician, Party politicians. CUNY and elsewhere this work included ini- whom they claimed as a fellow “socialist,” With the murder of Michael Brown and tiating committees in defense of immigrants while hailing his “political revolution” to re- Eric Garner by police in the summer of 2014, This form of bourgeois ideology feigns and Muslims; holding speak-outs and orga- vitalize the Democratic Party. With a sliding a wave of protests, led primarily by the Black a fight against oppression through “check- nizing meetings on this issue; and helping scale of opportunism, Socialist Alternative Lives Matter movement, swept the country. your-privilege” liberal idealism and is system- build and publicize crucial mobilizations like (best known for its entirely reformist “so- A series of militant speak-outs at Hunter Col- atically imbued among university students, Portland Labor Against the Fascists in June cialist city councilperson” in Seattle) openly lege led by the Internationalist Clubs, togeth- including many of those who see themselves 2017 and class-struggle contingents in other built the Sanders campaign; the ISO hailed er with vibrant Internationalist contingents in as radical. It is used to deepen the wedge be- protests against the escalating racist and Sanders as a “socialist” while urging him to the demonstrations that fall and the follow- tween different sectors of the workers and white-supremacist provocations. run as an independent; and numerous small- ing spring, attracted a new layer of activists, oppressed, claiming to unite those who share er groups tailed along. many of whom now form the founding mem- a sectorally defined identity, including mem- Revolutionary Class However, it was the Democratic So- bership of the RIY. Our slogan “Only Revo- bers of the exploiting class. The long-standing Independence Key lution Can Bring Justice” was often taken up feminist slogan “Sisterhood is Powerful” is a cialists of America (DSA) that came out Both in the period leading up to, and ahead, going from a marginal force to by others during these demonstrations, and classic example, as if Hillary Clinton or for- was sharply counterposed to pseudo-leftists’ mer First Lady Michelle Obama could be the after the 2016 election, the political experi- claiming 25,000 members as a result of ence we gained as young communists was the Sanders campaign and Trump’s elec- calls for “justice” through the bourgeois “sisters” of women workers in the Clintons’ courts and illusory recipes to reform the Haitian sweatshops, immigrants deported by crucial to our ability to expose the bourgeois tion. Having operated as part of the Demo- politician Bernie Sanders and his opportun- cratic Party since its inception in the Max armed first of the bourgeois state. Our forth- Barack Obama, mothers whose children were right communist position on these burning killed by his drones, or strikers targeted by the ist cheerleaders. Sanders’ presidential cam- Shachtman-Michael Harrington “Realign- paign cynically played on the desperation ment Caucus” of Norman Thomas’ State questions attracted students who subjectively anti-labor laws the bourgeois politicians en- wanted to end racist oppression, but had up force. Ostensibly radical versions (including felt by many, channeling youth back into Department Socialist Party, the DSA exem- the Democratic Party in support of Hillary plifies the counterrevolutionary politics of until that point only encountered the various the phantasmagorical “proletarian feminism” some Maoists go on about) Clinton when he lost the nomination. The social democracy, and exults in calling the Internationalist photo same youth who took part in Occupy Wall cops on communists. Given the large num- give left cover to this bour- geois ideology rather than Street in 2011, demonstrated against the rac- ber of raw youth drawn to the group, it is ist police murders of Michael Brown, Eric necessary to explain these long-established forthrightly explaining how it can never be a pro- Garner and Freddie Gray, and again against facts to those who mistakenly believe join- the police occupation of Ferguson and Bal- ing the DSA or its youth affiliate may have gram for actually winning liberation. timore, were played by this capitalist poli- something to do with socialism. tician spouting populist rhetoric about “the The liberal/reform- Dwarfed by its brethren in the DSA 99%.” Throughout, the CUNY Internation- ist program of class col- but still a significant opponent of revolu- alist Clubs unmasked “Bernie” as a capital- laboration is manifested tionary Marxism is the ISO, whose lineage ist politician shepherding people back into both in the form of goes back to Tony Cliff’s “state capitalist” the Democratic Party, when breaking with “color-blind” Sanders- tendency in Britain. This is a variant of the the Democrats and all capitalist politicians style populism and in “Third Camp” social democracy pioneered and parties (including minor-league ones the form that undercuts by Max Shachtman, who renounced the like the Greens) is the urgent task of the real struggle against op- Fourth International’s defense of the gains working class and oppressed. of October and – despite its bureaucratic pression by presenting degeneration under Stalin – of the Soviet it as a matter of atom- Founding the RIY workers state, moving inexorably to open- ized identities. Both are The time to found the Revolutionary ly embrace “democratic” imperialism. diametrically opposed Internationalist Youth is now. On the basis In line with its “Third Camp” pro- to the Marxist program, of the struggles and experience of the pre- imperialist heritage the ISO hailed the de- “Only Revolution Can Bring Justice!” CUNY integral to proletarian ceding years, which cohered a nucleus of struction of the USSR, claims the remain- Internationalist Clubs, Class Struggle Education revolution, to unite the Marxist revolutionaries in training who are ing bureaucratically deformed workers Workers and Internationalist Group protest racist exploited and oppressed dedicated to fighting for socialist revolu- states (China, Cuba, North Korea, Viet- grand jury verdict letting off NYC cops who in revolutionary class tion, we began systematic preparations in nam) are capitalist, and complains that U.S. murdered Eric Garner, December 2014. struggle to uproot every continued on page 22

September-October 2017 19 Cops, Prison and Security Guards Out of the Labor Movement! DSA Debacle Over Cop “Union” Organizer In early August, the Democratic So- reportedly stated he had figures of the DSA “left,” including two of cialists of America (DSA) held a national done so when running for the three members of the Momentum Cau- convention in Chicago that caused a sensa- the NPC in 2015. cus (which claims to be Marxist) on the tion among the reformist left and got oodles Austin DSA Fetonte lashed out NPC. Additionally, a “Statement by DSA of favorable publicity in much of the main- with denunciations of Members of Color” cited the “pluralistic” stream bourgeois press. Long a staid and the leadership for show- nature of the DSA and the fact that “we are seemingly moribund pressure group on and ing “no moral courage” not a democratic centralist organization” as in the Democratic Party, the DSA boasts in the face of these de- grounds for declaring that “we support the of rising to 25,000 members and grow- mands. This compli- NPC’s decision not to remove [Fetonte] for ing due to the combined impact of Bernie cated things for the DSA malfeasance.” Sanders’ bid to win the Democratic nomi- tops. They knew that as A minority of the NPC issued a state- nation and the election of Donald Trump. a minimum to appease ment criticizing the decision as “a stunning The DSA has sought to give itself a more the membership they failure of leadership on [the] part of those “progressive” makeover appealing to its would need to “censure” on the NPC who were unable to act deci- new millennial base, even as these social Fetonte, and tried might- sively on an issue that gets to the core val- democrats repeatedly called the cops on an ily to negotiate with Fe- ues of what it means to be a socialist and Internationalist sales team for selling revo- tonte to get him to re- fight against racist oppression in our soci- lutionary literature outside the convention sign so that they would ety. Those members chose to seat an un- (see the introduction to “The ABCs of the not have to vote on his apologetic police association organizer – DSA,” The Internationalist, August 2017). Danny Fetonte (front left), together with Bernie removal from the NPC. an institution of violence and terror against Then came the Danny Fetonte scandal. Sanders. Fetonte, who was long-time leader The negotiations did not Black and Brown and working class people A long-time leader of the DSA’s Austin, of the Austin, Texas branch of the Democratic work, Fetonte refused to since its inception.” At the same time, the Texas branch, Fetonte was elected to the Socialists of America, was for years an organizer acknowledge any decep- NPC minority’s declaration that “an un- organization’s National Political Commit- for a cop “union,” the Combined Law Enforcement tion or “wrongdoing.” apologetic police association organizer tee at this year’s convention. Endorsed by Associations of Texas (CLEAT). Police are the In fact, Fetonte wrote, cannot be anywhere near the leadership of vice-chair Joseph Schwartz and other DSA enforcers of racist capitalist repression. Cops, “some NPC members a socialist organization” tacitly accepts that leaders, Fetonte put particular emphasis on prison and security guards out of the unions! were afraid that what cop “union” members or promoters could the growth of the Austin chapter and his role image as a ‘big tent’ that does not seek to would come out is that they knew every be in the DSA so long as they’re not on in “building the Bernie Campaign,” noting impose stringent ideological litmus tests bit of my history working for CLEAT,” as leadership bodies. that “37 out of the 75 Bernie delegates to on its members.” In the anti-communist “there was ample evidence that my work In a sharply-worded description of the the Democratic National Convention from social-democratic milieu, this is contrasted history and my connections with law en- turmoil over Fetonte, a disgruntled New Texas were DSA members,” as well as tout- to the supposed evils of Leninist “demo- forcement were widely known.” Moreover, Mexico DSAer wrote: ing his “years as a union organizer” (“NPC cratic centralism.” he stated, “Texas DSA has at least a dozen “Finally, after some dawdling, the Candidates,” dsaconvention.org). As Rosa Luxemburg emphasized in members who organize or work with law NPC voted to keep him. This isn’t Less than a week after the DSA’s Reform or Revolution, the counterposi- enforcement” and “has a past NPC mem- surprising.... First, the DSA’s origins convention closed in a crescendo of self- tion between revolutionary Marxism and ber ” (whom he did not identify) who “or- aren’t as far left as many believe. To be crude, Michael Harrington founded congratulation, the group erupted in full- social-democratic reformism centers pre- ganized police and correctional officers” the organization in the 1970s to force blown crisis over the “revelation” that Fe- cisely on the question of the state. The idea while serving on the NPC. the Democrats further left. Look at the tonte’s vaunted organizing career included Reflecting his links with much of the that cops – the armed fist of the bourgeoi- Democratic Party. Teddy Roosevelt on working for a cop “union,” the Combined DSA’s old guard, Fetonte positioned him- sie – are “workers,” and that organizations horseback in the Spanish-American War Law Enforcement Associations of Texas devoted to representing their interests are self as a defender of the organization’s mis- is farther to the left than the Democratic (CLEAT). In fact, Fetonte’s role as an or- “labor unions,” is characteristic of social sion of pressuring the Democrats: “I gained Party. And having police collaborators ganizer for CLEAT was far from a secret. democracy. It is the ideological reflection votes by a strong advocacy for a DSA on the NPC wouldn’t be a first for the Publicity about his activity in the Sanders of social democrats’ role as real or would- strategy of working inside and outside the DSA.” campaign touted his CLEAT connection, be administrators of the capitalist state. Democratic Party and opposed the position –“How the DSA Screwed Up with as reflected in articles in theAustin Villager Cops of all kinds are not workers – that DSA should only support socialist can- Danny Fetonte,” pastemagazine.com (1 (11 December 2015) and American-States- they are professional enforcers of racist didates. I gained support because I opposed September) man (15 August 2016). capitalist repression. Marxists fight for DSA isolating ourselves from the millions True enough – as the history of Harrington, Yet for many new members, it came the elementary demand: Cops, prison and of Bernie supporters” who are working his “State Department Socialist” colleague as a shock, particularly since the DSA con- security guards out of the unions! together “with other progressive[s] in the and mentor Norman Thomas et al. amply vention had just passed a resolution for Democratic Party.” Though just about ev- demonstrates. But how many of those “abolition of the prisons and the police.” Post-Convention Turmoil erybody weighing in on the question swore revolted by this episode, and this history, While such a call is completely illusory Many members of the DSA learned of fealty to the social-democratic framework can make the necessary break from social without socialist revolution, it reflected the Fetonte scandal as they were traveling of “big tent” reformism, Fetonte sought to democracy to embrace revolutionary the widespread revulsion against racist home from the Chicago convention. On portray his opponents as the sort of dreaded Marxism remains to be seen. police terror that led to mass protests after August 8, the Interim Steering Committee “sectarians” and “dogmatists” that DSAers As for Fetonte, the cop organizer evi- the cop murders of Eric Garner, Michael elected by the new National Political Com- are taught to revile, denouncing them as dently decided to cut his losses and try to Brown and so many others. Many DSAers mittee (NPC) issued a statement declaring leftist “extremists.” have the last word. On September 8 he is- worried that Fetonte’s election would hurt that it would “investigate the facts of the On August 27, the NPC issued a state- sued a letter of resignation from the DSA work with “coalition partners” in Black matter” and was “moving towards a solution ment announcing that it had voted to cen- in which he petulantly portrays himself as Lives Matter. that emphasizes due process and transparen- sure Fetonte but that a vote to remove him the victim of “factionalists” and “DSA ex- Over the following weeks the Fetonte cy.” Some DSA members started an online from the body had failed by a vote of 8.5 tremists” (sic!) with “less than one year” in affair tied the DSA in knots, while also petition opposing Fetonte; a number of local to 7.5; 11 votes would have been needed to the organization. Underscoring his pro-cop shedding an uncomfortable light on the chapters and groupings within the organiza- oust him. The statement censures Fetonte stand, he admonishes: “We should look to crowd of opportunist leftists doggedly tail- tion submitted protests calling on Fetonte to for “omitting what would likely have been the examples of law enforcement organiza- ing them. Amidst the myriad statements resign or be removed from the NPC. Many relevant information in his campaign ma- tions in Sweden and the law enforcement and counter-statements by groupings with- of these calls focused on Fetonte’s failure to terials” but states that the NPC did not find union in South Africa.” In Sweden, police in the DSA, a common theme was what a mention his CLEAT connection in his 2017 him guilty of any “malfeasance” that would snatch squads have been resisted as they go group of labor bureaucrats described, in a NPC campaign materials – though at a rau- be grounds for removal. Strikingly, among after youths in immigrant neighborhoods statement supporting Fetonte, as “DSA’s cous Austin meeting on the scandal, his wife those backing the decision were some key of Stockholm (most recently this past Feb- 20 The Internationalist ruary) and Malmö (on September 8). In find ways to work together and unite” with in organizing “unions” of the South Africa, the POPCRU police “union” “our brother and sister officers.” In con- police forces they administer has defended the killer cops who gunned trast, the CSEW marched with signs de- when their capitalist masters let LQB down dozens of striking mine workers in nouncing racist police terror and the threats them take their turn in office. the 2012 Marikana massacre (see “Bloody of the fascistic PBA chief Pat Lynch to de- Bolshevik revolutionary South Africa Mine Massacre Unmasks fend the cops who chokeholded Garner to Leon Trotsky responded to ANC Neo-Apartheid Regime,” The Inter- death (see “MORE Takes a Stand … With similar arguments raised by the nationalist, August 2012). the Police,” in The Internationalist No. 38, Social Democratic Party (SPD) While many in the DSA no doubt hope October-November 2014). in Germany, which took on the to return to patting themselves on the back It comes as no surprise that in Texas, task of administering capital- for a “successful” convention, “stunning” the CLEAT cop “union” boasts that “effec- ism’s repressive forces when growth and the like, the issues posed in the tive legal representation” for police is one defeat in World War I faced Fetonte affair will not go away. For starters, of the main benefits it offers. The statement the ruling class with the threat in New York City the DSA is proudly pro- on Fetonte by the minority of the DSA of red revolution. (It was then claiming its central role in the City Council NPC noted: that SPD leaders Friedrich Eb- election campaign of Khader El-Yateem, a “Fetonte had a direct hand in building ert, Philipp Scheidemann and DSA member running in the Democratic police association power which was used their “bloodhound” Gustav primaries in Brooklyn in what his cam- by killer cops to cover for their actions. Noske ordered the murder of paign manager calls “a battle for the soul Fetonte organized the Bexar County Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Li- of the Democratic Party” (Village Voice, 5 Sheriff Deputies and successfully ebknecht.) As the social demo- September). El-Yateem is a clergy liaison bargained a contract that included terms crats looked to the Prussian for the New York Police Department. At a allowing officers under investigation police, which included quite a Brazilian Trotskyists waged hard struggle to public forum on the election last spring, he to see all evidence before making a few former social-democratic oust police from municipal workers union “called on NYPD to allocate more police statement. Officers in the department workers, to resist the rise of in Volta Redonda, Brazil. At July 1996 rally, officers to the 68th Precinct in Bay Ridge, Fetonte organized used that contract he Hitler’s Nazis, Trotsky empha- negotiated to view all evidence against signs say: “Bourgeois courts, get out of our which he said was chronically understaffed, sized, “The worker who be- them after they shot and killed a man. union,” “Bosses’ courts, military police and so that more cops could patrol the streets” comes a policeman in the ser- They then made statements which municipal guardas out of the union.” (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 20 April). omitted the fact that the man they shot vice of the capitalist state is a In addition, DSA member Marc had his hands up. It wasn’t until another bourgeois cop, not a worker” (What Next? Democrats in Bed with the Police,” The In- Fliedner is running for District Attorney video was released later that the truth Vital Questions for the German Proletari- ternationalist No. 29, Summer 2009). in Brooklyn (Village Voice, 8 September). came out, but to no effect. That was at [1932]). Even some groupings that have taken Fliedner has been an Assistant D.A. for al- police union power in action, power Today, the Fetonte affair poses a bit up the call for police out of the unions (like most 30 years and praised his former boss, which Fetonte helped to organize.” of a dilemma for left groups seeking to in- Left Voice, associated with the right-centrist D.A. Charles Hynes, notorious for numer- Moreover, “during the time Fetonte worked gratiate themselves with the DSA. All of Fracción Trotskista led by the Argentine ous bogus convictions in which evidence at CLEAT, an officer raped a handcuffed them chimed in with the chorus of exalta- Partido de Trabajadores por el Socialismo) was manufactured or withheld, and accusa- woman in the back of a squad car and the tion over the DSA conference, hailing the evade the question of security guards, who tions of racist favoritism. District attorneys officer’s CLEAT local spent $1 million social democrats’ growth, “moves to the are “unionized” by the Service Employees are linchpins of the police-prosecutor-pris- dollars in a public campaign to prevent left,” etc., while mixing in a suggestion International Union, among others. For its on system of capitalist state repression, and changes to the police union contract that here, a bit of face-saving criticism there. part, while laudably issuing a call in 2015 now a DSAer is trying to fill that slot. would’ve held the rapist accountable....” In one way or another, they seek to avoid for the AFL-CIO to break its affiliation to having the DSA monopolize the opportun- Police “Unions”: Deadly The statement notes that CLEAT op- the International Union of Police Asso- ist benefits of being “Sanders socialists,” Enemies of the Working Class poses “even the most tepid of reform ciations, United Auto Workers Local 2865 hoping that cozying up to the DSA – while legislation, including the Sandra Bland (which represents student employees at the As the Class Struggle Education positioning themselves a wee bit to the left Act which would’ve put limits on racial University of California) did not call for Workers (CSEW), which is fraternally al- on the social-democratic spectrum – will profiling by police” and “is currently sup- removing security guards from the labor lied with the Internationalist Group, stated help them get in on the action. porting a bill which would limit the liabili- movement. in a 2014 pamphlet, police, prison guards The most prominent of these outfits ty of motorists who hit protesters with their Yet as the Class Struggle Education and security guards: is Socialist Alternative (SAlt), best known vehicles.” What this means is shown by the Workers pamphlet demonstrates in de- “are not fellow workers but the bosses’ for its thoroughly reformist “socialist murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville tail, security guards are a key sector of agents of repression – ‘producers’ only of city councilperson” in Seattle, Kshama by a Nazi who rammed his car into a crowd the bourgeoisie’s repressive forces that repression for the owning class against Sawant. SAlt – which holds that cops are of anti-fascist protesters. works closely with the “regular” police. the working class, poor and oppressed. workers – puts forward a recipe for po- In “doing their job” of representing the Moreover, the pamphlet notes, “in many Whether public or private, proprietary or lice “reform” in which “elected civilian contract, police and guards of all kinds interests of capitalism’s uniformed enforc- circumstances, the ‘private’ basis of their review boards” would take responsibility seek ‘unionization’ to improve and ers, police “unions” are, and can only be, authority enhances security guards’ legal for the “priorities” and budget of capital- strengthen their position to ‘do their job’ deadly enemies of the most basic interests of powers”: among other things, they are not ism’s police apparatus. As we noted, in of repression, which in the racist USA, the working class and oppressed. The “spe- required to read Miranda rights to those 2014 Sawant founded on slavery, falls most heavily cial bodies of armed men” that, as Friedrich they detain. on doubly and triply oppressed African “praised the process of hiring a new The Fetonte episode is a vivid illustra- Engels pointed out, are the core of the capi- police chief, saying it was ‘positive … American, Latino and immigrant poor tion of a simple fact: the DSA is not, has talist state, cannot be reformed, and the idea that a woman will be at the head of what and working people and youth.” never been and never will be a means to that police and prisons could be abolished has been and still is a male-dominated The pamphlet notes that the Patrol- under capitalism is the sort of feel-good re- bastion.’ She hailed the new top cop’s overthrow this capitalist system of racist man’s Benevolent Association (PBA) formist illusion that stands in the way of the ‘openness’ and ‘commitment to build police terror, war and exploitation. How- filed suit even against the toothless “anti- struggle to actually smash the machinery of a relationship with the community,’ as ever much it seeks to accommodate its new profiling” law enacted in New York City in racist repression in the only way possible: well as her ‘tiered approach for policing millennial base, the DSA’s politics remain 2013, and that “for years, contracts nego- through socialist revolution. protests,’ so that riot police will only be thoroughly reformist – in other words, a tiated by the PBA included the notorious In Brazil, our comrades of the Liga deployed ‘if absolutely necessary’.” means for accommodating would-be radi- ‘48-hour rule,’ which required the city to Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil led a –“Black America Under the Gun,” The cals to the capitalist state, as it seeks end- wait two full days before questioning offi- struggle to oust guardas (police) from the Internationalist No. 48, May-June 2017 lessly to pressure the Democratic Party cers involved in ‘police-related occurrenc- Municipal Workers Union of Volta Re- The position of the Committee for a to the left. Illusions that an influx of new es’ – like shooting down black and Latino donda, the “Steel City” with a history of Workers International (CWI), to which members would “transform” the DSA youth” (Campus Protest, Capitalist “Secu- convulsive workers struggles. (See Inter- SAlt is affiliated, that police are suppos- crashed into reality just days after its big- rity” and the Program of Class Struggle). nationalist pamphlet Class Struggle and edly workers is shared by the International gest convention ever. In contrast, liberals and social-dem- Repression in Volta Redonda Brazil – Marxist Tendency, which likewise has its The flare-up over Fetonte should bring ocratic reformists routinely support the Cops, Courts Out of the Unions [1997].) origins in the Militant tendency of Ted home to thoughtful activists the bankrupt- police. In August 2014, following the In Latin America, as in the U.S., reformists Grant, which buried itself in the British La- cy of groups that use “socialist” as a buzz- racist police murder of Eric Garner, the often claim that police are “workers in uni- bour Party for four decades. Their position word while disdaining the key questions of Movement of Rank-and-File Educators form,” going so far as to support “strikes” on cops is far from abstract: both the CWI principle, program and history that have di- (MORE), an opposition caucus in the Unit- by the Military Police and military firemen and the IMT hark back to the days when vided reformists from revolutionaries since ed Federation of Teachers (UFT), refused in Brazil, police mutinies in Bolivia, etc. Grant’s Militant Labour ran the Liverpool the days of Marx and Engels’ Communist to support a protest march in Staten Island The same line is taken by social democrats city council in the 1980s, when claiming Manifesto. For those who actually do want and issued a statement grotesquely calling in France, Sweden and other European the cops were “fellow workers” was all in to fight for socialism, it’s high time to ditch for “the leaderships of the UFT and PBA to countries, who have often taken the lead a day’s work (see “Her Majesty’s Social the DSA. ■

September-October 2017 21 their back on the historic work in Germany, de Nueva York puede mantener encarce- la ley de “estado santuario” no se aplica adopting the Shachtman-like line that the lados ilegalmente a los inmigrantes para a los que hayan sido condenados por una Stalinist bureaucracy itself “led the coun- entregarlos al ICE. de 800 infracciones (¡!), y no impedirá que terrevolution”; vilely accused the IG of Buena parte de los fuegos de artificio los agentes del ICE entren a las cárceles. “anti-Americanism” for upholding the Le- en torno a las “ciudades santuario” se ha Al firmar la ley, el gobernador de Califor- ninist position to defeat U.S. imperialism; enfocado en dos estados: Texas y Cali- nia, Jerry Brown, dijo que era “importan- renounced the elementary Leninist call for fornia. En Texas, la legislatura estatal y te señalar qué es lo que la ley no hace”, the independence of Puerto Rico and all el gobernador republicanos, impusieron es decir, “no impide ni prohíbe” al ICE ni colonies; supported the U.S. imperialist una ley la primavera pasada, la iniciati- al DHS que “realicen su propio trabajo de invasion of Haiti in 2011 (later renouncing va del Senado no. 4 (SB 4), que ordena cualquier forma” (Los Angeles Times, 6 de this as an admittedly social-patriotic be- que las ciudades y los condados coope- octubre). Exactamente. trayal while refusing to discuss its origins ren con el ICE, además de que autoriza Es importante señalar también que in their other capitulations to their “own” que las policías locales y estatales puedan las mínimas restricciones en las “ciudades imperialist rulers); and now refuse to call interrogar a cualquiera con respecto a su santuario” con respecto a la cooperación for rights of asylum for Syrian refugees estatus migratorio. Esta ley de “enséñame de las policías locales con la policía migra- trying to enter Europe (or the U.S.). The tus papeles” (como en la Alemania nazi toria fueron implementadas en contra del Spartacist League is now a shadow of its o en la Sudáfrica bajo el apartheid), igual programa de “Comunidades Seguras” del former self, having abandoned the revolu- que la infame y racista ley 1070 de Arizo- gobierno de Obama. Pese a toda su pala- tionary perspective over two decades ago. na, desembocará en el uso desenfrenado brería hueca sobre la “reforma migratoria”, We recognize “the youth” do not form del “perfilaje racial” en las detenciones. los demócratas en el gobierno transforma- Revolution, the newspaper of the a distinct class, and therefore do not possess Durante el debate sobre la SB 4, un legis- ron esto de un pequeño proyecto piloto en Revolutionary Internationalist Youth independent social power. The principal di- lador republicano, Matt Rinaldi, se enfu- una enorme red nacional para la captura de and the CUNY Internationalist Clubs. vision of society is the class division, and reció porque había cientos de manifestan- inmigrantes que llevó a la deportación de Comes with subscription to The young people may align with one of the two tes, predominantemente latinos, gritando cientos de miles de personas que vivían en Internationalist. (See subscription principal classes – proletarian or bourgeois. desde el balcón y llamó al ICE, asumien- EE.UU. Al defender a las “ciudades san- blank on page 23.) As Marxists, we understand that in capitalist do que muchos eran indocumentados. Ri- tuario” en contra del ataque del régimen society only the working class has the power naldi también amenazó en la tribuna con de Trump hemos denunciado en repetidas RIY... to uproot the causes of exploitation and op- matar al representante demócrata Poncho ocasiones la acción criminal de los gobier- continued from page 19 pression by taking power through a socialist Nevárez (Texas Observer, 29 de mayo). nos demócratas de las ciudades que día revolution, and such a revolution can only La ley de Texas se encuentra actual- Fall 2016. The founding comrades have a día trabajan mano a mano con la migra be led by the revolutionary vanguard party mente suspendida porque un tribunal fe- carried out a systematic study of the his- para perseguir inmigrantes. – the Leninist-Trotskyist party. As the U.S. deral falló que sus disposiciones funda- tory and important documents of past section of the League for the Fourth Interna- mentales violan la IV Enmienda. Esto, sin ¡Movilización obrera/inmigrante Marxist youth groups. This has included tional, the Internationalist Group (IG) seeks embargo, no ha detenido a la migra. Cuan- para parar las redadas y las the pre-WWI international socialist youth to build the nucleus of that party here in the do el huracán Harvey se aproximaba en deportaciones! movement and the emergence from it of the “belly of the imperialist beast.” agosto pasado y se urgía a los residentes a Para defender a los jóvenes inmigran- early Communist youth movement; how The organizationally independent but salir de las áreas costeras, la Patrulla Fron- tes del programa DACA y oponerse a las Stalinization turned youth groups attached politically subordinate nature of the RIY teriza se rehusó a cerrar los retenes en las deportaciones, una cuestión vital es cómo to the Communist Party into popular-fron- means it will be organizationally distinct from autopistas al norte del Valle del Río Gran- hacerlo. tist auxiliaries to the Democratic Party; the IG and other “transitional organizations” de, atrapando efectivamente a los residen- La mayor parte de los socialdemócra- Trotskyist youth work in the 1930s; the aligned with our common movement (such as tes indocumentados en Brownsville, Har- tas y de otros grupos que se autodenominan origins and development in the late 1950s the Class Struggle Education Workers, Class lingen y otras ciudades del sur de Texas. socialistas pero cuyo propósito es reformar and early ‘60s of the Young Socialist Alli- Struggle International Workers, etc.). Luego, a finales de octubre, agentes de la al capitalismo, básicamente buscan presio- ance, out of which the founding cadre of The founding of the Revolutionary In- Patrulla Fronteriza detuvieron una ambu- nar al gobierno. La International Socialist the once-revolutionary Spartacist League ternationalist Youth is an exciting and im- lancia a las 2 de la mañana en la que se Organization (ISO) llama a “revitalizar el (SL) emerged; and key aspects of the SL’s portant step forward at a time when capi- transportaba a una niña own youth work in the period when it still talism’s threat to humanity’s very survival de 10 años con paráli- League for the Fourth International upheld the Trotskyist program. confronts millions of young people with the sis cerebral cuando era The SL youth group, the Revolutionary need to take their place in the fight for in- transferida de un centro LFI, Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY Communist Youth (whose name was later ternational socialist revolution. Our task of médico en Laredo a un 10008, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] changed to Spartacus Youth league), was recruiting and training young people to be hospital especializado en Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil established in 1970 as the break-up of the life-long revolutionary Marxist cadres is a Corpus Christi para que 1960s New Left led new layers to be won vital part of this fight to win lasting victory se le practicara una ope- Brazil: write to Caixa Postal 084027, CEP 27251-740, to Trotskyism, which the SL represented at over capitalist barbarism, for the working ración de vesícula. Agen- Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil that time. Codifying key aspects of the po- class and all the oppressed throughout the tes armados esperaron : write to Caixa Postal 3982, CEP litical tradition of Trotskyism, the RCY’s Rio de Janeiro world to open the road to a society without afuera del cuarto hasta 20001-974, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil founding documents, published in the pam- war, oppression or poverty, the classless que fue dada de alta y la E-mail: [email protected] phlet Youth Class and Party (1971), provide society of the communist future. n detuvieron, todo porque an important basis for the program and or- llegó a EE.UU. sin pape- Internationalistiche Gruppe/Deutschland ganizational practice of the RIY. Acción obrera... les cuando tenía 3 meses Germany: write to Postfach 80 97 21, 21007 Hamburg, For nearly three decades, the Sparta- sigue de la página 24 de edad. Germany cist tendency upheld the legacy of revolu- ridades locales dicen típicamente que no Entretanto, Califor- E-mail: [email protected] tionary Trotskyism. This was expressed on responderán a los pedidos del ICE de man- nia aprobó recientemen- a very wide range of burning issues. A key tener encarcelados a los inmigrantes indo- te una ley “santuario” a Nucleo Internazionalista d’Italia test came in the struggle against the capi- cumentados bajo arresto por otros cargos escala estatal, causando Italy: write to Anna Chiaraluce, Casella Postale N. 6, talist reunification of Germany, in which it después de que deban supuestamente ser gran molestia al director 06070 Ellera Umbra (PG), Italy uniquely fought against the counterrevolu- liberados. Pero incluso donde supuesta- interino del ICE Homan, E-mail: [email protected] tionary destruction of the DDR (East Ger- mente se rechaza esta cooperación desca- que anunció que “Como Grupo Internacionalista/México man deformed workers state), followed by radamente anticonstitucional con el ICE, resultado, el ICE está the fight against capitalist counterrevolu- ésta de todas maneras se da con frecuen- obligado a dedicar más México: write to Apartado Postal 12-201, Admón. tion in the USSR itself. cia. En Nueva York, el alcalde Bill de Bla- recursos para realizar Postal Obrero Mundial, CP 03001, México D.F, México Having fought to put Trotsky’s pro- sio ha intentado calmar los temores de los arrestos callejeros en E-mail: [email protected] gram into practice, the SL and the Interna- inmigrantes diciendo que “Esta ciudad es estas comunidades”. En Tel. Mexico City: 55-3154-7361; Guadalajara: 33-1752- tional Communist League it led were pro- de ustedes. Su ciudad los va a defender. una redada a nivel na- 6643; Oaxaca: 951-185-6815; Tijuana: 664-112-5423 foundly demoralized and disoriented when Su ciudad los va a proteger” (Daily News, cional a finales de sep- the imperialists succeeded in destroying 21 de marzo). No es así. Lo que ocurre, tiembre enfocada en las Internationalist Group/U.S. the Soviet bloc, triumphally proclaimed como el Daily News (2 de abril) puso en “ciudades santuario”, Internationalist Group, Box 3321, Church Street a “New World Order” and declared the sus titulares es que la “Policía de Nueva durante la cual arrestó a Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. “death of communism.” Having lost faith York alerta a los federales sobre las com- casi 500 inmigrantes, el E-mail: [email protected] in the working class’s ability to make a rev- parecencias ante los tribunales de los in- ICE informó que había New York Tel. (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 olution, the SL bought into the imperial- migrantes que enfrentan deportación a pe- detenido a 167 personas Los Angeles Tel. (323) 984-8590 ists’ propaganda offensive and has adapted sar de la promesa de ‘santuario’”. Además, en Los Angeles y sus al- Portland Tel. (503) 303-8278 itself to life under capitalism. They turned hay unas 170 faltas por las cuales la ciudad rededores. Sin embargo, 22 The Internationalist movimiento de lucha que con sus increí- ción por los derechos de los inmigrantes en lizar el sistema de “remoción de inmigran- no sólo se oponen a Trump, lo odian, lo bles ‘megamarchas’ detuvo la criminali- octubre de 1996 en Washington, llamaba tes” y, a final de cuentas, paralizar el capi- mismo que a sus policías del ICE. Pero es zación en masa de los indocumentados en por “movilizaciones encabezadas por los talismo. El Primero de Mayo de este año, necesario publicitar y extender el ejemplo, 2006, y que consiguió el DACA en 2012 al sindicatos, sacando a la calle contingen- trabajadores inmigrantes sindicalizados de organizarlo y, sobre todo, lo que es clave presionar sin descanso a políticos de ambos tes provenientes de los guetos negros y los la empresa especializada de video y foto- es que la clase obrera despliegue su fuerza partidos, incluido Barack Obama, cuando barrios latinos en un sólido despliegue de grafía B&H y sus partidarios se manifes- en poderosas acciones de clase de latinos, hacía campaña para la reelección” (Socia- fuerza la próxima vez que haya redadas taron afuera de la tienda de Manhattan con afroamericanos, inmigrantes y estudiantes. list Worker, 7 de septiembre). Sin embargo, del INS en las fábricas”. Señalamos como pancartas en inglés y español llamando a Esto sólo podrá lograrse luchando simul- Obama ofreció el DACA para desviar las ejemplo la acción de choferes latinos que la “Huelga en contra de las deportaciones”, táneamente en contra del dominio de los críticas por no haber podido implementar manejaron desde el puerto de Long Beach “desafiar al ICE”, “Huelga por las vidas de partidos capitalistas, especialmente los ninguna “reforma” migratoria, pese a sus para cercar la alcaldía de Los Angeles con los negros y los morenos”, “Huelga por los demócratas, que construyeron la siniestra promesas de campaña. Advertimos desde sus camiones para protestar contra la anti- derechos de los inmigrantes”, “Huelga por fuerza policíaca de deportaciones y que el principio que podría ser cancelado fá- inmigrante Proposición 187. (“¡Movilizar los derechos de la mujer” o, en palabras ahora obstaculizan toda acción efectiva cilmente por el siguiente presidente, mien- a la clase obrera para aplastar la ofensiva llanas, “chinga la migra”. Trabajadores de para pararla. tras que los jóvenes indocumentados y sus antiinmigrante!” The Internationalist No. los dos almacenes de B&H que la patronal Los trabajadores inmigrantes son tra- padres hubieran entregado a los federales 1, enero-febrero de 1997). Un día después pretende cerrar pararon labores el Primero tados como trabajadores desechables sin información detallada sobre su paradero. de la elección de Trump en noviembre pa- de Mayo. Antes, el 16 de febrero, trabaja- derechos, para ser contratados por millones La ISO siempre está a la búsqueda de sado, escribimos: dores de toda B&H hicieron huelga en soli- como trabajadores de bajos salarios cuan- uno u otro “movimiento de masas”, unién- “Si el nuevo régimen pretende reini- daridad con el “Día sin inmigrantes”. do la economía está en auge, para luego dose a liberales, sobre la base de un pro- ciar las redadas en los centros urba- Acciones como éstas envían un pode- lanzarlos por la frontera cuando quiebra. grama de colaboración de clases con los nos, debe haber movilizaciones obre- roso mensaje, uno que debe ser recogido Precisamente esto ocurrió en 1954, durante demócratas o con algún otro partido o polí- ras para impedir las deportaciones, por el movimiento obrero en su conjunto. la recesión que siguió al fin de los comba- tico capitalistas. ¿Pero presionar al racista incluso bloqueándolos, inundando el El Grupo Internacionalista ha estado ac- tes de la Guerra de Corea, cuando más de Trump, cuya campaña fue construida sobre área con defensores de los derechos de tivamente involucrado en el apoyo de la un millón de trabajadores mexicanos fue- la base del vilipendio en contra de los inmi- los inmigrantes”. lucha de los trabajadores de B&H desde ron deportados en la “Operación Espaldas grantes? Esto sólo puede crear peligrosas –“Shock electoral postraumático. Para el principio, y las organizaciones transicio- Mojadas”. En los años 1990, la masiva mi- ilusiones que lleven a la desmoralización derrotar a Trump … y a los demócra- nales fraternalmente aliadas al GI –Class gración desde México fue resultado directo cuando sean frustradas. Sin embargo, sem- tas ¡Luchar por la revolución obrera!”, Struggle Education Workers, Trabajadores del Tratado de Libre Comercio de América brar ilusiones es oficio de estos socialde- suplemento de El Internacionalista, Internacionales clasistas y Class Strug- del Norte (TLCAN), negociado por el de- mócratas. Un artículo subsecuente sobre el noviembre de 2016. gle Workers – Portland– han emprendido mócrata Bill Clinton, que efectivamente DACA llama por “Amparo para todos” –no Hoy, los inmigrantes se han movilizado en iniciativas para apoyar a los trabajadores destruyó la agricultura mexicana, obligan- por plenos derechos, sino simplemente por diversas ocasiones para oponerse a las re- inmigrantes en contra de las deportacio- do a millones de campesinos a emigrar al “amparo”. ¿Qué significa esto? Bajo los dadas del ICE. No deben quedarse solos. nes. En Nueva York, miembros del CSEW norte. Hoy, trabajadores con conciencia de programas de amparo (protección tempo- Más tarde, el 30 de mayo en Nueva han luchado a favor, e iniciado la confor- clase en EE.UU., Canadá y México deben ral), los beneficiados no tienen realmente York, cuando agentes del ICE intentaban mación, de comités de defensa de los in- unirse para derribar el TLCAN por medio derechos democráticos, ni mucho menos arrestar a Hardat Sampat, un inmigrante migrantes en escuelas y hospitales, como de una lucha de clases conjunta. un “camino hacia la ciudadanía”. Colocar de Guyana, en el barrio con fuerte pre- también han hecho los Clubes Internacio- Cualquier victoria que logremos hoy a todos los inmigrantes indocumentados en sencia de inmigrantes guyaneses de Rich- nalistas en la Universidad de la Ciudad será parcial y temporal. El efecto perdura- el limbo que actualmente ocupan los bene- mond Hill en Queens, decenas de vecinos de Nueva York. En Portland, el CSWP ha ble de la lucha debe ser elevar la conciencia ficiados del DACA y TPS no es ninguna salieron a la calle para bloquear el arresto. desencadenado la participación sindical en y la voluntad de luchar de los trabajadores solución. Y, naturalmente, no mencionan el La esposa de Sampat estacionó su carro protestas afuera de las oficinas del ICE, así y los oprimidos en contra del monstruoso capitalismo, el socialismo o la revolución. en frente de los vehículos del ICE para como en comunidades como Woodburn edificio capitalista, erigido sobre la base La centrista Spartacist League (SL), impedir que se movieran. Esta situación que han sido golpeadas por redadas del de la esclavitud asalariada, en particular la que se da aires “revolucionarios”, publicó se mantuvo hasta que la policía de Nueva ICE en contra de trabajadores agrícolas. de los doblemente oprimidos trabajadores recientemente un artículo de primera plana York llegó para ayudar al ICE, obligando Esto apenas representa un pequeño inmigrantes. Una exitosa lucha para poner titulado “¡No a las deportaciones!” (Wor- a la esposa de Sampat a mover su coche comienzo. Al acelerar la maquinaria racista alto a las deportaciones y lograr plenos kers Vanguard, 22 de septiembre). Un sen- y a la multitud a dispersarse. A pesar de de deportación, con redadas en fábricas y derechos para todos –una simple cuestión timiento loable. Entonces, ¿cómo va esto a la afirmación de que Nueva York es una arrestos en calles en barrios de inmigran- democrática– requiere de la construcción conseguirse? Aunque abogan por derechos “ciudad santuario” y de las palabras del tes, existe un tremendo potencial para la de un partido obrero revolucionario so- de ciudadanía para los inmigrantes, más alcalde de Blassio de que la policía no acción de masas para poner alto a los rapto- bre la base de un programa de combativa allá de sus llamados generales a favor de realiza tareas migratorias, en éste y otros res de cuerpos del ICE. Una exitosa acción lucha clasista que desemboque en una re- “lucha de clase combativa” y de la “revo- casos los policías de Nueva York actúan en cualquier lugar del país podría despertar volución socialista internacional. Esta es lución socialista mundial”, en ningún lugar como auxiliares del ICE. una enorme respuesta de los millones que nuestra tarea hoy en día. n presentan ningún programa concreto sobre Recientemente, el 11 de octubre, acti- lo que debería ser una lucha para que no vistas a favor de los derechos de los inmi- haya deportaciones. La SL tampoco tiene grantes, frente a la sede del ICE en Port- nada que decir con respecto a los miles de land, Oregon, bloquearon una camioneta The manifestantes en Texas que protestaban en que transportaba a inmigrantes detenidos Internationalist contra de la ley SB 4 que ilegaliza las ciu- hacia el Centro de Detención del Noroes- dades santuario. te en Tacoma, Washington. Lograron im- A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism for the A principios del año, la SL publicó pedir que el transporte pudiera moverse Reforging of the Fourth International un artículo difamatorio contra el Grupo durante varias horas, encadenándose los Internacionalista por llamar a defender las brazos con unos “dragones durmientes” Publication of the Internationalist Group, ciudades santuario, que son desestimadas (elaborados con tubos, plástico, rejas de section of the League for the Fourth International como un mero “fraude”. El hecho de que alambre, cinta y cadenas). Al serrarlos, los estas limitaciones mínimas a la coopera- policías de Portland pusieron capuchas a Annual subscription US$10 for five issues. ción con la policía migratoria pueden ser los manifestantes que recordaban las usa- Name______enormemente importantes para los inmi- das en la tortura de detenidos en la triste- grantes que enfrentan la embestida federal mente célebre prisión de Abu-Ghraib en Address______del ICE, el DHS y la Patrulla Fronteriza no Irak. La valiente acción de los activistas les interesa. Para leer nuestra respuesta a arroja una luz reveladora sobre la abo- ______Apt. #_____Tel.(___)______esto, y a la calumnia de que no criticamos a minación de las deportaciones en masa, City______State/Province______los demócratas, además de la negativa de la realizadas ahora en camionetas blancas SL a llamar por el asilo para los refugiados, y camiones sin distintivos, en lugar de en Postal Code/Zip______Country______desestimándolos como “personas despla- vagones de tren, como hicieron los nazis zadas” sin derechos, véase “La Spartacist con los judíos en la Segunda Guerra Mun- Make checks/money orders payable to Mundial Publications and mail to: League vs. los refugiados” en Revolución dial. No obstante, estas acciones son esen- Mundial Publications Permanente No. 7, abril-mayo de 2017. cialmente simbólicas. Box 3321, Church Street Station New York, NY 10008 U.S.A. El Grupo Internacionalista ha llamado El régimen de Trump no será conmo- desde tiempo atrás a movilizar el poder de vido mediante simbolismos ni protestas. Lo Write the Internationalist Group at the above address, or contact: la clase obrera para poner alto a las reda- que se necesita para frustrar las deportacio- Tel (212) 460-0983 Fax (212) 614-8711 das y deportaciones. El primer artículo que nes es movilizar el poder del movimiento E-mail: [email protected] publicamos, distribuido en una manifesta- obrero en acciones de masas para inmovi- September-October 2017 23 El Internacionalista septiembre-octubre de 2017 ¡Plenos derechos de ciudadanía para todos los inmigrantes! Acción obrera para parar a las deportaciones Desde el día uno, Donald Trump ha Para los inmigrantes, Estados Uni- librado una incansable guerra en contra Foto: El Internacionalista dos es ahora un estado policíaco. Dete- de los inmigrantes. Tras iniciar su cam- nidos arbitrariamente en sus casas, sus lu- paña por la presidencia satanizando a los gares de trabajo, afuera de los tribunales o mexicanos como narcotraficantes, crimi- en la calle, frecuentemente por policías del nales y violadores, difamó a los musulma- ICE vestidos de civil en automóviles sin nes, tildándolos de terroristas. Al llegar al identificación, los inmigrantes deben pre- gobierno, su primera acción consistió en caverse como si estuvieran en un régimen promulgar un veto en contra de refugia- autoritario. Mientras Trump atiza la xeno- dos, inmigrantes y visitantes provenientes fobia (miedo y odio a los extranjeros), y es- de países de Medio Oriente. A pesar de las pecialmente en virtud de que los derechos enormes protestas en los aeropuertos y de constitucionales que se están pisoteando los fallos de los tribunales en contra de esta corresponden a todos los que se encuen- acción abiertamente discriminatoria, el ra- tran en EE.UU., no sólo a los ciudadanos, cista de la Casa Blanca promulgó un nuevo la amenaza que para todos representa este veto a finales de septiembre. A principios ejercicio desenfrenado del poder policíaco del mismo mes, Trump decretó el fin del debería ser obvia. Sin embargo, a pesar de programa DACA (de “acción diferida para que el miedo ronda en el país, también ha los llegados en la infancia”), levantando habido desafío. Pero cuidado: lo que en- así el amparo contra la deportación de casi Trabajadores inmigrantes sindicalizados de B&H en Nueva York pararon la- frentamos es un régimen que no tiene em- 800 mil jóvenes inmigrantes. En enero, el bores el Primero de Mayo, llamando a huelga en contra de las deportaciones. pacho en violar derechos. En consecuen- Department of Homeland Security (DHS, contratación de unos 15 mil agentes adicio- Una considerable mayoría de la pobla- cia, las meras protestas no lo van a detener. ministerio de seguridad de la patria) podría nales de la Patrulla Fronteriza y del ICE. ción no apoya las medidas de mano dura de Lo que es crucial es recurrir a una fuerza poner fin al Estatus de Protección Tempo- De hecho, los demócratas en el Congreso Trump en contra de los inmigrantes. Una capaz de detener la máquina deportado- ral (TPS) de casi 60 mil haitianos. votaron a favor de muchas de estas medi- encuesta reciente del Washington Post y de ra: la de la clase obrera. Entretanto, la policía del Immigration das como parte de la fallida iniciativa de ABC News muestra que el 62 por ciento se Por sobre todo, la lucha por los dere- and Customs Enforcement (ICE) aterroriza “reforma” migratoria de Obama de 2013. opone a la propuesta de construir un muro a chos de los inmigrantes debe librarse po- a las comunidades inmigrantes en todo el Pero, aunque las detenciones y las órde- lo largo de la frontera con México. Apenas líticamente, bajo el entendido de que los país. Durante los primeros siete meses del nes de detención se han incrementado con- una tercera parte de la población apoyaba sus dos partidos capitalistas, el Demócrata y el gobierno de Trump, ha detenido a casi 100 siderablemente, las “remociones” efectivas acérrimas políticas antiinmigrantes. Además, Republicano, así como los políticos y parti- mil inmigrantes indocumentados, un 43 por han caído. Con más arrestos de inmigrantes un abrumador 86 por ciento estaba a favor dos capitalistas de segundo rango como los ciento más de lo que hizo en el mismo pe- se está multiplicando el número de perso- de dejar que los jóvenes inmigrantes indo- Verdes, son enemigos de los inmigrantes, ríodo el año pasado. El DHS pretende “en- nas atrapadas en el laberinto de los centros cumentados que cumplan con los requeri- los oprimidos y los trabajadores. Hablar de focarse en los criminales”, pero la cantidad de detención (campos de concentración) mientos del DACA se queden en el país. Sin una “reforma migratoria” en esta época im- de detenidos que carecen de cualquier ante- del ICE, en su mayor parte cárceles priva- embargo, como parte de un supuesto acuerdo perialista de decadencia del capitalismo será cedente criminal es casi el doble con respecto das administradas por corporaciones como para extender el estatus legal del DACA (pero siempre un fraude. Basta considerar dónde a 2016, esto es, unas 28 mil personas que han GEO. El gobierno planea un incremento no una “vía hacia la ciudadanía”) para los lla- se han efectivamente conquistado plenos sido arrancadas de sus familias únicamente considerable del número de cárceles migra- mados “Dreamers”, los líderes demócratas en derechos de ciudadanía para todos: la Re- debido a su estatus migratorio. El director in- torias, expandiendo el número de detenidos el Congreso Chuck Schumer y Nancy Pelosi volución Francesa de 1789, la Comuna de terino del ICE Thomas Homan ha declarado de 41 mil a 48 mil, en tanto que el ICE dice aceptaron en principio intensificar la “seguri- París de 1871 y, hace exactamente un siglo, que la agencia planea incrementar las reda- haber asegurado más de 33 mil lugares en dad fronteriza” y hacer obligatorio el uso del la Revolución Rusa de octubre de 1917. las cárceles de ciudades y condados y en las programa e-Verify, empleado para despedir a das en fábricas y restaurantes en un 400 ó Escaramuzas en torno a las 500 por ciento, y que seguirá con los arrestos prisiones estatales donde podrá almacenar trabajadores indocumentados. Pero entonces migratorios en las cercanías de tribunales y inmigrantes. En esos casos, la agencia ame- Trump incrementó sus exigencias. “ciudades santuario” escuelas (donde los agentes del ICE están al naza con romper familias, separando a las Incluso antes de que se anunciara el Un punto focal de las escaramuzas en- acecho, a pesar de que supuestamente no está madres de sus hijos. fallido acuerdo, advertimos: “Los demó- tre demócratas y republicanos con respec- autorizado realizar detenciones, como tam- Cada día hay nuevas atrocidades. El cratas intentarán que los jóvenes inmigran- to a la inmigración lo han constituido las poco lo está en hospitales y centros de culto). gobierno hizo lo imposible para impe- tes acepten semejante acuerdo y arrojen a “ciudades santuario”. Se trata de alrededor Los EE.UU. se han convertido en dir que una mujer de 17 años detenida en sus padres, familiares y amigos bajo el ca- de 400 localidades (condados en su mayor una nación deportadora. No únicamente Texas pudiera obtener un aborto. Única- mión. Decimos ¡claro que no! ¡Exigimos parte) con grados diversos de limitación en desde que el cazamigrantes en jefe, el repu- mente una audiencia de emergencia del plenos derechos de ciudadanía para todos la cooperación de la policía local con la po- blicano Trump, asumiera la presidencia. El pleno de un tribunal federal pudo parar los inmigrantes! (volante de Revolution, licía migratoria. El gobierno de Trump ha demócrata Barack Obama llegó a ser cono- este acto de arbitraria crueldad. En Oregon, fechado el 7 de septiembre). Muchos de amenazado con cortar los fondos federales cido como el deportador en jefe al expulsar policías del ICE fueron captados en un vi- los participantes en el programa DACA no de las jurisdicciones “santuario”. La razón un número récord de inmigrantes: más de deo subido a Facebook cuando irrumpían cayeron en la trampa. En una conferencia por la que tanto se debate esta cuestión es ocho millones cuando se agregan los que en una casa en Beaverton, sin autorización que Nancy Pelosi realizó el 18 de septiem- que el gobierno federal cuenta apenas con fueron detenidos en la zona fronteriza. La judicial alguna, para arrestar a un pintor de bre en el Área de la Bahía, activistas de la unos 6 mil agentes en sus escuadrones de “maquinaria deportadora perfeccionada” casas que les “pareció” que era “ilegal”. California Immigrant Youth Justice Allian- secuestradores, que distan de ser suficien- que entregó a su sucesor ahora acelera su (Al incrementarse la indignación popular, ce la interrumpieron, coreando “No somos tes para deportar a millones de inmigrantes velocidad. En virtud de los decretos de liberaron al trabajador.) Estar en el país sin tu moneda de cambio”. Condenaron a la indocumentados. De esta manera, Washin- Trump, los 15 millones o más de inmigran- autorización no es de por sí un delito, pero lideresa de la minoría en la Cámara de Re- gton quiere apoyarse en las policías locales tes indocumentados en EE.UU. se encuen- al incrementar el número de detenciones presentantes, diciendo: “Los demócratas para que hagan los arrestos, por infraccio- tran potencialmente en riesgo. A principios “colaterales” los agentes del ICE en Ore- crearon una maquinaria deportadora fuera nes de tránsito, por ejemplo, para que lue- de octubre, la Casa Blanca envió un docu- gon y en el resto de EE.UU. están violando de control y se la entregaron a Trump”. go el ICE sólo tenga que pasar a recoger a mento al Congreso en el que se delinean gravemente la IV Enmienda [de la Consti- Añadieron: “los demócratas no represen- los supuestos “extranjeros criminales”. 39 medidas para intensificar la represión de tución de EE.UU.] que prohíbe las pesqui- tan la resistencia contra Trump. Nosotros En las “ciudades santuario” las auto- inmigrantes dentro de EE.UU., incluida la sas y detenciones arbitrarias. sí” (Huffpost, 18 de septiembre). sigue en la página 22