50C!: No. 730 "'X-623 25 February 2000 Illinois Moratorium and Cap-italist Hyp-ocrisy

On January 31, after the thir­ "authority" of the state's killing teenth case came to light of a -- machine; while opinion polls death row inmate in Illinois' continue to show a majority in who had been falsely convicted, favor of the death penalty, that Republican governor George Ryan support has declined since 1996 announced a state moratorium on from 77 percent to 64 percent. executions pending a "review" of Moreover, in recent years the death penalty procedures. In the case of Pennsylvania death row . following two weeks, the Phila­ political prisoner Mumia Abu­ delphia City Council called for Jamal-whose defense has been a moratorium in Pennsylvania, taken up by trade unionists, with hearings scheduled in the black people and youth in this state legislature, and the U.S. country and around the world­ Department of Justice announced Top: Texas execution chamber. Majority of death row inmates are black and Hispanic. has thrown a spotlight on the plans to review the federal death Dennis Williams (left), Verneal Jimerson and Anthony Porter, among the 13 released from racist death penalty. penalty for racial bias. Illinois death row after proving their innocence. Our rulers want to kill Jamal It is a testament to how fla­ because they see in this eloquent grantly unjust thi~ system is that this gurney, and let's rock and roll." At a Feb­ appeals for a moratorium following the journalist, MOVE supporter and former Republican governor, a supporter of the ruary 16 press conference, President release of Anthony Porter, a black man Black Panther Party spokesman the spec­ death penalty, felt compelled to call a Clinton intoned: "I think Governor Ryan who had spent 16 years on death row-at tre of black revolution, defiant opposi­ temporary halt to executions. The string did the right thing, and it was probably a one point coming within two days of a tion to their system of racist capitalist of innocent men condemned to death and courageous thing to do, because a major­ scheduled execution-until a Northwest­ injustice. Jamal is the most prominent the repeated cop corruption and frame-up ity of the American people support capi­ ern University journalism' class proved death row inmate in America today, yet scandals in Chicago, Philadelphia and tal punishment, as I do." Clinton expli­ his innocence. In 1998, a Northwestern the Philadelphia City Council resolution Los Angeles, the NYPD's sadistic torture citly rejected a moratorium at the federal University conference on "wro~gfl:Il con­ for a moratorium conspicuously omitted of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima and level. victions" featured thirty exonerated death any reference to him. Mumia has demon­ the street execution of Amadou Diallo­ The Anti-Terrorism and Effective row inmates who told the story of their strated his innocence beyond the shadow all this and more starkly reveal the racist Death Penalty Aet enacted by Clinton ordeals. One was Ronaldo Cruz, who of a doubt. But what does this matter to nature of capitalist injustice. in 1996 gutted the habeas COlpUS right endured three trials based on lying cop the capitalist rulers? In the 1993 Herrera With a death count of 14 executioris-so of state prisoners to have federal courts testimony before he was finally released decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled far this year and 98 last year, the assem­ review their convictions and vastly after one of the cops admitted that Cruz's that executing an innocent man was not bly line of death is moving at the fastest expanded the federal death penalty, giv­ "confession" was a lie. unconstitutional. pace in over half a century. In stepping ing a green light to the state's execution On top of the 13 already freed, Ryan As Marxists, we stand for the abolition up the rate of executions and throwing mills to go full speed ahead. Now, Attor­ now faced the prospect that ten more of the death penalty on principle. We do ever more people into prison, the capital­ ney General Janet Reno is using the fed­ inmates. sent to death row by the notori­ not accord the state the right to say who ist rulers seek to contain and suppress eral laws to push for the first death pen­ ous Chicago Police Department-whose shall live and who shall die. We look not the explosive contradictions at the base alty case in Washington, D.C. in nearly 30 frame-up machine has been repeatedly to the capitalist courts and politicians but of this society produced by the growing years. Capital punishment was repealed exposed in the past few years for to the mobilization of the social power of gap between the tiny handful of filthy in that city in 1980, and residents deci­ regularly extorting "confessions" under the working class to free Mumia and rich and the masses of workers and sively rejected moves to have it reinstated torture-might have their convictions abolish the racist death penalty. However oppressed. in a 1992 referendum. Meanwhile, the overturned. Ryan's decision to call a mor­ brief the Illinois moratorium may be, and To a man, the presidential contenders Feds are demanding the death penalty for atorium also spared embarrassment to whatever reasons the Illinois state author­ of both capitalist parties, the Democrats Buford Furrow, the fascist who went on a Democratic Party kingpin and Chicago ities had in imposing it, a curtailment and Republicans, support the death pen" murderous rampage in Los Angeles last mayor Richard Daley, who presided over of state-sanctioned murder is something alty. As governor of Texas, George W. summer. The rulers use the cases of such many of those frame-up convictions when Marxists welcome. But even in France Bush has presided over.119 executions, despicable killers in order to build popu­ he served as state's attorney. and other capitalist countries where there while an adviser to Florida governor Jeb lar support for the death penalty, whose More broadly, a section of the bour­ is no death penalty, it does not change Bush last month exclaimed, "What I targets are overwhelming minority and geoisie is worried that the high-profile the fundamentally racist and oppressive hope is that we become more like Texas. poor people. exposures of a series of bogus death nature of bourgeois class rule. Bring in the witnesses, put them on a Less than a year ago, Ryan spurned row convictions will undermine the continued on page 8

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0 .·•• tg~:Mulll~'~~i~·.· •• ~•• :!~~iijfi~gjfIW'.~.~:er'P p.f) 0 ~ co Austria: Down With 004" /'- N 11\ N Racist Demagogue Haider! ...'6 ~. ,... ISO Political Exclusion Backfires The ostentatiously reformist Interna­ italism; we emphasized that what is nec­ tional Socialist O(ganization (ISO) usu­ essary is not impotent petitions but a ally' excludes us communists from their NYC Anti-Death Penalty Meeting mobilization of the multiracial proletar­ public events and meetings. But open iat on behalf of Jamal and against the political debate is vital among groups from members of the Campaign who inside, We protested but, unable to enter, racist death penalty. He brought up claiming to represent the left. Those who were disgusted at the ISO's political we began distributing our literature out­ the October 23 anti-Klan mobilization­ \Vant to fight for socialism must hear the exclusion and censorship. side the meeting hall and talking to peo­ which the Spartacus Youth Club helped to political contention among leftists in The event was billed as a discussion ple. We met two members of the Cam­ build and organize-as an example of order to decide which strategy to follow. on the fight against the death penalty. It paign who could not believe that we were what we mean when we talk about the This will serve to advance the fight for featured Lawrence Hayes, a former Black being excluded, but when we explained mobilization of the social power of the. socialist revolution. On the night of Feb­ Panther Party member and death row in­ that the ISO fears and loathes political working class on behalf of all the ruary 8 at a public meeting at New York mate. who was recently freed after prov­ debate, the two members grew angry and . oppressed. And, as ISO members cringed, University of the ISO's group "Campaign ing his innocence. When our comrades led us up to the event with the intention we described their role as stooges for the to End the Death Penalty," they got a les­ approached the event, they were told by of having us enter and speak. Democratic Party's defense of the Klan's son in workers democracy. And it came ISO members that we were not allowed - When we entered the room, this time "right" to "speech"-which amounts to totally unmolested, Lawrence Hayes was defending the Klan's "right" to tlMIrder already speaking. He was followed by and organize for murder. We explained a speaker from the ISO, The contrast that the death penalty and the cops and Marxism and the State between the two was quite graphic. Hayes courts who enforce it are part of the cap­ In calling for cosmetic "reforms" in the had ~ough clear-sightedness to say out­ italist state apparatus which cannot be face of blatantly racist cop terror and court right that what is necessary is a move­ reformed, but must be smashed through frame-ups, bourgeois liberals seek to but­ ment for socialism. He was scathing in workers revolution. While the ISO tress the authority of the inherently racist his criticisms not only of right-wing pol­ opposes the death penalty, it is on purely apparatus of capitalist state repression. iticians who push the death penalty, but liberal grounds. For example, they think Such calls are echoed by reformist "social­ also of Democrat Bill Clinton who has the cops, who are the armed defenders of ists," who sow illusions that justice can be expanded the power of the state to kill to capitalist law and order, are part of the found in the capitalist courts and that the unprecedented levels. On the other hand, working class, if only they would "rebel capitalist state can be reformed to serve the the ISO speaker simply enthused over the collectively"! Illinois moratorium on the death penalty The ISO has a problem. Fearing expo­ TROTSKY interests of workers and the oppressed. As LENIN outlined in the platform adopted at the First (see article on page 1) and went on to sure by revolutionaries, they think they Congress of the Communist International in 1919, Marxists understand that the capital­ gush over how Clinton recently said that can seal us off from their membership. ist state must be smashed through a socialist revolution which erects in its place a he might just consider perhaps, maybe, But every once in a while, they also workers state. looking into the possibility of a similar attract the critical thinker who wonders federal moratorium on the state's machin­ what is so dangerous about the excluded The conquest of political power by the proletariat means destroying the political eryof death. The word "socialism" was Spartacists. It is precisely this critical power of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie's mightiest instrument of power is the bour­ not deemed fit to utter by this ISO·mem­ thinker, so essential for any genuine geois state apparatus with its capitalist army led by officers of the bourgeoisie and ber. The ISO's big shtick that night was socialist organization, that the ISO fears landed aristocracy, its police and security forces, its judges and jailers, preachers, gov­ to pass around a petition demanding a and wants to drive away (or dumb down). ernment bureaucrats, and so forth. The conquest of political power does not mean "Moratorium Now" to be sent to Clinton! For our part, we would like the ISO mem­ merely a change of personnel in the ministries. Instead, it means destroying the When discussion began, one of the bers to know that they are welcome to enemy's state apparatus; seizing real power; disarming the bourgeoisie, the counter­ Campaign members who thought we had come to our events. Of course, we will revolutionary officers, and the White Guards. It means arming the proletariat, the revo­ a right to speak stood.up and announced, scathingly polemicize against their polit­ lutionary soldiers, and the workers' Red Guard; removing all bourgeois judges and while ISO leaders looked on in dismay, ical program of warmed-over liberalism. organizing proletarian justice; abolishing the rule of reactionary government officials; that we were there in opposition to the Polemics, which an ISO leader derided and creating new organs of proletarian administration. The key to victory for the prole­ death penalty and that people in the room to the Campaign member as "squabbles," tariat lies.in organizing its power and disorganizing that of the enemy; it entails smash­ should listen to what we had to say. He are an essential part of being a commu­ ing the bourgeois state apparatus while constructing a proletarian one .... then ceded the floor to one of our sup­ nist, if for nothing else than to justify a The proletarian state is an apparatus of repression like every other, but it is wielded porters, who explained that the racist group's independent existence. Speaking against the enemies of the working class. Its purpose is to break and eliminate the death penalty is a direct legacy of chattel back in 1967 to students of the New Left, resistance of the exploiters, who use every means in a desperate struggle to drown the slavery in America and the defeat of Rad­ the Marxist intellectual Isaac Deutscher revolution in blood. The dictatorship of the proletariat, which openly gives the working ical Reconstruction following the Civil gave a piece of advice that we would like class the favored position in society, is at the same time a provisional institution. As the War. We saluted Lawr.ence Hayes' strug­ to pass on to members of the ISO and the bourgeoisie's resistance is broken, and it is expropriated and gradually transformed gle for freedom and rais~d the necessity of Campaign to End the Death Penalty: "All into a part of the work force, the proletarian dictatorship wanes, the state withers away, fighting to free death row political pris­ human thinking and all human organiza­ and with it, social classes themselves. oner Mumia Abu-Jamal. The struggle tion is subject to differentiation. Whether So-called democracy, that is, bourgeois democracy~ is nothing but a veiled dictator­ against the death penalty is part of the you like it or not, 'squabbling' is the stuff ship of the bourgeoisie. The highly touted general "will of the people" is no more real broader fight against racist American cap- of life; do not be contemptuous of it.". than national unity. In realiiy:-classes confront each other with antagonistic, irreconcil­ able wills. But since the bourgeoisie i~ a small minority, it needs this fiction, this illu­ sion of a national "will of the people:~ these high-sounding words, to consolidate its rule over the working class and impose its own class will on thy proletariat. By contrast the proletariat, the overwhelming majority of the population, openly wields the class power of its mass organizations, its councils, in order to abolish the privileges of the As we reported in "Charleston ILA bourgeoisie and to safeguard the transition to a classless, communist society. Battles Racist Union-Busting Assault" -"Platform of the Communist International" (March 1919), reprinted in (WV No. 728, 28 January), on January Founding the Communist International (1987) 20 an army of cops in Charleston, South Carolina attacked hundreds of members of International Long­ shoremen's Association Local 1422 as they were picketing a scab ship. Com­ ing only three days after Local 1422 had mobilized a contingent for the huge protest in Columbia, the state !~!!!!!mf..4..1!!'!.~!!.! ~ capital, against the Confederate flag of EDITOR: Len Meyers slavery and Klan terror, the cop assault EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Anna Woodman underscores how racism and "open Smith/Post and Courier PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller shop" union-busting go hand in hand. January 20: ILA Local 1422 picket CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mara Cadiz , Following the police attack, four attacked by state and local cops. EDITORIAL BOARD: Barry James (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, ILA members face indictment on Alison Spencer trumped-Up felony charges which They neyd and deserve the best pos­ The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth could mean years in prison. In a Feb­ sible defense." Internationalist) . ruary 17 letter to the Partisan Defense An injury to one is an injury to all! Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276·0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June .. July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and wtth a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Pub­ Committee, Dockworkers Defense The PDC has donated to the Dock­ lishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 Fund spokesman and Local 1422 pres­ ,workers Defense Fund, and we urge all (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E·mail address: [email protected]. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address ident Kenneth Riley stressed the our readers to do likewise. Send contri­ changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. urgent need for funds for legal butions to: Dockworkers Defense Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. defense: "I believe strongly that the Fund, clo Robert J. Ford, Treasurer of The closing date for news in this issue is Fe~ruary 22. arrested longshoremen are innocently the Fund, 910 Morrison Drive, caught up in a political prosecution. Charleston, SC 29403. . No. 730 25 February 2000

2 WORKERS VANGUARD California.s Prop 21 Targets Black, Latino and Immigrant Youth OAKLAND-On the eve of the March 7 Even middle-class high school stu­ primaries)n California, racist dema­ dents in "good" neighborhoods are victi­ gogues backed by both parties of the rul­ mized by the intensifying regimentation ing class are pushing Proposition 21, the of youth. From dress codes and curfews so-called "Gang Violence and Juvenile to the anti-smoking, anti-booze, anti­ CriIJ1.e Prevention Act," whose purpose is drug and anti-sex campaigns, the state to unleash the brutal machinery of state increasingly intervenes in the lives of repression against poor, immigrant, black all young people. Preventing access to and Latino youth. California state refer­ birth control and abortion and impos­ endums over the past decade have been a ing 1950s-style "family values," the state spearhead for similar measures nation­ callously assaults the rights of youth and ally: from the systematic destruction of seeks to enforce submission to authority. affirmative action and the purge of minor­ We say: Cops out of the schools! Gov­ ities from California universities (Prop. ernment out of the bedrooms! 209) to the deprivation of "illegal" immi­ The liberal opposition to Prop. 21, grants from access to food stamps, school from tl)e ACLU to the Third Eye Move­ lunches and health care (Prop. 187), to' ment and Critical Resistance Youth Force, the "Three Strikes Initiative" (Prop. 184) has worked overtime to paint it as "Pete which mandates, among other things, that Wilson's Attack on Youth" in order to individuals with two convictions for spec­ build support for the Democratic Party, ified "strike crimes" receive a sentence which is equally a party of racism and of 25 years to life upon conviction of war. Prop. 21, written by former Repub­ Butow/SABA any subsequent felony, regardless of its Prop. 21 would intensify police reign of terror against ghetto and lican governor Wilson, is backed by the seriousness. barrio youth, extending use of death penalty and requiring children as current Democratic Party governor Gray The ruling class has again chosen the young as 14 to be tried as adults in specified cases. Davis, who recently signed a law leg­ "Golden State" as its laboratory of cop islative insiders say was designed to terror and racist reaction. Prop. 21 would meet Prop. 21 halfway (Oakland Tribune, extend the use of the racist death penalty, 19 December 1999). The liberals and the increase the scope of the "Three Strikes" so-called "leftists" who follow behind law, and condemn younger and younger them into the Democrats' camp have kids to rot in California's vast and to close their eyes to reality when they expanding prison system for the rest of paint the Democrats as any less an enemy their lives. Prop. 21 would also allow of working people, minorities and youth. prosecutors to send minors to adult In fact, the Democrats have been hand courts without a hearing before a juve­ in glove with the Republicans in beef­ nile court judge, and require that youth ing up the forces of state repression, as young as 14 be tried as adults in spec­ to confinement. The juvenile detention code word for poor black, Latino, and pushing the anti-drug witchhunt, back­ ified cases. Vote no on Prop. 21! facilities are hellholes. At California's Asian youth. Police will be given carte ing "boot camps" supposedly to fight Prop. 21 continues the bipartisan racist largest facility in Chino, inmates were blanche to terrorize the barrios and ghet­ "youth crime," working to deflect popular "war on drugs" carried out against the routinely beaten, shot at close range with tos. Already under current state law, any outrage over cops gunning down black workers and poor; its context is the sinis­ riot guns, and forcibly injected with anti­ group of three or more kids who dress and Latino "suspects." Clinton's vow to ter intensification of state repression and psychotic drugs. "alike," hang out together and do anything "end welfare as we know it" has led economic misery on all fronts. While the While slashing funds for schools, bil­ the police choose to regard as "criminal" straight to starvation and homeless ness capitalist rulers enjoy their vaunted eco­ lions are poured into the prison system. is classified as a "gang." Remember the for welfare mothers and their children. nomic boom, poverty devastate~ the inner Police-state terror reigns in the ghettos, First Amendment promise of "freedom of Some "lesser evil"! cities. Working.!class and minority youth and the growing ranks of fascist scum association"? Clearly this country's rulers Liberals oppose Prop. 21 on the confront the prospects of either slave­ are emboldened to murder, like last think it doesn't apply to today's youth, grounds that "youth crime is already wage, dead-end jobs, unemployment, or summer's shootings at a Jewish day-care especially if they're working-class and lower," accepting the legitimacy of Prop. the concrete walls of a prison cell. The center in L.A. Daily in the press come minorities. 21 's racist terms of debate. They are slashing of affirmative action ripped away more revelations of a massive conspir­ The "gang member~' database main­ echoed by reformists like the Interna­ the opportunity for higher education acy of evidence fabrication and racist tained by California police agencies tional Socialist Organization, which op­ offered to a few. Nationally, 2 million frame-ups by the star thugs in the already has over 300,000 names! Prop. 21 poses the death penalty by arguing, "It people are behind bars. In Los Angeles LAPD's "anti-gang" division. What "jus­ would further broaden the d~finition of doesn't stop crime" (from a flyer by the County, minority youth arrested for a vio­ tice" for black and Latino youth means "gangs," require extra jail time for "gang ISO's group Campaign to End the Death lent felony are significantly more likely to in America is_ exemplified by L.A. cops affiliation," and add "gang-related" mur­ Penalty issued at UC Berkeley). And be transferred to an adult court and sen­ shooting a "gang member" while he was der to the already long list of "special Socialist Action discovers cothinkers tenced to confinement than white youth handcuffed. circumstances" mandating the death pen­ amongst the professionals of capitalist arrested for the same crimes. And black Among the most sinister elements of alty. And vandalism would become a fel­ state repression: "Those who understand youth are 18.4 times more likely than . Prop. 21 is the further extension of crim­ ony for as little as $400 worth of property what creates crime and what prevents it whites to be sentenced by an adult court inalizing "gang-related activity"-a racist damage (instead of $50,000), bringing understand that this initiative is not going down the state's machinery of human to lower crime; that's why the Chief Pro­ destruction on youth who paint graffiti or bation Officers of California are against break a window. continued on page 11

BAY AREA TORONTO Spartacist~ Forums , Thursday, March 2, 7 p.m. Thursday, March 9, 7 p.m. Class-Struggle Fight for How the Russian Revolution Black Freedom Uberated Women UC Berkeley, Dwinelle, Room 179 U of T, International Student Centre Information and readings: (510) 839-0851 33 St. George St. (north of College St.) or (415) 395-9520 For room and information: (416) 593-4138 Saturday, February 26, 4 p.m. Email: [email protected] Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, Geneva Room CHICAGO 3300 Wilshire Blvd. (at Berendo) VANCOUVER Saturday, February 26, 3 p.m. LOS ANGELES For more information, call (213) 380-8239 Imperialism, War and Tuesday, March 7, 7 p.m. ~ the Class Struggle For Women's Uberation Through Hear update on the fight to free Mumia Abu-Jamal 328 S. Jefferson St., Suite 904 Socialist Revolution! (near Clinton stop on Blue Line) University of British Columbia Seattle WTD Protests Pushed Information and readings: (312) 454-4930 Student Union Building, Rm. 215 or [email protected] Anti-Communism, ~merican Ch"auvinism Information and readings: (604) 687-0353 NEW YORK Tuesday, February 29, 7 p.m. Revolution vs. Reform: Visit the leL The Russian Revolution-How the Working Class Took Power Web Site! Thursday, March 2, 7 p.m. NYU, Thompson Center, Basement University of Chicago, Cobb Hall. 5811 S. Ellis Ave. 238 Thompson St. (near W. 3rd St.) www.icl-fi.org Information and readings: (212) 267-1025 CHICAGO For more information: (312) 454-4930

25 FEBRUARY 2000 3 Revolution vs. Counterrevolution in Germany, 1989·90,

We. publish below the first part of a presentation given at Spartacist League public meetings in New York, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area in late . January and early February. The speaker was comrade Steffen Singer, editor of Spartakist, publication of the Spartakist Workers Party (SpAD), German section of the International Communist League.

PART ONE

On November 8, 1999, on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, there was a talk show on German TV with Mikhail Gorbachev, former head of the Soviet Union; Helmut Kohl, ex­ chancellor of German imperialism; and U.S. ex-president Bush. They were chat­ ting about how they organized the coun­ terrevolution in East Germany (DDR) in 1990 and Gorbachev said: "We changed our point of view on the process of unification of Germany under the impact of events that unfolded in the DDR. And an especially critical situa­ tion came about in January [1990]. In Spartakist essence, a breakdown of structures took January 1990, East Berlin-Spartacists initiated 250,000-strong rally ag~inst fascist desecration of Treptow memorial place. A threat arose-a threat of disor­ to Red Army. Spartakist-Gruppen banner reads: "For a Red Germany of Workers Councils in a Socialist Europe!" ganization, of a big deStabilization. This began on January 3 and [went] further was destroyed there in the late 1920s that transitional, broken from capitalism but took as our point of departure that what­ almost every day." Trotskyists were able to address a mass certainly not yet socialist.. .. ever form and whatever time period by On January 3, 1990, 250,000 people audience in a deformed workers state. I "We fight to forge a new workers party which the unification of Germany took -of equal rights, equal duties-in the place-this was the right of Germans came to an anti-fascist, pro-Soviet, pro­ quote from our comrade's speech: socialist mobilization at East Berlin's spirit of Lenin, Liebknecht and Luxem­ themselves." "A political revolution has broken out burg. Stop the Nazis through united-front As we had warned and fought against, Treptow monument, which was built to and is growing in our midst, and we action! Workers and soldiers soviets to honor the Red Army soldiers who died in must defend it. power! Workers of the world unite!" counterrevolution devastated the former the struggle to free Berlin from the fas­ "Economic absorption and political DDR: the whole of industry was leveled cists. They came in protest against the incorporation by stages-which West Counterrevolution Devastates down, with mass unemployment of 20 German imperialism, aided by the SPD, percent or more, even worse for the desecration of that monument by fas­ seeks-can turn this political revolu­ Former DDR cists in late December 1989. And it was tion into a social counterrevolution. This youth. There are incessant, relentless The SEDIPDS and Gorbachev were attacks on the living standards of the we Trotskyists who initiated that united must not happen! It is necessary to fight scared by the spectre of proletarian polit­ against it! working class in the West, a drive to break front. We distributed 130,000 leaflets ical revolution that Treptow represented. to East Berlin factories, working-class "That's right, stop the Nazis through a the power of the trade unions and to workers united front! We have to think The last thing they wanted to see was the destroy industrial wage contract systems. neighborhoods, city train stations and further. Our economy is suffering from working class in political power in the especially' to foreign workers. And we waste and obsolescence. The SED party Women have been especially hard hit- DDR. They changed gears and came out 60 percent of them lost their jobs in the said: dictatorship has shown that it is incom­ openly for a capitalist Anschluss (annexa­ petent to fight this .... former DDR and there are attacks on "The vile desecration of the Memorial to tion). As Gorbachev said on the TV talk the Fallen Soviet Heroes in Treptow on "Lenin said, 'Politics is concentrated eco­ abortion rights. The bourgeoisie wants to December 28 provokes disgust and out­ nomics.' The fight for the power to make show, describing a discussion at the time destroy the pension system, the education rage among millions of workers and these decisions and to run this country with DDR leader Han!> "yfodrow: system, health care. broad layers of the population of the must lie in the hands of workers councils "It was precisely at that moment when DDR. This provocation is. directed as so that rational decisions satisfactory to Modrow told me that I must say on that At the same time, increased racist state well at our workers state, which was the majority can be arrived at. ... same day that if we had spoken up until terror is used to split the working class. built on the ruins of Hitler fascism." "The Soviet Union will certainly take the then about some sort of treaty alliance of There are countless deportations of immi- We warned: "Resurgent fascism is still an same road, and that would also assist us two states, Germans-the majority­ . grants and refugees, even of youth born in jointly solving economic and political today come out for unification of Ger­ extremist fringe phenomenon. It would problems and in the defense of our states, many .... That was when I said to him in Germany. There is a dangerous growth again threaten all mankind as soon as the our workers states, which are presently [Kohl] that we in the Soviet leadership of the fascists, with day-to-day fascist first crises in a reunified Grossdeutsch­ murder and terror. And such a huge rise of land [Greater Germany] appear. Today, anti-Semitism that the head of the Jewish however, the SPD/SDP [the Social community, who died some months ago, Kohl, Gorbachev made sure he wouldn't be buried in Ger­ Democracy in West and East Germany] is and Bush: the chief instrument to bring about such a Architects of many, because he didn't want his grave to Greater Germany. Throttling the hydra­ capitalist be dynamited by fascists, as happened to headed fascist monster now is to blunt reunification the grave of his predecessor three times this Social Democratic penetration." We celebrate ten years already. stressed that "Social Democracy is the of counterrevolution In East Europe, the situation for the Trojan horse of counterrevolution!" which has working masses is even worse. At the And we demanded: "For united work­ devastated eastern same time, throughout West Europe there ers militias under the control of workers Germany. have been huge militant struggles of the and soldiers councils! Workers and Sol­ Unemployed and working class against these attacks by homeless line up at the bourgeoisie. So for the bourgeoisie's diers councils to power! For a Leninist­ Berlin soup kitchen. egalitarian party!... Full citizenship celebration of the tenth anniversary of rights for foreign workers! For economic P. Glaser the fall of the Berlin Wall, the capitalist revitalization through central planning Social Democratic-led government hired under workers councils! No sell-out of the most popular of the government­ the DDR .... For a red soviet Germany!" friendly writers and artists to come to It was the factory workers who were the Brandenburg Gate, in the center of the backbone of that mobilization. At fIrst the German capital, Berlin. Only 15,000 the SEDIPDS (Socialist Unity PartyIParty turned out, compared to 2 million for of Democratic Socialism), the East Ger­ the MilleIJnium celebration, because the man Stalinist ruling party, refused to join majority of the workers in Germany and the call for a demonstration. But when Europe see nothing to celebrate. they realized that the East Berlin factories On that TV talk show, Kohl wasn't stood behind our call, Lothar Bisky, a . very happy with what Gorbachev said. leader of the SEDIPDS, told us, "You The bourgeoisie is pushing this big have the workers," and they were forced "death of communism" campaign, claim­ to take up the call for the demonstration. ing that everybody supposedly yearned So 250,000 heard Trotskyism vs. Sta­ for capitalism in 1989-90, and the Trep­ linism, the ICL vs. the SEDIPDS. It was tow mobilization on January 3, 1990 the first time since Trotsky was banned doesn't fit into that campaign at all. Just from the USSR and the Left Opposition one example: A big book was published 4 WORKERS VANGUARD with protocols of Kohl's negotiations in and soldiers became convinced that the bureaucracy was oased on the planned, bourgeoisie unleashed the fascists. The 1989-90; it was one or two thousand Mensheviks wouldn't fight for their inter- , collectivized ecpnomy; that's where they working class wanted to fight. The SPD pages long. The protocols beginning ests, wouldn't break with the bourgeoisie, derived their privileges from. However, leadership didn't want to mobilize its with our call at the end of December no matter how much pressure you might they didn't own the means of production, working-class base because once the 1989 for the united-front protest at Trep­ put on them. The workers and soldiers which remained nationalized. Bureau­ workers were set in motion against the tow up to the end of January J 990 were broke with the Mensheviks and were won crats would manage a factory but they fascists, they wouldn't stop at that, but marked "secret" and were not reprinted. to the Bolsheviks. In October 1917, the couldn't own it; for example, they. would go on to sweep away the whole At the same time, there's a sinister Bolsheviks led. tile workers revolution; couldn't pass that factory on to' their capitalist system that breeds the fascist campaign by the bourgeoisie of Ausch­ the soviets took power in an insurrection children. It was not a ruling class but scum. At the same time, the Communist witz to equate the DDR with Hitler's based on the armed working class and the rather an unstable bureaucratic caste. Party refused to I}lobilize against the fas­ Third Reich. So at the sites of the former soldiers smashing the bourgeois state. This bureaucracy had a dual nature: it cists in a united front with the SPD, to Nazi concentration camps, there are now The world bourgeoisie did everything was hostile to the working class, insofar smash the fascists on the one hand and exhibits about "crimes of the Red Army" to smash the revolution. A civil war of as it had to defend its privileges and to prove the superiority ofthe communist and "for the yictims of StaI.inism," mean­ unprecedented scale ensued, with 14 cap­ its rule against the workers. At the same program over the bourgeois program of ing mainlrNazis. And on the anniver­ italist countries invading on the side of time their bureaucratic privileges derived the SPD on the other. Such united-front sary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the the White Ouards, the Russian counter­ from the planned economy that issued action would have enabled the Commu­ bourgeoisie's courts sent three former revolutionary armies. The Red Army, led out of the victorious October Revolution. nists to rip the SPD's working-class base leading bureaucrats of the DDR to jail on by Trotsky, defeated them with the help Meanwhile, the world bourgeoisie was away from its treacherous leadership yearlong sentences-because they were of the working class in the home coun­ hostile to the Soviet bureaucracy and in the course of the struggle and thus representatives of the DDR workers tries of the invading capitalist armies. was uncompromisingly devoted to the open the road to a proletarian revolution. state-equating this to the Nuremberg The Bolsheviks understood very well destruction of the Soviet Union. That's what the Trotskyist Left Opposi­ trials. that backward Soviet Russia couldn't In 1924, Stalin came out with the tion was fighting for. What the bourgeoisie wants to disap­ survive if it remained isolated. They saw' counterrevolutionary dogma of "building In early 1933, Hitler came to power pear with this whole campaign is that October 1917 as the beginning of world socialism in one country," which stood without even a shot being fired. The fas­ in 1989-90 the question was posed: Rev­ Dietz Verlag Berlin photos cists smashed all working-class organi­ olution or counterrevolution. There was zations, the Communist Party, the SPD, a revolutionary situation in 1989. Lenin the trade unions. Then they started the defined a revolutionary situation as one Demonstration of armed workers and Holocaust, the killing of six million Jews in which the rulers cannot rule in the old soldiers in 1918-19 Berlin uprising. Heroic Spartacusbund leaders Karl and millions of homosexuals, Roma way and the oppressed don't want to be Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, (Gypsies) and Communists. In 1941, the ruled the old way. In October 1989, the murdered by counterrevolutionaries Nazi regime invaded the Soviet Union, ruling bureaucratic caste of the DDR col­ in January 1919. trying to get one-sixth of the world back lapsed; you had growing demonstra­ under the yoke of capitalist exploitation. tions and in late October SED leader We Trotskyists unconditionally militarily Erich Honecker fell from power with the defended the Soviet Union. But we had help of Gorbachev. And what developed no side in the war between the imperialist in the East German deformed workers powers, instead struggling for their over­ state was an incipient proletarian politi­ throw through international proletarian cal revolution. The question was posed: revolution. And it was the Red Army, Which class shall rule? The choices were 'despite Stalin, that smashed the Nazi either proletarian political revolution­ regime. Nearly 30 million Soviet citizens i.e., the working class ousts the bureauc­ gave their lives. racy and takes political power into its After the victory of the Red Army, the own hands--or capitalist counterrevolu­ Stalinists expropriated capitalism-for tion, i.e., the West German bourgeoisie their own reasons and with their own takes over the DDR. methods-in East Germany and East The October Revolution and Europe. Faced with imperialist Cold War the Stalinist Thermidor hostility, the Soviet bureaucracy abol­ A proletarian political revolution is ished private property in those countries what we fought for. This struggle must occupied by the Red Army in East be based on the principled defense of Europe-to bring the new regimes into proletarian property forms. To under­ accordance with that of the USSR. So the series of post-war social transformations stand what happened in 1989 and how WillyR6mer we fought for power, we have to go back revolution. It was necessary to extend 180 degrees counterposed to the proletar­ were not carried out as a conscious act of to the Russian Revolution in 1917. the revolution to the advanced capital­ ian internationalism that inspired the the proletariat like the Russian Revolu­ In 1914 the First World War broke out. ist countries. That's why Lenin and 'October Revolution. The Third Interna­ tion of 1917, but from the top down with military-bureaucratic means, after the This was an imperialist war over the re­ Trotsky founded the Third International tional was thus turned from a tool for division of the world. With the outbreak as the party necessary to lead the world world revolution into an obstacle to it. Its earlier capitalist states had been smashed as a result of the war. The political of the war, many of the parties of the Sec­ revolution. task was no longer to lead the workers regimes of all the deformed workers ond International went over to the side of The Russian Revolution was an inspi­ to power, but to appease the imperialist states in the post-war period were qualita­ their own bourgeoisies. They were key in ration to all the oppressed, all over the bourgeoisies so that they would not tively the same as in the USSR after sending the working class of each coun­ world. At the end of the world war, a attack the Soviet Union, so that "social­ decades of Stalinist degeneration. This try to slaughter their class brothers in the wave of revolutionary upheavals swept ism" could be built there, bU,t nowhere included Yugoslavia, China, North Korea, other countries. They became what Lenin over Europe. Like their Russian counter­ else. Trotsky led the Left Oppo~ition in Vietnam and Cuba, where the differences, called bourgeois workers parties, having parts, the social-democratic parties else­ an uncompromising struggle against the if any, were quantitative. The expropria­ a working-class base but a bourgeois pro­ where in Europe acted to save the rule of degeneration of the Soviet Union and the tion of the means of production is a pro­ gram-i.e., they defended the interests the bourgeoisie from the working class. Third International and defended the gressivemeasure which we defend. But, and the rule of the bourgeoisie.. The newly founded Communist parties Bolshevik program against the Stalinists. as Trotsky argued when t!)e Red Army The horror of the First World War led were too young and inexperienced to lead Soviet Union Crushed moved into eastern Poland in late 1939, the workers or the Russian empire to these revolutions to victory. In Germany, Nazi Germany such expropriations are not the key polit­ overthrow the tsar in the February Revo­ one of the most advanced capitalist coun­ In Germany, the failure of the 1923 ical criteria, unless a change in property lution of 1917. They built soviets, work­ tries, the revolutionary crisis was the revolution gave rise to the fascists. They relations leads to a rise in the conscious­ ers councils. The majority of the workers most acute. The SPD used the Freikorps, grew enormously in the late '20s and ness and the organization of the proletar­ and soldiers at that point trusted the Men­ a fascistic counterrevolutionary army, early , 30s, when Germany was rocked iat. From this decisive point, he wrote sheviks, who were the Russian social to drown the 1918-1919 Revolution in by the Great Depression. Faced with a in In Defense of Marxism, the "politics democrats. And the Mensheviks handed blood. They beheaded the young Com­ huge class polarization, the German continued on page 10 power back to the bourgeoisie. They built munist Party (KPD), killing Rosa Luxem­ the Provisional Government in coalition burg and Karl Liebknecht, the two out­ with outright bourgeois parties, a popular standing revolutionary leaders of the front. The Mensheviks, who had the German proletariat. majority in the soviets, subordinate~ the In 1923, an extraordinary revolution­ soviets to the bourgeois government, with ary crisis shook Germany. The German the aim of finally dissolving the soviets workers looked to the KPD to lead them, and creating a bourgeois parliamentary but the leadership of the KPD looked republic. to the left wing of the SPD to make the That meant continuing the war, to revolution and even joined them in a par­ defend the property' of the bourgeoisie, liamentary, that is bourgeois, coalition defending the factories against the work­ government. When the KPD let this r~vo­ ers and the big landowners against the lutionary situation pass, the workers in peasantry. The Bolsheviks, having split devastated Soviet Russia became demor­ from the Mensheviks much earlier, under­ alized, because it meant the continued stood that the social democrats cannot isolation of the Russian Revolution. At be pressured to serve the interests of the the beginning of 1924, a conservative workers, and fought instead to break the bureaucratic caste headed by Stalin t{)ok working-class base from their social­ advantage of the situation and usurped democratic leadership. The Bolsheviks political power, ripping it out or the called for the soviets to break with the hands of the proletariat. At this point, the bourgeoisie and for "All power to the people who ruled the USSR, the way the soviets." But that's what the Mensheviks USSR was ruled and the aims the USSR and the Menshevik-led soviets wouldn't do. was ruled for all changed. Over the course of struggle between It was a political counterrevolution, February and October 1917, the workers but not a social counterrevolution. The Victorious Red Army tramples Nazi swastika, Austria 1945. , 25 FEBRUARY 2000 5 Austria: Down With Racist Demagogue Haider!

We publish below an edited translation crats, imposed a hypocritical bilateral

of a leaflet issued on February 18 by the boycott against the OVPIFPO govern- c Spartakist Workers Party of Germany For a United Socialist States of Europe! ment of Austria at the ministerial level. (SpAD), section of the International At the same time, Nazis were marching Communist League. The SpAD distrib­ Haider statements by German and French less than three years ago in implement­ through the Brandenburg Gate in Ber­ uted this leaflet the next day at a protest leaders "reflected a growing determina­ ing the Schengen accord aimed at keep­ lin, protected by the cops of the SPDI of nearly 300,000 people in Vienna against tion to turn a union that was long essen­ ing Slavic and dark-skinned immigrants Green government. These governments J6rg Haider's openly racist Freedom tially a trade bloc into an ever closer out of racist "Fortress Europe." are pursuing the same racist policies Party (FPO). Following the FPO's entry political community with some aspects of As rivalries among the major imperial­ against immigrants, refugees and Roma· into a coalition government with the a federal state." In imposing sanctions ist powers-the U.S., Germany and and Sinti that the FPO intends to carry People's Party (OVP) earlier this month, against the FPO's entry into the Austrian Japan-intensify, we Marxists, proletar­ out. In an article on February 2, the mass protests have taken place not only in government, German imperialism and its ian internationalists, stand in steadfast Frankfurter Rundschau put its finger Austria but throughout West Europe. on it: "If it were a question only of The presence ofthe FPO in the gov­ this, the EU would have to keep an ernment poses a sinister threat to the eye on German minister of the inter­ Austrian working class, immigrants ior Otto Schily." The current depor­ and other minorities. At the same tations of 180,000 Balkan refugees time, the political thrust of these pro­ will be continued and intensified by tests is to restore to power the Social­ the SPD/Green government and also ist Party (SPO) which long adminis­ the PDS [Party of Democratic tered the racist, capitalist Austrian Socialism]-supported state govern­ state. As for the SPO's posture of rep­ ments-in cooperation with the resenting a bulwark against Haider, "boycotted" FPO ministers. the social-democratic ex-chancellor For almost 50 years without inter­ of Austria, Viktor Klima, declared ruption, the racist SPO has admin­ last month that "he would not cate­ istered Austrian imperialism-the gorically exclude in the future form­ other successor state to the Third ing a coalition" with the FPO if that's Reich-with which it is indissolubly what it takes to get back in power bound. SPO president Adolf Scharf (L'Humanite, 26 January). ran his 1957 election campaign on As the leaflet details, various ref­ the slogan, "People who were once ormist and centrist groups have for Adolf are voting Adolf again this seized on opposition to the FPO in year." Today this SPO, behind the order to fall in behind the social­ scenes, is leading the demonstra­ democratic rulers of their own impe­ tions against the OVPIFPO govern­ rialist countries, just as they backed ment, for their capitalist Austria. their own rulers in the U.S.-led February 19, Vienna: 300,000 pr.~test Haider's racist FPO. West European social The vanguard for the SPO in this are imperialist war of domination against democrats have seized on FPO's entry into Austrian government in drive to the "leftist" and pseudo-Trotskyist Serbia last year. While Tony Cliff's strengthen European Union imperialist bloc. groups such as the Communist Party British Socialist Workers Party (rep­ of Austria, ArbeiterInnenstandpunkt resented in the U.S. by the International partners are asserting a precedent to dic­ opposition to our "own" imperialist rul­ [ASt], the [Cliffite] Linkswende and the Socialist Organization) calls for support tate policy to other EU member states. ers and declare: "The main enemy is at newly formed Socialist Left Party (SLP), to the European Union (EU) in order to The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung home!" formerly the SOY [Taaffeites], all of tail the Blair Labour government, its (11 February) quoted in the leaflet gives whom want to make the SPO-led OGB German 'sister group, Linksruck, expli­ a hint of how the Social Democrats' * * * [Austrian Trade Union Federation] fight citly backs German imperialism and the "anti-fascist" rhetoric is used to further Many leftists and workers are taking to for the continuation of class collaboration government of Social Democratic (SPD) the ambitions of German imperialism: the streets to demonstrate against Haider in an SPO-administered capitalism. That chancellor SchrOder. In a leaflet distrib­ "The Holocaust and 'never again' are and the FPO, an extremely racist and means the interests of the workers are uted at a February 19 protest in Berlin, becoming the code words for the found­ reactionary party. Haider and his cronies subordinated to those of the capitalist Linksruck argued: "Because Haider is a ing myth of a European nation .... Ger­ demonstrate their fascistic views, for many has participated in a war for the exploiters. fascist,· he must be isolated-thus first time since 1945, led by a left gov­ example celebraring'the"orderly employ­ In contrast we fight to bring down SchrOder is totally right to threaten Aus­ ernment. The reason given was to sti­ ment policy" of the Nazis. Now, with racist capitalism. For this, what is needed tria with sanctions .... The blockade of fle a new fascism in the Balkans .... In the FPO in the government, the SPO is is a class-struggle leadership of the trade the European Union is strengthening the cOllnection with the European left, he trying to portray itself as the defender of [SchrOder] works toward the European­ unions and the building of a new revolu­ resistance movement against this racist ization of the Holocaust. This eases the "democracy," while for decades itself tionary workers party, which mobilizes and anti-social government,':' burden on the Germans, especially when carrying out racist state terror against the proletariat independently and in its This is unabashed support to the aim of they, together with their European part­ immigrants and refugees and actively own class interests. The social demo­ the European imperialist powers, with ners, kick the Austrians in the shin." preparing the way for the FPO. One only cratic trade-union bureaucracy, which the Germany at the head, to cohere the EU as While ordering the first German expedi­ has to think of the brutal murder of refu­ entire fake left supports, is a barrier to a military and political force following tionary force into the Balkans since Hit­ gee Marcus Omofuma in April 1999 by this. While the fake lefts want to tie the creation of a unified currency under ler's Wehrmacht, at home the SchrOder the SPO cops and the massive deporta­ youth and workers again to the social the terms of the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. regime which cynically intones "never tions, often to certain death. Encouraged democracy, we fight to split the working­ Following the Balkans War, Germany again" is perpetrating racist terror and by this SPO-led racist state terror, in the class base from these bourgeois workers and the other EU ~tates moved rapidly deportations against Turks, Kurds and mid-1990s Austrian Nazis began a wave parties. to establish a unified European mili­ other "non-Germans." Indeed, the same of terror against immigrants, refugees, The truth is that the social democrats tary force as a counterweight to the U.S.­ EU governments which now hypocriti­ Roma and Sinti [Gypsies] and leftists. see rightists such as Haider as a threat dominated NATO alliance. Now, as the cally denounce the FPO for its pro­ The capitalist governments of Europe, to European economic unity, which the New York Times (20 February) notes, anti- nounced anti-immigrant racism joined most of which are led by social demo- European capitalist rulers know is nec­ essary for the EU to compete success­ » "tl fully as an imperialist trade bloc against '0:r o Japan and especially the United States. o f/J This is the reason for the sharp reactions especially of Belgium and France­ German SPD which face strong fascist, extreme right­ chancellor ist, anti-Europe movements in their own Schroder with countries-dangerous diplomatic. sanc­ French Socialist tions which can lead to war. Party prime The SPD's Bundestag [parliamentary] minister Jospin. deputy fraction head, SPD "leftist" Ger­ Social democrats not Erler, hit the nail. on the head: "In led European terms of foreign policy, it will be 'seri­ imperialist powers ..... in U.S./NATO war ous' if Haider tries to block the east­ against Serbia. ward expansion of the EU" (Frankfurter German tank in Rundschau, 27 January). An Austria Macedonia, near dominated by Haider could block the Kosovo border, expansion of the EU to eastern and March 1999. southern Europe, which was one of the main reasons for the Balkan War led by the governing Social Democrats. The 6 WORKERS VANGUARD Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung com­ against the social-democratic leaderships .c~ mented on 11 February: "The anti-Haider a. in the workers movement, which serve as action was born at the Stockholm Holo­ ~ a transmission belt to channel racist poi­ caust Conference. It was conceived in the son into the working class. For a revolu­ Balkan' War. From then on the lefts­ tionary, multiethnic workers party! above all the Germans-carried their Haider and his followers are seen as Europe under their hearts, no matter kindred spirits by fascistic types all over where it beat .. And Tony Cliff's fake-left Europe: Le Pen in France, the NPD in Socialist Workers Party, British parent Germany and the Lega Nord and Alli­ organization of Linkswende, appealed to anza Nazionalein Italy. Haider's FPO is their imperialism: "There should be no purely an electoral machine and does not cooperation with the Freedom Party: We ICL fought for correspond to what Marxists understand are supporting the European Union's revolutionary­ by fascism. Reactionary views alone do position" {(London] Times, 3 February). internationalist not define fascism. A number of Mar­ Meanwhile the social democrats all opposition to garet Thatcher's advisers thought Britain over Europe are using their campaign U.S./NATO war should have allied itself with Germany against Haider to wrap themselves in of imperialist against the Soviet Union in World War II the flag of "anti-fascist" patriotism and domination and otherwise had fascist views. As to build chauvinist mobilizations in order against Serbia. Trotsky explained in "Whither France": to distract from their own attacks on "Finance capital is obliged to create spe­ the living standards of the masses. For cial anned bands, trained to fight the instance, at a February 5 demonstration workers.". The historic function of fas­ cism is to smash the working class, de­ in Berlin, social-democratic leftists like stroy its organizations, and stifle political Linksruck and the [anarchoid] Auto­ liberties when the capitalists find them­ nomes chanted, "Austria, Shut Up!" in The German-dominated EU is an un­ form of a coalition between bourgeois selves unable to govern and dominate front oftfieAustrian embassy and "U.S.A. stable conglomerate of the European cap­ parties and workers parties, where the with the help of democratic machinery." Genocide Center!" in front of the U.S. italists which is directed against the workers' interests are subordinated to the In a situation in which there are no fascist embassy, while they strolled through the . workers of Europe, non-European immi­ interests of the capitalist ruling class) mobilizations in the streets and the main government district of the Fourth Reich grants and the main international compet­ have been brought into power since the question is the participation of the FPO without saying a word against German itors of German imperialism, the U.S.A. counterrevolution in East Europe and the in the government, the slogans "Stop imperialism. And throughout Europe, the and Japan. Because capitalism is organ­ Soviet Unio)l with the explicit aim of Haider," "Strike Now" can only be a call fake Trotskyists, who all supported the ized on the basis of independent nation­ destroying the "social welfare state." The for extraparliamentary action for a new election of the social democrats, marched states-which is the real cause of the capitalist rulers no longer feel obliged to parliamentary coalition, that is, a "more in lockstep with them, drums beating, repeated imperialist wars to redivide the guarantee workers in the West a higher militant" call to replace the FPO with just like in the war against Yugoslavia world and also the real reason for the living standard in order to compete with the SPO. last summer. So Workers Power, British war in the Balkans last year-the per­ the social gains of the planned econo­ That is how, in 1994, the conservative fraternal group of the ASt, which called spective of a progressive European state, mies of the East European deformed Berlusconi -government in Italy was to "Vote Labour" in the elections, de­ as preached by [French Socialist prime workers states that emerged from the brought down by a general strike and manded "Independence for Kosovo" and minister] Jospin and SchrOder, is nothing victory of the Red Army in the Second replaced with a capitalist popular-front supported the UCK [Kosovo Liberation other than a lying reactionary utopia. World War. After the last election, the government, which continued and inten­ Army], a transparent cover for their sup­ Imperialism, marked by the domination . OVP decided that the Austrian Social sified racist state terror and attacks on the port for the goals of their own British of finance capital, is the epoch of wars Democracy hadn't given them enough working class. Now in Austria, the fake concessions and opted for the FPO. left is cynically urging on the working <­ III In all the European countries, bour­ class, doing the donkey work of pulling :::l geois nationalism is leading to a sharp the parliamentary ambitions of the social ~'" :::l increase in racism against the dark­ democracy out of the mud. "Strike now!" G> says the SLP, ASt calls for a general strike ~ skinned and East European immigrant populations of Europe. They are con­ and Linkswende says: "That is our per­ fronted with mass deportations and state spective-the Berlusconi solution." as well as fascist violence. Immigrants, --. Imperialism is not a bad policy, as the Berlin police who as "guest workers" are no longer fake-Trotskyist groups want us to believe, manhandle needed to do the low-paid dirty work, are but the highest stage of capitalism, which . Kurdish being thrown out, while [immigrant] is based on the private ownership of the immigrant. youth of the second generation are treated means of production by the few who Capitalist with contempt by the rulers. Without a exploit the proletariat and oppress the governments in job and without a future, they are feared majority of the population. That is why it racist "Fortress necessarily generates war, racism and Europe" have by the ruling class as socially explosive. stepped up Throughout Europe, capitalist regimes misery. The fascists are the extreme persecution and governed by supposed "socialists" turn expression of the interests of the bour­ deportation of their cops loose to terrorize these youth. geoisie and are their reserve army against immigrants. Racist oppressiol' i" inseparably linked the proletariat. Therefore the fight against to capitalist exploitation. While the bour­ fascism must be linked to the fight to top­ geoisie is trying to drive up the rate of ple the capitalist system of exploitation. exploitation, the immigrants ar!! not only We stand for workers revolution from imperialism in the war against Yugosla­ and revolutions. With the world already victims of deportations, but are also New York to London and Paris to Berlin via. Now these social-chauvinists write divided up an:!ong the major capitalist used as a convenient scapegoat for unem­ and Vienna. The social democrats and about the FPOIOVP coalition: 'The new powers, war is ultimately their only ployment and impoverishment. Racism their leftist hangers-on stand in the way. coalition will launch massive attacks on means to redivide markets and spheres of against immigrants is the battering If the fascists are the last reserve of capi-. workers' rights and huge cuts in public influence. As proletarian internationalists ram for attacks on the whole working talism in extremis, the social democrats spending. First in line, of course, will be we demand: Down with racist fortress class. The working class and minorities (including ex-Stalinists and associated Austria's migrant workers and refugees." Europe! Down with the treaties of Maas­ must advance their interests together, remnants) with their politics of class col­ They disappear Tony Blair's Labour gov­ tricht and Schengen! For the United or they will be beaten back separately. laboration are the next to last reserve, a ernment at the precise time when its cam­ Socialist States of Europe! The workers movement must fight for full safety valve for imperialism. Only the paign against refugees is fueling deadly Social-democratic regimes and popu­ citizenship rights for all immigrants and destruction of capitalism through workers attacks. lar fronts (a capitalist government in the refugees. revolution and the construction of the The immigrant sections of the working United Socialist States of Europe as part class in West Europe are not just vic­ of a worldwide socialist society can lay tims, but an important component of the the basis for a development ofthe produc­ ISPARTACJST\~ ~ forces that are capable of smashing this tive forces which will truly benefit man­ ENGLISItEOfTION ISPARTACJSTI~ = racist capitalist system. But the mobiliza­ kind. For the reforging of the Fourth

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Death Penalty~ •• (continued from page 1) We seek to infuse the proletariat with the understanding that it will take noth­ ing short of a workers revolution to sweep away tl,(- barbaric institutions of the capitalist state which-with the cops, courts, prisons and military at its core­

is nothing other than an apparatus of Jt organized violence for the repression of workers. and the oppressed in defense of the profits and power of the property­ Speedup on owning ruling class. And in racist capi­ death row is talist America, the fight against the death part of broader p~nalty and state repression necessarily intensification means championing the cause of black of capitalist freedom. Free Mumia now! Abolish the repression in U.S. racist death penalty! From Lynch Law to "Legal" Lynching The promised study of racial bias in federal death sentences by Clinton! Reno's Justice Department should not former Confederacy lead the country in the murderous bombing of civilian popu­ mize the black poor are also wielded as a take more than five minutes-becau.se the pace oflegallynching. The death pen­ lations overseas aimed at imposing U.S. battering ram against municipal workers fully two-thirds of the 21 federal death alty in the U.S. is rooted in the legacy of imperialist domination around the world. unions around the country. Prison labor is row inmates are either black or Hispanic! chattel slavery. Under the early Slave Meanwhile, this capitalist system con­ also increasingly being used asa club This is an even higher proportion of Codes, "rebellious" slaves were killed demns millions in the U.S. to a slow death against unionized workers. From shrink­ minorities than on state death rows with impunity. It took a bloody Civil War through homelessness, starvation and wrapping Microsoft software to booking around the country, where 43 percent of to smash the slave system, but the North­ lack of medical care while American cor­ TWA airline reservations, thousands of all inmates· are black. In the notorious ern capitalists betrayed the promise of porations suck the lifeblood out of super­ prisoners are now toiling for private com­ 1986 McCleskey decision, the Supreme black freedom. The withdrawal of the last exploited toilers in Third World countries. panies at pay rates as low as 23 cents an Union troops in 1877 ushered in the era of In all this, the Clinton administration has hour. lynch law, with over 5,000 black people been even more vicious than its Republi­ The volatility at the base of this society murdered by lynch mobs from the late can predecessors-axing welfare, flood­ is evident, from the solidity and wide­ 1800s onward. As "legal" lynchings grad­ ing the inner cities with more cops, spread popularity of the 1997 Teamsters ually supplanted open mob terror, more launching one imperialist military adven­ strike against UPS to the massive out­ than two-thirds of the thousands executed ture after another. pouring of anger in NYC last year over between 1930 and 1967 were black. Under Clinton, the prison population the Diallo killing. But black Democrats The speedup on death row is only the has grown by hundreds of thousands, this like Jackson and Al Sharpton act to police tip of the iceberg of an all-sided inten­ month passing the two million mark. the ghetto masses on behalf of the capital­ sification of capitalist state repression. America now houses one-fourth of the ist rulers. And the pro-capitalist labor Behind it all is the deepening immis­ world's prisoners, and half of these tops seek to quell or contain any struggles eration of the ghetto masses and sharp inmates are black. The U.S. has a higher by the working people, chaining the attacks on the living standards of the rate of black incarceration than even unions to the capitalist Democratic Party. working class. As we wrote in "Lock­ South Africa did under apartheid rule, The AFL-CIO misleaders have already down U.S.A." (WV No. 618, 10 March and today that rate is over six times that pledged to spend record amounts of union 1995): of South Africa. When a federal judge in monies this year to get Democratic Party "A couple of statistics sum it up. Over a New York last month finally awarded a enemies of labor elected. Meanwhile, the million manufacturing jobs were lost in miserly $8 million settlement to nearly labor tops devote considerable efforts to the U.S. in the 1980s, on top of the 1,300 survivors of the 1971 Attica prison "organizing" cops and prison guards into wholesale destruction of whole swathes Terry/Gamma-Uaison of Midwest industry the decade before. massacre who were beaten and tortured in the unions. Cops are not workers; they are Mumia Abu-Jamal For every place lost on the assembly line, the brutal cop assault which left 43 dead, the racist, strikebreaking thugs of the cap­ one has been added in the prisons .... the New York Times commented: "Inevita­ italist class. Cops and prison guards out Court acknowledged the massive amount "With nothing to offer the masses of bly, time dulled Attica's shock effect. A of the unions! black poor and working people but ever­ 'lock 'em up and throwaway the key' It is necessary to forge a class-struggle of evidence proving racism in death pen­ deeper degradation and immiseration, alty cases and then ruled that it is legally the capitalist ruling class is intent on attitude has sent the prison population leadership which will lead struggles on "irrelevant," warning that any challenge extinguishing any sign of protest with skyrocketing .... The New York State behalf of workers and the oppressed, not to this system would "throw into serious brute force." prison population to~ay is approaching bind labor hand and foot to the class question the principles that underlie our Conditions have only continued to 72,000, compared will} 12,500 in 1971." enemy. And that means a leadership entire criminal justice system." It is pre­ worsen under Democrat Clinton. De­ The concern expressed by this liberal committed to the complete and uncondi­ cisely because capital punishment in the spite the vaunted "boom economy," real mouthpiece reflects the vieW of a section tional independence ofihe unions from U.S. is so intertwined with black oppres­ income for the poorest 20 percent of the of the American capitalist class that the the capitalist state and the capitalist sion-the bedrock of capitalism in this population has gone down in recent years. cost of prison construction is spiraling out political parties. We fight to forge a mul­ country-that makes it highly unlikely, The American capitalist state is a killing of control. tiracial revolutionary workers party though not inconceivable, thatAmerica's machine, from court-ordered executions The capitalist rulers view an entire which will link the power of labor to the rulers would abandon the death penalty. in the nation's death chambers and sum­ generation of ghetto and barrio youth as anger of the ghettos. For black liberation It is no accident that the states of the. mary executions by cops on the streets to permanently unemployable "putcasts," a through socialist revolution! surplus population with no prospects of work and no need for schooling, medical Death Penalty Democrats and care or decent housing. Instead, young Reformist Illusions men and women are swept up from the The Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.), .. !l~~$ •...... ··.·.· ...... · ....·.· .. ghettos and barrios and thrown behind which has spearheaded the crusade to see .Uc;OffIO.IS··· bars. All 50 states now have laws allow­ Jamal killed, ludicrously claims on its ~~~,_rfl:J' ing prosecutors to try juveniles as adults, Web site that no innocent person has ever National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 like black 13-year-old Nathaniel Abra­ been executed in the U.S.! More level­ Web site: www.icl-fLorg • E-mail address:[email protected] ham, tried for murder in Michigan last headed bourgeois spokesmen for the fall. death penalty acknowledge occasional Boston ~os Angeles Oakland While Jesse Jackson today decries the "tragic mistakes" in order to paint them Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 "prison-industrial complex," two-thirds as "aberrations" from an otherwise "just" Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 of all prisoners are doing time as a result system. Meanwhile, liberal opponents of (617) 666-9453 ;213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 . of the racist "war on drugs" which was the death penalty like Jesse Jackson argue Public Office: Public Office: Chicago avidly promoted by Jackson with his that it is too costly and ineffective and Sat. 2-5 p.m. Sat. 1-5 p.m. "Up with hope, down with dope" cru­ offer "alternatives" like life imprisonment Box 6441, Main PO 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor Chicago, IL 60680 sade. One-third of all black males in without parole-a living death. (312) 454-4930 New York San Francisdo their 20s are either in prison, on parole Public Office: Box 3381, Church St. Sta. Box 77494 or on probation; one in seven black men Tues. 5-9 p.m. New York, NY 10008 San Francisco, CA 94107 has lost the-right to vote as a result of a New York Labor Black League and Sat. 12-3 p.m. (212) 267-1025 (415) 395-9520 felony conviction. Underlining the bru­ -Forum- 328 S. Jefferson St. Public Office: Public Office: tality of prison conditions is the tacit Suite 904 Tues. 5-8:30 p.m. Sat. 11 a.m.-1 p.m. condoning of rape of prisoners by other and Sat. 1-5 p.m. 564 Market St., Suite 718 inmates, which is often wielded as a 299 Broadway, Suite 318 threat by cops and prison guards against those in prison. It is in labor's direct interest to actively TROtSKYIsT" LEAGUE OF CANADA1LlGUETR01SKYSTEDUCARADA . . .",. "'" .... :.:...... : .. : .: : ..... : :: ... : ...... " .. :...... : ...... ::.:::~ Saturday, February 26, 2 p.m. take up the defense of the ghetto and bar­ and Tuesday, February 29, 7 p.m. Toronto Vancouver rio masses. The same cops who rampage Spartacist public office Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. through the inner cities are also deployed 299 Broadway, Suife 318 Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 NEW YORK CITY (416) 593-4138 (604) 687-0353 to bust up strikers' picket lines. "Work­ fare" slave labor schemes which victi- For more information, call (212) 267-1025 8 WORKERS VANGUARD A chief call of such "reformers" is the tlclans-even a Republican hack like demand for a better public defenaer George Ryan-to act" (Socialist Worker, system for defendants in capital cases. 4 February). The ISO's Campaign to End To be sure, the overwhelming majority the Death Penalty echoes the liberal argu­ of capital defendants get only the most ment that the death penalty is not "effec­ minimal legal defense, an aspect of how tive"; a Chicago leaflet promoting a Feb­ this system is rigged from top to bottom ruary 3 meeting complains about "the against working people and minorities. failure of the death penalty here"! Who But in seeking to ensure that "justice is this is aimed at is made explicit in an seen to be done," the liberals hope to Internet 1j.nnouncement for a February 14 bolster the authority and powers of the press conference by Chicago Campaign apparatus of capitalist repression by organizer Alice Kim, who grotesquely removing the most blatant excesses and pleaded, "Have a heart this Valentine's "restoring trust in the syst.em." Day, President Clinton. Stop all federal In this, -they are assisted by the refor­ executions!" In New York City, a Cam­ mist "socialists." Rejecting the struggle to paign leaflet likewise calls for a February bring revolutionary consciousness to the 21 "rally aimed at pressuring Gore and proletariat, these opportunists promote Bradley to heed the growing national tide the illusion that the capitalist state can be for a moratorium on executions." pressured to dispense justice and other­ There was a national moratorium on wise serve the interests of workers and executions in the 1970s, and its purpose the oppressed. In practice, they embrace was precisely to address the "failure" of WV Photo the same conclusions as the bourgeois the death penalty in order to make it Chicago, 28 November 1998: PDC-initiated, labor-centered protest for Jamal. liberals. more "effective." Seeking to defuse mas­ Multiracial proletariat must be mobilized in fight to free Mumia, abolish the Thus the International Socialist Organ­ sive popular unrest, beginning with the death penalty. ization (ISO), which has been begging the civil rights movement of the 1950s and Illinois governor for a moratorium since '60s and then the anti-Vietnam War be "wanton and freakish" and ordered trial may well have succeeded in hood­ last March, now hails Ryan's move as protests, in 1972 the Supreme Court the states to rewrite the statutes. The stat­ winking some youth who want to fight for proof that "organizing can force the poli- . declared existing death penalty laws to utes were rewritten, and four years later, Mumia's freedom into thinking a second with the mass protests a thing of the past, trial is a necessary legal step to that end. the Supreme Court quickly ended that This is a lie. If a judge did grant Jamal's "moratorium" and gave a green light to habeas corpus appeal, that would auto­ resume the killings. matically overturn his conviction. If there Of a piece with the ISO's appeals to were then to.be a new trial, it would only the racist bourgeoisie for a moratorium is come about because the prosecution the call for a "new trial" for Mumia demanded one in order to reconvict raised by the ISO, Socialist Action, Jamal. Workers World Party and a host of other From the time we first took up Jamal's opportunist leftists. This call is the defense, the Spartacist League and Parti­ reformists' pledge of allegiance to keep san Defense Committee have fought for the fight for Jamal's cause safely within a perspective centered on mobilizing the the confines of liberal bourgeois-i.e., social power of the working class inde­ Democratic Party-politics, while sow­ pendent of the capitalist state and politi­ ing illusions in the "justice" of the capi­ cians. As we wrote in a PDC statement Scottsboro defendants, nine talist courts. In this way they seek to win after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to black youth support from capitalist politicians who hear Jamal's appeal last October (WV framed up in would be all too happy to see Jamal No. 721, 15 October 1999): Alabama on bogus reconvicted in a less obviously rigged "Mobilizing labor's power in a successful charges of rape in proceeding than the travesty which sent fight to win Jamal's freedom would strike 1931. International him to death row in 1982. A column by a blow against the capitalist rulers who defense campaign use the same frame-up methods, spying Salim Muwakkil in In These Times (12 and terror wielded against Jamal and saved them from December 1999), mouthpiece of the legal lynching. other fighters for the oppressed to smash Democratic (Party) Socialists of Amer­ picket lines and victimize militant union­ ica, features the following statement in ists. Labor/black protest to free Mumia large print in the middle of the page: and abolish the racist death penalty must "We may never know whether Abu­ be infused with the understanding that to end racist capitalist injustice once and for Jamal is innocent or guilty because he all requires a socialist revolution which was never given due process." smashes the. "pitalist state and places the The opportunists' clamor for a new proletariat in power.".

lyingly claimed the cops were unarmed. political struggles. Meanwhile, the PRD tariat to lead the oppressed and dispos­ Mexico ... Thrown into a panic by the humiliating seeks to turn the PRJ's unpopular attack sessed masses of Mexico to power. ( continued from page 12) drubbing received by their thugs, the PRI on the UNAM strike into a v.ictory in the The urgent demands and needs of (Institutional Revolutionary Party) gov­ upcoming elections. But the PRD, which Mexico's impoverished workers and schools, were arrested during a sit-in in ernment of Mexico appealed to Cuau­ controls the Mexico City government, is peasants-for agrarian revolution, educa­ front of the governor's mansion in the temoc Cardenas~ PRD (Party of the Demo­ no less a bourgeois party than the PRI­ tion, health care, etc.--cannot be ful­ regional capital of Pachuca. Over 800 cratic Revolution) to use its influence for it has sent its riot cops to attack the filled by the corrupt and venal Mexican students from other schools who had the cops' release. The mayor of the town, UNAM strike just as viciously. Many of capitalist class, beholden to U.S. imperi­ joined the sit-in were summarily deported a PRD member, convinced the crowd not the more radical students have seen the alism. Even the most minimal reforms, to their states of origin, some as far away to kill the cops, while the state PRD dis­ treacherous role of the PRD, but turn like those the students at El Mexe are as G~errero and Chiapas. Facing the army avowed any involvement. A negotiating instead to the petty-bourgeois guerrilla­ seeking, demand the Trotskyist program of police at El Mexe, the student strikers committee made up of the Hidalgo gov­ ists of the EZLN (Zapatistas). This is not ef permanent revolution. The Trotskyists appealed for help to the UNAM General ernment secretary, the regional PRD an alternative, but simply a more radical of the GEM fight to build a Leninist van­ Strike Council (CGH),· which sent a leader, the mayor and a student leader version of nationalism. Unlike the Zapa­ guard party that can lead the workers and delegation. The Grupo Espartaquista de was formed, and an agreement was tistas, who as "liberals with guns" seek peasants of Mexico to power, smashing Mexico, section of the International Com­ reached to free the nearly 400 student to use the PRD to pressure the bourgeois the capitalist system of oppression and munist League, demands the immediate, prisoners in exchange for the captured state for concessions through negotia­ opening the way to proletarian revolution unconditional release of all arrested mil­ cops. Their arrested ~comrades freed, the tions, we Spartacists fight for the prole- throughout the Americas .• itants throughout Mexico! villagers sang the "Internationale"-but The "battle of El Mexe" was launched then returned the captured arms arsenal to when several thousand people (includ­ the government which will surely seek Contents include: revenge for its humiliating defeat. ing the town's mayor!) surrounded the • Mumia Abu-Jamal's Life of Struggle school, demanding freedom for those While the overwhelming government arrested in both attacks, as well as in ear­ repression in Mexico City has reduced • Court Hearings: New Evidence of Frame-Up lier incidents. When the cops refused, the the struggle there to embers of resistance, • From Death Row, This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal angry crowd took action, trapping the the revolt in Hidalgo shows these. have "La Amistad and American Law" granaderos inside by blocking the exits the power to reignite, sparking uphefivals • The Frame-Up of Mumia Abu-Jamal with tree trunks and setting several police in other parts of the country. As an El cars ablaze. The terrified thugs attempted Mexe student declared at a February 19 • For Non-Sectarian, Class-Struggle Defense! to flee by diving into sewage canals, but UNAM assembly, "Everything indicates • Death Row Speedup Targets Minorities the villagers, armed mostly with only that EI Mexe has become an UNAM • Philly Cops' Reign of Terror sticks and stones, captured over sixty on a small scale, where the students are cops, stripped them down to their under­ once again repressed." Hundreds of EI • Desperation, Segregation and the wear and marched them 5 kilometers into Mexe strikers still face charges such "Ebonics" Controversy the town square! Displaying their cap­ as "rebellion" and grand theft. What is • Down With "English Only" Racism! tives, the furious townspeople demanded: urgently necessary now is labor-centered, • Coleman Young: From ClO Union "Free the arrested or we will set these non-sectarian, class-struggle defense of Organizer to Overseer for Auto Bosses pinche cops on fire!" Meanwhile, parents the arrested militants. and students retook the school and - The PRI government wants to use the $1 (48 pages) discovered a police arsenal including UNAM crackdown to round up the left, Order from: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 grenade launchers. The government had in order to behead upcoming broader 25 FEBRUARY 2000 9 government and telling their class broth­ Germany ... ers in the West: We'll clean up East Ber­ (continued from page 5) lin, you clean up Bonn (then the capi­ tal of West Germany). Then Soviet of Moscow, taken as a whole, com­ leader Khrushchev mobilized Soviet pletely retains its reactionary character Army tanks, which saved the East Ger­ and remains the chief obstacle on the road man Stalinists at that time. to the world revolution." In the incipient proletarian political revolution that began in the fall of 1989, Gorbachev's "Market we called for the founding of workers Reforms"-Prelude to and soldiers-councils, like those in Russia Counterrevolution in October 1917. Workers from factories We unconditionally militarily defended came to us, asking how to do that. Well, the Soviet degenerate<:i workers state and in a factory you would elect delegates the East European deformed workers who are recallable, who don't get paid states against imperialism and internal more than the average worker and who counterrevolution. Unlike under capital­ are responsible to decide policy in the ism, the established planned economies workers councils, i.e., how to prevent the didn't seek to maximize profits but to Der Spiegel sell-off of a factory, how to stop the fas­ maximize the general output of products. Incipient proletarian political revolution in East Germany in June 1953 was cists and protect neighborhoods of for­ So there was a social system that workers suppressed by Soviet tanks .. East Berlin workers appealed to workers in the eign workers, and ultimately how to gov­ in capitalist countries could only dream West: "We're cleaning house in Pankow, you sweep out the crap in Bonn." ern the whole society. These councils of. In the DDR, there was no unemploy­ would come to be the organs of the prole­ ment or homelessness. And, for instance, against factory, industry against industry League of Germany, then the German tarian dictatorship, deciding what to pro­ my mother who oversaw herds as a child in the struggle for resources and custom­ section of the ICL, in its intervention into duce, how much to produce, etc. could study and became an electronics ers. It pitted industry against consumers this incipient proletarian political revolu­ In the DDR there were factory militias, engineer. in the drive to produce not what was tion to give revolutionary leadership to the Kampfgruppen (fighting groups). Ninety .percent of women in the DDR needed but what was profitable. It fueled the East German working class. In the They had been set up to prevent another had jobs, and to Jllake that possible there nationalism and the breakup of the USSR, course of this intervention, the biggest the 1953, but they saw themselves as defend­ was a large system of kindergartens; there pitting the richer, more industrial regions ICL had ever undertaken, we had one­ ers of the workers state on the factory was a so-called "baby year," i.e., you against the more backward, less industri­ third of our membership on the ground level. There were detachments in every would get a year off work, fully paid alized ones. These "reforms" dramati­ there. We; threw in everything we had. factory, with access even to heavy arma­ when your child was born; there were cally exposed the appetites of a wing of On December 8, we brought out the ments, like artillery and tanks. In Novem­ meals at sC.hool for all children, and so the bureaucracy to secure its uncertain first issue of Arprekorr, Workers Press ber 1989, when the SED party organiza­ on. At the same time, the Stalinists would economic privileges by devouring the Correspondence, a daily newspaper to tions disappeared at the factory level, the preach reactionary family values and workers state piecemeal and to try to serve as the, collective organizer for the Kampfgruppen had the very real poten­ after work, women had to do the so-called themselves become a property-owning vanguard of the working class and the tial to become the crystallizing point for second shift of housework. The popula­ class. means to build the party necessary to lead a proletarian political revolution. tion of the DDR was over 95 percent At the same time, to appease the U.S. the proletarian political revolution. It got My father was in the Kampfgruppen. atheistic-there was simply no material imperialists, Gorbachev withdrew the a huge reception. In all cities, groups of Around 1988, they didn't only train how basis for religion. Even today, as a lead­ Red Army from Afghanistan in 1989, youth or workers sprang up, distributing to defend their factory against saboteurs ing bourgeois paper complained, the delivering Afghan women to the cut­ Arprekorr, whom we organized into the or to fight an invasion by NATO, but also church cannot gain ground in the former throats of the CIA-backed mujahedin. We Spartakist-Gruppen, Spartacist groups, how to break up demonstrations. There DDR and is looked at with hostility. called this a betrayal and made an offer to was great uneasiness about that. My At the same time, the Stalinist bureauc­ the Afghan government to organize an For a Red Germany of father told me his detachment didn't like racy sought to suppress any independent international brigade to fight against the Workers Councils! that at all. In early October 1989, when I went to my first demonstration, you en We intervened with our program for u would check out before you joined a II> a red Germany of workers councils, for demo what the Kampfgruppen units were ~ revolutionary reunification through prole­ ~" discussing among each other, to check tarian political revolution in the East out if they were ready to move against to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy and for the demonstration. They were not. So it socialist revolution in the West to over­ was a pretty conscious decision by the throw the bourgeoisie, We understood Stalinists to dissolve these units in early that Germany was divided by a class line, December 1989 and thus to disarm the and that the question was: Revolution­ ICL literature table at working class. May 1991 meeting of ary or counterrevolutionary reunification. Because of our propaganda, units of Soviet officers and So we made our opposition to the latter the East German Army, the National soldiers in former clear by our slogan "No to the sell-out People's Army, founded soldiers commit­ DDR to commemorate of the DDR!" From that standpoint we tees. Some of these committees circulated anniversary of Red fought for one part·· in East and West Arprekorr inside the army. It was those Army victory over and were opposed to a two-party concep­ Nazi Third Reich. units the panicky Stalinists dissolved. tion, one for East and one for West Ger­ While at the Treptow demonstration, many, We toured members of the East a delegate of a soldiers committee heard German Spartakist-Gruppen through the our speech and went up to the stage, Ruhr area, the industrial heartland of Ger­ saying "You call for soldiers councils­ thinking and any independent political mujahedin. They declined that offer, so man capitalism. Well, here I am, I want to speak." But expression of the working class, so the we instead collected money for the city of In the DDR we encountered a con­ the Stalinists would not let him speak. working class was atomized and politi­ Jalalabad, which was fightiQg against a tradictory form of false conscious­ We recruited a number of comrades cally disarmed. There was an overgrown siege by the mujahedin. We said at the ness which was based on the lies and in East Germany out of such soldiers secret service called the Stasi, spying on time that it was better to fight imperial­ deceptions of Stalinism. This popular­ committees. the working class and those they per- . ism in Afghanistan than· counterrevolu­ frontist world view substituted false cat­ [TO BE CONTINUED] ceived to be opponents of the regime. tion in Moscow. egories like "peace-loving countries," Despite the Stalinist bureaucracy, "progressive peoples" or "wings" of because of the planned economy the Fall of the Berlin Wall imperialism for a revolutionary world­ Soviet Union made huge strides forward, In the summer of 1989, there was a view based on a class-struggle perspec­ ~"IE which however were achieved at terrible big outflow of DDR citizens to the West, tive. People in the DDR thought we live cost and sacrifice by the Soviet working ripping big holes out of the planned in this protected "socialism in half a f:iiMarniitlS!..... --- .'.- masses. But still the economy lagged economy. At that time, as part of his country" and out there is an essentially ...... : \let' Iapf der SpartaIdst8II significantly behind those of the most "market socialism" reforms, Gorbachev unchangeable, hostile world without class f1r"'RIIII~ developed capitalist countries in produc­ announced that the Soviet Union would contradictions. Our program for a revolu­ 1989/90: Revolution tivity of labor. In the '70s and '80s it sell oil and raw materials only at world tionary reunification cut against that, but und Konterrevolution became clear that the old bureaucratic market prices and currencies to the other there was widespread skepticism about _.. -....-.. .-.. =t:-="'=-....- ... ..- methods of extensive capital investment deformed workers states. the possibility of a socialist revolution in ::a=. -.. .. -.---:=--==... ~- and borrowing of technique, which in the It became clear that the DDR could no West Germany. :rDlo-.:.....==:.~ .,,' =-,0:::*''':-'':: past had achieved· great results, though longer go on in the old way. At the begin­ During this same period in West Ger­ ===~::.'" at great social and economic overhead, ning of October 1989, demonstra­ many the bourgeoisie, with the help of the ....PIo..::::;..,IIo-.= ...... - ---... .-- .... had reached their limits. The USSR was tions started and grew week by week. social-democratic trade-union bureau­ -...... • .. DOll ... _·...... - gripped by a relative economic stagna­ Honecker wanted to use the army crats, averted a strike by the powerful e-:---=:t:= tion. As Trotsky observed in 1936 in against the demonstrators, but Gorbachev metal workers union by granting the The Revolution Betrayed: "Under a na­ and the Soviet Army command in the workers a huge wage increase. Such a tionalized economy, quality demands a DDR said no. In late October, Honecker strike could have powerfully exploded democracy of producers and consumers, ;ell. On November 4, 1989 there was this false consciousness that a revolution freedom of criticism and initiative-con­ a million-strong demonstration in East in West Germany is impossible and that ditions incompatible with a totalitarian Berlin. There you saw many pro-socialist there are no class contradictions. regime of fear, lies and flattery." banners and slogans like "For Commu­ The possibility of political revolution Publication of the Spartakist­ So Gorbachev, then leader of the bu­ nist Ideals," "Against Privileges," "Found in the ex-DDR was posed decades ago. Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands reaucracy of the Soviet Union, introduced Workers Councils," and so on. Five days In 1953, with the death of Stalin, the $10 for one-year subscription (4 issues) so-called "market socialism reforms." later the Berlin Wall came down. East German workers saw revolution­ includes Spartacist (German edition) "Market socialism" meant giving up cen-, The ICL's International Executive ary opportunities and started a proletar­ tralized planning, and introducing capi­ Committee immediately met and 24 ian political revolution. East Berlin Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co" talist market mechanisms into the hours later the first leading comrades flew metal workers demonstrated through Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 planned economy. It meant pitting factory into Germany, to support the Trotskyist West Berlin demanding a metal workers 10 WORKERS VANGUARD that protest as a vehicle for promoting Diallo Trial ... Democratic Party politicians and embrac­ (continued from page 12) ing the police "unions," refurbishing the image of the racist strikebreaking cops in sentenced to poverty and misery by a the wake of the Diallo killing. To unleash system that no longer has any use for labor's power requires a break with the them 'as a reserve army of labor. But the capitalist Democrats and the fight for a fundamental purpose of the machinery of class-struggle leadership of the unions capitalist state repression-the cops, the committed to the forging of a workers courts, the prisons-is to suppress the party. social power of the one force in this soci­ Black people are in their overwhelm­ ety that does have the power to prevail ing majority working people. Working against racist American capitalism-the people need a party that fights for their multiracial working class. T~e identity of interests, against strikebreaking and racist interests of labor and the ghetto and bar­ terror, against poverty and all-sided rio masses against capitalist state repres­ oppression-not a party that makes sion was brought home with a vengeance empty promises once every four years last December with the massive assault come election time, but a party that mobi­ on the transport Workers Union (TWU), lizes laborlblack power in the factories when both Giuliani and the Democratic and on the streets. We need a party that state attorney general brought down court understands that the fight against racist WV Photo oppression means a fight to get rid of the injunctions outlawing even use of the Spartacist League/Labor Black League at March 1999 New York City Hall word "strike" while thousands of cops protest over Diallo killing. capitalist ruling class which foments surrounded transit locations. racism to divide the working class and Giuliani-who turned Harlem into an enthused: "They've got more Bronx jur­ case of Diallo and countless victims of maintain its profits and class rule. We armed camp occupied by thousands of ors here in Albany than they would've racist cop terror before him illustrate, need a party based on the understanding cops in response to a "Million Youth had in The Bronx" (New York Post, 2 Feb- there is no justice in the capitalist courts. that the fundamental division in this racist March" by a couple of thousand people . ruary). Liberal columnist Jimmy Breslin society is not by skin color but between two years ago-now has the entire New had a much better take than this supposed Break with the Democrats! two counterposed classes-the small York police force -on full alert to "re­ "black community leader" when he wrote Build a Workers Party! handful who own all the means of pro­ spond" to any outbreak of protest over the in a Newsday (16 February) column: This system of racist capitalist injustice duction and the vast majority who must Diallo verdict. The capitalist rulers are "To have the trial go on without race as cannot be cleaned up. The Diallotrial has sell their labor power in order to survive. dead set on preventing the sort of uphea­ the central issue is like having a sky been permeated with the contempt of val of multiraciaJ plebeian outrage that without stars. the cops and their capitalist masters for "Yet that is what they are doing with this erupted in Los Angeles in 1992 following the inner-city masses. The largely black the acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney case. They act as if it is only normal for white cops to shoot a black like Amadou and Hispanic working-class Soundview King. When the LAPD and National Diallo .... neighborhood where Diallo lived and Guard occupied South-Central L.A., "If Diallo were white and living at 215 died was portrayed as enemy territory, a leaving at least 58 dead in their wake, we East 68th Street, would he have been "no man's land." The cops could have shot for looking out the door?" agitated among the unions for "work gone for a non-jury bench trial in the stoppages and mass mobilizations to soli­ For his part, Sharpton pushes illusions Bronx. But the judge that had been darize with and defend the black c;ommu­ that whatever happens in Albany, justice selected was a black woman. And the nity as the LAPD looks to spill more for Diallo's killers will be dispensed by cops and their masters knew that even as blood to 'celebrate' their racist victory President Bill Clinton's Justice Depart­ a judge this black woman could easily over Rodney King" (WVNo. 551,15 May ment and the federal courts. Even as the have been on the receiving end of police 1992). travesty in Albany is taking place, Haitian harassment herself at some time. That's Bourgeois commentators noted at the immigrant Abner Louima is being tor­ when the trial was moved to Albany, time that the L.A. upheaval which mented as though he were the criminal in where prisons are a cottage industry and the jury pool would come from a mostly white population with connections to cops and prison guards. Every black person in New York City knows it could just as easily have been them as Amadou Diallo. That is why our WV Photo call for labor protest against racist cop 14 December 1999: TWU Local 100 terror last year struck such a deep chord headquarters surrounded by cops unleashed to enforce strikebreaking January 17: particularly among the ranks of the pow­ injunctions imposed by Mayor Giuli­ AI Sharpton hustles erful Transport Workers Union, which ani and Democratic state attorney black vote for includes thousands of black and Hispanic. Qeneral Eliot Spitzer. Democratic Party workers. But the union tops are so cra­ Senate candidate venly beholden to the capitalist rulers that We need a multiracial revolutionary Hillary Clinton, they agreed to help enforce a strikebreak­ workers party with the understanding that supporter of racist ing injunction against their own union. If the capitalist state cannot be pressured or death penalty, axing they are unwilling even to confront the reformed to serve the interests of the of welfare. capitalist state in defense of their own workers and the oppressed but rather union, they can hardly be relied on to lead must be smashed through a socialist rev­ a labor mobilization against cop terror! olution that sweeps away the racist capi­ When 50,000 city workers turned out last talist system and erects in its place a resounded around the country wa:s -as a federal courtroom where his sadistic May 12 in the largest labor rally in NYC workers government where those who much about class as it was about race, cop torturers are supposedly on trial. in decades, the labor bureaucracy used labor rule .• reflecting the growing class divide. Today Last year, Sharpton sought to contain the gap between rich and poor has grown the mass outrage over the Diallo killing far wider. In a society where corporate through daily protests at One Police Plaza the INS to brutalize, imprison and deport CEOs flaunt salaries 150 times greater where various celebrities and Democratic Prop 21 ... immigrants. With minorities, unions and than that of the average industrial worker, Party politicians were led off in carefully (continued from page 3) youth in their cross hairs, they are waging the ruling class is well aware of the seeth­ stage-managed arrests that had all the war against the rights and lives of all of us. ing discontent that is building at the bot­ reality of theater of the absurd. But now this initiative" (Socialist Action, February The question is: how to fight back and tom. This is what lies behind the augmen­ Sharpton is walking more of a tightrope as 2000). wage our own struggle for everything that tation and increasing deployment of the he seeks to win his spurs as a Democratic Unlike liberals who strive to conjure a working people and youth need and forces of state repression.,...-to keep a lid Party power broker, particularly in sup­ more "humane" fa~ade for capitalist bar­ deserve? The capitalist state is not a neu­ on any social struggle lest it spark a con- porting the Senate bid of Hillary Clinton, barism, we understand that brutal racial tral body that can be pressured to act in flagration. . a supporter of the racist death penalty and oppression is a foundation stone of Amer­ the interest of the oppressed, as the liber­ At the same time the capitalist rulers the axing of welfare whose campaign is ican capitalism. Racism is an essential als believe, but an instrument based on are determined to maintain illusions in also being promoted by the bulk of the tool to keep black, white, Latino and special bojies of armed men-the cops, the "democracy" of this system and in NYC labor bureaucracy. Even such tame Asian working people and youth pitted the courts, the prisons-for the repression . the capitalist state as some kind of "neu­ protests as those at One Police Plaza against each other so they won't unite of the working people in the interests of tral" arbiter representing the interests of could upset this electoral apple cart. Out­ against the whole system. the handful of capitalists who appropriate all. Preaching that message is the Rever­ side the Albany courthouse, Sharpton As the rich get richer and the poor get the wealth created by workers' labor. end Al Sharpton. Far from opposing the declared: "We are coming to have prayer poorer in today's America, explosive Defenders of labor, minorities, and dem­ police, Sharpton seeks to refurbish the meetings, not civil disobedience." . pressures build at the bottom of society ocratic rights must oppose Prop. 21 and image of the racist strikebreaking cops .. But as the ghettos and barrios seethe and the capitalists build up the repressive all other exten~ions of the murderous, The 10-point program of "police reform" with anger, even attempts to blow off machinery of the state, with the racist racist, union-busting state apparatus. But he promoted during last year's protests, some steam could explode. The anger death penalty at its pinnacle. The ultimate it will take a socialist revolution to make along with Local 1199 head Dennis was evident when over 200 people target is the working class, which has the possible what working-class and minor­ Rivera, was aimed at "cleaning up" the turned out for a community meeting in social power, leading all the oppressed, to ity youth need: jobs for all, free quality most flagrantly racist excesses of the Manhattan on February 17 organized by smash capitalist rule. Following the L.A. education and health care, the end to NYPD in order to make the police a ShaTP.ton's National Action Network and rebellion of 1992, when the oppressed exploitation and all forms of racial and more effective force of capitalist "law other groups. But that anger was accom­ multiracial urban population took to the social oppression. The Spartacus Youth and order." This program even called for ganied by demands for "a real police streets in outrage over acquittal of the Clubs fight to win students and young a pay raise for the cops! review board" and calls to jail the killer cops who beat Rodney King, the ruling workers to the program of building the Now, when four black people were cops-Le., appealing to the racist rulers class intensified police-state terror in the revolutionary, multiracial workers party selected for the Albany jury, Sharpton to punish their own hired guns. As the ghettos and strengthened the powers of essential for this struggle. Join us!. 25 FEBRUARY 2000 11 WfJ/iNf/iS ""'(J,/i, There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! Diallo Trial: Whitewash of Racist Capitalist Repression FEBRUARY 22-A year after Amadou Sharpton desperately tried to quell the Diallo was killed in a hail of 41 bullets, mass outrage over the killing of Diallo the message from the Albany "trial" of and channel it into electoral pressure poli­ the cops who gunned him down was put tics. The Spartacist League and the Labor simply and bluntly: the cops were simply Black League affiliated with the SL "doing their job" as a racist occupying fought for labor-centered mass protest. army in the ghettos and barrios. Diallo Warning "Beware Democratic Party Hus­ was black, and thus he was automatically tlers-Enemies of Labor, Blacks" (WV a suspect to the Street Crime Unit cops No. 710, 2 April 1999), we wrote: who are trained· to shoot first and ask "The mass outrage against the cops does questions later and did just that to this need an organized political expression. Not one aimed at strengthening the hand unarmed man, guilty of nothing mote of the Democrats, the political tool of the than looking out his door. If Diallo had very capitalist rulers whose interests the been killed with one bullet, he would January 31, Albany: cops 'serve and protect,' but one which simply have been another 'Statistic in the Outrage over provides a proletarian class axis that can racist "war on crime." The problem for death-squad-style weld the social power of the multiracial working class to the anger of the inner the rulers was that the volley of bullets NYPD execution of city through mass labor-centered protest that cut him down was potentially dam­ Amadou Diallo at against cop terror .... aging to the authority of the forces of protest outside trial "There will be no end to police brutality "law and order" beyond the inner cities. of killer cops. short of the destruction of the system of So they stage-managed a trial, moved it capitalist exploitation and racist oppres­ sion which the cops· serve as armed from the Bronx to Albany. and scripted it AP photos guard dogs. But a massive mobilization ·to·whitewash the cops. Whatever the ver­ sought to keep black people in New York We have found us, as a people, on the of labor would give the cops some pause .... dict, the message is clear-being black Bringing that kind of social power to City in line by filing an amicus brief on business end of the kind of stick wielded in America means being branded a crim­ bear in a mass protest against cop terror behalf of the KKK's "right" to organize by Justin Volpe in the sodomizing of inal to be targeted for harassment, brutal­ Abner Louima." would be a big step toward imbuing the for racist terror, today declares: working class with the understanding ity and death at the hands of the ~ops. Tatum opines: "We will not do any­ that its interests are inseparably linked to An editorial in the Amsterdam News "Usually it has been our view that some­ thing about it except yell, scream, shout, the defense of the ghettos and barrios how justice would prevail, and we coun­ and the fight for black freedom." by publisher emeritus William Tatum, selled our readers to give justice a march and pray." Here is an expression of titled "The Diallo Trial, or Cops Crying chance. It was true in the murder of the despair of the black middle class who a River of Blood," provides a measure of Michael Stewart, Gavin Cato, Eleanor thought that maybe they could make it in Sharpton Fronts for the fear and loathing of the racist cops Bumpers and Yusef Hawkins. We hoped capitalist America and who have sought Racist· Rulers against hope always that this criminal Police terror in the inner cities is aimed among the black population as a whole. justice system would work in the best to keep the peace by corralling black peo­ This voice of the black middle-class interest of everyone-at least once in a ple behind the Democratic Party. Last at a population which has already been establishment, which only last October while. That has not been the case at all. year, the black Democrats headed by Al continued on page 11

Villagers Seize Strikebreaking Cops On February 19, the villagers of Fran­ cisco Madero, in the state of Hidalgo north of Mexico City, erupted in just outrage against the notoriously brutal and corrupt Public Security riot police dramat­ ically seizing 68 cops who had violently Free Jailed UNAM and EI Mexe Militants!

raided a rural teachers college occupied by student strikers since January 5. The strike at the EI Mexe Rural Normal School, against "reforms" which would force more than two-thirds of the student . AFP EI Sol de Mexico body out, was inspired by the months­ Tepatepec, Mexico, February 19: Cops held in town square after villagers repulsed police attack on EI Mexe student long strike at Mexico City's National strikers, disarming cops and setting their cars ablaze. Autonomous University (UNAM). The UNAM strike has sparked upheavals struggle that propelled the villagers to CNN News, "Instead of giving Mexico people, including old women and chil­ around the country despite intense gov­ fight back was clearly just the tip of the education, they are oppressing the coun­ dren, were beaten by an army of 1,000 ernment repression culminating in a fuH­ iceberg, galvanizing seething discontent try and forcing it into revolution." cops, only three hours after 750 other stu­ scale invasion of the campus by federal within Mexican society. As the father of In the dawn cop attack at EI Mexe, 176 dents, from EI Mexe as' well as other police two weeks ago. But the st,udent one of the arrested UNAM strikers told students were arrested and hundreds of continued on page 9

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