The Internationalist No. 38 October-November 2014 50¢ Drive U.S. / NATO Imperialists Out of the Middle East! ForFor WorkersWorkers ActionAction toto DefeatDefeat BarackBarack Obama’sObama’s Iraq/SyriaIraq/Syria WarWar OCTOBER 25 – On the eve of the anniver- Obama let loose a torrent of cruise missiles sary of the 11 September 2001 attack on the in Syria on September 23, the U.S. military World Trade Center and Pentagon, Barack said that it had carried out at least 194 air Obama declared a new U.S. war, this time strikes in Iraq. But this didn’t put a dent in in Iraq (again) and Syria. The recipient of Sunni Islamist control of more than a quarter the Nobel Peace Prize announced his inten- of the country. tion to bomb the Middle Eastern countries Obama says the bombing (now dubbed at will in order to “degrade and ultimately “Operation Inherent Resolve”) is being destroy” the Sunni Islamist “holy warriors” carried out to stop massacres and ethnic calling themselves the Islamic State (I.S.). cleansing, the same claim made by Bill After 13 years of war and occupation, the Clinton for his two wars on Yugoslavia in imperialist superpower is still bogged down 1995 and 1998-99. This is standard proce- in Afghanistan. And having formally exited dure when Democrats launch wars. As air

Iraq in 2011, eight years after invading, the strikes began in August, Washington billed Internationalist photo Pentagon has now sent U.S. troops back them as a rescue mission against the threat while declaring Syria a free-fire zone. So of imminent genocide by the I.S. of the much for the hopes of the millions who Yazidi religious minority of Kurds trapped voted for Obama as an “antiwar” candidate. on Sinjar Mountain in Iraq. But when U.S. “Back to Iraq with Barack” isn’t exactly special forces arrived on the mountain, they what they had in mind. declared no rescue mission was needed The new U.S. war actually began a and that was the end of that. More recently, month earlier, when Washington launched after a long siege, I.S. attackers had already air strikes against I.S. forces in northern Iraq entered the largely Kurdish city of Kobanê as they bore down on Erbil, capital of the on the Syria-Turkey border threatening a autonomous Kurdish region, described in slaughter before the U.S. started dropping the press as “home to a United States Con- bombs. A “humanitarian” war? No way. sulate and thousands of Americans” (New Last year, the U.S. and British popula- York Times, 9 August). “Thousands”? Those tion didn’t go for bombing Syria over the would be the huge numbers of “contractors” supposed use of chemical weapons on its (mercenaries), “advisers,” “support person- own people by the regime of Bashar Assad nel” and oil company employees who stayed (a lie the warmongers keep repeating despite Barbarism? Beheadings? U.S. imperialists do it with drones. Below: Interna­ continued on page 17 on after U.S. troops departed. By the time tionalist Group at August 9 demonstration protesting Israeli war on Gaza. Huge Protests Sweep Mexico Over Massacre of Students For a National Strike Against the Government of Murder!

OCTOBER 12 – Over the last week there has states of Mexico, from Tijuana in the been a deluge of outrage throughout Mexico north to Cancún in the south, where there and worldwide at the police murder of six are seldom demonstrations. In the Guer-

Revolución Permanente people, including three students of the Ayo- rero state capital of Chilpancingo, up to tzinapa rural teachers college, and the disap- 50,000 marched in a giant procession that pearance (and possible execution) of another extended for five kilometers, headed up 43 in Iguala, Guerrero. The grisly news of the by relatives, neighbors and students from discovery on October 4 of human remains of Ayotzinapa. Signs and banners demanded 28 bodies in mass graves near Iguala set off the ouster of the state governor and the an explosion of fury against the “gobierno jailing of the fugitive mayor of Iguala, asesino” (murderous government). Parents both of the PRD (Party of the Democratic of the abducted students called for a national Revolution). Workers of the Autonomous mobilization for Wednesday, October 8 to University of Guerrero carried the names demand that their children “were taken from of a dozen student activists who were us alive, and we want them back alive!” The “disappeared” in 1976. “For a National Strike Against the Government of Murder!” The Grupo response was massive. Throughout the state of Guerrero, Internacionalista in October 22 Mexico City march denouncing the massacre According to media reports, there schools were shut down by a strike of the of students from Ayotzinapa teachers college in state of Guerrero. were protests in at least 63 cities in 27 continued on page 2 AFP Alejandrino González/AP

Outrage sweeps Mexico over massacre in Iguala. Militant teachers of the CETEG charge police lines (above left) outside offices of Guerrero state government in Chilpancingo, which were later torched (above right), October 13. In Mexico City, 25,000 protesters marched to the Zócalo on October 8 (below). As in 2006 when working people of Mexico Protests... Oaxaca rose up, this all points to the need Héctor Téllez/Milenio continued from page 1 for a national strike against the murderous combative teachers unionists of the CETEG, government. part of the National Coordinating Committee The Grupo Internacionalista put out of Education Workers (CNTE). Hundreds of a leaflet proclaiming, “The Massacre in students, teachers and supporters marched in Iguala Demands Workers Mobilization the port of Acapulco, and 3,000 in Tlapa in and Revolution!” Some 1,000 copies were the Montaña region. In the Costa Chica area distributed in Mexico City, 500 in Oaxaca, where there had been earlier protests, parents 300 in Guadalajara, and in Tijuana a protest of the kidnapped students reported receiving called by the GI drew around 50 people. phone threats not to march. In the Federal Signs and banners called for a national District, some 25,000 marched, converging education strike, for workers self-defense on the Zócalo, the huge Constitution Plaza and declared that “Socialist Revolution opposite the Presidential Palace in the center Will Avenge the Students of Ayotzinapa.” of Mexico City. In Mexico City, a spokesman of the Grupo It was in Oaxaca that the mobilization Internacionalista was the final speaker in the was strongest. Noticias (9 October) reported Zócalo, reporting on the solidarity demon- staying to the end two hours later. Dozens asesino!”(Mexico, government of murder). that Section 22 of the CNTE teachers “para- stration in New York, and leading the crowd of Mexican immigrants came out, including Another chant that was enthusiastically lyzed the state.” This was no exaggeration. in chanting, “Luchar, vencer, obreros al some from Guerrero who had been in touch picked up was “PRI, PAN, PRD, bloody In addition to shutting down schools and poder!” (Struggle, win, workers to power). with relatives of the Ayotzinapa students. parties of the bourgeoisie.” Today the gov- classes for 1.3 million students statewide, In NYC, the Internationalist Group NY Zapatistas and YoSoy132 New York had ernment is trying to pin the blame for the the teachers blocked access to the Oaxaca together with the Internationalist Clubs at a puppet of death with a skull shrouded in slaughter in Iguala on drug traffickers. Yet airport, blocked shopping centers, blocked the City University of New York and Class black and a sign identifying it as the “nar- while the PRD is overseeing a government the Oaxaca-Mexico superhighway, blocked Struggle Education Workers organized cogovernment.” A number of left groups of death in Guerrero, President Enrique Peña the bridge to Veracruz, shut down a bottling a boisterous picket outside the Mexican participated including the Revolutionary Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party plant in Tuxtepec, blocked the state attorney consulate denouncing the Iguala massacre Student Coordinating Committee, Free- (PRI) and his predecessor Felipe Calderón of general’s offices and a fuel depot of the state in solidarity with the October 8 protest in dom Socialist Party (with a sign calling for the rightist National Action Party (PAN) have oil company Petroleos Mexicanos, and block- Mexico. Three days earlier, a Sunday, Oc- freedom for Nestora Salgado), International carried out a “war against drugs” and a “war aded the Pemex refinery in the Salina Cruz. tober 5 emergency protest initiated by the Socialist Organization, Spartacist League against terror” that has turned Mexico into IG drew several dozen angry activists on a and Batay Ouvriye Support Network, all of a giant killing field and mass grave, killing Also On Our Website few hours notice after the discovery of the which addressed the crowd. some 100,000 people since 2006. • Mexican Powder Keg: mass graves. Demonstrators chanted “Nor- Demonstrators chanted angri- The rally at the end had 16 speakers malistas mexicanos, estamos con ustedes” ly at the consulate, “¡México, gobierno including members of New York educa- Turn the Teachers’ Walk­ (Mexican teachers college students, we are out Into a National Strike with you), “From Ayotzinapa to Ferguson,

Against the Reforms one fight” and “Mexican militarization, Diario Humberto Arellano/El • Lessons of the On-Again, made in U.S.A.” Photos of the NYC protest Off-Again BART Strike were front-page news in Guerrero. The October 8 picket at the consulate • Academic BS Against a was loud, spirited and considerably larger, Minimum Wage Hike growing to more than 100 participants, most

Visit the League for the Fourth International/ Internationalist Group on the Internet http://www.internationalist.org The Internationalist A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism for the Reforging of the Fourth International Publication of the Internationalist Group, section of the League for the Fourth International EDITORIAL BOARD: Jan Norden (editor), Abram Negrete, Mark Lazarus, Marjorie Salzburg The Internationalist (ISSN 1091-2843) is published bimonthly, skipping July-August, by Mundial Publications, P.O. Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. Telephone: (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 E-mail: [email protected] Subscriptions: US$10 for five issues. October 8 demonstration outside Mexican Consulate in New York City. Over No. 38 1162-M October-November 2014 100 participated. At the end, the names of the murdered and disappeared students were read off and after each one the crowd responded, “¡presente!” 2 The Internationalist Once Again: Bloodbath, “Disappeared” Victims ... and Impunity Mexico: Guerrero Massacre Calls for Mobilization and Workers Revolution

of the bosses is urgently necessary, crippling PRI, PAN, PRD: key sectors of the economy and pointing Murderous Parties toward socialist revolution. of the Bourgeoisie Reuters Why? The murder of six people in the night Forge a Workers Party and early morning hours of September 26-27 That Fights For was only the prelude to the carnage. There are pictures of the missing students being Socialist Revolution! transported in vehicles of the municipal police to the outskirts of the city. The official In the early afternoon of Saturday, government version of Guerrero governor October 4, news dispatches from Guerrero Ángel Aguirre Rivero (PRD – the suppos- began reporting the discovery of several edly “progressive” bourgeois Party of the mass graves on the outskirts of Iguala. As Democratic Revolution), is that a kingpin the hours passed, they reported finding of the drug cartel Guerreros Unidos (United first 9, then 20 and finally 28 charred and Warriors), a certain “Chucky,” ordered the dismembered bodies in six pits. Many signs chief of police to apprehend Iguala students indicate that they may be some of the 43 to deliver them to his henchmen, who then students arrested by municipal police a week executed them. But whatever the role of the earlier. If it is confirmed that the missing drug traffickers in the kidnapping and disap- Ayotzinapa normalistas were executed, it pearance of the teachers college students, would be the worst slaughter of students it should be underlined that the bourgeois in Mexico since the fateful 2 October 1968 state apparatus is directly responsible for Students from the teachers college of Ayotzinapa blocked a caravan of troops [when hundreds were killed by army and what happened. on highway to Acapulco on October 5, finally forcing it to leave. police in the Tlatelolco Massacre]. Why did this heinous crime occur? The mass murder in Iguala is already stan and the war in Iraq and Syria). Against strikes called for today, October 8. There Initial versions accused the students of hav- news around the world. Calls for a “fair this official hypocrisy, relatives of the dead will also be picketing internationally at ing “stolen” some buses to take them home, investigation” come from human rights and missing Ayotzinapa students along with Mexican consulates, one of them in New although it had been negotiated with the organizations, the United Nations and even militant teachers of the National Coordi- York where our comrades of the Interna- drivers. Then it was claimed that the mayor the United States government (which kills nating Committee of Education Workers tionalist Group/U.S. initiated an emergency of Iguala, José Luis Abarca Velázquez (also dozens daily in its occupation of Afghani- (CNTE) have marches and nationwide protest on Sunday. of the PRD), who has been “untraceable” In these mobilizations it is critical to hold since last week, considered it an unpardon- the Mexican government and its imperialist able offense that the students had been col- tion unions, Professional Staff Congress a question of one party, even though we have masters responsible for the crime of Iguala. lecting contributions in Iguala on the day his (CUNY) and United Federation of Teachers, insisted that the PRI, PAN and PRD are all The smokescreen about drug traffickers is wife offered a “gala” event after reading her as well as opposition groups (Movement of capitalist parties with their hands dripping in only an attempt to wash the blood-soaked report as head of the local DIF (the govern- Rank and File Educators and Class Struggle blood. All this is the product of a system, not hands of the government, whereas it is the ment system for Integral Development of Education Workers), who emphasized that of ‘neo-liberalism’ but of capitalism; and not capitalist state that should be on trial. There the Family). With his connections to drug behind the killings in Iguala is an interna- of ‘globalization’ but of imperialism. This have been up to 100,000 killed and many trafficking and as a financier for Governor tional offensive against public education militarization, whose fruits we are seeing in others missing in the “war on drugs” under Aguirre, the fugitive mayor thought him- that students, educators and parents are Iguala, is ‘made in U.S.A.,’ it’s made in Wall the government of Felipe Calderón (PAN – self untouchable: last year he reportedly fighting in the U.S. as well. An immigrant Street, it’s made in Washington. the rightist National Action Party) and now killed with his own hands three leaders of worker supporter of the IG recalled how a “Because here the Republican and Enrique Peña Nieto (PRI – the long-ruling the peasant organization Emiliano Zapata few days ago, we saw police in Brooklyn Democratic parties consider Mexico and Institutional Revolutionary Party), on orders People’s Union, with total impunity. Even throw a pregnant woman on the ground in the rest of Latin America to be their back from the U.S. So long as capitalism persists, today, there are still no charges against the order to intimidate people: yard. Secretary of State John Kerry said it there will be bloodbaths, “disappearances” mayor for the massacre of September 26-27, “Back in the time of the kings, they used explicitly. But we are all in the same house. and impunity. Thus a class mobilization of according to the federal attorney general’s to make an example of those who fought back There are 15 million undocumented workers working people against the bloodthirsty state office (the PGR). against the state by tearing them limb from in this country, and we demand full citizen- limb. In Mexico we are seeing the same thing ship rights for everyone here.” today. They skinned one student alive to be an The IG speaker ended by saying “we AP example so that we don’t rise up in struggle. are fighting today, here, in Mexico and ev- And that struggle is against the same attacks erywhere to form revolutionary parties on as we have here on women, on black people. the program of workers revolution around “We are the ones who produce all the the world.” Citing Leon Trotsky’s program profits of those parasites, everything you see of permanent revolution, that “in this impe- here was built by us, the workers. We make rialist epoch it is impossible to achieve even the city move, and we can make it stop. We democratic rights without the working class saw that a few years ago in the strike in taking power,” he concluded: the MTA [public transit]. We need to move “Mexico has had three ‘democratic’ these armies of proletarians to defeat this revolutions yet the peasants, the indigenous murderous and corrupt bourgeoisie. Long peoples, the black people in Guerrero con- live the socialist revolution.¡Luchar, vencer, tinued to be oppressed as are all the working obreros al poder! people. The next revolution in Mexico will A spokesman for the Internationalist not be a peasant revolution, it will not be a Group stressed that it was not enough to call new edition of zapatismo, it will be a work- for the ouster of a mayor, a governor or even ers revolution, or it will not be.” Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, as The rally ended with a chant of “Asian, many in the protests have demanded: Latin, Black and white, workers of the Mexican president Peña Nieto sent in National Gendarmerie (rear), a new unit “It is not a question of one ruler. It is not world unite!” ■ of the National Police, to patrol Iguala together with army troops (foreground). October-November 2014 3 However, the responsibility does not governments of the PRD made lie solely with the murderous PRD mayor. up of former PRI pols, class col- The PRD governor began his term with the laboration has undermined the murder by the state (and federal) police of rebelliousness of Guerrero. As two students from the Ayotzinapa teachers in Salvador Allende’s Chile, “the college on the the Autopista del Sol (the people united” is a slogan for superhighway to Acapulco). He only had to defeat. Our call is to Fight, Win, apologize some time later. The same Aguirre Workers to Power! Rivero was head of the state PRI organi- Today, it is evident that call- zation in Guerrero in 1995 when the PRI ing for “clean” investigations and government of Ruben Figuera Jr. massacred demanding the resignation of a 17 peasants in Aguas Blancas. There were mayor, a governor or even the never any judicial consequences. Today President of the Republic will not many demonstrators demand the resigna- solve anything. The lament and tion of Aguirre, but the head of the national anger of relatives and compañeros PRD, Carlos Navarrete, is opposed, because of the missing students, who an- in that case one would have to oust several grily demand on their banners that state governors. (The mayor of Iguala be- “they were taken alive, we want longed to same tendency of the PRD – Los them back alive,” will keep on be- Chuchos– as Navarrete.) ing repeated. The weak Mexican Now the PRI president Enrique Peña bourgeoisie, subject to imperial- Nieto has sent in the newly established Na- ism and confronting a powerful tional Gendarmerie (the body of the Federal Students strike at National University of Mexico 15 in protest against massacre of students proletariat and poor peasantry, can Police which he announced with great fan- from Ayotzinapa teachers college. Poster of Grupo Internacionalista (on wall to left of not do without bloody repression fare at the beginning of his term) to patrol speakers platform) calls for “National Strike Against the Government of Murder!” to maintain its rule. As noted by Iguala, along with the army. This is the same the great Russian revolutionary army whose members are responsible for Jornada, 4 October). Their students have rugged Sierra Madre del Sur, isolated vil- Leon Trotsky, founder of the Red Army and the slaughter in Tlatlaya (in Mexico state) been persecuted and brutally suppressed for lages live as in previous generations from the Fourth International, in the imperialist ep- in late May, where it executed over a dozen opposing the constant attempts to economi- seasonal crops, which are often insufficient och, in semi-colonial countries like Mexico a “perps.” But the people of Guerrero have not cally strangle or close their schools. Elba for subsistence. Indigenous communities workers and peasants government is required welcomed the troops, which only promise Esther Gordillo herself, the former “Secre- of Nahua, Amuzgo, Mixtec and Tlapanec to resolve the democratic tasks by initiating more repression. Last Sunday (October 5), tary General for life” of the corporatist Na- Indians scattered around in the Montaña the international socialist revolution. hundreds of supporters of the Federation tional Union of Education Workers (SNTE), region, along with major concentrations There are those who dream of take of Socialist Peasant Students of Mexico an agency for police control of teachers, of Afro-Mexicans in the Costa Chica, to the mountains and starting up the armed (FECSM), which includes Ayotzinapa and called for eliminating rural teacher training have experienced centuries-old ethnic and struggle as in the past. But as in the past, all the rural teacher training institutes in the schools. At a seminar on “new education” linguistic oppression that continues to exist heroic gestures will not achieve victory, country, blocked a military convoy on the this government-imposed “labor leader” today. In recent years they have also been because peasants do not have the economic superhighway and forced it to turn back. who is responsible for hundreds of killings stalked by illegal loggers and murderous and social power and consistent class in- Whatever the immediate cause that of teachers, said: drug gangs. terest to overthrow capitalism. We have triggered the bloodbath of Iguala, the ratio- “We have raised many times that if the “Guerrero ready to fight!” goes a popular pointed out that the current “self-defense nale for the slaughter is the demonization authorities close some of the rural teacher chant in demonstrations in Mexico City. In- groups” of the Tierra Caliente of Michoacán of militant students and the commitment of training institutes, there will be a lot of deed it is, and has been since the time of the are run by the employers, and the indig- the governments of all the parties to close rioting by the youth. Don’t forget that these guerrillas led by Genaro Vázquez Rojas (in enous community police of Guerrero are the rural teacher training institutes. This is schools were seedbeds for guerrillas. But if the 1960s) and Lucio Cabañas (early ’70s), controlled by Aguirre’s government. At the part of the privatization offensive against we don’t do this, the same thing will keep both graduates of Ayotzinapa. (Cabañas was same time, we continue to demand freedom public education ordered by Washington on happening. “ also president of the FECSM.) Then came for Nestora Salgado and the community and the global financial institutions. Today, –quoted by Luis Hernández Navarro, the insurgent peasants among the copra patrol members arrested for carrying arms. “Assault on the Rural Teacher Training this calamitous policy is being carried out (coconut) and coffee growing regions, and From the Zapatista uprising in 1994 to the Institutes”, La Jornada, 10 August 2010 in Mexico by Peña Nieto and his educa- the militant mobilizations CETEG teachers teachers and popular uprising of Oaxaca in tion secretary, Emilio Chuayffet, who was From Rebellious Guerrero (the local affiliate of the CNTE) and their 2006, the lesson of recent years – and of interior minister at the time of the massacre to Workers Revolution allies in the teacher colleges. Last year, the three failed bourgeois-democratic revolu- at Acteal in 1997. It should be noted that a tions – is that the next Mexican revolution Guerrero has long been the scene of CETEG started off the largest and longest lawsuit in the United States against former will be a workers revolution, or it will not be. militant mobilizations of “those at the teacher struggle in decades, although it was President Ernesto Zedillo for Acteal was re- It is necessary to break with the PRI, bottom”1, and a vicious cycle of massacres, not backed up in time by other sections of the cently rejected because the former president PAN and PRD, capitalist parties whose hands dirty war and repression by the “those at CNTE. However, each of these struggles has enjoyed “immunity.” are stained with blood, and also with Morena, the top” – the capitalist ruling class. In the remained isolated from the power that actu- Rural teacher training institutes have ally has the ability to defeat the bloodthirsty the movement of Andrés Manuel López been favorite targets of education “reform- 1 Los de abajo, a reference to the novel of that capitalists: that of the urban working class. Obrador, one of whose agents in Guerrero, ers,” who label them “nests of communists” name by Mariano Azuela, written in 1915 at the The state has a remarkable revolutionary the current state secretary of public health, or “Bolshevik kindergartens,” as was point- time of the Mexican Revolution and translated history, beginning with Vicente Guerrero, Lazaro Mazon, is the main political godfather ed out by the researcher Tanalís Padilla (La into English as The Underdogs. military commander in the war of indepen- of José Luis Abarca, the murderous mayor dence from Mexico, of Iguala. We need to build a revolutionary born in Tixtla where leadership armed with the Trotskyist program the Ayotzinapa teacher of permanent revolution, to build the core of institute is located, who a Leninist workers party like the Bolsheviks became the first and in Russia, serving as tribune of the people by only black president leading all the exploited and oppressed to the of Mexico (his mother taking of power. was African slave) and We send our message of proletarian Coverage of NYC emergency carried out ​​the aboli- solidarity from Mexico City (and Berlin and protest of massacre in Guerrero tion of slavery. Unfor- New York) to the battle-hardened teachers in La Jornada, La Jornada tunately, Vicente Guer- college students of Guerrero, to their com- Guerrero and El Sur (Acapulco). rero also supported the rades and parents: “We are with you, now Plan de Iguala which and forever!” And let the governments of trumpeted the “union” the day of the bourgeoisie know, both in of social classes and Mexico and the United States and around subordinated his in- the world, that their crimes will not escape surgent army to the the vigilance of the world working class. royal army of the future For the 2014 slaughter of Iguala like that of “emperor” Agustin de Mexico City on 2 October 1968, there will Iturbide. From then up be no forgetting, no pardon ... Fight, win to the installation of workers to power! n

4 The Internationalist Defeat Israel / U.S. War – For Workers Action Against Zionist Slaughter Defend Gaza and the Palestinian People – For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution! pretensions of the United States and United

All Settlers Out of the Wissam Nassar for the New York Times Nations of acting as “peacemakers.” Despite West Bank! the vituperation from Zionist hawks, the tag team of U.S. secretary of state John Kerry From Egypt to Turkey, and U.N. secretary general Ban Ki Moon Fight for Workers with their calls for a ceasefire with no con- cessions are actually working on behalf of Revolution! Israel. American president Barack Obama denounces Ukrainian rebels for using “Rus- JULY 29 – Every two years like clockwork sian-made weapons” (as does the Ukrainian since Israel’s rulers “disengaged” from Gaza army), yet every day Israel is laying waste in late 2005, the Israeli military has launched to Gaza with U.S.-supplied F-15 and F-16 a murderous attack on the 1.8 million war planes. This is an imperialist / Zionist Palestinians confined in this narrow 25-mile war on the Palestinians. long strip along the Mediterranean. In 2008, For their part, the Western bourgeois “Operation Cast Lead” killed some 1,400 media are playing their role to the hilt. They Palestinians over 22 days; in 2010 there harp on rockets from Gaza as a justification was “Operation Sea Breeze,” the deadly for “Israel’s right to self-defense.” What a high-seas assault on the Gaza Freedom crock of horse manure! So far only 2 Israelis Flotilla; in 2012 it was “Operation Pillar have been killed by rockets while well over of Defense” (100+ dead), and currently On July 29, Israel bombed Gaza’s only power plant, leaving the 1.8 million 2,000 residents of Gaza have been slaugh- we have “Operation Protective Edge.” inhabitants without electricity, water or sewage treatment. tered, supposedly in retaliation. In fact, the The Zionist militarists cynically refer to criminal attack. Some 20,000 Palestinians of women and the democratic rights of very few rockets fired in the previous year this periodic mass murder as “mowing the demonstrated on the West Bank while 6,000 everyone and every community not part and a half total less than an active day in lawn.” Over the last three weeks the blood- Israelis braved fascist attacks to call for an of the dominant sect. Moreover, while the current war. Another favorite theme is drenched Israeli “lawnmower” has mowed end to the war. But this has had zero impact Zionists vituperate against Hamas they alleged attacks on Jewish targets during down over 1,200 Palestinians. on the bloodbath. The Zionist militarists neglect to mention that Israel helped set anti-war protests, buttressing the claim that Beyond the repulsive language of the will not be deterred by impotent appeals up the reactionary Islamic group, in order “anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism.” Yet Zionists is the hideous reality of the slaugh- for “peace.” It is necessary to mobilize the to compete with the Palestinian nationalist demonstration organizers have been vigilant ter of the Palestinian Arab population. What power of the world working class to stop Fatah. Hamas has actually clamped down to prevent any occurrence of anti-Jewish is most striking is the huge number of non- these genocidal butchers. on rocket launches from Gaza during its actions. combatant dead (three-quarters of the total, In reality, this is a war to terrorize the administration. But it was elected based The protests have been dominated by according to the United Nations) and the Arab population. Israel’s claim that the oc- on its posture of opposing the Israeli oc- Palestinian nationalism and Islamic ap- dramatic number of children killed (at least cupation has ended is pure fiction. On top cupation, and we defend the resistance of peals, which is to be expected in the face 250). Under the guise of stopping rockets of strangling Gaza for the last seven years Hamas-ruled Gaza against the Zionists and of Israel’s theft of Palestinian lands and fired into Israel and destroying tunnels used with an economic blockade and fencing in their Fatah quislings. more than six decades of violent suppres- by Hamas fighters, the Israeli military has the population in what amounts to a concen- A main reason given by Israeli “ex- sion of the subjugated Arab population’s been targeting residential apartment build- tration camp, the Israeli military periodically perts” for prolonging the slaughter is the national and other democratic rights. The ings, destroying thousands of homes, as turns “the Strip” into a killing field. The quantity and sophistication of military tun- Internationalist Group and League for the well as hitting 133 schools, 22 health clin- Zionists deal with Gaza like the Nazis dealt nels discovered so far. More to the point Fourth International have repeatedly dem- ics, a hospital and now Gaza’s power plant, with the Warsaw Ghetto. And now Prime is the toll of more than 50 Israeli soldiers onstrated to “Defend Gaza” and “Defend knocking out electricity, water supplies and Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to killed so far by Hamas’ fighters, both those the Palestinian people” on a program of sewage treatment. Very quickly the situation be escalating the assault, announcing a emerging from the tunnels and in firefights proletarian internationalism, calling for an will become catastrophic for those who “prolonged campaign” and killing 129 in inside Gaza. While the rockets fired at Israel Arab-Hebrew Palestinian workers state in survive the daily bombing. the bloodiest day of the war. Meanwhile, have merely sent people scurrying to bomb a socialist federation of the Near East. We The Palestinian fighters on the ground ultra-Zionist cabinet members and sections shelters, the significant number of army have pushed for workers action against the have been resisting the Zionist assault of the Israeli public are “panting for the casualties makes it hard for Netanyahu to Israel’s war on the Palestinians, and called bravely. The Gaza population has not buck- operation to be expanded” to exterminate proclaim victory and declare a ceasefire. to “smash imperialism and Zionism through led under the rain of bombs and pounding Hamas (Haaretz, 29 July). Meanwhile, Israelis have no stomach for a workers revolution.” artillery. There have been solidarity dem- Revolutionary Marxists give no politi- long war (this is already one of the longest) onstrations of thousands from New York to cal support Hamas, an Islamist current as- and are already heading back to the malls Israel: An Imperialist Tokyo; in France, tens of thousands defied sociated with the virulently anti-communist and the beaches. Income from American Client State a protest ban by the “socialist” government; Muslim Brotherhood. Islamist rule in tourism has taken a big hit. According to the Israeli war propagan- 100,000 marched in London against Israel’s whatever guise is inimical to the rights The lack of even phony support for da (dutifully echoed in the Western press), Gaza from most Arab regimes this time the current slaughter of the Gaza population around is striking. The Palestinian Author- was in response to the mid-June kidnap- ity of Mahmoud Abbas is, as usual, acting ping and murder of three Jewish youths as as stooges for Israel. And even with nightly they were hitchhiking in the Etzion Bloc protests across the West Bank, a third inti- of West Bank settlements. Prime Minister fada (popular uprising against the Israeli Netanyahu immediately blamed this on occupation) has not yet materialized. But the Hamas, while presenting no evidence of people of Gaza, facing horrendous death and a connection. More than 500 Palestinians

Internationalist photo destruction, are not calling on Hamas to ca- were rounded up in the West Bank, includ- pitulate. All reports indicate that, whatever ing nearly all Hamas leaders in the area and the cost, they are determined not to return to re-arresting scores who had been released the status quo ante, to the slow death of life from prison only a few months earlier. under the economic blockade. In short, the Meanwhile, a Palestinian teenager, Moham- traditional Zionist tactic of terrorizing the med Abu Khdeir, was kidnapped and burned population into pressuring the leaders to sue alive by ultra-rightist Zionists. for peace is not working. So what’s next? In reality, the reference to the kidnap- The resistance in Gaza is vital, but ping/murder of the Jewish teenagers (and to not enough to stop the Israeli military jug- the relatively few rocket attacks) was only a gernaut. International solidarity against the pretext for carrying out a military operation Internationalist Group at July 9 protest in NYC against Israeli war on Gaza. Zionist onslaught begins with exposing the against the Gaza military tunnels that had October-November 2014 5 long been in the works.1 The war is a follow- Palestine, a large percentage of the Israeli

up to the breakdown of the phony “peace non-Arab population would likely fight to Labor Video Project process” – widely ridiculed by Palestinians the end, even opposed to the U.S., as it did as all process and no peace – in May due in the Suez invasion in 1956. The fact is that to Israel’s escalation of West Bank settle- a Hebrew-speaking nation has been forged ment construction and cancelation of the through the dispossession of Palestinian Ar- scheduled release of Palestinian prisoners. abs, who have also become a nation through The assault on Gaza was also retaliation their bitter experience of oppression. against the declaration of a Palestinian unity A second common description of Israel government bringing together the Islamist by opponents of Zionism is as an “apartheid Hamas with its nationalist Fatah rivals who state,” on the lines of white-supremacist have become West Bank ghetto police for South Africa. Again, while Israeli oppres- the Israeli occupation. sion of Palestinian Arabs is no less criminal The origins of the current war go to the than the oppression of non-whites in South heart of the nature of the Israeli state and its Africa, the oppressive regimes are far from occupation of Palestinian lands. From its identical. Certainly there is segregation origins, the Zionist nationalist movement and vicious denial of democratic rights of founded by Theodor Herzl at the turn of the Palestinians in Israel, and far more so in 20th century presumed the mass expulsion of the Occupied Territories. But South African Palestinians. The establishment of Israel was apartheid was also an economic regime Cranes idle, booms up: Picket called by Transport Workers Solidarity as a result of the genocide of six million Jews based on the superexploitation of black Committee and others of Zim Lines ship in port of Oakland, California, by the German Nazi fascists under Hitler, and labor, which has continued under a “neo- September 27, to protest Israeli war and blockade of Gaza. ILWU longshoremen of the refusal by U.S. imperialism to accept apartheid” black capitalist government, refused to work the ship in act of international labor solidarity. Jewish refugees from Europe during and after which kills miners just like its predecessor. World War II. Israel’s 1948 “war of indepen- Israeli rulers, however, would expel and solution” of the Palestinian “problem.” For International Workers dence” involved the deliberate driving out of ultimately slaughter the Palestinian people. Never forget that the Zionist madmen Solidarity Action hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs. The Zionist outposts on the West Bank, are sitting on a huge arsenal of nuclear Against Zionist Terror Many ended up in refugee camps in the West many filled with transplants from the U.S., warheads, hundreds of them, and with their Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Gaza where they actually are a colonial settler phenomenon. “Masada complex”2 they are crazy enough Amid the hysteria, the Zionist warmon- and their descendants remain today. All of them, even the residential suburbs of to unleash what could be a suicidal catastro- gers’ hammerlock on the Jewish population Thus the birth of Israel was the result Jerusalem, are strategic bases to control and phe. Israeli rulers calculate that the only way of Israel would seem absolute, although that of a heinous crime, and itself a crime. This push out the Arab population. This has been they can secure their position in the Middle can change quickly as the Israeli soldiers’ is no novelty in world history. The United true since the Allon Plan, drafted after the East is by maintaining absolute military death toll mounts. For now, polls report States, after all, was formed on the basis of Israel’s 1967 occupation of the area, which superiority. That is why they are so intent 90% to 95% of Jews support the assault genocide against the Native American popu- led to a string of fortified settlements along on preventing Iran from getting “the bomb,” on Gaza. “Liberal” Zionist media join with lation and chattel slavery of black Africans, the Jordan Valley. That is also why so many because that would limit Israel’s ability to right-wingers in bashing the “hypocritical” dragged in chains from their homelands by of the 120+ official settlements are located on intimidate its neighbors with nuclear black- and unpatriotic left. Leftist-led protests are the capitalist slavers. Moreover, Marxists hilltops, and connected by military highways mail. Revolutionary Marxists, on the other attacked by fascist-led mobs of up to 800 in are opposed on principle to any and all that divide up the Palestinian population into hand, while giving no political support to Tel Aviv on July 12 and several hundred in religious-based states, which are inherently small “cantons” that can be easily surrounded the mullahs’ regime in Tehran, defend Iran’s Haifa on July 19. Thugs chanting “death to anti-democratic. We oppose the existence of and cut off by the army. Thus they are all right to nuclear weapons to defend itself Arabs” and wearing neo-Nazi t-shirts and Israel as a Jewish state just as we oppose the legitimate military targets. The IG and LFI against imperialist and Zionist war threats. emblems of the Kahane Chai movement bru- Islamic republic of Khomeini’s Iran and the demand all settlers out of the West Bank. Israel is today, and has been since its tally beat antiwar demonstrators while the officially Christian states of Petain’s France In rejecting the characterization of birth, a client state and ally of Western impe- police stood by. For some 6,000 protesters and Franco’s Spain. Israel proper as a “colonial-settler state” or rialism. In historical Palestine there are two to come out on July 26, although belatedly, Many on the left have described Israel “apartheid state,” we in no way diminish the nations – the oppressor Hebrew-speaking took a good deal of courage. as a “colonial settler state.” This would monstrous nature of the Zionist crimes. On nation and the oppressed Palestinian Arab Many on the left have pinned their make it the equivalent of white-ruled Rho- the contrary, what Israeli rulers are prepared nation – with interpenetrated populations hopes on a “third intifada” by Palestinians desia in southern Africa and the Hebrew- to do to the Palestinians is potentially much inhabiting and laying claim to the same land. on the West Bank. While the first (1987-93) speaking population of Israel would be worse than the Rhodesian or South African In this situation, where both nations have and second (2000-05) uprisings against the analogous to the French colons in Algeria. racists. The murderous assault on Gaza the democratic right to self-determination, Israeli occupation were heroic, they could This is a false analogy. Israeli Jews are not currently underway could be the lead-up there can be no equitable solution to com- not overcome or even dent the Zionist mili- the representatives of foreign colonial power to “ethnic cleansing” on a massive scale – peting national rights short of a socialist tary’s might. Amira Hass wrote earlier of who can return to the metropole if the na- literally emptying Gaza of its population, revolution that establishes a collectivized “Why the West Bank isn’t erupting against tive population rises up. If things get hot in whether by military means as in 1948 or by economy throughout the Near East. Talk Israel” (Haaretz, 18 July). In fact, there have turning off the water, electricity and food of a “two-state” solution is a fraud, for been almost nightly protests of thousands, 1 “Army prepared for Gaza campaign, defense supply. And if they get frustrated enough, under capitalism, where nations compete with up to 20,000 marching July 24 on the minister says,” headlined the Times of Israel (31 Qalandia checkpoint near Ramallah, but December 2013), saying that the military objec- or feel threatened enough, the Zionists for scarce resources such as water and fuel, they have been blocked by Israeli soldiers tive would be to “deal a harsh blow to Gaza and (“hawks” and “doves” alike) are fully the stronger (i.e., Israel) will always prevail. the organizations operating there….” capable of carrying out a genocidal “final And the Israeli ruling class will never firing on unarmed demonstrators in East agree to a single democratic (capitalist) Jerusalem and Qalandia (Palestine Moni- state, first because it would be the doom tor, 25 July), and suppressed by the police of the Zionist project of a Jewish state, and of Abbas’ Palestinian Authority in Hebron because they know well how criminally they (Alternative Information Center, 22 July). have treated the Palestinians and expect the So what is the goal? In Israel, the Com- same in return if they should be in a minor- munist Party (CPI-Maki) and its electoral ity. That is why the League for the Fourth front Hadash, as well as a smaller reform- International calls for Arab-Hebrew workers ist outfit, the Socialist Struggle Movement Nati Shohat/Flash90 revolution that alone offers a future not only (SSM-Maavak Sotzyalisti, part of the Com- to the impoverished Palestinians but also mittee for a Workers International), call for a to Hebrew-speaking workers and the large Palestinian mini-state. They may try to pret- secular Israeli middle class that may tire of tify this with talk of “a truly independent, living with a siege mentality in a garrison equal, democratic and socialist Palestinian state where every few years they must send state, next to a socialist and democratic their sons and daughters off to kill and be Israel” (“Gaza in Crisis,” socialistworld.net killed for the greater glory of Zionism. [CWI], 29 July). But in calling for “an inde- pendent Palestinian state alongside Israel,” 2 In biblical times, the fortification of Masada overlooking the Dead Sea was besieged by they are parroting the imperialists’ failed troops of the Roman Empire, ending with the bourgeois “two-state solution” laid out in mass suicide of the Jewish warriors and their the moribund 1993 Oslo Accords. This Women settlers practice firing in Jewish settlement of Pnei Kedem, near families. Today recruits of the Israeli army ar- comes down to acceptance of Zionist rule Bethlehem, in September 2012. All settlements are strategic bases to control mored units swear an oath of allegiance on the and continuation of Palestinian oppression. and expel Palestinian Arabs. All settlers out of the West Bank! heights saying “Masada shall not fall again.” continued on page 11 6 The Internationalist After 5-Month Platinum Strike, 200,000+ NUMSA Members Walk Out Worker Revolt Continues to Shake South African Capitalism For the the last two years, ever since June 26. Although the leadership scaled the massacre of striking mine workers at back its demands, from 20% to 15% to

Marikana, South Africa has been roiled Rogan Ward/Reuters 12%, union marchers in Johannesburg are by workers’ struggles. This discontent was insisting on at least 15%. reflected politically in the decision of the NUMSA also decided to launch a metal workers union NUMSA last December series of pickets and marches on July 2 to break with the ruling African National over its deadlocked wage negotiations Congress (ANC). with the power utility Eskom, where it is Following on the heels of the bitter Jan- likewise demanding 12%. Strikes against uary-June platinum miners strike, NUMSA this state-owned electricity firm are banned engineering and metal workers walked out under South Africa’s anti-labor “essential at the beginning of July. That strike (see services” law. NUMSA represents only a article below) ended after one month on the quarter of the 40,000 Eskom workers, but picket lines with a 10% raise for the lowest- a few pickets at the Medupi power station paid workers and 8% for others. While under construction in Limpopo province this is more than the current 6% inflation resulted in many contract workers not show- rate, it is considerably less than originally ing up (The Citizen, 4 July). Cops drove off demanded and far from constituting a “liv- the pickets at the entrance with potentially ing wage,” with most auto assembly line lethal rubber bullets. The next act in this workers earning less than US$600 a month. drama could be bloody. Since then the class battle has not let The ANC government has of course up for a minute. On the eve of a NUMSA Members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) denounced the metalworkers, but despite International Symposium on Building a in Durban on July 1, first day of the national strike, point to non-striking backstabbing by COSATU bureaucrats, Socialist South Africa that began August construction workers demanding they join the walkout. the strike has received verbal support from 7, three shop stewards in KwaZulu-Natal shortages. The head of the employers’ Steel Nonsense. They may automate the mines, a number of federations. Meanwhile, the province were shot to death after returning and Engineering Industries Federation of but South African capitalism was built on the bourgeois press screeches that Moody’s, from a union meeting. And at the end of South Africa estimated the NUMSA strike bedrock of superexploitation of black labor the credit rating firm, may downgrade South October, the leadership of the Congress of was costing the industry US$30 million a day. and that will not change under neo-apartheid. African government bonds to “junk” status. South African Trade Unions began prepar- Following reelection of African National The platinum strike went up against At a July 1 rally in Port Elizabeth, NUMSA ing to expel NUMSA, which may take place Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma as presi- the ANC government, and had to contend treasurer Mphumzi Maqungo replied to at a COSATU meeting on November 7. dent, the back-to-back AMCU and NUMSA with scabbing by the National Union of “economic analysts arguing that this strike While the metal workers leadership strikes, which could spread to the gold mining Mineworkers (NUM). Even so, the historic is politically motivated and will hit the has been taking a more militant stance than sector, set the stage for another confrontation 12,500-rand wage demand against the hugely economy hardest. We want to tell them that the cravenly pro-government union tops, it between workers and South Africa’s black profitable Lonmin, Amplats and Implats they must go to hell” (The Herald, 2 July). has not fundamentally broken with capital- capitalist regime. The shock waves of the mining companies could have been won – While the NUMSA strike is fully justi- ism. So while COSATU called on ANC vice August 2012 Marikana massacre continue but the miners couldn’t do it alone. As we fied, it is nonetheless very political. In addi- president Cyril Ramaphosa, the former mine to reverberate in the economic powerhouse wrote last April, “There should have been, tion to the wage demand, NUMSA is calling union leader who is now a leading mining of Africa. But a decisive victory will require and should be today, a mobilization of all of for a ban on labor brokers (the parasites who capitalist, to “mediate” the conflict with a break with the ruling Tripartite Alliance South African labor to defend the miners with supply temporary contract workers who re- NUMSA, the latter appealed to the capitalist of the ANC, the sellout Congress of South solidarity strike action to bring South Africa ceive a pittance far below the poverty wages courts to stop the expulsion move. African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the anti- to a standstill in support of the platinum regular workers receive) and a ban on hiring The struggle for international socialist communist South African Communist Party strike.” NUMSA workers in the platinum under the Employment Tax Incentive Act (a revolution in South Africa and elsewhere (SACP) and rejection of the Stalinst/social- refineries could have continued their strike scheme to subsidize capitalists if they hire must be based on intransigent struggle for democratic program of “two-stage” revolution until the miners won. youth, also with poor wages and no rights). workers political independence from all in order to fight for socialist revolution. The point was noted by a Witwatersrand COSATU has begged its “allies” in the bour- bourgeois parties, politicians and their state. The platinum strike had already shaken University researcher, Gavin Capps, quoted geois government to ban labor brokering, to the neo-apartheid regime (see “Elections by the liberal Mail & Guardian (20 June) no avail. (Not coincidentally the profiteers JULY 5 – South African bosses are worried. and Miners Strike: South African Popular saying that the union’s initial demand from this modern-day slave trade include Business Day (3 July) headlines, “‘Worker Front in Crisis,” The Internationalist No. “could have been won with co-ordinated the son of President Zuma.) revolt’ Aggravating Most Difficult Economic 37, May-June 2014). The miners walked action from another sector. If there had In December 2013, NUMSA broke Time Since 2009.” The online news site Daily out for 12,500 rand, the demand of the 2012 been co-ordination with refinery workers, with the Tripartite Alliance, and refused to Maverick frets, “South Africa may well be strike, for which 36 strikers were shot down for example, and with transport workers back the ANC in the May elections. It talks the strike capital of the world.” The five- in cold blood by the police at Marikana. who would have simply refused to trans- of socialism and calls for building some month platinum miners strike, the longest in The final settlement was a limited but real port the stockpiles, there would have been kind of “workers party.” But the NUMSA the country’s history, was settled on June 23. victory for the miners. The bosses’ media a tighter squeeze on production.” But this memorandum announcing the strike, while Although failing to achieve the demand of the try to minimize it by calculating how much was blocked by mutual suspicion between citing the crises of capitalism, deplores Association of Mineworkers and Construc- strikers lost during five months without pay. the NUMSA and AMCU tops while “the the “shameful” poverty wages “in our de- tion Union (AMCU) for a monthly wage of But for the miners what was key was that the National Council of Trade Unions, to which mocracy” and demands “that government 12,500 rand (a little under US$1,200), the companies were not able to starve them into Amcu is affiliated, folded its arms as Amcu stops pursuing neo-liberal policies.” It also base pay of the lowest-paid miners was raised submission, they resisted police repression slugged it out in Rustenburg.” asserts that “we have a struggle to engage from around 5,000 to 8,000 rand – a 60% and won a big raise. Even as the COSATU/NUM labor fak- both business and capital” to “defend the increase over three years. Yet mine workers will still be mired ers and SACP fake communists back the current capability of our manufacturing Then on July 1, the National Union of in abject poverty, living in tin shacks while Zuma government to the hilt as the price sector.” Thus in practice, its policy amounts Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) managers wheel around in their BMWs. The for their reserved seats on the neo-apartheid to a hopeless quest to pressure capital into launched an indefinite strike involving more claims that replacing the formal structures of “gravy train,” and despite bureaucratic ten- behaving in a “comradely” way. than 220,000 workers in the engineering and white supremacy known as apartheid would sions among the more militant unions, with Curiously, the South African business metals sector, ushered in by massive marches bring freedom for the downtrodden South Af- metal workers walking out on the heels of weekly Financial Mail (20 June) recently by its membership across the country. The rican non-white masses have been shown to be the miners strike, the capitalists are react- published a series of articles on “participa- strike hit producers of iron, steel, durable hollow. Now some liberals are talking about a ing like they were hit by a one-two punch. tive capitalism” including an editorial, fea- consumer goods and plastics. By July 4, switch from a “low-wage, high-employment” “There will be no settlement whatsoever turing a photo of NUMSA general secretary General Motors had to shut down its Port mining industry to a “high-wage, low-em- unless a double-digit increase is achieved,” Irvin Jim, titled “Can Comrade Capitalism Elizabeth auto assembly plant due to parts ployment” model (Business Day, 18 June). said NUMSA president Andrew Chirwa on continued on page 11 October-November 2014 7 No Party or Candidate Presents a Class Challenge Brazil: The Election Racket of the Bourgeoisie The following is an abridged transla- Chile and Argentina) play as a mercenary tion of an article published by our comrades occupation force for imperialism in Haiti, of the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Cast a Blank Ballot and Forge a with U.N. blue helmets, of course. Brasil (Fourth-Internationalist League of Concerning Marina Silva, despite her Brazil). Since it appeared, Dilma Rousseff, Revolutionary Workers Party! international fame as an environmentalist, the incumbent president and candidate of ever since leaving the PT in 2008, in her the Workers Party (PT) came in first in the presidential campaign for the Green Party Marcos Tristão / Agência O Globo initial round of balloting but well short of a in 2010 and today as a standard-bearer for majority. In a second-round runoff election the PSB, she has offered her services to the on October 26, Rousseff narrowly won with minor capitalist parties as the perfect “anti- 51.5% against 48.5% for the right-wing can- PT candidate.” In reality, her program and didate Aécio Neves of the Brazilian Social candidacy have been crafted to pick up votes Democratic Party (PSDB). from the right should there be a second- OCTOBER 2 – We’re now at that time in round runoff election. the political cycle when the TV screens Marina’s right-wing program linked to are filled with talking heads, theatrically high finance is summed up in the demand pontificating and making empty campaign for “independence for the Central Bank.” promises; when the electoral marketing Independence from the government, that is, firms are raking in profits hand over fist, and instead dependence on the São Paulo when messengers hand over suitcases bankers, and on the imperialist financial stuffed with cash to parliamentary deputies- institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, for-hire, and union bureaucrats of all stripes etc. She also appeals to the most retrograde clamp down on the workers’ struggles and social layers with her opposition to gay mar- instead dedicate themselves to rounding up riage, to the rights of women (opposition to votes. The Brazilian elections of 2014 are Militarized “democracy.” Special operation of the Shock Battalion (Batalhão abortion) and her support for the homopho- no exception to this rule. We Marxists do de Choque) of the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro took the streets to oversee bic pastor Marco Feliciano, as head of the not reject on principle using the bourgeois elections (and intimidate voters). Human Rights Commission of the federal electoral circus as a platform to present the to the dictates of the bourgeoisie. pany Petrobras. Yet the São Paulo bankers Chamber of Deputies. revolutionary program, even as we recog- The popular-front government of Dilma have been making money like never before For her part, Dilma only supports abor- nize that this is enemy territory. But in this Rousseff and her vice president, Michel under the governments of Lula and Dilma. tion for those cases permitted under the 2013 election there is no party or slate which Temer of the Brazilian Democratic Move- Above all, in the opinion surveys the PT has law (rape, risk to the life of the woman and could represent a working-class vote against ment Party (PMDB), the main bourgeois kept the support of low-income voters and an encephalitic fetus) rather than defending capitalism. component of the PT’s stable of allies, has a good chunk of the famous “middle class.” the unlimited right of women to free abor- The three main candidates – Dilma been deteriorating after 12 years in office. The PT apparatus, pro-government and tion on demand in safe medical conditions, Rousseff, of the Workers Party (PT), Ma- Last year there was an explosion of street right-wing union bureaucracies and assorted as we Trotskyists demand. But Marina is rina Silva of the Brazilian Socialist Party protests of up to a million people in Rio de spokesmen of the “center-left” media are linked to fascistic, coup-plotting sectors (PSB) and Aécio Neves of the Brazilian Janeiro against the social policies of the calling for a vote for Dilma with various and is opposed to revising the Amnesty Social Democracy Party (PSDB) – all de- governments. arguments, which boil down to two main Law to punish torturers from the military fend capitalist rule. Even though the PT is In 2014, after four years of a boom due appeals: the PT government has implemented dictatorship (1968-1985), after having taken partly based on the workers movement, its to the export of raw materials to China, the an economic policy of “growth together with the opposite position in 2008. Her environ- program is strictly limited to the framework Brazilian economy went into recession. redistributing income” to the poor that is an mentalism is nothing but a green fig leaf to of capitalism. Beyond that, even before it There were big mobilizations denouncing alternative to “neo-liberalism”; and (since cover her program for an ultra-neo-liberal undertook governing the country in 2003 extravagant expenditures for the World Cup they no longer talk of imperialism) that it government of the religious right. under the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula of soccer while education and pubic health “pursued an independent foreign policy. Both And Aécio Neves? Workers might have da Silva, this “bourgeois workers party” are starved of funds. Then the Brazilian explanations are a gross distortion of reality. illusions in Dilma Rousseff or Marina Silva, but the candidate of the PSDB is a declared (as Lenin defined the British Labour Party) team suffered a “humiliating” 7-1 defeat It is true that the several welfare pro- enemy of the workers movement and of the organized a popular front with bourgeois at the hands of Germany. A new corruption grams, above all Bolsa Familia (the Family rights of all oppressed sectors in capitalist forces in order to subordinate the workers scandal exploded in the semi-state oil com- Fund), have reduced income inequality, the society, so there’s no point in spending any unemployment rate, the poverty rate (-55%) more time on him. and the rate of extreme poverty (-65%) as well as raising the minimum wage, from Campaigns of a “Socialist” 2003 to 2014. Yet Brazil continues to be one Left Bought Off by the of the most unequal countries in the world, Capitalist Government with a monthly average wage of less than In the face of the onslaught by all the $R 3,000 (roughly US$1,200), and the pay- parliamentary parties against the rights and checks of industrial workers took a pay cut interests of working people, women, blacks of 3.4% last year and up to 7.8% for metal and other oppressed sectors, one might ask workers. Moreover, from the very outset if among the parties of the “socialist” left the Lula-Dilma government has attacked running in the presidential elections there workers’ union gains with its “reform” of is a slate that would merit critical support health and welfare benefits; it has smashed from revolutionaries. We are referring here several strikes, and is preparing a new as- to the candidates of the Partido Socialismo sault with the labor “reform” taking aim at e Liberdade (PSOL, Party of Socialism union contracts.

Roberto Stuckert Filho/Presidência da República and Freedom), of the Partido Socialista dos As for its “independent” foreign policy, Trabalhadores Unificado (PSTU, United Brazil under the popular front, along with Socialist Workers Party) and Partido Causa Bolivia and Ecuador, has a certain room Operária (PCO, Workers Cause Party)1. All to maneuver due to trade with China, but Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff with her imperialist overlord, Barack basically knuckles under to the demands of 1 In the first round voting, the PSOL received 1.6 Obama in the White House, April 2012. Meanwhile, NSA was listening to Yankee imperialism. One only has to look million votes, or about 1.5% of the total, while phones of Rousseff and her top aides. at the role that these countries (along with the PSTU got 91,000 votes and the PCO 12,000. 8 The Internationalist three claim to be Trotskyist, or include in- earlier, PSOL presidential candidate Genro opportunists, revolutionary Marxists and coup threat. After the PT won, we said that ternal tendencies which consider themselves criticized “that the same contractors who class-conscious workers cannot vote for the Lula’s government together with the Liberal Trotskyist, although their concrete politics build the overpriced public works for the candidate of the PSOL, nor for Zé Maria Al- Party would be the “fireman for the IMF,” are opportunist and quite distant from the World Cup are the financiers of the PT, meida, the perennial candidate of the PSTU, the guarantor of payment of the debt to the Bolshevik-Leninism of Trotsky’s Fourth PMDB, PSDB and PSB” (Brasil 247, 2 as they do not represent, even minimally, imperialists and to domestic bankers. When International. July). Any contradiction there? Supermar- a class opposition to the capitalist regime. the “companheiro presidente” substituted To consider the question, we first have kets, yes – contractors, no? Or is it PSOL, Quite the contrary, in the recent struggles of for the U.S. troops as the occupation force in to establish the principles. From the time yes – the rest of the parties, no? the São Paulo metro (subway) workers and Haiti, we called him the “sheriff of Yankee of the First International, the International The PSTU, which published an article Rio de Janeiro teachers, the role of fireman imperialism” in Latin America. Workingmen’s Association (IWA), the basic (9 August) breaking the scandal about the to put out the flames of the class struggle has Then, with the election of Dilma political orientation has been, as Friedrich PSOL, commented: passed from the PT to the PSOL and PSTU. Rousseff as the “continuity of Lula” in Engels noted: “Our politics must be working- “When the capitalists do this with the The centrist Partido Causa Operária 2010, we explained that “The Candidates class politics. The workers party must never traditional parties, they do so in the uses rhetoric ever so slightly to the left of the of the Left (PSOL, PSTU, PCB, PCO) be the tagtail of any bourgeois party; it must certainty that, once elected, they will be PSOL and PSTU, but at bottom its politics Accept Rather Than Fighting the Bosses’ be independent and have its goal and its own paid back with bids, policies, construction don’t differ from those of the reformists. Parliamentary ‘Games’” (see “Brazil- projects, among other things. In short, policy” (speech at the September 1871 Lon- Currently the PCO is obsessed by the sup- ian Elections: The Bourgeoisie Goes for they do this in order to ensure that once don Conference of the First International). posed danger of a coup d’état, another 1964 More Lula,” The Internationalist No. elected the parties will govern in the The next year, Marx and Engels wrote a in Brazil or Germany 1933. In the militant 32, January-February 2011). As against resolution that was included as Article 7 of interests of those who financed them. struggles of the June Days of 2013 the PCO But when the capitalists do this with a centrists like the Liga Estratégia Revolu- the statutes of the IWA, which stated: saw a fascist danger, which is craziness and party of the socialist left, which has in cionária (LER – affiliated internationally “Against the collective power of serves as an excuse for backhanded support and around it a significant share of the with the Trotskyist Faction) which called the propertied classes the working activists of the militant social movements to the PT government. for a “critical vote for Zé Maria” [Almeida class cannot act, as a class, except by in our country, they do so – in addition to The PCO polemicizes against “The of the PSTU] in these elections, the LQB constituting itself into a political party, the above motives – in order to undermine Political Nullity of the Petty-Bourgeois fights for a workers and peasants govern- distinct from, and opposed to, all old the ranks of this organization. They do it Left” that calls for a voto nulo (blank ballot) ment based on workers and peasants coun- parties formed by the propertied classes. in order to buy them off and destroy them. “on principle,” and argues that “it is neces- cils which initiates socialist revolution. “This constitution of the working class “The leadership of the PSOL knows this, sary for working people to go through the What the working people and op- into a political party is indispensable in experience of elections and parliament.” order to insure the triumph of the social since they broke with the PT denouncing pressed of Brazil need today is a program of (In Brazil, voting is compulsory.) We of the revolution and its ultimate end – the that. Why, then, do they ask for and receive permanent revolution, of demands that lead LQB do not reject fighting on the electoral abolition of classes.” financing from the bosses? Without directly from today’s struggles to interna- terrain “on principle,” but we do reject sup- In this same period, Marx drew the lessons political and financial independence, they tional socialist revolution. As Lenin said in will build another PT.” porting a parliamentary left which considers of the experience of the Paris Commune, his letter of “Greetings to Italian, French it “necessary” for workers to participate in writing: One inconvenient detail: the PSTU had and German Communists” (October 1919): “[T]he working class cannot simply lay made an electoral pact with the PSOL, for an the bourgeois electoral circus. And above “Only scoundrels or simpletons can hold of the ready-made state machinery, “independent candidate,” a “left opposition” all, we don’t accept such lessons in pseudo- think that the proletariat must first win and wield it for its own purposes.” to the government of Genro father. What Marxism from parties on the payroll of the a majority in elections carried out under –The Civil War in France (June 1871) to do? The PSTU’s answer: nothing, for capitalist state, like the PCO which received the yoke of the bourgeoisie, under the It was necessary to “smash” the bureaucratic- they kept on supporting the PSOL-Zaffari R$472,000 from the Brazilian government’s yoke of wage-slavery, and must then win military machine of capital in order to carry candidate. Party Fund in 2013 and R$386,000 in the power. This is the height of stupidity or out a revolution, beginning with the taking of Despite all this twisting and turning, the first nine months of 2014. hypocrisy; it is substituting elections, power by the proletariat at the head of all the PSTU insists that “we don’t accept funds A proletarian revolutionary party would under the old system and with the old oppressed layers. from companies because we wish to main- not take one cent of financing from the power, for class struggle and revolution.” Basing ourselves on these principles, tain our commitment to the working people capitalist state, or from other capitalist in- Our motto in this Brazilian electoral year of whose validity has been confirmed by and our independence with regard to the stitutions (foundations, companies, etc.). A 2014 is the same as that put forward by the all subsequent history, we in the Liga bosses.” And how about with regard to the Leninist and Trotskyist party finances itself Bolshevik leader one hundred years ago: Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil (Fourth capitalist state? Why then, did the govern- with the contributions of its members and “For revolution!” n Internationalist League of Brazil), section ment’s Party Fund dole out R$772,000 (a those who support its of the League for the Fourth International, little over half a million U.S. dollars) to the program and political fight for total political independence from PSTU in 2013, and in the first nine months activities. The principle Comitê de Luta Classista the bourgeoisie, its parties and its state. We of this year another R$604 thousand? The is straightforward for reject voting for any party which is part PSOL got quite a bit more, R$3.7 million any Marxist: it is the of a popular front, a class-collaborationist [US$1.5 million] in 2013 and R$3 million expression of politi- coalition with bourgeois sectors, as is the so far in 2014. cal independence from case with the current Brazilian government “He who pays the piper calls the tune,” the class enemy. This led by the PT in alliance with the (social- writes the PSTU, adding: “In elections it’s isn’t obvious to parties democratic) PCdoB (Communist Party of no different. Whoever finances the candida- like the PSOL, PSTU Brazil), the PMDB, the PDT and bourgeois cies is who, after the campaign is over, will and PCO because for rightist forces (PSD, PP, PR, PRB). Yet the define the policies.” Correct, and this not these opportunists, the parties of the reformist “socialist” left, the only applies to banks, contractors or super- state is not their en- PSOL and PSTU, even as they criticize the markets, but also to the capitalist state. The emy but instead booty PT government, are merely seeking to form right-wing press complains about the money that they hope to con- an alternative popular front. paid by the state to the “midget parties,” in quer, that they seek to So, for example, in 2012 the PSOL the same way it complains about television govern. Their election managed to elect the mayor of Macapá (in time accorded to left-wing parties. We are programs are propos- the northern state of Amapá) on the basis of opposed to all prohibitions or restraints on als for another social a popular front with minor bourgeois par- access to the communications media. But a policy, for lower inter- ties, which then in the runoff was supported party that receives money from the capital- est rates by the state by the rightist DEM, the successor to the ist state is a hostage of the bourgeoisie: its banks, for reform of the political vehicle of the military dictatorship. political campaign, and its very existence, capitalist state rather Currently, the star candidate of the PSOL, depend on the good will of the apparatus than its revolutionary Heloísa Helena, is again running for senator which manages the affairs of the bosses. overthrow. from the state of Alagoas, with the support But in the end, one can hardly expect We in the LQB of the PSDB in a formal pact. principled political consistency from the have called from the In August, it came out that in Rio followers of the late fake Trotskyist caudillo 2002 elections on for Grande do Sul, the PSOL received R$50,000 Nahuel Moreno, who embodied the oppor- “proletarian opposition (about US$20,000) from the Zaffari Group, tunism of unprincipled alliances with variable to the popular front” of (Top) Defense squad of Rio de Janeiro teachers union owners of the main supermarket chain in the denominators. Moreno was a quick-change the PT when the PSTU SEPE during strike last year. (Bottom) Teachers clash state and the fifth largest in Brazil. Of this artist who went from posing as a “left” Per- called to vote for Lula with police when they were refused entry to Rio city money, R$15,000 went to the campaign of onist, to Castroite, to Guevarist, to Maoist, to on the second round, council debate on teachers salary and seniority bill, 8 Luciana Genro (whose father is the current Sandinista and finally ending up (as the PSTU and the PCO called October 2013. Union leaders affiliated with PSTU and PT state governor) and R$30,000 for the is today), a plain old social democrat. Faced to “defend the vote” PSOL acted as firemen for the bosses, calling off the PSOL candidate for governor. Yet a month with pseudo-socialists like these reformist against a non-existent strike despite massive popular support. October-November 2014 9 Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet From Global Warming Occupy Wall Street/Facebook The Great “People’s Climate March” Scam On Sunday, September 21 an event that would turn anyone off. Instead this will and imperialism” (Workers will be held in New York City called the be a celebration of liberal social concern. World/International Action People’s Climate March in conjunction with Posters urge people to get up in the morning, Center) is like calling for an the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit, walk your dog, have brunch, join the march. internationalist contingent which will begin two days later. The Sunday A subway ad asks, “What puts hipsters and in a Fourth of July parade. event is being billed as “the biggest climate bankers in the same boat?” with the word So who is behind this march in history,” with 100,000-plus par- “boat” crossed out and replaced by “march.” lollapalooza of a media ticipants predicted. The organizers boast of A photo of this ad appeared on the Facebook event? There are two main an “ever-growing coalition” of more than page of Occupy Wall Street, which hailed groups organizing it. First 1,500 organizations, including in addition it. That tells you something about OWS, is an outfit called “350. Subway ad for People’s Climate March. to various Green organizations, seemingly but for working people an appeal for unity org,” headed by environ- every union in NYC, religious groups, and with bankers means hold on to your wallet. mentalist Bill McKibben, which serves as ers recently mobilized liberal war hawks socialist and anarchist outfits. Similar events Certainly the huge numbers of people a propaganda medium highlighting former to demand that Obama present a plan for are being held in a number of cities around who will join the march will be motivated Democratic vice president Al Gore. While bombing Syria, this time with the Islamic the world. But the whole thing is a gigantic by concern over global warming. But while its board includes Naomi Klein to give at a State jihadis as the excuse. scam, a public relations stunt masquerad- various measures to combat this threat are hint of fake “anti-capitalism,” 350.org was So here we have the same people push- ing as social activism. proposed, one thing is certain: there is no started by seed money ($480,000) from the ing an empty climate change march and To begin with there is the question of way this can be seriously controlled so Sustainable Markets Foundation of … the insistently demanding war on Syria, while its demands: there are none. There will be long as capitalism rules the planet. What Rockefeller Brothers Fund, derived from “anti-war” liberals and reformist leftists are “themed contingents,” and depending on this march is about is not saving the planet, the Standard Oil Company fortune. More herded along like sheep. The herders are no where you enter the march route you can it’s about saving capitalism. The “green” recently 350 has been funded mainly by the novices. Avaaz co-founder, former Virginia be with environmental, indigenous, labor, in its “message” is the color of money. The Tides Foundation, whose largest donor by Democratic congressman Tom Perriello, interfaith, anti-corporate, peace and justice, “people” behind the “people’s march” are far is Warren Buffett’s Novo Foundation. was earlier a mover behind the drive for scientific, LGBTQ and community groups. the corporations recognized by the U.S. A main focus of 350.org is its campaign U.S./U.N. intervention in Darfur, Sudan, co- This will allow for varied photo and video Supreme Court as “persons” for purposes to stop the Keystone XL pipeline bringing founding DarfurGenocide.org, now called images to “thread our many messages to- of buying elections. oil south from the oil fields of North Dakota Darfurian Voices, whose sponsors include gether.” The march itself will not be calling In good part, this event is part of the and tar sands of Alberta. In particular, the the National Endowment for Democracy on anyone to do anything in specific. There run-up to the November U.S. elections. Ask campaign calls for universities, churches (NED [read: CIA]). Perriello has appeared will be no speeches or rally at beginning or yourself: why do labor bureaucrats ever and other concerned investors to divest on panels with ex-general David Petraeus end. Just a petition appealing to “all world do anything in the fall of even numbered stocks in fossil fuel companies. This has (at the U.S. Institute of Peace!), is a fervent leaders” for “urgent action to safeguard years? They may talk “jobs,” but it’s really allowed the oil majors to buy back shares backer of Israel and now head of the Demo- our planet, our future and all that we love.” to elect Democrats: expect to see plenty of at discount prices, and has been a windfall cratic Party-aligned Center for American Meaning nothing. pols parading on Sunday. This march is also for railroads (which are the main alterna- Progress think tank. This lack of concrete demands is not an to preempt peace marches. Barack Obama tive to shipping by pipeline), in particular But beyond war, what are the 350/ accident, the organizers (more about them just declared a new war in Iraq and Syria, Burlington Northern, owned by Warren Buf- Avaaz/Purpose organizers after? Profit, below) purposely decided not to raise any in the Pentagon has dispatched 1,600 troops, fett’s Berkshire Hathaway corporation. So of course. Why spend millions of dollars order to make it more “mainstream,” “fam- Congress voted to authorize the slaughter. “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs) – including subway ads, ads on the New ily friendly,” nothing “divisive,” nothing So where are the peace marchers? Answer: campaigning around climate change are York Times web site and other media – to they’ll all be at the feel- funded by and benefit the same mega corpo- organize a march with no demands? Arun good climate march rations that profit from fossil fuels. A rather Gupta, who edited the Occupied Wall Street on Sunday. When Re- inconvenient truth for “green” NGOs. Journal and The Indypendent, commented: publican George W. The second major organizer is Avaaz, “Having worked on Madison Avenue for Bush launched his Iraq which boasts that it is the world’s biggest nearly a decade, I can smell a P.R. and mar- war there were half a activist network, with 9 million “members.” keting campaign a mile away. That’s what million protesters in Avaaz was set up by George Soros, the bil- the People’s Climate March looks to be” the streets of Manhat- lionaire hedge fund mogul (and convicted (CounterPunch, 19 September). He’s not the tan. When Democrat inside-trader) whose MoveOn.org is a major first to smell a rat. It’s all about marketing, Obama launches his, NGO “advocacy group” advocating for the and in particular “branding.” The leaders are there is the sound of Democratic Party and fundraising for its seeking to mobilize millions of consumers silence. candidates. Avaaz has been a major force for their political, and commercial, projects. To be sure, from lobbying for aggressive U.S. imperialist Avaaz/Purpose co-founder Jeremy Vietnam on, the endless intervention around the world, notably in Heimans calls himself a “movement entre- impotent peace march- Libya and now in Syria. The founders and preneur.” The Economist (26 January 2013) es mainly serve to de- leaders of Avaaz are also the founders and ran an article about “the business of cam- fuse anger over impe- leaders of an NYC-headquartered conglom- paigning” headlined “Profit with Purpose.” rialist war and channel erate consisting of Purpose, Inc. and its non- It noted that Purpose Inc. “sells consulting it into support for the profit arms, Purpose Foundation, Purpose services to big companies such as Google Democratic Party, with Action and Purpose Campaign. and Audi, and to charities such as the Bill leftists doing the don- Avaaz/Purpose credits itself with hav- & Melinda Gates Foundation….” It helped key work. The “biggest ing played a major role in getting the U.N.- Audi’s “social innovation fund” start a climate march” ever authorized U.S.-NATO “no fly zone” over company to dispense clean water in India, to won’t do a bit to stop Libya in 2011 that gave the green light for sell water as a privately owned commodity. climate change. But the bloody imperialist attack that toppled “Purpose also hopes to develop a business in this case, there is the government of Muammar Qaddafi and promoting ‘new economy’ products such nothing remotely left- destroyed the country. U.S. ambassador to as solar energy. It will recommend to its ist about it: this event the U.N. Susan Rice thanked Avaaz for its members that they buy solar power from Climate March organizers Avaaz are major lobbyists for is purely bourgeois. e-mail blitz of one million messages. Last such-and-such a provider. In return, it will imperialist aggression. Above: Avaaz claims its e-mail To organize an “anti- year, Avaaz mounted a major campaign to charge a referral fee.” blast played key role in getting U.N. approval for “no-fly capitalist” contingent push for U.S. bombing of Syria, using the Meanwhile, the non-profit arm of zone” which led to destruction of Libya. Below: Avaaz/ (International Socialist lie of massive use of chemical weapons Purpose raised $3 million from investors Purpose co-founder Tom Perriello (right) with ex-general Organization) or one against civilians by the Assad regime. After in 2012, among them the Ford Foundation. David Petraeus (left) at U.S. Institute of Peace. against “war, racism last year’s failure, Avaaz/Purpose lead- In 2011, Heimans received the Ford Foun- 10 The Internationalist dation’s Visionaries Award of $100,000, a diverse crowd in the streets, with balloons strategic. Israel is a key element in Western saying he would use it to promote “con- and floats for “the planet” and “all that we domination of the Middle East, including Alon Skuy/The Times of Johannesburg sumer activism, of organizing people not as love,” they will be market-testing appeals vital oil supplies and trade routes, which citizens but as consumers.” Other past and to scale up “eco-friendly” business in the also benefit the European imperialists. No present leaders of Avaaz/Purpose include digital world, to substitute “clicktivism” for amount of popular pressure will change Marilia Bezerra, who earlier was Commit- mass struggle. It certainly will do nothing to that” (The Internationalist No. 31). When ment Development Senior Manager at the counter the threat posed by global warming. we challenged Israeli leftist historian Ilan Clinton Global Initiative; and brand strate- To deal with that, it is necessary to put an Pappé on this at a forum in New York City, gist Douglas Atkin, author of The Culting end to what Karl Marx called the anarchy of he stated emphatically that he and others of Brands: Turn Your Customers into True production for profit – capitalism – through in the BDS movement had long since con- Believers, who helped relaunch brands like an international socialist revolution. To cluded it was a mistake to call for a fight Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Lipitor through begin, we need to break the stranglehold of against imperialism. the “secrets of fierce customer identifica- the Democratic Party by building a revolu- Yet the hard reality is that Zionist power tion” and “unbreakable loyalty.” tionary workers party. n in Palestine will not be broken without Heimans’ particular shtick is that it’s defeating its imperialist patrons. It can be necessary to junk the term “green,” even Defend Gaza... done. U.S. imperialism was handed a sting- the talk of a “green economy,” that “we continued from page 6 ing defeat by the revolutionary struggle of need to kill the language and imagery and The International Socialist League the Vietnamese workers and peasants in the green in order to have any real shot at scal- (ISL) of Yossi Schwartz, who has mi- 1960s and ’70s, which had wide-ranging ing sustainable consumption.” Instead “we Miners shot down at Marikana. Are grated from one international tendency beneficial effects for the world’s peoples. can create a new economy that takes these police workers? No, they are the armed to another over the past several decades, But the imperialists counterattacked from models that can very quickly acquire market fist of the bourgeoisie. blithely changing his positions on every Afghanistan and Central America to Eastern share and we can give people a sense they’re key issue, calls for a “workers state from Europe, culminating in the counterrevolu- part of something much bigger, we’ll build the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] tion that destroyed the USSR and Soviet South Africa... the green economy, we just won’t talk about continued from page 7 sea.” The ISL’s current bloc partner, after bloc bureaucratically deformed workers it and we won’t say that we’re doing it.”1 Work?” As any Marxist could tell you, dumping the League for the Revolutionary states in 1989-92, and by unrelenting class Having “found a lucrative revenue stream the answer is a flat “no.” Even in the neo- Party (LRP) last year, is the “Revolutionary war on workers “at home.” As we have in- by warning about climate catastrophe that apartheid never-never land, where the South Communist International Tendency,” which sisted, success in the fight against Zionism can be solved with the click of a donate African Communist Party staffs the bour- exists mainly on the Internet. A July 8 joint can only be won through struggle to bring button,” Gupta writes, these specialists in geois state and runs the police/intelligence RCIT-ISL statement calls to “conquer [the] down capitalism and imperialism. “behavioral economics” are launching a apparatus, all the talk of “stakeholder,” apartheid regime and replace it with a state Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky marketing campaign to test it out. “responsible” and “conscious” capitalism of equal civil rights for all – from the river warned in the 1930s that the Zionist project Meanwhile, along with Sunday’s won’t amount to a hill of beans because the to the sea.” Nothing about a “workers state” in Palestine was a death trap for Jews as “People’s Climate March” a whole week very essence of capitalism is exploitation. there. In contrast to the pro-Zionist CPI and well as a calamity for all the peoples of the of profitable activities are planned. There As Lenin remarked about the “econo- SSM, the ISL capitulates to bourgeois Arab region. As Trotskyists, the Internationalist is a book launch for Naomi Klein’s This mist” social democrats of his day who talked nationalism. Group and League for the Fourth Inter- Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the of “lending the economic struggle itself Internationally, there have been large national continue his struggle for world Climate.2 A recruiting movie presented in a political character,” such simple trade demonstrations against the war on Gaza socialist revolution. Along that road, rather conjunction with the New School: Disrup- unionism cannot take the workers’ struggle around the globe. Most of the anti-Zionist than appealing to imperialism and calling for tion. Climate. Change. A Flood Wall Street forward to revolution. Yet the excruciating forces (including the International Socialist bankrupt consumer boycotts (BDS), we seek action on Monday by Occupy. And a host situation of the South African proletariat Organization in the U.S. and many liberals) to spur international workers action against of activities by the Climate Group, a corpo- cries out for revolutionary, class-struggle call for a policy of “boycott, divestment and Zionist terror, such as a labor blockade rate action group founded by the Swiss Re politics. To win support from the oppressed sanctions” (BDS) against all things Israeli, of transportation (refusal to handle ships, insurance giant, with the military contractor masses of township residents, contract harking back to the divestment movement planes and cargo) to and from Israel so long Lockheed Martin as a “platinum sponsor,” workers and unemployed youth that the against South African apartheid. We have as Israeli bombs are falling on Gaza. But Hewlett-Packard and BMW as gold spon- government appeals to with its demagogic explained before that impotent consumer even that would be just a token of the mo- sors, Bloomberg LP and the Rockefeller anti-labor laws, NUMSA should fight for boycotts of Israeli products and academics, bilization of workers power that is needed. Brothers Fund as supporters, and Ikea and massive hiring for full-time jobs through a calls on businesses not to invest in Israel the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation The liberation of the Palestinian masses drastic reduction of the workweek with no and appeals for imperialist sanctions will as Clean Revolution Partners. Talk about a and breaking Israeli workers from Zionism loss in pay, with pay adjusted for inflation not stop the Zionist mass murderers, nor did royal corporate flim-flam job! will require a convulsive revolutionary (a sliding scale of wages and hours). they stop the white supremacist regime in As for the U.N. summit, it will be an wave sweeping the Middle East and North Particularly after Marikana, it should South Africa.3 The apartheid butchers were opportunity for 120+ heads of state to utter Africa. A tall order, to be sure, but one only be clear to class-conscious workers that or- brought down by a combination of militant pious platitudes about international coopera- has to recall the tremendous impact of the ganizing “unions” of police – the armed fist struggle by black workers in South Africa tion combating climate change. The U.N. is overthrow of the U.S.-allied dictatorships of capital – such as POPCRU is a ticket for and the imperialists’ calculation that after the outfit that brought cholera along with in Tunisia and Egypt in early 2011 to see disaster. A class-struggle leadership of labor the destruction of the Soviet Union they imperialist occupation to Haiti. Our demand the potential. Though that was not a revo- would organize workers defense guards to had nothing to fear from the house-broken to the U.N., from Haiti to Libya to Syria, is lution, as the imperialists and opportunist block scabs and cop attacks. And in the face of South African Communist Party. “hands off.” Calling on the U.N. to act as leftists claimed and we denied, it did raise threats of retrenchments (layoffs) and closures Recently there have been splits among ecological guardian is like … calling on BP, revolutionary aspirations and spurred class of plants and mines, rather than simply asking liberal anti-Zionists, with some prominent the criminals of the Deepwater Horizon oil struggle, even in Israel. It’s significant that to see the capitalists’ “financials,” as does the voices (notably Noam Chomsky and Nor- spill, to preserve the Everglades. At least BP Habima Square in Tel Aviv, where antiwar NUMSA strike memorandum, it would fight man Finkelstein) opposing the “BDS” call are not partners and sponsors of Climate Week. protests are now held, became the focal to impose workers control of their enterprises. for Palestinians’ right of return. This a capit- That would violate one of the cardinal rules of point for “social justice” protests and was Such demands from Leon Trotsky’s Transi- ulation to the Zionists. Our objection to the marketing, avoid “branding dissonance” at all nicknamed “the Israeli Tahrir,” after Cairo’s tional Program would be a bridge from today’s bankrupt BDS “strategy” is quite different, cost. Nevertheless, BP is an official Supporting Liberation Square. struggles to the fight for socialist revolution. although in some cases it may be necessary Partner of International Women’s Day 2014. As we wrote in 2010: “we seek to build Unlike the social democrats of the Dem- to give critical support to such initiatives The People’s Climate March is the an Arab/Hebrew Trotskyist party in all of ocratic Socialist Movement and its Workers against rabid Zionist reaction. For one thing, official rolling out of the campaign for a Palestine to lead the fight for a binational and Socialist Party, who envisage the NUM- since the crimes of U.S. imperialism far “sustainable” capitalist economy in the Arab/Hebrew workers state in the frame- SA obliging COSATU to call a nice, peaceful outweigh those of its Israeli junior partners, Brave New World of untrammeled corporate work of a socialist federation of the Near general (protest) strike for a wage hike and a why not call on American universities to dominance. With heart-warming visuals of East. However distant that prospect may living minimum wage – with nationalization refuse to hire American professors, or for 1 This and much of the information about Avaaz/ seem today, it is the only basis on which of the metal industry tacked on at the end as Europeans to boycott U.S. products, etc.? Purpose comes from well-researched articles by Muslims, Jews, Christians, Druzes – not to left cover – authentic Trotskyists emphasize But most fundamentally, the BDS cam- the Canadian environmental journalist Cory mention Kurds, Zoroastrians and numer- that a revolutionary struggle for power would paigns of moral outrage are at bottom an ap- Morningstar on her web site The Wrong Kind of ous other national and religious minorities be posed by a real general strike. What’s ur- peal to the imperialists to rein in or abandon Green, including “This Changes Nothing. Why throughout the region – can overcome gently needed in South Africa today to free their Israeli allies. As we have noted, “This the People’s Climate March Guarantees Cli- sectarian divisions and live and develop in the workers and urban and rural poor from mate Catastrophe” (15 September) and “Syria: is an illusion, particularly in the case of the harmony. Achieving this is a vital task not neo-apartheid slavery is above all building a Avaaz, Purpose & the Art of Selling Hate for United States, whose alliance with Israel is Empire” (17 September). only of Hebrew-speaking and Arab workers revolutionary workers party on the program 2 Klein, a liberal anti-communist who writes 3 See “Israel’s Gaza Flotilla Massacre: Bloody in Palestine, but of the world proletariat as of Lenin and Trotsky, to fight for a black- inane books beloved by reformists and “anar- War Provocation,” The Internationalist No. 31, we struggle to smash imperialism through centered workers government in a socialist chists,” is about as “anti-capitalist” as the pope. Summer 2010. international socialist revolution.” n federation of Africa. n October-November 2014 11 Mobilize Workers Action Against Police Terror! Racist NYPD Murder of Eric Garner JULY 26 – The racists in blue uniforms of chokehold murder and EMS non-action. his full faith in Bratton. the New York Police Department are at it At the funeral service at Bethel Baptist The liberal mayor has again. Eric Garner, 43, a black asthmatic Church in Brooklyn, Sharpton said a fed- gotten a free ride from father of six and grandfather, was standing eral civil rights violation resulted in jail protesters, who hated New York Daily News on a corner on Bay Street in the Tompkins- for racist cop Volpe who brutally tortured the snarling racist Gi- ville section of Staten Island on July 17. He Abner Louima. But what about the cops uliani, plutocrat mayor was set upon by cops who surrounded him, who murdered Amadou Diallo, Patrick Michael Bloomberg and put him in a chokehold and dragged him to Dorismond, Sean Bell and so many oth- his top cop Ray Kelly the ground. Soon he stopped moving. EMS ers? They all walked, because the “justice” but many of whom love medics did nothing to help him. Why don’t system stands by the police, the guard “progressive” Democrat they apply CPR to get him breathing, a dogs of capital. de Blasio, even though he bystander asked. Instead, cops and medics A sign held by Internationalist Group appointed the police com- stood by and watched him die. supporters who attended Eric Garner’s fu- missioner and approved The chokehold has been banned in neral recalled the 1994 racist cop chokehold Bratton’s tactics. Not us. New York for 20 years, but they have murder of Anthony Baez who was playing As an Internationalist never stopped. There have been over 1,000 football on a Bronx street. A second IG sign sign declared: “Bloom- chokehold complaints since 2009 alone, and read: “Workers Revolution Will Avenge berg/Kelly, De Blasio/ you can be sure this is only a fraction of the Trayvon Martin, Ramarley Graham, Ama- Bratton, ‘Stop and Frisk,’ number of times the deadly tactic was used. dou Diallo, Sean Bell, Troy Davis, Marcelo Chokeholds: It Doesn’t No cop was ever seriously disciplined for Lucero, Patrick Dorismond, Rekia Boyd” Stop – For Workers Revo- this. What was different this time was there – the list goes on and on of black lives lution!” are videos showing the encounter from start snuffed out by killer cops, racist vigilantes At the time of his to finish. They went viral on social media, and black-robed judges. As a third sign election last fall, we as outrage spread over another cop killing declared, “The Capitalist System Is Racist said “De Blasio Will Be of a black man in NYC. to the Core.” ‘Bloomberg Lite’.” He On the video you can hear Mr. Garner has to be: as a leader of saying “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” over What Is To Be Done? the capitalist Democratic and over, but this didn’t stop the killer cops The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Party, he takes his or- as they choked the air out of his windpipe Lenin asked that question over a century ago ders from Wall Street and and lungs. Did he die of a heart attack, from and it’s still the right one to ask. There has Washington. Even though his asthma? Makes no difference: Eric Gar- been a lot of justified outrage expressed over our headline angered ner was chokeholded to death. It was racist the killing of Eric Garner, and some calls many liberals, de Blasio’s From cellphone video showing Eric Garner being murder by the NYPD, and it was intentional. for cosmetic reforms, but nothing that gets first six months in office chokeholded to death by NYC cops, July 17. The cops’ story is he was resisting ar- to the root. New Yorkers Against Bratton proved us right: a green light for charter penal-law crime….” The reason for this rest. Like hell. In fact, they had been called are calling to fire the police commissioner. schools; closing of Long Island College arrest mania is not some “compstat” com- to the scene about a fight. But Mr. Garner, William Bratton was named top cop by Hospital despite repeated community protests puter system or a particular strategy or known on the street as a peace-maker, had Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the (including some grandstanding by de Blasio tactic, not is it limited to the NYPD. The already broken it up. He was a big man, mid-1990s when police swooped down on himself); calls for raising the minimum wage purpose of this racist mass incarceration, 350 pounds, but he was called “the gentle black neighborhoods, arresting thousands of forgotten; and now backing up the killers-in- of the “school-to-prison pipeline,” is to giant.” The police knew him well, having people on so-called “quality of life crimes.” uniform, the NYPD. put millions of African American, Latino, arrested him more than 30 times, mostly Now Bratton’s back, and pursuing his same De Blasio never pretended he was go- Asian and poor youth in the chokehold of for the same bogus “crime” of selling “broken window” strategy. ing to do away with “stop and frisk,” just the repressive apparatus of the capitalist “loosies” – loose cigarettes people buy Bratton arrogantly announced that “reform” it. Now there are calls to reduce state: subject to the revolving door of jail, because they can’t afford the astronomical nothing would change in NYPD policies the number of “quality of life” misdemeanor parole, constant harassment, monitoring, taxes on a pack. as a result of the killing of Eric Garner. arrests. Many if not most of these are no surveillance and joblessness. Mr. Garner was not “resisting arrest” Sure, they may do some “retraining” about crime at all, like putting your feet on a Get another police chief? Like Kelly – another phony crime. He was protesting use of force, but that won’t stop kill-crazed subway seat. Selling untaxed “loosies”? who arrested 700 Occupy Wall Street pro- the constant police harassment: “I didn’t cops who keep on choking their victim as Abolish the punitive tobacco tax! Turnstile testers on the Brooklyn Bridge, had his cops do shit! I was just minding my own busi- he complains he can’t breathe. It also won’t jumping? Rip out the turnstiles and have pepper spray and slam them to the ground and ness,” Garner can be heard telling the cops put a dent in the astronomical arrest num- free mass transit! “Broken windows” lead sent Cecily McMillan to jail for the crime of in one of the videos. “Every time you see bers – almost 400,000 a year in a city of 8 to major crimes? Like what? We don’t see “resisting” when cops grabbed her breasts? me, you want to mess with me,” he added. million. Even after massive protests against Wall Street executives who looted the U.S. (Before heading the NYPD, Kelly led a U.S. “I’m tired of it.. It ends today. Please just NYPD victimizing young men for the crime Treasury for trillions of dollars getting imperialist police force in Haiti under Demo- leave me alone!” But they wouldn’t let of “walking while black,” Brooklyn teachers stopped and frisked! crat Bill Clinton.) Replace the chokehold him alone. Eric Garner was targeted by say their 13- and 14-year-old students are The New York Times (25 July) reports: with tasers? Are they kidding? Tasers kill too. murderous cops, he dared to talk back, and regularly “stopped-and-frisked” on the way “All told, since 1994, the police in New The issue is not just policy or personnel but so he was killed. home from school. York City have arrested more than 1.3 power, and the answer to endemic, systemic But what about Bratton’s boss, Bill de million people for misdemeanors who racist cop terror is to mobilize a greater power “It Ends Today”: Blasio? Vacationing in Italy, he declares had never been previously arrested for a continued on page 16 Eric Garner’s Parting Words Become a Rallying Cry Spencer Platt/Getty Images At vigils and protests in the ensu- ing days, Eric Garner’s desperate cry, “I can’t breathe,” and his parting words, “It ends today,” have become rallying cries. The cops belong behind bars. And not just Daniel Pantaleo, who applied the Internationalist photo chokehold and who has provoked numer- ous complaints of brutality. All the police involved are accomplices. Moreover, the EMS medics who did nothing are also guilty, of dereliction of duty if not much worse. On July 25, Rev. Al Sharpton and Mr. Garner’s family formally asked for Internationalists at funeral of Eric Garner (left), July 23. a federal civil rights probe of the police Whether Bloomberg/Kelly or de Blasio/Bratton (above), racist cop terror doesn’t stop. 12 The Internationalist Outrage Over Cop Murder of Michael Brown Throws Capitalist Rulers Into National Crisis Mobilize Across U.S. Against Racist Police Terror in Missouri!

Stand with Protests

Against Military / Police Scott Olson/Getty Images Occupation Drop Charges Against All Arrested Protesters All Cops and Troops Out of Ferguson, MO!

AUGUST 19 – When a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri shot down an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, and cops left his body lying in the street for hours, it set off an explosion of mass anger that hasn’t stopped. Young and old, the population of this more than two- thirds black town had had it with the almost entirely white cops and their racist bosses who lord it over the place like it was a plan- tation. No matter what the rulers tried, they couldn’t squelch the protests. Right from the start, St. Louis County police deployed the military arsenal they had been building up to put down black unrest: armored cars, snipers with high-powered rifles, tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, the works. Didn’t work. In fact, it backfired. There was na- Police in Ferguson advance on hundreds of demonstrators protesting on August 17 the cop murder of Michael Brown. tionwide shock as the images resembled upheavals against bloody dictators in the Middle East, Palestinians rising up against For Labor/Black/Immigrant Mobilization Now! Israeli occupation or mass protests in the black Soweto township in apartheid South Militarized policing drew particular at- Next came the curfew. While Demo- dent Obama piously appealed for “justice,” Africa. The snarling dogs recalled Birming- tention, with liberal Democrats and even cratic president Barack Obama made “healing” and “coming together going ham, Alabama in the most violent phase of right-wing Republicans lamenting it (after hypocritical speeches about protecting the forward” – along with calls to maintain repression against the civil rights struggle. lavishly funding it). All the firepower didn’t right to protest, Democratic governor Nixon “public safety.” The first thing to be done stop nightly protests by angry youth fed up ordered protesters off the streets at midnight for the safety of the public in Ferguson is to with police harassment, and now murder of Saturday, supposedly to stop looting. The get the cops and military out of town, and a young black man as he held up his hands protesters defiantly stood their ground for drop all charges against everyone arrested saying, “Don’t shoot!” So under pressure an hour in the rain until the barrages of gas since August 9. from Washington, Democratic governor and gunfire finally drove them away. Then The Internationalist Group stands with Jay Nixon brought in a black state highway on Sunday the results of the independent the embattled people of Ferguson, Mo. We patrol official to take command. autopsy by Dr. Michael Baden came out: hail the courageous youth who have refused Captain Ronald Johnson did the Officer Michael Brown was shot six times, all to be intimidated by everything the racist Friendly routine, walking with protesters, from the front, twice in the head. Militant rulers have thrown at them. The fact that promising to pull heavy armor off the streets, protests broke out again. This time the cops they have fought back against the police has Photos: Facebook; Twitter speaking to church congregations about his didn’t wait and attacked demonstrators thrown the ruling class into crisis nation- own teenage black son (“who wears his pants hours before the curfew went into effect. ally. The police murder of Michael Brown saggy”). Simultaneously, black Democrats Al On Monday morning the governor ordered reverberated around the country because this Sharpton and Jesse Jackson came to town to in the National Guard. is no local issue. It came only a few weeks cool things out. Thinking that those in power Now mass arrests have begun, with 78 after Eric Garner was chokeholded to death were finally listening, the mood shifted, protesters booked in the last two days. In on Staten Island by New York City police. people celebrated. The euphoria lasted barely line with local politicians’ denunciation of Across the U.S., cops kill well over 400 a day. When local police finally released the “outside agitators,” a number of people from people a year, and they won’t be stopped name of the killer cop, Darren Wilson, after New York and California have been yanked by calls to limit their hardware. days of stonewalling, they also tried to smear out of crowds by the cops. Among them The military/police occupation in Mis- Michael Brown as a “suspect” of shoplifting. was Carl Dix, a leader of the Revolutionary souri must be fought by mobilizing labor/ First they murder him, then they assassinate Communist Party (RCP), who said, rightly, black/immigrant power and youth opposed Michael Brown (top) had just graduat­ the victim’s character. Furious protests broke “There are no ‘outsiders’ in the struggle for to racist repression nationwide. ed high school and was about to start out again, and the armored cars were back. justice and liberation.” Meanwhile, Presi- Because racist police brutality and cop vocational college. Bottom: police left Michael’s body lying in the street for five hours as a threat while they Capitalism Is Racist to the Core went after residents who complained about the wanton murder. Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! October-November 2014 13 terror is endemic in American capitalism, it can’t be stopped by a few modest reforms. Killer cop Darren Wilson definitely belongs Ferguson, MO: A History of Entrenched Racism behind bars for a long time. Many are calling It’s no secret that the police and mili- zoning laws designed to achieve the same a revolt of a working-class and middle-class for him to be arrested, indicted and tried, and tary assault on Ferguson, Missouri is shot purpose by requiring large lots and pro- African American community against an vow to keep up the pressure, chanting “No through with racism. Police chief Jackson hibiting apartment buildings. As the black entrenched white capitalist power structure. justice, no peace.” But as Marxists we know and his police force act, as does the nearly population of St. Louis grew and the civil There are major profitable companies in the that there is no justice for the oppressed in all-white city council, like they’re in a rights movement led to the end of formal area: the corporate HQ of Emerson Electric the capitalist courts. The ruling class stands Southern town back in the days of Jim Crow segregation, the 1950s and ’60s saw a mas- ($24 billion a year in sales) is in Ferguson; by its guard dogs – the police “serve and segregation. It’s no accident. Under the sive exodus of whites from the city to the another major area employer is Express protect” the interests of capital. The cops’ “Missouri compromise,” Missouri entered suburbs in St. Louis County. Scripts ($105 billion a year), the mail-order job is to keep the poor and working people the union as a slave state. Missouri slave By the 1970s and ’80s, between “white prescription supplier. But very little of this down, which is exactly what they are doing owners formed militias to stage bloody flight” and the collapse of industry, St. Louis revenue finds its way into municipal coffers. in Ferguson. incursions into free Kansas, such as Quant- suffered massive depopulation, and is now Instead, the second largest source of the In this fight to rip racist oppression out rill’s Raiders who burned Lawrence to the down by almost two-thirds since 1950. The town’s revenue ($2.6 million last year) is by its roots – in this country born from chat- ground and provoked guerrilla war with city gained notoriety then as the “used brick from … traffic tickets, fines and court fees. tel slavery – the struggle for black liberation abolitionist John Brown. Dred Scott, then capital” of the world. As poverty spread Moreover, five out of six tickets issued is and has always been central. To put a stop living in St. Louis, sued to win his freedom, in the inner city, many black middle- and in Ferguson are to blacks, who are twice as to racist police brutality and murder, we but was told by U.S. supreme court chief working-class families migrated to North likely as white drivers to be pulled over. As must fight for revolution, a socialist revolu- justice Roger Taney that black men “had no County towns. More recently, whites have one resident put it, “Everybody in this city tion to overthrow capitalism. rights which the white man was bound to been moving back to the city, which as a has been a victim of DWB [driving while Nationwide Militarization respect,” a decision which set the stage for result of gentrification went from 28% white black]” (Washington Post,13 August). Or as the Civil War that finally abolished slavery. in 2000 to almost 50% white a decade later. another said, quoted in a recent report by of the Police St. Louis County broke off from the Since 1990 Ferguson has gone from being the Arch City Defenders, “in North County, What has happened in this white-ruled city in the late 1800s as a refuge from 74% white to 70% black. But political power if you’re black, they’re going to stop you” black Missouri suburb is not just the result of the “urban ills” of the growing railroad, remained in the hands of white politicians (Newsweek, 14 August). According to the local racism (see box), it is a direct reflection river shipping and manufacturing hub. who held all but one seat in the city council public defenders’ report, last year the Fer- of the rampant militarization of police forces As blacks moved north during World War and school board, while a 96% white police guson municipal court issued 24,532 arrest throughout the U.S. Those Bearcat and I, St. Louis County towns kept them out force held blacks in check. warrants, more than one for every man, MRAP (mine-resistant ambush-protected) by enacting restrictive covenants which Although over one-fifth of the population woman and child in this town of 21,000 armored vehicles, the LRAD (long-range banned home sales to non-whites and were in Ferguson lives below the official poverty people. So the racist police are not only acoustic device) sound cannons and heavy- only outlawed by a 1948 Supreme Court line, what’s notable about Ferguson is that brutal repressors, they are parasites feeding duty weaponry that suddenly showed up decision. These were then replaced by this is not a ghetto rebellion of the jobless but off the black population. ■ on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson, along with the police helicopters circling overhead, are part of a national program in Times, 15 August). And of course, if they The result of these programs is that run- critics were mainly concerned that the which the U.S. Departments of Defense, have it, they’re going to use it, as they are of-the-mill police actions across the country heavy-handed paramilitary tactics weren’t Justice and Homeland Security are pumping now doing in Ferguson. increasingly resemble military operations, working. Note that the ACLU study only billions of dollars of equipment into beefing Residents of Ferguson are well aware with the general population as the “enemy.” objects to “excessive” militarization, i.e., up local police forces in the name of fighting that their city has been turned into a war While this has been intensified by the “war “overkill.” If protesters had been shocked- “terrorism.” zone. A Los Angeles Times reporter recorded on terror” since 2001, it dates back to the and-awed into submission, there wouldn’t Some of this is disposing of surplus war a protester shouting at a line of police in “war on drugs” starting in the 1980s, and to have been a peep from Washington. As soon materiel: the Pentagon’s “1033” program fatigues, “You gonna shoot us? Is this the the original creation of SWAT teams in the as the National Guard was brought in, the has provided over $4 billion in left-over Gaza Strip?” In fact, high-level police of- late 1960s. And from the beginning, it has complaints stopped. armor, ammo and weapons from Iraq and ficials from the area have traveled to Israel been a bipartisan effort. However, the greatest threat is not that Afghanistan to domestic police agencies. to receive how-to lessons on occupation. A recent study by the American Civil this is a boondoggle but that the authorities The Homeland Security Department sup- This included St. Louis County police Liberties Union (“War Comes Home: The are gearing up for internal war. They pub- plied $34 billion in “terrorism grants.” So chief Timothy Fitch, who attended an Anti- Excessive Militarization of American Po- lish studies on it, formed a military North now police in Fargo, North Dakota (aver- Defamation League-sponsored “National licing” [June 2014]) reports that 90% of American Command to prepare for it, and age homicide rate, 2 per year) have assault Counter-Terrorism Seminar” in 2011 to all large U.S. cities have SWAT (special used the 2013 Boston Marathon attack as a rifles in every squad car, Kevlar helmets to “study first hand Israel’s tactics and strate- weapons and tactics) assault teams, as do practice run for locking down an entire met- withstand battlefield-grade ammunition, and gies” (Rania Khalek, “Israel-trained police 80% of small towns. Moreover, 80% of ropolitan area. Internal war against whom? a $250,000 armored truck (with rotating ‘occupy’ Missouri after killing of black the hundreds of SWAT raids it investigated Forget about Al Qaeda, the target is us, the turret) “just in case.” St. Louis County got youth,” Electronic Intifada, 15 August). The in 2011-12 were in order to serve search poor, black, Latino, immigrant and working a $360,000 Bearcat, night vision goggles, NYPD is so tight with Israel that it has an warrants: terrorizing people on the basis of people who dare to resist. body armor and three helicopters (New York office in Tel Aviv. mere suspicion. A New York Times (9 June) The military equipment was always article by Matt Apuzzo intended to be used to quell “domestic reported: disturbances” (by which they don’t mean “Police SWAT teams are family quarrels) and “racial unrest” (what now deployed tens of they used to call “race riots,” meaning when thousands of times each black people fight back against racial op- year, increasingly for pression and racist attacks). And in fact the routine jobs. Masked, police recipients of the Pentagon largesse heavily armed police offi- are contractually required to use all that cers in Louisiana raided a nightclub in 2006 as part stuff within a year of receiving it. So what’s of a liquor inspection. happening in Ferguson, Mo. is no one-shot In Florida in 2010, of- deal, we’ll see those images again, most Scott Olson/Getty Images ficers in SWAT gear and likely soon. with guns drawn carried Build a Multi-Racial, out raids on barbershops that mostly led only to Revolutionary Workers Party charges of ‘barbering With the election of Barack Obama without a license’.” as the first black president of the United In the shock wave States there was a lot of happy talk about set off by events in Fer- a “post-racial America.” The reality is very guson, liberals have different. In fact, in recent years there has criticized militarized been a rise in racist reaction. This is the core policing focusing on of the rabid rightist opposition to Obama, the absurdity of sup- despite his capitulation to right-wing pres- plying armored cars sure at every step. And it is accompanied by to townships in rural mounting racist attacks by police, security August 13: Youth defy police in Ferguson to protest murder of Michael Brown. Maine. Ruling-class guards and vigilantes against blacks and

14 The Internationalist immigrants. Last year there was the NYPD murder of Kimani Gray in East Flatbush, Brooklyn and the racist verdict freeing the CLASS STRUGGLE EDUCATION WORKERS killer of black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida. This year it is the NYPD murder of Eric Garner, the Missouri cop killing of MORE Takes a Stand ... With the Police black teenager Michael Brown, and an ever- growing list across the country. Denounces UFT for Backing Anti-Racist March What we’re facing is not some cracker When New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, along cops run amok, “a few bad apples,” an with other NYC unions, endorsed an August 23 march in Staten Internationalist photo out-of-step police chief – it’s a whole ap- Island called by black Democrat Al Sharpton to protest the police paratus of racist repression in the service killing of Eric Garner (see page 12), there was a barrage of racist of imperialist capitalism. The increasing criticism, from the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), virulence of the attacks is a reflects en- from the bourgeois press and from many teachers. trenched local racism, certainly, but also Grotesquely, the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators the worldwide economic depression since (MORE), an opposition caucus in the UFT which includes the 2007-08 financial crash, and endless supporters of various left groups (including the International U.S. wars of terror in the Middle East and Socialist Organization, Socialist Alternative, Progressive Labor around the world. Today, as clouds of tear Party and others), joined this outpouring of pro-cop sentiment, gas and volleys of flash-bang grenades calling for “unity” with the PBA and refusing to support the engulf Ferguson, many young people have march in any way. marched in protest, as they did in 2013 for The comment printed below was posted to the MORE web Trayvon. Whole sectors of the population site by Marjorie Stamberg of Class Struggle Education Workers, may be beginning to see, as the Internation- an opposition tendency in New York educator unions. The CSEW alist Group has declared on our placards, along with the Internationalist Group and the Internationalist CSEW and IG supporters at August 23 Staten Island that “Imperialist War Abroad Means Racist Clubs at the City University of New York had a contingent in the march against racist police attacks. Repression in the U.S.” August 23 march. MORE claims to “stand against racism,” not to mention be- The key question is how to fight this Subsequently controversy continued on the MORE web site. escalating racist-capitalist assault. What’s ing for justice, unity and all good things, but when the moment Some responded to posts from supporters of CSEW with red- came to show it, you were first tied up in knots, and then came needed above all is revolutionary leadership. baiting, while others were uncomfortable about MORE’S stance. Black Democrats like Jesse Jackson Sr. and down on the wrong side. Instead of linking arms with the fam- On September 13 a MORE membership meeting voted, after the ily of Eric Garner, murdered by the racist NYPD, you put out a Al Sharpton are only trying to divert and fact, to support participation in the August 23 march (but not to defuse struggle in order to aid the govern- despicable call for “unity” with … his killers (“we encourage the repudiate the call for “unity” with the police). leaderships of the UFT and PBA, to find ways to work together ment. In New York, Sharpton called a mass Whereupon some on MORE’s right wing promptly split to march over the Verrazano Bridge to protest and unite” … “with our brother and sister officers”). Outrageous. form a “Solidarity Caucus” devoted exclusively to “teacher Far from being our “brothers and sisters,” the police are the police killing of Eric Garner, but then justice” as opposed to “social justice.” But even that did not end backed down under pressure from fellow professional strikebreakers and enforcers of racist “law and or- the turmoil in MORE, as some who stayed began pushing for by- der.” That’s their job for the ruling class. The victims of NYPD Democrat, mayor liberal Bill de Blasio, and laws to subject discussion of non-teacher issues to time limits... his police commissioner Bill Bratton. In- killer cops include Eleanor Bumpurs, Anthony Baez, Amadou Try as it might, MORE can’t sidestep the burning issues Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Sean Bell, Ramarley Graham, Kimani stead he is now holding an August 23 march of the class struggle. It’s which side are you on, and “reform” on Staten Island calling on Democratic Gray and so many others. The list goes on and on of black lives caucuses like MORE which don’t break with capitalist politics snuffed out by the NYPD. But MORE wants to work together president Obama and his corporate lawyer inevitably end up on the wrong side of the class line. attorney general Eric Holder to launch a and unite with the murderers. federal civil rights investigation – in order AUGUST 25 – MORE’s unspeakable statement refusing to sup- I might have said MORE’s statement was shocking, that to keep protest under control. port the August 23 Staten Island march against police brutality, it was incredible coming from a group claiming to be a “pro- particularly over the NYPD chokehold murder of Eric Garner last gressive” alternative to the sellout UFT bureaucracy of Mike Nevertheless, the August 23 march has month (see http://morecaucusnyc.org/2014/08/21/the-march-for- Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten. In fact, it is not only credible become a referendum on racism, as reaction- justice-and-unity/) speaks volumes. Not only did you not stand with but even predicable. It flows directly from MORE’s basic premise aries attack the United Federation of Teachers the thousands who came out to denounce this racist cop killing, you of “uniting” all and sundry against the Unity misleaders. It flows for participating in what they call an “anti- called instead for “unity” with the PBA, the voice of the killer cops directly from its avoidance of all issues of race and class, the police” march. Thus class-conscious teach- You wrote that many of your members would be there. How fundamental questions in this country. ers, students, immigrants and workers will nice. But MORE as a caucus in the UFT would not. Claiming you If MORE cannot fight against our union endorsing the join in marching while fighting for a program are in solidarity with the Garner family is cynical hypocrisy when capitalist Democratic Party politicians that keep labor tamed of militant class struggle against cop terror. you wouldn’t march with them. How dare MORE call itself or and enchained, and who are leading the offensive against public On the social-democratic left, the In- pretend to be a “social justice caucus”? If you cannot even take education and teachers in particular; if it cannot take a firm stand ternational Socialist Organization (ISO) has a stand against racist police murder you have indelibly stamped against Common Core; if it cannot point out the racist nature mainly done reporting, denouncing racism yourselves as a social injustice caucus. of the school closings; if it was “missing in action” during the but raising no demands at all. Its main com- What’s more, you have shown that on the key issue of rac- NYC school bus drivers strike last year; if it couldn’t march last petitor, Socialist Alternative (SAlt), demands ism MORE stands to the right of Mike Mulgrew’s sellout UFT summer against the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” of hundreds of that “the whole Ferguson police system be bureaucracy. thousands of African American and Latino youth; if today it can’t put under scrutiny” – meaning nothing – and You have criticisms of Al Sharpton. I have repeatedly pub- bring itself to mention the racist cop killing of Michael Brown calls for “community controlled policing,” licly criticized Al Sharpton since 1983 when he wore a wire for in Missouri, MORE has demonstrated that it is in no advance supposedly overseen by union and commu- the feds. But your objections come from the opposite direction, over Mulgrew’s bureaucratic Unity Caucus. nity representatives. This is a sinister call for from people who think he is “anti-police.” Nonsense, Al Sharp- While the MORE Caucus of the UFT has been lionized by collaboration with the cops. SAlt would have ton has worked with the police for decades to “cool things out,” many on the left, we in Class Struggle Education Workers have you believe that cops are workers, a deadly keep protests “under control” and divert struggle against racist characterized it as a case study in opportunism. Opposing racist illusion as cops are the armed fist of capital. injustice in alliance with the capitalist Democratic Party. police repression is a litmus test. Today people throughout the It is ABC for Marxists that the police are the But this march was not about Al Sharpton. It was a refer- U.S. are confronted with the basic, urgent need to take a stand core of the state, and no matter who suppos- endum on racism. Even the UFT knew that. The NAACP knew with African American targets of murderous racist repression edly “controls” them, they will uphold racist that, and sent a big contingent. Countless other New Yorkers and military occupation. This is ABC for any decent unionist or capitalist “law and order.” knew that. They came out, including unionists from SEIU 32 B-J, opponent of oppression. A smaller social-democratic outfit with the New York Nurses Association, CUNY’s Professional Staff Trying to dodge this with a gazillion words about “teacher a local in St. Louis is the Workers Interna- Congress, and numerous anti-racist and left groups across the city. priorities” is obscene. What are we as educators if not advocates tional League (WIL), affiliated with Alan Class Struggle Education Workers was there with a contingent. for our students who are stopped and frisked in the streets every Woods’ International Marxist Tendency. The August 23 march was a time to stand up and be counted. day, and sometimes shot? Unlike SAlt, WIL warns against illusions If MORE was so blind to racial oppression that it couldn’t see After MORE’s vile statement, how can any self-respecting in “community control of the police,” but a that, all you had to do was look at the barrage of racist criticisms leftist, anyone with a shred of anti-racist consciousness (or con- statement on the murder of Michael Brown of the UFT for its stand. But, of course, you were well aware of science), not to mention class consciousness, remain in MORE? echoes the capitalist media in denouncing those criticisms, and conciliated and even embraced them. What This is not a mistake, it is a betrayal of the first order. “riots,” “looting” and “vandalism”: was needed on Saturday was a massive turnout of labor, blacks, –Marjorie Stamberg “while we can sympathize with the rea- immigrants and all defenders of working people and the oppressed UFT member, delegate D79 sons for the riots … riots can never bring against police terror. Thousands did turn out, but not MORE. continued on page 16 Class Struggle Education Workers

October-November 2014 15 tionary program of Lenin and Trotsky, who together led the 1917 Russian October Revolution. This means combating all illu- sions in capitalist “justice,” or appeals to Obama and his top cop Eric Holder, who terrorize the world, from drones in Yemen to prisons in Guantánamo. We empha- size that racist repression is a bedrock of American capitalism, as it has been since slave patrols in South Carolina in the 1830s became the first professional police force in the U.S. To put an end to it, we must replace the dictatorship of capital with the rule of the working class. Whitney Curtis for The New York Times Whitney Curtis for The New York From New York to Ferguson: Mo- bilize workers’ power to smash racist terror! Black liberation through socialist revolution! ■ Eric Garner... continued from page 12 than the police, greater even than the capital- ists they serve and protect. That power is in the hands of the working class, and the many millions who suffer at the hands of the NYPD and their Wall Street bosses. The response to heinous crimes like the murder of Eric Garner should be to massively mobilize NYC workers and the oppressed in class-struggle action. No- August 13: St. Louis County police confront demonstrators in Ferguson, Misssouri with armored vehicle, body tably, Eric Garner’s mother Gwen Carr is a armor, assault rifles and a sniper aiming at the crowd. Equipment supplied by federal government under the guise train operator for the Metropolitan Transpor- of fighting “terrorism.” The terrorists are the police. tation Authority and his sister Elisha Flagg is nists to stress is that the struggle against candidates and coalitions” (SAlt), but a an MTA bus driver. Several TWU Local 100 Missouri... racism and for black liberation requires a party that can lead all the oppressed in sharp members came out the funeral Wednesday, continued from page 15 program for workers revolution against class struggle to bring down capitalism and some there to show their solidarity even about fundamental change…. Further- capitalism. We defend the RCP against install a workers government. It would call without knowing that this terrible crime more, the looting and vandalism will only the red-baiting authorities, and demand on workers, blacks and all defenders of had hit their union sisters. The TWU should damage our own neighborhoods and give charges be dropped against Dix and all democratic rights to mobilize massively in strike to shut the city down in protest against the powers that be a convenient excuse those arrested. But in Ferguson as else- the streets against cop terror, demanding this cold-blooded killing of their members’ to dismiss the legitimate issues facing where what these Maoists put forward is that all police and military get out of Fer- brother and son. the youth. Riots provide a convenient the politics of reformism, as they pitch guson, now, and initiate integrated labor/ But that can only be a first step. We distraction for the media.” their message to liberals rather than point- black defense guards against racist attacks. need to break labor and the black, immi- –Socialist Appeal, August 12 ing a road to revolution. It would also call for a massive program of grant, poor and working people free from Revolutionary Trotskyists urge pro- The hard truth that revolutionary public works under union control, and for the stranglehold of the Democratic Party, testers to direct their anger effectively at Marxists must state plainly to the masses a shorter workweek with no loss in pay to to build a multiracial, class-struggle work- the capitalist state, but in contrast to these is that all these supposed “reforms” will provide jobs for all. ers party. Capitalism survives by making reformists we defend the youths who raged do nothing to change an unreformable The militarized police and National its wage slaves’ lives hell. It will take against the racist cop murder and demand capitalist system that was founded on Guard invasion and occupation of black nothing less than workers revolution to that charges be dropped against all those slavery, and which in one form or another Ferguson, Mo. is the face of racist repres- put an end to this system of racist police arrested. The real looters are the giant cor- has continued black oppression ever since. sion in the U.S. today, as endless impe- repression and make Eric Garner’s last porations (including QuikTrip, whose gas A new police chief will do nothing more rialist wars abroad “come home.” An ef- wish a reality. n station was torched and whose $11 billion than placing state highway patrol official fective fight against cop a year in revenue comes from soaking com- Johnson “in charge” did: put a black face terror here is inseparably League for the Fourth International munities like Ferguson). on racist repression. Limiting the flood connected to the struggle LFI, Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY The most prominent left group that of heavy weaponry from the Pentagon to mobilize workers’ 10008, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] has been active in Ferguson is the Maoist and Homeland Security won’t stop the power to drive the U.S. Revolutionary Communist Party, which killer cops. In New York City under lib- out of Afghanistan and Internationalist Group/U.S. mainly promotes the thought of its cult eral mayor de Blasio, who campaigned to Iraq and to defend those Internationalist Group, Box 3321, Church Street “reform” the racist stop-and-frisk tactics, fighting against imperi- leader Bob Avakian. The RCP also works Station, New York, NY 10008, U.S.A. cops murdered Eric Garner with their alism. It is necessary as with liberals like Cornel West in the E-mail: [email protected] Stop Mass Incarceration Network, and bare hands. well to join with immi- New York Tel. (212) 460-0983 Fax: (212) 614-8711 The fight to put a stop to racist cop grants who face arbitrary with the National Lawyers Guild on the Portland Tel. (971) 282-7903 Stolen Lives Project, whose banner list- terror must mobilize the force that has the seizure by the police and ing hundreds of names of the more than power to bring the capitalist system to a hundreds of thousands Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil 2,000 killed by police since 1990 has grinding halt: the millions-strong multi- of deportations a year. been prominent in the Ferguson protests. racial working class. St. Louis labor has a As an Internationalist Brazil: write to Caixa Postal 084027, CEP 27251- Despite its name, the RCP these days is special responsibility to oppose the police/ Group sign noted at an 740, Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil putting forward a program that doesn’t go military occupation of Ferguson, but as August 18 protest in Rio de Janeiro: write to Caixa Postal 3982, CEP beyond liberal/reformist demands – such elsewhere the political program of union New York, “Immigrant 20001-974, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil as calling to “fire the police chief” and officialdom is to elect Democrats. And Workers in NYC Say: E-mail: [email protected] while the mayor of Ferguson is a Repub- Stand With Besieged for “a full accounting of what happened” LIVI/Deutschland – with a little rhetoric about revolution lican, the St. Louis County executive and African Americans in tacked on to spice it up. Missouri governor who control the cops Ferguson.” We demand Germany: write to Postfach 74 06 41, 22096 Hamburg, The RCP chants “The Whole Damn carrying out the repression are Democrats. full citizenship rights for Germany System Is Guilty as Hell!” but doesn’t say The key to mobilizing workers power is all immigrants. Grupo Internacionalista/México that system is capitalism. Nothing about to oust the bureaucrats and break with the The way to put an write to Apartado Postal 12-201, Admón. communism either. Strikingly, in several Democrats. end to the terror of the México: Postal Obrero Mundial, CP 03001, México D.F, México articles on Ferguson the RCP never once What’s urgently needed is to build a ruling class against the E-mail: [email protected] mentions racism, which isn’t easy given multiracial revolutionary workers party. Not exploited and oppressed the blatantly racist repression. Yet the key some insipid “mass party of labor” (WIL) was shown almost a cen- Tel. Mexico City: 55-3154-7361; Guadalajara: 33-1752- 6643; Oaxaca: 951-129-2086 point for genuine revolutionary commu- or “independent left-wing, anticorporate tury ago in the revolu- 16 The Internationalist the shadow of the financial crisis and two

Iraq/Syria War.... Al Jazeera long, difficult wars. Why should a newly continued from page 1 rich country like China take lectures about how to run its affairs from a president who all evidence to the contrary). This time struggles even to get his own budget public opinion has been whipped into a through? America, meanwhile, seems pro-war frenzy by grisly videos of behead- swamped by the forces of disorder, either ings of American and British captives by unable or unwilling to steady a world that the fanatical Islamists of the I.S. Yet a key is spinning out of control. IS embodies U.S. ally is Saudi Arabia, the reactionary this frightening trend.” Islamist monarchy that beheads people all The war makers in Washington figure the time (79 in 2013, 22 this past August that with U.S. economic strength in de- alone), particularly foreigners. Recall as cline, how can they intimidate rivals and well that Barack Obama personally signs opponents anywhere if they don’t use their off on every drone strike, including the one firepower in Iraq and Syria? that killed the 16-year-old son of American Obama has labored mightily to distin- imam Anwar al-Malaki, himself killed by a guish his Iraq war from his predecessor’s. drone in Yemen. The Islamists use swords Announcing it, he said he was assembling and knives, the U.S. uses drones. a “broad coalition to roll back this terrorist A “war against terrorism”? The U.S. threat.” Although the U.S. claims that 40 military machine is the biggest terrorist countries have enlisted, it doesn’t look all force in the world. It bombed Baghdad in that different from Bush’s 2003 “coalition 2003 in order to terrorize the Iraqi popula- of the willing”: the U.S. military for the tion into submission. The Islamists slaughter Victims of December 2013 U.S. drone strike in Bayda province, Yemen that heavy-duty action, plus assorted imperial- hundreds, the Pentagon murders millions (4 killed 15 members of wedding party. U.S. has slaughtered thousands of ists and Arab countries as window dressing. million in Korea, 3 million in Vietnam, 1 civilians in “targeted killings” (assassinations) by drones. Sunni Arab emirates and monarchies were million plus in Iraq). Strip away the pretexts included so the U.S. wouldn’t look like the and Barack Obama’s Iraq/Syria attack is one Iraq and since then, the Internationalist Group on Afghanistan and Iraq, and the refusal by air force of Shia-ruled Iraq. But NATO ally more imperialist war for world hegemony. It and League for the Fourth International call ILWU Local 10 to handle Zim Lines ships Turkey under reputed “moderate Islamist” is intended to demoralize Palestinian resis- for workers action against the war. Examples after Israeli attacks on Gaza in 2010 and president Tayyip Erdogan was conspicu- tance to Zionist occupation, to reassert U.S. include the 2003 actions by Scottish and this year. As supporters of the revolutionary ously absent, having for years aided the domination of the Middle East, to “send a Italian railway workers to block weapons program of Lenin and Trotsky, the leaders Islamists jihadis pouring into Syria and message” to Russian strong man Vladimir trains, the 2008 strike by the U.S. West Coast of the 1917 Russian October Revolution, we being determined to keep the Kurdish mi- Putin over Ukraine, to intimidate the leaders longshore union (ILWU) against the war stand for class war against imperialist war. nority down. of the Chinese deformed workers state in The White House has insisted that Asia and opponents of Yankee imperialism the operation “will not involve American in Latin America. I. A War for Imperialist Domination combat troops fighting on foreign soil,” as And U.S. terror war abroad is linked Despite widespread illusions among growth of the Islamic State. Obama said on September 10. But testifying to racist repression and the war on working liberals, when Obama campaigned for The grisly videos of executions of in Congress six days later, the head of the people “at home.” Many of the same tactics president in 2008 the Democratic candidate two American journalists and a British aid Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, and weapons of urban counterinsurgency said he wasn’t opposed to all U.S. military worker, played over and over on the Inter- said he might well call for “the use of U.S. used by the Israelis on the West Bank are intervention, just to “dumb wars” like the net, are cited as justification for the “new” military ground forces.” The next day deployed against the black population 2003 invasion of Iraq by Republican presi- U.S. war. At the United Nations Obama Obama vowed again to troops at U.S. Cen- of Ferguson, Missouri. Immigrants are dent George W. Bush. Obama meant wars proclaimed that there can be “no negotia- tral Command HQ in Tampa, Florida: “I will treated as the “enemy within” as right-wing that end up weakening U.S. imperialism and tion” with “this brand of evil” (the Islamic not commit you and the rest of our armed politicians fantasize about terrorists surging strengthening its foes, which the Iraq and State) and declared his intent to “dismantle forces to fighting another ground war in across the Mexican border and unleashing Afghanistan wars and occupations have cer- this network of death.” (Recall George W. Iraq.” That same day, Army Chief of Staff ebola in Manhattan. Education “reformers” tainly done. But after three years of resisting Bush inveighing against an “axis of evil” Gen. Ray Odierno told journalists, “you’ve label teachers unions “terrorists” and rip calls by Republicans (and top officials in his including Iran, Iraq and North Korea in got to have ground forces.” And on Septem- up job security as bosses seek to “degrade own administration, including ex-Secretary order to escalate his invasion of Afghanistan ber 25, Gen. Dempsey repeated to the press and destroy” the labor movement. From of State Hillary Clinton and ex-CIA chief into a “Global War on Terror,” or GWOT in that he “might, at some point, recommend Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria to the U.S., we David Petraeus) to arm Syrian rebels, wary Pentagonese.) Yet beginning on August 19, that we need a large ground force.” must fight to defeat the capitalist/imperial- of getting drawn into the quagmire of that the beheadings came a week after and were Such a public contradiction by top of- ist war that targets the poor, oppressed and civil war, now Obama has done just that, explicitly in retaliation for the American air ficers of their commander-in-chief’s policy workers of the world. with dire consequences. Why? strikes in Iraq. borders on insubordination. The fact that We wage this struggle with our own First of all for domestic political rea- U.S. rulers and media always try to Dempsey provocatively repeated his state- methods, of militant class struggle. As at the sons. After months of being pummeled by reduce any conflict to a dichotomy of good ment instead of tendering a resignation (as time of the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Republicans and even liberal pundits as a vs. evil. Partly they think Americans are Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the Afghanistan “feckless” president, too stupid to understand anything more, commander, did in 2011 after a Rolling Obama worried that if so they paint the current enemy, whether Stone article quoted him bellyaching that he failed to attack, he Saddam Hussein or Bashar Assad, as Sa- Obama hadn’t sent more troops) suggests would be labeled “soft tan incarnate. They also want to hide the that the Pentagon brass are solidly opposed on terrorism” and Dem- fact that the “good guys” often are “our to Obama’s “no U.S. ground troops” line. In ocrats would take even sons of bitches” (as Franklin D. Roosevelt reality, U.S. “advisors” are in the field “em- bigger losses in the up- described Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio bedded” with Iraqi units, and now a division coming midterm elec- Somoza). A commentator on CNN claimed HQ from the First Infantry has been deployed tions, guaranteeing a to provide “moral clarity” about the Syr- to organize U.S. and Iraqi forces at Joint solid Republican Con- ian civil war, saying, “Simply put: Syrian Operations Centers in Baghdad and Erbil. gress and legislative government, bad. Syrian people, good.” In short, the boots are already on the ground. paralysis for the rest Today the Islamic State “barbarians” are Meanwhile, in Syria U.S. air strikes of his administration. contrasted to the “moderate” rebels of the have not only hit I.S. targets in the east but But bombs didn’t stop “Free Syrian Army.” Yet all the Sunni rebel also affiliates of the al-Nusra Front, the of- the “who lost Iraq and groups seek to impose an Islamic state, and ficial Al Qaeda franchisee, from which the Syria” blame game. If an FSA leader was videotaped cutting out group now calling itself the Islamic State Obama launched his the heart of a Syrian soldier and eating it. split earlier this year. A few days earlier, reelection bid by “tak- Some “good guys”! U.S. spy chiefs began talking about a hith- ing out” (assassinating) At bottom, the new Iraq/Syria war erto unknown “Khorasan Group” linked Osama bin Laden, now reflects the need of U.S. imperialism to as- to al-Nusra which was supposedly just as the administration is sert its world domination. As the London dangerous as the I.S. (While the U.S. con- U.S. president Obama vows not to send ground being faulted for be- Economist (17 September) wrote: siders al-Nusra a terrorist organization, the troops to Iraq speaking at U.S. Central Command ing too focused on Al “The sense that America is locked in so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels work headquarters, McGill AFB, Tampa, FL, September 17. Qaeda and failing to relative decline has been growing in closely with it.) So when air strikes targeting But Pentagon brass repeatedly contradict him. anticipate the explosive recent years, as it has languished under the “Khorasan Group” led to civilian casu- October-November 2014 17 alties, there were protests in northern Syria September 10 speech, to “strengthen the by the rebels the U.S. says it is supporting opposition” while “pursuing the political together with al-Nusra and I.S. accusing solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis,” Tim Sloan/AFP Obama of aiding the Assad regime. hardliners worry that he is aiming at a “solu- Dumb and dumber: if for liberals who tion” that would integrate some “moderate” want a less militaristic U.S. foreign policy, rebels into the present Syrian regime. To the new attack on Iraq and Syria is “Barack counter this, the Kagan “strategy” calls for Obama’s dumb war,” the policy of Washing- “as many as 25,000 ground troops in Iraq ton hard-liners is sure to blow up. Leading and Syria” plus another 10,000+ “quick the war hawks is none other than Hillary reaction” and combat aviation troops, and Clinton. As early as mid-2012, a “plan that a whole lot of support personnel. If Obama Mr. Petraeus developed and Mrs. Clinton hesitates to implement it, a president Hillary supported called for vetting rebels and es- Clinton surely would. tablishing and arming a group of fighters” In the same vein, Anthony Cordesman in Syria (New York Times, 3 February 2013). of the Center for Strategic and International Last month, burnishing her “tough guy” im- Studies (CSIS), a neocon think thank, has is- age as the virtual Democratic nominee for sued a report titled “The Air War Against the president in 2016, Clinton openly attacked Islamic State: The Need for an ‘Adequacy of Obama’s Syria policy (which she charac- Resources’” (17 October), arguing that the terized as “don’t do stupid stuff”). Now present air war is little more than a pinprick Clinton’s supporters are pushing to send in (“too little, too slowly”), totaling in two A “perfect war” for military contractors. With occupation of Afghanistan thousands of U.S. ground troops. months less than one-fifth the number of winding down, there is shrinking market for equipment like mine resistant We have noted the role of Assistant Sec- air strikes on an average day of the 1990-91 ambush protected (MRAP) armored vehicles, such as the M-ATV model shown retary of State for European and Eurasian Gulf War. He asks pointedly, “How does here on display outside the Pentagon. Surplus is being donated to police Affairs Victoria Nuland, appointed by Hill- this war escalate?” And against lily-livered departments in U.S. for use against “civil disturbances,” like in Ferguson, ary and a close associate since Bill Clinton’s liberals wringing their hands over civilian Missouri. New, profitable product lines are being developed. administration, in pushing for confrontation casualties, Cordesman replies in Pentagon- Islamic State group will mean billions in Allgemeine Zeitung (18 October) headlined with Putin’s Russia in Ukraine, including speak: “Humanitarian reality requires look- sales for bombs and missiles,” not to men- its article: “Hopes for a Long, Profitable working with Ukrainian fascists. Nuland’s ing at the total butcher’s bill from war, not tion spare parts, fighter jets, spy planes, War.” Military contractors like Oshkosh husband, Robert Kagan, also a former focusing on one aspect of the fighting.” etc., reported AFP Pentagon correspondent Defense, which announced layoffs because Clinton adviser, was co-founder of the “neo- So the armchair butchers, the same neo- Dan de Luce in Space Daily (9 October), of a shrinking market for their M-ATV mine conservative” Project for a New American con gang that couldn’t shoot straight which a an industry publication. De Luce quoted a resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehi- Century which beat the war drums to attack decade ago brought you the Afghanistan and top military consultant: “It’s the perfect war cles, now being donated as surplus to police Iraq. He has now co-authored A Strategy to Iraq invasion/occupations, now proposes to from a defense contracting standpoint and forces (like Ferguson, Mo.) around the U.S., Defeat the Islamic State (September 2014) set the region aflame by pumping tens of a defense spending standpoint.” Already are already developing new product lines with sister-in-law Kimberly Kagan, a former thousands of ground troops into Iraq and shares for Lockheed Martin (which manu- for their “customers.” Marxists will recall aide to Gen. McChrystal in Afghanistan, Syria. And if they aren’t U.S. forces, where factures the Hellfire missile for the Reaper Rosa Luxemburg’s famous aphorism about who is married to Frederick Kagan, author would they come from? Saudi troops in drones) are up 9.3% and Raytheon landed a the slaughter of World War I: “Dividends of the 2007 troop “surge” plan in Iraq, star- Iraq? The Shia militias would be up in arms. $251 million contract for more Tomahawk rising, proletarians falling.” ring one David Petraeus. Turkish troops in Syria? Arabs would see cruise missiles. At $1.4 million apiece, with Now Turkey is calling on the U.S. to It is obvious to one and all that the the spectre of a new Ottoman Empire. Like 47 Tomahawks fired on the first day of the decree a “buffer zone” in Syria while the “moderate” Islamist Syrian rebels (no one those caveat emptor (buyer beware) lists of air strikes in Syria, that makes… generals and civilian war planners in D.C. even bothers to pretend now that they are risk factors that mutual funds are required by All this is reported under a Space Daily are discussing imposing a “no-fly zone” in secular) will never be a militarily credible the Securities and Exchange Commission to rubric titled “Milplex” whose slogan is “big northern Syria, which as in Libya would force. Equally clear is the danger of Syria put on their prospectuses, the Kagans admit bucks, big bangs.” Daddy Warbucks, the involve massive attacks on the Syrian air falling apart with feuding Islamist bands, that “this strategy contains a high risk of caricature of a military profiteer, is rubbing force and air defense system and huge as in Libya. So when Obama called, in his failure” and go on to cite more than a dozen his hands in glee. The merchants of death numbers of casualties. Whereupon all hell different and very plausible are out to make a killing. The Frankfurter would break loose. ways in which the whole thing could go up in smoke. But this won’t stop the II. A Third U.S. War As Iraq Rips Apart imperial strategists, who see This past June as Mosul fell to the self-determination, Trotskyists insist that their empire at risk. There is forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria the only equitable solution to the myriad talk of the return of a “war (ISIS, now the I.S.) which then headed south national, ethnic, religious and linguistic party” in Washington, refer- toward Baghdad, we underscored that “this conflicts of the region is through a ring to the hawkish Cold latest war in Iraq is “made in the U.S.A.” struggle for socialist revolution.” Warriors back in vogue since –“From Ukraine to Middle East:

Internationalist photo Imperialist intervention from the Balkans to the blow-up with Russia over the Middle East has led to: U.S. Imperialism Strikes Out,” The Ukraine. But while there are “a massive escalation of inter-communal Internationalist No. 37, May-June 2014 sometimes important tactical and sectarian slaughter, as minority Instead, ethnic hostilities in Meso- differences, just as there is a populations are driven out everywhere. potamia (the “land between the rivers”) bipartisan “property party,” The multi-ethnic states resulting have reached the point of civil war, as the all wings of both capitalist from artificial boundaries are being country rips apart at the seams. Now it has parties are part of the impe- homogenized with a vengeance, with the escalated into the third U.S. war in Iraq rialist “war party.” In this U.S. pushing the process in the name of in as many decades. However deadly the epoch of decaying capitalism, ‘democracy.’ conflicts between Shia, Sunni and Kurd in there is no “peace-loving” “The bloody U.S. policy of ‘democracy the past, imperialist intervention has only sector of the U.S. ruling through ethnic cleansing’ has taken such a exacerbated them. It is necessary to over- class, which is still desperate heavy toll on southeastern Europe and the come the division and unite the working to climb out of economic Middle East because of the existence of people to throw off all the exploiters and all kinds of ethnic and religious enclaves depression since the 2008 their imperial overlords. and mixed populations, which was the financial crisis and stock Iraq today is ruled by a sectarian re- heritage of the Ottoman Empire…. gime, installed under the U.S. occupation, market crash. Ultimately, the “So in the Balkans, Christian Serbs and dedicated to enforcing the supremacy of the hardliners in the bourgeoisie Croatians and Bosnian Muslims lived Shia branch of Islam over the Sunni Arab will prevail unless they are side-by-side speaking essentially the Ex-general, ex-CIA chief David Petraeus led 2007 checked on the battlefield or same language (although with different Muslims, who were dominant under Sad- military “surge” in Iraq, ran drone assassination in the class struggle. alphabets) while in the Levant along dam Hussein and prior Iraqi governments program in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is architect Meanwhile, the mili- with a Sunni Arab Muslim majority going back to the (Sunni) Ottoman Empire, of U.S. war plans against Syria. Students and tary-industrial complex is there were enclaves of Druzes, Shiites, as well as against (majority Sunni) Kurds. faculty have protested of this certified war criminal salivating at the thought Alawites, Kurds, Greek Catholics, The several Shiite Islamist parties are united at the City University of New York. Above, IG and of feasting at the Pentagon Maronite Christians, Assyrians, and in insisting that this formerly persecuted CUNY Internationalist Clubs at protest against war feeding trough. “The open- dozens of other minorities…. majority of the Iraqi population monopolize threats to Syria, September 2013. ended air war against the “While recognizing the right of national power. Following the collapse of the Iraqi 18 The Internationalist Kurdistan (PUK) has been seizing areas it and Euphrates rivers. This understates the has long coveted, notably the oil capital of extent of I.S. domination, since those are northern Iraq, Kirkuk. In the process, the the only inhabited areas of the vast desert KRG has been persecuting Sunni Arabs and region. At present some 5 to 6 million people Turkmen residents, using the Iran-backed are ruled by these Sunni jihadis who took Shia militias to do the dirty work. AI reports over Raqqa, Syria in March 2013, Falluja, that “Shi’a militias are operating openly, Iraq in January 2014, Mosul in June, Tikrit and in cooperation with or at least with the in July and by late summer had almost all of tacit consent of Kurdish Peshmerga [militia] the Sunni areas north and west of Baghdad

Tyler Hicks/New York Times Hicks/New York Tyler forces,” and the KRG has made it clear “that in their hands. This territory is hundreds of it does not intend to give up control of the times larger than anything bin Laden ever city.” The conservative, tribalist Barzani controlled. And they have continued to ad- clan have been tools of the U.S. Central vance in Iraq despite the air strikes, taking Intelligence Agency since the 1970s. the city of Hit and now being on the verge After the 1991 Gulf War, when Shiites of seizing Ramadi. rose up in southern Iraq and Kurds in the The I.S. success on the battlefield is due north, the U.S. and Britain established a to several factors: support (tacit or overt) “no-fly zone” turning Iraqi Kurdistan into of the Sunni population of Iraq fed up with a de facto American protectorate. Since the the Shiiite regime; a core of experienced 2003 U.S. invasion, which they supported, former Baathist* military commanders from Mahdi Army rallies in its stronghold of Sadr City, Baghdad, on June 20. Shia the Kurdish parties have been part of the Saddam Hussein’s army; and an estimated militias have been terrorizing Sunni neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital. Baghdad government while maintaining 1,000 battle-hardened Chechen Islamists, army in June, the U.S. and its imperialist diers, on which almost $42 billion was spent a semi-autonomous region. Territory and veterans of years of fighting Putin’s Russia. allies blamed then prime minister Nuri al- over the last three years, melted away before spoils have been divided, Talabani get- Very few Sunni tribal militias are siding Maliki and his Shiite chauvinist government an attacking force of only 1,300. The fact ting southern Kurdistan and national posts with the Iraqi government, in contrast to for excluding and persecuting Sunnis, which is that the I.S. never would have been able (first president, then vice president) and 2007 when the U.S. was able to put them he did throughout his eight years in office, to conquer Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city Barzani getting the north and control of the on the payroll. Some of the former Baathists as Washington looked on. with 1.5 million inhabitants where govern- KRG. The lifeblood of the Kurdish region and other Sunni leaders may figure they are Maliki imprisoned thousands of Sunni ment troops outnumbered the attackers by at is production of oil, which the KRG has using the I.S. as a battering ram against the men on trumped-up charges, holding them least 15 to 1, and certainly not in the space sought to export independently of the Iraqi Shia regime, but they will find it hard to in jail for years where most still languish. of a few hours, if it were not for the tacit government. Without oil, no Iraqi Kurdistan throw off the would-be caliphate that will Shiite militias controlled by Maliki act and active support of the large percentage – hence the importance of seizing Kirkuk. stop at nothing to destroy anyone deemed as veritable death squads, assassinating of the Sunni Muslim population. The I.S. In the fighting with the Islamic State an obstacle to its rule. several thousand Sunnis and stepping up has acted as “the shock troops of a general forces following the fall of Mosul, the fabled In the areas they control, the I.S. jihadis their slaughter in recent months. Now a Sunni revolt,” as veteran British Middle Kurdish peshmerga (guerrilla army) had no have massacred huge numbers of supposed new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has East correspondent Patrick Cockburn wrote more success than the Iraqi army, although apostates and infidels. They set off car been installed due to U.S. pressure, who is in his recent book, The Jihadis Return (OR they didn’t just run away. Because of that, as bombs in Shia areas. Their videos show described as more “open” and “pragmatic” Books, 2014). well as historical ties and the huge number of them mowing down hundreds of captured (because he is filthy rich) and less sectar- Now Shiite militias are terrorizing Sun- Western “contractors” already in the area, the Iraqi soldiers lined up at the edge of a mass ian than his predecessor. But the same was nis in Baghdad and at checkpoints leading Kurdish forces have received considerable grave. They have enslaved thousands of said of Maliki when he succeeded Ibrahim to I.S.-held regions. Even the imperialist aid from the imperialists. The CIA has sent Yazidis, mostly women and girls. The I.S. al-Jaafari. All three are core leaders of the “human rights” agencies are noting the arms since August, the Germans have sent brags about distributing Yazidi women as Shiite Islamist Dawa Party. In fact, Abadi’s slaughter, in order to back U.S. calls for a arms and “instructors” since late September, concubines. The latest issue of its English- new cabinet has more Dawa party members, more “inclusive” regime. Human Rights and now British Special Forces are on the language magazine Dabiq has an article on and Maliki is hardly out of power, having Watch’s bulletin “Iraq: Pro-Government scene. In addition, Israel has longstanding “The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour,” been named vice president of the country. Militias’ Trail of Death” (31 July) reports ties to the Iraqi Kurds, having armed the referring to the Yazidis as pagans and “devil- What has happened in Iraq over the last scores of murders of Sunnis around the peshmerga since the 1970s. It now supports worshippers” and saying “their women year and a half is that the extreme salafist country. An Amnesty International report, independence for Iraqi Kurdistan. could be enslaved unlike female apostates” 1 jihadi Islamic State has managed to place Absolute Impunity: Militia Rule in Iraq As for the Islamic State, maps pub- such as Shia Muslims, who are given the itself at the head of a Sunni insurrection (October 2014), documents how Shiite lished in the press of areas under its control option of “repent or face the sword.”** Male against the Shiite regime. The proclama- militias, particularly the Badr Brigades and look like worms stretching along the Tigris “apostates” are simply executed. tion of a caliphate in June by Abu Bakr al- Asaib Ahl al-Haq, both linked to former Baghdadi, with himself as caliph or supreme prime minister Maliki, work directly with religious and political authority, irked other government military and security forces to III. Syria: Defend the Kurds, conservative Islamist regimes, notably the kidnap, ransom, torture and execute Sunnis, Saudi monarchy and Gulf emirates, as well as well as Christians and other minorities. Defeat U.S./NATO Imperialism! as Islamic scholars. But all Islamists are “Sectarian attacks have spiraled to a We have written previously about how would cheer if Obama bombs Syrian forces. committed to establishing a theocratic reli- level not seen since 2006-2007, the worst “Syria has been engulfed by an upheaval But the entire region would go up in flames, gious state based on Islamic law (the sharia), period of civil strife in the country’s recent that began as protest demonstrations, quick- and it could become a “proxy war” against and the I.S.’ successes against the Shia re- history,” reports AI. That was when under ly morphed into a sectarian insurgency and Russia and Iran, with untold consequences. gime in Iraq and both the Assad government U.S. commander David Petraeus, masked became a communal civil war that is now Inside Syria, faced with the total domi- and other Islamist rebels in Syria, as well as Shiite commandos, advised by U.S. “con- spilling over to neighboring Lebanon and nation of the armed opposition by Islamists, its defiance of the West, have won support tractor” ex-Col. James Steele who super- Iraq.” While opposing all sides in this war and particularly the growth of the Islamic among disaffected Sunnis. vised death squads in El Salvador, unleashed pitting Islamist reactionaries against the State, the hard-fisted Assad government has The Iraqi government is shot through a reign of terror in the Sunni population.2 authoritarian Assad regime, we noted that consolidated support (grudging or active) not with corruption. An army of 350,000 sol- Cockburn sums up: “The inability of the if Washington and its allies unleashed their only among various religious and ethnic mi- Baghdad government to field a national 1 military power as they did in Libya: norities (Alawites, Druzes, Imami and Ismaili Salafism is a component of the Sunni branch of army and its reliance on militias means “That would change the character of the Shiites, Christians) but also among secular Islam which considers the practices of the first that Iraq is in the last stages of disintegra- conflict from inter-communal fighting to a Syrians who fear a Sunni Islamic dictator- three generations after Muhammad to be the tion. The few mixed Sunni-Shia areas are battle against U.S./NATO intervention…. ship. The liberal-minded, secular, educated model of an Islamic society. This includes many disappearing…. The final break-up of Iraq reactionary aspects of 7th-8th century Arab so- And any genuinely revolutionary Marxist, Internet generation of elite youth who started has become a fact” (Independent [London], ciety, particularly strictures on women, that are while giving no political support to the the protests against government repression in 14 October). not found in the Koran itself. While some Salaf- Assad regime, would stand foursquare the “Arab Spring” of March 2011 were quickly Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Regional ists are merely extreme conservative pietists, for the military defense of Syria against sidelined by the religious fundamentalists who others are prominent in Sunni Islamist political Government (KRG) led by Massoud Bar- imperialist aggression.” dominate the Sunni Arab majority, particularly currents promoting jihad, in this case meaning zani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) –“U.S./NATO Imperialists Get in the rural areas and impoverished outskirts holy war, against kafirs (infidels) and apostates, and Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Your Bloody Claws Off Syria!” The of the major cities. supposed ex-Muslims including Shiites. The Internationalist No. 35, Summer 2013 Wahabi sect which dominates Saudi Arabia 2 See “The Bloody Trail of Col. James Steele * Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Hafez al-Assad in So now the U.S. is bombing in Syria, and from which Osama bin Laden stemmed is and David ‘Death Squad’ Petraeus,” Revolu- Syria were leaders of the Arab nationalist Baath Salafist, as is the Islamic State, whose ideology tion No. 10 (October 2013), published by the and while Washington claims that its target Party who took power in military coups. is largely taken over from Wahabism. Many of Internationalist Clubs of the City University of is the “Islamic State,” that could change in ** See Matthew Barber, “Islamic State Official- the so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels are also New York; and the documentary produced by a flash. Liberal “doves” might tut-tut about ly Admits to Enslaving Yazidi Women,” Syria Wahabist. the London Guardian (6 March). “mission creep” while liberal “hawks” Comment, 12 October. October-November 2014 19 This has now become a bitter “Arab the Free Syrian Army, in Autumn,” as Islamist rebels shoot Roman September the YPG set up a

Catholic priests dead (François Murad, Reuters joint command together with by Jabhat al-Nusra in Gassanieh); Syriac several FSA-linked factions, and Greek Orthodox Catholic bishops are including the “Jihad in the abducted (Gregorius Yohanna Ibrahim and Path of God Brigade” and Boulos Yazigi, in Aleppo); women activists some Islamists pushed out are forced by Islamist rebels to wear the veil of Raqqa by the I.S.3 So far, (Marcell Shehwaro, by the Jaish al-Mujahe- such elements appear mar- din in Aleppo), to flee the country (Souad ginal, but that could change. Nawfal, by ISIS in Raqqa) or are disappeared Today even hard-line (Razan Zaitouneh and Samira Khalil along Zionists are singing the praises with male colleagues, by the Army of Islam of the PKK/PYD.4 And since it in Douma); and a 15-year-old boy selling cof- has shown it is willing to play fee is executed on orders of a sharia court for ball, the U.S. has stepped up blasphemy for allegedly insulting the prophet bombing of I.S. targets and air- (Mohammed Qatta, in Aleppo). dropped supplies to the Kurds In this dismal panorama, the forlorn in Kobanê, while Ankara says liberal/reformist “progressive” milieu which it will let Iraqi peshmerga (but had become increasingly despondent, hail- not the PKK) into the besieged ing a mythical “Syrian Revolution” as the Women fighters of the YPJ training. Thousands of Kurdish women in militias will have city. If Barzani’s militia shows supposedly “moderate” rebels were eclipsed significant impact, while liberation from traditional oppression will require a social revolution. up, it will only be in order to by the hardline jihadists, suddenly discov- for a worldwide movement towards genuine Kurdish regional autonomy. Proletarian fight the YPG. In any case, ered the Kurds. Now blogs, e-mail lists and democracy.” Hallelujah! revolutionaries would defend the Kurdish the U.S. and European imperialists will never social media are abuzz about a supposed Actually, the PKK was never Leninist areas against attacks by the Assad regime or accept Kurdish independence, or even real au- revolutionary commune in Syrian Kurdistan but a Stalinist-inspired nationalist party that the Free Syrian Army and certainly against tonomy in northern Syria. That would threaten (Rojava), on the border with Turkey. David braved murderous repression by the Turkish the Islamic State whose victory would mean the Ottoman ambitions of the Islamist Erdogan Graeber, the anarchist sociologist of Occupy government. It is true that the PKK, the PYD wholesale slaughter of Kurds. and the Turkish nationalism of the army. And Wall Street fame, authored an article, “Why (Democratic Union Party) and the militia Various reports attest to some important NATO Turkey is a linchpin for Western impe- is the world ignoring the revolutionary linked to it, the YPG (People’s Protection social gains in the region. Women in Syrian rialist domination of the Middle East. Kurds in Syria?” in the London Guardian Units), are not Islamists. Women in Rojava Kurdistan are surely much freer than in FSA- We call for revolutionary defeatism on (8 October), declaring what’s happening in (as well as Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish Kurd- or I.S.-controlled areas. In itself, the fact of all sides in the communal civil wars wrack- Rojava to be today’s equivalent of the Span- ish regions) are not obliged to wear the veil. a women’s militia does not equal “radical ing Iraq and Syria. A victory for any of the ish Republic, with popular councils, militias There is a women’s militia unit, the YPJ, empowerment of women” (Graeber), much warring sectarian forces or the respective and worker-managed co-ops. and the media are full of photos of Kurdish less equality. Women have been active in governments would lead to atrocities against According to Graeber, a veritable women guerrillas in Syria. And unlike the many guerrilla movements, and there are the opposing side, including bloodbaths and/ “social revolution” is underway, led by U.S. which wrote off Yazidi refugees (even also women’s units of the imperialist-backed or mass expulsion of entire populations. the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and as Obama used their plight as a “humani- Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga. But in Rojava the Proletarian revolutionaries support the its Syrian affiliate, the PYD. The PKK, tarian” justification for his war), the YPG YPJ has enrolled as many as 10,000 female right of self-defense against the threat of whose leader Abdullah Öcalan languishes intervened to save 10,000 Yazidis, and has fighters, and this will certainly have an im- communal-sectarian slaughter. At the same in a Turkish jail, is still labeled terrorist by tenaciously fought off militarily superior pact: a woman who knows how to handle an time we are mortal enemies of Islamism of Turkey and U.S., the European Union and I.S. jihadis in Kobanê. AK or heavy machine gun is less likely to any stripe, as well as of Zionism and Chris- NATO imperialists for fighting for Kurd- Unlike the so-called moderate Sunni be physically abused. Nevertheless, histori- tian fundamentalism. And far from calling ish independence. But “the PKK itself is militias in Syria, with which it has periodi- cally, after victory (or defeat) of the armed on the U.S. and NATO to aid “moderate” no longer anything remotely like the old cally clashed, the PYD had not been allied struggle, unless there is a social revolution anti-Assad rebels like they did in Libya, we top-down Leninist party it once was” and with salafistjihadis . It has largely stayed out women are usually relegated to traditional call to expel U.S. imperialism from Syria, doesn’t even call for a Kurdish state, says of the fratricidal communal civil war and the roles dictated by capitalism and its central Iraq and the entire region. Graeber. Instead, it is now inspired by YPG includes Syriac units as well as Kurds. conservatizing institution, the family. As Leninists and Trotskyists, we stand the Mexican Zapatistas and the anarchist Nor, in contrast with activist groups like the There is nothing “anti-capitalist” about with the oppressed fighting to free their Murray Bookchin, adopting the vision of Local Coordination Committees, are they the autonomous areas of northern Syria. lands from colonial and imperial domina- “libertarian municipalism” to create “self- part of the imperialist-approved, Turkish- The popular councils, co-ops and “workers tion. This includes siding with the struggles governing communities” based on “direct controlled Syrian National Coalition (SNC), control” are largely hypothetical under war- even of reactionary-led forces fighting democracy” which could become a “model which contemptuously dismissed calls for time conditions in a besieged region whose against imperialism such as Marx and En- economy has been devastated. gels did in the 1857 Sepoy Revolt against In fact, the “social contract” British rule in India (see our article “Marx which serves as the region’s on the Sepoy Revolt,” The Internationalist charter guarantees the right of No. 21, Summer 2005); as Marx’s follower private property, and the PYD William Morris did with the 1880s Mahdi has assiduously sought unity revolt against the British in Sudan; and with various bourgeois parties, Lenin did with the 1900 Boxer Rebellion including the corrupt capitalist in China (see “Lenin on the ‘Boxer Rebel- rulers of Iraqi Kurdistan rather lion’,” The Internationalist No. 21). We than posing a revolutionary have written about Afghanistan: opposition to Barzani and “Following the example of Lenin and Talabani, who have become Trotsky, we stand on the side of the semi- billionaires by siphoning off colonial peoples against imperialism, and U.S. aid and oil profits. with those resisting the occupiers – who Rojava is not some dem- are by no means limited to Taliban, Al ocratic/libertarian utopia, an Qaeda or other Islamists.” imaginary Occupy on the –“Defeat U.S. War on Afghanistan Syrian-Turkish border. Such and Iraq,” The Internationalist No. 30, fantasies can only disorient, November-December 2009 and in this case they’re be- And concerning the current situation in Iraq ing used to build support for and Syria, we wrote in our last issue: “But while giving no political support imperialist intervention. In to any of the feuding bourgeois bands, the glowing reports about communists defend those fighting against “revolutionary Rojava,” the the U.S. imperialists, who unleashed a fact that the PYD/YPG has horrific bloodbath in conquering and lately been doing all it can 3 Check it out at http://rojavareport.wordpress. to become acceptable to com/2014/09/10/ypg-and-fsa-form-joint-opera- the imperialists is given tions-command/ short shrift. Since the U.S. 4 See “Has Obama Realized the PKK Can Be demanded that it join with Allies?” Commentary, 20 October. 20 The Internationalist occupying Iraq that far exceeds the crimes defeat imperialism, au-

of a small-time bourgeois strongman like thentic Trotskyists have Nurcan Volkan / Demotix Saddam Hussein (or the Assads).” long defended the PKK, –“From the Ukraine to Middle East: as well as defending U.S. Imperialism Strikes Out,” The Iranian and Iraqi Kurds Internationalist No. 37, May-June 2014 against repression by Any actual blow against imperialist the shah, Khomeini and intervention and domination is in the interest Saddam Husein. We call of the working class and oppressed peoples for a socialist republic of the world in the fight to drive the U.S./ of united Kurdistan, to NATO imperialists out of the Middle East. Yet overcome the national the Islamic State, while posing as defenders oppression of the 30+ of Islam against Western “crusaders,” is not million Kurds, the larg- seeking to unite the oppressed masses of Iraq est nation in the world and Syria to throw off the imperialist yoke. without a state due to The immediate targets of the I.S. “holy war” the 1916 Sykes-Picot are the Kurdish, Shiite, Yazidi, Syrian and Iraqi treaty and 1923 Lausanne Christian populations, as these Sunni jihadis treaty that carved up the seek to impose the oppressive social norms Ottoman Empire. While of an 8th-century nomadic tribal society on opposing nationalism, modern urban secularized populations. They this is a program for inter- have no compunction about allying with U.S. nationalist class struggle imperialism, as the forerunners of al Qaeda did against the rulers of Iran, against the Soviet Army and a reform regime Iraq, Syria, Turkey, all in Afghanistan in the 1980s. And they have with oppressed Kurdish Demonstrators march in the Gayrettepe district of Istanbul during one-day general strike been financed and armed by the imperialist minorities; against the called by left-wing unions over mine disaster in Soma, 15 May 2014. Protesters chanted, surrogates of the Arabian oil monarchies, as imperialists, and against “This was not an accident, this was murder” and called for Erdogan government to resign. well as by NATO member Turkey. the Kurdish bourgeois Turkish labor should come to the aid of besieged Kurds in Kobanê by using their class power In calling for working-class struggle to ruling clans. to bring down the labor-hating, warmongering Erdogan regime, fighting for workers revolution. do something spectacular. Our senior sumer goods manufacturing. A little over IV. Turkish Proletariat Is Key military officers have been told by the 1 million are members of trade unions, DIA and other intelligence assets that which like labor around the capitalist Meanwhile, the Islamist Erdogan spy chief, the foreign minister and a the sarin was supplied through Turkey world have taken a beating from the government in Ankara is playing hard- top military official that was leaked on – that it could only have gotten there capitalist offensive over the last three ball with Obama in its drive to project YouTube revealed a plan to stage a “false with Turkish support. The Turks also decades. In Turkey both military and Turkey as a regional power, crush the flag” attack on the tomb of Suleyman provided the training in producing the Islamist regimes have gone after unions Kurds and overthrow Assad in order to Shah, the grandfather of the founder of sarin and handling it.’” with a vengeance, but they are hardly in –“The Red Line and the Rat Line,” establish a (Sunni Muslim) Syrian client the Ottoman Empire, in northern Syria “death throes,” as an article on the web London Review of Books, 14 April state. Despite its vague talk of support for as an excuse for Turkish troops to move site Al-Monitor (5 May) claimed. There Presently there are Turkish tanks and the U.S.-led “coalition,” Turkey has been in (New York Times, 28 March). And are left-oriented union federations DISK troops lined up just across the border and still is an ally of the Islamic State, journalist Seymour Hersh has published (Confederation of Revolutionary Unions) from Kobanê, waiting. Turkey has over continuing to allow supply columns and an extensive article detailing evidence of and the allied public sector KESK, and 10,000 battle-ready tanks and an army of recruits for the I.S. to cross the border Turkish aid to Islamists preparing chemi- yearly pitched battles with the police on 510,000 soldiers, plus another 100,000 (while blocking Kurds). Erdogan wants cal attacks in Syria, and quoting former May Day. to regain the glory of the last caliphate, U.S. intelligence officials saying that the in the paramilitary gendarmerie to keep The potential for militant workers abolished by Kemal Atatürk in 1924. The August 2013 gas attack in the eastern internal order (Frankfurter Allgemeine struggle is palpable, as shown by the huge crowds subjected to bloody police attack suburbs of Damascus was a Turkish plot: Zeitung, 13 October). On October 2, the protests that swept Turkey over the hun- at Istanbul’s Gezi Park in June 2013 were Turkish parliament approved a motion “‘We now know it was a covert action dreds of deaths in the Soma mine disaster protesting Erdogan’s plan to rebuild the authorizing use of Turkish forces to planned by Erdogan’s people to push this past May. Erdogan had to take ref- Ottoman-era Taksim military barracks invade Syria and Iraq. On October 10, Obama over the red line,’ the former uge in a supermarket to escape an angry as a museum (and shopping mall) on more than 30 died as Turkish police and intelligence official said. ‘They had crowd. During the mass mobilizations the spot. military attacked Kurdish demonstra- to escalate to a gas attack in or near over Gezi Park in June 2013 the DISK The symbolism is part of Erdogan’s Damascus when the UN inspectors’ tors. On October 13, Turkish warplanes and KESK twice staged one-day “gen- broader program to provoke U.S. inter- – who arrived in Damascus on 18 bombed PKK positions in southeastern eral strikes.” But faced with implacable vention against Assad. Thus a recording August to investigate the earlier use Turkey. Thus a crucial factor of a pro- repression by the police and military, of a secret meeting between the Turkish of gas – ‘were there. The deal was to letarian program to defeat imperialism in the region is the mobilization of the such actions had little effect. Despite Turkish working class against its war- the reference to “revolutionary unions,” mongering rulers. the actual policies of the Turkish labor Most left groups long ago gave up left are social-democratic reformism. any pretense of fighting for proletarian To bring workers’ power to bear, what’s

AP revolution in the Middle East, instead needed is a revolutionary-internationalist tailing after assorted nationalist and even workers party. Islamist groups, from the Palestinian Such a party would not limit itself to PFLP and DFLP to Hezbollah in Leba- economic struggles but act as a tribune non. For the few that make any reference of all the oppressed. It would defend at all to workers revolution it is mostly women’s rights. It would intransigently lip service, an abstract invocation of a defend the Kurdish right to self-deter- purely theoretical goal. But how could an mination (independence) and stand with actual working-class socialist revolution the millions of Alevis who like the Kurds overthrowing capitalism and all the Zion- have been subject to murderous attacks. ist, Islamist, monarchist and militarist re- It would seek to build mass, labor-based gimes, as well as defeating imperialism, workers self-defense against official come about? The Syrian working class, repression, fascist squads and Islamist after all, has been largely atomized and mobs. And it would mobilize working- destroyed. Key to the answer are the two class action, including strikes, against big concentrations of proletarian power Turkish intervention in Syria, as well in in the region, Egypt and Turkey. defense of the Palestinian people under Turkey has a working class of over the Zionist boot. All this, and resisting Turkish soldiers and tanks at Syrian border keep out refugees fleeing Islamic 10 million, with strong contingents in the inevitable anti-communist attacks, State attack on Kobanê in September. Turkey’s Islamist government has heavy industry including steel, shipbuild- requires a solid footing on the Bolshevik aided Islamic State jihadis as it seeks to restore “glory” of Ottoman empire. ing and mining, transportation and con- program of Lenin and Trotsky. October-November 2014 21 fascism.” Trotsky thundered against this class-collabo- V. Leninist-Trotskyist Workers Party rationist policy (embraced also by the anarchists) that Vital to Middle East Revolution blocked proletarian revolu- Such revolutionary leadership is decid- Khomeini’s “Islamic Revolution” in Iran, tion and enabled the victory edly not what one will get from the would-be which then turned around and murdered tens of Franco in the Spanish Civil socialist and even “communist” left in the of thousands of leftists who had capitulated War. West today. It is striking that in the face of a to the mullahs’ hijacking of the struggle The second argument new U.S. war in Iraq and Syria there have been against the murderous, CIA-installed shah. of the leftist supporters of no significant antiwar protests in the U.S., not At the time our policy, the policy of authentic imperialist war is that the even when Obama came to the United Na- Leninism and Trotskyism, was “Down with I.S. represents “barbarism.” tions to sell his campaign to bomb “evil” into the Shah, No to Khomeini!” Sabado refers to the “barbar- oblivion. When Republican Bush launched So why do they do it, why do such “so- ic monster,” to peoples who the 2003 Iraq war there were half a million cialists” end up backing such retrograde ele- are “victims of barbarism,” protesters in the streets of New York. Now, ments? One explanation is inveterate tailism: and so on. Thus calling for with a Democrat in the White House, some they’re so used to chasing after any popular imperialist intervention to 300,000 joined a “climate march” organized movement that they can’t tell the difference “save Kobanê” is supposedly by pro-war lobbyists to complement Obama’s between bourgeois liberal “progressives” and defending humanity. The pitch at the UN Climate Summit.5 Since their arch-reactionaries. But there is another key same with the third argu- usual liberal allies are in favor of this war, the reason: as social-democratic reformists who ment: the need to stave off reformist leftist antiwar coalitions did nothing. only want to tinker with the capitalist system, impending massacre. We do Meanwhile, after being all atwitter in to make it more “people-friendly,” they show Leon Trotsky, founder of the Red Army, 1920. not criticize besieged Kurds 2011 over the Arab Spring “revolutions” a particular predilection for supporting the its newspaper, L’Anticapitaliste (16 October), for getting arms where they can. But for which weren’t (see the collection of articles very same Islamist forces that “their own” it feigns a certain “critical” distance from the would-be socialists to call on the U.S. and in The Internationalist No. 33, Summer imperialist rulers do. In Afghanistan, they all imperialists, saying “it doesn’t seem to us that NATO to supply them ignores the fact that 2011), the opportunist left ever since has vituperated against Soviet intervention, and one should expect great results from these the imperialists are the most barbaric mass sought to explain away the disastrous out- some hailed the CIA-backed mujahedin. In appeals” to the West to arm the Kurds. But in murderers of all. If Washington furnishes a come in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, with contrast, the genuine Trotskyists proclaimed, a call (9 October) for a mass demonstration dribble of munitions, it will be in order to use military regimes and feuding Islamic bands, “Hail Red Army in Afghanistan!” together with Kurdish groups, the NPA urges that bait to control and ultimately crush any as part of a “long revolutionary process.” So things have been going from bad to “the U.S. as well as the European Union to trace of Kurdish independence or autonomy. First prize in this category for absurdity is worse over the last three years for the West- respond to their call [of the PKK and YPG] The more “sophisticated” (and cynical) a recent article in the paper of the Freedom ern leftist cheerleaders for the phantasmago- for material aid, in particular arms…..” apologists of calling on U.S. imperialism to Socialist Party (FSP) titled “Unstoppable re- rical “Syrian Revolution.” But after months The NPA grew out of the Ligue Com- arm the Kurds in Kobanê cite Trotsky’s May volt in the Middle East.” Unstoppable? Want of claiming, all evidence to the contrary, that muniste Révolutionnaire (LCR), the French 1938 article “Learn to Think: A Friendly to bet? After citing a history of “ignoble the armed gangs roaming the countryside are affiliate of the International (formerly United) Suggestion to Certain Ultra-Leftists.” We’ve U.S. deeds,” under the subhead “Uneven really moderate and secular, or at least sort Secretariat of the late Ernest Mandel, in the seen this ploy before, too: it was the knock- course of revolution” we read: of, suddenly there appears in northern Syria course of abandoning all pretense of Trotsky- ’em-dead argument of the Spartacist League “The Middle East today is not the a force that more or less matches what the ism. The Danish Mandelites are part of the (SL/U.S.) and its International Communist hopeless shambles portrayed by corporate liberal imagination thinks “freedom fight- Red-Green Alliance (RGA), whose members League to justify its shameful support of the media. But the fight for radical change is ers” should be like: the Kurds of Rojava. of parliament voted for sending a Danish American invasion of Haiti in January 2010 inevitably arduous…. So in the space of a few weeks, the leftists military plane to “transport weapons and under the guise of providing earthquake “As in any revolutionary course, who didn’t lift a finger to protest Obama’s ammunition to the Kurdish militias fighting relief. After months of vociferously defend- agonizing lessons are being learned; air war in Iraq and Syria are holding big Islamic State” (International Viewpoint, 15 ing this social-imperialist betrayal in the organizers seasoned; class consciousness demonstrations, particularly in Germany September). While praising the PKK and face of our denunciation, the SL/ICL finally heightened…. Socialist understanding and elsewhere in Europe, to “Save Kobanê.” “repudiated” its position, among other things deepens. No matter the obstacles and set YPG, in fact it is sending arms to the pro-impe- One little problem: this campaign is rialist Iraqi peshmerga. And while pretending admitting that it “misused the authority” of backs, such political advances cannot Trotsky.6 (Doubtless there are still some SL/ be underestimated in the long view of using sympathy for the determination of the that “this decision does not allow any other ICL members and supporters who would revolution-building. They justify hope Kurdish fighters to line up the Western left Danish military activity in the region,” only a like real answers as to how their organization and solidarity for a secular, socialist, with the imperialist warmongers, who are week earlier Denmark sent a squadron of jets egalitarian Middle East.” the deadliest mass murderers of them all. and 250 military personnel in Iraq under the degenerated so far as to make such an “error.” But as ever new zigzags keep coming, one –Freedom Socialist, October-November The leftists promoting this campaign aegis of NATO, then headed by former Danish thing is clear: they won’t get those from the 2014 are quite devious about it. L’Humanité, premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen. leadership of this demoralized centrist outfit.) This is, hands down, the most ridiculous the newspaper associated with the French The NPA, RGA and their cohorts around This was also the supposedly clinching thing we have read in the left press in many Communist Party (PCF), had a special issue West Europe are nothing but vulgar NATO argument of the Brazilian PSTU (Partido moons. Class consciousness heightened, on Kobanê (22 October) which criticizes social democrats, who have enlisted in the Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado), re- socialist understanding deepening? What Obama for setting Iraq aflame, slams French imperialist war drive in the Middle East. So formist followers of the late Nahuel Moreno, world are these pollyannas living in? With president François Hollande for supporting how do they square this dirty reality with their in justifying their call on the imperialists to murderous salafistjihadis slaughtering ethnic Turkey’s demand for a “buffer zone,” calls tattered leftist pretensions? They use three arm the pro-imperialist Islamist bands fight- minorities, Shiite Muslims, even other Sunni for an end to the criminalization of the PKK, main arguments: First, that the Islamic State ing the Assad regime in Syria.7 Islamists; with U.S. imperialism on a bomb- and then has PCF national secretary Pierre represents a “new fascism.” This is the line of What position would proletarian revo- ing spree; with secular leftists increasingly Laurent calling on France to prioritize “the Mandelite leaders François Sabado (Inprecor, lutionists take, Trotsky had asked, if fascist isolated everywhere in the region, we’re sup- defense of universal values, the rights of 27 September) and Pierre Rousset (Interna- Italy, for its own imperialist interests, had posed to believe things are hopeful, the secu- peoples and peace…. for which it is loved tional Viewpoint, 19 October). We’ve seen that decided to ship arms to Algerians fighting lar socialist revolution is unstoppable! Why by the peoples of the world,” and therefore before. It’s the punch line of “Islamo-fascism” for independence from France. “Should would anyone write such drivel? In order to to “respond favorably to the request of the used by ex-leftists like Christopher Hitchens to the Italian workers prevent the shipping of alibi their disastrous policy of allying with Kurds of Kobanê to have the indispensable support the U.S. invasion/occupation of Iraq arms to the Algerians?” He answered that reactionary religious fundamentalists and arms to resist and avoid a massacre….” in 2003. But the I.S. is not a bunch of enraged every revolutionist, class-conscious worker calling this unholy alliance “revolutionary.” petty bourgeois mobilized by big capital to Translated: French imperialism – the or Algerian rebel would indignantly spurn While the FSP has gone off the deep end, invaders of Mali, the occupiers of Afghani- smash the workers movement. almost the entire spectrum of what passes for such a policy. In another article, “Answers stan, the bombers of Libya, the protagonists The salafist-jihadists of the “Islamic a socialist left is facing the same dilemma: to Questions on the Spanish Situation” (Sep- of dirty colonial wars against Algeria and State” are Sunni religious fanatics preaching how to justify the unjustifiable opportunism tember 1938), Trotsky asked what Spanish Indochina, and the former colonial mas- a theocratic political doctrine. USec “theoreti- of allying with the pro-imperialist Islamist dock workers would do if faced with two ters of Syria – with 900 troops now on the cians” talk of Islamic fascism to hide the fact armed opposition to Assad, just as they did ships bearing arms, one for Franco and one ground in Iraq, should see to it that Kobanê that the I.S. is an extreme form of Islamism, earlier against Qaddafi in the name of a non- for the Republic. Obviously, he answered, gets arms. From where? From the NATO which these pseudo-leftists have supported for existent “Libyan Revolution.” And this is not the workers should block the ship with imperialists, where else? decades (Iran 1979, Afghanistan in the 1980s). new: it goes back to 1979 when the whole lot 6 See our “Open Letter from the Internationalist Oriented to a somewhat more leftish mi- Not only is this counterposed to Trotskyism, of these pseudo-socialists hailed Ayatollah Group to the Spartacist League and ICL,” The lieu than the reformist PCF, with its nationalist the political argument behind it is that of the Internationalist No. 31, May-June 2010. 5 See the IG leaflet, distributed at the march, praise of France as “the land of human rights,” Stalinist Georgi Dimitrov, codified in 1935, to 7 See “Brazil: Leftists in the Camp of Pro-Im- “The Great ‘People’s Climate March’ Scam” on the no less reformist New Anti-Capitalist justify chaining the working class to bourgeois perialist Syrian Islamists,” The Internationalist page 10 if this issue. Party (NPA) resorts to double-talk. Thus in forces in the name of a “popular front against No. 36, January-February 2014. 22 The Internationalist weapons for Franco and let the one for the el pasado. Pero igual que en el pasado los Republic pass. gestos heroicos no logarán la victoria, pues There are two key reasons why the los campesinos no tienen el poder económi- opportunists’ reference to Trotsky is false. co y social ni un interés de clase coherente First, Trotsky was asking whether workers para revertir el capitalismo. Hemos señalado should block arms shipments, not urging que las actuales “autodefensas” de la Tierra workers to call on fascist Italy or the im- Caliente de Michoacán son de hecho patro- perialist “democracies” to arm Algerian nales, y las policías comunitarias indígenas rebels or insurgent Spanish workers. It was Revolución Permanente de Guerrero son controladas por el mismo the Stalinists and anarchists who called to gobierno de Aguirre. A la vez, seguimos pressure France to send arms to Spain, while exigiendo la libertad de Nestora Salgado y Trotsky warned that “democratic” France los comunitarios presos por portar armas. was an enemy of Spanish workers. And Desde el levantamiento de los zapatistas second, the pro-imperialist Islamist armed en 1994 hasta la sublevación magisterial y bands in Syria are not at all equivalent to popular de Oaxaca en 2006, la lección de Algerian fighters for independence or work- los años recientes – y de tres revoluciones ers militias in Spain. They are reactionary democrático-burguesas fallidas – es que la sectarian-communalist forces that should be próxima revolución mexicana será obrera, defeated by workers action, along with the o no será. authoritarian Assad regime. Es preciso romper con el PRI, el PAN The pseudo-socialists call for a “popular y el PRD, partidos capitalistas cuyas manos revolution” in Syria, which are code words están manchadas de sangre, y también con el for collaboration with bourgeois forces. The El Grupo Internacionalista en la marcha del 22 de octubre en la Cd. de México Morena de Andrés Manuel López Obrador, program of revolutionary Marxists is to fight denunciando la matanza de estudiantes normalistas de Ayotzinapa. uno de cuyos operadores en Guerrero, el for mobilization of the working class and for hasta la instalación de gobiernos perredistas actual secretario de salud estatal, Lázaro international socialist revolution. The League –citado por Luis Hernández Navarro, en la entidad compuestos por politiqueros Mazón, es el principal padrino político for the Fourth International does not call “Asalto contra las normales rurales”, La ex priístas, la colaboración de clases ha de José Luis Abarca, el asesino alcalde de on U.S. and NATO imperialists to arm the Jornada, 10 de agosto de 2010 socavado la rebeldía guerrerense. Como Iguala. Hace falta construir una dirección Kurds (much less the pro-imperialist Syrian De Guerrero rebelde a en Chile con Salvador Allende, “el pueblo revolucionaria, armada con el programa Islamists), which in any case would be a la revolución obrera unido” es un lema para la derrota. El nuestro trotskista de la revolución permanente, poisoned chalice. Instead we call on Turkish es ¡Luchar, vencer, obreros al poder! para forjar el núcleo de un partido obrero workers rise up against the Erdogan govern- Guerrero ha sido el escenario de com- Hoy, resulta evidente que pedir investi- leninista como los bolcheviques en Rusia, ment. Strikes shutting down transportation in bativas movilizaciones de “los de abajo”, y gaciones “limpias”, exigir la renuncia de un que sirva como tribuno del pueblo al dirigir Istanbul and Ankara and mass mobilization también de un ciclo infernal de masacres, alcalde, un gobernador o incluso del presi- a todos los explotados y oprimidos a la toma surrounding Turkish air bases in Incirlik and guerra sucia y represión por parte de “los dente de la república no solucionará nada. del poder. Diyarbakir would be the most effective aid de arriba” – la clase dominante capitalista. El llanto y la ira de los parientes y com- Enviamos nuestro mensaje de solida- to embattled defenders of Kobanê. En la accidentada Sierra Madre del Sur, las pañeros de los normalistas desaparecidos, ridad proletaria desde la Ciudad de México Likewise, revolutionaries in the imperi- aisladas poblaciones viven como en gene- que reclaman airadamente en sus mantas (y Berlín y Nueva York) a los aguerridos alist countries should be fighting to mobilize raciones pasadas de la siembra de temporal, “vivos se los llevaron, vivos los queremos”, estudiantes normalistas de Guerrero, sus workers action against the imperialist war. con frecuencia insuficiente para la autosub- se repetirán. La débil burguesía mexicana, compañeros y padres: “¡estamos con us- Above all, it is urgently necessary to begin sistencia. Comunidades indígenas nahuas, sometida al imperialismo y enfrentada por tedes, ahora y siempre!” Que sepan los building the nucleus of genuinely Bolshe- amuzgas, tlapanecas y mixtecas dispersas un poderoso proletariado y un campesinado gobiernos de turno de la burguesía, tanto vik, Leninist-Trotskyist parties throughout en la región de la Montaña, junto con im- pobre, no puede prescindir de la represión en México como en Estados Unidos y todo the region, fighting for workers revolution portantes concentraciones afromexicanas en sangrienta para mantener su dominio. Como el mundo, que sus crímenes no escaparán a from Istanbul to Cairo, Baghdad and Tel la Costa Chica, han padecido una opresión señaló el gran revolucionario ruso León la vista de la clase obrera mundial. Sobre Aviv, in a socialist federation of the Middle étnica y lingüística secular que subsiste hoy Trotsky, fundador del Ejército Rojo y de la la masacre de Iguala de 2014 igual que la East. That proletarian-internationalist pro- en día. En años recientes son acechadas tam- IV Internacional, en la época imperialista, de México del 2 de octubre de 1968, no ha- gram of permanent revolution is the road to bién por los talamontes y bandas asesinas en países semicoloniales como México se bría ni olvido, ni perdón... ¡Luchar, vencer defeating all the Islamist and Zionist forces del narcotráfico. requiere un gobierno obrero y campesino obreros al poder! n and breaking the stranglehold of imperialist “¡Guerrero en pie de lucha!” reza un popular coro en las manifestaciones del para resolver las tareas democráticas al ini- barbarism, in order to provide a true “age Para contactar al Grupo D.F. Así es, desde las guerrillas de Genaro ciar la revolución socialista internacional. of happiness” of freedom and prosperity for Internacionalista/México, escribe a Vázquez Rojas (en los años 1960) y Lucio Habrá quienes sueñen con echarse al the toilers in this cradle of civilization. ■ [email protected] Cabañas (a principios de los 70), ambos monte e iniciar la lucha armada como en egresados de la normal rural de Ayotzi- México masacre... napa. (Cabañas también fue presidente sigue de la página 24 de la FECSM.) Siguieron los campesinos insurgentes entre los copreros y cafetaleros, The Las normales rurales han sido blanco Internationalist predilecto de los “reformadores” educativos, hasta las combativas movilizaciones de los al ser tenidas como “nidos comunistas” o maestros de la CETEG (filial estatal de la A Journal of Revolutionary Marxism for the CNTE) y sus aliados los normalistas. El año “kínderes bolcheviques”, como anota la Reforging of the Fourth International investigadora Tanalís Padilla (“La crimi- pasado, la CETEG inició la más grande y nalización de los normalistas rurales”, La larga movilización magisterial en México en Publication of the Internationalist Group, Jornada, 4 de octubre). Sus estudiantes han décadas, aunque no fue secundada a tiempo section of the League for the Fourth International sido perseguidos y brutalmente reprimidos por otras secciones de la CNTE. Sin embar- por oponerse a los constantes intentos go, cada una de estas luchas se ha mantenido Annual subscription US$10 for five issues. de asfixiar económicamente o cerrar sus aislada del poder que sí tiene la capacidad escuelas. La propia Elba Esther Gordillo, de derrotar a los sanguinarios capitalistas: Name______otrora “secretaria general vitalicia” del el de la clase obrera urbana. Address______corporativista Sindicato Nacional de Tra- El estado tiene una historia revolu- bajadores de la Educación (SNTE), orga- cionaria notable, comenzando con Vicente ______Apt. #_____Tel.(___)______nismo de control policial de los mentores, Guerrero, comandante militar en la guerra City______State/Province______llamó a eliminar las normales rurales. En un de independencia de México, originario seminario sobre “una nueva educación” la de Tixtla donde se encuentra la normal Postal Code/Zip______Country______charra responsable de cientos de asesinatos de Ayotzinapa, quien llegó a ser el primer de maestros dijo: y único presidente negro de México (su Make checks/money orders payable to Mundial Publications and mail to: “Hemos planteado muchas veces a las madre era esclava africana) y que realizó Mundial Publications autoridades que si se cierran algunas de la abolición de la esclavitud. Lamentable- Box 3321, Church Street Station las normales rurales va a haber mucho mente, Vicente Guerrero también apoyó New York, NY 10008 U.S.A. alboroto de los jóvenes. No se olviden que el Plan de Iguala que pregonó la “unión” Write the Internationalist Group at the above address, or contact: las normales rurales han sido semilleros de las clases sociales y sometió su ejército Tel (212) 460-0983 Fax (212) 614-8711 de guerrilleros, pero si no hacemos esto, insurgente al ejército realista del futuro E-mail: [email protected] van a seguir con lo mismo”. “emperador” Agustín de Iturbide. De ahí October-November 2014 23 El Internacionalista octubre-noviembre de 2014 Otra vez: matanza, desaparecidos e impunidad México: Masacre en Guerrero exige movilización y revolución obrera

sus amos imperialistas PRI, PAN, PRD: asesinos por el crimen de Iguala. partidos burgueses La cortina de humo so- bre el narcotráfico sólo ¡Forjar un partido busca lavar las manos ensangrentadas del go- obrero que luche por la bierno, siendo el estado revolución socialista! capitalista el que hay En las primeras horas de la tarde del que enjuiciar. Ha habido sábado 4 de octubre, los despachos noticio- hasta 100 mil asesina- sos comenzaron a informar desde Guerrero dos y otros tantos desa- sobre el descubrimiento de una serie de parecidos en la “guerra fosas en las afueras de Iguala. Conforme contra las drogas” bajo pasaron las horas, se reportó el hallazgo de los gobiernos de Fe- 9, luego 20 y finalmente 28 cuerpos calcina- lipe Calderón (PAN) dos y desmembrados en seis fosas. Muchos y ahora Enrique Peña indicios apuntan a que serían algunos de Nieto (PRI), a órdenes los 43 estudiantes arrestados por la policía de EE.UU. Mientras municipal una semana antes. De confirmarse persista el capitalismo, que los normalistas de Ayotzinapa desapare- seguirán las matanzas, cidos fueron ejecutados, se trataría de la peor las desapariciones y la masacre de estudiantes en México desde la impunidad. Por eso urge del aciago 2 de octubre de 1968. una movilización de La matanza de Iguala ya es noticia clase de los trabajadores Mitin en Ciudad Universitaria durante el paro de la UNAM y otras universidades el 15 de mundial. Exigen una “investigación limpia” contra el sanguinario octubre denunciando el asesinato y desaparición de normalistas de Ayotzinapa, Guerrero. organismos de derechos humanos, Naciones estado de los patrones, Unidas y hasta el gobierno norteamericano paralizando sectores del narco en el secuestro y desaparición de nadores. (El alcalde igualteco pertenecía a (que asesina a decenas diariamente en su claves de la economía y apuntando hacia la los normalistas, es preciso subrayar que es la misma corriente perredista, Los Chuchos, ocupación de Afganistán y su guerra en revolución socialista. el aparato estatal burgués el responsable que Navarrete.) Irak y Siria). Contra esta hipocresía oficial, ¿Por qué? directo de lo ocurrido. Ahora, el presidente priísta Enrique ¿Por qué este crimen abominable? Las Peña Nieto envía a la flamante Gendarme- los parientes de los estudiantes muertos y El asesinato de seis personas en Iguala primeras versiones acusaban a los estu- ría Nacional (el nuevo cuerpo de la Policía desaparecidos de Ayotzinapa junto con los en la madrugada del viernes 27 de septiem- diantes de haber “robado” unos camiones Federal anunciado con bombo y platillo al combativos maestros de la Coordinadora bre, fue apenas el preludio de la carnicería. para transportarlos a casa, aunque eso fue principio de su mandato) para vigilar Iguala, Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación Hay imágenes de los estudiantes desapare- acordado con los choferes. Luego se alegó junto con el ejército. Se trata del mismo (CNTE) han llamado para hoy, 8 de octu- cidos que son transportados en vehículos de que el alcalde de Iguala, José Luís Abarca ejército cuyos integrantes son responsables bre, a marchas y paros a escala nacional. la policía municipal hacia las afueras de la Velázquez (PRD), “ilocalizable” desde la de la masacre de Tlatlaya en Edomex a También habrá piquetes frente a consulados ciudad. La versión oficial del gobierno de semana pasada, consideró como un agra- finales de junio, donde se ejecutó a más de mexicanos a escala internacional, uno de Guerrero, del gobernador Ángel Aguirre vio imperdonable el que los normalistas una veintena de “individuos”. Pero el pueblo ellos en Nueva York donde nuestros cama- Rivero (PRD), es que un capo del cartel botearan en Iguala el día en que su esposa de Guerrero no ha dado la bienvenida a la radas del Grupo Internacionalista iniciaron Guerreros Unidos, un tal Chucky, ordenó ofrecía una “gala” tras leer su informe como tropa, que sólo promete más represión. El una protesta de emergencia el domingo al jefe de la policía de Iguala que aprehen- jefa del DIF local. Involucrado con el tráfico domingo pasado, cientos de integrantes de pasado. diera a los estudiantes para entregarlos a de drogas, este financiero del gobernador la Federación de Estudiantes Campesinos En estas movilizaciones es fundamental sus sicarios, que los habrían ejecutado. Pero Aguirre y narcoalcalde prófugo se sentía Socialistas de México (FECSM), que englo- responsabilizar al gobierno mexicano y a cualquiera que haya sido la participación intocable: el año pasado habría asesinado ba a los de Ayotzinapa y todas las normales con sus propias manos a tres dirigentes de rurales del país, bloquearon en la autopista la organización campesina Unión Popular a un convoy castrense y lo obligaron a dar Emiliano Zapata, con total impunidad. vuelta atrás. Pero incluso hoy, sigue sin haber acusación Cualquiera que sea el motivo inmediato alguna contra el alcalde por la matanza del que desencadenó el baño de sangre de Iguala, 27 de septiembre, afirma la PGR. la razón fundamental de la masacre es la sa- No obstante, la responsabilidad no tanización de los combativos estudiantes y el recae exclusivamente en el asesino alcalde empeño de los gobiernos de todas las siglas

Foto: The Internationalist perredista. El gobernador perredista inició de cerrar las escuelas normales rurales. Esto su sexenio con el asesinato a manos de la forma parte de la ofensiva privatizadora de la policía estatal (y federal) de dos estudiantes educación pública ordenada por Washington normalistas de Ayotzinapa en la Autopista y las instituciones financieras mundiales. del Sol. Sólo tuvo que pedir disculpas tiem- Hoy, esta política nefasta es implementada po después. El mismo Aguirre Rivero era en México por Peña Nieto y su secretario jefe del PRI de Guerrero en 1995 cuando de educación, Emilio Chuayffet, quien fue el gobierno priísta de Rubén Figuera Jr. secretario de gobernación cuando la masacre masacró a 17 campesinos en Aguas Blancas. de Acteal en 1997. Cabe señalar que una Jamás hubo consecuencias penales. Hoy demanda judicial en EE.UU. contra el ex muchos manifestantes exigen la renuncia presidente Ernesto Zedillo por Acteal recién de Aguirre, pero el jefe del PRD nacional, fue desestimada por gozar el ex mandatario Protesta de emergencia por la matanza de Guerrero, iniciada por el Grupo Carlos Navarrete, se opone, porque en ese de inmunidad. Internacionalista frente al consulado mexicano en NY, el 5 de octubre. caso habría que defenestrar a varios gober- sigue en la página 23