Fight US Imperialism Through Class Struggle· at Homel

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No. 796 ~X-523 31 January 2003

,,' Fight U.S. Imperialism Through Class Struggle· at Homel

Break'''Wlth "'" -- \ . B,lld a wor/(Btl PltlIl!' JANUARY 28-The January 18 protests in Washington, San Francisco and other Fig'" l1li Sociallsl , __on! U.S. cities were the largest antiwar dem­ / onstrations in this country since the Viet­ _rtaClsI nam War. Within the population at large, ~ L8.- ~ .- support for an invasion of Iraq is at best lukewarm, and polls indicate a growing majority oppose a unilateral U.S. attack. In Europe, hundreds of thousands have marched in protest against the evident intent of U.S. imperialism and its British auxiliaries to launch 'an all-out attack on Iraq, a country which has had its social fabric and never-considerable military strength eviscerated by more than a decade of United Nations sanctions. Even as chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix claims that "Iraq appears not to have come to genuine acceptance ... ofthe disarmament which was demanded of it," he concedes that his team of imperialist spies has found no evidence of "weap­

ons of mass destruction." Meanwhile, in . m~~ Washington the drums of war are beating Our banner at January 18 antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C. stood out sharply against pro-Democratic Party ever louder. U.S. Secretary of State Colin liberal pacifism of protest organizers. Powell intoned that the "burden is upon Iraq" to prove that it has no weapons. support an immediate war against Iraq, paring for' the possible use of nuclear an American war against Iraq, the French "The onus is on us to prove we don't have it provoked a frenzied response by the weapons against Iraq." According to the government has sent warships to the Gulf. any," replied an Iraqi official. "How can Bush administration. Pentagon chief article, the decision to use nukes rests in What is needed is to mount class­ you prove a negative?" Donald Rumsfeld contemptuously dis­ the hands of STRATCOM, a "tightly con­ struggle opposition against this imperial­ Bush's recent promise to hold Iraq's oil missed France and Germany as "old trolled, secret organization" under Rums­ ist war. This in turn requires a policy of resources "in trust" for the Iraqi people is Europe." The right-wing tabloid New York feld. The article noted "the contradictions uncompromising proletarian class inde­ simply a promissory note to the oil barons Post (24 January) ran a front-page head- inherent in contt:mplating the use of pendence. Yet the European pseudo­ nuclear weapons for the purpose of elim­ socialist left kowtows to the various labor inating weapons of 1I¥lss destruction." and social-democratic parties, historic It is no wonder thaiihe nuclear cow­ "left" enemies of proletarian revolution. boys in Washington are today seen In so doing, the fake left acts in the by much of the world's population as service of the more "humane" pretensions "the greatest threat to world peace," as of their own rulers, whose appetites are reported in the Toronto Sun (26 January). currently restrained by the military ascen­ That was the opinion of more than 83 per­ dancy of U.S. imperialism. Last fall, a cent of Europeans polled by Time maga­ whole raft of European leftists including zine's European edition, with Iraq com­ the Italian Rifondazione Comunista, the ing a, distant second at 8.9 percent. French Ligue Communiste Revolution­ This is the shape of the "new world naire and the British Socialist Workers order" emerging from the restoration of Party and Workers Power issued a "call capitalism in the Soviet Union. Without on all the European heads of state to pub­ Soviet military might to stay its hand, licly stand against this war, whether it has U.S. imperialism has been riding rough­ UN backing or not, and to demand that shod over and expanding its military pres­ George Bush abandon his war plans." Far ence on every continent. Interimperialist from advancing a struggle for "peace," AP rivalriys that were usually subordinated to these putative leftists who appeal to their U.S. troops in Kuwait prepare for new desert slaughter in Iraq. the common cause of destroying the own bourgeoisies against U.S. imperial­ Soviet Union have now corrie to the fore. ism promote the resurgent chauvinism of ExxonMobil and BP. It is just such line denouncing Chirac and Schroder as At the same time, the complaints of the that paves the way for a future interim­ moves that offend America's imperialist the "Axis of Weasel." European governments about American perialist war. Thus, for example, Rifon­ rivals, most notably France and Germany, But it is dot only the question of Near "unilateralism" are merely the squeals of dazione Comunista's Liberazione (23 who threatened not to vote for Bush's war Eastern oil. As the Berlin Tagesspiegel less powerful states who want a bigger January) ran a headline, "Paris-Berlin, plans in the UN Security Council. The rift (24 January) opined: "'Iraq"has become cut of the take (including of a post­ United for Peace." between Europe and the U.S. is sharper the code word for everything:that divides Saddam Iraq) and would prefer to be This treacherous role is all the more today than it has been for decades. When Europe from America." The Bush ad­ treated less rudely. Even as they condemn continued on page 10 French president Jacques Chirac and' ministration's naked assertion of Wash­ German chancellor Gerhard Schroder ington's "right," without even a fig announced last week that they would not leaf of pretext or provocation, to "pre­ emptively" attack any country perceived 05 as challenging U.S. power and preroga­ tives has shocked and horrified people, and governments, around the world. While 150,000 American troops are being deployed to the Persian Gulf region, an article in the Los Angeles Times 7 25274 11 81030 7 (26 January) reports that the U.S. "is pre- While hundreds of United Nations "in­ .r:;~ spectors" storm into homes and factories a. around Iraq looking for alleged "weapons ~ of mass destruction," the man who exposed the deadliest arsenal of mass destruction in the Near East languishes in an Israeli dungeon. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a Left:Vanunu former technician at the Israeli nuclear at 1985 weapons faoility in Dimona, was kid­ demOnstration napped by the secret police, thrown into a for Palestinian desert prison in Ashkelon and sentenced rights at to 18 years by a secret military court for Beersheba's Ben-Gurion revealing to the London Times that Israel University. had amassed upwards of 200 nuclear war­ Right: 1996 NYC heads. At a parole hearing in November, rally demands the state claimed that Vanunu continued to freedom for pose a threat to Israeli "security." His law­ Vanunu. yer is pursuing an appeal, but his jailers have told his family that he won't be released until April 2004. A London Guardian (4 October 2002) and in very bad health, Klingberg was an in defeating the Nazi scourge. We honor dents and participated in protests for Pal­ article on Vanunu, headlined "Israel's internationally prominent scientist who Marcus Klingberg. estinian equality and against the 1982 Arms Inspector," quotes a defiant poem had published scores of works on epi­ As a Sephardic Jew whose family had Lebanon war. Some 2,000 Palestinians he wrote in defense of his action: "You demiology when he suddenly disappeared emigrated from Morocco, it was Vanunu's have been slaughtered since the begin­ are the secret agent of the people. You are in January 1983. Klingberg, too, had been own experience -of discrimination at the ning of the Zionist military onslaught in the eyes of the nation." For his coura­ kidnapped by the secret police and tried in hands of the European-derived Ashkenazi the Occupied Territories over two years geous act on behalf of all humanity, a secret military court. As assistant direc­ establishment'that led to his active alien­ ago, and tens of thousands more have Vanunu has already spent 16 years behind tor of the Nes Tsiona biological research ation from Zionism. He took up the cause been imprisoned. All opponents of Zion­ bars, including 12 years in solitary con­ center, Klingberg reported to Soviet intel­ of Palestinian rights as a student at Beer­ ist terror must demand: Free Mordechai finement in a six-by-nine fO"Ot cell. ligence about the more than 40 kinds of sheba's Ben-Gurion University, where he Vanunu! Free all Palestinian victims of For many years, another former Israeli weapons produced there, ranging from befriended Bedouin and Palestinian stu- Zionist repression!. weapons scientist, Marcus Klingberg, viruses to mushroom poisons. Klingberg was also imprisoned in a cell in Ashkelon. had fought with the Red Army during Klingberg was released recently from his World War II and recognized the debt he house arrest after completing a total of 20 owed to the Soviet Union for saving his years of imprisonment. Now 84 years old life and the lives of countless other Jews BAY AREA LOS ANGELES Alternate Saturdays, 2 p.m. ~I~~r ::::~:~~,iv~d,,;~:::: ..... /.' ,'~~~,~~ .>:". ~:::~:::i~V~~~~~:~::q~~>~1 Honor Communist Leaders Lenin, February 15: The Revolution Betrayed Lessons of the Vietnam and the Struggle of the Liebknecht and Luxemburg! Antiwar Movement Trotskyist Opposition The month of January marks the anniver­ Tuesday, February 11, 4 p.m. 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 sary of the deaths of revolutionary Marxist San Francisco State University (Vermont/Beverly Red Line station) leaders Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht Cesar Chavez Student Center, C-112 Information and readings: (213) 380-8239 and v.1. Lenin. Co-founders of the German Information: (510) 839-0851 or e-mail: [email protected] Communist Party, Luxemburg and Liebknecht or e-mail: [email protected] were murdered by reactionary Freikorps TORONTO troops at the behest of the ruling Social BOSTON Wednesday, 6:30 p.m. Democrats, who ordered the bloody sup- Monday, 7 p.m. TROTSKY pression of the January 1919 Spartakist LENIN February 12: Fighting Racist February 3: Marxism: Repression: Labor Must uprising. Five years later, Lenin, co-leader A Guide to Action Defend Immigrants, Natives, with Leon Trotsky of the Russian October Revolution of 1917, died after suffering a Boston University, Room TBA All the Oppressed series of strokes following an assassination attempt in 1918. We print below a speech Information and readings: (617) 666-9453 or University of Toronto by Liebknecht to the newly formed Congress of Workers and Soldiers Councils in e-mail: [email protected] Sidney Smith, Room 1088 Berlin a month before his murder. 100 St. George St. Brothers, Comrades, Friends! The day on which the first Congress of Workers and CHICAGO Information and readings: (416) 593-4138 or e-mail: [email protected] Soldiers Councils meets is of historic importance. The first task of this Congress is to Alternate Tuesdays, 7 p.m. defend the revolution, to put down the counterrevolution. February 4: Marxist Materialism vs. VANCOUVER Disarming of all generals and officers, the dissolution of the previous command, the Liberal Idealism founding of a Red Guard to carry out the social revolution .... Presently we have in Ger­ University of Chicago, Cobb Hall Tuesdays, 5:30 p.m. many not a socialist but a capitalist republic. The socialist republic must first be brought 5811 S. Ellis, Room TBA February 4: The Russian Revolution: forth by the proletariat through struggle against the current regime, which has become How the Working Class Took Power the representative of capitalism. We demand from the Congress that it take full politi­ Information and readings: (312) 563-0441 or e-mail: [email protected] University of British Columbia cal power into its hands for the purpose of carry.ing out socialism, and that it not trans­ Student Union Building, Room 211 fer power to a National Assembly which cannot be an organ of the revolution. We NEW YORK CITY Information and readings: (604) 687-0353 demand of the Congress of the [workers and soldiers] councils that it extend its hand or e-mail: [email protected] to our Russian brothers and request delegates from the Russians. We seek world revo­ Alternate Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m. lution and the unity of proletarians of all countries under workers and soldiers councils. February 4: Marxism and the -Karl Liebknecht, "To the All-German Soviet Congress," Fight for Revolution Today Die ROte Fahne, 17 December 1918 Columbia University 306 Hamilton Hall Information and readings: (212) 26"Z-1025 Of e-mail: [email protected] !~!!!!!Ym~4..'!!'!.~I!.! ~ EDITOR: Alan Wilde EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael Davisson ~~:~~b cnaPTaK~::JSPARTACJST] PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fulier CIRCULATION MANAGER: Irene Gardner "Mu,ua'%@f;iH.!%iji!.jI!i'IiQMu:uliiiUMiI EDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, Karen Cole, Paul Cone, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, Joseph 3a HOa ••e Seymour, Alison Spencer OKTRtip.CKHe peaonlOqHH! The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276·0746) published biweekly, except skipping three' a~ernate issues in June, July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Pub­ lishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected]. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. $.50 (10 pages) The closing date for news in this issue is 28 January. Make checks payable/mail to: No. 796 31 January 2003 Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

2 WORKERS VANGUARD LRP: Apologists for Arab Nationalism The gratuitous destruction of dozens of Jihad, vile anti-Semitic and anti-Christian existence is threatened. poses the question of which class shall Palestinian shops in the West Bank vil­ religious bigots who seek to enslave Moreover, if the working masses of rule. But the LRP's purpose is not to lage of Nazlat Issa by Israeli army bull­ women and extirpate any manifestation of the Arab countries are to be won to the sweep away the neocolonial Arab bour­ dozers on January 21 is the latest step in social progress. communist program, it is necessary to geoisies but rather to chain proletarian the Sharon government's drive to elimi­ Yet one self-styled Marxist group, the directly confront the false consciousness struggle to the yoke of "national unity" nate even a semblance of Palestinian League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP), that binds them to their oppressors. That with those bourgeoisies. In its headline, national existence. That aim was driven urges Palestinian militants to recycle the means defending the rights of the Kurds the LRP calls "For Arab Workers' Revo­ home by the massive Zionist military petty-bourgeois nationalist politics whose in Iraq and Syria, the Berbers in Algeria lution" -not to smash the Arab capitalist operation last spring-carried out with a states but "To Smash IsraelilU.S. Terror!" green light from the Israeli rulers' patrons The Arab regimes that the LRP calls in Washington-which was marked by on to aid the Palestinians are themselves the army massacre in the Jenin refugee Defend the Palestinians! responsible for the slaughter of some camp and the devastation of homes, hos­ 50,000 Palestinians between 1967 and pitals, schools and water and sewage 1977. Yet, in pursuit of the treacher­ treatment systems in other West Bank cit­ ous fiction of "united Arab mass strug­ ies and towns. Under cover of the coming gle," the LRP cannot even bring itself U.S.-led war against Iraq, Israel's rulers to denounce the blood-drenched, U.S.­ could well carry out the genocidal "trans­ backed Hashemite monarchy for the 1970 fer" program openly advocated by many massacre in Jordan. Instead they blame of Sharon's political allies, i.e., the forc­ the Israelis for "the 'Black September' ible expUlsion of the Palestinian masses events of 1970 when the Mossad, Israel's from "Greater Israel." CIA, helped to prop up Jordan's monar­ As we wrote in a Spartacist League chy against a Palestinian uprising." statement in response to the Jenin mas­ Any socialist worth his salt solidarizes sacre (WV No. 778, 5 April 2002): "The with the Palestinians who defend them­ international working class must urgently selves against the murderous Zionist rally to the defense of the Palestinian peo­ occupation forces in Gaza and the West Zionist troops ple against the Zionist military terror Bank-the Israeli army and its fascistic round up machine.'! Defend the Palestinian people! Palestinian man settler auxiliaries. But if the last two years All Israeli troops, settlers out of the in sweep have demonstrated anything, it is that the Occupied Territories! All U.S.lUN impe­ of Nablus, Palestinians cannot prevail in a purely rialist forces out of the Near East! For a August 2002. military confrontation with the Israeli socialist federation of the Near East! state. And today much of the Palestinian The coming U.S.-led war against Iraq "armed struggle" consists of indiscrimi­ could well ignite renewed explosions of nate terrorist attacks against anyone who social turmoil in the Arab countries. But happens to be in an Israeli shopping mall if such struggles are to aid the liberation or disco. Those who perpetrate such crim­ of the Palestinians, the Arab workers, the inal acts, deeming every Israeli to be the oppressed women and myriad national suicidal logic is today manifest. The LRP and Morocco, the Copts in Egypt. It "enemy," mirror the chauvinist mindset of and religious minorities, what is required claims to offer a proletarian perspective, means fighting against the horrid oppres­ the Zionist rulers themselves. is the forging of internationalist Marx­ raising the call for a socialist federation sion of women, symbolized by the veil The mass protests in the Arab coun­ ist workers parties implacably opposed of the Near East and declaring: "The road and purdah (seclusion), that is enforced tries last spring were an expression of sol­ to any reliance on the Arab bourgeois to Palestinian freedom really begins with by Islamic reactionaries as well as by "sec­ idarity with the besieged Palestinians regimes or one or another imperialist unchaining the Arab working classes of ular" nationalist regimes. And it means and a measure of the outrage of the Arab agency. Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat is the region from their bourgeois leaders combatting the anti-Semitism propagated masses against their own rulers. But these today hounded by the Zionist rulers, and opening a revolutionary struggle by the Arab rulers and Islamists, which is demonstrations were shot through with imprisoned in the bombed-out remnants against their neo-colonial Arab rulers" one of the main things poisoning the con­ anti-Semitism and largely dominated by of his Ramallah headquarters. But it is (Proletarian Revolution, Spring 2002). sciousness of the Arab proletariat. Islamic fundamentalists. The LRP barely precisely the petty-bourgeois nationalist But everything the LRP stands for is in But the LRP does none of these things. acknowledges this danger, while noting politics of Arafat's Palestine Liberation flat contradiction to these words. Its article does not so much as mention, that some Arab workers have "turned Organization (PLO) that has helped bring much less defend, the rights of non-Arab to reactionary clerical leaders, another LRP: National Unity vs. the Palestinians to this tragic impasse. or non-Muslim minorities or of women dead end." Class Unity The strategy of "armed struggle" pur­ in the Arab countries. It accepts the lie Marxists seek to shift the axis of strug­ sued by the PLO in the 1960s and '70s Sneeringly dismissing "Spartacist fan­ propagated by Arab nationalists, Islamic gle from Israeli against Arab to class was never aimed at defeating the over­ tasies of an 'Arab/Hebrew workers' revo­ fundamentalists and, indeed, the Zionists against class. We stand with Bolshevik whelmingly more powerful Zionist state lution'," the LRP rejects out of hand any that the Hebrew-speaking people as a leader V. I. Lenin, who wrote: "Marxism but rather at pressuring the Arab regimes possibility of winning the Hebrew work­ whole are and will always be wedded to cannot be reconciled with nationalism. to take up the cause of "Arab unity" ers to the cause of socialist revolution. Zionist chauvinism. Instead, the LRP Be it even of the 'most just,' 'purest,' most against Israel. Instead, the Arab capitalist Yet there can be no revolutionary per­ enthuses over nationalist "armed struggle refined and civilised brand. In place of all states moved to bloodily repress Palestin­ spective in the Near East without taking against Israel" (not even acknowledg­ forms of nationalism Marxism advances ian militants, with Jordan's King Hussein into account the proletariat of Israel, ing Israel's stockpile of nuclear weapons) internationalism" ("Critical Remarks on slaughtering more than 10,000 PLO fight­ the most technologically advanced and and seeks only to give such struggle a the National Question," 1913). ers in the infamous "Black September" militarily powerful country in the region. more "mass" and "militant" rendering. Instead of seeking to win the proletar­ massacre in 1970 and tensDf thousands The Zionist state is armed to the teeth, The LRP declares: iat to a political perspective of class inde­ more killed later in Lebanon. The PLO's including with a sizable nuclear arsenal pendence, the LRP enthuses over the "To aid the Palestinians and expose the pursuit of the imperialists culminated in which it would willingly use to irradiate present illusions in Arafat and the Arab need for "unity of all Palestinians in the the 1993 Oslo accord, granting Arafat the every Arab city if it perceived a threat to rulers, proletarian revolutionaries demand struggle" and "united Arab mass strug­ nominal autonomy of a handful of Pales­ its existence. If the Zionist citadel is not of them: provide arms to the masses! ... gle." This is a recipe for unity of Arab tinian ghettos in the Occupied Territories cracked from within through workers "The street protests in support of the workers and peasants with the oil sheiks which were then increasingly sealed off revolution, all talk of national justice is intifada are vital, but they need to be and bonapartist despots, for unity of left­ joined by massive general strikes in and subjected to starvation blockades by simply empty rhetoric that does nothing Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, ist Palestinian militants with the cutthroat the Zionist occupation forces. In despair, to advance the cause of the Palestinians. Lebanon, and the other countries of the reactionaries of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. the Palestinians, once among the most But there is no way the Hebrew workers Middle East demanding arms for the And it serves the purpose of the Arab rul­ cosmopolitan peoples of the Near East, will be won to the need for common Palestinians." ers, who have long played on the need for have increasingly turned to Islamic fun­ class struggle against the Israeli capitalist This is the height of nationalist cretinism. unity against the "Zionist entity" in order damentalists like Hamas and Islamic rulers if their own right to a national The LRP calls for a general strike, which continued on page 4

o ro ~ E (f) E "0 ro co" C9 <0 ~

Left: Amman, Jordan in 1970 as King Hussein's regime slaughtered 10,000 Palestinians in . Black September massacre. "Stateless" Palestinians have languished for decades in refugee camps, as in Jordan.

31 JANUARY 2003 3 of administrative solutions to allow even bated differences between Hebrew and defined not by a proletarian-i.e., Trot­ LRP... tiny ethnic groupings a measure of local Arab workers, while hardening nationalist skyist-program but by the prevailing ( continued from page 3) autonomy. Thus the workers revolution antagonisms on both sides. These hatreds winds of petty-bourgeois radicalism. The put a stop to ethnic warfare. Contrast this have grown particularly acute in the face LRP is a direct political heir of Max with the LRP, which offers the Hebrew­ to deflect the anger of those they oppress of more than two years of unremitting Shachtman, who led a split from the speaking people only the following "right" American Trotskyist movement in 1940. toward an external enemy. Zionist terror. even within the framework of proletarian We have no illusion that it will be easy Succumbing to anti-Communist hysteria Is All of the U.S. state power: "Israelis unwilling to live in to shatter the chauvinist consensus that among radical intellectuals over the 1939 "Occupied Territory"? a Palestinian workers' state will have the currently binds the Hebrew proletariat to Hitler-Stalin pact and the Soviet invasion The LRP explicitly denies the national right to leave." its capitalist exploiters. In all likelihood, of capitalist Finland and Poland at the rights of the Hebrew-speaking people In an attempt to defend the indefen­ it will take great historic events, like outbreak of World War II, Shachtman and embraces the call of radical Arab sible, the LRP resorts to lies and distor- a victorious workers revolution in one repudiated the Trotskyist call for uncon­ nationalists and Islamists: "All Israel ditional military defense of the Soviet is 'Occupied Territory'!" In polemicizing Union. The LRP has throughout its exis­ tence followed in Shachtman's footsteps, against the LRP's line, we wrote ("Zion­ l~ ist Bloodbath in Jenin," WV No. 779, joining the imperialists in denouncing the 19 April 2002): Soviet intervention against CIA-backed "The doctrine that an oppressor nation Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan in forfeits its right to self-determination has the 1980s and backing Boris Yeltsin in his nothing in common with socialism and counterrevolutionary power grab in 1991, democracy; it is the ideology of geno­ cidal irredentism. The Zionist state was which led to the final undoing of the created by crushing the national rights of October Revolution. the Palestinians. But securing national It was the destruction of the Soviet justice for the Palestinians does not mean Union that prepared the way for the cur­ reversing the terms of oppression and rent dire situation facing the Palestinians. denying the democratic rights of the Hebrew-speaking people. Basic to the The Soviet Union provided a counter­ Leninist position on the national ques­ weight to U.S. imperialism, allowing petty­ tion-the only consistently democratic bourgeois nationalists like the PLO to position-is that all nations have a right jockey for support between the U.S. and to self-determination." the USSR. With the collapse of the In response, the LRP screamed that we Soviet Union, this leverage was lost-as are "in a word, Zionists" and insisted that well as considerable amounts of financial "Leninists unhesitatingly support the Brian Hendler and military support-and a significantly rights of the oppressed over the oppres­ December 1997: Public sector workers general strike tied up Israel for five days. weakened PLO accepted a sham "auton­ sors" (Proletarian Revolution, Spring omy," effectively policing the Palestinian 2002). Le~inists unhesitatingly defend tions. In the latest issue of Proletarian of the Arab countries, to inspire Israeli masses on behalf of the Israeli rulers. small, dependent nations in a military Revolution (Fall 2002), the LRP asserts workers on the road of revolutionary The 1993 accord laid the basis for fur­ conflict with imperialist countries. And that we oppose the right of return for struggle against the Zionist bourgeoisie. ther devastating the economy of the we unhesitatingly oppose every manifes­ Palestinian refugees. Continuing a theme When we attacked the LRP for writing Occupied Territories, sealing off tens of tation of oppression and discrimination­ from its earlier article, it also equates the off the whole of the Hebrew-speaking thousands of workers from their jobs in be it national, racial, sexual or religious. Hebrew-speaking nation with the Zionist working class as a "labor aristocracy," Israel, while leading to a massive expan­ But we do not thereby elevate the state in order to claim that we "defend they admitted to "grains of truth" in our sion of Zionist settlements and the vir­ oppressed to the pantheon of "progressive the preservation of Israel." Before expos­ description of class and other social divi­ tual imprisonment of the entire Pales­ peoples" who have rights as opposed to ing these lies, it is necessary to first sions in Israeli society. At the same time, tinian popUlation in isolated, besieged "reactionary peoples" who have none. If untangle the LRP's deliberate confusion­ they note that "Israeli workers enjoy a ghettos. This is what the "democratic" all of Israel is "occupied territory," what ism. For Marxists, a nation is a people tremendous privilege over Palestinian counterrevolution cheered on by the LRP does that make of the U.S.? The Zionists' with a common language, culture and workers" and that their "elevated standard has meant for the Palestinian people. atrocities pale in comparison to the bru­ political economy; a state is an instru­ of living serves to tie large numbers of A workers revolution in one of the tality and butchery with which America's ment of organized violence-centrally Israeli workers to supporting the Israeli Arab countries, proclaiming the inter­ founders and rulers wiped out entire the army, police and prisons-through state." There is, to use the LRP's expres­ nationalist unity of all the working people, indigenous peoples. Why doesn't the which a particular class maintains its rule. sion, a "grain of truth" in this statement. would have an enormous impact on the LRP raise the call "All of the United The Israeli capitalist state is the enemy But to conclude from this, as does the Hebrew-speaking workers of Israel. But States is Occupied Territory!"? not only of the Palestinians but above all LRP, that "a majority of Israeli workers if Arab, Persian and Kurdish workers are The LRP would do well to note what of the workers of Israel, Hebrew or Arab. can be expected to remain loyal to the to break the chains of exploitation and Lenin actually wrote in his 1914 pam­ In the very article in WV No. 779 which continued existence of Israel" is to deny oppression, they must be broken from all phlet, The Right of Nations to Self­ the LRP attacks, we wrote: the possibility of making the proletariat variants of nationalism and won to a Determination, where he explained that "The national emancipation of the Pales­ conscious of its historic task as the grave­ relentless struggle to extirpate the influ­ "the proletariat confines itself, so to tinians-including the right of all refu­ digger of the capitalist system. Israel is ence of the Islamic fundamentalists who gees and their descendants to return speak, to the negative demand for recog­ no exception to the rule that the interests now pose as the enemies of Zionism and nition of the right to self-determination, to their homeland-necessarily entails workers revolutions to sweep away the of capital and labor are irreconcilably imperialism. Workers of the Near East without giving guarantees to any nation, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the counterposed and that the contradictions have a rich tradition of revolutionary strug­ and without undertaking to give anything bloody Ba'athist bonapartists in Syria, of capitalism necessarily engender class gle. We look to the legacy of the multina­ at the expense of another nation." This to bring down the capitalist rulers of struggle. In essence, the LRP's hostility tional Iranian proletariat that struggled Lebanon and to shatter the Zionist state, was the policy pursued by Lenin both toward the Hebrew workers mirrors the for power in 1953, of the Arab and Kurd­ before and after the 1917 Bolshevik Rev­ establishing a socialist federation of the Near East." [emphases added] "white skin privilege" line pushed by ish Iraqi workers who sought to make a olution that smashed the tsarist prison Third World nationalists and sections of socialist revolution five years later. To house of peoples. Lenin's aim was to take Leninism vs. the American New Left in the 1960s and seize on such opportunities when they the national question off the agenda in Petty-Bourgeois Leftism '70s. They argued that workers in the arise, and to lead them to victory, requires order to bring the class question to the We take our stand with the Palestinian imperialist countries, and especially white above all the construction of internation­ fore. He fought indefatigably against any Trotskyists of the 1940s, who fought workers in the U.S., had been "bought alist workers parties, sections of a re­ manifestation of Great Russian chauvin­ against all odds to transcend the national­ off" by imperialism and were thus inca­ forged Fourth International, in opposition ism while defending the rights of all ist conflict and unite Arab and Hebrew pable of making a socialist revolution. to Zionism, Arab nationalism and all nations to self-determination-i.e., to workers in common struggle. They From its inception, the LRP has been manner of religious fundamentalism .• establish their own states-including opposed the Zionist partition of Palestine under proletarian rule. and proclaimed at th·e time of the 1948 Normally, the right of self-determina­ Arab-Israeli War: "The only way to peace tion of an oppressor nation is a moot between the two peoples of this country point. But in cases of geographically is turning the guns against the instiga­ interpenetrated peoples-as in Israeli tors of murder in both camps" ("Against Palestine, where Palestinian Arabs and the Stream," reprinted in Fourth Interna­ Web site: www.icl-fi.org • E-mail address:[email protected] Hebrew-speaking Israelis live in and lay tional, May 1948: emphasis in original). National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860 claim to the same small sliver of land­ At the same time, the Trotskyists were under capitalism the exercise of national soher about the enormous obstacles to Boston Los Angeles Oakland Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 ~elf-deterll1il1atiol1 hy either of the popu­ united revolutionary struggle by Arab lations \vill necessarily he at the expense Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 and Hebrew-speaking workers. The 1947 (617) 666-9453 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 of the other. In sLlch cases, a democratic "Draft Theses on the Jewish Question," solution to the national question can only Public Office: Sat. 2-5 p.m. Public Office: which was adopted by the International Chicago come about through socialist revolution, 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Sat. 1-5 p.m. Secretariat of the Fourth International in Box 6441 , Main PO 1634 Telegraph hecause only the proletariat in power has the wake of big strikes by Arab and Jew­ Chicago, IL 60680 New York 3rd Floor an interest in resolving national antago­ ish government and oil refinery workers, (312) 563-0441 Box 3381, Church St. Sta. nisms and can lay the material basis for San Francisco stated: Public Office: New York, NY 10008 the economic development of all peoples, Sat. 2-5 p.m. (212) 267-1025 Box 77494 "At the present stage, large-scale unity 222 S. Morgan San Francisco leading to the establishment of a global between the Jews and the Arabs in Pales­ Public Office: (Buzzer 23) CA 94107 communist society. tine is unrealizable; only on a very lim­ Tues. 6:30-8:30 p.m. Look for example at how the Bolshe­ ited scale and to the extent that a section and Sat. 1-5 p.m. viks dealt with the Caucasus, a patch­ of the Jewish workers is employed out­ 299 Broadway, Suite 318 work of nationalities and pre-national side the 'closed' Jewish economy, has it been possible for Jewish-Arab strikes groupings which had been riven by inter­ such as those of the past year to occur. ethnic conflicts for centuries, after the But this does not mean that such unity October Revolution. The Bolsheviks not is excluded for all time." [emphasis in Toronto Vancouver only granted the various nations in the original] Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 region the right to form their own inde- - More than five decades of Zionist oppres­ (416) 593-4138 (604) .687-0353 pendent states but also developed a range sion and privation have deeply exacer- 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Marxism, War and the Fight

For Socia list 1 Revolution We publish below, slightly ed­ The revolutionary masses were ited, the second part ofan internal betrayed when the bourgeoisies educational presentation given at essentially turned their backs a Spartacist League meeting in on the revolutions and made New York City in December 2002 alliances with the aristocracy by Alan Wilde, editor of Work­ against the working and artisan ers Vanguard. Part One appeared masses in revolt. What also in Workers Vanguard No. 795 became clear was that the pro­ (17 January). letariat was still too weak to vie for power in an immediate sense. It was the experience PART TWO OF TWO of the betrayals of the bour­ geoisie in the 1848 revolutions Revolutionary defeatism (that that led Marx to emphasize the is, fighting for the defeat of necessity of organizing the pro­ all belligerent powers in a war letariat in a party independent through socialist revolution) and of all other classes. This was revolutionary defensism (stand­ elucidated in an 1850 speech ing for the military defense of a where he said: backward country against an im­ "Our task [is] to make the rev­ perialist or predatory power) are olution permanent, until all generalities that help to guide more or less possessing classes have been forced out of their Marxists, but they are not dog­ position of dominance, the pro­ mas. Marxism is a living science, letariat has conquered state and is therefore anti-dogmatic. power, and the association of The positions we hold on war F. G. Nordmann proletarians, not only in one today are a product of the de­ Workers barricades in Berlin during 1848 Revolution. Across Europe, revolutionary wave sought country but in all the dominant countries of the world, has velopment of both capitalism to eradicate last vestiges of feudalism, but was betrayed by bourgeoisies' alliance with reaction. advanced so far that compe­ and the Marxist and workers tition among the proletarians in movements. Along those lines, it is useful Within France, the radical bourgeois Marx and Engels still saw revolutionary these countries has ceased and that at least to look at how Marxism has historically Jacobins took over in the early 1790s, potential in the European bourgeoisies. the decisive productive forces are concen­ executing the former king and instituting Here's one very interesting example. In trated in the hands of the proletarians. For approached the question of war. us the issue cannot be the alteration of In a certain sense, Marxism came on a regime of revolutionary democracy and a January 1848 article by Engels, he private property but only its annihilation, the scene with the publication of the terror against the counterrevolution. By supports-repeat, supports-the French not the smoothing over of class antago­ Communist Manifesto, which was written the end of the 18th century, however, the invasion of Algeria-i.e., he still saw the nisms but the abolition of classes, not the in late 1847, on the eve of a great and Jacobins had been overthrown by right­ potential for Napoleonic-type wars by improvement of the existing society but the foundation of a new one." general upheaval throughout Europe. To wing elements. The social revolution was the French bourgeoisie: The 1848 revolutions were defeated by understand war and Marxism at that time, not overturned but the regime of mass "The conquest of Algeria is an important a series of betrayals as well as military one has to understand that this was a political democracy was replaced by one and fortunate fact for the progress of defeats by stronger forces of reaction. period marking about the end of when of dictatorial bonapartism against the civilisation .... And if we may regret that the liberty of the Bedouins of the desert And throughout, one thing became clear: the bourgeoisie was still a revolutionary, masses. This found its most profound has been destroye4, we must not forget the power that stood behind the most and hence a progressive class. Though it expression in Napoleon-a former Jaco­ that these same Bedouins were a nation reactionary forces elsewhere in Europe­ wasn't the first bourgeois revolution, the bin-who ruled France as emperor until of robbers.... All these nations of free itself the most reactionary power in Great French Revolution of 1789 was the 1814. Napoleon, for his own expansionist barbarians look very proud, noble and glorious at a distance, but only come near Europe-was Russia. most decisive in bringing the bourgeoisie reasons,1llso waged war against Europe. them and you will find that they, as well Russia was hated and feared by all pro­ to political power and destroying feudal" And in the process he did something quite as the more civilised nations, are ruled gressive forces in Europe. It was one of the ism in that country. Within' a-few years, extraordinary. Most everywhere he went, by the lust of gain, and only employ ruder and more cruel means. And after all, last places where outright feudalism still the modern bourgeois, with civilisation, thrived, where the peasants were still industry, order, and at least relative chained in serfdom and where there was enlightenment following him, is prefer­ no independent bourgeoisie to compete able to the feudal lord or the marauding robber, with the barbarian state of society with the tsarist monarchy. And it was a t? which they belong." very strong power that also had allies in Marx and Engels would soon come to Europe. In 1848, Marx and Engels genu­ recognize that occupation by the Euro­ inely believed that the downfall of Russia Karl Marx and pean powers distorted the development of would open the floodgates for revolu­ Friedrich Engels, backward countries, and that chauvinism tionary forces throughout the continent, authors of among the proletariat in the advanced because it would remove the most substan­ Communist countries was a huge obstacle to socialist tial obsracle to revolution-a strong state Manifesto and consciousness. defending an outmoded system of produc­ founders of The revolutions of 1848 had a couple of tion. So they favored any war waged by proletarian any European power against Russia. socialism. characteristics. They were democratic rev~ olutions, uprisings to bring about political democracy as well as to destroy any rem­ The National Question nants left of feudalism in Europe. In Ger­ Now, there is another point that plays a many, the revolution also had the vital strong role in Marx and Engels' attitude to Progress Publishers W. E. Debenham character of attempting to unify the coun­ war around 1848, and that's the national France was invaded by a terrified feudal whether it be Italy, Germany, or elsewhere, try, which until 1871 was split into numer­ question. One of the great gains of the Europe, and in tum France waged war on he overturned the existing feudal property ous princely states, each ruled by its own bourgeois revolutions, like. the French, Europe. And it was a new soldier that was relations and instituted in their place prince or king. The revolutions initially was the .consolidation of the nation-state fighting in France, not one fighting to bourgeois property forms. He had to base involved all the classes of society, except, on the basis of bourgeois rule. This was defend the land or property of his feu­ his rule on the property forms on which of course, the feudal-derived classes. But progressive in relation to feudalism. It dal lord, but one fighting for the nation, his power rested-bourgeois property a couple of things became clear as the ,meant the breaking down of provincial for something broader than his own pro­ forms. Napoleon himself had an under­ revolutions continued. The first is that the barriers-i.e., whether someone's from vincial existence-for the defense and standing of what he was doing; he called bourgeoisie feared the prospect of revolu­ Normandy or another French province, spreading of enormous gains and unprec­ himself a "soldier of the Revolution." tionary upheaval more than the domi-. everyone becomes a citizen of France. The edented promises of liberty, equality and Now, the reason I went through all this nance of the landed nobility politically creation of a single nation-state meant the fraternity. was to impress the point that in 1848, and even to a certain extent economically. continued on page 6 31 JANUARY 2003 5 as a class still in its infancy. They saw that ularly in the early phase, when it was Wilhelm and place all sorts of secondary Marxism, War... the class contradictions between bour­ defensive. considerations before the main one, (continued from page 5) geois and worker in Europe, while emerg­ In 1870, the North German Parliament seems to me impossible." ing, were still partial, and that therefore (or Reichstag), which was controlled by Engels goes on to emphasize a six-point consolidation of a single currency and of the key task for the European continent Prussia, took a vote on war credits. The program for the propaganda of the party: a capitalist system of production, which was the full development of capitalist two main Marxist representatives there "1) join the national movement .. .insofar meant the greater development of indus­ relations in order to facilitate the full and for so long as it is limited to the were Wilhelm Liebknecht (the revolu­ defence of Germany .... try and, in turn, the growth of the work­ development of the proletariat. Hence tionary Karl Liebknecht's father) and ing class, which at the time was still in its "2) at the same time emphasise the dif­ their outlook was colored by a view of German socialist leader August Bebel. ference between German national and infancy. One country meant one working progressive and reactionary nations­ Wilhelm Liebknecht was determined to dynastic-Prussian interests; class and a single official language-i.e., progressive being those that facilitated vote no on the war credits because of "3) oppose any ANNEXATION of Alsace the tearing down of barriers within that the growth of capitalist development and genuiJ)e opposition to German imperial and Lorraine .... nation-state dividing the proletariat. The reactionary being those that hindered it, designs as well as less savory reasons. "4) as soon as a non-chauvinistic republi­ abolition or'serfdom meant the downfall can government is at the helm in Paris, Russia prime among the latter. The only Liebknecht came from southern Ger­ work for an honourable peace with it; of the feudal lord and the freeing up of the Slavic nationalist movement that Marx many, which was extremely resentful of peasant population to become workers. "5) constantly stress the unity of interests and Engels supported was the Polish Prussian power. Marx and Engels repeat­ between the German and French workers, All this meant that small populations one, because Poland was occupied and edly took him to task for trying to form who did not approve of the war and are within the boundaries of greater powers, oppressed by Russia. alliances with reactionary South Ger­ also not making war on each other; or even outside them-small peoples, as man forces against the Prussians. Appar­ "6) Russia, as in the Address of the Marx and Engels called them-should be The Franco-Prussian War ently, Bebel had a screaming fight with International. " assimilated, i.e., Marx and Engels gener­ If you jump ahead a little over 20 years, Liebknecht and they compromised and What this last one meant was that if Rus­ ally opposed the right of national self­ it is interesting to look at what changed abstained on the vote for war credits. sia tried to interfere in the war, Germany determination for "small peoples." and what didn't for Marx, as well as This vote is important. Both Luxem­ should declare war on Russia. To give you a sense of what this in terms of economic developments in burg and Lenin turned to it in the course The question of the vote on war credits meant, you can look at where these two by Liebknecht and Bebel is interesting. I questions-Russia as the center of all could find nothing from either Marx or evil in Europe and the national ques­ Engels that ever refers to the vote. In a tion-intersected with war: the question sense, they did not care much how the of pan-Slavism. The South Slavs, gener­ Marxists in parliament voted on the ques­ ally the people who occupy the Balkans tion. It certainly was not an issue of prin­ today, were "small peoples." Much like ciple. The German workers movement at their Slavic cousins in Russia, they were that time was divided into two wings, one ruled by feudal reaction, and much like led by those who claimed adherence to in Russia at the time, Marx and Engels Marxism and the other led by followers did not believe there was any internal of Ferdinand Lassalle, who had died in base there to fight for democratic revolu­ 1864. Since 1866, the Lassalleans had tions. And it's not just that they resem­ consistently voted for war credits in favor bled Russia, but they were backed to of the Prussians. To my knowledge, while the hilt by Russia, and any ally of Rus­ Marx and Engels polemicized against sia, according to Marx and Engels, did the Lassalleans' overt allegiance to Bis­ not deserve the least bit of sympathy. In marck, they never took on the question of fact, it was Russian-backed Slavic forces war credits. When the Lassalleans and the that militarily suppressed the 1848-49 followers of Marx unified at the Gotha uprisings in Vienna, Austria. So, as little Congress in the mid 1870s, forming what peoples who are allies of the greatest force would later become the Social Demo­ for reaction, they should have no rights cratic Party of Germany (SPD), Marx of self-determination and, according to issued his scathing critique of the Gotha ." .. ·.;,.> .. ,.#j;:,::i£t:::;··'~.· :-:.:.:.: Marx and Engels, should in fact be as­ "~Fi~ger-Viollet program. That document, while ripping similated. Here are a few lines from Paris Commune of 1871. Communards and National Guardsmen stand over apart much of what appeared in the unifi­ an 1849 article by Engels, written after toppled statue of Louis Napoleon, symbol of bourgeois rule. cation program, never addressed the Slavic forces moved in and crushed the question of war credits and in the end Viennese rebellion: Europe. In 1870 the Franco-Prussian War of World War I to make the point that supported the unity of the German work­ "There is no country in Europe which broke out. Germany was not a unified even in a war where the Marxists had a ers movement. does not have in some corner or other nation, and its unification was a major side, we did not vote for war credits, i.e., one or several ruined fragments of peo­ Imperialism and Opportunism ples, the remnant of a former population goal of the Marxists for the reasons Iout­ we did not place confidence in the bour­ that was suppressed and held in bond­ lined earlier. Through a series of wars, geoisie to carry out a defensive war and During the period between the.1870-71 age by the nation which later became particularly one in 1866, what became keep it defensive. After the vote, Lieb­ Franco-Prussian War and the beginning the main vehicle of historical develop­ clear was that the Prussian leader Bis­ of World War I in 1914, the nature of ment. These relics of a nation mercilessly knecht apparently went back to his job as trampled under foot in the course of his­ marck was to make Prussia the dominant co-editor of a socialist newspaper, and capitalist development and hence the tory, as Hegel says, these residual frag­ region of a unified Germany and himself there were several fights with him on the nature of the workers movement had ments of peoples always become fanati­ the dominant leader. The prospect of editorial board because he did not want changed qualitatively-in ways that have cal standard-bearers of counter-revolution revolution uniting Germany was bleak. to concede any support for the war on fundamentally determined our attitude and remain so until their complete extir­ pation or loss of their national character, Bismarck was carrying out unification, the Prussian side. Finally, the ed board toward war ever since. This period was just as their whole existence in general is except it was under the jackboot of Prus­ appealed to Marx directly and Marx known as the period of general peace in itself a protest against a great historical sian militarism, through a series of wars. asked Engels for his opinion. Europe. But this peace in Europe stood in revolution .... The final one-of these wars, and the When you look at the original docu­ sharp contrast to the many reactionary "Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist most decisive, was between Prussia and ments and letters on this debate, what colonial wars carried out by the European Southern Slavs, who are nothing but the France, then under the rule of Emperor powers in Asia and Africa for the forma­ residual fragment of peoples, resulting comes across is a furious argument with from an extremely confused thousand Napoleon III, who gained power in 1851 Liebknecht over the propaganda he was tion of colonies. An extremely significant years of development .... after the defeat of the French 1848 Revo­ putting out in the course of the war, which step took place in this period, which "The next world war will result in the dis­ lution. Bonaparte was determined that had an abstentionist and neutral quality. was the development of imperialism, a appearance from the face of the earth not Germany not unify, as it would become a Here is a quote from an August 1870 let­ system of modern, decaying capitalism. only of reactionary classes and dynasties, major competitor with French power, so ter to Marx that explains how Engels In this stage the nation-state had be­ but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward." he declared war on Prussia. What was viewed the question and why he and come a barrier to further progressive eco­ - The Magyar Struggle, January Marx's position on this pivotal war? Marx supported the war: nomic and productive development. To 1849 [emphasis in original] Marx's The Civil War in France pre­ "The case seems to me to be as follows: continue to compete on the international Engels and Marx would later substan­ sents his views on this war as well as on Germany has been driven by Badinguet scale, the capitalists had to occupy and tially soften their position on the South the Paris Commune of 1871, which was [Napoleon III] into a war for her national exploit colonies and spheres of economic existence. If Badinguet defeats her, Bona­ Slavs, also recognizing the internal con­ the first time the working class had any partism will be strengthened for years and influence, exporting finance capital. The tradictions that were being played o~t in experience with political power, though it Germany broken for years, perhaps for first country to go imperialist was Britain, Russia. And it wasn't long after 1848 that was only in the city of Paris and lasted generations. In that event there can be no the last, right before the turn of the cen­ they would develop a very different atti­ less than three months. Marx considered question any more of an independent tury, were Germany, the U.S. and Japan. tude toward colonialism, expressed, for the Franco-Prussian War predatory on the German working-class movement either; The rise of imperialism had significant the struggle to restore Germany's national example, by their impassioned and pow­ side of France. "On the German side," he existence will absorb everything, and at effects both on the workers movement erful defense of the Sepoy rebellion in wrote, "the war is a war of defence," i.e., best the German workers will be dragged and the nature of war in Europe and British-occupied India in the late 1850s. Marxists had a side in this war, but only in the wake of the French. If Germany around the world. On the national question, by the late 1860s as long as it remained defensive, becahse wins, French Bonapartism will at any rate In the early social-democratic move­ be smashed, the endless row about the Marx and Engels called for the inde­ its victory meant German unification. The establishment of German unity will at last ment, including its revolutionary Marxist pendence of Ireland from English rule, war did not remain defensive, and Marx be over, the German workers will be able wing, the source of opportunism was explaining the importance this held not had no illusions that it would. The Prus­ to organise on a national scale quite dif­ consistently defined as coming from out­ only for Irish but also English workers. In sians won, Bismarck united Germany, ferent from that prevailing hitherto, and side the workers movement. Opportunist 1870, Marx wrote that the antagonism and he then proceeded to advance into the French workers, whatever sort of gov­ tendencies, it was argued, were a survi­ ernment may succeed this one, are certain between Irish and English workers was France and take over the region of Alsace­ to have a freer field than under Bona­ val of petty-bourgeois democracy carried "the secret of the impotence of the English Lorraine. And at that point, Marx's atti­ partism. The whole mass of the German mainly by the intelligentsia and condi­ working class .... It is the secret by which tude toward the war changed, especially people of every class have realised that tioned by the economic and ideological the capitalist class maintains its power." with the outbreak of the workers rebellion this is first and foremost a question of backwardness or immaturity of the work­ national existence and have therefore at But what must be understood is that at in Paris. For our purposes, though, what I once flung themselves into the fray. That ing masses. This definition of opportun­ the time of the 1848 revolutions and wars, want to look at is the conduct of the in these circumstances a German political ism derived from the history of the Euro­ Marx and Engels viewed the proletariat Marxists in relation to the war, partic- party should preach total abstention a la pean left in the decades follow'ing the 6 WORKERS VANGUARD 1848 revolutions. The principal tenden­ ers power. If ,not for that, there would uKIL..L.. EVERY ONE OVER TEN.'·'l] cies opposed to Marxism-Lassalleanism, ,-OEN. JACOB If. SMITH. have been no Russian Revolution (see the for example-were not political repre­ Spartacist pamphlet, Lenin and the Van­ sentatives of the organic movement of guard Party) .• the industrial working class. Rather, they represented the European artisan classes The First World War and their struggle against being thrown Now, on the question of the changes in into the industrial proletariat. the nature of war itself, it's interesting to It was understood that Marxism super­ note Lenin's ~omments on Luxemburg's seded such tendencies through the trans­ 1916 antiwar pamphlet written under the formation of the urban artisan classes into pseudonym of Junius. There were several a modem yroletariat; he)1ce, the struggles lines of criticism. One was over a state­ by MarJ5, and Engels for national unifica­ ment in the piece that strongly implied tion and the full development of capital­ that national wars of liberation were no ist relations where they were retarded. longer possible under imperialism. This By the tum of the century, this definition question has been dealt with already in of 'opportunism played very much into the discussions on revolutionary defens­ solidifying the conception of the party of ism (see Part One of this article in the whole class-that a workers party Workers Vanguard No. 795, 17 January). Another major criticism, though, is that should encompass every political tendency .~ in the workers movement. It was argued in the pamphlet, Luxemburg speaks of that since opportunism came from outside .-..... ,.~:'. ',"7:~;~~' defense of the fatherland against invasion, the workers movement, the growth of the '" . ~ ~:$il"":::, how the right wing of the Social Democ­ proletariat and of its organization would racy actually undermined this and left the eventually strengthen the revolutionary ten­ NY Public Library fatherland unprotected. She wrote that dencies in Social Democracy. Here is a Drawing depicts atrocities by U.S. occupation forces in Philippines following socialists should: 1898 Spanish-American War, which marked emergence of U.S. as imperialist quote from SPD leader Karl Kautsky"s "oppose the imperialist war programme ... power. with the old, truly national programme 1909 The Road to Power, which tried' of the patriots and democrats of 1848, to explain the weakness of revolutionary viks were far stronger in relation to the relationship between imperialism and the programme of Marx, Engels and Lassalle-the slogan of a united, Great Social Democracy by pointing to the back­ Leninists than they had been in 1912. opportuni~m were Lenin's pamphlet wardness of the proletariat, which, Kaut­ German Republic .... Hence, the grave In some of his writings, Lenin began Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Cap­ dilemma-the interests of the fatherland sky argued, reflected either a continued to recognize the inadequate nature of this italism (written in early 1916), his article or the international solidarity of the identification with the petty bourgeoisie or theory of opportunism. For example, in an "Imperialism and the Split in Socialism" proletariat-the tragic conflict which a lack of confidence in the strength of the April 1914 polemic against Leon Trotsky (October 1916), and The War and the prompted our parliamentarians to side, workers movement: 'with a heavy heart,' with the imperialist titled "Unity," he anticipates a split in Crisis of Socialism (August 1916) by war, is purely imaginary, it is a bourgeois "To a large degree hatched out of the principle with opportunists in the work­ Bolshevik leader Gregory Zinoviev. In small capitalist and small farmer class, nationalist fiction. On the contrary, there many proletarians long carry the shells ers movement, writing: his book, Zinoviev addressed the question is complete harmony between the inter­ of these classes about with them. They "There can be no unity, federal or other, of opportunism in relation to the German ests of the country and the class interests do not feel themselves proletarians, but with liberal-labor politicians, with dis­ Social Democracy: of the proletarian International, both in time of war and in time of peace; both as would-be property owners .... Others, rupters of the working-class movement, "When we speak of the 'treachery of the again, have gone further, and have come with those who defy the will of the major­ war and peace demand the most ener­ leaders' we do not say by this that it was getic development of the class struggle, to recognize the necessity of fighting the ity. There can and must be unity among all a deep-laid plol, that it was a consciously capitalists that stand in antagonism to consistent Marxists, among all those who the most determined fight for the Social­ perpetrated sell-out of the workers' inter­ Democratic programme." ests, Far from it. But consciousness is conditioned by existence, not vice versa. Lenin makes the 'point that the author of The entire social essence of this caste Of the text is clearly a revolutionary, but labor bureaucrats led inevitably, through that approaching the question in that way the outmoded pace set for the move­ leaves room for opportunists to maneu­ ment in the 'peacefuI' pre-war period, ver. He explains that "in saying that the to complete bourgeoisification of their 'consciousness.' The entire social posi­ class struggle is the best means of de­ tion into which this numerically strong fence against invasion, Junius applies caste of leaders had climbed over the Marxist dialectics only half way .... Civil backs of the working class made them a war against the bourgeoisie is also a form social group which objectivelY must be regarded as an agency of the imperialist of class struggle, and only this form of bourgeoisie, " class struggle would have saved Europe The German SPD's 4 August 1914 vote (the whole of Europe, not only one coun­ Rosa Luxemburg for war credits was not some error that try) from the peril of invasion." agitates against war could be repaired, as Kautsky claimed, In the Junius Pamphlet, Luxemburg preparations, 1907. but the full flowering of the development broke only partially from the old social­ of Social Democracy over the previous democratic approach to war and nation­ couple of decades. Hugo Haase, the SPD al defense. She harks back to 1848, national chairman, declared after the when national unification and national­ vote, ':In its hour of periL we shall not democratic struggle against feudal reac­ abandon the Fatherland." The German tion, both internally and externally, were on Kaiser, gratified, replied: "I no longer the order of the day. The SPD right wing, know parties, I know only Germans." in justifying their vote for war credits, them, but do not feel themselves secure stand forthe entire Marxist body and the cynically pointed to how Marx and Engels enough and strong enough to declare uncurtailed slogans, independently of the Thus the national unity drive between war on the entire capitalist systeQl. These liquidators and apart from them. the long-growing opportunist wing of the would have in 1848 supported Germany look to capitalist parties and governments "Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. Social Democracy and the German rulers in a war against Russia. In turn, Luxem­ for relief." But what the workers' cause needs is was sealed, and it took the whole party burg inverted ·the argument by giving as the unity of Marxists, not unity between In other words, it is entirely a question of with it. Lenin was absolutely right about the theoretical basis for her opposition to ideology. Marxists, and opponents and distorters of the war the outmoded program of 1848 Marxism." ' the necessity to shatter any alliances with With the partial exception of Rosa the social-chauvinists. The fact that he -i.e., before the development of imperi­ But it was only with the outbreak of Luxemburg, every revolutionary Social fought to break revolutionary workers in alism. But as Lenin pointed out: the First World War that the nature of "At the present time, the objective situa­ Democrat accepted this definition of the Russia from opportunism in all its forms opportunism became more widely clear. tion in the biggest advanced states of source of opportunism, including Lenin. laid the basis for the building of a van­ Opportunism was in fact not something Europe is different. Progress, if we leave For example, until the beginning of the guard party, which has proved to be the that emerged outside the workers move­ out for the moment the possibility of First World War, Lenin generally char­ absolutely necessary and too often miss­ temporary steps backward, can be made ment but was a component of the workers acterized the Russian Mensheviks as ing component of the struggle for work- continued on page 8 a petty-bourgeois intellectual tendency movement. It was not merely a question outside the workers moveme~t. When of ideology but of the material interests asked to justify the formal split in 1912 of the labor bureaucracy. The bourgeoi­ between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, sie was able to buy off the bulk of the First published in 1978, this Lenin argued that the bulk of the class­ labor bureaucracy, what American Marx­ pamphlet provides a detailed conscious workers' movement in Russia ist Daniel De Leon called the "labor lieu­ historical and theoretical rallied to the side of the Bolsheviks, while tenants of the capitalist class"-as well account of Lenin's struggle the Mensheviks' base consisted largely of as a tiny minority of the working class, for a vanguard party. intellectuals. This argument had its lim­ the labor aristocracy-through tile spoils Includes: "In Defense of its, though. Empirically, at the time of of imperialist plunder. Democratic Centralism" the split, it may have been true, but the We often make the point that the AFL­ view that the Mensheviks were outside CIO officialdom views the world through This edition also includes: the workers movement was impressionis­ the same lens as the capitalist rulers. This "The Fight for a Leninist tic. The wave of patriotism that swept is not simply ideological, but has its roots Vanguard Party" Russia with the outbreak of World War I, in the fact that for these labor tops to retain including among workers, served to in­ their privileged position atop the labor $2 (56 pages) crease the proletarian base of the oppor­ movement, they not only need the mainte­ Order from/make checks payable to: tunist Mensheviks at the expense of the nance of capitalism but also benefit from Bolsheviks, who had a revolutionary the dominance of their own imperialist Spartacist Publishing Co. defeatist line. So, by the time of the Feb- ~ bourgeoisie. Box 1377 G~O, New York, NY 10116 ruary Revolution of 1917, the Menshe- The first writings to deal with the 31 JANUARY 2003 7 their rulers. For example, the sentiment of fear the legal electoral work of the party the other way and go back and join the Marxism, War... pacifism among the working population more than its illegal work, he concludes: working class in fighting your main enemy. (continued from page 7) in a country like Germany, which has lost "Rebellion in the old style, street fighting The American army today is not a draft with barricades, which decided the issue army. But it's a unique volunteer army. only in the direction of socialist society, two world wars, is understandable. Like­ only in the direction of the socialist revo­ wise, there is the sense that antiwar activ­ everywhere up to 1848, had become The U.S. is the most powerful state in lution. From the standpoint of progress, ity must centrally be mobilized against largely outdated. Let us have no illusions the world, and therefore must maintain a from the standpoint of the progressive American imperialism, since it is Ameri­ about it: a real victory of insurrection over strong and large military. And the num­ class, the imperialist bourgeois war, the can imperialism that is waging most of the military in street fighting, a victory as bers come from working-class and minor­ war of highly developed capitalism, can, objectively, be opposed only with a war the wars out there. between two armies, is one of the rarest ity youth. They do this through what we against the bourgeoisie, i.e., primarily We solidarize with those who protest exceptions." When this was published in call an economic draft-inducing poor civil war for power between the proletar­ the crimes of U.S. imperialism. But we the SPD's theoretical journal in 1895, it and working-class kids to join the mili­ iat and the bourgeoisie .... tary in return for financial, educational "Junius came very cleJse to the correct and employment benefits. So, in its com­ solution of the problem and to the cor­ rect slogan: civil war against the bour­ position, the U.S. Army more resembles geoisie for socialism; but, as if afraid to a draft army than a volunteer one. Marx­ speak the whole truth, he turned back, to ists are not bloodthirsty fiends who savor the fantasy ofa 'national war' in 1914, the idea of American working-class youth 1915 and 1916." getting killed. Any such deaths are the How classical Social Democracy re­ direct responsibility of the bourgeoisie. garded defensive and predatory wars is But we also stand for the military defeat quite different from how we look at the of U.S. imperialism and understand that question. In Karl Liebknecht's 1907 book such defeats can have profound effects titled Militarism and Anti-Militarism, not only on soldiers but also on society at for example, the way he defines the nature large. As the experience of the Vietnam of a war is over who fired first. For exam­ War shows, the casualties and the hatred ple, if France and Germany go to war and Bolshevik antiwar for the war among many of the troops agitator addresses France initiates it, it would be defensive resulted in a major meltdown in the on the part of Germany and predatory on Russian troops at the front during American military. The Vietnamese fight­ the part of France. The problem is, you ers understood this, and issued propa­ see, the whole nature of war had changed. World War I. In Latvia, Bolsheviks ganda especially to black enlisted men The compulsion for interimperialist war in the army such as the following: "U.S. Negro Army­ is not so that France and Germany could published "Pravda men! You are committing the same igno­ annex part of each other's countries. If it of the Trenches." minious crimes in South Vietnam that the were, then one could speak of the defense KKK clique is perpetrating against your of Germany against tsarist aggression family at home." even in the context of World War 1. But it The opening pages of the Junius wasn't. Wars between imperialist powers Pamphlet powerfully capture the scenes are to divide and re-divide imperialist on German streets during World War I, spheres of influence, to fight over who once jubilant with patriotic fervor but will dominate the colonial and semicolo­ now depressed with the heavy weight of nial countries. In the process, Germany VAAP countless corpses: would attack France and vice versa, but also warn against any illusions that Ger­ caused a stir. The right wing interpreted it "The show is over. The German sages, the the nature of the war is predatory and man imperialism could be a lesser evil as Engels saying that violent revolution vacillating spirits, have long since taken their leave. No more do trains filled with reactionary on both sides. than American imperialism. That Ger­ was impossible, at least in Germany, that And it is this understanding of imperi­ reservists pull out amid the joyous cries of man imperialism is itself not waging a what was left was legal parliamentary enthusiastic maidens. We no longer see alism and war that has guided genuine large scale war against the peoples of the work. However, when the SPD published their laughing faces, smiling cheerily at Marxists since World War I. But there world is largely a product of its military the article, they removed its revolutionary the people from the train windows. They trot through the streets quietly, with their are important differences today. Most of inferiority in contrast to the U.S. Any rec­ content-just edited it out. Engels wrote the peoples in the dependent world are sacks on their shoulders. And the public, tification of this imbalance will necessar­ them a furious letter stating that they made with a disturbed face, goes about its daily not now subject to direct colonial rule ily be accompanied by increased auster­ him look like a "good democrat." But that, tasks. but to imperialist economic domination ity and militarization at home, that is, at too, was kept secret. "In the sober atmosphere of pale daylight through the agency of local bourgeoisies. the expense of the working masses. There In fact, Engels makes the point that in there rings out a different chorus: the hoarse croak of the vultures and hyenas The collapse of the Soviet degenerated is therefore a direct link between opposi­ the classic time of street fighting, "the workers state in 1991-92, in removing a of the battlefield .... The patriotic cannon tion to imperialist plunder-plunder car­ barricade produced more of a moral than fodder that was loaded into the trains in common enemy and point of unity for ried out by another imperialist power- a material effect. It was a means of shak­ August and September rots on the battle­ the imperialists, has meant a resurgence . and defense of working-class interests in ing the steadfastness of the military. If it fields of Belgium and the Vosges, while in rivalries between the imperialists simi­ ." a country like Germany. held out until this was attained, victory profits are springing like weeds into the fields of the dead. The harvest must be lar to the pre-1914 days. But unlike that was won; if not, the outcome was defeat. time, when you had a number of rela­ Revolutionary Work in the Army brought quickly from the barns. From This is the main point which must be kept across the ocean a thousand greedy hands tively equal Great Powers, today there is Friedrich Engels' introduction to Marx's in view, also when examining the outlook want to take part in the plunder." a sole superpower. The Class Struggles in France 1848 to for possible future street fighting." In It was Lenin's Bolshevik Party that That situation cannot continue forever, 1850 has an extraordinary clause that the publishing the article, Bebel and Kautsky understood how to take the justified but it does define how the American rul­ right-wing socialists latched onto around took out that last sentence about future desire for peace among Russia's working ers act, how their imperialist rivals act the tum of the last century. After talking street fighting. Connected with this, later masses and tum it into a struggle for social and how antiwar activists, particularly in about the importance of universal suf­ in the article Engels makes what may revolution and working-class power. And Europe, may view their relations with frage, about how the bourgeoisie came to appear to be a cryptic point: that the in our work on war, we really invent noth­ ancient Roman Empire, in its decay and as ing new. We study and learn the lessons of it was persecutipg Christians, had within the past in order to be able to intervene its army a growing number of Christians into the struggles of today. We know that who were extremely useful when they the mightiest empires can fall, that this gained power. I.e., having supporters of terribly arrogant ruling class with its your program in the military can be very absurd designs of world domination also beneficial. sits atop a volcano waiting to erupt, that Not knowing about the missing parts of will one day erupt against the exploitation the article, which only got published after and oppression the mass of the popula­ the Russian Revolution, in 1907 Karl tion daily lives through. Our struggle as a Liebknecht published Militarism and Anti­ fighting propaganda group is to intervene Militarism. Engels' point was that be­ into every situation armed with the revo­ cause of technology and organization, the lutionary program of Marxism in order capitalist armies had grown far too large to win over the cadre that can assemble and powerful to be defeated in street bat­ a workers party to sweep away the capital­ tle. Liebknecht's point was that because ist system. of technology and organization, more than Since the destruction of the USSR, ever the capitalist armies rely heavily on the U.S. has grown dizzy with one mili­ the working class for their cannon fodder. tary success after another, and the cur­ These are workers in military uniform, rent displays of imperialist arrogance who can be influenced by revolutionary are a distillation of that unprecedented propaganda. The army must be split by string of victories. War is an inevitable winning its proletarian base to the fight part of capitalist imperialism. And if Novosti for socialism through revolutionary work this system remains in place, whatever 7 November 1918: Red Army soldiers parade in Moscow with banner hailing in the military. And in fact, that's exactly slaughter may take place in Iraq will soon "Communism." what the Bolsheviks did. There was be overshadowed by the prospect of war already mass disaffection in the Russian between the real powers, including with The ICL has long published the above photo with date given as 1917, based on army, with huge numbers of soldiers nuclear weapons. This underlines both the best documentation available. Recent research, including in the newly access­ deserting by the beginning of 1917. And, the urgency and seriousness of the tasks ible Russian State Cinema-Documentation Archives (Krasnogorsk) has led us to it should be noted, Liebknecht's slogan­ faced by Marxists-that truly, now more conclude that this photo was taken on 7 November 1918, at a Moscow celebration "the main enemy is at home"-was not than ever, humanity is faced with the pros­ of the first anniversary of the October Revolution. initially directed at the workers, but at the pect of either socialist liberation or impe- soldiers on the front-i.e., tum your guns rialist barbarism. • . 8 WORKERS VANGUARD not fix the mess. To his credit, Ryan assembled a blue-ribbon panel to examine the state's death system, and the commis­ sion, after three years, came to a political, yet system­ atic, conclusion: "The system is broken." The com­ mission, composed of prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers and scholars, joined in the report, and issued some 85 recommendations to "fix" the system, includ­ ing the recording of confessions, from beginning to Gov. Ryan's Song end, the end of "jailhouse confessions," (which are notoriously unreliable, yet influential to unknowing Gov. George Ryan, in the last passing days of his ico, and a non-lawyer ("I'm a pharmacist," he repeat­ jurors), and a host of others. The legislature opted to first and only term, saved the best for last. edly explained) would be the one to solve these deep ignore the recommendations, just as the state's high­ He. sent shock waves across the nation when he and troubling problems. It is equally as fitting that the est judiciary chose to ignore many of the most blatant issued four pardons to men sitting on the Condemned problems of the Illinois death system came to light, injustices, and Ryan, the "non-lawyer," felt compelled Units of the state's prison system, opening the doors not through the members of the Bar, but through the to act. of the dungeon for four men, one who sat in the meanderings of students of journalism, whose investi­ If the system is broken, how can the system fix the . shadow of the gallows for nearly two decades. Speak­ gations led to the ultimate conclusion voiced by Ryan system? ing in a soft, Midwestern accent, his words were some years later: "The system is broken." Ryan's very extraordinary act, seems to suggest, as damning as the death sentences that his orders Hours after his unprecedented announcement of that it cannot. For while those four men are free of negated: "The system is broken." the pardon package, Ryan's office would announce unjust convictions, are they the only four innocents on With these orders, he ushered four men, Stanley another earth-shattering event: the full commutation the state's large Death Row, or larger Life Row? That Howard, Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson, and Leroy of every man on Death Row in the Prairie State. By the seems unlikely. Orange, from the darkest corners of the land, into the end of the week, 167 folks would no longer be on In another sense, as the underlying system remains light. Quoting a tale of that famed Illinoisan, Lincoln, Death Row. tightly embedded in place, what of those to come? How he recalled the job of the nation's chief executive, Elected as a conservative Republican who "never many years will other innocents suffer in the suffocat­ who, reviewing execution orders for those who were gave a moment's thought" to the rightness or morality ing holds of steel and brick slave ships (prisons) before convicted of violating the military code during the of the death penalty, Ryan would be the last politician another scandal threatens the stability of the system? Civil War, asked one of his generals why one young one would expect would strike down the nation's 7th Like the notorious cycle of police corruption cases man had no letters in his file from any who wished his largest Death Row in the United States. that plagues U.S. cities, like New York, Philadelphia, life spared. The General, shrugging his shoulders With a hoarse voice, his nervousness evident by his Los Angeles and-yes-Chicago, the problem isn't matter-of-factly, said, "He's got no friends." Lincoln, fidgety presentation, the one-term gov.ernor struck a fixed, but passed on to later administrations. lifting his pen, remarked, "He's got one friend," and mighty blow against the Death System in America. It seems an abolition movement must take this, not pardoned the man from the clutches of the hangman. Exercising a breadth of vision that is truly remark­ as a final victory, but as a first step of a systematic Ryan said those four denizens of Death Row, each able in an American sitting (albeit departing) politi­ battle for real change. having been subjected to police torture, falsified con­ cian, Ryan spoke of the problems facing not just those We may all agree that the system is broken. But fessions, prosecutorial misconduct, and judicial blind­ condemned to death, but in the processes, prosecu­ that mere agreement does not insure that that which ness to these vile transgressions, had one friend, and tions, and judgments affecting those condemned to is broken will indeed be fixed. decided to cut the Gordian knot, by issuing full par­ "life." His words were a rare gubernatorial recognition 11 January 2003 dons to the four, and proving a friend to men who had of the deficits in the system entire: "The system has ©2003 Mumia Abu-Jamal few real friends in the dark, deserted abode of death. proven itself to be wildly inaccurate, unjust, unable to Before day's end, three of the four walked away from separate the innocent from the guilty ... and racist." the closed cell of state repression, into the fresh air of His commutations of over 150 death sentences, Contribntions are urgently needed for Mumia's a windy Chicago, and freedom. unquestionably stays the cold h~d of death, but it does legal defense. Checks made payable to "SEE By so doing, Ryan has dealt a serious, crippling not address the injustices that led many to Death Row, Mumia Free" should be sent to: Social and Envi­ blow to the state system of death, and the inability of nor keeps them confined on "Life Row," for those prob­ ronmental Entrepreneurs, 20178 Rockport Way, the dignitaries and officials of the system, to cure the lems, those deep cracks in the system, remain. Malibu, CA 90265. serious problems of the death penalty, were shown in It is tragically true that, as Ryan charges, "The sys­ If you wish to correspond with Jamal, you can sharp and stark relief. tem is broken." The bitter truth is his efforts, while write to: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM8335, SCI Greene, It is fitting that Ryan, a one-term, embattled polit- undeniably noble, and unquestionably historic, does 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370.

.8 ~ me Fraternal Order of Police by coming out a IDllf'W;*- .r::: Death Penalty... against Ryan's proposal to require video­ Cl. FR&;:~ t-AUMIA (continued from page 12) taping of all police interrogations, saying ~ it would make it "a lot more harder" to ABU-JAMAL' hopeful Senator Joseph Lieberman, who "convict criminals." This is no aberration railed that "it did terrible damage to coming from Democrats; it was the Clin­ ABOLISH the credibility of our system of justice," ton administration's 1994 omnibus crime and Democratic Chicago mayor Richard bill that expanded the number of offenses HE RACIST Daley, who presided over many of the punishable by death and drastically cur­ ATH PENAL' frame-up prosecutions as Cook County tailed the ability of death row inmates to _,",_'W'5l<~'!&' State's Attorney in the 1980s. The current challenge their convictions. State's Attorney, Richard Devine, also a Among the most vocal Democratic Chicago, August Democrat, has filed suit to overturn ten of Party opponents of the death penalty have 1995: Emergency Ryan's commutations. Meanwhile, his been black politicians like New York's protest against threatened office is revving up to fill theyacancies Al Sharpton and Chicago's Jesse Jackson execution of Ryan opened on death row, seeking death Sr. and Jr., both of whom hailed Ryan's Mumia Abu-Jamal. sentences in 50 new cases which are clemency order. The black Democrats heading to trial. Ryan's successor as gov­ posture as defenders of black and minor­ ernor, Chicago Democratic machine hack ity rights, decrying the "prison-industrial Rod Blagojevich, called Ryan's move "a complex" and police brutality. But their gross injustice." In his race for governor, aim is to refurbish the credentials of the ISO/CEDP campaigns are designed to suspended nationally in 1972, as the Blagojevich won the endorsement of the capitalist "law and order" system by bring in precisely those bourgeois politi­ result of the massive social turmoil cre­ curbing its "excesses" and giving it the cians, like Jackson, whose aim is to "fix" ated by the civil rights movement and appearance of fairness. Jackson Sr. and this system of racist capitalist injustice...... «.: PartiM.n Defen~e U.S. imperialism's losing war in Vietnam . •• t.=nnlndttee other liberals promote as an "alternative" Thus, as moratorium campaigns were But as the level of social struggle ebbed to the death penalty the slow death of life building in several states a few years in the mid-1970s, the death penalty was without parole. This living hell was ago, the ISO/CEDP dropped their call brought back with a vengeance. described in stark terms by Ryan, who to abolish the death penalty in favor of As we wrote at the time of the first exe­ consigned all but a handful of TIlinois' the slogan "Moratorium Now, Abolition cution following the reinstatement of cap­ former death row inmates to life without Next." This was intended to find "com­ ital punishment, the death penalty "'is one parole: "They will be confined in a cell mon ground" with supporters of the death among many proofs of the failure of capi­ that is about 5-feet-by-12-feet, usually penalty who were uneasy about the pros­ talism in its death agony .... The hangman double-bunked. Our prisons have no air pect of executing innocent people. In the and the firing squad will not be elimi­ conditioning, except at our s\,permax same light, CEDP spokesman Alice Kim nated through civil libertarian reforms. facility where inmates are kept' in their proclaimed, "There shouldn't be a death Only the victorious proletarian revolution cell 23 hours a day. In summer months, penalty if there's any chance that inno­ that overthrows the bourgeois state will temperatures in these prisons exceed 100 cent people can be executed" (Socialist abolish the death penalty for good and degrees. It is a stark and dreary exis­ Worker, 26 May 2000). smash the prisons in the course of rooting tence .... Life without parole has even, at In echoing the bourgeois liberals, the out the whole vicious cycle of crime, pun­ times, been described by prosecutors as a ISO and its CEDP obscure the class ishment and repression caused by capital­ fate worse than death." nature of the capitalist state as the instru­ ism" ("State Butchers Gilmore," WV No. $.50 (32 pages) Also hailing Ryan's decision is the ment of organized violence by the rulers 141,21 January 1977). To get rid of the reformist International Socialist Organ­ Order from/pay to: against the exploited and oppressed. As barbaric state machinery of capitalist rtIle ization (ISO) and its Campaign to End long as the capitalist class remains in requires the forging of a workers party, in Partisan Defense Committee the Death Penalty (CEDP), which have power, any gain won by working people, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station opposition to the Democratic and Repub­ New York, NY 10013 been active in recent years in pushing for including even abolition ofthe death pen­ lican parties of capital, to lead the multi­ state moratoriums on executions. The alty, is reversible. The death penalty was racial proletariat to power. .. 31 JANUARY 2003 9 o "5 the ritual incantation in the service of Iraq ... c..~ class collaboration: "We have to have a (continued from page 1) ~ broad level of unity. If we make anti­ imperialism the premise of our work then significant because, even before a mas­ we're building a sect, and I'm too old for sive escalation of the air war or the begin­ that." The aim of such types is not to ning of a ground invasion, there is already mobilize labor's social power in concrete a high degree of proletarian opposition to acts of class struggle against U.S. imperi­ war in Europe. Earlier this month, Scot­ alism-e.g., political protest strikes against tish train drivers engaged in an expressly the war or stopping shipments of military political antiwar class-struggle action by goods. Rather their aim is to organize refusing to deliver war materials slated labor as one more constituent of a pro­ for the largest NATO weapons depot in Democratic Party "peace movement." Europe. In Italy, the metal workers trade­ New York's The political points that the Counter­ health workers Punch article enthuses were left out of the union federation has announced a politi­ union contingent cal strike the day war begins. Chicago resolution are in fact the very at January 18 basis upon which any genuine proletarian In the U.S., the organizers of the Jan­ D.C. protest. uary 18 antiwar protests, Workers World opposition to the war must be mobilized. Party's International ANSWER coalition, Workers must be brought to understand strive above all to keep their liberal­ that they share no interests with their cap­ pacifist movement safe for preachers and italist bosses; that imperialist war is sim­ Democratic Party politicians. The left lib­ ply the extension of capitalism's quest for erals and the occasionally left-speaking the profits that are solely obtained by the sham socialists seek the "reform" of cap­ exploitation of labor; that for the imperi­ italism's excesses and a more "humane" alists guns are butter; that the UN operates imperialism. The "road" to this ersatz slips and watch their pensions go down the entire world." The motion further solely to perpetuate and enforce the utopia is paved by their political subordi­ the drain. In the last two years alone, denounces "the billions of dollars spent to world's domination by the major imperi­ nation to the liberal wing of the Demo­ official unemployment has jumped by 50 stage and execute this war [which] are alist powers. On the side of the U.S., the cratic Party. Insofar as these Democrats percent, from a rate of 3.9 percent to 6 being taken away from our schools, hos­ coming war is completely predatory; on have a different perspective, it is toward percent. This does not include the many pitals, housing and Social Security," says the side of Iraq, it is just and defensive. supporting the "soft" approach of the millions of ghetto and barrio youth who "Bush's drive for war serves as a cover Workers must be won to the military United Nations-i.e., to continue the star­ have never found a job in the first place and distraction for the sinking economy, defense of Iraq against U.S. imperialism's vation blockade and the weapons inspec­ and the millions more long-term unem­ corporate corruption and layoffs," and neocolonial war, recognizing that this in tions and tv secure UN mandate for ployed who are not even counted. condemns "the war [as] a pretext for no way implies any political support to an all-out war. Here, too, the purpose is As the last vestiges of welfare and attacks on labor, civil, immigrant and Saddam Hussein, the butcher of his own to stifle and contain any class-struggle other social programs are shredded, the human rights at home." The conferees working people and oppressed. opposition to the war. number of homeless has skyrocketed in resolved to "promote union, labor and For America's capitalist rulers, work­ As we wrote in a statement of the Inter­ the last two years. And those who do have community antiwar activity." ers are mere fodder for profit at home and national Communist League (WV No. jobs often find themselves one paycheck Such resolutions are a reflection of war abroad. But precisely because it is the 790, I November 2002): away from losing their homes and health the growing dissatisfactions of American working class that produces the wealth of "The colossal military advantage of the coverage. Despite the endless predictions workers with their power- and profit­ society, it is the sole force capable of end­ United States against neocolonial Iraq~a by Wall Street hacks that the recession is maddened rulers. Moreover, these calls ing imperialist war through overthrowing country which has already been bled finally coming to an end, Brad DeLong, a stand as a partial rejection of the "national the capitalist system that spawns war. The white through 12 years of UN sanctions defense of Iraq against imperialist attack which have killed more than 1.5 million University of California economist, aptly unity" chauvinism that is pledged by the is integrally linked to the defense of the civilians~underscores the importance of observed: "2003 doesn't feel good at all top echelons of the trade-union bureauc­ class struggle in the imperialist centers for the unemployed, and it doesn't feel racy. While AFL-CIO top John Sweeney working masses here against increasing as the chief means to give content to the very good for the employed" (New York has promised to stand shoulder to shoul­ exploitation and oppression. The task is call to defend Iraq. Every strike, every Times, 26 January). der with U.S. imperialism in its "war to forge a workers party to educate and labor mobilization against war plans, mobilize the proletariat with the purpose every mass protest against attacks on Many of the union antiwar resolutions against terror," Teamsters head James workers and minorities, every struggle simply oppose unilateral U.S. action Hoffa Jr. is a member of Bush's "Com­ of abolishing capitalist class rule. And against domestic repression and against against Iraq, i.e., advising that American mittee for the Liberation of Iraq." that requires breaking the allegiance of attacks on civil liberties represents a dent imperialism proceed under the cover For its part, the Chicago conference the workers to the class-collaborationist, in the imperialist war drive. To put an national-chauvinist labor leaders. end to war once and for all, the capitalist of the UN. Others place opposition to was dominated by hoary veterans of the system that breeds war must be swept war within the framework of American pro-Democratic Party peace crawls that The Lessons of Vietnam away through a series of revolutions and "democracy," such as a January 14 reso­ they claim brought an end to the war the establishment of a rational, planned, lution by the National Executive Board in Vietnam who now occupy posi­ Reformists like WWP/ANSWER and egalitarian socialist economy on a world of the American Postal Workers Union tions in the middle echelons of the labor left-talking union bureaucrats hope to re­ scale. Anti-imperialism abroad means capitulate the "successes" of the Vietnam­ class struggle at home! Defend Iraq which "opposes the pending war with bureaucracy. A participant at the confer­ against imperialist attack!" Iraq" and continues that "pre-emptive ence, Joann Wypijewski, approvingly era National Peace Action Coalition attacks against sovereign states are not reported in CounterPunch (17 January): (NPAC), which was dominated by the For Class Struggle Against consistent with the principles of freedom "The final resolution .. .includes neither reformist Socialist Workers Party (SWP). U.S. Capitalist Rulers! and respect for all people." patriotism nor Palestine; it makes no rhe­ But it wasn't the peace demonstrations The wave of patriotism ignited by the On January 11, trade unionists from torical flourish on the nature of fun­ that drove the U.S. out of Vietnam. The criminal attack on the World Trade Cen­ dozens of unions across the country damentalism or capitalism; it neither Vietnam War had a combined character as ter is receding amid the increasing real attended a conference in Chicago hosted embraces the UN nor denounces Ameri­ both a resistance to imperialist colonial miseries and wholesale attacks on demo­ by Teamsters Local 705, the second­ can imperialism." And consciously so. domination and, given the military inter­ cratic rights that confront the American largest in the country, to establish "U.S. Invited to speak at the meeting as vention of the Vietnamese deformed population. At least 42 union locals, 14 Labor Against the War." The result of this the obligatory spokesman for bourgeois workers state in the North, the prospect of district or regional union coundls and gathering was a motion opposing the war opposition to the war was one David a social overturn of capitalist rule in the four national unions have issued some which proclaimed that American labor Cortwright of Keep America SafelWin South. It was the battlefield victory of the statement of opposition to a war against has no quarrel with the ordinary citizens Without War, described by Wypijewski heroic Vietnamese workers and peasants Iraq. These resolutions are a reflection of of Iraq, that Bush has failed to make a as "a mainstream patriotic coalition of that brought an end to the war by defeat­ growing discontent among workers with case that an Iraqi threat exists and that Americans who are concerned about ing U.S. imperialism. the consummately venal Bush adminis­ U.S. military action "threatens the peace­ Iraq but don't want to go to war." Bill Then as now, it was argued by the tration, which showers billions in tax cuts ful resolution of disputes among states, Fletcher, former education director of antiwar reformists that any course other on their cronies while workers get pink jeopardizing the safety and security of the AFL-CIO, delivered what has become than "broad"-i.e., class-collaborationist -unity would be "sectarian." The SWP reformists sought to ensure that NPAC would be safe for Democratic Party lib­ erals by imposing a political ban­ including by physical force when neces­ sary-on those who sought to advance revolutionary politics. Thus, at a 1971 NPAC conference, the SWP launched a physical attack against the Spartacist League and Progressive Labor Party when we protested the presence of Democratic Senator Vance Hartke. Such repression was not a historical accident. Capital­ ism's rulers do not countenance prole­ tarian opposition and demand that the social-democratic supporters of the capi­ talist order "deal" with such opposition. Today, ANSWER finds itself criticized by the very bourgeois elements it courts for'raising such "extraneous" issues as the demand for the release of black death Left: Cleveland Teamsters rally in April 1970 during wildcat row political prisoner Mumia Abu-J ama!. that defied strikebreaking by Ohio National Guard which was These critics "wish that when it sponsors called out a few weeks later against Kent State students antiwar rallies, it would cOl1fine its mes­ protesting Vietnam War (above), killing four. sage to oppositioo to the war" (New York

10 WORKERS VANGUARD Times, 24 January). While the Spartacist the working class." League defends the Workers World Party Today, such bourgeois opposition as against this redbaiting, we recognize that exists is, in the main, oriented toward when push comes to shove, the reformists Defencl_'-." \l'l1l\. .. ~,O,t\S\ directing U.S. imperialism's attentions carry out the liberals' wishes with base­ against the "real threat," the North ball bats. WWP was certainly not hesitant < \I1lJJefiali!>f aH~~k' Korean deformed workers state, and ulti­ to use violence and to appeal to the capi­ Irish capitalist state: anli-Traveller, mately against all such societies-China, talist cops in defense of its class collabo­ Vietnam and Cuba-where capitalist rule rationism against the Spartacist League at anti-woman, anti .. worker! "- was overthrown. Self-proclaimed leftists the time of mass protests against the U.S. tor class' struggle against like the International Socialist Organiza­ intervention in El Salvador in the early tion and the Revolutionary Communist 1980s. ,} \r.\sh capitalist rulers' Party now decry the arrogance of the After an April 1967 antiwar march SPAlfACIST GROUP lRElAND ltl. Bush administration in its bid for world brought out a half-million people in New ~ TRnJ","'""'h 1IIIIiII!Ir'"___Ar· d"rw ...... ··! ...Itor " domination. But these same groups made York City alone, veteran Marxist Isaac their own, albeit pusillanimous, contribu­ Deutscher remarked that one dock strike tion to U.S. imperialism's rise as the against the war would have been worth a world's only "superpower" by supporting thousand peace demonstrations. His point the forces of imperialist-backed coun­ was not to dismiss student activism but to terrevolution that destroyed the Soviet point out that the political mobilization of degenerated workers state, the major labor prepares the basis for the overturn counterweight to the untrammelled ambi­ of the capitalist system of exploitation, tions of U.S. imperialism. oppression and war. The Spartacist League seeks to educate By the late 1960s there were enor­ and when possible organize the proletar­ mous opportunities for mobilizing class­ Spartacist Group Ireland at December 7 antiwar demonstration in Dublin. iat against imperialist war and in its class struggle opposition against the Vietnam interests, which ultimately require the War. As the number of American GIs ing to use in breaking the postal strike is U.S. capitalist rulers! Defend Iraq against overthrow of capitalism through socialist returning in body bags mounted, popular being used to suppress the Vietnamese U.S. imperialist attack! Down with the revolution. Proletarian opposition to the opposition to the war spread from the workers and peasants in order to keep UN starvation blockade!" As we argued depredations of the imperialist exploiters campuses to the black population and Asia safe for American business." When in the mobilizing call for these con­ can, in the words of Bolshevik leader sections of the working class. The heav­ the National Guardsmen initially called tingents: "It is futile to oppose war Leon Trotsky, be pursued "only through ily black and working-class base of the out to break the Ohio Teamsters wildcat against Iraq but not oppose the economic the revolutionary mobilization of the U.S. military in Vietnam had become gunned down four antiwar protesters at system which generates war and the masses, that is, by widening, deepen­ semi-mutinous, as measured by the num­ Kent State, we explained in a May 1970 ideology that legitimizes it. Moreover, ing, and sharpening those revolutionary ber of officers who were being "fragged" leaflet titled "Blood and Nixon": pushing illusions in the reformability of methods which constitute the content of -i.e., killed by their own soldiers. In the "Only the working class, because of the bloody American imperialist state can class struggle in 'peacetime'" ("Learn to U.S., the inflationary effects of the mas­ its economic power, can lead an effec­ only result in the demobilization of the Think," May 1938). We fight to forge the tive anti-war struggle. Only the class­ sive war spending and the government's conscious workers can lead the struggle only force in capitalist society that can internationalist workers party needed to imposition of a wage freeze were fueling to defeat capitalism .... challenge the rule of the capitalist class: lead the proletariat to power.. large-scale strikes. In 1970, postal work­ "Workers whose job conditions and fail­ ers defied the law and staged the first ing real wages force them continually major strike ever against the federal gov­ into conflict with the bosses must see as ernment. This was followed by a Team­ essential to their own interests the fight minorities. These workers face the same to end the bosses' imperialist war and to type of "justice" outside work as they sters wildcat action in Ohio. break from the bosses' warmonger politi­ Transit ... The American trade-union bureauc­ cal parties to form a party of labor. These (continued from page 12) run a daily gauntlet of racist cops racy was, at that time, dominated by the struggles-like struggles for militant brutally enforcing "law and order." In Cold Warriors who had achieved their economic demands-will necessitate the fellow worker and in a union fight for the first two days of this year alone, the replacement of the treacherous union posts by driving the reds who had built safe working conditions! At the time NYPD shot dead four people, three of bureaucracies which seek at every tum to of the deaths of Baby and Antony, we the CIO out of the trade unions in the tie the workers to the status quo." them black youth. And today immigrant aftermath of World War II. AFL-CIO wrote in "New York Transit Workers vs. workers are a particular target for victim­ chief George Meany was a rabidly racist Only Workers Revolution Can Union-Busting Austerity" (WV No. 792, ization as the government steps up its anti-Communist who if anything was to End Imperialist War! 29 November 2002): racist roundups and detentions in the "Unsafe procedures should be stopped the right of Republican president Rich­ But the class-collaborationist antiwar name of "fighting terror." before workers are killed or injured! Janell Bennerson died because the ard Nixon in his support for the war. And movement that the likes of ANSWER Transit workers must fight for elected "progressive" labor leaders like Victor hark back to embraced the class enemies union safety committees with the power transit bosses, eyes fixed on the bottom Reuther, one of the CIA's men in purging of the proletariat. As bourgeois oppo­ to shut down any unsafe working condi­ line, could care less about the lives of Communists from the labor movement in sition to that losing imperialist war tions on the spot." workers. And this is certainly something Europe and a prominent labor figure at mounted, finally forcing Nixon to begin Such gains, as with any union gains, not lost on the overwhelming majority NPAC rallies, voiced opposition to the withdrawing U.S. troops, the pacifist will not be won in the courts or state­ of the TWU Local 100 membership. war in order to defuse labor discontent. antiwar movement simply melted away. house, but through the independent mobil­ Even in the face of massive fines and Reuther personified the link between the The thousands upon thousands of youth ization of the working class in its own other penalties carried by the strikebreak­ labor movement and the Democratic Party. won to opposition to U.S. imperialism interest. They will be won not through ing Taylor Law, over 10,000 workers at In the view of social democrats like quickly exited the struggle against that parading Democratic .Party officials like two mass meetings unanimously voted Reuther, labor opposition was to be con­ system. America's rulers moved to reas­ Hillary Clinton-who supports the slave­ to strike. Despite the workers being fined to their presence on the speaker's sert the dominance of their class and labor Taylor Law-across speakers' plat­ atomized through a mail-ballot vote on the stand at antiwar mobilizations. their state power with an assault on forms at union events, bui' through class contract, nearly 40 percent voted against. The Spartacist League called for mili­ labor, on the scant gains of the civil struggle. But looking to the courts and And the seething anger of the ranks in any tary victory to North Vietnam and the rights movement, and on the very ability Democratic Party politicians is precisely case had little outlet, as no alternative to South Vietnamese National Liberation of the poor to survive. However mad, the perspective of the TWU bureauc­ the Toussaint leadership was offered Front and raised the slogan: "AU Indo­ Bush's declaration of eternal war against racy-from the "old guard" to the present either by the venal "old guard" or by such china must go Communist!" We sought all those who dare to oppose the Ameri­ leadership under Roger Toussaint. putative oppositionists as the "Rank and to galvanize the widespread discontent can imperialist order, both at home and Toussaint used the occasion of the File Advocate" group who boosted the that was expressed through economic abroad, is a simple expression of the memorial for Bennerson to announce the Toussaint leadership to power. strike struggles and to win the working logic of the decaying capitalist system. ratification of his sellout deal with Metro­ It will take some hard class struggle to class to political opposition to the war, To intervene into last October's antiwar politan Transportation Authority (MTA) fight for safe working conditions and raising the call for "Labor strikes against protests, the Spartacist League and Spar­ head Peter Kalikow. But this deal which defend the very lives of workers from the the war!" In a 23 March 1970 leaflet tacus Youth Clubs built Revolutionary Toussaint brags will bring "dignity" and transit bosses. Such a struggle should be directed at the postal strike, we wrote: Internationalist Contingents around the "respect" to the overwhelmingly black linked to a fight against the Taylor Law, "The same army that Nixon is threaten- slogans: "For class struggle against the and immigrant transit workers in fact which makes it illegal for the TWU to reinforces the deathtrap conditions they strike. It should be linked to the fight already face. This contract, which ties for union jobs with full union wages, paltry wage increases to "productivity," is benefits and protections for the most a recipe for increased speedup which will vulnerable members of the workforce­ mean more workers killed and maimed. WEP workers, provisionals, new-hires and Already, transit workers are subjected to apprentices. But such a fight requires a Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League "broadbanding"-forcing workers to do union leadership that understands that jobs they're not trained for-while super­ the interests of workers and bosses can visors routinely impose "standard rate never be reconciled; a union leadership $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal times" (SRTs) for a given task, i.e., cut­ that relies on the social power of the (includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle) international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamail ting corners on safety to decrease the workers, rather than appealing to Demo­ amount of time that jobs are supposed to cratic Party politicians; a union leader­ $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist) o take. As a transit worker told WV, work­ ship that will fight to link the social o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) ers are ordered to do dangerous work all power of the black and immigrant work­ Name ______the time, putting individuals under tre­ ers in the TWU to the defense of the Address ______mendous pressure. And when they turn to impoverished masses in the ghettos and the union for help, they're often told to do barrios. The struggle to forge such a Apt. # ______the work and grieve it later. leadership will be key to the building of a City ______State ______Zip _,--______Transit workers have justly denounced revolutionary workers party that will Phone (__ ) ______E-mail ______--::: the "plantation justice" of the MTA bring to power those whose labor creates 796 bosses who are ratcheting up disciplinary the wealth through overthrowing the rule Make checks payablelmail to: Spartacist Pubtishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 measures to squeeze ever more out of of those who currently expropriate the a workforce increasingly composed of fruits of this labor. • . 31 JANUARY 2003 11 WfJ/iNE/IS "/1,,,/11)

More Blood on the Tracks "investigate" the incident. Bennerson is the third transit worker For Elected Union Safety Committees! to be killed on the job in the last three months. In November, two main­ Janell Bennerson, a 39-year-old black vented. The gate was not marked to alert tenance workers, Joy Antony and conductor working the A line on Janu­ conductors of its presence and extended Kurien Baby, were killed in the space ary 18, died a horrifying death when her to approximately eight inches from the of two days due to unsafe working head struck the bars of an eight-foot­ window through which Bennerson was conditions. Grotesquely, Transport Work­ high gate on the pl?tforrn of the Aque­ . leaning as the train left the station. ers Union (TWU) Local 100 president NY Daily News ductINorth Conduit Ave. station. Her The transit bosses are blaming Ben­ Roger Toussaint alibied the company's Janell Bennerson hat, scarf and safety glasses were found nerson for her own death, with one tran­ callous attitude to workers' safety, on the platform after the accident. Ben­ sit official claiming she "failed" to keep declaring that recent deaths in the nerson is survived by her longtime com­ her head inside the train car as it pulled industry had to do "with the extremely place, "comes with the territory." panion and 16-year-old daughter. out (Newsday, 20 January). Moving into hazardQus nature of the work we do." Any time that a transit worker is This gruesome death was industrial damage control mode, the transit bosses He further stated that car door trouble, killed on the job, the workforce should murder, which even the most elemen­ reduced the fence's height to three feet which is what likely led to Bennerson lay down its tools in honor of its slain tary safety precautions would have pre- by the next day as they continue to leaning out her window in the first continued on page 11 Abolish the Racist Death Penalty! CHICAGO-In a stunning indictment of state-sanctioned murder, Illinois gover­ nor George Ryan ordered a blanket clemency for the state's death row in­ mates on January 11, commuting 167 death sentences to life without parole, or, in three cases, lesser terms. The day before, he pardoned four other death row prisoners outright, three of whom walked out of prison that day. As Marxists, we oppose the racist death penalty in principle-for the guilty as well as the innocent. We do not accord the state the right to say who lives and who dies. We welcome Ryan's blanket clemency order, and any other measure Leroy Orange (left) and curtailing the barbaric death penalty, just Aaron Patterson as we oppose any move to expand and (far right), two of four intensify the repressive powers of the death row inmates. pardoned by Illinois capitalist state. governor George Ryan. A conservative Republican, Ryan ex­ plained that he had taken office as "a firm believer in the American System of Justice and the death penalty.c' "I never intended to be an activist on this issue. I watched in surprise as freed deadl Innocent people have been executed of his outspoken opposition to racist op­ son Hobley and Leroy Orange-were vic­ row inmate Anthony Porter was released and will continue to be executed until pression. Over a year after Jamal's death tims of Chicago's notorious Area Two from jail," Ryan said, referring to the the death penalty is abolished. This was sentence was overturned by a federal judge, police torture chamber in the 1980s. case of a mentally retarded black man sanctified by the Supreme Court in 1993, and nearly two years after the confession Headed by Commander Jon Burge, who who was released after his frame-up was when it rejected an appeal by Texas of the man who really killed the cop was learned his "interrogation techniques" as exposed in 1999. "He was 48 hours away inmate Leonel Herrera to hear evidence filed in state and federal courts, Jamal re­ an MP during the Vietnam War, the Area from being wheeled into the execution that another man had confessed to the mains on death row. Free Mumia now! Two cops routinely secured confessions chamber where the state would kill him. murder he was convicted of. Herrera was It is notable that even as the Bush by hooking live electrical wires to the tes­ It would all be so antiseptic and most of executed later that year. Frame-ups and administration wields the spectre of ter­ ticles of black "suspects," or suffocating us would not have even paused, except racist victimizations by the cops and rorism to whip up support for augment­ them with plastic typewriter covers. Pat­ that Anthony Porter was innocent of the courts are integral to the American legal ing the state's repressive powers, there terson was convicted for a 1986 double double murder for which he had been system, which is designed to serve the is continuing apprehension among large murder based in large part on a phony condemned to die." interests of the capitalist ruling class sectors of the population toward the • confession squeezed out of him by the It was the Porter case-and those of 12 against the working people and oppressed application of the death penalty. This has Chicago cops. He had the presence of others freed from death row after proving of this country. And in racist America, largely been propelled by the highly pub­ mind to scratch a chilling message into a their innocence-that prompted Ryan to this means that the prison population licized cases of over 100 innocent people bench in the interrogation room: "Aaron declare a moratorium on executions three is overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. who were falsely convicted and sentenced lied-4/30-Police threaten me with years ago and appoint a commission to In emptying Illinois' death tow, Ryan to death but freed in recent years, mostly violence-slapped and suffocated me find remedies to "fix" the death penalty. pointed out: "Of the more than 160 death due to DNA evidence. Expressing a con­ with plastic-signed false statement to In his January 11 speech, Ryan declared: row inmates, 35 were African American cern shared by a number of politicians, murders." But even after a defense inves­ "It is difficult to see how the system defendants who had been convicted or novelist and lawyer Scott Turow, a mem­ tigator managed to get a photograph of can be fixed when not a single one of condemned to die by all-white juries. ber of Ryan's death penalty commission, the message on the bench, Patterson the reforms proposed by my Capital Pun­ More than two-thirds of the inmates on wrote in a New York Times (17 January) remained on death row. Outrageously, ishment Commission has been adopted. Even the reforms the prosecutors agree death row were African-American." op-ed piece that "the risk of undermining Illinois authorities are sticking Patterson with haven't been adopted. So when Exemplifying the racist death penalty Americans' faith in the legal process ... with a three-year parole term for an unre­ will the system be fixed? How much in the U.S. is the case of Mumia Abu­ may be the most compelling reason for lated conviction, forcing him to wear an more risk can we afford? Will we actu­ Jamal, a former Black Panther Party mem­ those who now favor the death penalty to electronic monitoring bracelet. ally have to execute an innocent person before the tragedy that is our capital ber and MOVE supporter who was framed reconsider their position." Ryan's blanket clemency was met with punishment system in Illinois is reaHy up for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia All four of the men Ryan pardoned­ howls of protest by Democratic presidential understood?" cop, and then sentenced to death because Stanley Howard, Aaron Patterson, Madi- continued on page 9

12 31 JAN UARY 2003