"I love Internationalist Group -- Reforge the Fourth International!"

2022-05-14 12:42:41

"All talk to the effect that historical conditions have not yet 'ripened' for socialism is the product of ignorance or conscious deception. The objective prerequisites for proletarian revolution have not only 'ripened,' they have begun to get somewhat rotten.... The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of the revolutionary leadership." –Leon Trotsky,The Transitional Program Contact the IG/LFI Victory to the United Metro Energy Teamsters Strike! (click on image for article) Marxist Literature from the League for the Fourth International Archive Previous Issues of The Internationalist and other publications of the League for the Fourth International Archive Revolution Internationalist Pamphlets New Publications (click on headlines to order) Journal of Class Struggle Education Workers Internationalist pamphlet on the history of the Democratic (Party) Socialists of America. Internationalist pamphlet with writings by Marx, Engels, Bebel, Zetkin, Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky. Plus articles from Women and Revolution Marxist Readings Marxism and Education Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution Women’s Liberation through Socialist Revolution Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now! Immigration Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants Labor Labor’s Gotta Play Hardball to Win Brazil Ecuador France Greece Haiti Workers Solidarity, Yes, Military Occupation, No Iraq Mexico Palestine For Arab-Hebrew Workers Revolution Philippines Puerto Rico Quebec Links Marxist Readings Internationalist4 youtube video channel Internationalist4 flickr photo site Class Struggle Education Workers Class Struggle Workers - Portland Marxists Internet Archive Encyclopedia of Trotskyism Online ETOL Internationalist Page Buttons available from Mundial Publications. $1 each, plus $1 mailing cost for every 2 buttons (Click here to order) Welcome! The Internationalist Group, section of the League for the Fourth International, fights for international socialist revolution, the conquest of power by the working class, led by its Leninist party, championing the cause of all the oppressed. After a decade and a half in which the ruling class trumpeted the supposed "death of communism," the imperialists are bogged down in losing wars of colonial occupation in the Near East while a global economic crisis shakes the foundations of the capitalist order. With mass unemployment, poverty and hunger ravaging the planet, once again there is talk of socialism and revolution. But as in the past, the key question is that of forging a vanguard to lead the struggle of the workers and the oppressed. Read more... The founding statement of the Internationalist Group is available on this site, as well as the LFI's declaration, Reforge the Fourth International, in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Tagalog. The “Green Tide” in Latin America: A Festival of Class Collaboration The Struggle for Full Abortion Rights, From Latin America to the U.S. Free Abortion on Demand – For Women’s Liberation Through Socialist Revolution The battle over abortion is at a critical point throughout the Americas. As reactionary forces in the United States wave the banner of the “right to life” and “the family” to eliminate rights won in the past, elsewhere in the hemisphere there has been an upsurge in actions to eliminate laws that have sent thousands of women to jail for the “crime” of ending an unwanted pregnancy – or just having a miscarriage. In Latin America much has been made of an advancing “Green Tide,” as feminist groups have labeled the mass mobilizations in Argentina that won a partial legalization of abortion. Yet that movement was led by bourgeois political currents – bringing with it obstacles and limitations to winning crucial rights. In the U.S., the issue is sharply posed of how to fight against the assault on women’s rights, abortion rights, gay and transgender rights. The new/old dead-end “strategy” of bourgeois feminists is to vote for the Democrats, who despite the hype are no friends of women.Everywhere, the issue of control of women’s bodies by the state is poised point-blank, as decaying capitalism endangers the rights of all the oppressed. The pending calamity in the U.S., where the constitutional right to an abortion is on the verge of being eliminated after being in force for a half-century, underlines the need for a revolutionary class struggle for the liberation of women. The Struggle for Full Abortion Rights, From Latin America to the U.S. (March 2022) Democrats Uphold the Hyde Amendment: Race, Class and the Right to Abortion (March 2022) “No Cis Dudes”: Feminist Sectoralism Ad Absurdum (March 2022) Democrats, NLRB No Friends of Labor Amazon Labor Union Victory at JFK8 Unionize All of Amazon with Class Struggle! On Friday, April 1, the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) won a historic vote to unionize the massive JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, New York, by a decisive margin. This is the first union victory in North America against the giant distribution and e-commerce monopoly, which has 1.1 million employees in the U.S alone. The vote, which the media are calling “one of the biggest victories for organized labor in a generation,” came amid growing restiveness in the working class, and followed large strikes last fall at Midwest industries. It will be a beacon for millions of workers at Amazon and throughout country who desperately need unionization to fight against the low wages, miserable “benefits” and deadly working conditions that are the standard in capitalist America. It will take genuinely revolutionary political struggle to break the stranglehold of capitalist Democrats and pro-capitalist labor bureaucrats that has been driving the unions to the grave. Key to winning the major class battle at Amazon, as well as to organizing the unorganized and building a fighting labor movement overall, will be to forge a solid core of class-struggle militants in the warehouses, factories and other workplaces. Amazon Labor Union Victory at JFK8 (14 April 2022) Interview with ALU Worker at Staten Island JFK8 Warehouse Unionizing Amazon Will Be a Huge Class Battle The Internationalist interviewed Will, a supporter of the Internationalist Group who works at Amazon’s big warehouse in Staten Island, New York and has been part of the Amazon Labor Union effort almost from the start. Interview with ALU Worker-Activist at JFK8 (14 April 2022) Imperialist Press Fawns Over Ukrainian Ultra-Nationalist Militias Smash U.S./NATO-Backed Nazi-Fascist Mass Murderers! The Truth About Ukraine’s Fascist Infestation Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 was announced by Russian president Vladimir Putin in a speech declaring a “special military operation” to “de-nazify” and “demilitarize” Ukraine. The bourgeois press in the United States and in the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) imperialist countries immediately mocked the notion. The Ukrainian state apparatus, particularly its repressive forces, is in fact riddled with fascistic nationalists, outright fascists and Nazis, would-be ethnic cleansers, some of whom are openly anti-Semitic and admirers of Hitler. Fascist militias are a large component of the military forces that have relentlessly besieged the Russian-speaking population of the Donetsk and Lugansk self-proclaimed “people’s republics” that broke away from Ukraine eight years ago. Moreover, many of these fascist and pro-Nazi squads have been financed, armed and trained by the U.S. and NATO. The ultra-nationalist fascists and Nazis embedded in the Ukrainian state and its repressive organs must be rooted out, permanently stopped and brought to justice, and their program of “ethnic cleansing” smashed. To have a lasting effect this must be accomplished by the working people themselves, on an internationalist basis. The Truth About Ukraine’s Fascist Infestation (4 April 2022) Question Answered: Who Was Behind the 2014 Maidan Massacre? The 20 February 2014 massacre in Kiev’s Maidan (Independence Square), in which 48 protesters and several policemen were killed, was the trigger that set off the coup d’état, led by fascist and Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, that the very next day overthrew the government of Viktor Yanukovich. The coup plotters, the imperialist press and U.S. authorities in unison blamed the riot police of the Yanukovich government, which they considered pro-Russian. But from the outset there were numerous questions about where the fusillade came from. At the time, we published an article asking: “Who Were the Snipers Who Killed Kiev Protesters and Police on February 20?” Since then, particularly due to the painstaking work of Canadian academic Ivan Katchanovski, the answer to this question has become crystal clear. The massacre was a false flag operation carried out by the fascist action squads in the Maidan and their oligarchic Ukrainian nationalist backers. Question Answered: Who Was Behind the 2014 Maidan Massacre? (10 April 2022) Report from Germany Imperialist Racism and the Russia-Ukraine War Every weekend now, tens and hundreds of thousands of protesters pour into the streets of German cities in “peace” demonstrations supposedly against war in Ukraine. In reality, many if not most of these are pro-war demos in that they are overwhelmingly for support to Ukraine in the war with Russia. Many speakers called for arms deliveries to Ukraine, i.e., by the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) imperialists who provoked this fratricidal war in their escalating war drive against Russia and China. Meanwhile, in stark counterpoint to the chauvinist backlash against refugees from Middle Eastern wars, there has been an unprecedented outpouring of support for Ukrainian refugees. This has been whipped up with outright racist media coverage stressing that Ukraine is a “relatively civilized, relatively European” country, with “people with blue eyes and blond hair.” And it is reflected in the sharply contrasting treatment at the border of white refugees fleeing Ukraine and those considered non-white. Today, as almost 3 million Ukrainians (so far) have fled the war we call for for revolutionary defeatism on both sides of the reactionary nationalist Russia-Ukraine war, for revolutionary struggle against the capitalist rulers in Moscow and Kiev, and to defeat the U.S./NATO war drive pointing to World War III against Russia and China. Imperialist Racism and the Russia-Ukraine War (19 March 2022) Oppose Imperialist-Provoked Russia-Ukraine War – For Revolutionary Struggle Against the Capitalist Rulers in Moscow and Kiev! Behind the War: U.S./NATO War Drive Against Russia, China Defend Self-Rule in Southeastern Ukraine! Smash the Fascists – For Proletarian Internationalism Against Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism! On February 24, Russian president Vladimir Putin launched a military operation in Ukraine. The first day consisted of dispatching troops to bolster the breakaway “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk, accompanied by air strikes against military targets in many parts of Ukraine. This quickly turned into an invasion by Russian ground forces surrounding and launching attacks on several Ukrainian cities. After previously talking of defending the embattled regions of the Donbass, upon launching his military attack Putin declared its purpose to be to “to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.” This is now a war between the Russian capitalist state, with its nationalist ruler in Moscow, and that of Ukraine, whose nationalist regime in Kiev has acted as a cat’s paw of Western imperialists and uses fascist forces to besiege the Russian-speaking population of southeastern Ukraine. We Trotskyists call for revolutionary defeatism on both sides in this reactionary nationalist war, for internationalist proletarian struggle against both capitalist regimes and, above all, against the U.S. and European rulers who set off this conflagration. Behind the War: U.S./NATO War Drive Against Russia, China (28 February 2022) Ukrainian Fascists and Nationalists Hands Off Donbass! Defend Self-Rule in Southeast Ukraine! Defeat U.S./NATO War Drive and Sanctions Against Russia! Statement of the League for the Fourth International On February 21, after weeks of increasingly hysterical imperialist war propaganda and daily escalating attacks by Ukrainian government and fascist/nationalist forces against the breakaway Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin formally recognized the independence of these embattled self-styled people’s republics and sent in troops. The United States, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and the European Union immediately condemned Russia for its defensive action and announced they would impose severe economic sanctions. Class-conscious workers and all opponents of imperialism should denounce the U.S./NATO imperialist war drive, which raises the spectre of world war. The imperialists seek to isolate, provoke and demonize Russia, which despite Putin’s imperial ambitions is an intermediate, regional capitalist power. Yet the imperialists’ ultimate aim is to spark counterrevolution in China, Cuba and North Korea. Facing the escalating threats and dangers, we call on the world working class to defend China and the other bureaucratically deformed workers states against imperialism and counterrevolution. Defeat U.S./NATO War Drive and Sanctions Against Russia! (23 February 2022) Russian Nationalist Putin vs. Bolshevik Internationalist Lenin (23 February 2022) Spike U.S./NATO Anti-Russia War Threats and Provocations! The war propaganda being spewed out by Washington and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) has become increasingly hysterical. As the U.S. administration of Democrat Joe Biden declares that Russian president Vladimir Putin is about to seize Ukraine next month, next week, tomorrow or yesterday, it seems intent on provoking the Kremlin into undertaking anything that could be portrayed as an invasion. The evident purpose is to have an excuse to impose heavy economic sanctions against Russia. In the face of the incessant imperialist drum beat for war, there have been very few protests by the left, much of which is itself imbued with the anti-Russia phobia promoted by its liberal big brothers. In contrast, supporters of the League for the Fourth International attended protests at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate on February 18 and at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal on February 19 with signs calling to “Spike Biden/NATO War Threats and Provocations Against Russia” and “Defeat U.S./NATO War Drive – Defend China Against Imperialism and Counterrevolution,” among other slogans. Spike Biden/NATO Anti-Russia War Threats and Provocations! (20 February 2022) Use Union Power to Keep Schools Open Safely By Class Struggle Education Workers/UFT The rapid spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19 has caused much justified worry among educators, parents and students. This concern has been seized on by some in the teachers unions to push to return to “remote education,” possibly for an extended period of time until the current high levels of infection are past. Calling to close the schools is a huge mistake. It does not protect teachers, it will almost certainly increase infections among students, and it plays into the hands of enemies of public education. This includes not only Trump Republicans but also Biden Democrats like the mayors of New York City and Chicago, Eric Adams and Lori Lightfoot. These forces, who back charter schools and are out to break the power of the teachers unions, are angling to mobilize parents against teachers on a program of keeping the schools open. Instead, Class Struggle Education Workers calls to use union power to keep schools open safely. That includes, first and foremost, demanding a drastic reduction in class sizes, entailing hiring thousands of new teachers, custodians, counselors and nurses; and requiring frequent testing of all in the schools. Use Union Power to Keep Schools Open Safely (12 January 2022) From the Current Issue TheInternationalistNo. 65 (October-December 2021) click above or on image for full list of articles For Workers Safety Committees – Democrats, NLRB No Friends of Labor Unionize Amazon with Class Struggle! The fight to unionize the giant e-commerce monopoly Amazon has heated up. In June, the powerful International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) union resolved to carry out a coast-to-coast campaign to organize Amazon workers. Then in November the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) threw out the results of the union recognition vote held last spring in Bessemer, Alabama because of Amazon’s dirty tricks and interference in the election. And on December 22 in New York City, the independent Amazon Labor Union re-filed its petition for a union recognition vote at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. Only days before, tornadoes tore through an Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, killing six workers inside and injuring others. This was industrial murder. The tragedy in Edwardsville underlines the urgent need to unionize the entire Amazon empire. While demanding the most rigorous safety standards be adhered to, there should be worker safety committees empowered to shut down production in unsafe conditions. One can’t rely on Amazon or the NLRB, an agency of the bosses’ government, or look to the Democratic Party, a capitalist party. To defeat the hard-nosed union-busters at Amazon it will be necessary to mobilize the power of the workers movement in sharp class struggle, including strikes and walkouts, flying pickets, plant occupations – the kind of class-struggle methods that built the unions in the 1930s. Unionize Amazon with Class Struggle! (28 December 2021) U.S. Big Lie Over Wuhan Is War Propaganda Not Just a Conspiracy Theory, an Anti-Communist Battle Cry For the past two years, all factions of the U.S. ruling class, backed by the bourgeois media and a number of bellicose scientists, have unleashed a propaganda barrage scapegoating China for the pandemic of COVID-19 caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. This is not limited to the “Wuhan lab leak” conspiracy theory, which started out as a far-right fixation, went viral with Republican Donald Trump’s rambling campaign rants, was picked up by unreconstructed Cold Warriors in the new Democratic administration and the liberal media, and then received the presidential imprimatur of Joe Biden. A soft-core strain of the campaign is to accuse Beijing of grossly mishandling the outbreak of the disease and worse, covering up their bungling with police state repression. A transparent aim of this virulent China-bashing is to shift responsibility for the deadly outcome of the disease. Rather than (correctly) blaming the capitalist world, whose utterly calamitous actions and inaction turned an epidemic into a pandemic in which well over 5 million people have died from this modern plague, they want to pin it on China, which effectively and spectacularly confined the spread of the virus with a toll of less than 5,000 dead. This, the first of two articles, is a detailed analysis of the lab-leak “theory.” U.S. Big Lie Over Wuhan Is War Propaganda (27 December 2021) Vigilante Rittenhouse Is Guilty as Hell – So Are the Cops Who Shot Jacob Blake Kenosha “Trial” Was Rigged – Fascistic Murderer Gets Off All Sides Bought the “Self-Defense” Ruse – There’s No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! On November 19, the jury in the Wisconsin trial of teenage killer Kyle Rittenhouse handed in a verdict of not guilty on all counts. Letting this vile murderer of two anti-racist protesters walk is proof positive that there is no justice in the capitalist courts. Rittenhouse was not a lone killer. The gunman was part of a swarm of white supremacist vigilantes who infested Kenosha that night in August 2020, working in tandem with the police. This hideous verdict will embolden murderous fascist thugs and killer cops everywhere. This is the trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante murderer of Trayvon Martin, all over again. All opponents of racist terror should protest this atrocity. The Internationalist Group immediately protested, from Kenosha to New York, calling for worker/black/immigrant action against racist terror and to fight for socialist revolution. Kenosha “Trial” Was Rigged – Fascistic Murderer Gets Off (19 November 2021) Against Bosses’ Threats and Maneuvers – Solidarity from CUNY Victory to the Columbia Student Workers Strike! On November 3, the Student Workers of Columbia (part of United Auto Workers Local 2110) went on strike. It is the fourth strike in five years, as the union is still fighting to win a first-ever contract. Representing more than 3,000 Columbia University graduate and undergraduate academic employees (including instructors, teaching assistants, graders, researchers and others), the SWC’s demands include a living wage , better health care and measures against discrimination and harassment. Now in its ninth week, the strike is at a critical juncture. Activists from the CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Class Struggle Education Workers have participated intensively on the picket lines and in helping build support. We have emphasized that it’s essential to put into practice the principle that “Picket lines mean don’t cross.” On December 8, the SWC called a day of action to shut Columbia down. Hundreds joined in the picketing. Victory to the Columbia Student Workers Strike! (28 December 2021) Video: Columbia Student Workers ON STRIKE (31 December 2021) Called for November 15 Anti-Cuba Provocation Made in U.S.A. For Workers Mobilization to Block Counterrevolutionary Action A “Civic March for Change” has been announced by U.S.-backed forces in Cuba for November 15. The march was called by a recently founded outfit calling itself the Archipiélago platform, in cooperation with the long-standing reactionary and far-right Cuban exile milieu. As we have written, while the Cuba protests last July 11 were fueled by discontent over shortages, blackouts and the pandemic, those marches were instigated, manipulated and exploited by forces seeking to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. Now these and other pro-capitalist forces, grouped together in an umbrella formation, the Council for a Democratic Transition in Cuba, are staging an anti-communist provocation clearly aimed at “regime change.” While some leftists join the U.S. State Department in denouncing the Cuban government's prohibition of this blatant counterrevolutionary action, revolutionary Trotskyists are for workers mobilization to block the provocation. Anti-Cuba Provocation Made in U.S.A. (11 November 2021) “Left” Lawyers for Counterrevolution (11 November 2021) Social-Democratic Counterrevolutionaries and Camp Followers Cuba Protests: Litmus Test for the Left As Facebook videos and tweets started coming in from the July 11 protests in Cuba – instigated, propagated and exploited by counterrevolutionaries – the media machine of U.S. imperialism kicked into high gear. When police in Havana responded to protesters throwing rocks by making some arrests, there followed a chorus of denunciations of “repression.” The reality is that the Cuban police stood by and did not make arrests until the July 11 protests turned violent, while Communist Party supporters mobilized to stop provocations. Bringing up the rear of the bipartisan imperialist hue and cry over repression by the Cuban regime were assorted voices on the left, ranging from liberal intellectuals to avowed socialists. Among the most egregious are some would-be “Trotskyists” who are at bottom social democrats of the sort that Trotsky and his Fourth International fought against tooth and nail. The League for the Fourth International, in contrast, has called to actively combat capitalist counterrevolution, to break the U.S. imperialist blockade, mobilize workers councils to defend the gains of the Cuban Revolution and to extend them through international socialist revolution. Cuba Protests: Litmus Test for the Left (October 2021) Left Voice/Trotskyist Fraction: Zigzagging Across the Class Line (October 2021) Morenoites – Gusano “Socialists” (October 2021) The “Voice of the Voiceless” Held 40 Years in Pennsylvania’s Racist Dungeons Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal On December 11, a demonstration in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania marked the 40th anniversary of the imprisonment of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the U.S.’ most prominent class-war prisoner. A contingent of supporters of the Internationalist Group/Revolutionary Internationalist Youth participated prominently in the protest with signs calling for workers action to free Mumia and all class-war prisoners, notably former Black Panthers who have been behind bars for more than half a century. The latest development in Mumia’s endless battle in the racist judicial system was an October 26 ruling by the Pennsylvania Superior Court quashing Mumia’s fifth appeal in 40 years. This shows once again that through decades of prosecution and persecution, for former Black Panther Abu-Jamal, as for so many others, there is no justice in the capitalist courts. Mobilize Labor/Black Power to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (29 December 2021) After Court Orders Partial Legalization Mexican Trotskyists Call for Free Abortion On Demand Women’s Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! Last September 7, the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice declared “absolute criminalization” of abortion unconstitutional throughout the country. Invalidating several sections of the penal code of the state of Coahuila, the court legalized abortion for the first 12 weeks of gestation. This is an important step that will bring relief to many women seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. And by eliminating “conscientious objection,” it removed a very real barrier to carrying out abortions. However, these are limited measures, and after the first trimester, abortion is still considered a crime. The Grupo Internacionalista fights for the unrestricted right to free abortion, based exclusively on the decision of the woman or other pregnant person, at any time during pregnancy and with access to medical and health care of the highest quality. Mexican Trotskyists Call for Free Abortion On Demand (December 2021) UCLA Internationalist Club Statement of Class-Struggle Solidarity Victory to the UC-AFT Strike – All Out to Win! The Internationalist Club at the University of California at Los Angeles is helping mobilize students and workers in support of the November 17-18 University of California system-wide strike called by the UC-AFT. In addition to the unfair labor practices cited as the legal grounds for the walkout, the strike motivation flows from the desperate situation of lecturers and other campus workers who are essential to making the university run, but receive only poverty pay and lack job security. All sectors of the campus workforce need to unite in genuine solidarity. It's a basic principle: One out, all out. Picket lines mean don’t cross! And it is necessary to take on the Democratic Party, which is the boss that the UC-AFT is striking against. We say: On strike means shut it down. All classes should be stopped, and students brought out en masse to the pickets and rallies. Victory to the UC-AFT Strike – All Out to Win! (16 November 2021) Cinematographer Killed on New Mexico Set After Union Camera Operators Walked Out Over Unsafe Conditions IATSE Members Voted to Strike: Let’s Do It Vote No to Sweetheart Deal with Motion Pictures Bosses and Prepare to Walk Out Sixty thousand film and television workers affiliated with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) were on the verge of a national strike, the first in the union’s 128-year history. In a membership vote, over 98% voted to authorize a strike. But the day before the strike deadline, the union tops struck a deal with the film studio bosses. The Tentative Agreement resolves none of the issues at stake – continuing to allow 14-hour work days, short weekends, and with a wage “hike” that amounts to a pay cut due to inflation. Then on October 21, Halyna Hutchins, a Local 600 director of photography, was accidentally shot and killed during the New Mexico filming of the film Rust. This deadly incident underscored the safety concerns that have been at the heart of motion picture backlot workers’ enthusiastic support for a strike. The IATSE ranks should resoundingly vote down this rotten deal and prepare to carry out the strike they voted enthusiastically and overwhelmingly to authorize. IATSE Members Voted to Strike: Let’s Do It (26 October 2021) Bloody Friday and the War for Warner Brothers (October 2021) For Labor Solidarity Action to Win the UAW John Deere Strike! On October 14, more than 10,000 John Deere workers walked off the job at the world’s largest agricultural equipment manufacturing company. A total of 14 plants represented by the United Auto Workers were struck, centered on Iowa and Illinois. As labor strikes are spreading in the U.S., the walkout at Deere is the biggest this year, and the largest nationwide since the six-week UAW strike at General Motors in 2019. The strikers are in a strong position. Sales are booming, the company is making record profits, there’s a labor shortage, and workers are fighting mad after laboring right through the pandemic as “essential workers,” risking their lives, while the bosses are raking it in. The Deere strikers can win, and win big, so long as they don’t play by the bosses’ rules. It’s necessary to completely shut down production, with militant mass picket lines that no one dares cross. Workers must look to exercise their own power – through labor solidarity and alliance with all those oppressed – understanding that both the Democratic and Republicans parties defend the interests of capital. For Labor Solidarity Action to Win the UAW John Deere Strike! (19 October 2021) From the Previous Issue The Internationalist No. 64 (July-September 2021) click above or on image for full list of articles All U.S. Troops, Military/Security Forces, Agencies and Mercenaries Out of the Middle East, Now! Afghanistan: Humiliating Defeat for Murderous U.S. Imperialism Puppet Government Collapses, U.S. Personnel Flee, the Taliban Take Over On August 15, the two-decade long U.S.-led imperialist occupation of Afghanistan came to an inglorious end. In the face of the rapid advance by the reactionary Islamic fundamentalist Taliban, the deeply corrupt puppet government collapsed. The U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was billed as a war against terrorism, and reprisal for the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. In reality, it and the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 were part of a war for U.S. imperialist global domination. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International called immediately after 9/11 to defeat U.S. imperialism and to defend Afghanistan and Iraq. The exit of U.S./NATO forces is a major defeat for the imperialist overlords who imagine themselves masters of the world. It should be greeted by opponents of imperialism everywhere. But the victory of the reactionary Islamist Taliban is no win for the oppressed. The question of women’s oppression will be at the forefront of events in Afghanistan as the Taliban consolidate their rule. Yet when the Soviet Union intervened in 1980 to defend a reform government that enacted measures defending women, the opportunist left joined the imperialists in calling for Soviet troops out. Trotskyists Said Hail Red Army in Afghanistan in 1980 – Defend Afghanistan, Defeat U.S. Imperialism in 2001. Afghanistan: Humiliating Defeat for Murderous U.S. Imperialism (26 August 2021) Afghanistan and the Left (26 August 2021) Democrats, Republicans: Enemies of Immigrants Stop Racist Deportation of Haitians! A year ago, Democrat Joe Biden was running for president promising to replace Trump’s vicious attacks on immigrants with a supposed “fair and humane” U.S. immigration policy. Since taking office, the exact opposite has happened: the Biden administration has been deporting at an even faster rate than the Trump administration ever did. By mid-September, thousands of Haitians started appearing at the Texas border with Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol holding 9,000 migrants, mostly Haitian, corralled under the international bridge at Del Rio, Texas, in unsanitary conditions with no shelter against dust storms and extreme heat. The response of the administration was to deport thousands back to Haiti, even as the country is falling apart. The Internationalist Group protested, calling to stop the racist deportations (also from Mexico) and for full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Stop Racist Deportation of Haitians! (27 September 2021) Revolutionary Perspectives vs. Bourgeois Reaction “At Home” and Abroad Biden Escalates Anti-China War Plans The repercussions of the defeat of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan reverberate around the world. The myth of the military invincibility of U.S. imperialism exploded in front of everyone’s eyes. Now Biden is financing a fleet of nuclear submarines for Australia, gearing up for war with China, when his NATO “allies” want to have none of it. In the United States, the bourgeois political scene remains deeply polarized. State laws and regulations have been issued seeking to prevent any discussion in schools about the racism built into U.S. capitalism. Now Texas has passed a draconian law against abortion. Meanwhile, we are seeing spectacular scenes reflecting the decay of U.S. capitalism and the total submission of the left to the Democratic Party. Thousands of migrants are penned in terrible conditions under a bridge in Texas, and Biden’s response is to launch the biggest mass deportation in decades. But where are the protests against this? Amid a deadly pandemic, capitalism has shown it cannot provide even the basic needs of the population. The struggle for authentic Trotskyism is key. Biden Escalates Anti-China War Plans (24 September 2021) Expropriate the Ruling Class Through Socialist Revolution! “Tax the Rich” No Answer to Capitalist Inequality During the coronavirus pandemic, as low-paid essential workers bore the brunt of the deadly plague at the front lines with little protection from the virus, workers’ income from wages fell while some 660 U.S. billionaires received a windfall of $1,100,000,000,000 (that’s 1.1 trillion dollars in profits). The spectacle of the ruling class gouging megaprofits from disease and death, and being rewarded for doing so with free money in bailouts and tax cuts, has led to a resurgence of calls to “tax the rich.” This slogan has become the calling card of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and groups that tail after and adapt to it. For pseudo-socialists and labor reformists, the appeal to “tax the rich” is yet another means to subordinate the working class to the Democratic Party, calling on people to pressure their “elected representatives.” Calls to “tax the rich” are just tinkering, and won’t affect the fundamentals of a system that produces fabulous wealth for the owners of capital and grinding poverty for millions, while the working class lives paycheck to paycheck. These calls also blur over the obvious fact that the government already has at its disposal more than enough funds to meet dire human needs. Meanwhile, Democratic president Joe Biden wants to “tax the rich” in order to prepare for war on China. Revolutionary Marxists are not in the business of advising the capitalist state on how to “fairly” finance its apparatus of war and repression, but call to expropriate the capitalist exploiters. “Tax the Rich” No Answer to Capitalist Inequality (15 June 2021) The Working Class Paid for the New Deal (15 June 2021) Backlash Against Mass Protests of Racist Police Murder Mobilize to Fight Racist “Anti-CRT” Gag Laws! They Want to Force You to Stop Teaching About Racism By Class Struggle Education Workers As the 2020-21 school year drew to a close, there was an explosion of laws and regulations restricting how teachers could discuss racism, sexism and other controversial issues in class. Republican governors and state legislatures have declared that teachers who discuss these topics are practicing “critical race theory.” In fact, the anti-“CRT” campaign has nothing to do with that theory. Rather, it is a racist backlash on the cultural front against the massive nationwide protests sparked by the racist police murder of George Floyd last year. It is akin to the propaganda campaigns of the white citizens councils in the 1960s, raising the spectre of McCarthyite repression in the schools. The witch-hunting laws are aimed at banning any discussion in schools of the social roots of racial, sexual and other forms of social and class oppression, and are also avowedly anti-communist. These racist gag laws should be shredded by mass mobilization and broken by concerted action of the education unions – backed by anti-racist and class-conscious educators, students, parents and school staff – against the whitewashing of U.S. history. Mobilize to Fight Racist “Anti-CRT” Gag Laws! (6 September 2021) Revolutionary Integrationism vs. “Critical Race Theory” (6 September 2021) The 1776 Report: Whitewashing U.S. History (6 September 2021) The 1619 Project: Misidentifying the Roots of Racism (6 September 2021) Counterrevolutionary Instigators Exploit Frustration Over Economic Crisis The Truth About Cuba Protests Defend the Revolution Against U.S. Imperialism and Its Frontmen Fight for International Socialist Revolution The protests that took place in several dozen cities and towns of Cuba and locations in and around the capital on July 11 were the biggest anti-government mobilizations since the dawn of the Revolution. While fueled by desperation over food shortages, lack of medicine and blackouts that have beset the island in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the marches were instigated, manipulated and exploited by forces seeking to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. With its exemplary public health system, Cuba has been able to contain the virus far better than almost anywhere else on the planet outside of China. Yet U.S. rulers are seeking to capitalize on the economic toll of the pandemic, and weariness from 60 years of imperialist blockade. In this difficult situation, the first duty of revolutionary communists, in Cuba and worldwide, is to actively combat the forces of capitalist counterrevolution. The Truth About Cuba Protests – Defend the Revolution (23 July 2021) U.S. Blockade of Cuba: “Bring About Hunger, Desperation, Overthrow” (23 July 2021) “Cuba Is Being Accused of Many Things – Let’s Fact Check Them” (23 July 2021) Cuba: A Bureaucratically Deformed Workers State (Internationalist pamphlet) Revolutionary Trotskyism vs. Gramscism: The Programmatic Clash For some decades the thought of Antonio Gramsci has enjoyed all-sided popularity on the international left. Groups and supporters of Stalinist, Eurocommunist, social-democratic, populist, even bourgeois liberal currents, lay claim to the legacy of the Italian Communist leader. Gramsci's concept of hegemony was attractive to leftist academics, who looked to break the “political-intellectual” hegemony of the bourgeoisie as a stage preliminary to the revolution. This, and the “praxis” of post-68 Gramscians, is counterposed to Marx’s thesis, in The German Ideology (1847), holding that “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” Most astonishing are groups claiming to represent Trotskyism who try to appropriate Gramsci, or to combine the contents of these very different traditions. His main political theses, such as the struggle for hegemony and to cohere a “new historical bloc,” to prioritize a “war of positions” in the West rather than Bolsheviks’ “war of movement or frontal attack,” flatly contradict the policies of the Trotskyists, and moreover were devised and formulated explicitly against Trotsky and the Left Opposition. Revolutionary Trotskyism vs. Gramscism: The Programmatic Clash (August 2021) Nothing In It for Working People and the Oppressed Germany: Coalition Dance in the 2021 Election Farce Berlin’s “Red-Red-Green” Senate: Enemy of Workers and Immigrants No Vote for the Left Party – For a Revolutionary Internationalist Workers Party! The last year and a half have been hellish for working people, the poor and oppressed throughout the capitalist world. A deadly plague, COVID-19, that in Germany alone has infected over 4 million people and caused almost 100,000 deaths (out of 230 million cases and almost 5 million dead globally). Stop-and-go lockdowns, millions of workers on short workweeks, hundreds of thousands laid off in the worst recession since 1949. Yet the campaign for the September 26 federal elections to replace federal chancellor Angela Merkel after almost 16 years in office is the same old coalition dance as usual. In this election, there is no choice for the workers. With the Left Party losing any kind of credibility as an opposition party, pseudo-“socialists” buried inside it or buzzing around it are hard-put to find any convincing arguments for voting for it, yet with their differing tactical recipes they are all entwined with this reformist party. The Internationalistische Gruppe, in contrast, insists that a socialist revolution that establishes proletarian power will not come from endless electioneering for the bourgeois parliament, but by fighting for a revolutionary program through our own working-class organizations. Germany: Coalition Dance in the 2021 Election Farce (September 2021) Berlin Housing Referendum Expropriate Real Estate Corporations Without Compensation – But Only Socialist Revolution Can Provide Housing for All Berlin 2021: Skyrocketing rent, students can’t find housing, people forced out of the city because they can’t afford to live there. Some 8,000-10,000 homeless living on the street, while 100,000-plus apartments stand empty. This is a real housing crisis. Behind it are the real estate corporations that are making a killing from speculation. In the September 26 Berlin referendum , voting “yes” in favor of the expropriation of real estate corporations will be a protest against these parasites. But as Friedrich Engels wrote in 1873: “As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, it is folly to hope for an isolated solution of the housing question.... The solution lies in the abolition of the capitalist mode of production.” Berlin Housing Referendum (September 2021) Class Battle in Alabama: Victory to the UMWA Warrior Met Coal Strike! For four months, some 1,100 coal miners organized in four United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) locals have waged a bitter strike against the Warrior Met Coal company in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. Miners are striking to reverse the vicious terms of a 2016 contract. With contract negotiations stalled, on July 28, hundreds of miners rallied outside the Midtown Manhattan headquarters of Black Rock, the biggest shareholder in Warrior Met mines and by far the largest investment management company in the world. What has been missing from the strike is sustained mass, militant labor action to shut down the mines and the processing facilities. What’s desperately needed to win is a mobilization of Alabama workers and supporters of labor and black rights to build mass, militant picket lines that scabs can’t cross and that keep the cops at bay. We need to revive the traditions that built the unions in the first place. Victory to the UMWA Warrior Met Coal Strike! (31 July 2021) Revolution Publication of the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth and of students from the Internationalist Clubs at the City University of New York (click on masthead to go to Revolution index) Revolution No. 18 (September 2021) click or on image for full list of articles What We’re Hearing: “The Last Year Really Opened My Eyes” Why We Need a Socialist Revolution As students are finally returning to campus, many are saying that the experience of the last year really opened their eyes. A healthcare system that wasn’t able to handle COVID, racist police terror that led millions to take to the streets. But while Democrats talked of “reforming” the police to gain votes, now that they are back in the White House, the cops keep killing. It’s “endemic to the system,” many have realized. Poverty and skyrocketing inequality; imperialist war abroad and growing repression “at home”; racial, ethnic and gender oppression and all the ways capitalism is devastating the world we live in – these are rooted in the system of production for profit, not human needs, and the ruling class that lives off it. Capitalism can’t be reformed; it must be overthrown. We Marxists are fighting for a socialist revolution, unlike the raft of fake-socialists who help tie the oppressed to the Democratic Party. We call to break with the Democrats and all bosses’ parties and to forge a revolutionary workers party. Why We Need a Socialist Revolution (September 2021) Bernie Sanders and AOC Peddle Biden’s Bitter Brew In 2016 and 2020, Bernie Sanders ran in the Democratic presidential primaries promoting a politics of the “99%” against the “billionaire class.” Yet his “political revolution” was just a means to rope disaffected youth and workers into voting for the Democratic politicians. His “insurgent” campaign over, his voters duly delivered to Biden, Sanders was made head of the Senate Budget Committee. For her part, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, together with the rest of “the Squad,” is accused of being “communist,” “unpatriotic,” etc., by misogynistic and racist rightists. In reality, they are liberal Democrats who have pledged allegiance to the red, white and blue, in words and deeds, over and over. As they seek to rebrand the Democratic Party, various reformist groups on the left promote them. The duty of revolutionaries is to tell the truth about bourgeois politicians, not opportunistically tag along whenever they “talk left.” Bernie Sanders and AOC Peddle Biden’s Bitter Brew (September 2021) “From Black Nationalism to Maoism to Trotskyism” In Memory of Joe Johnson (1948-2021) Joseph “Lil Joe” Johnson, whose youthful activism during the rise of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles was an opening chapter in his life-long dedication to socialism, black freedom and Marxist education, died on June 5 at the age of 73. Born in Louisiana in 1948, he came of age in Los Angeles, where his self-education in the ideas of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky led him to become a mentor to generations of young radicals seeking a road to socialist revolution. In August 2020, comrade Johnson gave this talk, titled “From Black Nationalism to Maoism to Trotskyism,” to the Internationalist Group/Revolutionary Internationalist Youth New York study group. In Memory of Joe Johnson (June 2021) A Review of Trotsky in New York 1917 “Bronx Man Leads Russian Revolution” “Bronx Man Leads Russian Revolution,” read the headline of the Bronx Home News. It was referring to Leon Trotsky, who having been exiled from Europe, spent several months in New York City in early 1917. During his brief stay, Trotsky, who together with V.I. Lenin went on to lead the Bolshevik October Revolution, threw himself into the struggle to mobilize the New York working class against World War I. Kenneth D. Ackerman’s cinematically written Trotsky In New York 1917: A Radical On the Eve of Revolution (2016) gives a definitive account of the Russian revolutionary’s New York exile, and uncovers the history of his little-known intervention into the politics of the U.S. Socialist Party. In his clashes with the reformist Morris Hillquit, Trotsky’s collaborators – including Louis Fraina, Ludwig Lore and others – went on to become founders of the communist movement in the United States. “Bronx Man Leads Russian Revolution” (September 2021) How Cuba’s Heroic “Wasp Network” Stung U.S.-Backed Counterrevolutionaries After protests in Cuba this past July that were instigated, manipulated and exploited by counterrevolutionary forces, the mainstream media (echoed by much of the left) unleashed a torrent of anti-Cuban smears trying to paint a picture of a revolution on its last legs. In this atmosphere of rampant anti-communism, we bring to our readers’ attention an exciting film called Wasp Network (2019). The film tells the story of the five Cuban spies who in the 1990s risked their lives to thwart terrorist attacks against Cuba. Although the French director is no communist, the film vividly portrays the basic fact that a Miami-based gusano mob has long served as shock troops for U.S.-sponsored counterrevolution in Cuba. Wasp Network achieves something important: breaking through the imperialist propaganda machine, it tells the truth about counterrevolutionary provocations against Cuba and the Red Avispa’s heroic efforts to thwart them. How Cuba’s Heroic “Wasp Network” Stung U.S.-BackedCounterrevolutionaries (September 2021) Celebrating International Women’s Day Forum on “Women, Class Struggle and Revolution” Wash Supply Worker: “We Face Mistreatment and Discrimination” On March 10, the CUNY Internationalist Clubs held an online forum titled “Women, Class Struggle and Revolution” in honor of International Women’s Day. The forum highlighted the oppression of black, Latina and immigrant workers thrown into sharp relief by U.S. capitalism’s triple pandemic of COVID-19, economic crisis and racist police murder. A featured speaker was one of immigrant women workers of the Wash Supply in Manhattan, who had just been fired two weeks earlier for forming a union. That same day, the courageous workers attended a demonstration in solidarity with unionization efforts at the Amazon warehouse in Alabama. Other speakers spoke on the triple oppression of black women and on the struggles of women workers from Bangladesh to Mexico to New York City. Forum on “Women, Class Struggle and Revolution” (September 2021) Black Women Face Capitalism’s Triple Pandemic (September 2021) Bangladesh, Mexico, NYC: Women Workers In Struggle (September 2021) On Rejecting Anarchism and Joining RIY Radicalized By George Floyd Protests Last summer’s protests against the racist police murder of George Floyd drew millions into the streets, many of them young people getting involved in politics for the first time. A letter of application to the Revolutionary Internationalist Youth recounts the comrade’s radicalization, followed by disillusionment as the protests were being channeled into votes for the Democratic Party. The experience of organizing her own no-leaders, no-hierarchy protest brought home that “anarchists are extremely liberal in their beliefs and reliance on identity politics, despite their hatred of capitalism. Graffitiing banks will never bring an end to capitalism. Only the international organized revolutionary working class can.” Radicalized By George Floyd Protests (September 2021) Response to “Left Voice” Supporters Real Reds Don’t Bow to Anti-Communist Bans Anti-communist bans and restrictions on free speech rights have been attempted by City University of New York (CUNY) authorities many times, from the 1930s to today. All the more alarming when attempts to censor communists are carried out or backed by students or faculty themselves. We reprint here the response of an activist of Class Struggle Education Workers in an exchange with two reporters for Left Voice, part of a media network of the current calling itself the Trotskyist Fraction. The April 2021 letter details the shameful role of LV in helping to ram through a ban on leftist literature at a “7K or Strike” conference slated to discuss strategy and perspectives in the fight against poverty wages for adjuncts at CUNY (reported in Revolution No. 16). Also appended is a letter from immigrant workers of Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas protesting the ban. Real Reds Don’t Bow to Anti-Communist Bans (September 2021) Capitalist Profit System Kills “Africa Starved of Vaccines”: An Imperialist Crime The COVID-19 pandemic has been a crash course in the dysfunction and chaos of capitalist society. At the start of the pandemic, with hospital ICUs overflowing with patients, those who tested positive (if they could get a test at all) were sent home to infect their families. When vaccines were developed and available for widespread distribution, this was a big advance. But, predictably, rich countries gobbled up the lion’s share of supply. This is not some random “inequity,” as liberals would have it. It is the workings of imperialism. Case in point: Africa, where only about 4.6% of the population has been even partially vaccinated, while the world’s richest countries hoard 1.9 billion surplus doses – enough to vaccinate the entire adult population of the African continent. An internationally planned economy would put technology and resources to work to provide vaccines for all and eliminate world hunger. The ills of the capitalist order cannot be fixed with reformist band-aids, they must be uprooted through world socialist revolution. “Africa Starved of Vaccines”: An Imperialist Crime (September 2021) Defend Combative Immigrant Workers Against Repression Italy: Draghi Government of Repression, Impoverishment and Death Mobilize the Entire Working Class to Defeat All-Sided Attack! No to Dead End of Reformism – Forge a Revolutionary Workers Party! In the ongoing emergency of this second year of the coronavirus pandemic, the Italian bourgeoisie decided to dump the weak and unstable coalition government of the Democratic Party and Cinque Stelle (Five Stars) movement, replacing it with Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank. The first shots of the Draghi government have been to increase repression against the workers movement, in particular against the S.I. Cobas “rank-and-file” union of mainly immigrant workers. Some of the most deeply exploited sectors of the working class have undertaken trade-union and solidarity actions, centered on logistics. The response of much of the ostensibly socialist left has been to form an Action Pact with political supporters of S.I. Cobas, a political coalition of heterogeneous forces based on a reformist 15-point political program. This program consists overwhelmingly of appeals for the capitalist government to take action, rather than for workers themselves to enforce their demands. What genuine communists must say to the masses in the harrowing coronavirus crisis is that the working class must establish its revolutionary class rule, seizing and collectivizing the means of production and organizing production to satisfy human need, not the profits of the few. This fight requires above all the forging of a revolutionary workers party. Italy: Draghi Government of Repression, Impoverishment and Death (26 April 2021) Voces del Epicentro Un folleto de Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas (click on image to download pdf) As the coronavirus pandemic erupted in the United States, the first epicenter was in the neighborhoods of New York City with the highest number of immigrants, where Trabajadores Internacionales Clasistas (Class Struggle Immigrant Workers) has been active. Read the reports from TIC activists and teachers in Class Struggle Education Workers on the impact of this capitalist disaster, and the lessons to be drawn from it. Also reports from the strike of packinghouse workers in Yakima Valley, Washington. (In Spanish) To order a print copy of the pamphlet, click here For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! Slavery and the Constitution: Origins of U.S. Capitalist “Democracy” Long ago and far away in the B.C. (Before Coronavirus) era, bourgeois politics in the United States fixated briefly on impeachment. The Democrats leading the lower house of Congress did not, of course, impeach Donald Trump for his crimes against the oppressed, for example his vicious persecution of immigrants in the U.S. After all, the record deportations under the Democratic administration of “deporter-in-chief” Barack Obama paved the way for Trump. Trump was “brought up on charges by the wrong class for the wrong crimes,” we noted at the time. One generation after another is brought up with the mythology of the Constitution as an embodiment of “democracy” in general, to be worshiped alongside the “Founding Fathers.” Yet the authors of the Constitution understood very well that they represented not “the people” in general but the ruling class of planters and merchants, and wrote it to safeguard their interests, in particular to bolster and uphold the power of the slaveowners in the newly established American republic. The U.S. Constitution established a series of institutions that are strikingly anti-democratic. They remained so even after slavery’s abolition through the Civil War. Revolutionaries explain the need for a revolutionary workers party to lead a socialist revolution to overthrow the entire capitalist system. Slavery and the Constitution: Origins of U.S. Capitalist “Democracy” (August 2020) PSL Targeted for Marches Against Cop Murder of Elijah McClain Defend Denver Anti-Racist Protest Leaders! On Thursday, September 17, police raids were carried out in Denver, Colorado against the organizers of protests denouncing the racist murder of Elijah McClain, a young black man, by police in suburban Aurora in August 2019. Six of the protest leaders were arrested, including four members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), which has played a leading role in the protests. They have outrageously been charged with multiple serious felonies, including the absurd charge of “kidnapping.” Following Trump’s failed attempt at imposing martial law in Washington, D.C. and the subsedquent the dispatch of federal agents to Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Denver arrests mark a new escalation of police-state measures that are a threat to the civil liberties of all. The Internationalist Group and Revolutionary Internationalist Youth denounce this ominous attack on the right to protest. We demand that the arrested activists be immediately released and that all charges against them be dropped. Defend Denver Anti-Racist Protest Leaders! (18 September 2020) Elijah McClain (1996-2019) (August 2020) “We’re All in This Together.” You Think? Top Ten Lies in the Time of Coronavirus and Mass Protests By Charles Brover U.S. capitalism is in the midst of a triple whammy crisis – economic, social, and public health. Inspiring massive protests against racism and cop terror not seen in their size and scope since the 1960s have set this nation’s cities aflame day after day, and have spread internationally. The historic protests are occurring against the backdrop of unconscionable government delay, deception, ignorant happy talk, and anti-scientific incompetence. Official public health malpractice has driven the confirmed death toll from COVID-19 to over 160,000. This plague is disproportionately ravaging black, Latino, and immigrant working class communities. For Marxist revolutionaries the racist system that is at the root of the oppression of black people in the U.S. (and elsewhere) is class-based capitalism. While the cities are in paroxysms of rage, grief and plague; while millions are fighting to save their livelihoods and their lives, the capitalist rulers, their politicians, and tamed pundits promote lies, damn lies, and even more murderous lies. Here are our top ten picks. Top Ten Lies in the Time of Coronavirus and Mass Protests (8 August 2020) Millions of Undocumented Immigrants and Their Families Facing the Abyss New York: We Demand Equal Treatment and Emergency Support for Excluded Workers! Declaration of Class Struggle International Workers (TIC) In the sixth month of the health crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pademic, infections are spiking in much of the country while mass unemployment continues to grow and marches against racist police brutality continue. New storms of crisis are coming for the working class, and for immigrants in particular, beginning with a threatened wave of evictions. Nationally, undocumented immigrants are denied “stimulus” aid, unemployment benefits or any official support. In New York some 200,000 undocumented workers have lost their jobs or cannot find work, while over a million workers considered “essential,” a majority of them immigrants, receive poverty wages while running great risk of contracting the virus. Class Struggle International Workers demands that the state of New York include all workers, particularly the undocumented and those in the “gig economy,” among those eligible for unemployment benefits; that state and city governments make up for the exclusion of immigrants from federal support; and that rent be canceled and all residential evictions be prohibited during the pandemic. New York: We Demand Equal Treatment and Emergency Support for Excluded Workers! (11 August 2020) Urgent: Protest Arrest of Leftists in Bolivia The rightist de facto government of Bolivia that seized power in last month’s “civic-police-military” coup has carried out a new act of repression, arresting Carlos Cornejo, correspondent of leftist Internet publication La Izquierda Diario, and the artist Leonel Jurado, charging them with “sedition.” They were seized yesterday afternoon in the city of El Alto, where they were helping prepare an event in solidarity with families of the at least ten people killed in the police massacre against a protest at the Senkata gas plant there on November 19. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International demand the immediate liberation and dropping of all charges against Carlos Cornejo, Leonel Jurado and all victims of rightist repression in Bolivia! Urgent: Protest Arrest of Leftists in Bolivia (17 December 2019) Left Reformists in Existential Crisis An Internationalist Group Pamphlet (click on image to download pdf) With the Bernie Sanders candidacy and the dramatic growth of the Democratic (Party) Socialists of America, the left reformists have been thrown into crisis. This 84-page pamphlet features documents from oppositionists who fought inside left groups to uphold the revolutionary politics of Lenin and Trotsky. To order a print copy of the pamphlet, click here Socialist Action’s “Solidarity with Solidarity” How Fake Trotskyists Carried the Bags for Imperialism While the reformist left in the United States is in profound crisis, tripping over each other as they chase after the Democratic (Party) Socialists of America, Socialist Action has remained relatively stationary and appears more red in comparison with those social democrats who are now being devoured by their own opportunism. In reality, SA’s program is pink social democracy. At every key juncture where defense of the degenerated/deformed workers states has been posed point-blank, Socialist Action has lined up with imperialism, from Poland in 1981 to the USSR in 1991 and continuing today. Poland was a key episode in the imperialist drive against the Soviet bloc, which led to capitalist restoration whose devastating consequences continue to be felt around the world. Today SA denounces China as imperialist and North Korea as capitalist while genuine Trotskyists defend them against imperialist threats and attack. And it’s not just words. When the chips were down, these fake-Trotskyists hailed their comrades’ direct and concrete role in delivering vital CIA-financed equipment to counterrevolutionary Polish Solidarność. Read the details here. How Fake Trotskyists Carried the Bags for Imperialism (April 2019) “American Apartheid” by Design A Review of Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America By Charles Brover, Class Struggle Education Workers After more than a decade of hard struggle and the passage of laws in the mid-1960s against official Jim Crow segregation, the civil rights movement suddenly stopped. What was termed de facto segregation was deemed off-limits, or at least had to be left for another day. Rothstein’s book conclusively proves that rigid residential segregation and discrimination against African American, Latino and Asian minorities was always de jure, officially sanctioned. This has had a devastating effect on everything from school integration to murderous police repression. But while laying out key elements of the structural foundation of black oppression in the U.S., The Color of Law fails to go to their root in the system of racist American capitalism. In the United States in 2016 there were 2.3 million evictions: 6,300 a day, four every minute. And with over 3.5 million homeless people in the country, there are 19 million unoccupied dwellings. This powerful essay from Class Struggle Education Workers demonstrates that it will take nothing short of a socialist revolution to solve the housing question. “American Apartheid” by Design (21 November 2018) While “Democratic Socialist” Ocasio-Cortez Chimes In Bipartisan War Criminals Celebrate War Hawk John McCain U.S. imperialism lost one of its most vocal and active warmongers on August 25 – Arizona Republican senator John McCain. Universally praised by ruling-class politicians as a “war hero” and “maverick,” McCain’s funeral at the National Cathedral was attended by some of the most infamous mass murderers of this and the last century, from Henry Kissinger to former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Far from being a “war hero,” a “man of honor” or paragon of “human decency,” Senator John McCain was a war criminal who bombed civilians. He was shot down over North Vietnam on a bombing run against a civilian factory. But McCain’s most valuable service to U.S. imperialism was as an inveterate war hawk in Congress. From Afghanistan to Iraq to Ukraine, Libya and Syria, he beat the drums for murderous imperialist intervention. What’s striking about McCain’s war crimes and endless warmongering is that in virtually all cases, he was joined or supported by Democratic politicians. And, notably, among those praising McCain was Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her eulogy was consciously paying the price of admission to the bipartisan imperialist club of the U.S. Congress. Bipartisan War Criminals Celebrate War Hawk John McCain (September 2018) As The Boss, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Blames Black Community for Violence Chicago: Democrat-Led Cops Continue Racist Killing Spree For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution On July 14, Chicago police gunned down yet another black person, Harith Augustus, a barber. “Snoop” Augustus, known as a peaceful man, was stopped on the pretext of exhibiting the “characteristics of an armed person,” and was shot dead even though he had a valid gun license. For the police in this rigidly segregated city, and throughout this country founded on the bedrock of slavery, it is always open season on black people. And on Latinos, immigrants, Native Americans … the list goes on. Moreover, in Chicago and almost every other big city, Democrats are the bosses of the racist killer cops. This is all coming to a head in the upcoming trial of killer cop Jason Van Dyke for the murder of Laquan McDonald in October 2014. And Democratic mayor Rahm Emanuel, running for a third term, is stoking racist reaction by blaming lax “morals” in the black community for the violence engendered by rampant poverty, unemployment and brutal police occupation. Yet some of the same themes are echoed in protests, where instead of denouncing racist police repression the focus is on opposition to “gun violence” in general. Talk of “reforming” the police or controlling guns only serves to divert protest away from a revolutionary perspective and to strengthen the repressive agencies of the capitalist state, while leading protesters into the dead-end of bourgeois pressure politics. The stark fact is that there is no solution to war, poverty and racist repression under capitalism. Chicago: Democrat-Led Cops Continue Racist Killing Spree (August 2018) DSA: Fronting for the Democrats An Internationalist Group Pamphlet (click on image to download pdf) A 70-page pamphlet analyzing the organizational and political history of the Democratic (Party) Socialists of America. Includes articles on: The ABCs of the DSA (August 2017) Imperialist Social Democracy vs. Black Liberation (December 2017) The Real Heritage of Michael Harrington's DSA “Democratic Socialism” in the Service of U.S. Imperialism (February 2018) DSA Debacle Over Cop “Union” Organizer (September 2017) DSA Dodges Debate: “Socialism: What It Is (and Isn’t)” (January 2018) Bernie Sanders and the Pressure Politics of the Opportunist Left (June 2015) No, Bernie Sanders Is Not a Socialist (March 2016) Yesterday’s “Obama Socialists,” Today’s Bernie Boosters (December 2015) James P. Cannon on “Third Parties” To order a print copy of the pamphlet, click here Bourgeois Populism and Social-Democratic Reformism: A Dead End Italy: Anti-Immigrant Election Hysteria The campaign for the March 4 Italian elections has been dominated by vile xenophobic anti-immigrant chauvinism. All the competing bourgeois parties and coalitions attack the bogeyman of “illegal immigration.” The racist Lega (ex-Nord) rails about the “invasion of aliens, drug pushers, delinquents and illegals,” raising slogans such as “Italians first! Now or never! Stop the invasion!” With the populist Cinque Stelle (Five Star) movement running first in the opinion polls, its historic leader, Beppe Grillo, recently called for immediately deporting all “illegals.” The strategy of the Democratic Party government has been to put itself at the head of the anti-immigrant hysteria by aggressively extending the sway of Italian imperialism in the Mediterranean, Libya and to the south. This imperialist drive to the south is accompanied by a campaign of all-sided racist repression against immigrants and refugee seekers in Italy. What the domesticated left is counterposing to the three main bourgeois coalitions of Forza Italia/Lega, Cinque Stelle and the PD with its various appendages of homeless bourgeois politicians, is a mixture of bourgeois populism and social-democratic reformism. in the present climate of anti-immigrant hysteria and fascist attacks, what is needed are mass mobilizations bringing out the power of the working class to stop the fascists. Above all, we must forge a genuinely Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard. Italy: Anti-Immigrant Election Hysteria (24 February 2018) (italiano) Elezioni del 4 Marzo: Isteria anti-immigrati (24 febbraio 2018) Boston: Let Siham Byah Come Home! No Deportations! By Class Struggle Education League On January 27, hundreds of defenders of immigrant rights from many leftist organizations, labor unions, churches and sanctuary networks rallied in Boston to protest the deportation of Siham Byah. A prominent Occupy Boston activist and single mother, Byah was grabbed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) police last November 7, torn from her son, beaten in a local jail, driven to Virginia and then deported to Morocco. The Class Struggle Education League, based in Lowell, Mass. and New Hampshire participated in the protest, emphasizing the importance of mobilizing the power of workers action to stop the I.C.E. deportation machine. It also noted the parallel to the struggle against slave-catchers under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, a battle which came to a head in Boston and set the stage for the U.S. Civil War. The CSEL is undertaking joint work with the Internationalist Group. Boston: Let Siham Byah Come Home! No Deportations! (4 February 2018) Guess Who’s Bernie Sanders’ Foreign Policy Go-To Guy, and What Power Bishop Is His Vatican Fixer But, of course, one and the same Jeffrey Sachs who designed the post-counterrevolution “shock treatment” in Poland. Also in Bolivia where it led to tens of thousands of workers fired and brutal anti-union repression. In preparation for the no-photo-op pope-meet-and-greet, Bernie and Jeffrey dined with Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, “the pope’s right-hand man and one of the Vatican’s top power players.” This is the same cardinal who helped engineer (together with Hillary Clinton) the 2009 Honduran coup, and before that covered up for bloody massacres and “disappearances” in the 1980s. But then, Pope Francis himself is a veteran of Argentina’s 1970s dirty war. Guess Who's Bernie Sanders’ Foreign Policy Go-To Guy, and His Power Bishop Vatican Fixer (17 April 2016) A Question of Whose Class Interests Prevail Flint Water Crisis: Capitalism Is Poisoning Us The residents of Flint, Michigan have been living a nightmare ever since in early 2014 the city’s state-appointed “emergency manager” and the governor’s office decided to switch the water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. As a result, the population has been subjected to lead poisoning, particularly affecting the very young and elderly. The levels of contamination are astronomical. For almost two years Republican state authorities and Democratic federal officials refused to do anything about complaints. Now an emergency has been proclaimed, but the water is still undrinkable. Meanwhile, the same “emergency manager” has been overseeing Detroit schools as they descend further into the abyss. The emergency has been created by decaying capitalism: industrial pollution, closing factories and a bipartisan attack on teachers and public education. The dictatorial managers must be kicked out, but changing parties will change nothing. The bottom-line issue is which class is in power. Capitalism is literally poisoning our futures. Flint Water Crisis: Capitalism Is Poisoning Us (3 March 2016) The State of Pennsylvania Seeks to Bar His Lawyer The Frame-Up of Corey Walker By Charles Brover Corey Walker was arrested in July 1996 on a bogus murder charge from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He has been behind bars ever since. Evidence of his innocence was withheld. He is the victim of prosecutorial misconduct and incompetent legal representation. Lorenzo Johnson, who was arrested in the same case, also remains in prison even though a federal appeals court recognized the insufficiency of the evidence against him, but was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court. Now the state is trying to deny Walker the attorney of his choice, Rachel Wolkenstein, who has defended Mumia Abu-Jamal. Pennsylvania authorities will stop at nothing to cover up lying and manufacture of evidence, coercion of witnesses and suppression of evidence of innocence by police and prosecutors. This requires silencing Corey Walker and short-circuiting his legal appeal. In seeking to disqualify Wolkenstein from representing him, the state attorney general's office cites her political views that the judicial system is an organ of racist oppression that must be overthrown by socialist revolution. This witch-hunting attack and the continued incarceration of Walker and Johnson go to the heart of Jim Crow “justice system.” Free Corey Walker and Lorenzo Johnson! The Frame-Up of Corey Walker (4 February 2016) Jim Crow Justice and the Capitalist State (4 February 2016) Whose Life Is On the Line? Cop Stats (4 February 2016) Bad Apples, Broken Windows, and Other Myths About the Police (4 February 2016) Occupation of Hundreds of Schools Blocks Threatened Closures Student Revolt Shakes São Paulo, Brazil By Class Struggle Workers/UFT For the last three weeks, the city of São Paulo, Brazil has been convulsed by a combative upheaval of high school students protesting the state government’s plan to close 92 schools and order hundreds of thousands of students to change schools. When the state governor tried to ram through this plan without consultation, students responded by occupying almost 200 schools. Then, when military police began clearing out occupied schools this week, students took chairs and tables and set up class in busy intersections and highways. The students, backed by teachers, also refused to take high-stakes test. After several days, the governor backed down. This is a dramatic example of how the international capitalist offensive against public education should be fought – by mass action in the streets, bringing out students, teachers, parents and mobilizing the power of the working class. Student Revolt Shakes São Paulo, Brazil (4 December 2015) The Haitian Revolution and U.S. Imperialism July 28 marks the 100th anniversary of the first U.S. invasion of Haiti in 1915, under Democratic president Woodrow Wilson. This led to an occupation of 19 years, as well as occupations of the Dominican Republic next door, of Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras and Veracruz, Mexico, and followed the 1898 U.S. invasion and occupation of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Philippines. But the occupations didn't stop there. In 1994, Democrat Bill Clinton invaded Haiti a second time, and in 2004 Republican George Bush II invaded a third time. Haiti today continues under imperialist occupation, this time outsourced to a United Nations “peacekeeping” force. As proletarian internationalist opponents of imperialism, on this centenary we republish articles from Workers Vanguard when it was the voice of revolutionary Trotskyism on the 1915-34 U.S. occupation, and a two-part series on Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution that led to the first black republic in history, as well as sparking slave revolts throughout the Caribbean and in the United States. (30 July 2015) Yankee Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934 Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, Part 1 ToussaintLouverture and the Haitian Revolution, Part 2 Protest the Police Lynching of Sandra Bland On July 10, Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old African American activist and education worker, was driving from Illinois to her new job at the historically black Prairie View A&M University in Texas, her alma mater. Sandra was pulled over by a Texas Ranger, supposedly for changing lanes without signalling. The trooper abusively demanded she get out of the car, theatening to use a Taser electric shock on her. After having her head slammed on the ground, Sandra was arrested for supposed “assault on a public servant,” for insisting on her rights. Three days later, she was found dead in her cell in Waller County, Texas. The authorities claim she committed suicide. We say the police are guilty. Sandra was lynched by the cops. On July 22, hundreds gathered in New York City's Union Square to protest the police murder of Sandra Bland. Class Struggle Education Workers, CUNY Internationalist Clubs and the Internationalist Group joined in. Protest the Police Lynching of Sandra Bland (22 July 2015) (video) NYC May Day 2015 The Internationalist Group, CUNY Internationalist Clubs and Class Struggle Education workers had a spirited contingent in the May Day march in New York City. Leading the contingent was a group with red flags with the hammer, sickle and 4 of the Fourth International. Then came a banner made by the Hunter Internationalist Club, proclaiming:“Ayotzinapa-Ferguson-NYC, Smash the Racist Capitalist State, Workers to Power. Signs emphasized the call to Defend Black Baltimore following the occupation of the city by the National Guard to squelch the upheaval over the police murder of Freddie Gray, and to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, who faces execution in prison by deliberate medical neglect. Also highlighted was the call for workers action against police terror, noting the historic action by ILWU Local 10 that shut down the port of Oakland on May Day and marched on City Hall calling to stop police terror. NYC May Day 2015 video (9 May 2015) NYC May Day 2015 photos (6 May 2015) NYC May Day 2011 video NYC May Day 2010 video Sunset Park Fights Back Against Police Attack It’s been only two months since Eric Garner was chokeholded to death in Staten Island by the racist cops, and barely a month and a half since the police murder of 17-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. But despite the national outcry and a thousands-strong march in New York in late August, two incidents in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn show once again the face of racist police violence under liberal Democratic NYC mayor Bill de Blasio. The first involved a heavy‑duty arrest of a vendor after a festival in the park; in the second, a cop slammed a pregnant woman on the pavement on her abdomen and her son and husband were arrested. The residents of this heavily immigrant neighborhood feel singled out for aggressive enforcement under NYPD chief William Bratton’s “broken windows” strategy of massive arrests for minor infractions. On Saturday, September 27, some 300 people came out to protest against the brutal police siege. While many called for Bratton’s resignation, racist cop terror is endemic in capitalist America. To put a stop to it will require nothing less than workers revolution. Sunset Park Fights Back Against Police Attack (28 September 2014) Defend North Korea and China Against Imperialism and Counterrevolution U.S. War Provocations Push Korea to the Brink For the Revolutionary Reunification of Korea, North and South! Over the last month and a half, the United States and South Korea have engaged in an escalating series of military provocations against North Korea. Simultaneous “war games” have simulated a nuclear aerial bombing of the North, a ground invasion from the South, annihilation of the leadership and the “insertion” of tens of thousands of U.S. troops searching for nukes. While the imperialist media are, as usual, strenuously demonizing the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and playing up blustering statements coming out of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, the Pentagon has been laying the basis for a military strike against the North. The whole operation is part of detailed plan elaborated by the Obama administration, dubbed “the playbook,” for U.S. shows of force. But this is no football game. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International defend North Korea, a bureaucratically deformed workers state, against the war provocations, economic blockade and any attack by U.S. imperialism and its South Korean junior partners, no matter how it starts. We also defend North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, its main deterrent against a war by the power which laid waste to the North in the Korean War. U.S. War Provocations Push Korea to the Brink (13 April 2013) The founding statement of the League for the Fourth International La Declaración de la Liga por la IV Internacional se encuentra aquí en español. La Déclaration de la Ligue pour la Quatrième Internationale se retrouve ici en français. A Declaração da Liga pela Quarta Internacional é disponível aqui no português. Deklarasyon ng Liga para sa Ika-Apat na Internasyonal. Introducing The Internationalist El Internacionalista es el órgano en español de la Liga por la IV Internacional. Vanguarda Operária é o jornal da Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil. Liga für die Vierte Internationale Artikel und Erklärungen der LIVI auf Deutsch. Contact us at the following addresses: U.S.A. To contact the League for the Fourth International write to: Internationalist Group, Box 3321, Church Street Station, New York, NY, 10008, U.S.A. Tel (212) 460-0983. Fax (212) 614-8711 E-mail: [email protected] BRAZIL To contact the Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil write to: Caixa Postal 084027, CEP 27251-970, Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil Caixa Postal 3982, CEP 20010-974, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil E-mail: [email protected] GERMANY To contact the Internationalistische Gruppe in Germany, write to: Postfach 80 07 21, 21007 Hamburg, Germany E-mail: [email protected] ITALY To contact the Nucleo Internazionalista d’Italia, write to: Anna Chiaraluce, C.P. N. 78, Ufficio Postale San Sisto, 06132 Perugia (PG), Italy body { font-family:'Times New Roman'; font-size:13px} E-mail: [email protected] MEXICO To contact the Grupo Internacionalista/México write to: Apartado Postal 12-201, Admón. Postal Obrero Mundial, CP 03001, Mexico D.F, Mexico E-mail: [email protected] We would like to hear from you. If you are interested in learning more about the Internationalist Group and the League for the Fourth International, contact us at: [email protected]