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filS "N"'1I1)~X.523 No. 773 25 January 2002

Jobs Slashed, Welfare Axed, Immigrants Targeted

"NalionaIUnily": Bosses Prolil, Workers. Pay

The political parties of American seemed to have a corporate subsid­ capitalism-Republicans and Demo­ iary in the White House. The pres­ crats-seized on the killing of thou­ Expropriate the Bourgeoisie­ ident is a bosom buddy of Enron sands of innocent people in the CEO Kenneth Lay, and "Kenny World Trade Center in order to rein­ Boy" virtually scripted Bush's state­ force their own class rule. Since For a Workers Party! ments on energy deregulation; Vice September 11, the' population has President Cheney effectively served been bombarded with flag-waving as the company's emissary in strong­ propaganda proclaiming, "United For a Workers Government! arming India to accept an Enron deal; We Stand." But what unity is there and the wife of leading Senate Re­ between those who stand outside Auto worker leaves Ford plan~ after company announced 20,000 North American job publican Phil Gramm was on the cor­ soup kitchens hoping -for some cuts. Hotel workers who lost jobs when Marriott World Trade Center was destroyed porate board of directors: Arrogantly scraps for themselves and their chil­ protest company's refusal to rehire them, January 16.. . . dismissing the plight of those victim­ dren-or who may be a paycheck ized by the Enron collapse, Treasury away from that fate-and the capi­ Secretary Paul O'Neill blithely de- talists who ostentatiously gorge on the and the parks are now faced with having carrying four unarmed black and His­ claimed, "Companies come and go. Part wealth gleaned from the misery of the neither their meager welfare payments panic youth four years ago-triggering of the genius of capitalism is people get masses? nor the fuII-time jobs they had been mass outrage over "racial profiling"­ to make good decisions, or bad decisions, Some 800,000 jobs were axed in Octo­ promised. Today, 1.5 million people in walked out of a courtroom without even a and they get to pay the consequence or to ber and November, coming on top .otthe New York City alone rely on charity food probationary sentence. enjoy the fruits of their decisions." 1.5 million people thrown out of work pantries in order to eat. And, in every Touting this flagrant rip-off as· evi­ in the previous year. Now Ford has major city across the ~ountry, the ranks The Enron "Scandal" dence of the "genius of capitalism" is announced 20,000 more job cuts. And of the homeless are burgeoning. Thousands of Enron workers have just hardly designed to enhance public confi­ the postal bosses who forced workers to The overlay to all of this has been a seen their jobs, life savings and pensions dence in big business. Liberal Paul Krug­ stay on the job with no protection from dramatic intensification of state repres­ disappear into a sinkhole while a handful man titled a column in the New York anthrax infection, callously aIlowing sev­ sion, as the government uses its "war on of top executives amassed a cool $1.1 Times (15 January) on the Enron debacle eral to die, are threatening to layoff terrorism" to push through laws marking billion in the 18 months before Enron "Crony Capitalism, U.S.A." and noted in 15,000 workers. As the unemployment . a qualitative diminution of qemocratic collapsed by selling off shares that their a subsequent article (18 January), "It's rolls sweII, three in five workers who rights. In the wake of the racist roundup employees were forced to retain. The not just a matter of the utter unfairness of apply for unemployment insurance are and detention of hundreds of people of collapse of the Houston-based conglom­ it all-employees lose their life savings rejected because they have been buffeted Near Eastern origin, a fonner Justice erate is a fitting coda to the lucre-grab­ while crooked executives walk away rich. from one transitory McJob to another. Department official declared, "Profiling bing orgy of the late 1990s. Enron Was at It's also a matter of what it takes to make This has all coincided with the "end of is not a four-letter word." While the gov­ the cutting edge of the deregulation capitalism work." It is indeed a problem welfare as we know it," to use the words ernment took first aim at immigrants, the frenzy that was a hallmark of the '90s for the ruling class to have its government of former Democratic president Bill purpose of the "anti-terror" drive is to bo.om, seeing its profits multiply three­ so openly identified with the rich grinding Clinton, as the five-year limit imposed sanction police intimidation, harassment or four-fold during the California energy their heels in the faces of those they under his 1996 law kicked in. and terror in the ghettos and barrios. This fiasco. exploit. But what makes "capitalism In New York City, many forced to month, the New Jersey state troopers But what has made Enron into a scan­ work" is the exploitation of the working slave in "workfare" schemes in transit who fired a barrage of buIIets into a Nan dal is that this gang of corrupt capitalists continued on page 4

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N 11'1"" N .... Letter

from a prepared text. It ~s unimaginable looking for cover in the heat of an inten­ why those who claim to fight for revo­ sifying capitalist repression. lutionary politics "on the ground" can't Jack Heyman think on their feet. I notified her when her alloted three minutes were up, but WV replies: Jack Heyman's open hos~ allowed her another minute extension to tility toward. the Spartacist League and Marxism vs. finish reading. our spokesman at the suppo~t rally for Being '''on the ground" of the class the Charleston Fi'\'e held at the Interna­ struggle means not shirking one's prole­ tional Longshore and Warehouse Union Trade Union Opportunism tarian duty even in the face of capitalist (ILWU) Local 10 hall in San Francisco repression. ILWU expressed solidarity last October 10 may come as a surprise We print, the following . letter as we was not a mass rally of longshore work­ with the embattled Charleston longshore to some of the many longshoremen who received it bye-mail. Originally dated 19 ers as some readers of WV might mis­ unions early on by sending a financial attended that rally and who applauded November 2001, the letter was resent takenly imagine. Rather it was a small contribution and two representatives to our spokesman following her remarks with one sentence slightly reworded. public forum at Local 10 that was unfor­ join them on the picket line. I was one of from the floor. They also stopped Hey­ tunately attended by only 50 people, half Dec. 25, 2001 them. SL supporter Gene Herson showed man, who was chairing the meeting, of whom were longshoremen. Appar­ up in Charleston to give a check' and from cutting her off. Heyman's letter To the editor ofWorkers Vanguard: ently, Ken Riley, president of the Charles­ make "solidarity" remarks to some mem­ does everything possible to disparage her In your front page article "No to ton longshore union, who was initially bers at the union hall. When the Nordana intervention, and for that matter the rally Bosses' "National Unity"! For Class scheduled to speak was unable to attend, ship appeared the next day, he conspicu­ itself, which he considers too small to Struggle at Home! (WV No. 768, 9 No­ which may in part account for the low ously disappeared into thin air and was have been important. However, what he vember 2001) you fraudulently claim to turnout. If the SL had any influence in nowhere to be seen when the picket­ doesn't do-and this is very revealing­ be fighting "on the ground", i.e. within the longshore union, it was used to dis­ ing resumed despite the massive police is say one single word about the content the trade unions for a revolutionary inter­ courage a couple of members from attend­ mobilization. Was this another example of her speech. nationalist perspective. Your sole exam- _ ing the forum. of Spartacist League/ICL abstentionism Against the union officials' talk at the pIe is a "rally" at ILWU Local 10 in As chair of the meeting, I called on like instructing your then-trade union meeting of "going to the polls" to vote defense of the Charleston 5. First of all, it the SL supporter who uninspiringly read supporters in Brazil to "pull their hands Democrat, our spokesman clearly advo­ from the boiling water" of the struggle to cated a political fight within the unions to keep police ou.! of their union as you did forge a new, class-struggle leadership, For of Lenin, a few years ago? against the existing labor bureaucrats the Communism This is consistent with your refu­ who deceive American workers and black Liebknecht and Luxemburg! sal to march in the 25,000-strong April people by pushing the illusion that the Upholding communist tradition, we honor 1999 San Francisco mobilization for capitalist .Democratic Party defends the this month Bolshevik leader V. 1. Lenin, who Mumia which occurred simultaneously interests of labor and minorities. She died in January 1924, and Karl Liebknecht with a coastwide longshore union shut­ argued for the political independence of and Rosa Luxemburg, founding leaders of down of all U.S. ports from Mexico to the working class from all capitalist par­ the German Communist Party who were Canada. Your initial reporting disparaged ties arid institutions and for building a assassinated in January 1919. The following this racially-integrated industrial action, workers party, a party capable of leading appreciation of Lenin is excerpted from one like PMA, the employers' association, the working class in the fight to throw out of a series of articles honoring the "Three although your more recent articles have the capitalist order of exploitation and TROTSKY L's" published by the Trotskyist Communist LENIN admitted that this was a step in the right racism and to create a new socialist soci­ League of America in January 1930. direction-without mentioning that this ety, where those who labor rule. Foremost in Lenin was his unswerving confidence in the victory of the proletariat, is a change in your line. For the Spartacist League, this is a per­ organized and led by its most conscious and determ~ned section, the revolutionary All of this smacks of your sectarianism spective of bringing revolutionary con­ party. For more than twenty years he devoted himself to the formation, clarification and absteritionism in the now-historic sciousness to the working class, which is and strengthening of the principal arm of the Russian working class, the Bolshevik 1984 San Francisco longshore anti­ necessary if the working class is to free Party. He persistently pointed out that the working class as grouped together by capital­ apartheid action. First you opposed the itself from capitalist exploitation, wage ist production, without organization, or even with the elementary organization of trade II-day action, then in midstream changed slavery and racism. For Heyman, who unions, cooperative groups, etc. could carryon a defensive struggle against the daily course and gave it critical support long ago offered up his services to the encroachments of the capitalist class, but never the successful struggle for power. It from the sidelines without ever joining pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy, leader­ was a cardinal point in his work, tested and proved in life in 1917, that only by possess­ the union-supported picket line and, of ship means making occasional "progres­ ing an organized political vanguard, a party embracing the most active, devoted and . course, never acknowledging your scan­ sive" noises while helping the labor fak­ clearest elements of the class, embodying and crystallizing all the experiences of the dalous about-face. Given your record is ers keep the workers firmly within the struggle, serving as a guide and leader, could the working class rise to the position of there any wonder why longshore workers bounds of the capitalist system. For him, the ruling class and free itself from exploitation. With Lenin, the revolutionary proletar­ would say that SL stands for "sidelines"? to become an officer of the union is more ian party was the only door through which the working class might enter the realm of Finally, in the midst of the present war important than making a political fight power and maintain itself there .... hysteria, revolutiOriary Marxists don't within the unions against the misleaders The essence of Leninism is the application of the teachings of Marx and Engels to convince workers to break the chains of who tie labor to the class enemy through the period of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. The theories of Lenin are just as capital's' "national unity';'by uncritically the Democratic Party. little "Russian" as those of Marx were "German." The favorite argument of the social quoting black Democrat Jesse Jackson, The Local 10 rally in San Francisco reformists and revisionists in past decades-and even now-has been that while Marx­ Jr.'s patriotic remarks about the terrorist included a showing of video excerpts ism might be applicable to Europe, or to Europe of the last century; it did not apply to attacks. Rather yours is the centrist of the 9 June 2001 march in Columbia, the United States, for example, or to Europe today. The argument of all national and method of social chauvinist opportunism continued on page 9 social reformists today, of those to whom the name of socialist or revolutionary still applies only because of past associations, is that Leninism might be suitable for "back­ .ward Russia" but that it does not apply to highly developed industrial countries .... The man who stands out in his work is not so much Lenin the Russian Bolshevik, but Lenin the international revolutionist who led the. Left wing in the Second International, who laid the foundation stone for the Third; who poured out his vitriolic denunciation upon the heads of traitors who gave lip-service to "internationalism" and sent their fol­ Several thousand turned out for June lowers into the trenches in order to defend their "national interests"; Lenin the interna­ 2001 labor protest tionalist, who considered the Russian revolution as a temporary outpost of the world's in Columbia, South working class, a fortress to be defended at all costs until the workers of other countries Carolina in defense could save it for socialism by overthrowing their own bourgeoisie. of Charleston Five, -"Leninism Lives!" (Militant, 25 January 1930) longshoremen victimized for' defense of their union against January 2000 police assault (below). !.~!!!!!of..~!!~!~!!.1! ~ EDITOR: Len Meyers EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael Davisson PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller CIRCULATION MANAGER: Irene Gardner EDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Jon Brule, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Alan Wilde . The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276-0746) published biweekly. except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and w~h a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (Business) .. Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. E-mail address:[email protected]. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid'at New York, NY and additional mailing offices . . POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. The closing date for news in this issue is 22 January. -

No.n3 25 January 2002

2 WORKERS VANGUARD Unions Brotest Murder of Catholic Bostal Worker Northern Ireland: Imperialist "Peace" Fraud Fuels Loyalist Terror

Faith/PA Hugh Russell/Irish News Postal workers at funeral for Catholic co-worker Daniel McColgan, whose assassination by Loyalist paramilitaries sparked five-day postal strike. Right: Postal workers union contingent at January 18 Belfast protest.

DUBLIN, January 19-The killing of ian attacks he was thinking that his teen­ 20-year-old Catholic postal worker Dan­ age son should leave Northern Ireland. iel McColgan by Protestant Loyalist Our comrades called for the with­ paramilitaries in Belfast has provoked British Troops Out Now! drawal of the British Army; one con­ a rare display of. united protest action a struction worker replied, "They should by Catholic and Protestant workers in all get out, what we need is a workers Northern Ireland. McColgan's murder by and school workers) and Northern Ireland Trimble, Ervine and the murderous Brit­ army!" We explained our perspective of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) Public Servants Association. The rally ish imperialist state, the ICTU organisers programmatically based workers militias as he arrived at work in the early morn­ represented a broad swathe of Northern emphasised that "militant Republicans" to combat Loyalist thuggery and all sec­ ing of January 12 is the latest incident Irish society. Protestant and Catholic, old were not welcome at the rallies, though tarian terror. We also argued that a just in a dramatic upsurge of Loyalist ter­ and young, men and women showed up Education Minister Martin McGuinness solution to the situation in Northern Ire­ ror against Catholics in the context of to express their revulsion at the murder of Sinn Fein, which supports the "peace land will only come about through work­ the imperialist-imposed "peace process." of McColgan and the upsurge in anti­ process," was there. ICTU Assistant ers revolution throughout Ireland and The Red Hand Defenders, a cover name Catholic terror. General Secretary Peter Bunting called Britain. often used by the UDA, subsequently The proletarian responses to the Loyal­ "on all paramilitary groups to dissolve," The following article is reprinted from threatened to kill Catholics working in ist murder campaign· showed that it is but predictably said not a word against Workers Hammer No. 179 (Winter 2001- Protestant areas including postal work­ the integrated working class that has both the anti-Catholic killers of the British 2002). ers, teachers and transit workers. the interest in combating sectarian terror army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary When they heard about McColgan's and the social power to do so. However, (RUC), now renamed the Police Service murder, postal workers organised by the the pro-capitalist trade-union bureaucrats of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The ICTU WORKERSllAMMER't Communication Workers Union (CWU) worked to divert the justified outrage of bureaucrats even ensured that there were walked off the job across Northern the workers into support for the impe­ no pictures at the rally of McColgan or Ireland, refusing to return to work for rialist "peace" fraud, which has in fact other recent victims of sectarian tyrror. The 11 September attack on the World five days in response to the threats resulted in an escalation of anti-Catholic The class collaboration pushed by the Trade Center was a gift to Tony Blair against Catholic workers. Trade unions violence. The bureaucrats also tied work­ trade-union tops is a deadly danger to the in several ways, not least that the representing both Catholic and Protes­ ers to their own eapitalist exploiters. The working class and an obstacle to fight­ IRA announced. on 23 October that tant workers condemned the murder and ICTU sought and received the endorse­ ing against Loyalist terror. Oppression of they had begun to decommission their threats. Yesterday, the Irish Congress ment of the rallies from the bosses asso­ the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland weapons. The British government claims of Trade Unions (ICTU) called a half­ ciation, the CBI, and the British impe­ is the very foundation of the Orange to be waging a "war against terrorism" in day public sector strike against sectarian rialist Secretary of State for Northern (Protestant-dominated) statelet and is the interests of "democracy" and the attacks and organised mass rallies in Bel­ Ireland, John Reid. reinforced by British imperialism. Sec­ "civilised world" against religious fanat­ fast, Derry and several other cities.' Obscenely, the Belfast rally was tarianism serves the interests of the capi­ ics. Terrorism anyone? How about the Upwards of 15,000 attended the rally addressed by Northern Ireland First Min­ talist exploiters by keeping the working terrorism of the British state, such as the in Belfast and thousands more demon­ ister David Trimble of the Ulster Union­ class divided. To be effective, any fight massive bombing of Afghanistan, and strated elsewhere. Trade-union contin­ ist Party (UUP). David Ervine of the against Loyalist terror must confront the before this Serbia, in which this blood­ gents included the CWU, NASUWT and Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), which capitalist system that breeds it as well thirsty Labour government took centre INTO teachers unions, National Union is a front for the notorious anti-Catholic· as the state forces which back the Loyal­ stage? What about British imperialism's of Journalists, AMICUS (rail, aerospace Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), was also ists-the British Army and PSNI. Key domination of Ireland, which lasted for and other workers), UNISON (hospital present. While embracing the likes of in making workers conscious of this fact centuries and created a militarised garri­ and in breaking them from illusions son state in the North where the facade in the imperialist "peace"· fraud is the of democracy was never much in evi­ intervention of revolutionary proletarian dence and where no one had any reason internationalists. to believe in such myths as "unarmed Comrades from the Dublin Spartacist Bobbies." As for religious zealots, there Group went to the rally in Belfast and dis­ are very few Muslims in Northern Ire­ tributed Workers Vanguard and the Spar­ land but British rule there rests on col­ tacist League/Britain's Workers Hammer. laboration with a gang of crazed funda­ The workers that our comrades spoke mentalist Protestant bigots. to, including construction, rail and post­ We said in ·1993 that "Any imperialist al workers, generally saw. the imperial­ 'deal' will be bloody and brutal and will ist "peace" as better than-and the only necessarily be at the expense of the alternative to-a return to the widespread oppressed Catholic minority. And it communalist violence of the 1970s and would not do .anygood for working-class , 80s. On the other hand, there was uni­ Protestants either" (Workers Hammer versal acknowledgement that things have No. 138, November/December 1993). recently gotten worse. One rail worker This has been borne out: Loyalist noted that when the Good Friday Agree­ violence against Catholics has contin­ - ment was signed there were a lot of hopes ued, firebombings and pipe bombings are September 2001: Catholic families in Belfast faced Loyalist blockade and that things would get better, especially for commonplace. There were 220 Loyalist police lines while trying to take children to school. the youth, but with the upsurge in sectar- continued on page 10 25 JANUARY 2002 3 standards of working people not only in Bosses Profit, the Third World but in the U.S., far from repudiating Marxism, thoroughly con­ firms the statement in the Communist Workers Pay ... Manifesto: (continued from page 1) "The modern labourer, on the contrary, class froni whose labor the capitalists instead of rising with the progress of derive their profits. Mass unemployment industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own and recurrent crises-as well as episodic class. He becomes a pauper, and pauper­ swindles and financial chicanery-are ism develops rrfore rapidly than popula­ endemic to capitalism. When the capital­ tion and wealth." ists can no longer secure a desirable rate Writing at the height of Franklin D. of profit froIl! increased prQduction, they Roosevelt's "New Deal"-the heyday of slash production-and jobs-and boom Democratic Party liberalism, when a turns to bust. variety of social programs were first Moreover, while much is made of enacted-Leon Trotsky noted in "Ninety the con,nections between the Republican Years of the Communist Manifesto" White House and Enron (which also Spartacist contingent (October 1937), "Even the development doled out money to Democratic candi­ at February 2000 of the mightiest capitalism in the world, dates), the fact' of the matter is that the protest against namely, U.S. capitalism, has transformed capitalist stl\te is not some kind of "neu­ acquittal of millions of workers into paupers who are tral" agency that somehow represents the NYPD killers of maintained at the expense of federal, "will of the people." Rather, in the words African immigrant municipal, or private charity." of Karl Marx, "The executive of the mod­ Amadou Diallo. Reformists like the International ern State is but a committee for managing Socialist Organization, which at bottom the common affairs of the whole bour­ shares the New Deal Democratic Party geoisie." And these affairs are equally liberal politics espoused by Krugman, represented by the other party of Ameri­ routinely present wish lists calling for can capitalism-the Democrats. massive government spending for pro­ grams beneficial to the working people. Break with the Democrats­ What they don't tell you is that to get Build a Workers Party! things like decent affordable housing, In an interview with the Los Angeles free medical care and decent-paying jobs Times (9 December 2001), AFL-CIO for all, you first have to break the power president John Sweeney boasted, "We channel the workers' anger into Demo­ to sell the Democrats as the "friends" of of the bourgeoisie. For that you need to supported the president and his admin­ cratic Party bourgeois electoral ism. labor and blacks is simply a statement of build a workers party, one that doesn't istration in the war on terrorism from In New York City, the municipal labor how openly vicious and pro-big business "respect" the property rights of the bour­ the very first day." He then went on to tops banked on getting a Democrat the RepUblicans are. geoisie, a party that says to the exploited complain that "the people who are suffer­ elected mayor and kept their members Commenti!lg on the huge and grow­ and oppressed: We want more, we want ing the most-the hundreds of thousands working without a contract, in some cases ing chasm between rich and poor in the all of it, it ought to be ours, so take it! of laid-off workers-have not had their for up to two years. Now, with a recession U.S.-the widest in the industrialized And that can't happen without a socialist issues of unemployment insurance and and another Republican in City Hall, world-Paul Krugman noted, "You might revolution that smashes the bourgeois have expected the concentration of in­ state and replaces it with a workers state. come at the top to provoke populist It's a political question at bottom. You demands to soak the rich. But... the can solve a lot of problems with money Democrats haven't moved left, the Re­ -make life livable for blacks, Hispanics, publicans have moved right" (New York the jobless, the homeless, welfare moth­ Times, 4 January). At the same time, ers, etc. And we communists intend to do fearful that the glaring inequality could so. When the working people have the spark social conflagration, the Demo­ wealth of this country, we will begin to crats and RepUblicans have joined in build a planned, socialist economy on an vastly increasing the powers of state international scale. Then we can right repression. some historical crimes and payoff some The boom of the last decade, with its debts left over by our rulers to those free-wheeling profit-gouging, was hailed countries that have been maimed under as definitive proof of the superiority of the bombs and missiles of U.S. imperial­ the capitalist "free market" and the "fail­ ism. As for "compensation" to the people ure of Marxism." Emboldened by capi­ who have driven the United States to ruin, talist counterrevolution in the Soviet we can offer to those who don't get in our Union and East Europe, the American way that they will live to see their grand­ imperialists have perpetrated one mil­ children prosper in a truly humane soci­ itary. adventure after another against ety. We need a workers party to grab the defenseless peoples abroad '

"Anti-Terror" Witchhunt Targets Immigrants, Workers, the Left Labor Must ·Defend Immigrant Rights! TORONTO VANCOUVER Saturday, January 26, 1:30 p.m. Friday, February 8, 7 p.m. Trinity-St. Paul's Centre Britannia Community Centre, Rm. L4 427 Bloor Street West 1661 Napier Street (west of Spadina) (off Commercial Drive) Agins/NY Times For more information: (416) 593-4138 For more information: (604) 687-0353 NYC: Former welfare recipients hired last year by Parks Department as part of or e-mail [email protected] or e-mail [email protected] cynical "welfare to work" scheme now face layoffs. 4 WORKERS VANGUARD YODDg SparlaeDS UCLA Students Protest Racist Ideologues for U.S. Imperialism Right-wing demagogue David Horo­ we understand that war is inherent to cap­ witz, notorious apologist for American italism. But whoever is his target of the slavery, was recently joined in his "Battle moment, Horowitz's talk of "treason" is for America's Youth" by the equally siri­ nothing but a thinly veiled justifica­ ister Dinesh D'Souza, whose motto as tion for government repression of antiwar one-time editor of the Dartmouth Review activism and comes at a time when immi­ was "Genocide is never having to say grants are facing government persecution. you're sorry." A more accurate name for Foreign students already are afraid this affair would be the "Battle to Silence to attend college in the U.S., and those America's Youth." On January 14, these already here live in fear of being rounded' two racist ideologues descended on the up and held for "voluntary questioning;' UCLA campus in a speaking engage­ not knowing whether they will join more ment to whip up pro-war patriotism and than one thousand who have already been advance the capitalist rulers' "anti-terror" rounded up. Over 200 campus administra­ crackdown that immediately targets for­ tions have handed over the names of for­ eign students and immigrants but also has eign students to the FBI or INS. At UCLA, black people, labor, leftists and antiwar students of Near Eastern and Muslim back­ youth squarely in its cross hairs. grounds, in particular those associated with Much to the chagrin of Horowitz and Young Spartacus the Muslim student newspaper, have been D'Souza, there were more balloons than January 14: SYC-initiated protest against Horowitz and D'Souza at UCLA. targeted as objects of special scrutiny. supporters at their outdoor "Rally for D'Souza at UCLA denounced protest­ America," where the two were met with shadow of Horowitz rather than risk any ber entitled "An Open Letter to the 'Anti­ ers as "homegrown Taliban." This takes scornful jeers from individual students association with us Marxists. War' Demonstrators: Think Twice Before some chutzpah. As a former Reagan ad­ and a defiant protest we Marxists of the Horowitz expects black youth to act as You Bring the War Home," in which he ministration "policy analyst," D'Souza Spartacus Youth Club initiated, which the reformists on campus did and silently complains that during the Vietnam War would certainly know something about was later accompanied by a sizable contin­ tolerate his racist provocations. What "this country was too tolerant towards the U.S. imperialism arming and bankrolling gent of black and minority students orga­ really enraged him was the sight of 60 treason of its enemies within." Islamic reactionaries in Afghanistan. Hor­ nized by the UCLA African Student Union or more black students who marched Horowitz named everyone from left owitz and D'Souza have the vile distinc­ (ASU). Our united-front call was issued through the plaza and protested alongside liberals like Noam Chomsky, to black tion of being apologists for siavery on two around the slogans: "Protest David Horo­ our demonstration, holding signs saying Democrats like Barbara Lee, to every continents: black chattel slavery in Amer­ witz and Dinesh D'Souza; Racist Ideo­ "We Owe America Nothing!" and "Edu­ single antiwar student as "The Enemy ica and the enslavement of women in Af­ logues of U.S. Imperialism! U.S'/UNI cation for All!" The racist pigs Horowitz Within ... A shameful roster of traitors, ghanistan. In contrast to our left opponents NATO Out of Afghanistan, Central Asia, and D'Souza have opined that slavery left cowards, defeatists and fifth-columnists who cheered the anti-Soviet crusade, we the Persian Gulf, and the Near East! Down no enduring legacy on American society flourishing in America's heartland." In said in 1979: "Hail Red Army in Afghani­ With the Racist Anti-Immigrant Witch-· and that racism no longer exists (except going after academics and students, stan! Extend the social gains of the Rus­ hunt! Defend Black RightS!" In our signs, against "Whitey"). Last spring, Horowitz Horowitz is carrying out the same work sian Revolution to the Afghan peoples!" chants and speeches, we sought to drive . orchestrated a national ad campaign on as the sinister American Council of Trus­ The fight against racism, poverty and home the understanding that racist reac­ college campuses that attacked repara­ tees and Alumni (ACTA), founded by the war has to be linked to the struggle against tion and anti-immigrant witchhunts are tions for black people on the grotesque second lady of U.S. imperialism, Lynne the entire capitalist system. We seek to win the domestic component of U.S. imperi­ basis that slavery actually "created wealth Cheney. Two months ago, ACTA released radical youth to the understanding that alism's wars abroad. for black Americans." D'Souza likewise a report including a blacklist of 40 college what is needed is a revolutionary workers An obviously humiliated Horowitz is a notorious racist bigot who derides professors "short on patriotism." Their party that champions the cause of all the predictably resorted to his Big Lie smears blacks as "destructive and pathologi­ intent is a chilling suppression of any oppressed in the fight for socialist revolu­ and slandered us Marxist protesters as cal," blaming poverty among blacks and campus political activity that isn:t hand in tion. It is by joining such a struggle that "fascists." In a whining letter to the UCLA Latinos on "shocking moral behavior" hand with "Big Brother" Ashcroft. .' radical-minded students and youth can Daily Bruin (17 January), Horowitz be­ and the lack of a "work ethic." These are Much of Horowitz's fire is directed at help to unify the working class to over­ moans the unfavorable coverage of his revolting lies! Am~rica is a racist hellhole liberals, who in fact think peace is patriotic throw this whole rotten capitalist system right-wing rally and ludicrously claims for black people and other minorities! and war is just a bad policy. As Marxists, and open the door to human freedom .• that the SYC "had obviously come to pre­ While opposing the racist agenda of vent anyone from hearing what Dinesh Horowitz and D'Souza, the ASUdid not D'Souza and I had to say." In fact, the aim endorse our united-front call and instead of Horowitz and D'Souza's speaking tour held its own rally at a more remote loca- is to intimidate and muzzle all anti-racist . tion before marching through the pro­ and antiwar voices on college campuses. Horowitz rally and assembling nextto our , BOSTON NEW YORK CITY We protested these apologists for racist protest site. In calling their separate dem­ Thursday, 6:30 p.m. Alternate Tuesdays, 7 p.m. reaction and slavery, exposing their onstration, the ASU leadership conscious­ January 31: January 29: attempts to ·provide the ideological justi­ ly sought to disappear any opposition to Marxism: A Guide to Action Marxism: For the International fication for nidal oppression and imperi­ U.S. imperialism's war in Afghanistan. Rule of the Working Class! alist war. It's not our problem if Horo­ The ASU refused to allow us a speaker at Boston University College of Arts and Sciences witz occasionally choked on his words their rally because of our vocal opposition Columbia University (116th and Broadway) 725 Commonwealth Ave. Room information and readings: when hearing such chants as "Horowitz, to U.S. imperialism. An unsigned flyer Room information and readings: (212) 267-1025 D'Souza: What do we see? Racist tools of distributed at the ASU rally characterized (617) 666-9453 the bourgeoisie!", "Horowitz, D'Souza: the bombing of devastated Afghanistan as TORONTO dogs of war! Workers revolution is what a fight "for the protection of human life." . CHICAGO we're for!" and "Black rights, immigrant This is a grotesque alibi for racist Ameri­ Wednesday, 5:30 p.m. rights-Same struggle, same fight!" can capitalism. U.S. imperialist military Alternate Tuesdays, 6 p.m. January 30: Live From Death Row: Our spirited demonstration stands in mobilizations are always accompanied by February 5: This is Mumia Abu-Jamal stark contrast to the conspicuous inaction domestic repression, particularly targetiQg The Capitalist State-An Instrument Video showing and discussion of Organized Terror of the reformist groups Socialist Action labor, black people and immigrants.· The York University Student Ctr., Room 307 and Spark and the liberal Student Coali­ fight for black freedom is integrally linked University of Illinois at Chicago Information: (416) 593-4138 [email protected] tion Against the War (SCAW)-backed to the struggle against U.S. imperialism. Behavioral Sciences Bldg., 1007 West Harrison Str-eet by the fake socialists on campus-which It's no accident that Horowitz and Room information and readings: VANCOUVER were all absent that day. The International D'Souza combine racist demagogy with (312) 563-0441 Socialist Organization (ISO) showed up pro-imperialist flag-waving in agitating Alternate Wednesdays, 6 p.m. with an unsigned flyer but never even for state repression against any and all LOS ANGELES January 30: put up their placards and, refusing an dissent or social struggle. The two have For Unc6nditional Military Defense Alternate Saturdays, 2 p.m. invitation to join with and speak at our ·launched a neo-McCarthyite campaign on of China Against Imperialism and February 2: demonstration, quickly moved their table the campuses to brand all who oppose Internal Counterrevolution! Economics of Communism and the University of British Columbia closer to the fringe of the pro-Horowitz . U.S. imperialism's war on Afghanistan or Transition Period rally with its huge American flag. The the bosses' "national unity" front at home Student Union Bldg., Room 21;3 3806 Beverly Blvd., Suite 215 "socialist" anti-Communists of the ISO as traitors. Horowitz put an advertisement Information and readings: (604)687-0353 Information and readings: (213) 3f!.0-8239 [email protected] preferred to peddle their wares in the in 15 campus newspapers in late Septem- 25 JANUARY 2002 5 -~~------~~~------From Korea Through the Vietnam· War The the "Am ury"

We print below the first part of an edu­ nationalism, he argued in effect that the cational on the American left given over interests of a black steel worker in the two days by Spartacist League Central U.S. were fundamentally closer to those Committee member Joseph Seymour to of a Brazilian peasant than to those of a a gathering of Spartacus Youth Club white steel worker in the U.S. members and youth from throughout the The absence of a visible left wing of International, Communist League in New the labor movement shaped especially York last summer. the early New Left in another important Let me begin by asking and answering way. The only left critics of American two questions \Yhich may have occurred society which liberal youth encountered to some of you. Why did I want to give Spartacist or knew were intellectuals. Consider a an educational on this particular subject, left-liberal high school student in 1960 the history of the American left from the in New York City who attended a rally end of the Korean War in 1953 through Part One: liberalism and the Crisis for nuclear disarmament-one of the the end of the Vietnam War in 1975? main fashionable liberal causes of the And why this particular periodization? of American Stalinism day. He's addressed by the head of the I'll address the second question first. Physics department of the City College This period corresponds to the ,develop~ Cuban Revolution, the Northern black World War II, when the U.S. was allied of New Yock, by the pastor of the River­ ment of a distinct generation of American ghetto rebellions and, above all, the Viet­ with Soviet Russia against Nazi Ger­ side Church, by the nationally known leftists, one whose experience and corre­ nam War. many, now left it en masse. pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock. But he sponding outlook was quite different By the early 1970s, the most seri­ The defections of the mid 1950s were is not addressed by a representative of from the preceding generation of leftists ous and left-wing elements of the New also concentrated in the middle genera­ the New York City Central Labor Council whose main formative experience was Left joined or formed organizations tion of the CP and SWP, people between or one of the major NYC unions. the mass militant labor struggles during which claimed to be or claimed to their mid 30s and late 50s. A few years So there developed the view that the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the be building the "Marxist-Leninist" van­ later, when young leftist radicals spoke among the white population only stu­ 1960s, young leftist radicals called them­ guard party of the American proletar­ disparagingly of the old left, they meant dents and ,other intellectuals could be selves the New Left as opposed to the iat. As such, they went into factories this in a biological as well as an ideolog­ mobilized as a social group against racial "old left," which had been dominated and engaged in trade-union left opposi­ ical sense. In 1963, I was briefly in the oppression and Cold War militarism. In by Jhe pro-Moscow Stalinist Communist tional activity. For example, there were Progressive Labor youth group, and I 1966, Isaac Deutscher, Trotsky's biogra­ Party. half a dozen or more different "Marxist­ was selling Chinese, Maoist pamphlets pher, who considered himself an old­ What I'll call the New Left generation, Leninist" groups operating in the Fre­ to a CP May Day rally. Most of the peo­ fashioned classical Marxist, toured the of which I'm a· member, makes up a mont General Motors plant in the Bay ple who bought them were over 70. Of U.S., speaking at Vietnam antiwar pro­ majority of the present SL leadership and Area in California in this period. One course, now my attitude toward 70-year­ tests and other left events. He was both cadre. And this is also the case for our of them was us. If you want a firsthand old communists is very different-much surprised and disturbed by the intellectual left opponents-the International Social­ account, talk to comrades Joan and less disrespectful--:-than when I was a elitism among young radicals who con­ ist Organization, Progressive Labor (PL), Darlene. brash 19-year-old. sidered themselves opponents of Amer­ Workers World et a1. Another reason for beginning with the The purging and self-purging of reds ican capitalism and imperialism. And This generation of future leftist radi­ Korean War period is that the develop­ from the labor movem,ent during the at the Socialist Scholars Conference, cals acquired. their first fragments of ment and outlook of the New Left was' first decade of the Cold War was by Deutscher lashed out at his audience: political consciousness in the intensely decisively conditioned by the collapse of far the single most important nega­ "Do you really take such a contemptuous anti-Communist climate of the post­ the old left under the pressure of Cold tive factor shaping the outlook ,of what view of your working classes that you thiflk that you alone are so sensitive or Korean War period. I first started reading War anti-Communism. In the mid 1950s, would become the New Left. Because so noble as to be dissatisfied with this the newspaper at the age of ten in 1954. the Communist Party (CP) and also the when young liberal activists-black and degrading society and that they cannot One of the stories I remember reading Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) white-entered the political scene during find it in themselves to be dissatisfied? was about the execution of Juliu,s and suffered massive rightward defections. the civil rights movement, they encoun­ Do you really believe that they are so much more prone, and by nature condi­ Ethel Rosenberg, who were Jewish Amer­ In 1953, in the Cochran-Clarke fight, the tered a labor movement which had no tioned, to be corrupted by the meretri­ ican Communists convicted of betraying SWP lost 20 percent of its members. significant (or even insignificant) left cioug. advantages of this war-flourishing the "secret" of the atomic bomb to Soviet In 1956-57, the CP lost three-quarters of wing that shared their own views toward capitalism than you are?" Russia. The new generation of young lib­ its members. Furthermore these losses racial oppression and Cold War mili­ Much of. the audience did think exactly eral idealists first entered the political were heavily concentrated among the par­ tarism. And for them, these were the key that at that time. scene during the Southern-centered civil ties' active trade unionists. Workers who questions of the day. A few years later things changed. rights movement of the late' 50s and early when they were younger had joined the All wings of the labor bureaucra­ Many of these same people went into '60s. During the '60s they were propelled communist movement during the left­ cy were militantly anti-Communist and the factories, ran for union office and- leftward by the combined impact of the ward radicalization of the 1930s or during staunch anti-Soviet Cold Warriors. All 10 and behold-they became workerists. wings defended the racist status quo in In some cases, they capitulated to the the North and only paid lip service, backward prejudices of white workers to opposing legalized racial segregation whom they had previously disdained for and supporting the democratic rights of having those prejudices. Guys who had a blacks in the South. The head of the AFL­ PhD in classics, who could read Homer CIO, George Meany, was directly and in the original archaic Greek, talked like personally based on the white labor aris­ Marlon Brando in the film On the Water­ tocracy of the construction trades, in front. You know: "Us woikers gotta fight which jobs were handed down from back against da bosses." father to son and uncle to nephew. And A personal anecdote in this regard. In even the racially integrated industrial 1970-71, we did an entry into the PL-led unions, like the United Auto Workers Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (UAW), were pervaded by racist prac­ after the original broad umbrella SDS tices. For example, the UAW skilled had split. For a time our relations with trades section iil this period was almost Progressive Labor were not that bad-not exclusively white. hostile-because we helped legitimize Under these conditions, there devel­ their SDS operation. They could say, oped the view that would become a cen, "SDS is not a PL front group. Look, we tral premise of New Left ideology: the even have counterrevolutionary Trot­ fundamental division within American skyites in it." society and also the world at large was One of the heads of the PL-SDS frac­ TWU that of race and not class. When in the tion was a guy called Bob Leonhardt, Amid Cold War witchhunt in 1948, union chief and onetime CP supporter late '60s Stokely Carmichael expounded who, like a lot of PL male honchos, culti­ Mike Quill (center) led vicious red purge of Transport Workers Union. the doctrine of "revolutionary" black vated this Brandoesque speaking style- 6 WORKERS VANGUARD no words over three syllables. I learned rated on shopfloor and union issues. He he had a PhD in classics. Since he wasn't said: a bad guy, one day I decided to play a "We are in a bloc with so-called pro~ benign trick on him. I went up to him gressives-not only fakers but honest and said, "Bob, I heard you majored rank and file. Yes,_ they are honest and progressive but from time to time they in classics. -Which, do you think is a vote for Roosevelt-once in four years. better translation of the Iliad, the Rich­ This -is decisive .... The danger-a ter­ mond Lattimore or the Robert Fitzge­ rible danger:---is adaptation to the pro­ rald?" He thought a few seconds and said Rooseveltian trade unionists." he thought the Lattimore was better. He . And he went on to generalize. Party momentaril y forgot he wasn't supposed trade unionists, he emphasized, to know or. Care about such highfalutin "deal with the class, the backwardele­ intellectual 'matters. ments; they are the party vanguard in the working class. The necessary field of The American Left and adaptation is among the trade unions. The people who have this adaptation as American Liberalism their job are those in the trade unions. So why do I want to discuss the Amer­ That is why the pressure of the backward ican left in this period apart from indulg­ elements is always reflected through Stewart/Bethel the trade union comrades. It is a healthy Many NElw Left radicals later turned into ing in personal nostalgia? As we fre­ pressure; but it can also break them quently emphasize, the United States is liberal activists. David Hilliard (right), former from the historic class interests-they Black Panther Party leader, announces his the only advanced capitalist country in can become opportunists." Democratic Party candidacy for Oakland city which the working class lacks any politi­ - "Discussions with Trotsky" council, 1999. cal class consciousness, even in a reform- , (June 1940), reprinted.in Writings 1939-40 ist, social-democratic form. The main Maoism, I would estimate there may reason for this is the deep racial division It was precisely 'this layer of SWP trade have been as many as 40,000 1eft­ DaSilva/NY Times in the working class and society at large. unionists, about whom Trotsky expressed wing activists in this' country who were A consequence of this is the ideologi­ concern, who 13 years later left the party modern world history, and it had an members of groups claiming to be important effect on the American left not cal and political hegemony of liberal­ en bloc in the Cochran-Clarke fight. the "Marxist-Leninist" vanguard of the ism-organizationally represented by the At the beginning of 1956, the Ameri­ only in its immediate aftermath but in American proJetariat. Ten years later, I the longer term as well. Democratic Party-in the labor move­ can Communist Party had an estimated doubt if there were 5,000. So what hap­ Objectively, the Korean War ended ment, the organizations of the oppressed 20,000 members. By the end of 1957, pened to these tens of thousands of in a stalemate. The armistice agreement ethnic minoritie's and all "progressive" it had perhaps 5,000 members. What ex-"Marxist-Leninists"? Most dropped restored the division of Korea as it was movements. happened to the 15,000 people who left out of politics, and those who didn't were when the war had begun. North Korea American leftists-Stalinists and Trot­ the CP? Most became independent left­ mainly involved in fashionable liberal skyists in the 1930s, New Left Maoists liberal activists working in and around remained a deformed workers state allied causes like feminism and environmental­ with the Soviet Union and China; South and Spartacists in the early '70s, your­ the Democratic Party. ism. People who in the late '60s were Korea remained a capitalist state and a selves and -our left opponents today""':"" The same pattern repeated itself in the involved in defending the Black Panthers operate in an environment dominated by next generation of American leftist radi­ puppet regime of the U.S. against murderous state repression were Subjectively, however, the American liberalism, whether in the trade. unions, cals. In 1968 or 169, I and a few other ten years later defending fish, amphib­ people regarded the Korean War as a ians and raptors supposedly threatened defeat. The greatest military power on by government and corporate policies. earth had been fought to a standstill by Young women college students who in Communist China and North Korea. That the late '60s were marching and taking wasn't supposed to happen. Malcolm X over campus buildings to demand free­ later commented on the Korean War with dom for Huey Newton and other impris- , his usual perceptive wit. He said if you oned Panther leaders ten years later were get into the ring with Joe Louis-the bourgeois feminists quite hostile to young great black heavyweight boxing cham­ black lumpen males. pion of the 1930s and' 40s-and the fight The basic point is that we are con­ ends in a draw, you've won. Well, the stantly in battle with liberalism, which American people thought that Red China uses -different weapons, strategies and Communist Party had won the Korean War because it cartoon eulogized tactics against the left in different periods. hadn't lost. Also during the Korean War, Sometimes it's repression, sometimes Democratic the Soviet Union successfully tested its co-optation, sometimes both simultane­ president own hydrogen bomb. So the U.S. no Roosevelt. ously. Liberals can denounce American longer had a monopoly on this supposed imperialism when they want. to appear ultimate weapon of mass destruction. very left in order to appeal to young rad­ Under these conditions the U.S. gov­ icals. We have no copyright on that term. ernment incited and orchestrated an anti­ We can't sue them for misusing Lenin­ Communist witchhunt throughout Ameri­ ist terminology for their own purposes. can society, including especially the labor When young black radicals raised the slo­ movement. Liberal Democnltic politi­ In the black and Latino communities comrades-in those days there were only gan of "black power" in the mid-late' 60s, cians like Hubert Humphrey and union or on the campuses. Most of the peo­ a few other comrades-were selling the demagogic black Democratic Con­ bureaucrats mobilized backward workers ple you seek to influence and recruit­ Spartacist at a rally in Harlem jointly gressman from Harlem, Adam Clayton to purge and terrorize reds. The bourgeois whether on the picket line of a -labor sponsored by the Black Panther Party and Powell, began using it, too. "You want media depicted world Communism as a strike or at a campus protest for, affir­ SDS. The featured speaker was the Pan­ black power," he said, "well, here I am!" powerful, red-armored giant on the march mative action-will subscribe to llberal ther chief of staff, David Hilliard, who To better fight liberalism in the present ideas in some form. u~ed the occasion to expound on Marxist striving to conquer the world and turn it and future, it's useful to analyze the bat­ into a global version of a Stalinist gulag. Here it's important to emphasize that dialectics; a subject of which he was tles of the past. liberalism is not a single, logically coher­ effectively ignorant. But to his credit, Hil­ At the same time, the American people ent doctrine. It's not the political equiva­ liard was trying to educate black ghetto The Korean War and the said to themselves: never again should lent of Euclidean geometry in which youth and white student radicals in Marx­ Anti-Communist Witchhunt the U.S. fight a war like that in Korea, a everything follows logically from a few ism as he understood it. A few years ago, Today, when most Americans think of war of attrition with Asian Communist _ basic premises. Liberalism is a complex Hilliard ran for Oakland city council as a the Korean War, they think of the TV countries. of different and contradictory ideas, member of the Democratic Party. program M.A.S.H. But the Korean War Thus, the longer-term impact of the attitudes and values. The liberalism of In 1972, iIi the heyday of New Left was an event of no little importance in Korean War on the American left was a black local union president is not the quite different from its immediate effect. same as the liberalism of a white wom­ The immediate effect was to intensify the an college professor. On many important anti-Communist witchhunt. However, in issues they'll be opposed to one another, the 1960s the memory of the Korean War even hostile to one another. It's precisely was one of the important factors in the because a liberal outlook consists of dif­ rapid erosion of p09ular support for ferent and contradictory elements that lib­ the Vietnam War, long before the level erals can evolve into revolutionary social­ of casualties in Vietnam reached those ists and then devolve back again into in Korea. liberals. The introduction to American Trotsky­ The American left is constantly inter­ ist leader James P. Cannon's Speeches acting with American liberalism. And to the Party documenting the 1952-53 this interaction is a two-way, not a one­ Cochran-Clarke fight describes quite well way, street. You seek to recruit and influ­ the often violent" anti-Communism, even ence liberals. But they also, often uncon­ in sections of the unionized working class sciously, seek to influence you, to win in which the left had previously been you to their outlook. influential. It cites the situation of Sol and In 1940, Trotsky, in discussions with Genora Dollinger, the leaders of the the SWP leadership, expressed serious SWP's Flint, Michigan branch. Genora concern that the party trade unionists had been a leader of the famous sitdown were too sOft, too conciliatory toward in the mid 1930s which established the so-called "progressive," pro-Democratic _ Xinhua UAW union in the Flint GM plant. But Party workers with whom they collabo- Winter 1950: U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. continued on page 8 25 JANUARY 2002 7 denounced our past history as one of slavishly clinging to imported doctrines, New Left ... the bankruptcy of which was now being (continued from page 7) proven. Under the guise of 'fighting dog­ matism' inherited from the era of the now Sol, who worked there, was driven 'cult of personality,' the Gates crowd [ep out of the plant every day by a mob of right wing represented by John Gates] concluded that Leninism was nothing right-wing workers. And the same thing more than Marxism applied to the pecu­ was happening across .the country at the liar, backward condition of Russia-a time to the far more numerous Commu­ purely 'Russian social phenomenon'­ nist Party trade unionists. and therefore not applicable in the U.S. It was this anti-Co~rilUnism at the They found Lenin's theories of the bour­ geois state as an instrument of class base of American society rather than rule to be particularly outmoded under government persecution that demoralized U.S. conditions." much of the ranks and cadre of the CP As I've previously indicated, most and SWP. This demoralization found of those who left the CP remained polit­ organized expression in large right-wing ically active as independent left liber­ factions and then splits in these parties. als. In a sense, American liberalism now After the Cochranites split from the acquired a cadre, people experienced SWP, they published for a short time a in building large-scale, popular-frontist magazine called the American Socialist. protest movements. This legion of ex­ They were desperate to overcome their CPers played an important role in orga­ alienation from the mass of the American AP nizing all the main left-liberal and radical working class caused by the Cold War Budapest workers topple statue of Stalin during 1956 Hungarian Revolution. movements of the late' 50s and' 60s-the with the Sino-Soviet states. Similarly, a . movement for nuclear disarmament, the main slogan of the CP right-wingers was plained that there were a number of dif­ political revolution, which was then sup­ civil rights movement in the North, the returning to the "mainstream of Ameri­ ferent protest activities. Some of us had pressed by the Soviet Army. support groups for the Cuban Revolution can political life." disrupted the Budweiser beer exl,libit to In some countries, notably Britain and and the Vietnam antiwar movement. protest the fact that Budweiser had segre­ Japan, the combined impact of Khrush­ Most of these ex-CPers did not become The Collapse of gated operations in the South. Others chev's denunciation of Stalin and the American Stalinism anti-Communists. They themselves had had attempted to shout down the Demo­ Hungarian Revolution propelled a signif­ been the victims of anti-Communism. Since the pro-Moscow Communist cratic president, Lyndon Johnson, who icant number of CP cadre to t~e left. They They did not become anti-Soviet Cold Party was the' dominant force on the was addressing the opening of the Fair. joined the Trotskyist movement or what Warriors but favored "peaceful coexis­ American left until the crisis of 1956, I When they heard that, they said: "Oh, they thought was the Trotskyist move­ tence" between the U.S. and the Soviet want to discuss the state of the party lead­ that's very bad, they should have listened ment. It was at this time that Trotskyism Union. Thus the main body of political ing up to this crisis. There's a saying that to what he had to say." These were became a major factor on the British and activists who had split from the CP to the if you wear a mask long enough your face decades-long members of the CP talking Japanese far left. right in 1956 or earlier came to occupy a changes to fit it. By the early 1950s, I in private to their daughter and a left rad­ For the reasons I've been discussing, position on the American political spec­ believe the faces of the ranks and cadre of ical acquaintance of hers. this did not happen in the United States. trum intermediate between Cold War lib­ the CP had changed to fit the mask of pro­ I believe this same attitude was preva­ Of the estimated 15,000 people who left eralism and traditional Moscow-line Stal­ Democratic Party liberalism. lent or at least common among the mem­ the CP, only a relatively small hand­ inism. This was the same position that When the American CP first supported bers of the CP in the early '50s as well. ful joined the SWP. Incidentally, two the early New Left would occupy in the and worked in Roosevelt's Democratic There was also a relatively small minor­ of these-Geoff White (who had been mid 1960s. In a sense, the ex-right-wing Party in the mid 1930s, as part of the turn ity of left CPers at this time who viewed a second-level CP leader) and Harry CPers were the political and in more of the world Stalinist movement toward themselves as hard Bolsheviks. They, too, Turner-later joined the Revolutionary than a few cases biological parents of the popular-frontism, its members considered favored electoral support to the Demo­ Tendency in the SWP and went on to New Left. this quite cynically as a tactical maneu­ cratic Party but considered this a rever­ ver. Just a few years earlier, the CP had sible tactic. denounced Roosevelt as a "social fascist." One such left CPer was Harry Hay­ . But by the early 1950s, I think most wood, one of the party's leading black CPers had ceased entirely to believe in spokesmen. Comrade Emily tells me that their own formal ideology. They no long­ during the 1920s Haywood was for a time er believed there would be an American a member of the Cannon faction in the proletarian revolution like the Russian CP. In the 1970s, Haywood, who had pre­ October Revolution led by an American dictablybecome a Maoist, published an Marxist-Leninist vanguard party like the autobiography titled Black Bolshevik in Bolsheviks. They now really believed which he recounted in great detail the bit­ that political and social progress in the ter, decades-long animosity between left­ U.S. would come about through reforms wingers like himself and what he called enacted by the' Democratic Party, with the the "right opportunist" forces who domi­ CP acting as its left pressure group. nated the American Communist Party. A personal anecdote in this regard. In The effect of the Cold War on left 1964, I was arrested along with dozens CPers like Haywood, Milt Rosen, Nelson of others in a major civil rights protest Peery was to deepen their commitment to at the opening of the World's Fair in Stalinism and to Stalin. Why was that? In Queens. We were taken out to Rikers the late' 40s ana early' 50s, if you were a . Island and put in holding pens for a day known CP member, supporter or sympa­ or so. I was one of the last to be bailed thizer and you wanted to keep your job­ out, around midnight. B.ailed out at the whether as a union official, a Hollywood same time was a girl I knew from City screenwriter or college or high school College who was a member of the Com­ teacher-you had to den~:lUnce Stalin as munist Party youth group. Her parents, the bloody-handed dictator of a totalitar­ who were veteran CPers, picked her up ian police state. Since Stalin really was and gave me a lift back to Manhattan. the bloody-handed dictator of a totalitar­ WV Photo They asked us what exactly we had ian police state, this made it easier to do. San Francisco: SL/SYC contingent in October antiwar protest raises call to break from Democratic Party. done to get ourselves arrested. We ex- You could be an ex-Communist opportu­ nist with a good conscience. become founding members of the Spar­ The hardline left Stalinists who re­ But in reaction to this, left CPers like tacist League. Almost all the CP left­ mained in the CP in '56 would also influ­ Haywood locked on to the position that wingers remained in the party, defend­ ence the New Left in a later period and in the Soviet Union was "building social­ ing the heritage of Stalin and supporting a different way. In the late 1950s, the dis­ ism" under the great, wise and benevo­ the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian integration of the world Stalinist move­ lent leadership of comrade Stalin as Revolution. In his autobiography, Harry ment reached a new, more advanced level a kind of talisman against opportunism. Haywood describes, from his own ideo­ with the Sino-Soviet split. At bottom, this They brandished the portrait of Stalin as logical vantage point, how the "crisis of reflected the conflicting national inter­ if it were a cross to ward off the liberal de-Stalinization" impacted on the fac­ ests of the Russian and Chinese Stalinist vampires who were sucking the lifeblood .tional alignment and balance of forces in bureaucracies. But at the time and for the out of the Communist Party. l the American Communist Party: next several years, Mao's China adopted In 1956, the world Communist move­ . "Rather than finding a source of support a more left-wing posture, denouncing the ment was deeply shaken by what was .in the Soviet Union, we on the left were Soviet leaders for "revisionism" and for called the "crisis of de-Stalinization." It thrown completely off balance by the collaborating with American imperialism. began in February when Soviet leader new 'revelations.' At first we couldn't In the late 1950s and early' 60s, almost Nikita Khrushchev made a supposedly believe Khrushchev made such a speech, thinking it must be some imperialist all the left Stalinists in the American CP "secret" speech to the Soviet party con­ propaganda stunt. When this initial reac­ left to (orm an American Maoist move­ gressdenouncing the crimes of Stalin, tion passed we tended to give the new ment, which was never unified but always especially his crimes against Soviet Com­ Soviet leadership the benefit of the doubt divided into competing groups. As the munists. This turned out to be one of and failed to grasp the full implications WV Photo New Left radicals moved left in the mid­ the most publicized speeches in the his­ of this attack on Stalin. Much of the U.S. left today openly "Theliquidationist right used this as an late ;60s, .they thus encountered Stalinism tory of the world. The ensuing relaxation accommodates liberalism, like the excuse to attack proletarian internation­ in its then more attractive Maoist form. ISO in a December 1998 NYC demo of harsh Stalinist rule in East Europe led alism in general, calling for a sweep­ against the bombing of Iraq. in Hungary in October to a proletarian ing reevaluation of our line. They bitterly [TO BE CONTINUED] 8 WORKERS VANGUARD members to be sent to ILA Local 1422. before Congress, the ILWU brass have be trade-union opportunists, more con­ Letter ... The PDC is known and respected by ignored the racist content of the bosses' cerned with becoming the leadership of (continued from page 2) the Charleston longshore unions. When current attacks (including this bill) target­ acop-riddled municipal union than with Herson hand-delivered a check from the ing black and Latino longshoremen and building a revolutionary party. Showing South Carolina organiied by the state PDC, he was warmly greeted and asked immigrant port truckers. a complete disregard for working-class AFL-CIO, where thousands of trade to address the members in the Charleston We have also noted Oakland black principles, they have since dragged the unionists from throughout the South ILA hall. Heyman uses quote marks Democratic Congresswoman Barbara union into the capitalist courts three times showed up to demand freedom for the around the word "solidarity" in order to Lee's courage in voting against unlimited in a squalid fight to retain their union Charleston Five: Ever since picketing sneer at Herson's remarks, the core of war powers, which earned her right-wing positions (for details, see "IG's Brazil Charleston longshoremen, members of which were repeated in a speech from the death threats. At the same time, as read­ Cover-Up: Dirty Hands, Cynical Lies," the International Longshoremen's Asso­ podium at the start of the Columbia ers of WV are well aware, we have con­ WVNo. 671, 11 July 1997). Heyman pro­ ciation (ILA), shut down a union-busting march last June (reprinted in WVNo. 761, sistently warned that black Democrats claims his opposItion to suing unions in stevedoring outfit and defied a vicious 6 July 2001). At that rally, in opposition like Jackson and Lee are positioning the bosses' courts. But his defense of attack by 600 cops on 20 January 2000- to the pleas by the labor tops to elect more themselves to get ahead of and contain these unprincipled trade-union hustlers a courageous stand that inspired work­ Democrats, Herson raised the call for increasing discontent in the black popula­ reveals his own appetites for labor oppor­ ers through-out the region and the world­ independent class struggle, linking this to tion at intensifying racist repression and tunism-including leaving open the pos­ the AFL-CIO union tops have carefully the fight to free death row political pris­ the deepening effects of the recession. sibility of supporting anti-union lawsuits, sought to diminish the real story of what oner Mumia Abu-Jamal: In sharp contrast, in a 22 September 200 1 which unfortunately is not uncommon in happened that day. After all, the job of the "We must use our power here, our inde­ Internet posting ("Longshore Unions the American labor movement. labor bureaucracy is to prevent that kind . pendent power: No reliance on Demo­ and the 'War Against Terrorism"'), Hey­ Heyman seeks to cover his opportun­ of class struggle. cratic or Republican politicians! They man approvingly notes that Local 10 ism by "chicken" -baiting our organiza­ The union tops who spoke at the have lied to us and they have oppressed voted overwhelmingly to send Lee a let­ tion, a posture also assumed by centrist us·. This whole issue is about the power Columbia rally bragged that they had used on the picket line on the docks of ter "commending her for her courageous outfits like the Internationalist Group helped bring the Democratic Party back Charleston. That power must be used to sale vote against the war. In a sense, it (10) and the International Bolshevik Ten­ into office in South Carolina. For his part, defend the Charleston Five. That power was a workers' referendum on the unde­ dency (IBT), whose arguments he bor­ Heyman, in response to a floor speaker must be used to free Mumia Abu-Jamal! fined, unlimited 'war against terrorism'" rows from wholesale. His defense of the at the October Local 10 rally, prettified Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! Workers to (our emphasis). No mention by Heyman Brazilian trade-union oppottunists is a the pro-capitalist labor leadership under power!" that Lee's Democrats, like the Republi­ direct echo of the IG, which maintains John Sweeney, stating without blinking If it were not so ludicrous, it would cans, represent the interests of the class this group as a section of its fraudulent an eye that the AFL-CIO sees Charleston really be annoying to be accused by enemy, or that they have been virtually "League for the Fourth International." as the beginning of a drive to organize Heyman of "the centrist method of social in lockstep alliance with Bush nation­ Similaily, on the question of the Demo­ the South. In fact, the struggle to organize chauvinist opportunism" for supposedly ally over Afghanistan. Far from seeking cratic Party, Heyman echoes not only the the "open shop" South requires a fight to uncritically quoting Jesse Jackson Jf. in to break workers from illusions in the IG but the BT's cynical declarations that break labor's ties to the Democratic Party, the article Heyman criticizes in the Democrats, Heyman is happy to reinforce the Spartacist League is "soft" on the which for decades enforced Jim Crow opening sentence of his letter. Heyman them. Democrats. This is particularly rich com­ segregation with the help of its KKK chooses to attack us for noting that this Heyman's reference to the Interna­ ing from the BT which, in concert with auxiliaries and worked to ensure that inte­ black Democratic Congressman reflected tional Communist League's supposed Heyman's maneuvers inside the ILWU, grated unions were kept out. Heyman justifiable apprehensions among black "abstentionism" in Brazil further illus­ did its level best to turn the April 1999 ended his speech with a call for a labor people over the government's shredding trates how his "militant" rhetoric serves labor action for Mumia into a platform party. Led by whom, John Sweeney? of democratic rights. Jackson pointed out to deflect from the necessary political for liberal Democrats (see "Labor Oppor­ In his letter, Heyman saves his fire for that it was not "the terrorists" but "the struggle against the misleaders of the tunism, the Democratic Party and the a spurious attack on Gene Herson, the supporters of this bill [USA-Patriot Act] working class. We did not have "trade Defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal," WV No. labor coordinator of the Partisan' Defense who are really attacking American liber­ union supporters" in Brazil; we did have 714,28 May 1999). . ... -. Committee, which issued a protest letter ties." The indifference to black oppres­ fraternal relations with a group then Despite Heyman's ability to throw left­ to the South Carolina attorney general the sion Heyman here unwittingly manifests called Luta Metalurgica, which claimed ist phrases around, class-conscious 'work­ very day of the cop attack on the Charles­ is a hallmark of the U.S. labor bureauc­ that it agreed with our program. We broke ers will recognize him as a phony and a ton longshoremen and called for contrib­ racy. Thus, in their statements against the relations with this group after a long labor careerist whose real role is deceiv­ utions in defense of the arrested ILA Port, Maritime and Rail Security Act now political struggle because they proved to ing the workers .•

ment in the ghettos and barrios under the antl-lmmigrant bigotry at home and is black West Oakland by the police gang Mobilize ... so-called "war on drugs." directly opposed to our fighting unity as a who took the name "Riders" from the (continued from page 12) Just as the fight for black freedom class against the bosses' "divide and rule" nightriders of the KKK. On the other side is central to the liberation of all work­ schemes. Peddling the lie that the inter­ of the Bay Bridge, mayor Willie Brown cops in 1969, got a full blast of what ing people, the labor movement can ests of the workers and their exploiters has launched a new war on the homeless being labeled a "terrorist" in capitalist only defend itself if it defends the rights are compatible, AFL-CIO head John of San Francisco while 16,000 laid-off America means. Coordinating these re­ of immigrants. In this country, the raw Sweeney says that "no sacrifice is 'too workers in low-wage industries face home­ pressive measures is Tom Ridge, the man exploitation of labor has always come great" for workers to make for the reac­ less ness, and those still employed are only who signed two death warrants against wrapped in the envelope of racial and tionary "war on terror." Opposition to the a paycheck away from the same fate. former Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, an ethnic-religious hostilities fomented by war on labor, blacks and immigrants at To fight for its interests the working innocent man framed up for the 1981 kill­ the capitalist rulers. Black oppression is home means opposition to the wars of class must stand independent of all ing of a Philadelphia cop, who was sen­ the cornerstone of American capitalism. American capitalism abroad. All U.S.! agencies and parties of the class enemy. tenced to death for his political views. But black and immigrant workers are UNINATO troops out of Afghanistan, the The trade-union misleaders who have Free Mumia now! Abolish the racist not helpless victims; they're a vital com­ Near East and Central Asia! \" shackled labor's power to support for the death penalty! ponent of the multiracial working class. Instead of mobilizing uniOl) power Democrats now offer to help imple­ On the docks, largel¥ immigrant port Armed with the militant traditions of their to defend their members and all the ment "security" on the docks and else­ truckers are already being harassed by homelands, iml1ligrant workers have been oppressed, the labor tops sell the Demo­ where. It is not the job of the workers to armed cops and federal agents. The Mar­ a key part of labor battles in this country, cratic Party as the "friend of labor." But enforce the laws, "security" or otherwise, itime Security Act-authored by a,Dem­ from the 1912 "Bread and Roses" strike the Democrats, like the Republicans, rep­ that will be used against them: cops and ocratic Party Senator from "open shop" in the Massachusetts textile mills to the resent the interests of the class enemy. security guards have no place in the union South Carolina-calls f'Or "background Justice for Janitors organizing drive in The only difference is that the Republi­ movement! checks" under which waterfront workers L.A. Together with black workers, they cans openly revel in attacking the work­ There must be a political struggle can be fired for any conviction in the past can help spark a working-class offensive ing people and oppressed; the Demo­ within the trade unions, the only signifi­ 10 years on any of 20 felony offenses, against racial oppression and capitalist crats lie and do the same thing. Black cant racially integrated institutions in including minor drug charges. This exploitation. ~ Democrats like Barbara Lee, with her segregation America, to break from the directly threatens the jobs of black and From the Chinese exclusion acts over a show of opposition-however superfi­ Democrats and build a class-struggle Latino longshoremen who have been on century ago to Mexican workers deported cial-to Bush's war powers, are position­ leadership which will champion the the receiving end of the racist cop harass- during the Great Depression and the ing themselves to contain and head off cause of black freedom and the defense internment of Japanese Americans during increasing discontent as the recession of immigrant rights: The working class World War II, assaults on the immigrant and racist repression bite. Democrat Bill needs its own party-one that fights for .~ •• " ..rti!!iiln Defen§e workforce have always gone hand in hand Clinton declared, "I feel your pain" while aworkers government. Those who labor ...... £onllnittee with stepped-up oppression of blacks he axed welfare and spearheaded an must rule! and the persecution of the most militant anti-immigrant crackdown. Here in the Mobilize Multiracial Union Power in workers. Don't forget-here in Califor- . Bay Area, "liberal" Democratic mayor a Mass Labor-Centered Protest! Defimd nia the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 Jerry Brown's gentrification plan for Immigrants, Blacks, Labor Targeted by led directly to the racist, anti-affirmative Oakland encouraged rampages through Anti-Terrorist Laws!. action Proposition 209 two years later. We demand: Full citizenship rightsfQrall immigrants! We must fight against depor­ tations, for unionizing the unorganized and for a shorter workweek with no loss in pay in order to spread th~ available Anti-Terrorist Laws Target Immigrants, work. Let our motto be class struggle Blacks, Labor-No to the USA-Patriot Act -joining forces against our common enemy, the capitalist ruling class! and Maritime Security Act! The labor bureaucracy's commitment to the capitalist system leads them to denounce Mexican truckers and our $.50 (32 pages) downtrodden working-class brothers and Thursday, January 31, 7 p.m. Order from/pay to: BAY AREA "sisters throughout Latin America and Stephens Room, M.L.K. Student Union Partisan Defense Committee, P.O. Box 99 Asia for "stealing American jobs." This Caonal Street Station, New York, NY 10013 For more information: (510) 839-0851 UC Berkeley is a convenient fraud which promotes 25 JANUARY 2002 9 . "peace" with Loyalist thugs such as Billy Ireland ... Hutchinson. Irish secretary of the trans­ port union ATGWU, Mick O'Reilly, re­ (continued from page 3) cruited the UVF's Hutchinson and David Ervine into the ATGWU. The wretched attacks recorded in 213 days to August Socialist Party has sponsored Hutchinson this year, including 75 bombings and 20 in public meetings and the SWP jumped gun attacks (An Phoblacht, 9 August on the bandwagon by taking part in a 2001). In the last week of October alone 1999 "debate" with him organised by the there were 12 bomb attacks against Cath­ Scottish Socialist Party. . olics in North Belfast. There have been a number of murders of Catholics, includ­ Not Orange Against Green, ing that of 19-year-old Ciaran Cummings, But Class Against Class! killed in a drive-by shooting in Antrim in July, and Qavin Brett, an 18-year-old Following capitalist counterrevolution Protestant killed by Loyalist gunmen who in the Soviet Union in 1991-92, petty­ mistook him for a Catholic. On 28 Octo­ bourgeois nationalist movements like ber Colin Foy was killed in Tyrone by a Sinn Fein and the PLO have had much memb~r of the British Army's Royal Irish Alan Lewis/Pholopress less room to manoeuvre and have increas­ Regiment. Belfast, August 2001: 15,000 UOA paramilitaries march in ominous display of ingly sought to make deals with imperi­ The Catholics are an oppressed minor­ anti-Catholic terror. alism. Sinn Fein played up illusions that ity living under permanent siege. The by involving U.S. imperialism and the plight of working-class Catholic families because we agree with Karl Marx that the guise of Blair and the Labour govern­ Dublin government they would secure a hit international headlines this summer British working Class cannot make a rev­ ment, as the agency to bring peace and better deal from British imperialism for as schoolgirls in Ardoyne, North Belfast olution against their "own" capitalist rul­ equality to the North. In the last British the Catholics. This overlooks the factthat trying to walk to Holy Cross school with ers if they accept imperialist oppression election, . the Socialist Alliance-which U.S. imperialism is the most powerful their parents were shown daily on televi­ in Ireland. It is in the direct interests of at the time consisted of the Socialist enemy of the workers and oppressed of sion confronting a Loyalist mob howling the working class to oppose repressive Workers Party (SWP.), Socialist Party, the world, as can be seen in the bombing vile anti-Catholic and anti-woman slurs measures in Northern Ireland, which are Workers Power and others-supported of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, or the dirty and throwing pipebombs, bags of .excre­ often subsequently imposed on workers the re-election of Labour and removed the colonial wars against Korea and Vietnam; ment and balloons filled with urine. The and minorities in Britain. After II Sep­ call for troops out of Northern Ireland the bedrock of the system of exploita­ British Army and RUC-now re-named tember, Jack Straw pledged Britain would from their manifesto before launching it tion of American workers rests on racist the Police Service of Northern ,Ireland see "security of a kind people in North­ to the bourgeois press. We said, "No vote oppression of black people. The impe­ (PSNI)-lined the streets and tried to look ern Ireland have had to live with for to Labour, imperialist butchers" and "No rialist "peace" deal was brokered under as if they were making an honest effort to decades." Sure enough; immigrants sus­ vote to Socialist Alliance, lackeys of Democratic president Clinton, who pre­ "keep the peace." On the day of their pected of "terrorism" are being rounded Labour." ferred to pass off imperialist marauding name change, the PSNI escorted leaders up and interned without trial. The SWP is silent about the British as "human rights" imperialism, some­ of the Orange Order down the Catholic Withdrawal of the British Army does Army, but gushing about the "tremen­ thing Bush & Co. don't bother with. Brit­ Garvaghy Road. Catholics know they not in itself automatically ensure advance dous hopes for peace in Northern Ireland ish imperialism is ajunior partner of U.S. have as much to fear from the police and in a revolutionary direction, but it is the following the IRA's announcement that it imperialism-the City of London has army as they do from the Loyalist death necessary starting point for a proletarian will destroy its weapons." They cravenly close ties with Wall Street and British squads; indeed IRA decommissioning revolutionary perspective. We seek to claim Labour's "peace" process provides imperialism is also the foremost military leaves sections of the Catholic p0pulation break workers from illusions in Labour, "space" for united struggle of the work­ ally of U.S. imperialism in Europe. The feeling defenceless against these forces. wnich has loyally served racist, chauvin­ ing class. Socialist Worker (3 November Irish capitalist government is certainly no The scenes at Holy Cross school are a ist British imperialism and the monarchy. 2001) says: better. It supported the U.S. and Britain's microcosm of Northern Ireland which The Spartacist League/Britain and Dub­ "That process is about reaching an military adventures, including offering show the bitter reality of Labour's impe­ lin Spartacist Group, sections of the Inter­ accommodation between politicians facilities for NATO warplanes at Shannon representing Catholic and Protestant rialist "peace" deal. The fact that Catho­ national Communist League, fight to 'communities.' airport, and is viciously repressive of lic parents refused to meekly accept their build revolutionary internationalist work­ "It can reproduce the sectarian division workers, women, Travellers and Republi­ status as second-class citizens brought ers parties to put an end to capitalist rule that is built into the Northern Ireland cans at home. out blatant anti-Irish prejUdice from Brit­ and to establish a workers republic in state. But it does provide a space for Petty-bourgeois nationalism is a politi­ ish journalists who would often report Ireland as part of a federation of workers working class people, Catholic and Prot­ cal dead end which cannot further the estant, to fight for their interests and with amazement that the situation is like republics in the British Isles. Our frame­ against sectarianism." interests of the Catholic minority. It is the segregated American South in the work is internationalist and is based premised on the world being divided into This is almost exactly what the SWP said good and bad peoples. Whether through 1950s prior to the civil rights struggles; on the necessity to link the struggles of when they supported British troops being in the. next breath they would ask Catho­ the working class of Ireland, North and armed struggle ("the Armalite") or the sent to Northern Ireland in 1969 (by a parliamentary road ("the ballot box") the lic parents why they don't use a back South, with those of the workers in Eng­ Labour government, of course), which perspective of the Irish nationalists is to entrance to the school! The Irish bour­ land, Scotland and Wales. they claimed would provide a "breathing pressure imperialism. geois press, which has the same con­ In Northern Ireland divisions between space" for the Catholics. They wrote: tempt for working-class Catholics in the Catholics and Protestants have deepened, "The breathing space provided by the Actions such as the Omagh bombing North as for those in the South, echoed which means the prospect of united strug­ presence of British troops is short but by the "Real IRA," which killed and Loyalist lies that the exercise was just a gle by Protestant and Catholic workers vital. Those who call for the immediate maimed both Protestant and Catholic publicity stunt for Sinn Fein (SF). But, for their common class interests 'appears withdrawal of the troops before the men civilians in a shopping area, are hideous behind the barricades can defend them­ crimes from the standpoint of the working with or without decommissioning, Sinn remote. Although Protestant workers are selves are inviting a pogrom which will Fein manifestly cannot offer a way for­ only marginally better off than their Cath­ hit first and hardest at socialists." class and in no way a blow against impe­ ward to the beleaguered Catholics. olic counterparts, the view is pervasive -Socialist Worker, , rialism. Marxists oppose the tactic. of Sinn Fein has been organising protests' that improvements in the position of one 11 September 1969 individual terror because it is antithetical against particular military installations community will necessarily be at the Less than three years later "their" British to the necessary task of mobilising the and complaining that the imperialists expense of the other. This indeed is true, Army shot down 14 defenceless Catho­ working class against the imperialist and have not lived up to the "'programm~ for unless such struggles challenge the lics in cold blood in Derry on Bloody capitalist oppressors. Rather it expresses demilitarisation' that was promised in the framework of capitalist rule. A proletarian Sunday. the aims of its practitioners to be the lead­ Good Friday Agreement" (An Phoblacht, revolutionary perspective is the only way The sectarian Orange statelet was cre­ ers of "their" people. When Irish nation­ 1 November 2001). But while the British forward. There can be no just solution to ated by British imperialism's partition of alist groups strike a blow against the may agree to scale down the army pres­ the communal conflict in Northern Ire­ Ireland as a police state based on subju­ forces of British imperialism, the RUC ence to cut their costs, the Good Friday land short of proletarian rule in all of Ire­ gation of the Catholic minority. Its back­ or Loyalist fascistic killers, we defend Agreement is premised on troops remain­ land and in Britain. bone is the RUC and, since 1969, the the perpetrators of such acts against state ing in Northern Ireland. army; both work in tand~m with the Loy­ retribution. But we have a fundamen­ We fight for the immediate uncondi­ Labourite "Socialists" alist paramilitary killers. Recent history tally different attitude to indiscriminate tional withdrawal of British troops, not Push Imperialist "Peace" is littered with scandals about collusion terror directed against civilians. From a merely because no good can come of the The Labour-loyal fake left have shame­ between Loyalist murderers and the proletarian standpoint, b_ombings such British military presence there, but also lessly touted British imperialism, in the RUCIPSNI and British Army, and there's as Omagh or the bombings of British no "breathing space" for anyone who shopping centres and pubs are criminal tries to expose this to the outside world. acts which serve only to deepen hatred Thus on 28 September, Martin O'Hagan, between Protestant and Catholic, English !rO~RSIfAM!!~I!.1i a journalist with the Dublin-based Sun­ and Irish workers. US/British/UN/NATO troops day World, who researched the collusion The attack on the World Trade Center, out of Afghanistan and between the British Army, the RUC, lead­ an atrocity designed to kill as many civil­ Central Asia now! ing Unionist politicians and l.oyalist ians as possible, has served to weld death squads, was murdered by the LVF American workers to the ruling class just [Loyalist Volunteer Force]. Rosemary as Irish nationalist atrocities against Prot­ Marxist newspaper of the Nelson, a prominent Catholic lawyer who estants push Protestant workers towards Spartacist League/Britain reported to the UN that she received death Loyalist reactionaries. Viewed from the threats from the RUC, was also murdered interests of the working class, nationalist £3/1 year i~ 1999; ten years earlier Pat Finucane, terror ranges from criminal-such as International rate: £7 $10-Airmail another well-known Catholic lawyer, was Omagh-to merely stupid. Even when Europe outside Britain and Ireland: £4 also murdered 'by Loyalists in collusion the IRA hits a military target these acts with the state. The current Labour gov­ are car~ied out as part of a programme ernment is withholding documents on the which writes off the Protestant-and Order from/make checks payable to: 1974 bombings in Dublin and Monaghan Catholic-working class _and also the Spartacist Publications which killed 33 people and British state British proletariat, which has an impor­ PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU, England _ involvement is widely suspected. tant Irish component. The Labourite left even advocate In 1993, on the eve of the "peace"

10 WORKERS VANGUARD negotiations, the mainly Protestant work­ Protestants behind the Loyalist bigots, as partners in coalition governments, hammered out a Marxist perspective on force at Short Brothers in Belfast walked precluding a polarisation along class lines most notoriously in 1994 by refusing to the national question. Connolly fought off the job in protest against the murder and instead laying the basis for a commu­ support striking TEAM Aer Lingus work­ trenchantly against the Labourite trade­ of a Catholic co-worker by Loyalist para­ nal blood-bath and forced population ers at Dublin airport. The Irish Labour union bureaucracy in Britain and in Ire­ militaries; very shortly afterwards the transfers. Party, like its British namesake, is a !:,>our­ land; as a true labour lieutenant of British IRA placed a bomb in Belfast's Shankill· The fact that the bourgeois state in the geois workers party-having a working­ imperialism, Labour's Arthur Henders~m Road, which killed nine working-class South is a Catholic clericalist state is grist class base but a bourgeois programme. led the applause in the House of Com­ Protestant shoppers. This led to anti­ to the mill of the Loyalist bigots. The They are loyal servants of the Irish capi­ mons when the announcement was made Catholic demonstrations by Protestant struggle for separation of church and state talist class. that Connolly had been executed by a workers in Belfast. and for free abortion on demand is key Sinn Fein can be scathing in their press British firing squaQ. A revolutionary party would struggle not only for social progress in the South about Labour's rotten record. One of their The kind of consciousness Connolly for an integrated, programmatically based but as a way to undermine communalism articles on Labour concludes: "Sinn Fein had instilled among workers was once workers militia to defend both Catho­ in the North. Sinn Fein shares the clerical­ is well on its way to overtaking the again in evidence among the Belfast lics and Protestants against sectarian nationalist outlook of [Southern bour­ Labour Party, to cementing its position as workers in the 1919 engineering strike, attacks. As we said in our "Theses on geois party] Fianna Fail. Sinn Fein no the voice of the Irish left, but in doing so the most significant class battle to take Ireland" this must be based on the longer flatly opposes abortion rights, but the party must be careful that it does not place during the independence struggle. demand for the immediate withdrawal of only concedes that it should be legally lose sight of one of Connolly's most fun­ Charles McKay, a socialist of Catholic the British Army and our Marxist analy­ available in extreme circumstances, spe­ damental truths. 'The cause of labour is background, led a strike of mainly Prot­ sis of terrorism: cifically: "Where a woman's mental and the cause of-Ireland, the cause of Ireland estant workers that shut all heavy indus­ "Such militias will need a broad and physical welle being or life is at risk or in is the cause of labour'" (An Phoblacht, 30 try and most of the city. It was part of strong programmatic basis if they are not grave danger" (Irish Times on the Web, 6 August 2001). But the idea that Sinn Fein a wave of tumultuous strikes in engi­ to be derailed or coopted. They cannot December 2001). The struggle for abor­ could become the "voice of the Irish left" neering centres, including Glasgow. The develop just out of trade unionism but fundamentally require the existence of a tion rights strikes at backward Protestant is absurd-they are a petty-bourgeois army was deployed in Belfast (and later strong and authoritative revolutionary fundamentalists as well. Significantly, capitalist party. in Glasgow) but the strike lost because it cadre. Each militia unit would need at although SF's Bairbre de Brun is health It is disingenuous in the extreme for was betrayed by the Labour bureaucrats least one member of each community minister in the Stormont Assembly, SF Sinn Fein to claim the tradition of James in Britain and in Ireland. The defeat of and the presence and strong influence of trained revolutionary cadre. Conse­ was conspicuously absent from a crucial Connolly. Connolly initiated and led the the Belfast strike led to massive purges quently, the demand for an anti-sectarian of Catholics and trade-union militants workers militia is closely linked to the from the shipyards (including Protestant growth of a Leninist party based on a shop stewards), which paved the way for developed revolutionary program." partition. Lord French, the British over­ -Spartacist No. 24, Autumn 1977 lord in Ireland, released Sinn Fein lead­ We also explained there that: ers such as Arthur Griffith from prison in "Leninism and nationalism are funda­ Dublin in recognition of Sinn Fein oppo­ mentally couriterposed political view­ sition to working-class struggle. He told points. Thus, while revolutionists strug­ gle against all forms of national . the Cabinet: oppression, they are also opposed to all "I did not however, consider that the forms of nationalist ideology. It. is a time was ripe for an actual move in the revision of Leninism to claim that the direction of an immediate release of pris­ 'nationalism of the oppressed' is· pro­ oners until the strikes in the North gressive and can be supported by com­ occurred and a very dangerous crisis was munist internationalists. In one of his at hand which might plunge the whole major works on the national question country in disaster." Lenin stressed: 'Marxism cannot be rec­ . -quoted in C. Kostick, onciled with nationalism, be it even of Revolution in Ireland (1996) the "most just," "purest," most refined Today with the growing economic and civilised brand. In place of all forms of nationalism Marxism advances inter­ Dublin Spartacist Group recession throughout Britain and Ireland, nationalism' ("Critical Remarks on the Dublin Spartacist Group protests Irish government's support to bombing of the capitalists will seek to increasingly National Question," Collected Works, Afghanistan by U.S./British imperialists. pit one section of the working class Vol. 20)." against another. This could lead to in­ debate there on legalising abortion in 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin,hoping it creased communalism in Northern Ire­ Workers Revolution Both Sides Northern Ireland which was opposed by would ignite workers' struggles against land or, as happened during the struggles of the Border and Both Sides Ian Paisley's [ultra-chauvinist Loyalist] capitalist rule in Europe amid the carnage of unemployed workers in Belfast in the of the Irish Sea!· Democratic Unionist Party, David Trim­ of World War I. This did come about, with 1930s, it could lead to united struggles of Loyalist bigot Ian Paisley howls that ble's UUP, the Allrance Party and the the Russian October Revolution of 1917, Protestant and Catholic workers. When the Good Friday Agreement is the slip­ [Catholic] Social Democratic Labour but by that time Connolly had been exe­ instances of integrated working-class pery slope to being ruled by Dublin. Party. cuted. Nonetheles~ the Rising was the struggle do arise, intervention bya com­ Partition meant that Catholics in the The DSG has actively intervened in catalyst for the end of British colonial munist vanguard will make a decisive dif­ North constituted an oppressed minority support of struggles of the combative rule in Ireland. Connolly was a revolu­ ference to the outcome. (although they are over 40 per cent of the Irish working class, fighting for abortion tionary socialist and an internationalist We seek to awaken the working class population) but an overwhelming major­ rights and counterposing our programme who, together with Jim Larkin, led signif­ of England, Scotland and Wales to social­ ity in the South. In the North, we oppose to that of the Labourite bureaucrats. We icant class battles of the Irish working ist consciousness and mobilise them all discrimination against the Catho­ said in a leaflet for the 1999 Irish nurses class in Dublin, and in Belfast they made around opposition to the monarchy, lic minority. We also recognise that the strike: huge strides to unite Catholic and Protes­ House of Lords and all other archaic Protestants are a distinct community, "It is this anti-woman Church which tant workers. Connolly's success in over­ institutions of British bourgeois rule largely defined in opposition to the Irish runs the hospitals. We call for: complete coming sectarian bigotry was achieved including the "Mother of all Parliaments." separation of church and state! We need because as a socialist he fought against We fight for an Irish workers republic, Catholic nation. As Leninists we uphold free, quality healthcare for all. For free the right of self-determination for all abortion aird free contraception on the state,· the Orange Order and, to part of a voluntary federation of workers nations, which means. the right to set demand! For free 24-hour childcare! To the best of his ability, against Catho­ republics in the British Isles. Our purpose up an independent state, but where -peo­ achieve these basic needs of women and lic nationalism. Like most socialists of is to forge revolutionary international­ ples are geographically interpenetrated the working class requires a revolution­ his time outside Russia, he was not ist parties, sections of a reforged Fourth ary struggle against the entire capital­ acquainted with Leninism, which alone "self-determination" for 'one can only be ist system-and its labour lieutenants International, in Britain and Ireland .• achieved by denying it to the other. Under within the working class." capitalism .this leads to intercommunal -reprinted in Workers Hammer slaughter. We oppose the perspective of a No. 171, Winter 1999/2000 capitalist "united Ireland" proffered by With elec'tions pending in the South, Sinn Fein nationalists, a prospect which Sinn Fein is poised to gain support at the is used to heighten genuine fears among expense of Fianna Fail, and also tryir.g Protestants of a reversal of the terms of to re-brand itself as a "left" alternative to oppression. Fear of being incorporated Labour. Labour is rightly hated by work­ Web site: www.icl-fi.org • E-mail address:[email protected] into the clericalist state serves to compact ers for having dished out capitalist attacks National Office Los Angeles Oakland Box 1377 GPO, Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 New York, NY 10116 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 (212) 732-7860 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 Public Office: . Public Office: Boston Sat. 2-5 p.m. Sat. 1-5 p.m. Box 390840, Central Sta. 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor Cambridge, MA 02139 Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League, (617) 666-9453 New York San Francisco Chicago Box 3381, Church St. Sta. Box 77494 o $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal Box 6441, Main PO New York, NY 10008 San Francisco, CA 94107 (in.cludes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle) Chicago, IL 60680 (212) 267-1025 (415) 395-9520 international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamail (312) 563-0441 Public Office: Public Office: o $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist) Public Office: Tues. 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tues. 6-8 p.m. and Sat. 1-5 p.m. 564 Market Street $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) . Sat. 2-5 p.m. o 299 Broadway, Suite 318 Suite 718 Name ______222 S. Morgan (Buzzer 23)

Address ______~------Apt. # ______City ______State ______Zip ______Toronto Vancouver Phone ( ______) ______E-mail ______~ Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (416) 593-4138 (604) 687-0353

25· JANUARY 2002 11 WI/lNE/lS""'".,

Mobilize Multiracial Union Power in a Mass Labor-Centered Protest! '­ ::> '"CD -i ::r CD ii> en CD

own it nti· mmigrant

We reprint below the demonstration thers and framed hundreds more, are call issued on January 20 by the Bay once more officially sanctioned. "Na­ Area Labor Black League for Social tional security" is also the pretext for a Defense and the Partisan Defense frontal assault on the longshore unions, Committee. ite untl a historic bastion of labor power, under We call on the powerful multiracial the Port, Maritime and Rail Security unions in the Bay Area to mobilize Act. Down with the anti-immigrant against the government's war on Amer­ witchhunt! No to the USA-Patriot Act ica's integrated working class, on black and Maritime Security Act! people and on immigrants.- Every The "war on terrorism" is aimed bombing raid and· missile attack on straight at the. heart of the working Afghanistan came together with new class. Hundreds of New Jersey teachers deadly assaults on the democratic rights striking for a decent contract were of all of us. Bush and Attorney General handcuffed and jailed, while their Ashcroft-that apologist for the Con­ union spokesman was denounced as federate slavocracy-have taken first "the representative of the Taliban." aim at people of Near Eastern descent The State Attorney of South Car­ who were ro.unded up and thrown injail olina compared International Long-' where hundreds still remain. They've defend our rights and jobs, and the Under the USA-Patriot Act, rammed shoremen's Association members in created the spectre of an "enemy rights and jobs of our immigrant broth­ through with bipartisan support in the Charleston, who had fought to defend within" in order to strengthen the pow­ ers and sisters. A united demonstra­ wake of the criminal attack on the their union against cops and scabs, ers of their own consummately violent. tion of the power of our class, together World Trade Center, non-citizens can to the World Trade Center terrorists. state. But what America's racist rulers with youth, black and immigrant organ­ be deported without a hearing while Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton can get away witb will be determined izations, can spike the bosses' racist operations like the FBI's COINTEL­ and Mark Clark, murdered by Chicago by class struggle. We must fight now to "national unity" campaign. PRO, which murdered 38 Black Pan- continued on page 9

"We endorse and will help build a united front labor/black demonstration with the following demands: 'Anti-Terrorist Laws Target Immigrants, Blacks, Labor-No to the USA-Patriot Act and the Maritime Security Act!' and 'Down With the Anti-Immigrant Witchhunt!'."

Partial list of endorsers as of January 20, 2002: John Holmes, Delegate, Representative Assembly, Kiilu Nyasha, Producer/Programmer, "Connecting Typographical Sector, Northern California Media the Gots" KPOO 89.5 FM,* San Francisco, CA AFSCME Local 444, Oakland, CA Workers Union #39521 * Partisan Defense Committee Willie Lee Bell, retired Recording Secretary, IAM&AW International Longshore and Warehouse Union German Reyes, Shop Steward, SEIU Local 87,* Local 739 and 1584,* Oakland, CA Local 10, San Francisco, CA . San Francisco, CA CARECEN, Central American Resource Center, Labor Black League for Social Defense, Oakland, CA Spartacist League/U.S. San Francisco, CA Brian McWilliams, SFLC delegate, International Spartacus Youth Club, San Francisco Bay Area Longshore and Warehouse Union, * Leroy Collier, President, National Association of San Francisco, CA *Organizational affiliation for identification purposes only. Letter Carriers, Branch 2200,* Pasadena, CA We want to make it vel}' clear that these endorsers do not Charles Minster, Steward and SFLC delegate, - necessarily agree in any particular with the call by th~ Michael Crahan, President, LlUNA Local 1141, * National Park and Public Employees, LlUNA Local Partisan Defense Committee. and Labor Black League for San Francisco, CA. 1141, * San Francisco, CA Social Defense printed above.

12 25 JANUARY 2002