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No. 828 ®(li®~C-701 11 June 2004
For Class Struggle Against Capitalist Rulers at Home! Down Wi.th the Colonial Occupation of Iraq! '.
In launching their one-sided for the occupation. With polls slaughter in Iraq, the deranged showing mounting opposition neocons in the Bush White House among the American population promised that the U.S. occupiers u.s. Out Now! and the presidential elections only would be greeted as liberators by months away, the Bush administra- the Iraqi peoples. According to tion has been scrambling to dem this scenario, occupied Iraq would onstrate that it has some semblance serve as a beachhead for establish of control in Iraq. This arrogant ing more pliant regimes in the war-crazed administration has region, particularly in Syria and even dropped its xenophobic rav I ran. Today these fantasies-as ings against the French like yester polly~tnnaish as they were arro day's "freedom" fries, as Bush gant-are going up in smoke. went hat-in-han'd to "old" Europe The "" eapons of mass destruc looking for back-up to save face in tion" (h~lt "ere' thC' ("tC'Il'ihh' "(1.1'11\ Iraq. Specifically, the Bush admin he/Ii have failed to materialize for istration wants their ~lIpport tor a the simple reason thal thcy don't United Nations resolution provid exist. Bush is now busy trying to ing a "democratic" fig leaf for the pass the buck. Some of the presi continued neocolonial occupation dent's coterie are blaming Ahmad of Iraq. Chalabi for hoodwinking them. Much is being made by govern Convicted of embezzling funds ment pundits of the supposed hand in Jordan, Chalabi has been the over of "sovereignty" to an Iraqi recipient of millions from the interim government on June 30. Bush and Clinton administrations Some "sovereignty"-the head of for services rendered as their Iraqi this government, Iyad Allawi, is front man. On May 20, his man a CIA asset! This puppet state sion in Iraq was raided and trashed will have "control" of everything amidst accusations that he was an except...the military and the econ Iranian spy. omy! The 'lOO,OOO-plus U.S. Six days later, the New York troops are slated to stay in the Times felt compelled to finally Reuters country for years. The U.S. has confess that its articles retailing U.S. occupation forces patrol Sadr City, Baghdad, April 5. also imposed a law, unchangeable stones of Hussein's supposed arse under the terms of the interim con nal, (If weapons weren't as "rigorous as cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Over 800 Ameri ginning to allow that maybe things aren't stitution, opening Iraq's economy to for [they] should have been." The Times can soldiers have died in Iraq, the over exactly going acc9rding to plan. As eign ownership. Moreover, funds for exonerates the Bush administration, whelming majority since the U.S. govern Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was "reconstructing" Iraq will be adminis blaming the false stories in its paper "at ment declared military victory. With its forced to admit: "If you had said tome a tered by the U.S. embassy headed by least in part on information from a circle forces in Iraq stretched to the breaking year ago, 'describe the situation you'll be John Negroponte, who played a leading of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles point, the military announced that it in today one year later: I don't know role in the funding and training of drug bent on 'regime change' in Iraq" and would stop soldiers in units scheduled to many people who would have described running, sadistic torture gangs in Central lamenting that they, "along with the go to Iraq or Afghanistan from leaving it-I would not have-described it in the America in the 1980s. administration, were taken in." Now CIA service even if their enlistments were way it happens to be today" (Nation, 17 As we wrote in our article "Imperial chief George Tenet, assigned the role of up. This has added to the already rising May). Prominent neoconservative ideo ists Carry Out Massacre in FaIluja" (WV a fall guy, has resigned in the midst of disgruntlement of many soldiers and logue for the Bushites, William Kristol, No. 824, 16 April): a barrage of criticism of manipulated "in their families. Now, the government has now declares that Bush "did drive us into 'The colonial carnage will not end as telligence" and recriminations over the announced that it will be moving 3,600 a ditch" (Nation, 7 June). This is a case of long as the U.S. imperialist forces, from the 'coalition' allies to the 15,000 mer September 11 attacks. troops from South Korea to Iraq this a rat deserting a sinking ship. After all, cenaries and CIA agents, are in Iraq. On the ground in Iraq, the U.S. military summer. Kristol and his ilk gave Bush the road They must get out, now! But the imperi has sparked widespread resistance to Their demented visions of establishing map into the ditch. alists will not give up their domination its savage occupation. Hoping to pacify a pliant, stable Iraq in shambles, even the The horrors of the Abu Ghraib prison of the region until they are forced to by largely Sunni Falluja, the U.S. brought central architects of the invasion are be- tortures have eroded support at home continued on page 2 out of mothballs a former general in Hussein's military and installed him as the commander of the puppet Iraqi forces in the area. More recently, the Ameri cans have been scrambling to cut a deal with the Shi'ite forces in Najaf under
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7111'25274118103011117 () CL Z LL Occupation Z
We reprint below a leaflet issued by the brutality and corruption. In truth they armed guard dogs. Chicago Labor Black Struggle League on serve as sounding boards to circumvent What is necessary is for Chicago's JlIne 3. the genuine outrage generated by these powerful. multiracial labor movement to They did it to May Molina, they'll do it atrocities and enforce the lie that the real mobilize and protest this atrocity, provid to anyone~that's the chilling message problem is the result of a few bad apple ing the crucial link between organized the Chicago cops sent on May 24 when cops and lack of oversight. labor and the oppressed. Our signs at the they dragged the 55-year-old grandmother This was the message hundreds of pro May 27 protest called for mobilizing and political activist from her wheelchair, testers got at the May 27 protest and labor power to protest racist cop terror. A threw her in jail on drug charges, and meeting at the Chicago Police Review massive show of force by the unions Fight Back! refused her life-sustaining medications, Board. Grotesquely. Reverend Slim Cole would go a long way in staying the hand May Molina effectively condemning her to die in her man called for the need to restore the of racist cops and give organized expres cell. Molina, who sutlered from diabetes, credibility of the cops! Aaron Patterson, sion to the justified outrage that seethes other party of war and racism. To win a asthma, liver disease and a thyroid con who was himself framed up and spent 17 through black and Latino Chicago. In battle you have to know who your friends dition. was refused medical treatment years on death row. called on U.S. top fact, that's exactly what happened in 1985 are and who your enemies are. The despite pleas from her family and lawyer. cops to carry out a Federal investigation. when Chicago Transit Authority bus driv Democrats may pretend to speak for By the early morning hours of May 26 Demands for Federal investigations push er David Johnson was framed up 'on working people and minorities or have she was dead. We in the Labor Black the absurd illusion that the "Justice" bogus charges, including seven counts more black and Hispanic officials but Struggle League (LBSL) condemn this Department of John Ashcroft will con of reckless homicide, in a tragic acci they, no less than the RepUblicans, arc a sinister killing by the Chicago Police, duct a fair and impartial investigation. dent while driving his bus. Hundreds of party committed to the capitalist system. Department! Just look at Chicago. For decades the May Molina was an outspoken and Democratic Party has run "Segregation courageous activist against police corrup City" and it remains a racist hellhole with tion and wrongful convictions here in a legacy of police torture, killings and Chicago. Co-founder of the groups "Fam misery for the black and Hispanic popu ilies of the Wrongfully Conyicted" and lation. Former police commander Jon "Comite Exigimos Justicia" (We Demand Burge and his torture machine operated Justice). Molina fO\,lght to free her impris under Daley's watch. As bloodthirsty and oned son. Salvador, and for dozens of vic dangerous as Bush is, electing a Demo tims of police brutality and frame-ups. crat into the White House is no solution For this she was in the cross hairs of because the problem is the capitalist sys the police. May Molina's killing is the tem, not the administration. Remember domestic face of the government's bipar who bombed Iraq for eight years. who tisan "war on terror." It's a war on blacks, demolished welfare and who cranked up immigrants, labor and all those who dare the death penalty~Democrat Clinton. oppose this racist, capitalist state. It's time to fight for what is necessary, At bottom the capitalist. state is an not what others tell us is "possible!" It's apparatus of repression consisting of the going to take a workers revolution to army. the courts, the prisons and the establish an egalitarian society based on cops. Far from being neutral, it is a nec a socialist planned economy to truly essary tool with which the capitalists address. the horrors and wrongs of capi maintain control and carry out their class WV Photo talist society. Working people need their rule at home and abroad. The U.S. Army Chicago Labor Black Struggle League at demonstration outside police own party, a multiracial revolutionary is in the midst of a bloody occupation in headquarters protesting May Molina killing, May 27. • party, determined to fight for a workers Iraq. Some of the sadistic guards at Abu government. To build that party requires Ghraib got their training here at home in Andy Thayer (Chicago Anti-Bashing Net- . his Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) a political fight against those who seek prisons like SCI Greene where America's work) told the audience to "come out in; brothers and sisters marched on Police only to reform this rotting capitalist soci foremost political prisoner, Mumia Abu numbers" to make the cops and the city Headquarters, forcing Daley (then Cook ety. The Labor Black Struggle League, Jamal, languishes on death row, framed respond to demands and establish bet County state's attorney) to drop all initiated by and fraternally allied with up for killing a cop. The prisons are ter procedures. Joan Parkin (International charges against Johnson. That mobili the Marxist Spartacist League, is part of overflowing with black and Hispanic Socialist Organization supporter and coor zation worked because of the power the revolutionary movement of the work people targeted in the "war on drugs." dinator of Enough is Enough) was full that stood behind it. The working class ers and oppressed against the bosses and And from coast to coast, the cops terror of moral outrage but offered no strategy uniquely has the power to bring produc for socialism. ize the ghettos and barrios. From Fred beyond the usual pressure politics. Each tion to a halt~to stop the buses, to shut We will not forget May Molina! Drop Hampton and Mark Clark to LaTanya of these strategies politically disarms pro the auto plants, to close the ports. That's the charges against Aaron Patterson and Haggerty and Robert Russ to May Molina, testers by pushing the dangerous illusion "no business as usual!" Robert Zajac, arrested at the May 26 . we know too well what the Chicago cops that the nature of the capitalist state can The primary obstacle to unleashing this Molina protest! For labor action to pro do. None of these institutions can be be changed by applying enough "mass power is the current misleadership of the test racist cop terror! Break with the reformed and made to work "for the peo pressure." There will be no end to police unions which instead turns workers into Democrats! Build a workers party! Black ple." Civilian review boards or the Chi brutality short of the destruction of the voting cattle for the Democratic Party, the liberation through socialist revolution!. cago Police Review Board are offered up system of capitalist exploitation and as a way to curb the rampant police racist oppression which the cops serve as Letter
*, SPARTACIST~EAGUE/U.S. --- · On Southern Race Relations and Marcus Dixon Local DiJectory and Public Offices 30 May 2004 the thought of consensual interracial Web site:www.icl-fi.org • E-mail address:[email protected] Chicago sex. In the main however the racist ter National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860 Dear Comrades, . ror meted out had as its purpose the . Boston Los Angeles Oakland In the Young Spartacus article on the continued SUbjugation of ;he black race Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 release of Marcus Dixon to a now un color caste. It was and is purely a tool Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 certain future [Workers Vanguard No. 827, of terror. (617) 666-9453 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 28 May], I think we have an unfortunate Comradely, Public Office: Sat. 2·5 p.m. Public Office: Vance Chicago 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Sat. 1-5 p.m. formulation. In the fifth paragraph where Box 6441, Main PO 1634 Telegraph we deal with the tinderbox of black male/ Chicago, IL 60680 New York 3rd Floor white female relations we state: "Allega (312) 563-0441 Box 3381, Church St. Sta. tions of black men raping white women~ Public Office: New York, NY 10008 San Francisco overwhelmingly spurious~were a fre '-iS1/ ~$, Sat. 2-5 p.m. (212) 267·1025 Box 77494 quent pretext for lynchings." Why are 222 S. Morgan Public Office: San Francisco those two words, "overwhelmingly spuri CA 94107 LOS ANGELES (Buz~er 23) Sat. 1-4 p.m. ous," even there? First off, the sentence 299 Broadway, Suite 318 would work just fine without them. More Saturday, June 12, 2 p.m. over, in the next part of the sentence we The Fight for a say that these allegations were used as Revolutionary Party TIIOTSKYISt·~AIUI;" .• C'.III/l.l'.TRU'Ilrt_~": ••'.IA a "pretext," i.e., it's garbage! "Rape" is Toronto Vancouver beside the point because the racist terror 3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215 Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main P.O. ists don't need any actual crime to occur (Vermont/Beverly Red Line station) Information and readings: (213) 380-8239 Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 Vancouver, BC V6S 3X2 in order to murder black people. What (416) 593-4138 (604) 687-0353 or e-mail: [email protected] some were "reacting" to mostly was just 11 JUNE 2004 3 The following is a slightly edited Catholic church. With the support of presentation by Spartacist speaker the most reactionary forces in Spain, Adrian Ortega at a Spartacist League! Franco launched a military coup to Spartacus Youth Club public educa overthrow the Republican govern tional in New York City on April 3. ment of president Manuel Azafia, which was a liberal bourgeois gov PART ONE ernment, to replace it with a military dictatorship. This was to enforce Anarchism today has become fash through "blood the interests of the ionable among youth and left-liberal propertied classes over the workers intellectual circles. Refracted in a and peasants, and to put an end to myriad of ways. from "Green radical decades of highly militant labor strug ism" to "Platformism," these youth gles in Spain. Azafia hid the advance seek to oppose a social reality dic ment of Franco's army from the tated by an economic system based working class and made frantic and on the production of profits for the unsuccessful attempts to contact the handful of capitalists. The emergence military leaders and to come to an of anarchism as a prevalent ideology agreement with them. The Spanish among radicalized youth today is a proletariat, which had just gone reflection of what we Marxists lInder through two years of harsh state stand as a global retrogression in repression under a right-wing gov political consciousness following the ernment, distrusted the Azafia gov fall of the Soviet Union in 1991-92 ernment and took matters into their and the restoration of capitalism in Agusti Centelles, Barcelona own hands. They independently the Soviet degenerated workers state Women's militia unit departing Barcelona for Aragon front to fight reactionary mobilized to gather weapons and and the deformed workers states of Francoist forces. build barricades to fight the bour- East Europe. geois pro-monarchist reaction. As the title of this forum indicates, this come their own limitations-centrally things whose spheres vary with the vari Some of the most epic battles between presentation will center on the counterpo the Trotskyists' lack of authority among ous phases of the development of society" the Francoist forces and the armed prole sition between two political worldviews, the proletariat and the Friends of Dur (Friedrich Engels, "On Authority" [1872]). tariat started almost concurrently in Marxism and its contemporary continua ruti's incapacity to break with an anar In other words, we don't blindly condemn major cities like Madrid, Valencia and tion, Trotskyism, and anarchism, which chist worldview-and lead the workers to authority as an abstract concept divorced Barcelona. I would like to read excerpts played a decisive role in the events of the power. Had there been a successful revo from a certain social and economic real from Abel Paz's book, Durruti: The Peo Spanish Civil War. lution in Spain, this would have drasti ity. Most of the world today is-based on ple Armed (1976), in his chapter "Barce The Civil War (which lasted from cally changed the shape of the ,world.in _the authority of a prQperty:owning class, lona in Flames": approximately 1936 to 1939) represented which we live now. the bourgeoisie, exercised over the work "On July 19, 1936, at 5 A.M. a new page This talk aims to explain why the stra ing masses through the instrumentality of in the revolution was beginning to the the last opportunity for the proletariat to sound of gunfire, the crackling of machine overthrow capitalism and open the road to tegic "mistakes" made by the anarchist a state. the capitalist state. We oppose and guns which were mixed with the deafen socialism in Spain before the rise of the leadership in the Spanish Civil War were work to destroy that authority and the ing sound of factory sirens, informing Francoist military dictatorship that would not only "mistakes" but the logical con state that helps preserve it. But we wel the people that the decisive hour had last more than 30 years and kill hundreds clusion of a program that inherently rests come the authority of mass organizations arrived. The seventh artillery regiment had left San Andres Park. divided, of thousands. In the key industrial center on class collaboration-i.e., a political of workers and other oppressed sectors in and was trying to reach the center of the of Spain. Catalonia, armed workers organ alliance between the bourgeoisie and the society, like workers councils (soviets). capital by two different route,. But at ized militias and factory committees that proletariat, which constrains and subordi which would coordinate and centralize the crossing of the 'Diagonal' the first shook the foundations of the capitalist nates the workers and their struggles to the proletariat's efforts to create a society detachment ran into a group of workers order, private property and the state. But the framework of capitalism. T would like based on workers democracy and prevent armed with grenades and pistols. which blocked its advance .... the most radical mass leaders of this to give a few initial considerations the destruction of the gains resulting from "One part of the Montesa regiment fol movement (the anarchist" FAT and the regarding the political foundations of a social revolution-a workers state. lowed by important military units of National Confederation of Labor [CNT] both currents. Through eliminating the irrationality of engineers, managed to slip into Marques it controlled, and the centrist Workers Anarchists claim to fight for a classless capitalist production, economic planning del Duero Avenue (Paralelo) but was checked by a strong barricade put up Party of Marxist Unification [POUM]) society, and some of them understand the under a workers state would allow the by the workers of the Woodworkers' along with the rest of the left (the Social centrality of the proletariat in such a task, free development of productive forces Union .... ist Workers Party [PSOE] and the Stalin just as we Marxists do. However, they and eliminate the material basis for social "At the same time, near the Plaza de ist Communist Party [PCE]) showed their reject any form of "authority" and conse inequality. This would have to be a joint Palacio, the dockworkers of the' Barce enterprise of the world proletariat and is loneta distdct had routed the Montana political incapacity to lead the working quently oppose the existence of any state artillery regiment.. .. class toward emancipation. It was only (meaning the use of organized violence to the only way to eliminate the state and "Towards noon after four hours of fight small groups (like the Friends of Durruti protect the interests of the class in power). create' a society based on "from each ing the uprising appeared to be defeated. anarchists and the Trotskyist Bolshevik They also renounce concepts like leader according to his ability, to each according One by one, all the areas of resistance Leninists) who sought during the barri ship and centralization and counterpose to his needs." fell into the hands of the people .... cades fightin'g in May 1937 to bring rev to them "autonomy" or "spontaneity." • The anarchist abstract condemnation "From then on the morale of the workers who were fighting, increased. In addition olutionary leadership to the proletariat. On the contrary, Marxists explain that of "authority" has concrete ramifications an important collection of weapons (guns But these groups were not able to over- "Authority and autonomy are relative on' the organizational level. Anarchist and machine guns) fell into their hands. organizations are decentralized entities Barcelona began to have a new look." that claim to exercise no authority over This period is known as the "July their members. This in itself is a complete events" in the Spanish Civil War. Heroic fallacy, which the events in the Civil War actions sprang from the workers' barri completely prove. Marxists, on the con cades tq become class-struggle history. trary, explain the necessity of a central Within a few days, all Catalonia was in ized, democratic organization of the the hands of the proletariat. Madrid had working class that groups together seen the Francoist forces defeated by the proletariat's most conscious elements, workers armed with scant stores of works to raise the consciousness of the arms-with cobblestones and kitchen working class as a whole and exercises knives in Valencia-in the face of the leadership, including leading the decisive embargo on arms by the government. struggles for workers power; a vanguard Most of these workers were members of party that embraces the highest levels of the CNT or the POUM. democracy in its internal life and inter Asturian miners outfitted a c<,?lumn of venes in struggle as a unified, conscious 5,000 dynamiters for a march on Madrid, political force. which arrived one day later to guard the streets. Armed workers committees dis The Spanish Revolution placed the customs officers at the borders,
Hoover Institution On 17 July 1936, General Francisco and a joint committee of the General Leftist militia in Spanish Civil War. Stalinist-led Popular Front suppressed Franco assumed c.ommand of the Moors Workers Union (UGT-affiliated to the anarchist CNT militants and centrist POUM in the name of capitalist and Legionnaires of Morocco under the PSOE) and the CNT took charge of all "democracy." . banner of the Spanish monarchy and the transportation in Spain. A union book or 4 WORKERS VANGUARD membership card from a leftist party was the only requirement to enter the country. The police, the Civil and Assault Guards, which had sided against the workers in the battles, had been replaced by workers militias that patrolled the cities. But how did workers get to this point? Let me back up a few years and make some clarifications. Bus with CNT sign marking Anarchism was the predominant ideol collectivization ogy among the Spanish proletariat in the of Barcelona 20th century, in great part thanks to the transport system country's slow economic development (left); peasants during the previous three centuries. In the with rifles work northern. and eastern regions of Spain, on collectivized like Catalonia and Aragon, the principal land. anarchist trade-union federation, the CNT. organized the most politically advanced workers in those provinces. The leaders of the CNT represented a trend inside anarchism called syndicalism. The syn dicalists correctly recognized the indus by which to achieve one. All the Anar speech in Congress by a Trotskyist de Azafia took office as president in May trial proletariat as the central agency for chists of the world would have to do as nouncing the colonial occupation in Iraq 1936 in the midst of a great wave of the Russian 'maximalists: had done: they overthrowing capitalism. They believed, would have to 'destroy authoritatively ... would have on both the American work strikes. From June 10 to the first days of though, .that trade unions would be the the present edifice based upon privilege ing class and the soldiers in Iraq. To July, the number of workers striking only instrument necessary to bring about and injustice in order to begin construct Marxists, th~ question of whether or not against the deepening economic crisis a socialist revolution, and opposed, as ing the great city of happiness, Anarchy'." to participate in elections is a tactical had grown from half a million to over a all anarchists do, the idea of a vanguard [emphasis added] • question based on concrete circumstances. million. Bourgeois democracy was start- party of the working class. The best of this generation of anarchists At the same time, Marxists renounce in ing to crumble. '. Given their relationship with the work and syndicalists-like Victor Serge, the principle the taking of any executive min Around the same time as Franco's ing class, anarcho-syndicalists sometimes Marxist historian and Trotsky biogra isterial post in any capitalist government attempted coup and the workers uprising had very good political impulses. During pher; Alfred Rosmer, a leading anarcho because it could not mean anything other during the "July events" in 1936, big the First World War, when Spain's neu syndicalist in France who later became than the direct administration or the cap chunks of the bourgeoisie in Catalonia trality meant that its production in Trotsky's close collaborator; and James italist state. (the region that comprised 70 percent of creased, a staunch opposition to the war P. Cannon, an anarcho-syndicalist in the Lerroux governed in coalition with the the'industry in Spain) had fled the coun within the Spanish left was found among American Industrial Wor.!
'"In order to impress Tsarina Catherine identical. They all attempted to salve their with his self-promoting efforts at devel wounded egos, pontificating that. after all. oping the harren Russian steppes in the 1Sth century. Prince Potemkin suppos Ad Absurdum the Bolsheviks were infiltrated by Roman edlv constructed elahorate facades of Malinovsky, a secret agent for the tsar, arttficial villages for her to see when her and the Trotskyist Left Opposition by carriage passed through the region. A Mark Zborowski (Etienne), a Stalinist 'Potemkin village' is what came to mind agent. There is no relationship in these when we saw the first issue of the Inter- Between the comparisons to what actually happened in 11Illioll({/isl (.l anuary-Fehruary 1997). a 64-page. two-color journal recently puh Ukraine. Far from being a deep dark lished hy a handful of defectors from our League for the Fourth International (LFI) secret of the invisible espionage nether organization who call themselves the world. the real nature of the Kiev scam 'lnternationalist Group' (lG)." and the - '"Potclllkin Village Idiocy.'" artists was known to the Ukrainian left. WV No. 663. 7 March 1997 and the IG were among the laughing That's what we wrote nearly seven stocks: "Kiev left-radical circles evcr since thc years ago. In that time the little Potem The League for the Fourth taternationa! and the I mid-90s havc hccn following with inter kins of the IG have been busy construct RevoluuioDJ1aya Kommanisticheskaya Orianisatsiya of The dnuna!ic impovemlunont ofthepopulalionofllkrain<: est the scams of a group led by the well UkniDo 0DIl0U0
6 WORKERS VANGUARD Taaffeite ..CWI: From Yeltsin'sBarricades to the Augean Stables
As many as ten self-styled revolution ary organizations around the world have No J OKT. ('191 boasted for several years about their sup PAl=) ()q}-\H IIElIA I I' posed Ukrainian ··sections." Last July. the Ukrainian affil iates of these fraudu lent Internationals went up in smoke. It )lEMOI(PArrHH turned out that the Ukrainian section of \Ii'I"MI K\lMlIH U .M ~.~j,h
11 JUNE 2004 7 than in western Ukraine, and where today IG ... a substantial Russian population resides. (continued from page 6) But the IG's fusion statement not only failed to take a stand on the side of the Molinier "came up with one opportunist Chechens' just war against Putin's geno gimmick after another, and made his liv cidal onslaught, it said not one word on ing through bill collecting," and then the war at all! mentions that he was expelled from the At the time of their Ukrainian fusion, Fourth International. But contrary to the the IG boasted that it was the "first real impression left by the IG, that was not ization" of their perspective of inter the reason for Molinier"s expulsion. No national revolutionary regroupment. In charges were ever presented against him deed! While the IG occasionally likes to tl!ll!!I!.·. on these grounds. Perhaps the reason claim that it stands on the work of the ICL ..' 3a~tTtIl"l!-'Jl!!tlt.II.. IIIIiJ;:'· Norden does not give the straight story on when their leaders were members, their Molinier is because he bears some politi MaCCOBaa 3afiaCTOBHa fusion statement with the RKO was prem WaXTepOB cal resemblance to the latter. Molinier ised on the rejection and disappearance COTpaCaeT 'HPaliHY was a political adventurer who was all too of the ICL's proud history in the former willing to cut corners programmatically Soviet Union, including Ukraine. The for shorHerm organizational advantage. fusion statement proclaimed that the RKO Despairing of the hard political struggle was composed of people who "publicly ICL Moscow Station distributed Russian-language supplement titled "How which had to be waged against popular announced their intention to establish the the Soviet Workers State Was Strangled" at June 1993 Ukraine miners strike. frontism in France, he set up his own Fourth International section" in 1989. But Spartacist supplement on miners strike (inset). newspaper in 1935 and was expelled for the IG could not, and did not, say what this by the Trotskyists. When the Molin the members of the "RKO" were doing at would "continue the work of the tens of from the ICL. A case in point was their ier group launched its fake "mass paper" this time, a period in which the ICL was thousands of Bolshevik-Leninists who embrace of Luta Metalurgica (LM), now which promised to "speak the language of actively fighting against counterrevolu fell under Stalinist, fascist and bourgeois the LQB, as they were departing the ICL. the factories and the fields," to "tell of the tion and for the program of revolutionary 'democratic' repression." Shamefully, the LM had originated as a proletarian forma misery which reigns there," to "express Trotskyism. In the summer of 1989, spon statement made no mention of the mur tion with a militant history in the steel its passions and rouse to revolt," Trotsky taneous strikes wh.ich erupted in the der in February 1992 of Martha Phillips, industry center of Volta Redonda (near had the following scathing comment: Soviet coal fields against the ravages of the ICL's leading spokesman in Moscow. Rio de Janeiro). But future IG leader "This is a very laudable intention; Gorbachev's "market socialism" dramat The authorities stonewalled while we Norden and his sidekick Negrete sought although the masses know perfectly well their own misery and their feelings of ically demonstrated the potential for tried in vain to find out who killed our to undermine our struggle with LM for revolt (stifled by the patriotic appara militant working-class struggle. A year comrade. Nor does the IG say anything programmatic clarity from start to finish, tuses with the aid of the [centrist] Pivert later, two comrades of the ICL intervened about the ICL's expulsion from Ukraine from the September 1994 Declaration ists). What the masses can demand of a at a conference of Soviet miners held in in 1995. The ICL was Iyingly accused by of Fraternal Relations to their constant newspaper is a clear program and a cor- rect orientation. " . the Ukrainian government of seeking "the attempts to obstruct political fights, to - Leon Trotsky, "What Is a overthrow of the government" and our their ultimate bloc with LM's amorphous 'Mass Paper'?" (1935) members were banned from the country. centrism against the ICL. The banning of the ICL was splashed The 1994 declaration-wholly drafted IG Spits on Revolutionary across television screens and the press by Norden and Negrete, who went on to Continuity of ICL throughout Ukraine and Russia. This was become [ider minimo of the IG-was Stalin noted that paper would take any done not only to muzzle us but to further deliberately cast to portray a broad, deep thing printed on it, but the IG was so anx intimidate the left and workers move and synthetic programmatic agreement ious to rush through a fusion that they ment. We organized international pro that simply did not exist. At the same didn't even bother to check their putative tests, urging leftists and workers organiza time it virtually ignored issues such as marriage partner's paper positions. The tions to take a stand in defense of our permanent revolution, the Trotskyist pro Fall 200 I Internationalist ran a graphic rights and theirs. gram as it applies to countries of com captioned, "RKO posters raised LFI's call Presumably the leaders of the IG, bined and uneven development. This for Arab/Hebrew workers revolution." who were members of our organization meant that the declaration did not probe The accompanying fusion declaration WV Photo throughout this period, ought to have at areas in which one might likely discover boasted: "Late last year, as courageous Martha Phillips least been interested in what their bloc differences, such as possible adaptations Arab youth armed with nothing but 1948-1992 partners had done in response to this to Latin American. nationalism or, for stones were being slaughtered in the state repression of the ICL, and in fact that matter, insufficient vigor in oppos West Bank and Gaza, the LFI and RKO Donetsk, Ukraine. Politically it was the this would be one way of testing the ing the depredations of imperialism. Had coordinated our participation in protest ICL on the one side and, on the other, authenticity of any group that claimed to we accepted the methodology of Norden actions denouncing the Zionist murder British embassy representatives, the . have been Trotskyist since 1989. But the and Negrete, we would have accommo ers, including putting out posters calling AFL-CIO's Freedom House, the Russian: IG fusion statement was smugly silent on dated to a bogus "internationalism" in to 'Defend the Palestinian People' and fascist NTS and the scab British "Union this, as it was on the other work of the which claimed political· agreement is 'For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution! of Democratic Miners" (UDM), an anti ICL in Ukraine. As irony would have it, simply a cover for the various national For a Socialist Federation of the Near Communist outfit formed and financed the Ukraine hustlers of today were then, sections to carry out whatever opportun East!'" But the placards appearing in the in an attempt to break the British coal as the Ukrainian section of the CWI, the ist line they see fit, varying according to graphic contain neither the slogan "For strike of 1984-85 led by Arthur Scargill's ICL's main. leftist opponent in Kiev, the differing terrains on which they do Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution!" nor National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). where we were engaged in regular politi work. As Trotsky noted: "By its very nature opportunism is nation "For a Socialist. Federation. of the Near The ICL spiked an attempt by the UDM cal debate at Kiev University. They not East!". Now, after the scandal has been and their imperialist advisers to get the only did not protest our expUlsion, but alistic, since it rests on the local and tem porary needs of the proletariat and not on publicized, Norden acknowledges that his Soviet miners to denounce Scargill. they were somehow able to continue its historical tasks. Opportunists find bloc partners "did send us leaflets they When the hour of mortal danger to the their operation at Kiev University, where international control intolerable and they claimed to have issued in antiwar pro USSR arrived in August 1991, the ICL longtime CWI honcho Oleg Vernik is reduce their international ties as much as tests, but they did not have the position was unique on the left in seeking to evidently now an assistant lecturer, with possible to harmless formalities .... " of the LFI on Israel-Palestine, which mobilize the Soviet workers against the out a hitch for almost another decade! - "The Defense of the Soviet Republic and the Opposition" had been a subject of considerable dis counterrevolutionary coup of Yeltsin and In the fusion statement the only com (September 1929) cussion." A little late! George Bush Sr. As capitalism consoli ment made by the "RKO comrades" The idea that fraternal relations are a But at least they had a formally correct dated itself, we sought to drive home to about the ICL and its work is that we testing process for solid programmatic line on Chechnya, right? After all, mili the working people of the ex-USSR the . allegedly refused "to debate program agreement, requiring ongoing political tary defense of Chechnya against the lessons of this catastrophe. In June 1993 matic questions." No one who has ever struggle, was completely alien to Norden. Russian-led., bloody colonial war is the the ICL intervened in a massive strike met with a member of the ICL would For more than a year after we initiated cutting edge issue for Marxists in the of coal miners and other workers in 'believe this statement! What this really fraternal relations with LM, there was region. Russia's war against the largely Ukraine, selling over 2,400 pieces of shows is that the IG blindly embraced no progress toward a programmatically Islamic population in Chechnya has been Spartacist literature at one rally alone at these dubious elements precisely because based fusion. We then invited a leading central to ideologically reinforcing Great the peak of a strike that represented the they denounced the ICLl representative of LM to an authoritative Russian chauvinism, which is a key prop first proletarian challenge to the capitalist January 1996 meeting of our Interna for the new capitalist regime. This ideol states erected in the wake of the counter "League for 'a tional Executive Committee. LM agreed ogy asserts itself as well in much of east revolutionary destruction of the USSR. Fraudulent International" on the need to transform itself from a ern Ukraine, where centuries of tsarist The IG concluded its fusion statement The IG's methods are hardly new, as trade-union fraction without a party into Russian domination had far deeper roots with the empty boast that in Ukraine it attested by their very origins in breaking a Trotskyist propaganda group in Brazil, WV Photo through an agenda of common work publishing a party propaganda organ, 1995 New York extending LM's presence to a major met City protest ropolitan center and seeking to win new against Ukrainian recruits from the younger generation. At government this meeting we learned that a municipal witchhunt of ICL workers union whose leadership was (left). Front-page braintrusted by LM included a substantial Ukrainian proportion of cops. Indeed LM's slate in newspaper (30 March the union had received the vote of the 1995) smear: majority of these same cops. We fought "Overthrow with LM to wage a campaign to get the Government in cops out of the union and invested signif Ukraine, Intended icant resources 'to maintain an ICL repre Touring stmtative in Brazil. Trotskyists." After months of intensive discussion, it became clear that what LM/LQB wanted 8 WORKERS VANGUARD More recently, commenting on the is really the case .... We ourselves after the electoral arena of the KPRF. They CWI ... 7 December 2003 Russian Duma (parlia all have no illusions in these parties; we courted and consorted with fascists in ment) elections that handed the KPRF believe that it is necessary to vote for a (continued from page 7) genuine Labor Party. There is no such Russia and Ukraine! Peter Taaffe pro a severe defeat, the CWI's Rob Jones party? That means it is necessary to claims that the CWI is leading a move Finding itself in the camp of imperialist posted on their English-language Web build it! But today on the so-called left ment against the National Bolshevik there in fact remains only one party-:-the inspired counterrevolution was nothing site: "We ... called on workers and youth Party (NBP) fascists in Russia, because to not support any of the parties sup KPRF." (emphasis added) he knows how scandalous the CWI's real new for this outfit. They opposed the Electoral support to the KPRF is not Soviet Red Army intervention in Afghan ported by big business-including the connection to them is. So Taaffe presents CP-but called on workers to organise a taC4ical question. The KPRF is on the himself to the world on the Internet as istiln against CIA-backed Islamic reac other side of the class line. From its tion, hailed the clerical and anti-Semitic their own independent class organisa having been a target of NBP disruption tions, to assist working class struggle" inception in 1993, the KPRF was always when he gave a speech in Moscow on Solidarnosc "union" in Poland that an outright bourgeois party, hostile to sought to overthrow the Polish deformed ("Election Victory for Pro-Putin United May Day 1998: Russia Party," IO December 2003). working-class actions. It was the main "The CWI at the time were heavily workers state in 1981, and advocated_ channel for diverting anger away from This is another lie. The real position involved in an anti-fascist campaign the capitalist reunification of Germany capitalist counterrevolution to racism and of the Russian Taaffeites, currently named whose main target was the so-called in 1989-90 (see Spartacist pamphlet anti-Semitism-the "socialism of fools" National Bolshevik Party led by Limo "Socialist Resistance," is captured in their Militant Labour's Touching Faith in the -at home and behind Russian imperial nov-a right-wing nationalist organiza June 2003 Russian-language declaration, tion which attracted a lot of youth by Capitalist State [1994 n. ambitions abroad. In October 1998, when "Parliamentary Elections in Russia: The using radical, apparently left symbols prominent KPRF leader General Albert From "Democratic" Orientation of Socialist Resistance." There such as Che Guevara but whose main Makashov repeatedly declared, "I will ideologues were fascist. They use for Counterrevolution to the the Russian Taaffeites hid behind the fact round up all the Yids and send them to the example the Nazi armbands, the only "Red"/Brown Swamp that there are two tiers of candidates in next world!" the KPRF-dominated Duma difference being they have replaced the As Yeltsin's "democratic" capitalist the elections, party-slate and individual. swastika with the hammer and sickle. refused to even consider rebuking him. social counterrevolution descended into While for the party-slate tier they declared When some of this group turned up at When the Chechen people won de facto the meeting the Chair announced they economic collapse and ethnic slaughters, that "there is no way we could call for a independence by defeating Yeltsin's bar would not be allowed to speak. Half way Russia's new ruling capitalist gangs vote to such a party" as the KPRF, for the barous colonial-style First Chechen War through the meeting they started heck increasingly portrayed these horrors as a individual candidacies they endorsed vot ling. accusing us of being Jews." of 1994-96, the KPRF spearheaded oppo national degradation inflicted by the usual ing for KPRF "worker" candidates: "In -Peter Taaffe, Mili/ant:\' Real sition to the Peace Treaty as a disgrace to suspects: foreigners, Jews, minorities, each area, after candidacies are put for History Russian regional imperial ambitions in etc. This was the ideological basis for the ward, worker candidates (if there are such) the Caucasus and Central Asia. By 2001, Actually, Taatle's problem at that meet emergence of the "red"/brown opposition will be selected from trade unions, the ing was not with the NBP, but rather with the KPRF ruled most of the Russian coalition that encompassed everything, Russian Labor Party, the RKRP, the KPRF the fact that one of our comrades in atten regions, and in 1998 a KPRF member from fascists and monarchists to so-called or other parties, that Socialist Resistance was first deputy prime minister in dance denounced the presence of the leftists. The International Communist will support" (emphasis added). Yeltsin's cabinet. The KPRF's party slate fascists and walked out in protest. The League answered the rising brown tide NBP was clearly invited. As we noted in Their declaration also reveals that the candidates in the 2003 Duma elections by publishing an issue of our Russian our article "'Little England' Labourites Russian Taaffeites had a standing policy of included one billionaire and 16 million language Byullctcn' SpartakOl'lSCV espe giving support (direct or indirect) to the aires; among them were barons from Embrace Russian Fascists" (WV No. 696, cially devoted to the role of ,a Leninist KPRF: Russia's then-largest oil giant Yukos, II September 1998), the CWI distributed party as the people's tribune. defend "In the previous Duma elections of 1993 on May Day 1998 a grotesque appeal in including the former chairman, Sergei ing women, gays. Jews, minorities and and 1998, our slogan was, 'Not one vote Levy Avangard, the paper of its Russian to the Right!' This meant a call to not Muravlenko! No class-conscious worker oppressed nationalities, all the targets of group, titled "How to Understand the vote for bourgeois, that is, rightist par would have ever called for a vote to the the returning medievalist bigotry of Rus NBP." This sickening piece appeals to the ties. and logically, to vote for a leftist despicable, bourgeois KPRF. sia's benighted past. The Russian Militant party. But how to determine what party fascists, "In which world do you want to is leftist? We answered as follows. Since swam with the brown tide, tailing after The Russian and Ukrainian live, my dear friend?" It then expresses the main bastion of the "red"/brown coali you have made the conscious choice to "pity" for those fascists who want to pre not vote for bourgeois parties, make a CWI: In Bed with Fascists tion, the grotesquely misnamed Com second conscious choice. If you believe serve "everything in the form of an ever munist Party of the Russian Federation the KPRF is a leftist party-vote for it, The Taaffeites' adaptation to plebeian rotating swastika." To those fascists who (KPRF), which was Russia's largest party. And better yet, join it and verify if that Russian nationalism led them far beyond want to live "in a world of true Man, Spartacist acknowledging reality," the article con cludes with the invitation, "why are you 6loI111eTeHb CnapT8KOBtles [SPARTACJST I still not with us?" ~*-""'t Taaffe now disputes our exposure of 'how they welcomed the fascistS at thei,. 1998 May Day forum. Here is an inde pendent account of the incident, which was published in an anarchist journal: COBBTGKIO PBUO~HBI "After the session began, [G.I, who was RODON OObqHHGKO-UYWBBGKYIO attending as a guest (representing a com KOHTppOBOnlOqHIO I peting Trotskyist tendency, the 'Sparta H.,",,"" OW"""-> ....'''7'> l""'~ .",~~. ___ .,....,.~ ~ cists'). began to openly expres, indig l~"" ..,~.;::~~"'.: ~~,._.' '«':,":~,::_;'~ nation at the presence in the hall of memhers of the NBP. Calling them reac ICl banner raised in Moscow at 1991 tionaries and 'semi-fascists' (the oniy demonstration on anniversary of thing unclear was why only ·semi·). he October Revolution. Historic ICl leaflet declared that he was leaving the hall, not mass-distributed in USSR proclaimed: wishing to be in the same room with "Soviet Workers: Defeat Yeltsin-Bush them. To our astonishment, the wrath of Counterrevolution!" continued on page 10
was a Potemkin village "International" between this purpose and the current any impact in the post-Soviet order, ex day Pabloism reflects despair over the which would finance and otherwise political consciousness of the working pressed in ever more frequent broadsides destruction of the USSR and imperialist support their unprincipled trade-union class, youth and the left internationally is against the ICL's supposed "abstract" or gloating over "the death of communism." maneuvers, including an LM leader's great. Today the mass of workers and "passive" propagandism. In reality Nor Building an international in the wake position as an unelected "adviser" to this even most leftis{s do not connect their den saw elements of communist con of the worldwide destruction unleashed cop-ridden union. (See "A Break in Fra struggles with the goal of proletarian sciousness where none existed, leading to by the collapse of the workers states in ternal Relations with Luta Metahirgica," revolution. For Norden, the gap between an increasingly desperate chase after East Europe and the former Soviet Union WVNo. 648, 5 July 1996.) But forthe IG what we strive for and the current con alien social forces . is extremely difficult. There are no short the idea that we would break with a Latin sciousness of the working class became • We have described this as "Pabloism of cuts. But there is no alternative, either. American group with a "base" in the a yawning abyss, leading him to defect the second mobilization," referring to the This struggle must be based on firm trade unions on the basis of principle was from our organization. liquidationist current that destroyed the adherence to the Trotskyist program. The unthinkable. In a letter to Norden a couple of Fourth International in the early 1950s. IG was conceived out of the rejection of months before his exit from our ranks, Faced with the onset of the Cold War and the fight for Trotskyism. Their only Pabloites of the comrade Joseph Seymour pointed out: the creation of Stalinist-ruled deformed grounds for complaint in Ukraine is that Second Mobilization "I believe you do not accept that, begin workers states in East Europe, the Pab they thought they had purchased the ning in the late 1970s, there has occurred loites denied the need to construct Trot exclusive rights to the services of some In their article on the Kiev fiasco, the a historic retrogression in the political IG asserts: "The appearance of shady consciousness of the working class and skyist parties and instead sought to pres political hucksters, only to find out that characters is particularly frequent after a left internationally. This development sure the Stalinists to outline a "roughly" the latter were simultaneously working defeat of the proletariat. when the work both conditioned the counterrevolution revolutionary course. Norden's latter- for the competition .• in the Soviet bloc and has been rein ers movement is in a phase of decompo forced by it. That's why we now encoun sition. This is the situation today in the ter anarchists rather than ostensible countries of the former Soviet Union:' Trotskyists or Maoists among the main It is indeed likely that there is a link stream of young radicals in France .... Special leL Bulletins oetween what happened in Kiev and the "The main point is that organizational affiliation follows from and is based on No. 38: Norden's "Group": Shamefaced Defectors from Trotskyism fact of capitalist cOllnteITe\'olution in the political understanding and agreement, English edition: $6 (152 pages) Spanish edition. $6 (92 pages) USSR. But since its inception, the IG which cannot be achieved at an arbitrary itself has made it a cardinal point of or forced-march pace. Stop trying to get No. 41: The Fight for a Trotskyist Party in Brazil principle to deny the enormous negative rich quick. It ain't that kind of period." - "Norden's 'Group': Shamefaced In English, Portuguese and Spanish impact that the restoration of capitalism Defectors from Trotskyism." Correspondence between the International Communist league and luta in the former Soviet Union and East international Bulletin No. 38, Metalurgica/Liga Quarta-Internaciohalista do Brasil $7 (184 pages) Europe has had on the consciousness of June 1996 the working c'1ass of th~ world. Norden evidenced a deepening pessi . Order from/make checks payable to: Our aim is the fight for new Octo mism about the ability of our organiza Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 ber Revolutions. But the disproportion tion and its revolutionary program to have 11 JUNE 2004 9 NBP." Seeking a truce and a continuation sian, and especially the Ukrainian, bour laev that is charged with, among other CWI ... of the online dialogue, the Taaffeites' post geois states persecute opposition move things. plotting to overthrow the existing ings included an assurance to the NBP: order. The eleven Russian and Ukrainian ( continued from page 9) ments with a vengeance. As we wrote. "We are not about to start up any wars." this is something we experienced directly: citizens rounded up in December 2002 the gathering fell not on the heads of This came amid escalating fascist "We fought to the last barricades against have been subjected to such heinous tor the 'Natsbols' [National Bolsheviks], attacks. Within days of the NBP attack on Yeltsin-Bush capitalist counterrevolution tures that four of them have attempted and fought to build a real organization in but on the 'disrupter of the peace: On the Taaffeites. a dormitory at Moscow's suicide. and one died of his injuries in the USSR. ~nd we paid the price. The the faces of Trotskyists of other tenden Lumumba University erupted into flames November 2003. Yet Vernik and his ilk cies appeared smirks. and taunts of 'good • '1
militias. A Marxist revolutionary party their own benefit the produce of their didn't see the phenomenon of workers Spain ... would have fought to expel the bourgeois labour. ... management in the factories as a tempo representatives from the Central Com "There was not. therefore. true social rary condition. but as the real ization of (('ontinuedfrom page 5) isation. but a workers' neo-capitalism. mittee of Anti-Fascist Militias and for a self-managment straddling capitalism the anarchist economic ideal. autono strike against the CNT-FAI headquarters. the centralization of the militias under and socialism. which we maintain would mous productive units. In contrast, true The essence of this pathetic episode the command of workers and soldiers not have occurred had the Revolution revolutionaries would have resolutely and the anarchist betrayal is perfectly committees. Durruti and his anarchist been able to extend itself fully under the defended workers management as a ker direction of our Syndicates." described by Felix Morrow in the follow collective "Nosotros," inside the CNT-· nel of dual power. But they would have -quoted in "Leninism and ing quotation from his book, Revolu FAI, were aware of the dangers of class Workers Control," WV No. 162, also called to oust the bourgeois represen tion and Counterrevolution in Spain collaboration inside the Anti-Fascist 17 June 1977 tatives from the management of the col (1938): Committee. However, they decided to fol In other words, these autonomous com lectives, while explaining that true social "Class collaboration, indeed. lies con low its orders and, as promptly as July 24, mittees funCtioned -under 'the premise of ization was· onlY possible 'tltTough a cealed in the heart of anarchist philos a militia column, with Durruti at the head competition for markets and suppll\!rs. centralized, planned economy. A small ophy. It is hidden, during periods of of it, was dispatched to the city of Sara group of Trotskyists called the Bolshevik reaction, by anarchist hatred of capital Thosefactories that had inherited advanced Leninist Section of Spain. affiliated to ist oppression. But, in a revolutionary gossa to fight against the right-wing technology and abundant raw materials period of dual power, it must come to the forces headed by Franco. In that way" had better opportuniti~s to compete in the Trotsky'S Movement for the Fourth Inter surface. For then the capitalist smilingly Companys and the CNT bureaucracy got market than did others which didn't have national, issued a leaflet in January 1937 offers to share in building the new world. rid of the anarchist elements that could those conveniences. Such economic rela titled "Hail the Workers, Peasants and And the anarchist, being opposed to 'all Combatants' Committees!" in the midst dictatorships: including dictatorship of have caused problems for their alliance tions ultimately tended to recreate the the proletariat, will require of the capi in Catalonia. conditions of a primitive form of market of the economic boycott against the com talist merely that he throw off the capi But what about the workers collec capitalism. mittees. The leaflet read: talist outlook. to which he agrees, natu tives? In Barcelona, workers collectives These collectives were also centralized "The bourgeois offensive against the rally, the better to prepare the crushing were created in thousands of enterprises, organs on a local level. In each work committees must be responded to by of the workers." strengthening them, forming them where from key industries like shipping, mines, place, an assembly of workers elected a they don't exist. extending their influence Even one of the most radical anarchists, electric power, transportation, gas and committee, which would elect a manager and coordinating between them in assem Buenaventura Durruti, a prominent mili water to others like perfumeries, brewer to oversee the day-to-day running of the blies or congresses that study and resolve, tary leader, expressed his desire "to accept ies and small workshops. These workers workplace. Within each industry there independent of the bourgeois political power, those problems ... posed by the the agreements only provisionally, that is collectives achieved outstanding eco was an Industrial Council which had rep to say until the freeing of Saragossa." necessities of the war and revolution. nomic goals, particularly in the industries resentatives of the two main unions (CNT "It is fundamentally necessary that the When the plenum ended, the anarchists that supplied munitions for the militias. and UGT) ami representatives from the committees resolve the problems of proposed that Companys create a Central But how did these cooperatives work? local committees, where the CNT and nationalization and centralization of the Committee of Militias, which included Gaston Leval,.a prominent CNT militant UGT were also prominent. However, private banks, unified command and mil- itary discipline .. . representatives from the CNT and UGT and French anarchist, notes in Collectives bourgeois representatives from parties trade-union federations, the PSOE and "The committees ... will take oVer leader- in the Spanish Revolution (1975): like the Esquerra and the Republican Left ship of the country, annulling the organs the POUM. However, it also included "Too often in Barcelona and Valencia were part of these councils also. It is of the capitalist state ... and establishing representa4ves from bourgeois parties workers in each undertaking took over • important to understand that in the - in their place the proletarian state based the factory, the works, or the workshop. like the" Catalan Esquerra (Companys' absence of a planned. socialized econ on the committees and on socialized party) and the Republican Union. the machines, raw materials, and tak property; establishing the dictatorship of ing advantage of the continuation of omy, run by mass workers organizations The Committee became, then, a tool the proletariat against the bourgeoisie." the money system and normal capitalist (i.e., soviets), where left political parties - Agustin Guillam6n, for class collaboration and ultimate con commercial relations, organized produc could have full representation, what the Documentaci6n hist6rica del trol by the Catalan government over the tion on their own account, selling for CNT and UGT .were doing was at best trosquismo espanol (/936- administering the workers collectives on 1948) (Ediciones de La Torre. 1996) behalf of the bourgeois popular front. Meanwhile, the government got ready to The Bolshevik-Leninists propagandized take the factories away from the anar for a perspective to transform the workers chists and social democrats at the next committees into mass organs of workers 1!Z,Z'lU'liZ ta2t'lll opportunity. power at a national level, as incipient Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League Moreover, some of these committees organs of workers rule-i.e., soviets depended heavily upon credits from where political debate would be open to all left tendencies. The situation of dual o $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal banks and government subsidies. None (includes English-language Spartacist and Black History and the Class Struggle) theless, the anarchists didn't have any power couldn't last indefinitely; it had international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seamail plan to take control of the banks and they to be solved .on the side of the workers or o $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist) didn't do it, which meant condemning against them. The Boishevik-Leninists had the program to solve it on the side o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espana I) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) those collectives dependent on bank cred Name ______its to their ultimate disappearance. At the of the proletariat. However, in January 1937 they were brand new and by May Address ______beginning of 1937, the government and the banks practically strangled these had only 30 people, without enough Apt. # _____ collectives, resorting to economic sabo authority among the working class as Zip _____ City _ L-.. ____~ ___ State _____ tage. The supply of raw materials was a political tendency, although most of Phone ( __._) E-mail ______denied which ultimately stopped produc their leaders had fought in the POUM 628 tion in these factories. militias. Make checks payable/mall to: Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New'York, NY 10116 As I said before, the CNT andFAI [TO BE CONTINUED]
10 WORKERS VANGUARD - ' German Spartacists Give Critical Support to Taaffeites in Rostock Elections
We reprint helow a 27 May leaflet Rostock is a city which has been dev "No deportation of foreigners from this against the imminent U.S. attack on Iraq, issued by the Spartakist Workers Part\', astated by the capitalist counterrevolu city or anywhere else." For us, this is Schroder announced Agenda 20 I O. But in Germal/ section of' the International tion which destroyed the DDR [East also an important reason why workers the entire electoral statement of the SAY, Communist League. German] deformed workers state 14 should vote for the SAV/Slate: to be able imperialist war-a life and death question In the local elections in-Rostock we years ago. The SAY election statement to fight for its own interests. the working for the working class-plays no role, let Spartakists say: Vote SA V/Slate Against outlines the desperate social situation: class must actively fight the racist poison alone the presence of Bundeswehr lGer Social Cutbacks! No vote to the SPD "The lights are going out in Rostock .... " which is used by the capitalists to divide man armYI troops in Afghanistan and the and PDS! In the important issues of this Mass unemployment is officially at 18.6 them. That's why we intervene into Balkans. This considerably weakens their election, the SAV [Socialist Alternative, percent, and the future promises working strikes and social protests with the key electoral campaign's political opposition German affiliate of the Committee for a people even more layoffs, social cut demand for full citizenship rights for all to the SPD and PDS. You see black-red Workers' International (CWI) of Peter backs and deeper poverty and degrada immigrants and against the racist "war gold [colors of German flag] SPD posters Taaffe] is running as an independent pro tion. And many of the SAY candidates on terror," which is directed first against everywhere with "Power for peace-new letarian alternative to the bourgeois are themselves affected by this. Who immigrants of Muslim background. strength." And the PDS proclaims: workers parties PDS [Party of Demo bears responsibility for the capitalist In its electoral program, the SAY calls "Europe at the side of the UN, not in the cratic Socialism] and SPD [Social Demo reunification in 1990? The SPD drove for: "Not an inch to the fascists; instead, shadow of the U.S.A." This foul chauvin cratic Party of Germany]. Their election forward the counterrevolution in the mass mobilization against Nazi parades ist poison, which sells German imperial campaign is oriented to the real needs of East, while in West Germany they tried by trade unions and anti-fascist organ ism as something better than its U.S. workers, refugees, leftists and also par to prevent class struggle. izations." But for them, mobilizations rivals, is intended not least to encourage tially those of immigrants, and it draws The [ruling Stalinists of the] SED of the working class against the Nazis acceptance of the government's social a crude class line. A victory for the PDS attempted to hinder independent are not counterposed to rotten appeals attacks and to justify the current colonial SAV/Slate Against Social Cutbacks is in proletarian mobilization in the East and to the bourgeois state to take action deployments of the Bundeswehr in the the interests of all Rostock workers, left then went along with Gorbachev, then against the Nazis. So they are capable of Balkans and Afghanistan. ists, unemployed people, women, immi Soviet president, who at the end of Janu explaining, just one paragraph earlier: The protests on I November 2003 and grants and refugees. For example, they ary 1990 gave the green light to capitalist "But the city, along with administrative then on April 3 express the anger against demand work and job training for all and reunification. On January 30, the SED· legal steps, should above all mobilize the government attacks by the SPD and a struggle against social cutbacks and PDS prime minister of the DDR, Hans the Rostock population to prevent Nazi PDS. That's why we think it's important sweatshop wages. They demand voting Modrow, issued the government declara parades." The city or city administra that the SAY candidacy in Rostock, with rights and..equal rights for everyone who tion "Germany United Fatherland." In tion is part of the bourgeois state, whose its crude line of class independence lives here. In their election statement 1989-90 in the DDR, we and the SAY core is made up of the police, army and against the SPD and PDS, be successful they write, correctly: "No matter whether were on opposite sides of the barricades. courts, as Marx and Lenin explained. It so as to impel forward workers breaking in Rostock, MV [Mecklenburg Vorpom We fought for a proletarian political revo is not neutral. It serves the capitalist class. away from the SPD and PDS to the left. mern] or Berlin-everywhere the PDS is lution in the DDR, for workers councils The Nazis serve the capitalists as a But to really be able to fight in the inter in government, they participate in cut to take power. We said no to capitalist reserve army in case an insurrectionary ests of the working class, it's not enough backs and layoffs." And regarding the reunification. The SAV/CWI supported proletariat threatens to slip out of social just to be discontented with the anti PDS they say: "The PDS is not a socialist capitalist counterrevolution, e.g., with democratic control and be no longer con working-class politics of the SPD/PDS. opposition." "SPD: Go on the offensive!" trollable by police and army. That's why The working class needs a revolutionary The SAY candidacy in Rostock differs The SAVers like to argue that this was the capitalists' state cannot be used to party and that means a revolutionary, in one centrally important respect from only a mistake by their leadership of that stop the Nazis. internationalist and multiethnic workers their candidacy in Hamburg in February. time. But their current attitude to the The Nazi pogrom in the Rostock dis party. We'll only be able to forge a party In Rostock they draw a class line be DDR reveals this as an excuse. The trict of Lichtenhagen in the summer of through a politically based split of social tween the bourgeoisie and the proletariat counterrevolution in 1990 doesn't exist 1992, under police protection, brutally democracy. The SAY says in its election and give workers the chance to vote in in the SAY election statement. The only demonstrated this. In their paper last statement: their own class interests. That is why, in time the SAY mentions the DDR they , year, the SAY supported cop "protests" "A new mass party of workers and youth spite of criticisms, they are worth sup denounce it as having been a "Stalinist , in Hesse out of the same illusory faith in· would be a great step forward, even if at first it didn't stand for a consistent porting. By contrast, in Hamburg the state." This means nothing other than the class neutrality of the bourgeois socialist program. It would give masses SAY ran together with the PDS and equating the DDR deformed workers democratic state. As we explained, better of workers and youth the chance of the petty-bourgeois ex-Green formation, state with the Stalinist bureaucracy, working conditions for the police (like organizing independently of the bour Regenbogen [Rainbow], and subordi which in the end choked it to death. The more brutal truncheons, better arms, geois parties and of speaking up for their nated themselves to Rainbow's anti Stalinists were a parasitic bureaucratic larger cannons ... ) are squarely directed interests. The SAY stands for the unity of the working class and will support working-class program. Making deals caste; they didn't own the factories, against the interests of workers, leftists attempts at new, broad workers parties." with petty-bourgeois or even bourgeois which were the property of the working and refugees who, after all, are directly (our emphasis) formations is a trademark of the SAY class. Today the SAY refuses to defend repressed by these cops. Likewise, the This two-stage theory of the SAY for and its co-thinkers internationally. In the the deformed workers states of China - SAY doesn't take a position against the building a "socialist party" means in real elections in the U.S.A., they call for a and North Korea against capitalism. racist campaign for a headscarf ban in ity sucking up to the anti-Communists vote to the bourgeois politician Ralph The anti-Communist anti-Stasi [polit Germany. In the March issue of Solida and other class traitors who are playing Nader, who has absolutely nothing to ical police of the DDR] witchhunt of ritiit they report on their opposition to around in the diverse electoral alterna do with the working class. In Nigeria the '90s served to smash DDR industry; the headscarf ban in France, but take no tives to the SPD. This only leads us and they are members of the purely bour all leftist resistance to the destruction of position against it in Germany. But the the working class back into the social geois National Conscience Party (NCr). millions of jobs was to be strangled. The same sort of racist campaign is taking democratic dead end which we're seeking In fact, such "broadness"-achieved by SAY didn't defend a single individual place there as it is here. And especially a way out of. unprincipled deals with anti-worker against this witchhunt! We defended not in the quite anti-religious East, this pro The SAY election campaign against forces-cripples class struggle. only rank-and-file SED members or left gressive impulse of many workers and the SPD and PDS in Rostock represents a " ists, who were to be swept out of the w~men is channeled into support for this step in the right direction. That's why, way because they wouldn't eat crow. We racist law. The SPD, Greens and PDS for all our differences with the SAY, we CORRECTION also defended the ex-DDR bureaucrats hypocritically claim that their racist cam say: Vote SA V/Slate Against Social Cut In "Free Anarchist Sherman Aus because they were charged with the paign against Muslim women has some backs! No vote to the SPD and PDSI. tin!" (WV No. 821, excerpted in wrong crimes by the wrong class. The thing to do with the separation of church Class-Struggle Defense Notes, Spring capitalist· class brought charges against and state, while iii .fact the state is very 2004), we wrote about a 24 January them because they represented the work closely connected with the Catholic and Bound Volumes 2002 invasion of Sherman Austin's ers state which arose out of the Red Protestant churches. home by the L.A. Joint Terrorism Army smashing the Nazi regime. In its On April 3, 500,000 people nationwide Task Force, the FBI, the Secret election program, the SAV reaches into took to the streets against the social Organ of the Service, the LAPD and L.A. sheriffs. the social-democratic bag of dirty tricks attacks by the capitalist SPD/Green Spartacist League/U.S. We stated, "The warrant also con when it attacks Lochotzke, not as a capi government. In Berlin many were also talist but as an ex-member of the Stasi. against the SPD/PDS city government. Volumes 1 to 33, 1970 through 2002 tained information detailing Austin's include one year of WV except: The ugly campaign against supposed Just one year earlier, there were mass pro participation in demonstrations dat Volume 1 includes 1970-73 "DDR killer commandos" in the (then tests against the U.S. w.ar on Iraq. Instead ing back to when he was 14 years Volumes 4 to 9 include old." In fact our source.(Revolution West German) DKP [Communist Party], of linking the protests last year against six months each, 1976-78 ary Worker, 26 October 2003) stated which is being dredged up again, shows the Iraq war with a struggle against the All volumes are indexed. that the warrant "described Sher how dangerous the anti-Communist imperialist government in Germany, they Volumes 1 to 32 available on microfilm. man's participation in protests and witchhunt is. This campaign is intended were criminally channeled by the trade $35 each (includes postage) demonstrations and contained infor to intimidate the entire left. We say: union bureaucracy and the fake left into Discounts available for larger orders of any Defend the DKP!· combination of WV and Spartacist bound mation about him from when he was support for the SPD/Green government. volumes: 4 to 10 volumes $29 each; 11 or more 14 years old!" It did not state that If life in socially devastated Rostock is The result: On 14 March 2003, the day volumes $28 each (prices include postage). Austin participated in any political bad for the residents in general, for refu of the five-minute DGB [trade-union fed demonstrations dating back to when gees it is hell. The SAY election state eration] action treacherously supporting . Ora.tfr.m!ri1~k•• ~k$; he was 14 years old. ment demands "Voting rights and equal the SPD/Green government, which, for .•... •. :$parlll9iSt PutiUst\in rights for everyone who lives here" and its own imperialist motives, came out BoX. i3,77 GPO,New York; NV:Ji
11 JUNE 2004 11 - WfJlIllEIiS """'111) " Freedom Now for All the Detainees! Drop the Charges! Mexico: Protest Police Repression Against· ·Guadalajara Demonstration!
We print helow a 2 lUlle protest state appeals to the capitalists, resort instead to ment issued hy the Grupo Espartaquista so-called "direct action" (direct confron de Mexico, section ()j' the- International tations with the repressive bodies of the Communist League. state). These actions show a healthy While the imperialist rulers of Europe hatred of the existing state of things and and the lackeys of imperialism that head a heroic will to change it. However, as the capitalist governments of Latin Amer militant as they might be, they will never ica gathered in the city of Guadalajara succeed in defeating the police, a force [in the state of Jalisco], surrounded by a infinitely better trained and armed than IOO-meter-long and 3-meter-high steel any group of protesters. Furthermore. and fence, the repressive bodies at their ser more fundamentally. militant tactics can vice engaged in an orgy of violence not substitute for a strategy that offers a against some of the 5,000 demonstrators radical solution to eradicate oppression who had gathered to protest against the and exploitation forever. Misery and war Third Summit of Governments and Heads do not corne from a series of policies of State of Latin America. the Caribbean (whether they're called "globalization" or and the European Union. In the May 28 "neoliberalism") that can be modified, demonstration, the day the Summit but from the everyday functioning of concluded. several hundred riot police imperialism-the highest stage of capi attacked the protesters with batons and talism, which has become more rapacious shields, also using pressure hoses and . and dangerous since the counterrevolu releasing pepper gas, tear gas and toxic tionary destruction of the Soviet Union. foam. Later, at nightfall, the police corps To bring imperialism to an end, what we under the command of the local and fed La Haine need are not isolated confrontations with eral PAN [National Action Party] govern Guadalajara, May 28: Riot police brutally attack demonstrators protesting state bodies, but to destroy the entire state ments launched a hunting spree to arrest summit meeting of European and Latin American heads of state. machinery of repression through a prole whomever they could. After intoning tri tarian revolution. to replace it with a umphantly, 'They're screwed. We won," Ghraib. According to La lornada (30 and the people that had been kidnapped earlier workers state in which those who labor the Public Security minister of the state 31 May), the detainees have been con that afternoon, ended with 75 people rule. Only through the establishment of [of Jalisco] told the press that 97 people tinously beaten, kept awake (those who arrested. And,just like in Guadalajara, they a planned economy worldwide can the had been arrested. As· of now, the Gua fall asleep are kicked until they wake up were kept incommunicado and tortured in needs of the popUlation be satisfied and dalajara Independent Media Center re again) and deprived of food and water. police stations and police vehicles. This every kind of oppression be eradicated ports that at least 49 people are still Women were stripped, insulted, threat underscores that besides being a rats' nest for good. For the defeat of imperialism under arrest. Forty-five have already been ened and forced to do leg squats before of corruption, as was evidenced by the through world socialist revolution! sent to the federal maximum-security the uniformed thugs watching over them. recent scandals [involving top functionar To achieve this aim, it is necessary to prison of Puente Grande (where Erika During the previous days, the authorities ies of the "Mexico City administration], build parties of the working class around Zamora, a youth whose only "crime" was had already orchestrated several provoca the PRO (just like the PAN and the PRI the world, independent in every way teaching indigenous people in Guerrero tions against demonstrators and arrested [Institutional Revolutionary Party]) is a from the agencies and parties of capital to read, remained imprisoned for years) three of them, who were later freed. The party irrevocably committed to defending ism, as part of a reforged Fourth Interna and four minors were taken to a juvenile Mexican rulers have two objectives: on the capitalist order and, therefore, to tional. These parties must act as "trib detention center. Bails to release the one hand, they want to show their impe using the most brutal repression against unes of the people," fighting to defend detainees go up to 200,000 pesos [more rialist masters their resolve to keep Mex those who question its crimes. the interests of women, homosexuals, than US$17,000] (La lornada, 2 June). ico a safe place for capitalist investment;. Furthermore, as has happened before, immigrants, indigenous peoples and the Meanwhile, eight foreign protesters have on the other, they want to warn those the media and the organizations around oppressed in general. already been deported to their home who oppose the depredations of capital the PRO, like La lornada and its slimy In Mexico, the main obstacle to the countries. The police are harassing hun ism (and especially the powerful unions correspondent Jaime Aviles, have accused construction of such a party is national dreds of demonstrators who are still which have demonstrated against priva those who resort to anything more than ism, promoted overtly or covertly not in Guadalajara demanding that their tizations and the attacks against the retire cries and appeals to the imperialists of only by the PRO, but also by the union comrades be released. The Grupo Espar ment funds of the IMSS workers [the being provocateurs: "The provocateurs tops (especially those of unions like taquista de Mexico demands: Freedom public health service for workers in the were clearly identified as members of the the SME [electricians union] or those now for all the detainees! Down with private sector]) that they're willing to Frente Popular Revolucionario [Revolu grouped in the UNT [an important union the charges! No to deportations-Down resort to all kinds of violence to defend tionary Popular Front] and the Consejo federation]) and most of the "revolution with reactionary Article 33 of the Consti their interests and those of their imperial General de Huelga [General Strike Coun ary" left. In the struggle against imperi tution! [Article 33 prohibits political activ ist masters. cil] of the National Autonomous Univer alism, the oppressed in this country have ity by foreigners in Mexico.] The bourgeois PRO [Party of the Dem sity of Mexico (UNAM). They violated no common interest with their Mexican The Summit-whose objective was for ocratic Revolution], trying to groom its the agreement reached on Thursday night exploiters, but there is instead the poten the European imperialists to get their "friend of the people" credentials, hurried between the J"lisCQ government and tial for them to forge a solid alliance share in the plunder of Latin America and to condemn "energetically the abusive the unions and groups that took part in with the proletariat and the oppressed in the Caribbean (traditionally the fiefdom use of public force" (resolution of the the peaceful, joyful and festive demon the imperialist centers, especially with of U.S. imperialism)-with breathtaking 16th Plenum of the 5th National Coun stration ... " (La lornada, 30 May). We the multiracial American working class. hypocrisy passed a resolution in which cil). This takes a lot of cynicism, given strongly defend all those groups and With this perspective, we call for pro they claim to be "horrified by the recent that the May 28 operation against demon individuals that mobilize in opposition tests in support of the demonstrators who evidence of mistreatment Gf prisoners in strators is similar to the one that the to imperialist oppression against state were repressed, and we especially call on Iraqi jails." Hours later, however, the [PRO] Lopez Obrador government used repression and the slanders of those who the working class of Mexico and the holding cells at the State of Jalisco in Mexico City to repress the October 2 strive to keep the protests within limits world (the class with the objective inter Department of Justice became the stage demonstration [commemorating the 1968 acceptable to the capitalists, despite the est and social power to defend all the for torture acts remj.niscent of some of Tlatelolco massacre] in 2003. That day, many political differences we have with oppressed and, especially, to bring the those that have characterized the colonial after observing the protest actions, the such activists. capitalist order to an end). An injury to occupation of Iraq, in dungeons like Abu police initiated raids which, along with Some youth, frustrated by the futile one is an injury to all!.
12 11 JUNE 2004 ./ // /