WfJlillEliS "NfilJ'lilJ soe No. 848 " €i;;C~J~C'7~1 13 May 2005
Mobilize Labor Power to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!
On April 23, some 350 workers. stu dents, socialists, fighters for black rights and opponents of the racist death penalty turned out in Harlem in defense of death ro\V political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Commemorating Jamal's 51 st birthday ~j¥\ YlW'}11U" a (24th behind bars). the demonstration li~ ~\\m\a f>,\\\\-lam \\ was initiated by the. International Con cerned Family and Friends of Mumia ~~IJ\I'~\\ t"~ ~ot\~\ \)ea\\\ ?er.a\\'l\ Abu-Jamal (lCFFMAJ), the NYC Free ,:-;,,\'; :S;s<"s ce.·.'" -.~Ss Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition. and the International Action Center (lAC). A similar protest was held in the Bay Area. The Spartacist League and Labor Black Leagues participated in the April 23 protests. In New York City. we marched with a 50-strong Revolutionary Contin gent under the Partisan Defense Com mittee banner: "There Is 1\,)0 Juqice in the Capit;lli:,L Courts-Free Mumia Abu Jamal ~ Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!" As the leaflet building for our contingent underlined: "The notoriou, frame·up of Mumia Abu Jamal symholizes what the harharic. racist death penalty is all about in capi talist America. The capitalist forces of 'law w@" Vietnam Was a Victory! nationalist proletarian solidarity. The struggle against the imperialists' Vietnam war has Two, Three, Many Defeats for also been a major task of socialists in the imperialist centers. dominating the political U.S. Imperialism! experience of a whole generation of young aspiring revolutionaries. And it is as fellow combatants in the international class struggle that we warn the Indochinese masses that April 30 marked the 30th anl1iver.\orr of they must piace no confidence in their Stalinist leaders. the militar.... \'ictory ()f Vietnam's workers The victory in Vietnam. like that in Cambodia two weeks earlier when the Khmer und peasants against US. imperialism and Rouge took Phnom Penh. belongs to the heroic worker and peasant fighters in Indo its South Vietnamese puppetforces. This l\'(/S china who have struggled resourcefully and tenaciously for decades in order to break (/ victory j(n' the exploited ([lid oppressed the grip of imperialist domination and capitalist exploitation on the peninsula. But illternationall..... serving j(n' rears to sta .... the while a victorious social revolution has occurred. the struggle to establish revolutionary halld of American imperialism arollnd the and internationalist workers states in the region is far from over. ... world. III celebratioll of this annil'ersary. Ire What has been created in South Vietnam and Cambodia are deformed workers states, LENIN TROTSKY print below excerpts from our statement qualitatively equivalent to the degenerated workers state which emerged in Russia with hailing the entrY of the North Vietnamese the consolidation of the Stalin-led bureaucracy. The ruling bureaucracies of the deformed military and the South Vietnamese National Liberotioll Front into Saigon. After 1975. workers states are narrowly nationalist in outlook, attempting to balance precariously be in its drive to strangle the Vietnamese Rel'Olution. US. imperialism subjected devas tween imperialism and the working class. Based on the property forms of a workers state, tated Vietnam to all imperialist embargo. Washington helped arm Pol Pot's Khmer they occasionally put up a limited and distorted defense of the social conquests achieved Rouge forces in Cambodia after his ollster from pmrer by Vietllamese forces ill J 979. by the overthrow of capitalism in order to preserve their own privileged position. which ended a reign~marked by mass murder and wholesale destruction of urban But because their rule is based on the political expropriation of the working class, areas~that proved to be not eren the most deformed type of workers state (see "Oust these petty-bourgeois bureaucratic castes are incapable of mobilizing the proletarian Genocidal Pol Pot Gangfrom UN!" WV No. 338. 23 September 1983). masses for an international revolutionary assault on the bastions of world capitalism. MAY 4-0n April 30 the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) since it would simultaneously mean their own demise. The Stalinist rulers in Hanoi. and the National Liberation Front (NLF) rode triumphantly into Saigon as leaders of Saigon and Phnom Penh must be overthrown by a workers' political revolution led by a the defeated puppet regime and thc South Vietnamese bourgeoisie fled the country by Trotskyist party in order to establish the organs of proletarian democracy and opcn the every available means. The military victory of the DRV INLF marks the end of 30 years road to socialism. All Indochina Must Go Communist! of civil ,war against colonialism and imperialism and their local allies. It means the -"Capitalist Class Rule Smashed in Vietnam. Cambodia'" overthrow of capitalist rule in South Vietnam, a historic conquest for the working peo WV No. 68. 9 May 1975 ple of the entire world and one which must be unconditionally defended by class conscious workers against imperialist attack. Telegram to Chi Minh We hail this stunning defeat of U.S. imperialism, the first in a major war during this "0 century, and greet the victory of our class brothers and sisters in Indochina with inter- This cablegram was sellt on the day the US. air attacks against North Vietl/a11/ \I'ere begun. Sunday, 7 February 1965 President Ho Chi Minh. Democratic Republic of Vietnam Hanoi, North Vietnam: Spartacist in fullest solidarity with defense of your country against attack by United !.~!!'!f!J!..'l!l!.l!l!If.!. ~ States imperialism. Heroic struggle of Vietnamese working people furthers the Ameri DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS Alison Spencer can revolution. EDITOR: Alan Wilde Spartacist Editorial Board EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Rosemary Palenque CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff Thomas >,:; * * * * EDITORIAL BOARD: Kathleen Harris (managing editor). Helene Brosius (letters editor), Linda Jarreau (production manager). Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, Helen Cantor, Paul Cone, Ha\·ana. Cuba George Foster, Walter Jennings, James Robertson. Joseph Seymour We would like to thank you for the copy of your telegram to Presidcnt Ho-chi-Minh The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League that you kindly sent us. (Fourth Internationalist). We. South Vietnafnese, specially are deeply moved by the heroic and powerful Workers VanguarJ (lSSN 0276-0746) published biweekly. except skipping three alternate Issues in June. July and August (beginning wltr omitting the second Issue In .June) and skipping the last Issue In December. by the Spartaclst movement of American Ncgroes, students. workers. employees and personalities de Publishing Co 299 Broadway. Suite 318 New York NY 10007. Telephone (212) 732·7862 (Editorial) (212) 732·7861 tBuslness) Address all correspondence to: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected]. manding the end of the aggressiYe war of US imperialism in South Vietnam and of the Domestic subscriptions: $10.00'21 issues Penodlcals postage paid at New York NY POSTMASTER: Send address US attacks against the territory of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. and supporting changes to Workers Vanguard. Box 1377 GPO New York. NY 10116 the just struggle of our people. Opinrons expressed In signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the edltonal viewpoint. The closing date for news in this issue is 10 May. Wc would like to [take] this opportunity to exprcss [to] you our deepest thanks and to send you our best greetings. Ly-van-Sau, No. 848 13 May 2005 [South Vietnam National Liberation Front] 2 WORKERS VANGUARD BostonHolocaustj)M'~R1irial Police Ensure Vile Fascist Provocation On May 8, the 60th anniversary of the class. The Massachusetts governor, the do anything. We had already worked out defeat of busing in the J 970s. black peo day the Soviet Red Army smashed Hit Boston mayor. a Massachusetts Congres a plan of escape. But at that moment I pIC' gays. Arabs. Asians. and Jews have lerite fascism, a heavy police mobiliza sional delegation, and Israeli and German decided-We must not simply escape. We must destroy the fascists and the faced an escalation of racist attacks in tion protected a dozen neo-Nazi "White consulate officials were in attendance. camp." Boston. In recent years there. the fascists Revolution" scum and attacked leftist Given this confluence of interests For these Zionists to attack the com have felt emboldened enough to wade anti-fascist protesters. The action took between the memorial organizers and munists, anarchists and other anti-fascists into leftist demonstrations called in place outside Boston's Faneuil Hall the government, and given the massive is to ignore the message history deliv defense of Palestinians, gay rights and where a Holocaust (Shoah) memorial deployment of police force to protect this ered, as attested to eloquently by German against the occupation of Iraq. event was taking place. Protected by event-and the fascists outside it-there Lutheran Pastor Niemoller. His words On May 8, we insisted on political scores of riot cops, mounted police and was no opportunity to stop the neo-Nazis are inscribed on the Holocaust Memo debate within the framework of anti motorcycle cops, the fascists paraded for in the street. Thus, we did not join in the rial monument: "They came first for fascist unity on the picket-line protest. At genocide, raising blood-chilling signs false heroics of a small number of leftists the Communists, and I didn't speak up one point, Workers World led the chant: like "Six Million Lies" and "There's No who went directly up against riot police because I wasn't a Communist. Then they "Fascism-Shut it down! Racism-Shut Business Like Shoah Business!" escorting the fascists down Congress came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up it down!" When they continued, "Zion The police savagely bloodied anti Street. because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came ism-shut it down!"-in a context where fascist protesters and arrested one young The capitalist media played its role in for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak the Nazis were threatening a Holocaust black man, Jerome Higins, after he was 'preventing an outpouring of opposition up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then memorial event-we countered, "No assaulted by a rabid white supremacist. to the fascists with a press blackout on they came for the Catholics, and I didn't Nazi final solution! For Arab-Hebrew The Partisan Defense Committee offered the Nazi provocation that was lifted only speak up because I was a Protestant. Then workers revolution!" and "Auschwitz to help post bail for Higins and issued a two days before the event. Similarly, they came for me, and by that time no one we will not forget!" Our supporters also protest letter demanding that "the outra they blacked out the location of the fas was left to speak up." raised placards and chanted in defense of geous charges of affray and disturbing the cists' rally the day before in nearby Zionist neocons help map policy for the Palestinian people and demanded peace be dropped and that Jerome Higins Somerville, which forced the closure of a the Christian fundamentalist Bush regime "Israeli Troops, Settlers Out of the Occu be released immediately." public library there. in support of Israeli policy, from oppres pied Territories!" This was too much Our non-sectarian class solidarity with Criminally, the Zionist organizers of sion of the Palestinians to the occupation for Progressive Labor. which denies the anti-fascist victims of police violence in the Holocaust commemoration equated of Iraq. At home, these racist Zionists national rights Clf the oppressed Palestini no way lessens our political differences the neo-Nazis with anti-fascist protesters. view struggles for black rights as some ans. They dispatched a honcho to warn us (to no avail) that we would have to leave the protest if we continued to "disrupt"! Our placard. "Genocide is not debat able!" took aim at the false view that the fascists are like right-wing ideologues. No! They are action groups that "speak" with the lynch rope and recruit to a pro gram of genocide and racist terror. In "normal" times. when the bourgeoisie feels secure in its class rule. it keeps its unruly fascist dogs on the leash. But in periods of deep social crisis. when open class warfare explodes, the bourgeoisie lets loose its fascist gangs to try to crush the workers movement with blood and ter ror. The fascists are the organized expres sion of the despair and fury of the petty bourgeoisie, hopelessly squeezed between the two classes with real social power. the capitalists and the working class. For its part, the ISO promoted the lie that: "In 1994. the last time Nazis tried to WV Photo hold a demonstration here, hundreds of May 8: Anti-fascist picket at Faneuil Hall (left). Heavy cop mobilization protects fascists (right). activists ran them out of town" (Socialist Worker Online, 6 May). The truth is that about how to fight the fascists. On May 8, The JCRe's "special update and instruc kind of local intifada to be met with state fascist would-be fUhrer Richard Barrett we mobilized supporters and joined a de tions for Sunday" stated, "Sadly, we repression. We have warned that this rallied and succeeded in recruiting about facto united-front protest of a few hun expect protests at this event by a neo-Nazi Zionist alliance with profoundly anti a score of white racist youth to join him dred people with Progressive Labor (PL), organization and counter protests by an Semitic Christian fundamentalist forces on the steps of South Boston High Workers World (WWP), the International anarchist anti-fascist group .... Please do in America will redound against the Jew School, under the protection of an army of Socialist Organization (ISO) and others in not engage or acknowledge the demonstra ish people-as fascist Billy Roper's riot cops, SWAT teams and federal mar a picket line outside Faneuil Hall. As tors in any way. Any engagement will help "White Revolution" neo-Nazi provoca shals, while the reformist left willingly Marxists, we fight against illusions pushed give the protesters the very publicity that tion in Boston revealed. went into police pens. On 23 October by the reformist left to rely on the capital they want and help them circulate their In the days leading up to the protest, 1999 in New York City, the ISO opposed ist state to outlaw the fascists, and we message of hate" (emphasis in original). our Boston comrades widely distributed our successful mass laborlblack mobili also oppose a strategy of bravado, of los This equation of neo-Nazis witb their the last issue of Workers Vanguard with zation to stop the Klan. Instead, they built ing confrontati9ns between small groups intended victims obscenely mucks the its article, "Boston: Reformist Left a "demonstration for tolerance" with Lat of protesters and overwhelming police message of the moving New England Ignores Fascist Danger-For a Working ino cops and Democratic Party politician force. Both false strategies spring from Holocaust Memorial monument, where Class Strategy to Fight Fascist Provoca Scott Stringer, who offered to get the the same source: a denial of the criti the May 8 commemoration concluded. tions" (WV No. 847, 29 April). As the KKK a permit! cal importance of mobilizing the social Six glass towers, etched with six million article stated: "The fascists, though few As last Sunday's events make clear, it power of the working class in struggle, numbers representing numbers tattooed today, must not be ignored. They must be is necessary to see clearly the role of the and a touching faith in, or indifference to, on the arms of six million Jews killed in stopped-driven away through mass state, and its relationship to the fascists. the murderous force of capitalist state the Nazi Holocaust, rise from a walkway laborlblack mobilizations of all the fas As we wrote in our last issue: repression. indicating the names of the death camps cists' intended victims, centrally relying "Our revolutionary strategy is to mobilize The Yom HaShoah commemoration in and recalling the facts about the Jews, on the power of the working class. This the power of the working class independ Faneuil Hall was sponsored by the Jewish communists, Gypsies, homosexuals and perspective. which the Spartacist League ently of the state and independently of its Community Relations Council (JCRC), others who perished in the Holocaust. has fought for. has successfully kept the class enemies. the capitalist parties of a Zionist coalition that includes the Anti Smoke rises from embers. Quotes from fascists from gaining ground in a number racism and war. Democrats as well as Holocaust survivors are displayed. in of metropolitan areas." Key to this strat Republicans. The working class needs to Defamation League, B'nai B'rith Interna gain strength and self-contidence in organ tional and the American Jewish Congress. cluding this. from Alexander Pechersky. egy is the Marxist understanding that it is izing for its own interests. learning how. The stated purpose of JCRC is to build "a a captured Soviet Red Army soldier. who the power of the organized working class in action. it can lead all sectors of the broad network of support for Israel in its led the prisoner revolt at Sobibor camp: that can neutralize the forces of the state oppressed in common struggle. We fight quest for a secure and lasting peace." This "From our barracks we could see the gas in the struggle against the fascists. for burning necessities. like the need to chambers. A heart-rending crv of won'1en smash racist segregation. in such a way as political purpose meshes with the per and children reached us (her-e. We were Our comrades chanted outside Faneuil to show that the only genuine solution is spectives of the Bush administration and overcome by a feeling of helplessness. Hall: "Defeat of busing paved the way for the overthrow of capitalism and the crea the current interests of the U.S. ruling There we were. watching and unahle to fascist Nazis and the KKK!" Since the tion of a workers government."_ For Labor/Black Mobilizations to Stop the Fascists! , .... 13 MAY 2005 3 SYC Leads Prates"t Against ROTC On April 16, while halfway across the vation for protesting ROTC, at the CAN world U.S. imperialism continued its bru conference the ISO took a course of tal neocolonial occupation of Iraq, dozens action that perfectly befits its reformist of people came out to protest the Reserve ISO Missing in Action politics. They maneuvered, unsuccess Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at UC fully, to keep our motion from being pre Berkeley. On hand for Cal Day, UC Berke sented to the body and gave a steady Anyone who opposes the occupation of all U.S. troops and their allies' Down ley's annual open house, thousands of cascade of lame excuses as to why Iraq should oppose ROTC and military with the colonial occupation! prospective students and parents filled the they couldn't endorse, participate in or recruiters on college campuses. The U.S. In addition to some onlookers and a campus and saw a loud and visible protest build the protest. Then, when they saw ruling class has sent tens of thousands of few students met by SYCers while sup young men and women to kill and die to porting the AFSCME service workers that we had rallied real support for the UC Berkeley protect the interests of U.S. imperialism in strike a few days earlier, some activists action, they tried to save face by voting Iraq. ROTC is the military's program on with the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition in favor of our proposal! Their unsa built under the demands "'ROTClMilitary college campuses to convert students into (BSTW) joined the protest. Notably vory arguments included that we were Recruiters Off Campus!", "All U.S. military officers, enticing prospective stu absent was the International Socialist going over BSTW's head (though BSTW Troops Out of Iraq, Now!", "Down Witli dents by promising to payoff a good Organization (ISO), which did everything had already endorsed a Cal Day anti Anti-Gay Discrimination in the Military!" chunk of their school fees. it could to demobilize the protest. ROTC action at a February meeting); that Energetic protesters marched in frdnt The international working class must A week before the protest, the SYC resources were too tight to even send out of ROTC's tables chanting "ROTC re take a side with the Iraqi peoples. Inso intervened sharply into the April 9 an e-mail; and that some are "uncomfort cruiters, imperialist looters, off campus far as the opposition forces aim their regional Counter-Recruitment Confer able" working with us. Ultimately, our now!" as observers cheered in solidarity. blows against the imperialist occupiers ence of the Campus Antiwar Network proposal, though it failed to achieve a A spokesman for the Spartacus Youth and their lackeys-and not in criminal (CAN) calling on CAN (in which the majority, split the conference delegates, Club, which initiated the demonstration, sectarian violence against other sectors ISO is centrally involved) to endorse and with five in favor, five opposed, and four explained why ROTC deserved the hos of the population in Iraq-we stand for help build the anti-ROTC mobilization abstaining. tile reception: their military defense. At the same time, a concrete step that students could take Behind the ISO's inane excuses lies "Military recruiters and ROTC are direct we are intransigent political opponents against the imperialist war machine. their hostility to revolutionary truth-tellers appendages of the military machine that of the bourgeois-nationalist and reac Because the imperialist military upholds like the SYC-they're right that we make exists to defend the American imperialist tionary woman-hating clerical forces that the exploitation and oppression of work some people uncomfortable. We make ruling class. ROTC recruits are the next generation of military officers who over are behind much of the so-called Iraqi ing people across the world, student pro those who simply want to refurbish the see and direct U.S. invasions and occu resistance. We stand for the defeat of the tests against military recruiters and sullied image of U.S. imperialism uncom pations, like Iraq and Afghanistan .... The U.S. imperialists in their predatory wars ROTC point to the need for students to fortable because we point out that this Spartacus Youth Club opposes the exten against neocolonial countries like Iraq mobilize behind the power of labor, system can't be made to serve the inter sion of the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state onto college campuses and fight for class struggle against U.S. which alone can uproot the capitalist sys ests of working people and the oppressed and high schools .... We say: ROTC, mili imperialism at home. We demand the tem that gives rise to imperialist war. through mass pressure and false "unity," tary recruiters off campus now'" immediate, unconditional withdrawal of Faced with an anti-imperialist moti- but needs to be destroyed and replaced Columbia Students Protest NOT DNE MAN O~ WOMA~ / 6A~ OR. srRAlbliT, fDt( T Hf. IMf'ERIALlSIJ MII. 11Ad - Walker/NY Times Young Spartacus Spartacists at 1965 Columbia University rally against ROTC (left). Spartacus Youth Club at May 6 protest against proposed return of ROTC to Columbia (right). From Vietnam to Iraq, Spartacists have opposed military recruiters on campus as part of struggle against U.S. imperialism. U.S. troops out of Iraq now! While we oppose all forms of racial and sexual dis University SenQte Votes AgQinst ROTC crimination in society, including in the military, we know that no amount of reform is going to change the fundamen MAY 6-The Spartacus Youth Club dents Organization'S Malcolm X Lounge opposition to bloody U.S. imperialism tal purpose of the bloody, imperialist U.S. joined nearly a hundred students today in -the former ROTC lounge which was and its military. By its very nature, the military-to uphold the capitalist system protesting the proposed return of the occupied and renamed by black students imperialist military reflects in concen of racism, exploitation and war. That Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) in 1968. trated form all the social oppression system cannot be reformed to be made to Columbia University. The speakout and Pro-imperialist forces at Columbia intrinsic to the capitalist class rule it more humane or democratic. That's an rally took place in response to a University have been lobbying hard for several years defends-racist, sexist and anti-gay. illusion that organizations like the Inter Senate meeting scheduled to vote a reso to bring back ROTC. In March 2004, the The Spartacus Youth Club addressed national Socialist Organization promote, lution recommending the reinstatement University Senate established a student today's rally, receiving cheers and ap including by welcoming Democratic of ROTC on the campus. In a small but faculty Task Force on ROTC to study a plause for the following remarks: Party politicians, capitalist politicians, important victory. the Senate voted over student proposal to restore ROTC. The "ROTC is a direct appendage of the onto the platforms of their antiwar whelmingly against the recommendation. Task Force was evenly split on whether bloody U.S. imperialist military machine, demonstrations, preaching unity with the ROTC was kicked off Columbia Uni ROTC should return to Columbia Univer recruiting officers to oversee imperialist enemy of working people, and unity with versity in 1969, while the U.S. was wag sity by the 200617 school year, but was slaughter of the kind being carried out the very class whose system breeds ing its losing war against the Vietnamese almost unanimous in favoring ROTC's under the brutal neocolonial occupation war and racism. We say: Only socialist Revolution and following militant student return if there were no longer discrimina of Iraq. The Spartacus Youth Club op revolution can end imperialist war! And protest and campus occupations against tion against gays in the military. In coun poses the direct use of the university by only the working class fighting indepen the war and for black rights. The intersec terposition to the liberals who have the imperialist military and urges students dently of the capitalist class enemy can tion of - the struggle against racist argued that ROTC would be acceptable if to protest ROTC and military recruiters as destroy imperialism once and for all! U.S. imperialism and the fight against the not for the military's anti-gay discrimina part of the struggle to defend the Iraqi Break with the Democratic Party! Build a racial oppression of black people is exem tion, the SYC has sought to rally students people against the U.S. occupiers. Down revolutionary workers party! ROTC off plified on the campus by the Black Stu- in opposition to ROTC on the basis of with the colonial occupation of Iraq! All campus now!". 4 WORKERS VANGUARD with a socialist society. The ISO tried to d woman, gay or straight. for the imperial c :0 sabotage the anti-ROTC protest because CD ist military! By focusing their campaign (fJ its heavy dose of revolutionary. working "0 on the narrow terrain of anti-gay dis class-centered politics was a threat to OJ crimination. the ISO helps feed illusions o~ their attempts to keep things "comfort c in the possibility of a reformed. more were instituted in order to calm working class militancy in the period following European the Soviet victory of 1945. The bour geoisie is hardly predisposed to spend money on improving the condition of Union ... the masses unless it is forced to. and, (continuedjrolll page 1) since the counterrevolution in 1991-1992 which dcstroyed the Sovict degenerated Racist was called by the European Trade Union workers state. it has been seeking to take Confederation (ETUC), following an ini back these concessions in order to "Fortress Europe": tial call by the European Social Forum increase its competitiveness against its Immigrants (ESF) last October in London. That ESE ri\'als. It is necessary to fight tooth and nail against these attacks. As long drowned while like those before it. was a popular front, as capitalism exists, the fight to win crOSSing Strait a class-collaborationist confab featuring reforms and to prevent their dismantling of Gibraltar, trade-union bureaucrats and represen will remain permanently on the agenda. January 2003. tatives of various reformist workers par The task of a revolutionary party is, ties, as well as bourgeois liberals, Islamic starting from the relentless struggle to defend the gains and social conquests of clerics. a speaker from the Iraqi puppet the workers and oppressed. to bring to government, and so on. It was funded the workers an understanding of the by London's Labour government. ETUC necessity for workers revolution." general secretary John Monks recently We print below a translation of an arti is. French imperialism). most opponents of dom of circulation"? Go tell the Roma declared: "We are very much in favour of cle published in Le Bolchevik No. 171 the draft Constitution swear that they are [Gypsies] fleeing pogroms in Romania, the Constitution." (March 2005), newspaper of the Ligue not against capitalist Europe per se. The the Balkans or Slovakia (which is part of While most French trade-union bureau Trotskyste de France, section of the PCF and the LCR, who are practically run the EU) and who are harassed by cops crats who mobilized for the Brussels International Communist League. ning ajoint campaign for a "no." insist that everywhere. An "advantage compared to demonstration saw it as a platform to they are for (capitalist) Europe but against barbed wire"? An estimated 4,000 Afri promote a "no\' vote on the Constitution, the "neoliberal" Europe of "Giscard's cans drowned in the past few years trying they fundamentally share Monks' vision LLBOLCHEVlifSJ Constitution" [referring to the former to cross the Sfraits of Gibraltar in order to of a "social Europe" under capitalist French president who helped negotiate it]. enter this racist fortress, the European rule. They would also have no quarrel Last June. the heads of state of the These reformists propagate the myth that Union. The EU ministers are openly dis with his chauvinist statement at the European Union agreed on a draft Euro there is a "good" European capitalism. a cussing setting up EU-financed concen Brussels demonstration that, "We don't pean Constitution. Chirac announced "social and democratic" one for which it is tration camps in Libya-or elsewhere. want Europe to become America." that on May 29 he would hold a referen necessary to fight, and a "bad. neoliberal" but in any case far from LO's chaste gaze. Attacks sucq as the Bolkestein Direc dum on it, hoping through a plebiscite to capitalism. A Moroccan worker, who manages to tive-which has now been put on hold consolidate his authority, which has been Likewise, Lutte Ouvriere (LO) has for , obtain legal status in Spain, has the right until after the French referendum-were damaged by three years of savage attacks years supported capitalist Europe. They continued all page 6 devised before the European Constitu against workers and minorities and by abstained on the 1992 referendum on the tion, and others will follow, whatever the rivalries within [Chirac's] UMP. The PS Maastricht Treaty [which laid the basis outcome of the referendum in France. and the Greens, hoping to be re-elected for a common European currency]. This The key to stopping them lies through to government in 2007. have called for a time. they are voting "no" while continu class struggle by the working class. "yes" vote to show their respectability ing to praise European capitalist unifica As our comrades noted in Le Bolche- and loyalty to the basic foreign policy tion. In a recent article, LO wrote (Lutte vik (March 2005): choices of the French bourgeoisie. de Classe, February 2005): "Today the bourgeoisies of West Europe Against this new joint campaign by "We are for European unification .... seek to dismantle what remains of the the PS. the Greens and Chirac, we call Even as is. on a capitalist basis. with all the accompanying injustices and welfare state. a series of concessions for a "no" vote because we are against such as national health insurance. retire insufficiencies. the European Union rep ment pensions and public services-that the capitalist EU. an alliance centered resents progress in a certain number of on the main European imperialist pow areas. If only for the end of the eco ers to improve their competitiveness nomic partitioning and customs barriers. against their American and Japanese as well as freedom of circulation for peo ple on part of the continent. this repre SYC Class Series Tivals. Such an alliance can only be at the sents an appreciable advantage compared expense of the multiethnic working class to [immigration] controls and barbed CHICAGO in Europe and of those under the boot of wire. although this freedom is not fully neocolonialism. recognized for immigrants who live and work in the EU." Tuesday, May 31, 7 p.m. Our principled opposition to capitalist Germany 1923 and the Comintern Europe differentiates us from the French In this eight-page article, LO simply University of Chicago "left." Disregarding the bourgeois party led disappears the rivalries between Europe $2 (32 pages) Cobb Hall, Room 214 by Chevenement, some ultrachauvinist and the U.S. and among the Euro 5811 S. Ellis Ave. sectors of the PCF and Pierre Lambert's pean imperialist powers themselves. They Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Company Information and readings: (312) 563-0441 Parti des Travailleurs (PT-known partic paint an idyllic picture of the EU to cover or e-mail: [email protected] Box 1377 GPO; New York, NY 10116 ularly for its "defense of the Republic," that their support to the imperialist EU. "Free- 13 MAY 2005 5 the Balkans. etc. There is justified hatred European and anger against American militarism on the part of the working masses, but, if this opposition to American militarism is not Union ... based on proletarian internationalism, (continued from page 5) it will inevitably be sidetracked into to "travel" in France-as long as he never strengthening the military power of the stops, because he has no right to stay capitalist state here. Indeed. the PCF, far here. from opposing this rearming, is worried We consider that the European Union about these military means being depen is a reactionary imperialist consortium, dent on the U.S. via NATO, instead of and we recall Lenin's prescient words in being independent! And Besancenot-the August 1915: LCR's "little postal worker"-adds his "Of course, temporary agreements are two cents by whining in a February 9 statc possible between capital ish and between ment to AFP [news agcncy] that "future states. Jn this sense a United States European defense will be in the framework of Europe is possible as an agreement of NATO. that is, under the boot of George between the European capitalists ... but to what end') Only for the purpose of Bush Junior." The anti-Americanism of the jointly suppressing socialism in Europe, LCR is an obstacle to anti-imperialist pro of jointly protecting colonial booty letarian internationalism. against Japan and America." Labor struggle in Europe. Rotterdam, September 2003: Police charge 8,000 dockers protesting EU anti-union attacks (top). Below, protesters in Athens Why Internationalist Marxists The European Union: Oppose the Extension of the EU From an Anti-Soviet Alliance this March hosed by cops during 24-hour strike for higher wages and against to an Imperialist Consortium spending cuts. LO correctly noted that. with the exten sion of the' EU to 25 countries, not The origins of the European Union go only imperialist countries or intermediate back to the 1950s when the West Euro countries but also very poor countries pean imperialists, led by the U.S., sought" now coexist in the EU. These countries through improved economic cohesion, to have experienced the capitalist counter consolidate their alliance against the revolution that devastated the East Euro Soviet Union. In spite of its degeneratio'n, pean economies and reduced them to as a parasitic bureaucratic caste led by semi colonial status under the domination Stalin appropriated political power start of, especially, German, Austrian and ing in 1924, the Soviet Union remained a French capitalism, whose penetration into workers state based on the expropriation these couI}tries is greatly facilitated by of the capitalists and the collectivization the extension of the EU. Yet LO supports of the means of production, resulting the extension of the EU! Just like its own from the Octobef 1917 Revolution. That bourgeoisie. And just like its own bour is why we Trotskyists defended the Soviet geoisie, LO supported the capitalist reun Union, and it is why the imperialists ification of Germany 15 years ago and, wanted to destroy it in order to regain more generally, supported counterrevolu unlimited access for their investment cap tion throughout the ex-Soviet bloc. For ital throughout East Europe. example, LO declared in Lutte de Classe Our principled opposition to both (December 1989): "Even if this reunifica NATO, which was a military alliance tion lof Germany] is carried out entirely against the Soviet Union. and to its eco '" -;: under capitalist rule, communist revolu nomic corollary. the European Economic tionaries have no reason to oppose it." Community [forerunner of the EUJ. Regarding the extension of the EU, it flowed from our 'defense of the Soviet military power is incomparably greater. mists pretend that the workers' interest is is useful to consider the creation, in the Union. The character of the European this alliance has evolved in contradic in a strong, "social and democratic" early 1990s. of NAFTA, which is an eco Union changed with the counterrevolu tory ways. The U.S., with the active help Europe, they once again act to tie the nomic treaty between the U.S., Canada of Britain, is seeking to put the brakes working class to its own bourgeoisie. They tionary destruction of the Soviet Union in and Mexico. At the time. Ollr American. 1991-92. France and Germany, two separ on the construction of a rival imperialist propagate the lie that European imperialists Canadian and Mexican comrades pub ate imperialist powers with two distinct pole. and the dollar continues to be the are less ruthless than their American or lished a joint declaration against NAFTA and rival bourgeoisies. are seeking to international currency of reference. Fur Japanese rivals. Twenty years ago. the PCF (Workers Vanguard No. 530, 5 July 1991). improve their joint coordination-and thermore, the European Union is under was raising the call to "produce French"; Calling on American, Canadian and Mex are maneuvering with capitalist Russia, mined from within by rivalries among now they call for a "social Europe." But ican workers to unite in class struggle among others-with the sole aim of pur its various constituent powers. including they are still tying the workers to their own against this "Free Trade Agreement" suing their respective interests. Obvi France and Germany. as can be seen from exploiters-and strengthening the latter. (FTA). the declaration stated: ously, Germany. which is stronger than a number of industrial disputes. [The This is what Marxists call class collabora "Overall the stronger U.S. economy France, is the dominant partner in this pharmaceutical giant] Aventis, a "model" tion. On the contrary, workers of all coun would have the upper hand. In addition. relationship. In December 1989, only a Franco-German company. was swallowed tries must unite against the bourgeoisies of American capitalists want to use the FTA up by the French company, Sanofi all countries. to gut labor and environmental regula month after the fall of the Berlin wall. tions on both sides of the border. Yankee [French president] Mitterrand negotiated Synthelabo, while [the French heavy The attempts to create an imperialist imperialism wants to turn Mexico into a with German chancellor Kohl a deepen engineering firm] Alstom is fighting des pole in Europe to compete with the U.S. giant maquiladora. or free trade zone ing of economic relations between Ger perately against being absorbed by the are accompanied by efforts to rearm mil 'free' of unions. and 'free' for capital. many and France, the two main West German company, Siemens. Even the itarily-discussions to set up integrated "Far from 'freeing' trade internationally, "success stories" of Europe. like Airbus. European arms manufacturers, attempts the pact is aimed at setting up a private European powers. through an agreement. hunting preserve for the American impe in principle, to create a common cur which is now defying Boeing, are not to be independent from American intelli rialist bourgeoisie. their Canadian junior rency. This was supposed' to become a without tensions. The Airbus A380 was gence systems by creating a network partners and their lackeys in the Mexican weapon in a monetary war against the launched onl y after endless bargaining of satellites that can be used for mili ruling class." international hegemony of the dollar. It over the distribution of tasks (and profits) tary purposes (Galileo), sending Euro That is exactly what happened. Against became the euro. between Toulouse and Hamburg. pean military units that are now policing the devastation that this agreement meant However, under the pressure of the The draft European "Constitution" is American imperialists, whose economy is not really that because it is not a question considerably more dynamic and whose of creating a European capitalist state, even a federated one. It is a treaty Spartacist~ Forums between states by which they relinquish some sovereignty in order to define the Finish the Civil War! UBOLClIEVId rules of competition between the various ,_ ... eUR national capitalist classes of Europe, to Harriet Jacobs: A Black Woman's Non aI'Union europeenne capitaliste improve their competitiveness vis-a et sa " Constitution" ! vis the U.S. and other rivals, and to Fight to Smash Slavery strengthen their attacks against European workers, and immigrant workers in par Speaker: Carla Wilson, Spartacist League Central Committee ticular. When Chirac or German chancel Saturday, May 21, 3 p.m. For more information: (213) 380-8239 lor Schroder speak of a multipolar world, ~~~~~-f.= L.A. Public Library, Cahuenga Branch or e-mail: [email protected] they simply mean that they want to ally ~. .. ~ ~ their forces and rein in their own rivalries 4591 Santa Monica Blvd. (1 block east of :.... ~:::=~"===--:= r Vermont/Santa Monica Red Line station) LOS ANGELES in order to better confront their more powerful common rivals, the U.S. and ;"~f2~~~"'::..::'!"~~"'~";'!'::::.~ -----'~ ....· Japan. Trotskyist League/Spartacus Youth Club Forum ,~-.~- -~---- In such alliances between some impe . .. " ~ §1;:£4~ ~§~::~:::==': rialists against others. there is nothing ! ~~v:~~§S E::;'-;,~LO~;; that the workers can support. nothing ~"",~_ .. ,.., ...... t'E""'P" ... ~""..na'""" ... "~"\"·""" really a thinly yeiled demand that profes by the Bush administration's claims of political criterion for university profes sors follow what it defines as an accept "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. sors!" At issue is not an abstract con Massad ... able. 'fair' pedagogical line. The Times went along with these claims ception of ·'freedom." but a struggle on i continued from page 2) "But as soon as the 'fairness' of views is made the criterion for retaining a because. notwithstanding its political dif behalf of class interests. As we stated Business School: multimillion-dollar es teacher. the door is opened to witch ferences with the neocons and Bush ad in "Right-Wing Thought Police Assault tablishments like Hillel at Columbia: hunts and chaos. No two students will ministration. the Times shares with them Free Speech on Campus" (WV No. 842. complicitous presidents like Bollinger agree on what is a 'fair' view of a con the same bourgeois class interests. Even 18 Februarv): and Shapiro. ,upported by their boards of troversial issue." now. the "The attempted castration of intellectual trustees and militant millionaire clubs -"'The New McCarthyism:' Times whitewashes U.S. war among the Columbia and Barnard alum crimes in Iraq, crowing that in Falluja, a dissent is an attack on all opposition to www.truthout.org, 22 April the ruling-class agenda. Today it is par ni; advocates of torture like Alan Der city devastated by American bombard showitz; racist propagandists like Dan Bollinger. an "expert" on the First ticularly aimed at those who oppose the ment last year, "things are almost back to iel Pipes; anti-intellectual vigilantes Amendment, stated at a faculty meeting bloody occupation of Iraq and voice out normal"' (26 March)! rage at the genocidal 'collective punish like Martin Kramer; organized cells at last October, 'The First Amendment does Columbia medical, business and law In 1977, when the Spartacus Youth ment' of the Palestinian people by not apply to the university because it is a Israel's Zionist rulers. Middle East stud schools; a bagful of tabloids in Man League initiated a united-front cam private institution" (London Review of ies departments. including distinguished hattan; Jack-the-Ripper journalists like paign to keep imperialist war crimi Douglas Feiden and Jacob Gershman; a Books, 17 February). This statement scholars. are among the prime targets of nal Henry Kissinger from a teaching campus witchhunts. But the same forces deceitful propaganda machine like the received little publicity. But it had best be post at Columbia, the editorial that would like to see campuses inhab Goliath Project: a minister and his minis noted. Democratic rights must be fought Times try in Israel; city. state and federal politi ized against anti-Kissinger students and ited solely by white frat boys in khakis for. In the struggle at Columbia today, the also want to see a union-free workforce cians seeking higher office here in the faculty. The response by the SYL in a United States are all ganging up and call Spartacus Youth Club has fought against that they can more brutally exploit. They letter to the Times (which they didn't ing for the heads of two Arabs and a reliance on the university administration. seek a docile, regimented society, all the print but which we produced as a leaf better to send the sons and daughters of Muslim in post-9/1l New York is quite Archreactionaries and racists view the an achievement for The Nation, one that let) stands up well today with regard the working people to serve as cannon New York Times as some kind of "commie" fodder in U.S. imperialism's wars abroad I will not forget or forgive." to defense of Professor Joseph Massad. paper, while Zionists denounce it as "pro while ripping up even the most minimal We wrote, "While smearing the anti Academic Freedom and Arab" because it occasionally reports an gains of previous class and social strug Kissinger forces at Columbia as witch gles at home." McCarthyite Witchhunts Israeli atrocity. By emboldening the neo hunters, your editorial advocates a neo Stop the witchhunt! Defend Professor A perceptive article by Juan Cole, a cons screaming for Arab blood at Colum McCarthyite 'loyalty oath' as the sole Massad!_ professor of Middle Eastern and South bia, the Times may well find itself a future Asian history at the University of Michi target of these very same forces. gan, stripped the veneer off the 7 April Yet it is precisely now-and histori editorial in the Times: cally-that a paper like the Times is val "The New York Times editorial is among uable to different wings of the ruling the more dangerous documents threaten class because of the aura of respectability ing higher education in America to have it lends a witchhunt. Although Joseph I!n'lU'tlZllU?Zt'l,] appeared in a major newspaper since the Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League McCarthy period, when professors were McCarthy's coarseness offended then tired for their views on economics .... The Times publisher Arthur Hays Sulzber Times' invocation of 'scholarly rigor' is ger, Sulzberger hated communism more. :J $10/21 issues of Workers Vanguard :J New 0 Renewal and so emphasized "the need for the (includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle) orderly administration of loyalty oaths international rates: $25/21 issues-Airmail $10/21 issues-Seamail Moving? and other procedures" (Susan E. Tiff and :J $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist) Alex S. Jones. The Trust [1999]). The :J $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) To receive Workers Vanguard Times even refused to run a paid ad without interruption please let us Name demanding commutation of the death sen know at least three weeks before Address you move. Send your new and tences for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Apt.# ____ The Times fired employees who exercised old address to: City ______State Zip _____ Spartacist Publishing Co. their Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination during the witchhunt. Phone ( __ ) _____ E-mail ______Box 1377 GPO 848 New York, NY 10116 More recently. the Times was running Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 articles about how the paper was fooled 10 WORKERS VANGUARD relentless assault against the Black Pan MOVE ... ther Party and other radicals in the 1960s. (col1tinlledfrom page 12) The capitalist state. including its black-robed "justices." consists at its decision all over again, knowing what I core of armed bodies of men whose job know now, I \\ ould make the same deci is to enforce the property right~ of the sion because I think we cannot permit any ruling class. In Philadelphia, which has terrorist group, any revolutionary group the largest concentration of black people in this city, to hold a whole neighborhood in a very white state. and where palpable or a whole city hostage." racism predates the American Civil War, We communists forthrightly said that this truth comes home with a vengeance. Wilson Goode was a black front man for The Philadelphia police have a history of Reagan racism. We pointed out: "The lib racist bonapartism under Frank Rizzo. erals now apologize for this calculated They focused on smashing black radi obliteration of a black neighborhood-to calism, especially the Black Panthers. do otherwise requires a break from the MOVE and the eloquent black journalist whole myth of the 'new black power' Mumia Abu-Jamal. at the voting booth, organized through The infamous Stakeout unit which the Democratic Party of George Wallace played a prominent role in the cop assault and Jesse Jackson. That is why we are UPI on MOVE in 1985 was fashioned in the now witnessing the obscene spectacle In vendetta against MOVE, nearly 600 Philadelphia police besieged their turbulent '60s by then-deputy police Powelton Village commune in 1978. of the black establishment supporting commissioner and future mayor Frank Goode amid the screams of black babies" Rizzo in response to the 1964 eruption of Workers World Party also rushed to insignificant it was.) ("Philly Inferno: Racist Murder!" WVNo. the city's huge black ghetto. This mobile alibi Goode; their then-leader Sam Marcy 380. 31 May 1985). As for Jesse Jackson, The Spartacist League exposed the unit of sharpshooters and the political wished to assure everyone that "Mayor he saw in the charred remains of people's MOVE massacre at a New York City police in the Civil Defense Unit (renamed Goode was merely informed of the lives a chance to push a little black capi forum on II July 1985, where we gave a the Civil Affairs Unit) staged a 1970 raid talism. Jackson called on Goode to ensure planned assault and was not a participant platform to spokesmen who were then on the Black Panthers' offices. The same in the plans." This was a lie. Goode was an that black contractors got a share of the supporters of MOVE to speak of their bit Stakeout unit surrounded the Powelton active participant in the more than year rebuilding of the homes destroyed! As we terness at the murder of their family mem Village MOVE house during the months long planning. He gave the phone author wrote in our 31 May 1985 article: bers. This forum upheld the Leninist man of siege prior to August 1978. They saw ization for dropping the bomb on May 13 "Wilson Goode and the firebombing of date that the party of the proletariat must Mumia as he entered the compound to West Philadelphia are the ultimate proof after pausing for 30 seconds. Later. Work be a tribune of the people, leaders who can conduct radio interviews. They seethed ers World and its front groups organized that the black Democratic mayors are the give a voice to all the oppressed. But even with hatred for his sympathetic coverage front men for Reagan's war on black a Philly "March Against Racism" whose here we were confronted with opposition of the victims of their brutal policies. people. In the 1960s as the ghettos call did not mention MOVE at all and had from supposed leftists. A speaker from the burned with black rage and frustration, When the MOVE 9 were sentenced for black mayors were installed in many of not the slightest criticism of Goode. minuscule League for the Revolutionary the death of a cop killed by the police America's big cities to put out the tIres. Party (LRP) rose to denounce the meeting crossfire. it was Mumia who exposed the But LBJ's firemen are now Reagan's as a "sham" and "disgusting" because it gross injustice. Several days after the ver arsonists. It is left to the communi~ts to didn't polemicize against the victims! give organized expression to the felt out dict, the presiding judge. Edwin MaImed. rage of the black people in the face of About what'J! These were courageous was on a local radio show. Mumia called this bloody cop massacre and to fight people whose families were slaughtered, in and asked the judge. "Who shot James for the elementary right of black self whose homes were destroyed, whose Ramp?" MaImed replied. "I haven't the defense against the racist terrorists." brothers and sisters were already impris faintest idea." In contrast to the reformists. the Spar oned, and who in the midst of their agony It was important for the cops' vendetta tacist League sought a way to ensure that were being shunned by the "respectable" against MOVE to have Mumia silenced. MOVE would not be made into isolated sellouts. In any case, who could have On the night of 9 December 1981, Mumia non-persons and to ensure that they thought Marxists had much in common Abu-Jamal was shot. arrested and framed would be defended. Though we did not politically with a back-to-nature group up on false charge~ of killing policeman have a branch in Philadelphia, when we like MOVE? To attack them would Daniel Faulkner. The first cops to arrive heard that there was to be a demonstra have been obscene. But that's what the on the scene were Stakeout squad mem tion there oli30 May 1985, we sought to LRP did. They went into print gro bers; the highest ranking officer was mobilize a hundred of our supporters in tesquely reflecting Goode's animus against Inspector Alfonzo Giordano, a former solidarity with the MOVE victims. But at MOVE, writing that its "lifestyle under Stakeout commander. They knew exactly the last minute, we pulled out when the standably alienated many neighbors" and who Mumia wa,; they had been trying to MOVE organization. for utterly justifi that "MOVE's isolation opened it up for a get him for years. as we have meticu able reasons. said it would not attend. police siege" (Proletarian Revoilition, lously documented in many articles (see. A liberallleft lash-up, involving the So WV Photo Summer 1985). The equally tiny Bolshe for example. "Philly Cops' Reign of Ter cialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Ramona Africa, survivor of 1985 vik Tendency rushed to solidarize not with ror." Black History (fnd the Class Strug MOVE massacre. bourgeois Consumer Party, called the MOVE but with the LRP. intimating vilely gle No. 15. August 1998). Six months "Citizens' Committee for Justice and that the victims of racist cop terror were in later. in a kangaroo court presided over by Humanity," arrogantly and outrageously The motive of all these political cow collusion with the cops! Their revolting the notoriously racist judge Albert Sabo. debated whether or not to even al1O\v ards was to minimize the massacre and article on the July forum was entitled. Mumia was sentenced to death-and MOVE survivors to be present at their so therefore the complicity of black Demo "SL's Cop-Baiting Celebrity-'Powerful despite massive evidence of his inno called protest! By keeping MOVE out, crat Goode. The Philly firebombing was Testimony' ... to the Police." cence, he remains on death row. they were doing Goode' s and the cops' a warning to all black people, and not just Eight years after the MOVE massacre. We continue to fight to make sure the work trying to head off a real protest black people: 'don't get out of line, you on 19 April 1993. Democratic president workers movement understands the atroc against the gruesome atrocity. could be next! Bill Clinton and his attorney general. ity of Osage Avenue on 13 May 1985. Much to the outrage of the SWP et a!., The reformists flinched in the face of Janet Reno. unleashed the BATF against Like the KKK killing of five leftists we issued a statement. which the Phila the blasts of Reagan's anti-Soviet war the integrated Branch Davidian religious in Greensboro in 1979. the murders of delphia Inquirer (31 May 1985) accu drive; most so-called leftists ran for cover group near Waco. Texas. Like MOVE. the eleven MOVE members including their rately described: 'The Spartacist League, as Reagan ran Cold War II. and so ended Texas group upheld the right of citizens children must not be forgotten. We fight for one, put out a news release from New up in the camp of the equally anti-Soviet to armed self-defense. Reno ordered the for revolutionary struggle based on the York City announcing that it would not Democratic Party. The capitulation of slaughter of 86 innocent men. women and independent mobilization of the exploited attend because there was no indication these forces that pretended to speak for children. If the MOVE massacre was the and oppressed against all wings of the that 'MOVE will be defended or given socialism had important negative conse signature of the Reagan years, the Waco racist rulers to avenge the MOVE martyrs the respect tl).eir martyrdom demands'." quences. Instead of crystallizing inchoate massacre was the bloody mark of Demo and win black freedom. All the MOVE The small demonstration was a trav anger and horror over the atrocity into an crat Bill Clinton. The flames of Waco prisoners and Mumia Abu-Jamal must be esty. One Shafik Abu-Tahir. who intro indictment of the actual government kill illuminated the basic truth that the capi freed' Black liberation through socialist duced the speakers, said that organizers ers, the fake leftists let the killers ott' the talist state. whether run by Republicans revolution! • "wanted it to be made very clear to the hook and contributed to an atmosphere or Democrats. is a deadly enemy of work city administration and the City of Phila where white mobs chanting "MOVE! ers and the oppressed. delphia that we are not marching today in MOVE!" could rampage through segre support of MOVE" (Piziladelphiu DlIily gated Southwest Philly and then fire A Conspiracy of Terror Nell·s. 31 May 1985). bomb the homes of a black and integrated The MOVE bombing had a precedent: The ultrareforl1list U.S. Communist couple. on 31 May 1921. the heart of black Tulsa, Party labeled MOVE an "anti-social cult A few left groups. notably the Revolu Oklahoma was obliterated by police bombs group" that "obviously had become a tionary Communist Party (RCP) and Pro dropped from airplanes. The police killed menace to the community:' as it be gressive Labor (PL). did take a stand in at least 75. mostly blaek people. and over moaned some of the extreme measures defense of MOVE at the time. In her com 4.000 black people were thrown into con taken against them. The SWP for its part peiling book. published in 1987. Atten centration camps. This \vas part of a wa\'e was allied with spokesmen for the pro tion MOl·e.' This Is America.'. Margot of ruling-class racist terror that sought Goode types ,,:ho were shocked by the Harry. a staff writer for the RCP's paper. to crush militant black soldiers returning "excessive" force and concerned for the makes a convincing case that MOVE from World War 1. who were ready to "respectable" residents whose houses members including children were shot by defend themselves against lynch law were destroyed. These reformists sat on cops while trying to escape and were later while seeking social equality. American their hands when Goode appeared before dragged into the inferno. PL. for its part. capitalism feared such a movement, espe the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. announced a demonstration in Phi lIy on cially the real possibility that it could link Black History No.3 Later. at a meeting for Puerto Rican May IX. But when \ve ott'ered to build up with Communists inspired by the $.75 (32 pages) rights, after the chair called for a moment and participate in it, PL characteristically 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Decades later of silence for MOVE. Goode got up and refused and had a little sectarian demon that same capitalist hatred of the possibil Order from/pay to: Spartacist Publishing Co. made a sniveling statement which the stration entirely of their own ..(They were ity of blacks and Reds linking struggles Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 Militant printed without comment. later self-critical in C~wllenge about how also drove much of the government's 13 MAY 2005 11 WIJII/(EIIS """'111) Racist Government Bombed Black Philadelph la• "Attention, MOVE. This is America." as the assault proceeded. The only MOVE This ultimatum boomed through a Phila child to survive. Birdie Africa, testified delphia police bullhorn at dawn on 13 May that before he passed out he saw Tree and InS, opening a hideous siege and the Phil Africa running down the back alley mass murder of eleven members of the toward Cobbs Creek Parkway. Yet their MOVE commune. including five children. remains were found in the burned-out MOVE. a mostly black back-to-nature building. This gives another sinister twist group, had been in the Philly cops' to the decision to let the building burn: gun sights for years. The cops bombed the cops may well have been trying to MOVE's home 20 years ago, burning destroy the evidence of clear racist homi May 1985: Police helicopter drops > ~ down the neat Osage Avenue neighbor- . cide. It also underlies the ghoulish use by bomb on MOVE home in black <>:: hood of black homeowners and torching neighborhood. Eleven MOVE u~- the cops of a demolition crane that pur over 60 densely packed row houses, leav members, including five Children, ~ posefully mangled the corpses in the ing hundreds homeless. It was a crime OJ were killed, and 61 homes were '"0; smoldering rubble. worthy of the U.S. imperialists or Nazi SS destroyed. (D Throughout her trial, Ramona Africa during World War II. UPI defiantly attempted to turn the tables on Ronald Reagan. fresh from saluting the real criminals. When black mayor Nazi SS graves in Bitburg, his attorney Wilson Goode himself was forced to tes general Edwin Mee~e, the FBI. the Philly tify, Ramona asked him pointblank, "Are cops and black Democratic Party mayor you a liar')" Though her only "crime" was Wilson Goode were all responsible. surviving the massacre, Ramona Africa "Reagan, Cops, Black Mayor-They're was nonetheless convicted of "riot" and the Terrorists-Philly Inferno: Racist "conspiracy" and sentenced to 16 months Murder!" we headlined (WV No. 380, 31 to seven years. She served every day of May 1985). Today, 20 years later. the state the maximum sentence in Pennsylvania's continues its vendetta against MOVE and Muncy prison. where she joined other its most eloquent defender, Mumia Abu MOVE women, including the mothers of JamaL who was framed up and sent to the children killed on May 13. death row in 1982. We must keep alive In an interview in early May this year the memory of what happened-the sur with Workers Vanguard, Ramona Africa viving victims are still being punished. noted that she was put away for years. and the criminals in government are still but not one single public official respon terrorizing black America. sible for the multiple MOVE murders The Philadelphia police's targeting of has spent even a day in jail. She chal MOVE goes back to the mid '70s. Be lenged the government's lie that they ginning in early 1978, the police besieged were acting on complaints of neighbors: MOVE's Powelton Village commune, "Since when has the government cared launching, in August, a 600-strong police about black people complaining about attack. In the barrage of police gunfire, their neighbors? That ought to show you one member of the Philadelphia Police this whole thing was a fraud .... They had Department's notorious "Stakeout" squad only one agenda: the extermination of was killed by crossfire. The vicious police MOVE." brutality captured on tape and the frame The Partisan Defense Committee, a up trial of MOVE members for that death class-struggle. non-sectarian legal and kept the city on edge for months. Nine social defense organization associated MOVE members were sentenced to 30 to with the Spartacist League, sent monthly 100 years. MOVE continued to vocifer pumping nearly 640,000 gallons of water Africa, Katricia "Tree" Dotson, Zenetta stipends to Ramona Africa throughout her ously protest this frame-up over the years, at the roof to dislodge a defensive bunker Dotson, Delicia Africa and Phil Africa, incarceration. The PDC took up the cause while the cops were still out for blood. MOVE had constructed there. Then came ranging in age from nine to IS. The adults of the nine MOVE members already On 13 May 1985, at 5:27 p.m., the head a furious fusillade as cops opened up on killed were Conrad Africa, Theresa imprisoned as a result of the 1978 Powel of the Philadelphia Bomb Disposal Unit the house with fire from a powerful arse Africa, Raymond Africa, Rhonda Africa, ton Village police attack. The PDC today dropped a large satchel charge from a hel nal which included M-16s, 12-gauge Frank Africa and John Africa, the inspira continues to send monthly stipends to icopter onto the roof of the MOVE home shotguns, Browning automatic rifles and tional leader of MOVE (members took those still in prison: Debbie Africa. at 6221 Osage Avenue, ending the siege .357 Magnums, along with Uzi sub the last name "'Africa"). Janine Africa, Janet Africa, Delbert that had begun 12 hours earlier. The machine guns, M-60 machine guns, a .45 Africa, Chuck Africa. Eddie Africa, Mike bomb, a powerful mixture of Tovex and calibre Thompson submachine gun and a Ramona Africa: Africa and Phil Africa. We do not forget the controlled military plastic explosive 20mm antitank gun. Over 10,000 rounds Convicted for Surviving that Merle Africa died in prison having known as CA, set off a heat blast of 7.200 of ammunition were poured into the Ramona Africa was the sole adult sur spent almost two decades in the racist. degrees Fahrenheit, turning roof tar into house. The cop assault also included two vivor of the firebombing. In January overcrowded dungeons of Pennsylvania. flammable liquid, wood splinters into fly "insertion" teams which attempted to 1986, in the fashion of bourgeois justice, ing debris, and shattering windows a blast their way into the MOVE house by the victim was criminalized. Ramona Reformist Left Tailed Black half block away. Despite the presence of setting off explosions from adjoining was charged with aggravated assault. Democrats, Abandoned MOVE 150 firefighters manning 37 pieces of houses. reckless endangerment, conspiracy and Rarely does a historical event demon equipment. the huge fire was allowed to Collusion between Reagan's Justice riot. Acting as her own lawyer. Ramona strate with such crystalline clarity the rage out of control. As the flames raced Department and Philadelphia officials stated that the charges should be brought dividing lines of this racist, oppressive through the MOVE residence, some of became clear as the smoke cleared. Sam against her accusers: "You know a bomb society. The MOVE massacre \\as an the hundreds of heavily armed cops on bor and his aides went over plans for was dropped on me and my family. acid test for all who claimed to represent the scene were seen laughing and joking. the assault in the days before May 13 Police officers have acknowledged that the interests of the working cla~s and When those trapped inside tried to flee with FBI agents and according to Sam they have fired 10,000 rounds of ammu the cause of black liberation. And it was the inferno, they were met with automatic bor. "The FBI found the plan sound." It nition on me and my family. If that's not a test that was failed spectacularly by the weapons fire designed to force them back was also revealed that a portion of the assault. if that's not reckless endanger liberals. as well as the reformists and cen into the fire. The fire was not declared heavy-duty weaponry used in the attack ing. if that's not. in fact. murder. even trists who were tailing the black Demo under control until after midnight. after it came from an agent of the federal Bureau according to the description you haw of crats running many of America's big had gutted or destroyed 61 row homes, of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), aggravated assault and conspiracy, I cities. They didn't want to embarrass more than an entire block. the same bureau one of whose agents had don't know what is." Wilson Goode. Philadelphia's first black The murderous assault on MOVE helped organize a Klan/Nazi attack kill The prosecution sought to rule out any Democratic Party mayor. who was up to capped off an entire day of kill-crazed ing five leftists in Greensboro, North Car evidence of the police firebombing, and his neck in the MOVE massacre. The day police mobilization by hundreds of cops. olina, in 1979. It was revealed that the jurors were specifically told not to con after the slaughter, Goode, who had mon Fifteen minutes after Police Commis FBI had supplied Philadelphia cops with sider any of the events after the early itored the killing on TV and was con sioner Gregore Sambor's dawn ultima 38 pounds of the extremely powerful mil morning of the assault. Prosecutors were sulted throughout the attack, took full tum, the cops began launching tear gas itary explosive C-4. eager to rule out testimony about attempts responsibility: "If I had to make the and smoke containers into the house and The five children killed were Tomaso that MOVE members made to surrender continued Oil page II 12 13 MAY 2005