WfJliNEIiS "NfilJ'lilJ so¢ No. 852 ------==------~E§§i;>C'701 ------5 August 2005 Down With "War on Terror" Government Repression!
~ '~, .. ~ .' ,~ "W t " . t t f .. . AP Read/NY Times ar on error IS pre ex. or government attack on CIvil liberties. New York City: Cops terrorize five British tourists of South Asian descent on July 24 (left) search bags of sub_~ay nders. ' U.S./British Troops Out of Iraq Now!
~-\l)(rl}ST ~~·Tht' !~qr;'if:~' tc;-:"or bornh ·'terr(lrists"~ ~~::l;;1ng tri~ Tr.:- of [,-')1iey have been 2 WORKERS VANGUARD understand that if they succumb to rev( - "Deep Throat" lutionary teachings. they will be dead re\ - olutionaries:' In coordination with locai police forces. the FBI masterminded the murder of 38 key Panther activists. ThosL' they couldn't kill they framed up ami COINTELPRO Top. Cop penned up in America's prison hellholes. Former Panther and renowned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal had been in the cross hairs of COINTELPRO since age l:'i. Finked on Imperialist Pig Framed up for killing a cop. America's foremost political prisoner has been on "Mark Felt is one of America's great death row since 1982 despite the confes est secret heroes," proclaimed the July sion of the actual killer. Vanity Fair. revealing that the former Under Felt's watch. COINTELPRO No.2 man at the FBI was "Deep Throat." "Deep Throat" was expanded to include the American Felt was the secret source who helped Mark Felt, with wife, Indian Movement. Puerto Rican activist-;. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward honored by FBI feminists-just about anyone critical of and Carl Bernstein uncover the Watergate director J. Edgar the Vietnam War or other governmellt conspiracy that brought down President Hoover (center). policies. Before COINTELPRO was cur Felt was an architect Richard Nixon in the context of the U.S: tailed in 1975. 1.100 organizations were of Hoover's losing war against the heroic Vietnamese COINTELPRO under surveillance. A 1980 federal jury workers and peasants. Felt's action re campaign of trial convicted Felt and a fellow agent of flected the sentiment of a wing of the rul surveillance, having conspired to "injure and oppress ing class that resented their government's disruption, frame-up citizens of the United States" in their agents using the kind of illegal surveil and outright killing dragnet against the radicaL New Left lance and sabotage normally reserved for of leftists and Weathermen. They were the only FBI per communists, black activists and unionists' black activists. sonnel ever convicted for their COINTEL against another wing of the bourgeoisie. PRO crimes and were pardoned the fol But while Felt was tipping off Woodwar-d lowing year by the Reagan administration and Bernstein about Nixon administration and informers. In 1961 COINTELPRO (In the 1960s Clark was notorious not without ever serving a day in jail. dirty tricks at night, during the day, under was extended to the then-Trotskyist only for targeting black militants, but also the rubric of the Counter-Intelligence Socialist Workers Party, and over the for prosecuting anti-Vietnam War liberals Watergate and the Program (COINTELPRO), he was run next five years the FBI conducted at least like pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock. Capitalist State 90 burglaries ("black bag jobs") of the ning the most massive domestic spy, sab But since the early '90s, LBJ's top prose To move decisively and quickly as the SWP's national office. otage and outright assassination campaign cutor has been closely associated with top imperialist power in the world, the With the radicalization of the black in AmericCJJ1 history against all manner the Workers World Party [WWPl through American ruling class requires its bour movement and the explosion of black of government opponents. the International Action Center, of which geois democracy to have an effective anger in the northern ghettos in the '60s, When FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover pro he was a founder, and is a frequent bonapartist component in the form of the President Lyndon Johnson's attorney gen moted Felt to the No. 2 slot in 1971, speaker on the platform of WWP's class strong executive. In 1968, they turned eral Ramsey Clark instructed Hoover and COINTELPRO was already literally go collaborationist outfits, such as its current to Nixon as the strong "law and order" the FBI to use ing great guns. The first COINTELPRO antiwar lash-up known as ANSWER.) president to crush the rebellious anger of operation was directed against the Com "the maximum resources, investigative and intelligence. to collect and report all In August 1967, Hoover directed CO the black ghetto. shackle a restless labor munist Party in 1956 at the height of the facts bearing upon the question as to INTEL PRO in a murderous campaign movement and silence a radical student Cold War. Disruption and sabotage had whether there has been or is a scheme or against black liberation organizations. movement that was opening up to prole always been components of the govern conspiracy by any group of whatever Representing the best of a generation of tarian, Marxist politics. Indeed, Nixon ment's suppression of the left and labor size, effectiveness or affiliation to plan, promote or aggravate riot activity." black radicals. the Black Panther Party imposed wage controls on the labor movement. But Hoover's COINTELPRO -quoted in Ward Churchill and was COINTELPRO Target No.1. In 1968, movement with the assistance of the AFL unleashed a dramatic escalation of these Jim Vander Wall, The FBI director Hoover declared. "The Negro CIO tops, and expanded FBI and police covert activities, with some 900 agents Cointeipro Papers (1990) youth and moderate[sl must be made to continued on page 12 Muslim Professor Sentenced to Life for "Thought Crime" for any violent organization would oe could be-the author of so much harm .... "Imprisonment of any term, as this Court well knows, is a crisis for the incarcer Free Ali al-Ti mimi! ated and his or her loved ones. I am no exception to that. On July 13, the government's "war on American Way, all of them who try to "But the real crisis brought on my impri sonment. I ,incerelv believe is Amer terror" dealt another heavy blow to the secularize America .. .! point the thing in ica ·s. For if mv con~iction is to stand. it rights of anyone who would speak out their face and say you helped this happen." would mean that two hundred and thirtv against government policies. Muslim That this was a speech and "thought years of America's tradition of protecting scholar Ali al-Timimi, a U.S.-born Ameri crime" prosecution is not in dispute. Re the individual from the tvrannie' and can citizen, was sentenced to life in prison porting in the Washington Post (14 July), whims of the sovereign wi"1l have come to an end. And that which is exploited on charges of "conspiracy:' "soliciting trea Jerry Markon characterized al-Timi mi today to persecute a single member of a son:' "soliciting others to wage war against as "a man convicted for what he said." minority will most assuredly come back the United States" and "aiding and abetting Writing in a 2 May piece on the Front to haunt the majority tomorrow." the use of firearms and explosives." Did Page Magazine Web site of racist ideo For almost four years the Bush admin al-Timimi carry out any terrorist acts') logue David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes hails istration, abetted by the Democrats. has Did he pl 5 AUGUST 2005 3 German Trotskyists on World War II May 1945: .lIed Army Smashed Nazi Regime! We print helm\' an article, ahridged Ost [Foreign Armies East. a military and tmnslatedjimn Spartakist No. 158, intelligence agency directed against Spring 2005, l1ell'spaper ()j'the Sparta the Soviet Union] was turned into kist yj,(Hkers Party of Gerlll(lIlY, sectioll the Bllndesl1({chrichtendicns/ [Fed ofthc Illtemarionaf COlI/lIlullist League eral Intelligence Service. German (Fourth Intemationafist). counterpart of the CIA]. By 1945. a circle of Nazi generals was already cooperating \\ith the Western Allies fi :tr1J" 3ti IJ in a meticulous evaluation of the Sec May 8th of this year marks the ond World War and planning the (')()th anni\ersary of the liberation rebuilding of the West German army. from the Nazis' reign of terror by the Like its predecessor. the Wehmlllc/zr. Red Army. Twenty-eight million the BlIIulc.\\\'e/z,. was a tank-supported. Soviet citizens ga\'e their liws to land-based arm) -this time sup smash the Third Reich of German ported by tactical nuclear weapon, imperialism. The Red Arm) put an aimed at smashing the Soviet Union. end to the Holocaust. the industrial The so-called "rat line" was set up b) murder of six million Jews. of Roma the CIA and Vatican to funnel Nazi and Sinti [Gypsies]. communish. war criminals out of German). They Red Army soldiers. homosexuals and were provided with new identities countless others. It liberated Europe and brought to Latin America and from the enslavement and bloody other countries. where they then used oppression of the Nazis. May 8th is a their murderous experience to set up day of celebration for the work(ng and preserve the bloody local mili class and all oppressed worldwide. Yevgeni Khaldei tary dictatorships. Much of this is World War II provided a bloody Soviet soldiers raise red flag over Berlin's Retchstag, 1945. Red Army smashed dealt with quite well in Jorg Fried demonstration of the necessity of Hitler's Third Reich and freed Europe from scourge of Nazism. rich's Die Kalte Amnestie [The Cold overthrowing the capitalist system of Amnesty] (1984). At the same time exploitation-it's socialism or barbarism. the nationalized property established by the invasion of Normandy, or when I the U.S. imperialists, who had not forgot Ii was from this standpoint that Trotsky the October Revolution. That is a pro spoke recently in Berlin for the sixtieth ten the indispensable services of the Ger gressive war." ists fought internationally for workers anniversary of the liberation of Ausch man Social Democratic Party [SPD] in -"A Statement on the U.S. Entry revolution. In December 1941, shortly into World War II" (22 December witz. Those who matter in the world maintaining the capitalist order in Ger after the entry of the U.S. into the war, 1941), first published in Fourth know that the political, cultural and eco many following the First World War, were James P. Cannon, the leader of our prede International (January 1942) nomic elites in this country don't want the helping to rebuild the Social Democ cessor organization, the then-Trotskyist Today the Social Democratic/Green past to be forgotten" '(Welt am Sonntag, racy. Their aim was to use it as an anti Socialist Workers Party (SWP), presented government is exploiting the various me 13 February). Centrally what is being Communist bulwark within the West Ger the revolutionary position on the Sec morial celebrations to advance the inter preached is the fairy tale that the German man working class to beat back the ond World War (while President Roose- ests of German imperialism vis-a.-vis its bourgeoisie and their state have made a influence of the Stalinist KPD [German clean break with the Nazi past. [Foreign Communist Party] and purge the unions of Minister Joschka] Fischer encapsulated Communists. this in his 24 January speech to the UN Fearing that the Soviet working masses General Assembly on the 60th anniver could be inspired to overthrow the Soviet sary of the liberation of Auschwitz: "The bureaucracy, the last thing Stalin wanted new, democratic Germany has drawn the was workers revolution in Germany and lessons from this. It has been molded by Europe. He was striving for a neutral, the historical-moral responsibility for capitalist Germany as a buffer state. But Auschwitz." the imperialists were not interested in a In reality, the Federal Republic of Ger deal and preferred. as [German Chancel many is the self-proclaimed successor lor Konrad] Adenauer expressed it, to state to the Third Reich. It was built up by get half a Germany completely rather the U.S. following World War II as a bul than the reverse. Therefore. in 1948 the wark against the Soviet Union. By the Kremlin established a deformed workers early' 50s at the latest. the last capitalists state and expropriated the German bour who had supported and financed Hitler geoisie in eastern Germany. The DDR and brought him to power were out of [German Democratic Republic] was con jail and back at the levers of power. It structed on the model of the Soviet work was with Nazi cadres that the West ers state following its decades of Stalin German capitalist state was constructed ist degeneration. Thereby. in contrast to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, 1944. the judges who, as members of [Roland] West Germany. fascism was deprived of Freisler's People's Court of Justice [a its social basis, capitalism. The greater veIT,' using the Smith Act, was making imperialist rivals and its own citizens. court established by Hitler to prosecute part of the cadre who built up the DDR preparations to jail Cannon and other The goal is to enable German imperial political offenses], had earlier sent com came directly from the Nazi concentra SWP leader~): ism, despite its history of unspeakable munists and oppositionists to concentra tion camps or from exile. "The considerations which determined crimes, to play the role of a world power. tion camps and their deaths were now our attitude toward the war up to the out Chancellor SchrOder showed himself sat enforcing the "free, democratic" constitu Schroder's Commemoration of break of hostilities between the United isfied with the results so far of how the tion. It was SS killers and Gestapo torture the Soviet Sacrifice: Hypocrisy States and the Axis powers retain their for Imperialist Cooperation validity in the new situation. government has "come to terms with the masters who constructed the police and "We considered the war upon the part past": "And this is recognized-I learned the BUl1deskriminalamt [Federal Criminal As part of the anti-Communist consen of all the capitalist powers involved this last June, when I was invited to the Office, German counterpart of the FBI]. sus of the Cold War against the Soviet Germany and France. Italy and Great celebrations of the sixtieth anniversary of [Reinhard] Gehlen's Nazi Fremde Heere continued on page 10 Britain-as an imperialist war. 'This characterization of the war was determined for us bv the character of the state powers involved in it. They were all capitalist states in the epoch of imperial ism; themselves imperiali,t-oppressing other nation, or peoples-or satellites of imperialist powers. The extemion of the \\ar to the Pacific and the formal entrY of the Cnited State, and Japan change noth- 1l1~ in thi, tw,ic anah sis ...... fhis characterizati(;n of the \\ ar does not appl) to the \\ ar of the 50\ iet Cninn again,t German imperiali,m. \Ye make a fundamental distinction het\\een the Smiet Cnion and its 'democratic' allie,. We deiend the Soviet L'nion. The Soviet lin ion is a \\orkers' "tate. although degen erated under the totalitarian-political rule of the Kremlin bureaucracy. Only traitors can deny support to the Soviet workers' state in its war against fascist Germany. ~ ~ To defend the Soviet Union. in spite of Left: German troops outside Kosovo, 1999. SPD/Green government joined U.S./NATO imperialist war against Serbia. Stalin and against Stalin, is to defend Right: Cops unleashed by SPD/PDS Berlin city government shield Nazis, brutalize leftist protesters, 1 May 2004. 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Preachers of "Collective Guilt"· Justify U.S./British War Crimes .; German Nationalism and the Bombing of Dresden We print below a translation of an try. Hence we must abandon the for article from Spartakist No. 158, Spring mula of the 'innocent city'." Only, the 2005, newspaper of the Spartakist Work- . bombing of Dresden didn't target the arma ers Party of Germany (SpAD), section ments factories, which were situated on of the International Communist League the outskirts! These were barely hit, as (Fourth Internationalist). Taylor himself honestly admits in his book, Dresden: Tuesday, 13 February, 1945, which is well worth reading. SPARTAKISTc~ Because of the favorable weather condi tions and ab~olute lack of flak, the bomb The 60th anniversary of the bombing ers were able to take precise aim ai their of Dresden [in World War II by the target, the Dresden inner ci~ (where there Americans and British] has polarized the was scarcely a plant, let alone annaments entire country, with the question of how factories), murdering 25,000 to 40,000 , to deal with today's Nazis of the NPD Dresden civilians and refugees, above all [National Democratic Party] dominating. women, the elderly and children. This The NPD had cynically made a motion was a war crime. in the [state of] Saxony parliament pro A feature article in the Frankfurter posing a minute of silence on January 21 Rundschau (14 February) justifies the for the victims of the bombing. Follow incineratiQn of Dresden with the argument ing this, the NPD launched revanchist Firebombing of Dresden, February 1945. American and British imperialists that some of the few remaining Dresden tirades that attempted to use the vjctims slaughtered tens of thousands.ofcivilians. Jews were thereby able to escape deporta of the Dresden bombiflg in the service tion to Auschwitz: "The Saving Inferno- of their gen89idal program by speaking of ond front in Nonnandy [France] in June Groehler is absolutely right. Regarding The Destruction of Dresden in February a "Holocaust by Bombing." The social 1944. Churchill and Roosevelthad earlier the bombing of Dresden, it was even 1945 Protected 20-year-old· Henny Wolf democratic PDS [Party of Democratic been in no hurry to open a second front as explicitly stated [in January 1945] in the from the Concentration Camp." One can, Socialism], the SPD [Social Democratic they had assured Stalin they would in daily orders of the Royal Air Force that of course, only rejoice over every single Party of Gennany] and the petty-bourgeois 1942 and again in 1943. They were hop this should also constitute a warning to person who, through whatever fortunate Greens had nothing with which to counter ing Gennany and the Soviet Union would "the Russians": . circumstances, was able to escape alive this. Spiegel online (11 February) head bleed one another w.hite, and that they "The intentions of the attack are to .hit from the Nazi machinery of genocide. lined "Uprising of the Clueless;' explain would get to laugh from the sidelines. the enemy where he will feel it most, Henny Wolf had incredible luck in not ing: "They [the Nazis] have modernized behind an already partially collapsed In fact, coal liquefaction factories" front, to prevent the use of the city in the being blown to bits by a British bomb or their tenninology. The Holocaust is no where fuel essential to Hitler's tanks was engulfed by the firestonn. This is also longer denied; it is integrated into their way of further advance, and incidentally produced, were hardly bombed until· to show the Russians when they arrive indirectly stated in the FR article: "Some own argumentation. Instead of saying, 1944. Der Spiegel wrote: what Bomber Command can do." time in the middle of the night, in a nar as earlier: there was no Holocaust, now "Only 1.1 percent of all bombs dropped - Die Welt, 20 February 2004 row alley, the suction from the fire seized they say: the Holocaust was against the ,:rhe'C~. ,lJ.s.AiWm bombing of people. 'My mother suddenly floated into Gennans. We weren't the perpetrators, :~~=~~~~J:t;' ... Hiroshima and N agasaIci in the summer the air. We all held each other's hands'." we were the victims." The reason for the clattering through Russia. Speculations of 1945 had the same aim-intimidating What the article attempts to conceal is that bourgeois-democratic cIuelessness is that [why this was the case] range from the suggestion that the plants were built in the Soviet Union and demoralizing the the fate of the European Jews was a mat Nazi revanchism and liberal collective part with Anglo-American capital, e.g., working class [see article below]. ter of total indifference to the British and gUilt complement one another, for both Standard Oil of New Jersey and the Brit Dresden mayor Ingolf Rossberg (FDP American Allies. equate the populace with the Nazi rulers ish .Royal Dutch Shell, to the musings of [Free Democratic Party]) utilized the A Spiegel interview (29 October 2001) and the Gennan bourgeoisie. To the Nazi the Berlin historian Groehler that it arguments of the British historian with Gerhart Riegner, who infonned the demagoguery of a "victim people," the might have been in the interests of the Western Allies for the German tanks on Frederick Taylor, who, while criticizing World Jewish Congress of the Holocaust liberals oppose the "collective guilt" lie the Eastern Front to have enough fuel to Churchill's bombing of Dresden as in in 1942, encapsulates the bitter truth of a ~'perpetrator people." Thereby the keep the Russians far from Germany as humane, claims nevertheless that it was about U.S. and British imperialism: liberals whitewash the Gennan bourgeoi long as possible-long enough anyway completely justified militarily: "In Febru "Riegner: The will to save [the Jews] sie and play into the hands of Nazi for the Anglo-American invaders to advance far enough to be able to limit ary 1945, Dresden was the largest extant was lacking. The Americans told us in demagoguery. Communist influence in postwar Europe." center of the Gennan annaments indus- continued on page 11 In World War II, we Trotskyists offered unconditional military defense to the Soviet degenerated workers state. In the war among the imperialist powers between Gennany and Japan on the one side, the U.S. and Britain on the other Hiroshima, Nagasaki: we took no side, since these powers were fighting only over redividing the world so as to exploit it more intensively. The U.S. Imperialist Mass Murder strategy of Allied saturation bombing This A.ugust marks the 60th anniver D. Roosevelt ordered 120,000 Japanese forced many to harvest the fields as slave was one of consciously targeting the sary of one of history's greatest crimes: Americans in the western United States laborers. Gennan working class: the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities to be rounded up beginning in Febru Apologists for the war crimes of U.S. "In its 'Area Bombing Directive' of 14 of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by U.S. ary 1942, put them into concentration imperialism claim that the atom bombing February 1942, the [British] Aviation Min imperialism. Over 200,000 civilians were camps located in the barren desert and istry set as Bomber Command's future continued on page 11 'main goal' destroying 'the morale of the killed by the atom bombs dropped on opposing civil population, especially the August 6 and 9, and tens of thousands industrial workforce' through saturation more continue to suffer from horrific ill bombing. To avoid misunderstandings, nesses and- genetic defects. The racist the Ministry added 'that the target points should be settled areas and not, for rulers of imperialist America used Japan example, shipyards or aircraft industry. as a human testing ground to show the This must be made very clear' ." world-and above all the Soviet degen -Spi~gel Special No. 1/2003 erated workers state-that they would In early 1943 at the latest. with the victory stop at nothing in their drive for global of the Red Army at Stalingrad, it w,as domination. dear that German imperialism would lose The deliberate targeting of Japanese against the Soviet Union. One of the cen civilians"reflected the deep-seated anti tral motivations for the bombing of Ger Asian racism of America's rulers. U.S. man \\iorkers' quarters was the fear that war propagan¢a depicted Japanese as the German v,;orking class might over subhuman "yellow monkeys:' In 1945. the throw capitalism-and turn all Europe U.S. launched a massive terror-bombing red-as it had already attempted 10 do at campaign against Japan, destroyisg 58 the end of World War I, but this time with cities by August. On the night of March ,l the aid of a victorious Red Army. Stop 9-10 alone, 'the American firebombing of Museum ping the Red Anny and preventing work Tokyo killed some 100,000 people. In The "Atomic Bomb Dome," at center of August 1945 Hiroshima A-bomb blast, ers revolution were also the only reasons the U.S., Democratic president Franklin is now a memorial to victims of this heinous U.S. war crime. for the haste in suddenly opening the sec- 5 AUGUST 2005 '" 5 The Lynching of Emmett... Ti II and the Fight for Black Liberation "Before Emmett Till's murder. I had gizing for never passing anti-lynching known the fear of hunger, hell. and the legislation. several senators, including the Devil. But now there was a new fear known to me-the fear of being killed two from Mississippi, refused to sponsor just because I was black. This was the 50 Years Later the bill. worst of my fears .... I didn't know what Capitalism is a system based on exploi one had to do or not do as a Negro not to If't·· . tation of labor, and, in the U.S., a unique be killed. Probably just being a Negro c..: and critical mainstay continues to be the period was enough, I thought." ------ 5 AUGUST 2005 9 Alternative. affiliate of Peter Taaffe's May 1945 ... Committee for a Workers International] (continued from page 4) and Linksruck [affiliate of the Interna tional Socialist Tendency], to Workers Union, the U.S. imperialists assisted their Power [affiliate of the League for the German ally generously in deeply bury Fifth International]. talk big today about ing the history of Nazi crimes. Since the the fight against fascism and attempt to destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991- paper over their reformism with Trotsky 92, interimperialist rivalries between the quotes. But they all actively supported U.S. and Germany. France. etc., have capitalist reunification in 1990. thereby increased, a fact reflected in the memorial doing their bit for the strengthening of celebrations. Thus. when French presi the Nazis. In order to defeat fascism. it dent Jacques Chirac im'ited Schroder to is necessary to understand that it is gener the 60th anniversary memorial celebra ated by capitalism. The German bourgeoi tion of the Allied landing in Normandy sie wanted Hitler in power and in the early last year, he was the first chancellor so . 30s cast its weight-money. power and invited. 'The invitation." said [govern countless connections-onto the scales. ment spokesman] Steg (2 January 2004), The German bourgeoisie set its hopes on "is a sign of the new form of cooperation Spartakist the fascists because it-saw its rule as being with our French partners and of the fact January 1990, East Berlin: Spartacists initiated 250,000-strong rally against Nazi desecration of Treptow Park memorial to Red Army liberators. threatened by the working class. that times have indeed changed:' The recent electoral gains of the fascist This "new form of cooperation" came NPD are a result of the social attacks by very next day. the EU-Russia summit in of the National Socialist dictatorship, into being above all via the joint opposi the SPD/Green government (and the Ber Moscow will meet and direct its gaze to but rather 'today much more for the tion of Germany, France and Russia to the future." lin SPD/PDS-run Senate is not one iota continued occupation by the totalitarian the U.S.-led war against Iraq. This oppo -Frankfurter Rum/schall. better) like Agenda 2010 or Hartz IV [that Soviet Union'" (3 March). The same rul sition had absolutely nothing to do with 12 March slash pensions and welfare and devastate ing elite of the Baltic states that rails any kind of love of peace, as the imperi Putin used his 27 January Auschwitz unemployment benefits]. These intensi against the former Soviet Union honors alist deployment of the Bundeswehr in speech to justify the "war on terror," in fied assaults have especially catastrophic the former Baltic SS troops, which car Kosovo and Afghanistan or the French whose name Russia is carrying out its effects in eastern Germany, which has ried out frightful crimes against Jews and army in Sierra Leone show. Rather, Ger genocidal colonial war against Chech been de industrialized as a consequence of Communists during the Nazi occupation. man imperialism is pursuing its own' nya: "We also must be clear that modern capitalist reunification. Simultaneously, interests and is attempting to check U.S. civilization today is confronted with a For a Revolutionary the racist "war on terror," directed against claims to sole world domination. For its new and no less horrific threat. Terrorists Workers Party! Muslim immigrants, puts wind in the part, with the Iraq war and its "unilateral- have taken over the role of the hangmen sails of the Nazis. As Trotsky stated in Internally, the politics of the memorial 1929, the social democracy, which is World Publishing ceremonies are dominated by the issue of ::lo committed to capitalism, is not an obsta o the NPD [neo-Nazi party]. It is a bitter cle to the Nazis but rather paves their CD Q. result of Germany's capitalist reunifica wav: "" tion that the Nazi filth can dare to attempt "In Austria as in all other countries. Anti-Soviet Cold War to march through the Brandenburg Gate fascism appears as a necessary sup rehabilitated Nazi on May 8, the 60th anniversary of libera plement to the Social Democracy. lives war criminals. tion from Hitlerite fascism. We Trotsky off of it and comes to power with its Fo"owing World War II, ists intervened with all the forces of our help .... Fascism nourishes itself from the General Reinhard Social Democracy. but it must smash its international in the fall of 1989-90 in the skull to ,come to power. The Austrian Gehlen (far left in unfolding proletarian political revolution Social Democracy doe, what it can. to Nazi uniform) worked in the DDR. Against capitalist Anschluss make this surgical operation easy for for U.S. intelligence and [annexation]. we fought for the revolu them." joined West Germany's tionary reunification of Germany-for intelligence service. Today. when the destruction of the Near left: Gehlen feted the overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy DDR and the Soviet Union' has cast back at Yale University. through political revolution in the DDR the consciousness of the working class, and for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie does not see its rule and its expropriation through socialist as being threatened, it holds the Nazis in revolution in the West. We called for a red reserve. utilizing them both as a means of ism." U.S. imperialism is seeking to put in their black [SS] uniforms." The Rus Germany of workers councils. political pressure and for terrorizing left its rivals in their place. As our comrades sian army of today is a capitalist army A high point of our intervention was ists and immigrants. Thus the growing of the Spartacist League/U.S. explained that stands in the tradition of the tsarist the 3 January 1990 workers united-front strength of the NPD finds expression (WV No. 843,4 March): army. It no longer has anything to do protest we initiated against the Nazi desec above all in an increase of its murderous "The unchallenged global hegemony of with the Red Army, army of the Soviet cration of the memorial in Berlin's Trep terror in the streets. To organize the fight the U.S. stands in sharp contrast to workers state, that Trotsky founded. For tow Park, where the Soviet soldiers who against the slashing of benefits, against its declining economic base .... Having gave their lives in the battle for the libera racist oppression by the state and against presided over the deindustrialization of the sake of an alliance with capitalist the country and driven by the pursuit of Russia-which with complete injustice tion of Berlin from the Nazis rest and are Nazi terror, it is necessary to wage an greater profit margins exacted from the crowns itself with the laurels of the honored. In our protest call 'we warned: uncompromising struggle against the labor of workers abroad. the American heroic victory of the Soviet Red Army "Resurgent fascism is still an extrem Social-Democratic misleaders and their capitalist class cannot now easily reverse the rabidly anti-Communist SPD that ist fringe phenomenon. It would again fake-leftist water boys. We must fight to its industrial decline. This is the mate rial basis for the rabid behavior of the fought the Soviet Union for the whole threaten all mankind. as soon as the first construct a party capable of breaking Bush administration. Its outlook brings term of its existence today cries croco crises in a reunified Greater Germany the working-class base from the social to mind the siege mentality of the Afri dile tears for the Red Army and the sacri appear. Today. however. the SPD/SDP is democracy, both of the SPD and the PDS. kaners in South Africa, the Ulster Prot fices made by the Soviet working class. the chief instrument to bring about such a These parties are, as Lenin explained. estants in Northern Ireland and the Zion Greater Germany." Speaking before the bourgeois workers parties, i.e., they rest ists in the Near East." Putin's invitation for May 9 has led quarter-million working people who came on a proletarian base but have a fully With a GNP about one-third that of the to a controversy with the conservative to this pro-socialist, pro-Soviet, anti bourgeois program. Forging a political U.S., Germany is necessarily forced to CDUlCSU [Christian Democratic par fascist protest, we called for the founding instrument with which to do battle, a rely on imperialist partners. Hence its ties]. They reject the SPD/Green govern and rule of workers and soldiers councils. revolutionary multiethnic workers party, efforts to transform the EU [European ment's strategy of acting more independ As we warned, counterrevolution has is urgently necessary. We Spartacists have Union], an imperialist trade bloc, into an ently of the U.S. in coalition with France led to mass unemployment, a massive committed ourselves to the struggle to instrument for its ambitions of political and Russia. They believe that German increase in institutionalized racism, and, build such a party. For the reforging of dominance. However, as the Iraq war interests are more readily realizable if encouraged by these, Nazi terror. The the Fourth International, world party of once again clearly illustrated, the EU is Germany follows more closely in the fake Trotskyists, from the SAV [Socialist proletarian revolution!. torn apart by counterposed imperialist wake of the U.S. Not the least thing interests, including differences between they're worried about is too great a de France and Germany. In order to even pendence of Germany on Russia, which approach the military and technological they find neither so reliable nor stable. level of the U.S., the German bourgeoi with concomitant possible international sie would have to massively increase its isolation. For example. the CDU/CSU military budget: this can be financed parliamentary fraction's foreign policy only by drastically raising the rate of spokesman, Friedbert Pfluger. warned: "Germany is presently dependent on exploitation of the working class. And Russian gas for about 47 percent [of thus the German bourgeoisie's plans for its requirementsl. some of the new EU becoming a world power depend to a states like Slovakia for 100 percent. great extent on the course of class strug An accidental or intentional deliverv fail gle in their own country. ure would have great consequences. As important and sensible as Germany's Like Chirac, Russian president [Vladi energy alliance with Russia is. it cannot mir] Putin also invited Schroder to the ignore the fact that Russia sees its trade 60th anniversary festivities. Gernot Erler, in energy as a potential means of pres foreign policy spokesman for the SPD sure on dependent states:' -www.friedbert-pflueger.de. parliamentary fraction, commented: 9 March "The day will be one of remembrance of the 30 million victims of the war in the Pfluger accordingly solidarized with the Soviet Union and of the desolation disgusting anti-communist hue and cry Hitler's armies left behind. But the. of the Baltic governments, who termed memorial celebrations-that's the wish Putin's invitation for May 9th an "insult" of the hosts-should also send a signal for European reconciliation. For the first and warned SchrOder he should "promul Action Press time, the head of the German govern gate the historical truth": "In the Baltic German workers protest against SPD/Green government economic austerity ment is invited to participate. And the states, May 9 stands not only for the end plan, 2004. 10 WORKERS VANGUARD and immigrants all over Germany, they Dresden ... were enraged at the Nazi provocation taking place at the same time. The [Lon (colltil1l1edjimn page 5) don] Guardian (1-1. February) reported: June 19-1-1 that they couldn't bomb '''This is a horrible day for Dresden-I'm Auschwitz. It wa\ too far away. th<2 air angry: said Ursula Hamann. 77. who was planes couldn't make the flight 'back. But at the same time bombers were repeat living in the cit) in 1945 and survived the edly attacking l.G. Farben's Buna plant attack. 'It's sad to have to see such a thing in Monowitz. five kilometers away from happen again in Germany: Edeltraud AuschwitL. Why were \\'C lied to')' Krause said: 'Just look at them. You only "Spiegel: The other Western govern have to look at their stupid faces. They ments also were hardly ready to help the victim,. don't represent us'." Adding to the Nazi deployment, the so-called "anti -Germans" '"Riegner: That'~ true. unfortunately. Most of the countries were worried they'd get mobilized against the populace of Dres stuck with the Jews. For them it was den and cynically cheered its incinera preferable that they be killed. somewhere tion: "No tears for Krauts" and "Bomber far away. That's the most frightful thing of alL but that's how it was." Harris, do it again" [original in English] Statements issued by ICL sections in 1995 in German, Polish, English and Thousands of Dresdeners streamed to were their slogans. These ex-leftists regur Russian for 50th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz by Red Army, the official memorial for the victims of gitate the "collective guilt" ideology, as represented by [Foreign Minister Joschka] of its citizens will always remain non Union. [Federal Interior Minister] Schily Fischer and a whole series of bourgeois negotiable fundamentals of German for & Co. are supported in this by Israel, liberal feature writers. An example is the eign policy. Israel will always be able to whose rulers flip out not only because historian and journalist Gbtz Aly, who rely on this." "Solidarity" with the Zion Jewish refugees would prefer to immi recently published an article with the ist rulers of Israel, who bloodily oppress grate to Germany rather than to the death unbelievable title "The Feel-Good Dicta the Palestinian people, has nothing to do trap of Israel (which is quite embarrass BEl EUCH LlEGT DIE ENTSCHEIDUNG I torship" in Der Spiegel. The article is with the fight against anti-Semitism. We ing) but also because they have been intended to provide a foretaste of Aly's defend the dispossessed and impover emigrating from Israel back to East book Hitlers Volksstaat [Hitler's People's ished Palestinian people against Zionist Europe, in order to travel from there State], and embodies the lie of "collective state terror. At the same time, we give not to Germany or somewhere safer. Jewish guilt" which is aimed at whitewashing the one iota of support to Arab nationalism refugees justifiably do not want to be German bourgeoisie: "Anyone desiring to and Islamic fundamentalism. We are for used as cannon fodder for the racist, and, i ~~:-,.:~~ ~~~~~ =~':.:'lI: : comprehend the criminal dynamic of the right to self-determination of both in the long term. suicidal war of the Zion IS .. W...... o;W ...~I_, : ..... ~... ..-.. ... ooIo;lot ...... _1 National Socialism should no longer fix the Palestinian and the Hebrew-speaking ist rulers against the Palestinians. Of ate on the giant banks and big compa nations, even if the latter is not presently course the "anti-Germans" have no objec nies." Another example is Frankfurter threatened. Within a capitalist frame tion to the anti-Semitic act of halting Rundschau's justification of the incinera work, a just solution is impossible when immigration by East European Jews to tion of Dresden referred to above. two nations lay claim to one and the same Germany. The "anti-Germans" are in fact not part territory, as in Israel/Palestine. Only a In our article "Holocaust, 'Collective tl~;tE of the left, but rather Fischer's "clean-up workers revolution in the Near East that Guilt' and German Imperialism" [WV Heroic Trotskyists in Brest, France crew," who seek to destroy the left by sweeps away the sheiks and the colonels, No. 697, 25 September 1998] we wrote: built cell in German army, distrib· any means and rant against immigrants the mullahs and the Zionist rulers can "Only Leninist internationalists, fighting uted Arbeiter und So/dat. of Muslim origin. With their "Solidar lay the foundations for a just, demo to reforge Leon Trotsky's Fourth Interna ity with Israel," the "anti-Germans" are cratic solution of the national question. tional as the world party of socialist revo the Dresden firestorm [on 13 February]. marching in lockstep with the Foreign For a socialist federation of the Near lution, can draw the lessons of Hitler's They wanted to remember their loved Ministry. In his 24 January commemora East! While Fischer was weeping media rise to power and advance a strategy to ones and the tens of thousands of other tive speech at the United Nations for the minded crocodile tears over Auschwitz at defeat the growing fascist danger today. innocent people who were murdered, and 60th anniversary of the liberation of the UN, the German state interior minis This is the task of the International Com to send a message that such a thing Auschwitz, Fischer said: "The right to ters were consulting on how to stop the munist League and its German section, should never happen again. Like workers exist of the state of Israel and the security immigration of Jews from the ex-Soviet the Spartakist Workers Party.". of the interimperialist Second World War. Trotskyists fought for revolutionary defeat Hiroshima ... ism--calling for the proletariat in all the ( continued from page 5) warring imperialist powers to overthrow of Japan was carried out to hasten the end their bourgeoisies through socialist revo of the war. echoing Truman's justification lution-while calling for the uncondi years after the war that it "saved millions tional military defense of the Soviet of lives." In fact, by the summer of 1945, Leaders of Union. Speaking in August 1945, James P. the U.S. had full controI of the air and sea Socialist Workers Cannon, principal leader of the Socialist surrounding Japan, and as early as May Party and Workers Party, stated in the aftermath of Minneapolis 1945, Japan's rulers had indicated their Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Teamsters jailed willingness to negotiate terms of sur "Long ago the revolutionary Marxists for revolutionary said that the alternative facing human render. Japan was already defeated. opposition to U.S. ity was either socialism or a new bar The truth is that 200,000 human beings imperialism during barism, that capitalism threatens to go were incinerated in a ruthless display of World War II. down in ruins and drag civilization American military might intended to with it. But in the light of what has been developed in this war and is pro intimidate the Soviet Union and proclaim jected for the future. I think we can to all the hegemony of U.S. imperialism say now that the alternative can be in the postwar order. According to A-bomb made even more precise: The alterna scientist Leo Szilard, U.S. Secretary of nuclear parity with the United States. The other deformed workers states to possess tive facing mankind is socialism or State James F. Byrnes argued for use of USSR, with its powerful nuclear arsenal nuclear arms as a deterrent against the annihilation! ... "We believe that the people of the world the newly developed atomic bomb be and conventional military, acted as a U.S. imperialist madmen. will waken to this frightful alternative cause "our possessing and demonstrating counterweight to U.S. imperialism. The We in the Spartacist League/U.S. stand and act in time to save themselves .... the bomb would make Russia more counterrevolutionary restoration of capi in the tradition of the Socialist Workers Simultaneously with that uprising, and manageable~' The Truman administration talism in the USSR in 1991-92 has cre Pariy at the time, which, as the U.S. coordinating our struggle with it, we, the ated a "one superpower" world where the Trotskyist organization, stood in revolu Trotskyist party, will lead the workers sought to diminish the need for con and plebeians of America in a revolu cessions to the Soviet Union, which U.S. imperialists feel they can ride rough tionary opposition to U.S. imperialism tionary attack against our main enemy had defeated Nazi Germany and liberated shod over anyone they declare to be during World War II. The Pacific War and the main enemy of mankind, the much of East Europe. an "enemy." In early 1992, as the USSR between the U.S. and Japan was part imperialists of the United States."_ At the end of World War II, U.S. collapsed, a leaked memorandum by imperialist propagandists hailed the be the Defense Department and Pentagon ginning of an "American Century"-a declared that the goal of U.S. military century of U.S. imperial domination. U.S. strategy was to enforce a "new order" in Spartakist @~;i(l1:i~iifl nuclear superiority was to be a corner which the "first objective" was to "pre Fiir Klassenkampf gegen Sozlalraub ..... stone of that policy. Truman exulted after vent the emergence of a new rival" to the Publication of the PDS/WASG-Linkspartei the incineration of Hiroshima and Naga military hegemony of the U.S. Sparta kist Workers Party saki: "With this bomb we have no\\ Today, America's rulers bellow about of Germany keine Alternative zur SPD added a ne\\ and revolutionary increase in "rogue states" possessing "weapons of destruction to ~upplement the growing mass destruction." But it is the U.S. that One-year subscription power of our armed force~ .... \Ve are now has the largest stockpile of chemical. bio (4 issues): £4 prepared to obliterate more rapid!) and logical and nuclear weapons in the world. Airmail: £10 (US$10) completely." In 1946. the U.S. threatened From the firebombing of Dresden and includes Spartacist (German edition) to use atomic bombs against the Soviet Tokyo during World War II, to the blood Union if it did not vvithdraw its troops soaked fields of Vietnam, to the "shock Make checks payable/mail to: from Iran: it made some 25 additional and awe" bombings in Iraq, U.S. imperi SpAD, c/o Verlag Avantgarde threats to llse nuclear weapons between alism is responsible for the deaths of Postfach 2 35 55, 10127 Berlin, Germany 1946 and 1980. countless millions of civilians around the or It was fortunate for humanity that the world. The U.S. is the only country to Spartacist Publishing Co. Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons have ever used nuclear weapons in war. Box 1377 GPO capability by the end of the 1940s, and We call on the international proletariat to New York, NY 10116 that they ultimately attained a measure of defend the right of the North Korean and 5 AUGUST 2005 11 Mexico ... ' ( continued from page 16) the day the postage stamps with the Memfn Pingufn illustration were put on sale, crowds of people lined up to buy them despite, or rather because of, the scandal over the racist illustrations (the The following leaflet was issued at Fox while Jackson and Al Sharp to the toiling masses of Central and South edition of 750,000 stamps has sold out!). jointly by the Bay Area Labor Black ton grandstanded as "black leaders," America. The social power of organized Obscenely, a new edition of the comic League for Social .Defense and the demanding Fox's apology for the bene labor must be mobilized against our com strip was just launched. newly founded Los Angeles Labor Black fit of the media. Not so long ago Attor mon foe, U.S. imperialism, to champion The capitalist rulers push the hypocriti League for Social Defense on 30 July. ney General John Ashcroft, an admirer the cause of all the oppressed around cal ideology of nationalism-that we are Images borrowed from the U.S. , of the slaveholding Confederacy, guided key demands such as full citizenship all Mexicans and our interests are com legacy of slavery and Jim Crow segre efforts in drafting repressive legislation rights for all immigrants. mon-as a smokescreen that covers class gation are featured in the Mexican Post against workers and minorities like the There will be no effective resistance distinctions and the counterposed inter Office's recently issued series of stamps "Patriot Act" recently extended by a bi to the exploitation of working people on ests of workers to the bosses, glorifying with" racist depictions of Sambo-like partisan vote in Congress. both sides of the border without the the most backward and openly racist cartoon character Memin Pinguin. Jesse In America, the exploitation of, labor unity in struggle between the trade aspects of "Mexicanity" and "popular Jackson has called on President Bush is wrapped in the envelope of raw unions and the black and Mexican poor. culture." Thus, racist stereotypes of indige to pressure Mexico to withdraw· the racism. Today the desperate conditions This united struggle would be the goal nous people as lazy and ignorant are also stamps from the market, saying they of life for blacks, a race-color caste of a revolutionary, multiracial workers everyday occurrences. Anti-Semitism is "insult people around the world." The segregated at the bottom of capitalist party fighting for working-class interest so widespread that Mein Kampf is one White House, the chief purveyor of society, and non-white immigrants are independent of and in opposition to of the most "popular" and easily obtain violence against non-white people glob increasingly the reality for all Ameri the capitalist parties, Republican and able books, available at nearly every book ally, responded: "Racial stereotypes are can workers. U.S. imperialism has his Democrat. The Labor Black League for kiosk in downtown Mexico City. In a offensive no matter what their origin." torically exported the practice of.racial Social Defense, in fraternal alliance with particularly grotesque example of blind The hypocrisy of the racist American segregation along with its ideological the Marxist Spartacist League, seeks to ness to racist oppression, the cartoonist ruling class and its government, Repub props to the exploited semicolonial build such a party. We are joined in this Rogelio Naranjo said: "In the U.S. dis-' lican and Democrat alike, is boundless. world. Mexico's anti-black racism shares effort by our Mexican comrades, Grupo plays of racism are different from those When Mexican president Vicente Fox this common origin which finds reso Espartaquista de Mexico, who wrote in in Mexico. Here, poor people, not races, made his ~omment in May, that super nance with its native and pervasive a July 15 protest statement, "We call on are discriminated against. Here, indige exploited Mexican migrants would do anti-Indigenous racism. workers to repudiate racist propaganda nous people are discriminated against not jobs that "not even blacks want to do in But black workers in the U.S. are a like Memfn Pingufn and its official for belonging to another race, but for the United States," he was describing powerful component of the trade-union endorsement by the Fox government. being poor" (La Jornada, 1 -July). Tell the U.S. rulers' own social policy. The movement; while Latino workers are a For socialist revolution from the Yukon that to the Zapatistas and the ten million Bush administration wagged a finger dynamic sector forming a human bridge to the Yucatan!" indigenous people- in the country! The Zapatista uprising in 1994 called the attention of people around th,e world to the reality of racist Mexican capitalism, affinity between the Mexican and Ameri- simultaneously for immigrants and work- multiracial American proletariat, espe which adds racial oppression to capitalist can rulers. ers to take up the struggle for black eman- cially its black component. Unlike what exploitation. Capitalism, in Mexico as well as in cipation as their own. nationalist ideologues assert, it is not with The denunciations of racism in Memfn the U.S., is inherently racist. Capitalist As-a legacy of slavery, black people in their exploiting "fellow countrymen," but Pingufn by the imperialist Bush govern parasites, who live by exploiting the work the U.S. suffer from special oppression, as with their class brothers and sisters, the ment-that a large part of the Mexican of the population, see a danger to their a race-color caste relegated to the bottom exploited of the world, that workers share population rightly views as the most racist regime in the joint struggle of workers of society. This oppression has histori- a fundamental interest: to put an end to and immoral murderer of peoples in the that overcomes national and racial di- cally been the cornerstone of American this system of exploitation and oppres world-are thoroughly hypocritical. The vides, and for that reason they foment capitalism. At the same time, blacks are sion and replace it with the international imperialists condemn the black popu racism every day as a means of keeping integrated into key sectors of the working rule of the workers. lation to the ghettos, prisons, unemploy the workers divided by stupid prejudices. class. Due to their position as the most The communists of the Grupo Esparta ment, misery and police brutality. They Those who want to take part in the strug- oppressed, but also the most conscious quista de Mexico are proud to share with also terrorize Mexican and - Central gle"1br ..OIkets' tllteM~ nMst&!eM'ea"" ad4~ience(hector of tile proletariat, our comrades of the Spattacist Leaguel . American immigrants, unleashing the battle to the end against these stupid revolutionary black workers are called U.S. the Marxist struggle against imperi brutal migra and, as in the case of "gov prejudices. Our comrades in the Sparta- on to play a leading role in the coming alism and racism, for the world workers ernator" Schwarzenegger, supporting the cist League/U.S. fight to break down the' American socialist revolution. That's why commune. We call on workers to repudi fascist, paramilitary "Minutemen." At the divisions between black people and - for Marxists the struggle for black eman- ate racist propaganda like Memfn Pingufn same time, they whip up racism through Mexican immigrants pushed by the impe- cipation in the U.S. is absolutely central. and its official endorsement by the Fox derogatory stereotypes of these immi rialist rulers; they fight to mobilize the The Mexican exploited and oppressed government. For socialist revolution from grants. Racism occupies a privileged entire working class to demand full citi- will find n'o better ally in the struggle for the Yukon to the Yucatan! Workers of the place among the points of ideological zerisnip rights for all immigrants, and their emancipation than the powerful, world, unite!. c J1 TELPRO continued to rot1.n' American Deep Throat ... dungeons. For .,example, Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) was imprisoned ( continued from page 3) for almost three decades with full govern powers 10 suppress domestic dissent. ment knowledge of his innocence. After the June 1972 break-in of the By 1983, the FBI had adopted the Democratic National Committee head Domestic SecurityITerrorism Guidelines, quarters at the Watergate compltx in 1969: Ct'licago which equated left-wing political activ police and FBI ity with terrorism and organized crime. Washington was linked to Nixon's Com brutally killed mittee to Re-elect the President (CRP, We called this "McCarthyism with a Black Panther drawn gun." What the FBI had done in appropriately pronounced Creep), the Sen leaders Fred ate convene!1 public hearings in 1973 as Hampton (inset) secret an<;l "illegally" in the '60s and '70s, an exercise in damage control. Under and Mark Clark. Reagan's anti-terror red-hunt could carry mounting pressure to leave office, Nixon Bloodsoaked out openly with the full sanction of the acted in characteristic f~shion, like a cor mattress on law. We responded with a lawsuit, as a nered rat, firing subordinates left and which Hampton result of which the government conceded right and suppressing evidence including was sleeping. the central aim of our legal challenge tapes of his efforts.to get the CIA to stop that Marxist advocacy cannot be equated the investigation. On 8 August 1974, with with violence or terrorism. However, as the House of Representatives clearly mov oppressed. Nixon's second crime in their gate-i.e., Nixon's crimes against his own we wrote at the time: eyes was to get caught. The "law and class-pales before his crimes against the "We have no illusions that the govern ing toward impeachment, he resigned. ment's secret police have stopped or will Nixon's violation of bourgeois democ order" presidency was exposed as a gang world's working class. We stated at the stop their harassment, infiltration and racy disturbed his masters mainly be of petty crooks. This brought discredit time that his saturation bombing of the disruption of Marxist political organiza cause it was aimed against one of their on the Republican Party as well as.the .workers and peasants of Indochina earned tions and other perceived political oppo own political institutions, the Democratic "Washington Establishment," something him a place beside the worst Nazi war nents of the government." the rulers seek to prevent. criminals at the Nuremberg trials. -WVNo. 368. 7 December 1984 Party. and not representatives of the class . ~ enemy-the left. labor movement and The working clas~ is certainly not in Impeachment. like Nixon's resignation, What we stated during the Watergate different to questions of political demo only provided for the orderly transfer of cri si s resounds even more profoundly cracy. While expo~ing the corruption. power to the equally reactionary Vice Pres today as the bipartisan "war on terror" machinations ::md state violence of the ident Gerald Ford. And the Senate hear moves to shred everyone's rights. The NOTICE capitalist rulers, we demand the fullest ings on Watergate in no \vay curtailed U.S. democratic rights of 'the working class Workers Vanguard skips possible democratic rights to allow the sabotage and subversion abroad, demon can be defended and extended only alternate issues in June, working class to organize itself around its strated by its all-sided support, at the through the class-struggle means by own class interests and program. While it same time, to Pinochet's bloody 1973 mil which they were won. Exposures of the Ji.lly and August. was necessary "for the working class itary coup in Chile. The worst excesses of machinations and naked violence of the Our next issue will to support Nixon's impeachment, we pro domestic covert and COINTELPRO sub bourgeois state must lead to the in be dated September 2. claimed: "Impeachment Is Not Enough!" version 'may have been reined in, but those escapable conciusion that those who (WV No. 31, 26 October 1973). Water- already ensnared or targeted by COIN- labor must rule .• .'1./r 12 WORKERS VANGUARD . .. religions. Livingstone intoned "you see London ... the world gathered in one city, living in (continued jimn page 1) harmony. as an example to all." Living stone's speech could have been written The Bush and Blair administrations are by the Socialist Workers Party (SWPl. using the London terror attacks to grease who was in the \anguard of this "unity" the skids for even more repressive laws. chorus. Their 7 July statement on the many of which have been in the works bombings proclaimed: "London is a cen for some time. In the U.S .. the September tre of peace, the most multiracial city in 11 attack led to the authoritarian. anti Europe and a global centre of opposition immigrant. deeply sinister USA-Patriot Act. It was supposed to be .. temporary:' to the war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan." but just a few days ago the U.S. Congress. This is a shameless and grotesque including by a unanimous vote in the Sen denial of the reality of life for London's ate. re-authorized and made permanent working class and poor, especially immi nearly all the provisions in the Patriot Act. grants and minorities whose daily grind Congress also recently passed the anti means long hours and pitiful pay while immigrant "Real ID" Act. a step toward a being routinely vilified by the racist press, national identification system. The Amer the government and police. Since Septem ican Civil .Liberties Union recently dis ber I I. police dragnets have rounded covered. as the result of a suit it brought up more than 600 foreign nationals under the Freedom of Information Act. under "anti-terrorism" legislation, the that in the last several years the FBI has overwhelming majority of whom were collected o\er a thousand pages of docu later released. The handful detained. on ments about the ACLU itself. and thou no charge~ other than being .. terrorist sands more on anti war groups such as suspects:' are confined in Britain's own United for Peace and Justice. ~h well as Guantanamo-Belmarsh prison-or else ci\ il right-; and cll\ironmental groups. electronically monitored under "house Thc frame-up comiction of leftist attor arrest. ney Lynne Stewart for vigorously defend To be Muslim is to be suspect. ~(l ing her cl ient is aJ..,o an attempt to crusll sooner had bomh, ripped through the political dissent. Underground than a further wave of racist As detainees in the U.S. torture chamber attacks was unleashed. Muslim organisa at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba went on hun tions received 30.000 hate-filled e-maib; ger strike to expose their desperate plight. mosques had windows smashed and one the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Indymedia was firebombed. In Nottingham a Muslim of Columbia in July upheld the Bush London, 25 July: Hundreds protest killing of man, Kamal Raza Butt, was murdered by administration's "military commissions," Brazilian immigrant Jean Charles de Menezes a gang who shouted "Taliban" before again denying the' detainees any right to (inset) by British cops. beating him to death, In London, the puta due process of law (something the Center tive "city of peace," the fascist BNP put for Constitutional Rights had fought for portunities"! The Bush gang, supported imperialist rulers, identifying the working out a leaflet with a picture of the bombed and got the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold by the Democrats, capitalized all right class and the whole population with the bus, declaring that people should now last year). Now, Vice President Richard launching an assault on democratic rights policies of the capitalist exploiters and "start listening to the BNP." Muslims fear Cheney is leading a White House charge at home, invading Afghanistan and then oppressors. The bombs were aimed not at an even more severe racist. backlash to stop legislation barring torture by devastating Iraq, which has been turned Bush or Blair, who were in Scotland for now that the police say the bombings American forces. into a hellhole where terror attacks claim the G8 summit, but at the multiethnic were supposedly carried out by British In Britain, which already has some of ing dozens of lives have become the daily working people of London: areas such as Muslims. the most draconian "anti-terror" legisla norm. Working people and all defenders Edgware Road, which is overwhelmingly tion, the Blair regime is discussing a bill of democratic rights must mobilize in Arab; Aldgate, the heart of the Bangla The government is planning more to criminalize speech that could suppos opposition to the government's brutal and deshi community; Kings Cross and Russell round-Ups, more deportations and more edly "indirectly incite" terrorism. Since racist crackdown at home and imperialist Square, through which hundreds of thou sweeping police-state measures. A range the London bombings, heavily armed cops adventures abroad. sands of ordinary people of every race of new offences will be created for what and ethnicity travel every day. are essentially "thought crimes," such as Bush and Blair. whose savage occupa "ac!s preparatory to terrorism," which tion of Iraq has cost the lives of an esti might mean visiting "terrorist" Web sites; mated 100,000 people. self-righteously "indirect incitement:' which includes condemned the terrorists for taking inno "glorifying the acts of suicide bombers" cent lives. Behind their crocodile tears for as well as "attacking the values of the those killed and wounded in the London West"! While aimed most immediately at bombings they seek to deflect the justi Muslims, the "war on terror" is designed to fied outrage and sympathy of the popUla strengthen the capitalist state's machinery tion for the victims and their families in of repression. to be imposed with a ven order to reinforce their rule at home and geance against anyone the government Rescue workers abroad. As Guardian journalist Seumas perceives as an opponent as most recently at Ghazala Milne noted, even to link the bombings to demonstrated by the mass arrests outside Gardens hotel Britain's role in Iraq or Afghanistan, the G8 summit. But the ultimate target is in Egyptian which is obvious to millions, can get the multi ethnic working class. resort town of Today, Blair and Livingstone have the Sharm el Sheik. you denounced as a "traitor"; to question July 23 terrorist Blair's assertion that the bombings were audacity to salute the heroism of the Tube bombings killed an attack "on our way of life" is to be workers, firefighters, ambulance drivers 64, including branded "an apologist for terror." and others who put their bodies on the many Egyptian For millions around the globe, British line to help the victims of the bombings. workers. imperialism's "way of life" has meant But, for years the government has sav untold terror. Kurds in what is now Iraq, aged the living, working and safety con a country manufactured by British impe ditions for these and other workers. And rialism, were bombed from the air while when the unions have fought back, like Arabs were shelled by the British colo the firefighters did on the eve of the Iraq nial overlords in 1919-20. The 1917 Bal war, they were branded the "enemy within" have been patrolling the streets and sub We reprint below a July 21 statement four Declaration set the scene for carving and threatened with the full force of capi ways, an unusual sight for the city where issued by the Spartacist League/Britain, the state of Israel out of the homeland of talist state repression. Last summer, Liv cops historically did not carry guns. And section of the International Communist the Palestinians. The bloody partition of ingstone-the boss of transport workers in the racist backlash against Muslims has League, following the London attacks. India under the Labour government of the capital--called on London Under been growing daily. There have been ter Clement Attlee ushered in communalist ground workers to scab on their own strike. rifying and relentless police raids on peo * * * slaughter on an unprecedented scale. And greed for profit and the policies of the ple's homes, targeting especially Muslims Following Criminal London Terror Bombings: This laid the basis for murderous relig government pose the biggest threat to from Somalia and Ethiopia. One home that ious and ethnic conflicts that persist to the lives of passengers. The 1987 Kings was raided by the cops was later fire Down With U.S.lBritish Imperialist this day. as well as the poverty, destitu Cross fire, the 1999 Paddington rail crash bombed after the address was printed in Occupation of Iraq! tion and desperation of countless people and other rail disasters have claimed far the press. and the fascist British National from the Indian subcontinent to the Near more lives than any terrorists. Now. the Front staged a rally in front of a mosque Defend Muslims Against Labour's East to Africa. go\'ernment is trying to scrap the legis in London's Regent, Park. In this atmos Millions in this country took to the lation-introduced after the inferno in phere of racist hysteria, Anthony Walker. a Racist Witchhunt! streets in proteq against the impending Kings Cross took 31 liws-which man black teenager in Liverpool. wa, mur Within hours of the horrific London imperialist slaughter of Iraq in 2003 and dated stricter fire regulations! dered on Jul~ 29. an ax emhedded in his bombings that killed 0\ er 50 people and Britain's role in the brutal occupation of ..,kull. after being ~ubjected to torrents of injured hundred" Ton~ Blair seized on haq cost Blair in the last elections. In For Class Unity of the racist ahuse as he waited at a bus stop this atrocity as a pretext to escalate the that context. London \layor Ken Living Multiethnic Working Class! with his white girlfriend. "war on terror." Let's be clear: these stone's prominence in the demonstrations It is a sign of the times that we haw to The vicious mindset of the capitalist bombings were a criminal act of indefen protesting the war on Iraq made him an point out today that London is a class rulers was captured by Condoleezza Rice, sible ten·or. Like the attack on the World ideal candidate to lead a patriotic "unity" divided city. not to m" .. .,Vil we seat of who, following the September 11 attacks, Trade Center and the bombing of com crusade against ·'terrorism,'· Addressing power of the blood-soaked British ruling told the National Security Council to think muter trains in Madrid last year, the per the crowd at a 14 July vigil for the vic class. Despite Britain's industrial decline, about "how do you capitalize on these op- petrators share the same mindset as the tims, flanked by leaders of all the main continued 011 page 14 5 AUGUST 2005 13 clearly did not. Substituting individual London ... acts against the symbols of imperialist (continued from page 13) exploitation and oppression is directly counterposed to the task of mobilising the the City is still a hub for international working class for the revolutionary over capital. Share prices tumbled the day of throw of the capitalist system. But the the bombs, which in its own way shows Socialist Party's declared opposition to that the workforce in the Underground "terrorism" is nothing more than an ... and buses has tremendous social power appeal to mobilise the proletariat behind Savage the City banks and stock exchange are the government's "war on terror." Placing occupation of dependent on the transport system. It is an equals sign between the imperialist Iraq: U.S. this social power that must be brought to powers and the Islamic terrorists, the troops in bear in a class-struggle fight in defence of Socialist Party is in fact capitulating to Mosul immigrants, minorities and the unions British and U.S. imperialism, who consti brutalize man themselves against the racist "war on tute the mightiest and most dangerous ter accused of terror." As revolutionary internationalists rorist forces on this planet. This is not supporting we took a side in the war, calling for particularly surprising coming from an insurgents, defence of Iraq, without giving any politi organisation which prides itself on not January 2005. cal support to the Saddam Hussein calling for British troops out of Northern regime: So too must the proletariat be Ireland now-a call which is the most mobilised in defence of the Iraqi peoples' elementary act of opposition to British against the savage British and U.S. occu imperialism. talist class. It is downright grotesque to power world" in which U.S. imperialism pation forces through class struggle Class independence of the working blame the alliance with the U.S. for and its allies feel they have free rein to against the British imperialist rulers at class is the precondition for any genuine British imperialism's brutality. Although ravage the semicolonial world. home! All U.S'!British troops out of socialist opposition to imperialism-both today reduced to a decrepit junior partner The perpetrators of acts such as the Iraq now! Down with the racist "war against imperialist war and attacks on the of the U.S., when they did have the eco London bombing, whoever they may be, on terror"! Full citizenship rights for all working class and minorities at home. nomic .and military clout the British demonstrate the mindset typical of relig immigrants! No deportations! For trade But the whole premise of the SWP-built imperialists wrote the book on racist ious zealots who believe they have a union/minority mobilisations against fas antiwar protests is based on peddling divide-and-rule and ruthless exploitation God-given right to exterminate all non cist terror! another version of "national unity" of their colonial "subjects." The "spirit of believers. Islam has no monopoly on this We vehemently oppose the appeals for between the working class and oppressed the Blitz" in World War II that has been outlook: it parallels that of Christian fun the "unity" of all classes, which only who oppose the occupation of Iraq, and a invoked almost daily since the terror damentalists who bomb abortion clinics serves to strengthen the hand of the impe more "rational" wing of the ruling class ist bombings in London is a persistent in the U.S.; the Protestant bigots who jus rialist rulers by binding the working class that believes British imperialism's inter Labourite myth that all classes were tify "ethnic cleansing" against Catholics and oppressed to their very exploiters and ests are being damaged by acting simply united behind King and country in a com in Northern Ireland; and the Zionists who oppressors. Not so the Socialist Party as a "pillion passenger" behind the Bush mon defence of British "democracy." Far seek to "cleanse" the Palestinians from which blatantly appeals to mobilise the White House. For the reformist SWP, the from a war for "democracy," for the what they deem to be the Jewish "holy proletariat behind the so-called "war on solution lies not in the overthrow of capi British imperialists this was a scramble land." Terrorist attacks in the name of terror:' calling on the unions and the Stop talism but in persuading the British gov to protect their imperialist "interests" nationalist or religious forces tend to be the War Coalition to organise a mass ernment to break with Bush. An SWP among which India was a prized posses aimed at the indiscriminate slaughter of protest on the slogan "no to terrorism, no statement (13 July) argues: "There has to sion. Thus they denied India its right to as many of the ordinary, multiethnic to war." This dovetails with the politics of be a dramatic reverse in policy, at home independence and even caused a famine working-class people as possible. It is "antiwar" Labour MPs [Members of Par- and abroad. Pulling the troops out of Iraq in Bengal, while the Labour Party played unlikely you would find the remotest rep a vital role in whipping up patriotic resentative of the upper classes of this "unity" at home. And contrary to the main country on the London Underground or myth propagated about the "democratic" buses. Moreover, two of the bombings allies, it was the Soviet Red Army that were in heavily Muslim areas. So who smashed Hitler's fascism, at a cost of well ever perpetrated these attacks, the mes over 20 million Soviet citizens' lives. sage can only be that Muslims should go Moreover, the British imperialists back to their "own" countries. hardly need any lessons from the Ameri In Britain Islamic fundamentalism has cans on police-state repression. hav grown, nurtured by international factors ing inflicted it for many years on the as well as the prevalence of lslamopho oppressed Catholics in Northern Ireland. bia and economic decline. In 2001, Asian Similar to today's anti-Muslim hysteria, youth in Oldham, Bradford and Leeds "anti-terrorism" campaigns of the 1970s had to fight pitched battles to defend led to outrageous frame-ups of innocent their homes from fascists who, backed people such as the Birmingham Six. the by the police, laid siege to neighbour Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four, hoods. In these former textile towns, the who were wrongly con,:icted in a wave factories once provided a degree of racial of anti-Irish hysteria following civilian integration, but economic decline and bombing atrocities in British city centres. factory closures has increased the polar isation between rich and poor and led to Imperialist Hypocrisy and a level of racial segregation which has Islamic Fundamentalism been compared to the American South amma The British press is in a lather about the before the civil rights movement. Soviet forces at Kabul airport, December 1979, Trotskyists hailed Red Army fact that this "democratic" country could For the imperialist rulers "Islamic ter intervention in Afghanistan against Islamic reactionaries backed by U,S. and produce "home grown" Islamic terrorists. rorism" has become the surrogate for the British imperialism. Ken Livingston~ stated the obvious when war against "Godless communism," the he said: "I suspect the real problem was new enemy against which they seek to liamentl like Alice Mahon who opposes will begin to drain the swamp of bitter that we funded these people as long as rally the population in support of imperi Blair's invasion of Iraq, from the stand ness that nurtures terrorism," adding that they were killing Russians. We gave no alist terror abroad and increased state re point that it is not in the best interests "the majority of people in the US have thought to the fact that when they stopped pression at home. Our purpose is to fight of British imperialism at present, while turned against Bush's war-we must killing Russians they might start killing to infuse the working class with the con arguing that it's a diversion from the "war intensify the pressure on the British gov us" (Daily Telegraph, 20 July). For "we," sciousness that it has the class interests and on terror" at home. ernment to break frpm him as well." read the British imperialists who, together the social power to eradicate the system of As Marxists we oppose terrorism as a It is ludicrous to suggest that Britain with the U.S. and the Pakistan authorities, capitalist imperialism. The 1984-85 Brit strategy, even when it derives from real, can somehow "opt out" of the world pulled off the largest covert operation in ish miners strike, among whose most stal = if misguided, anti-imperialist impulses system of imperialism, short of workers the CIA's history throughout the 1980s to wart supporters were blacks and Asians, and targets genuine institutions of state revolution and the establishment of a boost the most extreme Islamic reactionar gave a palpable sense of how class strug repression-which the London bombing workers state that expropriates the capi- ies. including Bin Laden. for a jihad in gle can unite all of the oppressed behind Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. the power of the proletariat. We seek to The SWP, the Socialist Party and most of forge a multiethnic revolutionary workers WO~RSI[AMl!!~R~ the so-called socialist left were in the party which can take this power forward to victory through proletarian socialist IISIIrtIaiR IIaIlCs III SJdaI -= camp of the imperialists against the lebanon: Imperialist intrigues USSR. We hailed the Soviet intervention revolution which alone can lay the mate WORKERS~. and the spectre of civil war in Afghanistan, noting that this was a pro rial basis for ending racism, oppression, IlAMMER VY~. ... gressive act by the Stalinist bureaucracy exploitation and war.. ~ that offered the possibility of extending -';:::."~""-If .- the gains of the 1917 Russian Revolution Marxist newspaper of the to the Afghan peoples, particularly to the Spartacist League/Britain i1i~~=~~~=~'=';~:~~= hideously oppressed women. Following Moving? £3/1 year counterrevolution in the Soviet Union, To receive Workers Vanguard when imperialist funding to the Islamists without interruption please let us International rate: £7-Airmail dried up, the latter turned on their erst know at least three weeks before Europe outside Britain and Ireland: £5 while backers, most dramatically in the you move. Send your new and criminal attack on the World Trade Center. " old address to: Order f.r".,.,f~"ke checks payable to: II Counterrevolution in the former Soviet Spartacist Publishing Co. Spartacist I-'ublications Union gave an enormous boost to the - PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU, England liz Box 1377 GPO forces of religious reaction around the New York, NY 10116 globe, while also leading to a "one super- 14 WORKERS VANGUARD iii II I !! labor movement. In turn. the supine sur Organizing Wal-Mart, the largest pri unions beginning in the late 1940s. AFL-CID ... render of the labor tops to Reagan's bust vate employer in both the U.S. and Mex One of Stern's organizational gimmicks (contilluedfrom page 16) ing of PATCO has become a sad model ico. will also require the active defense is to merge most of the AFL-CIO's unions for union response to the capitalists' of immigrant rights. Immigrant workers. into about IS "mega unions." This has system and are tied to the capitalist state. drive to gut the labor movement. often bringing with them traditions of nothing to do with industrial unionism, This is exemplified by the fact that one With the restoration of capitalism in militant labor struggle from their coun the principle that workers in an industry of the most unionized workforces in the East Europe and the former Soviet Union, trIes "of origin, have played an important should be organized into a single union U.S. today is one that does not belong in the American ruling class was embold role in helping to revitalize the U.S. labor regardless of their particular skill or craft. the labor movement-cops. Both the ened to drive back social gains which movement. Yet by and large the labor A case in point is last year's merger of Teamsters and SEIU as well as AFSCME had been won through decades of social tops have signed on to the bosses' anti UNITE, representing apparel workers, in the AFL-CIO have made a point of struggle by workers and all the oppressed. immigrant "war on terror"-a war on the with HERE, representing hotel and res organizing cops, as well as prison and Now, with George W. Bush occupying the democratic rights of the American popu taurant workers. When formerly UNITE security guards. These forces are not part White House, the smug, complacent and lace whose ultimate target is black peo laundry workers at the Wilshire Grand of the labor movement: it is the job of brittle union bureaucracy has realized that ple and the labor movement itself. Hotel in Los Angeles were locked out last the police-with security guards as their September. formerly HERE workers con auxiliaries-to defend the interests of the tinued to work in that hotel. scabbing on capitalists over the workers, including their UNITE HERE union brothers and through strikebreaking violence. The cops sisters. and prison guards, along with the courts, Stern's program is one of business are part of the same capitalist state that unionism based on a model that the union is today threatening to take over the is simply a service organization for work International Longshoremen's Associa ers. something like a welfare agency root tion through a federal civil racketeering ed in a mythical alliance between work suit against "union corruption:' which. if ers and their employers. Stern himself successful. would seriously weaken the said that the unions "should be elastic and union. By organizing such forces. the expandable to meet different employers' union tops are committing class treason. needs. Unions created barriers to change taking a stand for more "law and order:' as the world changed. We became a drag more jails and more racist repression. on change. Now the question is how do we Cops. prison and security guards out or become strong voices for workers. We the unions! need a new set of ideas t~at aren't going Stressing as primary the call for "com back 70 years" (Chicago Tribune. 31 July). plete and unconditional independence of What the workers need is a militant the trade unions in relation to the capital labor movement that can challenge the ist state,". Russian revolutionary Leon bosses' continual assaults. The reality is Trotsky noted in "Trade Unions in the that most of the unions on both sides of Epoch of Imperialist Decay": the split are "general unions." like the "The trade uniOils of our time can either Teamsters OJ Communication Workers, serve as secondary instruments of imperi alist capitalism for the subordination and seeking to encompass groups of workers disciplining of workers and for obstruct UAW from various unrelated industries. The ing the revolution. or. on the contrary. Detroit auto sit-down strike of 1937: Industrial trade unions were built AFL-CIO sti II includes craft unions that through militant class struggle, including factory occupations. the trade unions can become the instru are organized on the basis of a particular ments of the revolutionary movement of skill and are likewise inimical to indus the proletariat," it has a problem. The decline in member How can the unions fight for immi The trade unions are mass organizations ship and dues combined with waning grant rights when their leaders promote trial unionism. Change to Win has trum to defend the economic interests of the influence in an increasingly weak Demo protectionist poison, which amounts to peted the necessity for organizing in a working class against the capitalists and cratic Party is driving both wings of the blaming the loss of jobs in the U.S. on union's "core industry" in order to in their state. To consistently carry out that labor bureaucracy to "reform." workers abroad rather than the American crease the power of the union. Yet the role, tbey must be independent of the Unions still provide their members capitalists? While most of the Change to Teamsters organize everyone from print capitalists and their state. The labor tops considerable benefits compared to non Win union leaders are in service indus ers to pharmacists while FedEx remains promote collaboration and class peace unionized workers. That is why the capi tries, where many of the workers are non-union. In Sweeney's camp. the United with the capitalists. But the class struggle talists spend around $1 billion per year to black or immigrant and where the pres Auto Workers have been busy organizing also has its own logic, and struggles that fight unionization. The union-busters sures toward protectionism are not so graduate students whi Ie tens of thousands the labor misleaders may want to rein have been very successful. Strikes have strong, they stand shoulder to shoulder of jobs in auto remain non-union. in could just as well erupt-through the been few, victories fewer. In 1974 there with the Teamsters' Hoffa. who has sought Rather than striking for union recog workers' determination and militancy were 424 major strikes: last year there to keep Mexican truckers off the roads in nition, the union tops push "neutrality" into something that the bureaucrats can were 17. The wages, pensions, benefits the U.S., appealing to gross national chau agreements with the employers, as though no longer control. A new leadership in the and jobs of unionized workers have vinism. Meanwhile, as the first day of the companies are going to stand by and let labor movement must be forged through been under attack by employers who AFL-CIO convention ended, the union the unions organize without interference. class struggle. a leadership that begins receive the full backing of the courts leaders handed out signs denouncing Unions seeking recognition through "neu with the understanding that the interests and government. Yet the union tops CAFTA, the equivalent of the NAFTA trality" agreements often foreswear such of labor and capital are irreconcilably have done next to nothing to defend their "free trade" rape of Mexico for Central fundamental rights as the right to strike. counterposed. members. America and the Dominican Republic, their most effective weapon against the The working class needs its own party, One does not have to be a Marxist to which was then awaiting a vote in the, employers. Rather than mobilizing in not the sham "independence" of tacking see how remote the AFL-CIO convention U.S. Congress. But despite occasional struggle, they petition the National Labor between the capitalist Democratic and was from the needs and concerns of most rhetoric about "global justice," the union Relations Board (NLRB) to authorize an Republican parties. but a party that will union members, who were likely not even tops' opposition to CAFTA is not based election while pro-union workers suffer mobilize all of the oppressed behind the aware of the gathering or impending split on international solidarity but protection harassment and firings. Both wings of the social power of the working class. It until they were informed by the union ism and chauvinism. bureaucracy are busy lobbying for an needs a revolutionary workers party that hating capitalist press. Far from reflect Sweeney came to office in 1995 prom "Employee Free Choice Act" to allow fights for a workers government and ing a union membership that is at least 42 ising to turn things around through a mas employees to get union recognition with the abolition of the system of capitalist percent women, IS percent black and 11 sive organizing effort. Yet the unions con out employer interference. Each Democrat exploitation. percent Latino, the roughly 900 dele tinued to decline. Ten years later, Stern is at the AFL-CIO convention solemnly The backdrop to the AFL-CIO split is gates. representing millions of members, now claiming that the split by the Change pledged his support for this measure. the sharp decline in union membership in were overwhelmingly white and male. to Win Coalition is "a dramatic step that which will pass the capitalist Congress the U.S. and' corresponding declines in The decline in manufacturing has par we hope will open up opportunities simi just after hell freezes over. union economic and political power. ticularly impacted black jobs. especially lar to the surge in worker unity and To go forward, the trade unionists must Union membership rose to a high-water in industrial centers like Detroit, Chicago organization when the Congress of Indus break with any illusions in the Democratic mark of 35 percent in 1953 when there and Flint. More than 50 percent of union trial Organizations (CIO) was created in Party as a "friend" of workers and be won \\ ere few government, white collar or jobs lost in 2004 had been held by black the 1930s" (Los Angeles Times. 26 July). to the understanding that a fight for their service unions. Today, union member workers. In one of the most ambitious This is simply cynical. The struggles to class interests requires complete inde ship accounts for about 13 percent of the organizing drives currently targeting the organize the mass industrial unions of the pendence from the bosses' parties and the workforce. but even that figure masks an South. Stern's SEIU recently announced CIO were born out of the three citywide capitalist state. The labor movement must underlying shift-a great decline in a campaign to unionize the 8,000 janitors general strikes of 1934 (Minneapolis. San stand for international working-class soli manufacturing workers and a shift to in the Houston operations of ABM, the Francisco and Toledo)-allled by "reds" darity, fight for black rights. women's government. white-collar and service nation's largest cleaning contractor. -and were built through militant c1ass rights. full citizenship rights for immi industries unions. From the 1970s on. Unionizing the notoriously anti-union struggle tactics like the sit-down strike. grants. As we wrote in "Labor: Organize manufacturing jobs started to move from South poses the need for the labor move The right to organize was not won by Wal-Mart'" (WV No, 851. 8 July): the Midwest (once the industrial center ment to wage a determined fight against lobbying Washington. but through pitched "Workina-class strunnle must be con sciously ~\'a£~ci as an'7nternational fi£hL of the U.S.) to the South and offshore the deep racial oppression and pervasive battles with scabs. cops and National And it -mustbe based on the understa~ld to places such as Mexico. Asia and. most anti-black racism that exist in this coun Guard troops. But the reformists. the ing that the interests of labor and capital lately and massively. China. try. Yet the union tops have largely dis social democrats and the Stalinized Com can ne\'er be reconciled, The only way to The decline of the organized labor dained the kind of labor battles it will munist Party channeled the turbulent guarantee good living conditrons -for movement goes hand in hand with the take to organize the viciously racist. class battles of the' 30s into support for everyone. jobs for all and an end to capi talist exploitatioll and racist oppression is increasing immiseration of the workers "right to work" South, The failure of the Franklin D. Roosevelt·s Democratic Part) through the expropriation of the capital and further curtailment of labor rights. AFL-CIO to organize the South has and its "New Deal" coalition (which ist class throu£h socialist revolution, As The smashing of the PATCO air traffic meant that fanatically anti-union corpo included the die-hard Dixiecrat segrega Trotskyist int~rnationalists. our watch controllers union in 1981, conceived by rations like Arkansas-based Wal-Mart. tionists of the Deep South). The cur word i~ not the deadly dangerous trap of 'defending American jobs' against foreign Democrat Jimmy Carter and implemented the world's largest retailer. are now driv rent impasse of labor goes back to competition. but the words which Marx by Ronald Reagan, was the model for ing down wages and living standards that betrayal and the McCarthyite purge and Engels inscribed on their banner: what the bourgeoisie had in store for the throughout the country. of reds and other militants from the 'Workers of the world. unite' .... 5 AUGUST 2005 15 WIJIiIlEIiS ""'"'1i1J . .. AFL-CIO Split: Sellouts Fall Out ! I t ~ I AP Randy Santos Both sides in AFL-CIO split tie labor movement to capitalist politicians. Left: AFL-CIO president John Sweeney with Ted Kennedy. Right: SEIU head Andrew Stern with John Kerry. No Support to Capitalist Parties! For a Fighting Labor Movement! CHICAGO-One day prior to the AFL and centrallabllr wUllcib \\ ere prohibited including Republicans as demonstrated ernment. the executive committee of the CIO's convention in Chicago. four of from working with union locals and coun by the fact that his allies include Doug ruling class. for conccssions. The AFL the country's largest unions announced a cils belonging to the dissident coalition. McCarron. the pro-Bush president of the CIa split is an intra-bureaucratic squah boycott of the proceedings. The following The stated reason for the split by Stern United Brotherhood of Carpenters and ble between Sweeney and Stern over tac day, July 25. the Service Employees & Co. is the continuing decline of union Joiners. SEIU gave $65 million to the tics of cl ass collaboration. It does not International Union (SElU) with 1.8 mil membership in the U.S. But neither wing . Democrats' 2004 presidential election serve to advance the intere.~ts of the U.S. lion members and the Teamsters with 1.4 of the labor bureaucracy is capable of efforts and $500.000 to the Republican working class. million members disaffiliated from the turning the labor movement around. On Governors Association in the last election. Everything of value that the workers AFL-CIO; four days later, the United the one hand, Sweeney says the unions Teamsters head James Hoffa Jr. told the movement has won has been achie"cd by Food and Commercial Workers union need to spend more to elect "labor New York Times (24 July): "We lost the mobilizing labor in class struggle, on the (UFCW). which has 1.3 million mem friendly" Democrats. Thus, the AFL-CIO election between Kerry and Bush because picket lines and in plant occupations. in bers. followed suit. The three breakaways convention featured an endless lineup of we didn't have enough members. We defiance of the bosses' laws. There is a have reduced the AFL-CIO membership Democratic Party politicians from Sena delivered the union vote very well, but we crying need to organize the millions of by more than one-third. It appears that tors Dick Durbin and Barack Obama to just didn't have enough members in the unorganized workers in this country. In other unions-UNITE HERE, the United John Edwards, Nancy Pelosi. Harry Reid unions." Democratic National Committee fact, organizing the anti-union giant Wal Farm Workers and the Laborers' Union and Ted Kennedy-and that was just the chairman Howard Dean agreed: "If they Mart symbolizes the tasks facing the all belonging to the Change to Win Coali first day! get more people organized. that's more American labor movement today. But nei tion led by SEIU head Andrew Stern may On the other hand, Stem calls for votes for us" (New York Times, 24 July). ther side in the split proposes the all-out also break with the federation. AFL-CIO spending more on organizing efforts in The basic strategy of all wings of the struggle necessary to organize Wal-Mart. president John Sweeney retaliated by order to increase th~ political clout of labor bureaucracy is not class struggle. Both wings support the capitalist profit declaring that AFL-CIO state federations labor with the capitalist politicians, but to put pressure on the capitalist gov- continued on page 15 ------.~------Fox Endorses Memin Pinguin, Disgusting Racist Stereotype Down With Anti-Black Racism! For Joint Class Struggle in Mexico and the U.S.! We print below a translation of a leaF the dimioutilc ··'Iegriw"). let issued bv the Grupo Espartaqllista de Scandaluusly. the disgusting caricature Mexico. Mexican section of the Interna has found support among many person tional Communist Leaglle, on JulY I5. alitics of the "progressivc" Mexican intel = After Fox's racist statement in May lectual milieu (from the cartoonists of La that "not even blacks" want to do the .lornadfl t,) the writer Elena Ponia work done by Mexican immigrants in the U.S. president tow"ka). who rushed to defend the inde U.S., on June 28 the government decided. George W. Bush fensible Mel11ln Pillgll[n as a matter of as an example of "Mexican popular cul with Mexican patriotic honor. resorting to completely president ture," to dedicate an official postage Vicente Fox. paternalistic (and racist) apologies for the I stamp to Memln Pillguln, a comic strip cartoon's "charming negrito." The atti which has grotesquely racist illustrations tude of these cartoon "progressives" is the against blacks. who are portrayed as sub reflection of a society in which racist i- human creatures with crazed, ape-like stereotypes are viewed as something - features. This horrendous. stereotyped tinued to exist during the 20th century, openly would be considered a likely sup natural and are recurrent in the Mexican drawing comes directly from the epoch of especially under the brutal system of porter of the Ku Klux Klan. In Mexico, press, TV and movies. After all. in the ter slavery. which survived in the American racial segregation (called "Jim Crow"). the authors of Memln Pinguln copied ritory that today makes up Mexico there South until 1865, when justification was which dominated the American South. the same image, as well as that of were also three centuries of slavery. with sought for the brutal institution by por The Mexican Memfn character is nothing Memfn's mother-known in the U.S. as their corresponding racist ideological jus traying blacks as beings content with the other than an ignorant. lazy buffoon lack "Mammy." a docile house slave-and tifications. which necessarily left a mark state of things, and/or savages incapable ing self-respect. Today in the U.S .. anyone its spirit of condescending paternalism on society's dominant mentality. Thus, of living in freedom. This stereotype con- who used that image of black people (reflected here also in the constant use of continued 011 page 12 16 5 AUGUST 2005